Robotic Dogs

The Aibo robotic dog by Sony

Okay, now this belongs in the strange news category in my opinion.  Unbelievably, I heard this news story a few days ago.  They are expecting robotic dogs to replace real ones in the future, especially in dense urban areas.  Right now, supposedly 37 percent of households in the US have dogs while 30 percent have cats.  There’s also an overlap where people have both cats and dogs and the estimate is that half the population keep pets.

A study in the Frontiers of Veterinary Science predicts that by 2050 it will be impossible for people living in densely populated areas to have pets due to enough room for people and their beloved pets.  I can see how large dogs would be an issue over the smaller ones if housing areas will be smaller and perhaps with no yards.  I don’t see cats as being an issue because they don’t require much space and can use litter boxes.  Maybe dogs can be trained to use a litter box. 

The study says that people care for their robotic dogs but treat them more like the characters in a video game and use them for entertainment, something you wouldn’t do with a real dog.  People feel less responsibility for robotic or virtual pets, thus requiring them to be repaired at times.  Apparently, a robotic animal can also die of neglect and mistreatment, especially since Sony closed its last Aibo robotic repair clinic a few years ago.  (Sony invented the robotic dog.)  So people in Japan who own the robotic dogs even hold funerals for them.  Yes, you heard that right.

I think the lack of spaces to walk dogs and let them have exercise will be limited in the future, but I think the timeline might be a bit further away than the predicted 2050.

What do you think about all this?  If space becomes an issue, would you have a robotic pet in place of a real one?  What good are they really, other then there are no food and vet bills?

A winter getaway to southern California was perfect

Clip Art - I couldn't resist posting this because palm trees are EVERYWHERE!

Okay, I know there are different places all over this country that some people prefer over other places, for whatever reason.  That’s great because as humans we’re all different and that makes life so much more interesting.

But tell me where you can get 78-80 degree temperatures with the doors open in January, unless it’s maybe Hawaii?  I love this place.

I lived in southern California for twenty-five years before moving to the desert nine-and-a-half years ago.  It’s such a nice place that I wonder why I ever moved, even though I know the answer to that.  There’s a lot of traffic there and lots of illegal’s, as well as other facts, things like higher expenses for about everything.  Nevertheless, it will always be one of my favorite places.  I would still be living there now probably if it weren’t for my husband’s pushing to move.

Naturally, this trip came at the perfect time because it’s been so cold here.  We’ve been setting records.  I was more than ready to get away to that California sunshine.  Don’t get me wrong because it is sunny much of the time here, just way too cold.

 The famous Beverly Hills sign.  This has been here forever.

We visited friends in Beverly Hills first.  It was fun to see the old Beverly Hills sign again.  It brought back old memories from my first time there when I was sixteen.  My grandmother lived there at the time.  I swore to myself back then that I was moving to California one day and I eventually did many years later, via a detour of two other states first.

The Hollywood sign was too far away to capture with my camera, but it was there on the hill gleaming white in the sun.

I did capture this Christmas decoration on Wilshire Blvd.

 Mall we visited on Santa Monica Blvd.  They had trees and flowers spread out everywhere.

 

 This is a shot of the mall from the second floor.  They had coffee shops and lots of outdoor seating areas with fire pits.

Our next stop was north San Diego County where we used to live.  We stayed with a friend there and visited other friends the rest of the trip.  Of course, we had to drive by the old neighborhoods and hangouts too.  Some things have changed, but many are the same.

 This is the new hospital from my friend's house.

I was able to get a few pics from the hill our friend lives on.  She has a view of the big new hospital they’ve built and the surrounding hills.  And of course, we loved her adorable animals, a dog and three cats.  We felt right at home and all the cats eventually warmed up to us.  The little one was very friendly and played his heart out until he would collapse on the floor to catch his breath.  He’s only eight-months-old and a male Ragdoll.  We wanted to smuggle him home, ha!

This is Fiero, the Ragdoll kitten

 This is Domani (it means tomorrow in Italian)

 This is Garage Key - a rescued stray

This is Bubba

Naturally, we ate Mexican food and let our hair down drinking wine while watching football playoffs.  But that was a lot better than politics that’s usually always on at my house.  The wine drinking ended up in my friend breaking her toe on a chair leg one night.  It was no big deal to her.  She told us it’s happened before.  Ouch!  I’m not sure how she got up early to attend a seminar the entire next day.  Once home, she went out to water plants on the hill behind her house afterwards, and then we went to eat out.  Her toe was black and blue, but she said she was okay.  I guess she’s stronger than I am.

We had so much fun laughing and talking.  I hated to see the trip end.  I also didn’t get to see all my friends this time, so I phoned them instead.  I promised my husband I wouldn’t write the schedule as tight as I did when we visited there last May.  I wore him out running around.  However, he’s usually ready to quit by nine PM and I’m the night owl.

This is me and my friend, Kara.  We met for breakfast.

This is Scott - my husband's old business partner

 Of course, we looked at property in different places and saw some open houses to get an idea if moving back there is even in our price range anymore.

The worst part of the whole trip was the six-and-a-half hours through miles and miles of desert.  That’s not to say the white-knuckle time driving through LA isn’t nerve racