evolution creations

If you knew our Shiba Inu, you would know that he is ONE PICKY eater! So we have him on a high protein diet with Innova Evo dog food, but in terms of treats, we have so far been using just the Innova Health Bars, which Momo just absolutely loves.

So at the most recent Midwest Shiba Inu Rescue, we got a sample of a dog treat made by Dogswell. Now frankly I haven’t heard of these treats before, but let me tell you, Momo LOVES THESE treats!

But if you look at the package, it will tell you that these treats are made in China. Now this is one of the reasons that we went with Innova dog food (wet and dry) because of the recall of dog food that was manufactured in China and contained certain amounts of melamine.

So out of concern, I sent an email to Dogswell to inquire:

Are your products made in China? If so, what are you doing to protect against the recent problems with Dog Food out of China?

That was at Sent: Monday, August 18, 2008 5:20 PM, now wouldn’t you know that we went out for dinner and came back and I received an email back from the company, a little over 2 hours for a response, now that’s service!

Below is what they responded back–let’s just say it raises my confidence level quite a bit on their product that this company is so honest and upfront, it’s hard to find companies like that these days. So I’d recommend that you try out their line of products as your dog will absolutely LOVE THEM! And feel safe that you have a company like this backing you up!

At DOGSWELL(r), your pet’s safety, health and well-being are our top priority, and that is why we continue to take every measure to ensure that all our ingredients are high quality and safe.

We have thoroughly tested our treats and food by an independent, third-party U.S. laboratory that uses APPMA- and FDA-approved methodology. We have NEVER been affected by any recalls.

All DOGSWELL(r) products have tested NEGATIVE for contaminants, including, melamine, salmonella and pesticides. In addition, DOGSWELL(r) products do not contain rice protein concentrate or wheat gluten.

We regularly test our products for any harmful contaminants and to ensure that they meet our quality standards. Along with an in-depth knowledge of our supply chain, our regular tests assure our customers that we are providing their pets with only the very best ingredients. Tests are conducted at independent, third-party, U.S. laboratories that follow FDA and APPMA-approved methodology. Please see below for an example of test results for our treats.

Our material suppliers are certified clean and clear of any contaminants. If raw ingredients do not meet their specifications and pass safety tests, then the ingredient is rejected immediately and never enters our processing facilities. Moreover, we strive to use products from suppliers that treat their animals humanely. Please see below for images of our chickens and ducks.

The DOGSWELL(r) manufacturing facilities meet the highest and most strict sanitary conditions. All of our plants have HACCP programs, have received high scores by independent Third Party auditors, have strict raw ingredient standards and continuously check our products during processing and when they are finished to ensure they meet our high quality standards. Our wet food for dogs is manufactured in the U.S. and our treats are manufactured in China. We regularly visit our manufacturing facilities to ensure the quality and safety of our products.

We know that it is easy to become concerned as the media is emphasizing safety issues in Chinese products. We share your concern. We look forward to the day when all factories in the United States are met with the same level of scrutiny we have put our suppliers through. Our factory is one of the cleanest, not only in China, but by American standards as well. Moreover, our product is the cleanest on the market. Assuming we could find a reliable source domestically, it would be impossible to find the same healthy, cage-free, antibiotic free, and hormone free product at the current price point.

We have USDA permits, and we have permits in every state in the U.S. In addition to the permits, the department of the USDA known as APHIS specifically monitors pet treats and conducts random inspections.

We stand behind our products 100% and feed them to our own dogs and cats.

For more information, please feel free to contact us directly at our toll-free number, 1- 888-559-8833, or visit our website at www.DOGSWELL.com.

So for anyone that knows me, you will know that I have turned into an old man! That is to say that I’m plagued with so many “things” that it seems like I should be 50+ years old in age. But alas, I’ve been plagued with the misfortune that so many American’s are faced with–that is to get a good nights sleep.

How difficult this was, I was at a point where I was taking over the counter sleep aids practically each night, in order to achieve sleep. So the wife and I have been debating over the past year and a half whether or not to get a new bed–specifically whether to invest in a Tempurpedic. Let’s face it, getting a bed is a big investment, as big as say a new big screen, or computer, or electronic gizmo or widget. So it’s sufficient to say that you shouldn’t go into this investment lightly!

But when you do find the right time and get everything in order, this was an AWESOME investment for us! Some things to be aware of:

• When you get your bed, the initial smell DOES take some time to ventilate! So keep your windows open and fans going the first day when they deliver the bed and unwrap it from plastic, and this will expedite the process of lessening the smell. It does go away, but even now having it for a few months, there are trace amounts of smell still there. I don’t think that it smells bad, but other’s perhaps would.
• Get the Queen Tempurpedic pillow’s you will not regret it!
• Keep in mind the name, “tempur” meaning reacts with temperature. So for people like me who are naturally warm bodied, you want to think about this when selecting sheets and also how thick of a comforter that you will have on the bed. For me, I wanted something lighter as the bed insulates some of my heat.
• It does take a few weeks to get use to the change in sleeping patterns. The bed reacts VERY quickly to changes, so if you go from side sleeping to stomach sleeping, it takes only a second for the bed to react

All in all, we are very impressed with this decision. It has worked out well and I find myself staying asleep and in fact it’s hard for me to wake up some times because I’m so comfortable in sleep–not that I can’t wake up because I haven’t had enough sleep. It’s a wonderful feeling, but keep in mind, this doesn’t take away from the fact that you should have a decent amount of steady sleep each day, so remember to get at least 6-8 hours, this does help a lot!

As most who know me, know that I am a huge movie watcher, I have found in my later years that getting time to watch movies just isn’t what it use to be. What with work, the wife, the dog, and school, it’s been a pretty full plate. Which is why On-Demand from Comcast has been such a huge thing for me as it has allowed me to watch shows and movies whenever I want, pause it, and come back to it, so it’s really the best of all the worlds!

But that just isn’t good enough these days. Why you may ask, well for one thing, it Comcast doesn’t have that great of a movie collection! Also we have Encore On-Demand, also without a great movie selection. In addition to the selection, I’m also referring to Comcast’s ability to keep updating the movies so that there will be shows on there that I actually want to see.

In addition to Comcast, we have Netflix, which has been a huge life saver. No only do we get 3 movies at a time (which I have found to be just plenty!), but we also can rent both DVD and BluRay disks depending on the movie and how much we want to enjoy it.

So this has been my life, Comcast on-Demand, and Netflix hard copy movies. But again, just not good enough. One of the bad things with Netflix is that you have to wait for the DVD’s. Be it there usually is only a 2-3 day turn around which really isn’t that bad, sometimes when you want to watch a movie, you want to watch it NOW! Yes we really do live in a world of instant gratification!

To appeal to this need for instant gratification, awhile back Netflix introducted movies-on-demand, which is a watch instantly feature. So you load up Netflix in your trusty IE (sorry no Firefox at this juncture without the IE tab component) install the player, and you can watch from some 10,000 online movies right on your computer. So you say what’s the downside! Well have you ever tried to watch a movie on your computer? Even if you have a HD LCD screen and it’s bigger than 20 inches, and you have a killer 5.1 or 7.1 speaker configuration with a HD sound card, blah blah blah, it just isn’t the same as watching it on a 50 inch plasma, with Bose surround sound, etc etc.

To address this Netflix partnered with a company and produced the Roku. Now the name is weird, but what it does is hardly weird. It’s a little box that is no bigger than your surfboard cable modem, that plugs into your home entertainment center via component, stero, or HDMI configurations, and allows you to connect your watch instantly queue in Netflix directly to your entertainment system. NOW STAND BACK! This thing is AWESOME! If there ever was a better way for you to spend $100, this is it. I’ve spent the past two weekends, just watching Roku, and I couldn’t be happier. You can get shows that you can’t get on-demand, such as Seaquest or Sliders, and you can watch them at your leasure. The Roku allows for wireless and wired connections, and believe me, over 802.11g, its really not bad at all! There is a bit of graininess, so if you are a videophile, go and plug it into your Gigabit network and quite down!

As many have already made the move, one of the best things that you can do for yourself online these days is to get smart about how you get online. You’ve all seen the NetZero ads that have the CEO say something to the effect of “… they all get you to the same internet …”, while this is absolutely true, getting to the internet from a connection standpoint and viewing the internet are two drastically different things.

One of the best things that I’ve picked up in my travels is the little bit of advice on how you can protect yourself online. First off, anyone who tells you firewalls, blah, anti-virus, blah, pop-up blockers, blah–IF YOU HATE VISTA, then you would NEVER buy into all of this. Why? Because it add LAYERS upon LAYERS that you have to traverse to get online. What does this mean, slower connection, more things that can break, more things to keep updated and maintain, long story short, a big nightmare.

So a few tips to keep you safe and at a reasonable level of sanity, all for the cost of nothing but your eyeballs to keep reading!

First things first, the at the gateway, get yourself a decent router. Nothing fancy, for the more advance go build one, that’s right, get a box, get to google, and google away to figure out how to build yourself the biggest baddest router you can possible get with all the bells and whistles that it itself doesn’t even know its online when its online! For the rest of us, get real, and just spend between $100-$200 and buy a Netgear, Linksys, or Dlink router and be done with it. It has all the firewall protection you need, NAT, blah blah blah, PERIOD.

Second, get yourself a decent anti-virus software, one that doesn’t infest your system with tons of crap! McAfee was a great piece of software, until it became the demon in your system, infesting it in every nook and cranny! Get rid of that and go with something simple and free, like AVG! I’ve even saved you the clicks, just CLICK HERE to get the software!

Last but not least, do yourself a favor and get off the soap box of which browser is better. They are both great, yes I am talking about IE7 and Firefox, but you have to be willing to say openly that they are great in their own way. Just think about it, if you have two children, they are not the same–even identical twins are not the same, so stop comparing browsers in the same way! Isn’t it alright to say that a browser is just a browser and what it’s good in, the other doesn’t have to be as well? Certainly! So go ahead and use IE7, use it to your hearts content, but here’s the rule–ONLY use IE7 for the VERY IMPORTANT things, things that DO NOT involve checking your email, but things such as banking, or checking your stocks, or online shopping, things that require credit card information, etc. But here’s the catch–YOU CAN ONLY USE IT FOR THAT ONE PURPOSE! It will become your secure browser that will work with almost everything, and you don’t infest it with random websites, emails, bogus ActiveX components, blah blah blah–and guys, stop looking at porn through IE7, you cause more damage than good!

For the rest of your browsing entertainment, use something rock stable like FireFox.

you might as yourself why? Because every day web-browsing can be dangerous! It’s a brave new world out there and you have to be a conscious shopper. That means you can’t keep using that one browser until it DIES! Get smart, get firefox, and be smart about which browser you use for which activity and stick to it and be consistent!

So my cousin and my Aunt and Uncle came out to visit. For the most part, this went off well, but one thing that they brought with them that I was not expecting was the Nintendo Wii. Now we had just gotten the PS3, primarily for the BluRay capabilities–which by the way are fantastic! So in all actually I wasn’t prepared to spend close to $500 on another gaming system and all the things that comes with it.

After we hooked up his Wii, the first game that we played was Boxing. Now I haven’t played Wii much before this, once at Marvel’s place after he got the Wii for Alexis, but I have to admit, I had a blast! For 2 days, we played the Wii and aside from some technical problems, we had a grand old time.

Needless to say, you can see where this is going–when they left for Jersey on Saturday, I immediately went online and started to scout out businesses to see who has the Wii. Wouldn’t you know it, after almost a year of being out on the market, the demand is still very high for it, and no stores had Wii’s in stock. But I did find an interesting tidbit:

• Circuit City will get their Wii’s on Saturday to go on sale Sunday
• Best Buy will get their Wii’s on Tuesday to go on sale Wednesday

So with it being Saturday, I checked with the local Circuit City, and wouldn’t you know it, they had just gotten a shipment in that day, to go on sale Sunday. So we talked about it, and decided to go ahead and get one. Sunday came around and we got up early to be one of the first in the store. Luck played it’s part and we were the first ones in the line and got our hands on the Wii. As far as other stuff, be prepared to get the following:

1. Wii Console
2. Wii Play
3. Nyko Charge Station
4. SD Card
5. Wii Nunchuck

In addition to this, we got the Dance Dance Revolution Hottest Party. Now there are other things out there that you might be thinking about getting, namely the HD cables. After getting the Wii setup, I found that the highest resolution that the Wii will go up to is 480P with HD cables. This compared to the 1080P with an HDMI cable that the PS3 can do, save your money! The regular stereo cables (Yellow for Video, Red and White for Left and Right Audio) does fine given the graphics of the console. If you are looking for better graphics, put your money into a PS3 or Xbox 360.

The Wii Play is necessary because you need to get at least 2 controllers, unless you are going to be playing solo, and let’s face it, that’s no fun at all! You could by another controller separately; however, if you pay $10 you get 8 more games to play on the Wii Play disk, so it’s that worth it?

The SD card is something that you may nor may not have to buy. We have a Nikon D40 so we have a few 1GB SD cards laying around that we use as extra cards when we go on vacation, so LUCKY, I just took one of those cards to put into the Wii instead of spending the extra to get another SD card. Look around the house, you may find you are in a similar situation.

While both the Wii Play and the Wii Console come with 2 AA batteries for the controller, please please please, do the right thing and don’t be someone who just uses AA disposable batteries and fill up our landfills with more waste that doesn’t biodegrade and is harmful if it gets into the underground systems. The Charge Station is great, as it comes with 2 rechargeable batteries, nice rubber battery covers, and a 2 controller dock.

You do have to purchase another Nunchuck as the Wii Console only comes with one controller and one nunchuck, but at $20 this isn’t that big of a challenge.

All in all, this was a painless experience, granted it could have gone differently, and perhaps I wouldn’t be with Wii today! My favorite game at the minute is probably Wii Tennis, but the wife is loving the DDR be it there is a bigger learning curve for that.

So I noticed today that my internet was slow, and not only that, but the browser itself seemed very sluggish. So naturally I would just go to the back of my Surfboard and restart it; however, I thought to myself, there has to be a way to soft reboot this modem, and obviously this would be preferable than just pulling the power from it.

So after a minute or so of research I realized that you can go to the URL:

http://192.168.100.1/

and click on the Configuration hyperlink, and then click on the Restart Cable Modem button at the bottom of the screen. Doing this will restart your cable modem and assuming that nothing is wrong from the provider end, result in you having internet access restored in less than a minute.

I was doing a bit of checking around today as my wife and I want to be more conscious of the fact that Momo, our Shiba, does a lot of number 2′s each week/month/year. And when considering how often and the size, that’s quite a bit of waste that is coming from such a little dog.

So we went to PetSmart and though that their biodegradable bags were worth while. But we came to a disclaimer at the bottom of these bags:

Bags are 100 biodegradable* (*except as defined by California).

So I did a quick Google search and came across this the website for PoopBags and a few stats came to light:

• 4 million tons – It is estimated that dog owners do not collect over 4 million tons of dog waste annually.
• 20-30% of all pollutants in waterways attributed to dog waste – Pollutants originating from rainwater run-off via sewer systems, and dogs pooping near watersheds or beaches. Overall, it is believed dog waste is third or fourth on the list of contributors to bacteria in contaminated waters.
• 4th highest generated waste – Plastics are the fourth highest generated waste in the U.S., originate from petroleum which is non-renewable, do not biodegrade, and take thousands of years to break down. Paper, yard trimmings, and food scraps are the top three generated. However, all of them come from renewable resources.
• Bottom – Plastics are the least recycled with a 6.9% recovery rate. In 2006, the U.S. produced 29.5 million tons of plastic and only recycled 2.04 tons.

Now what’s really interesting is this part:

Various plastic bag manufacturers probably use the term “biodegradability” – shall we say – loosely and lightly. The ASTM D6400
specification puts a kabosh on all of that. Basically, the specification requires that the material is fully tested to ensure that it will degrade at
a similar rate as an apple, and that no large plastic fragments should remain.

More than likely, the loose and light manufacturers’ bags do not meet biodegradable standards of any sort, and are just regular plastic bags.
All in all, bag manufacturers – who claim their bags are biodegradable but do not meet the ASTM D6400 specification – are misleading
consumers and are acting negligently towards the environment.

California’s law, SB 1749, maintains that bags should meet the ASTM D6400 specification for biodegradable product claims. Several other
states are also instituting policies like California. PoopBags.com’s dog waste bags proudly meet this standard.

So basically it would seem that the good folks in California have been a bit more progressive than we would normally assume and in this, cause other manufacturers to not be able to certify that their products are as biodegradable as they would like people to think.

So lesson learned, if you are looking for poop bags and you want to do something good for the environment, look no further than PoopBags.com!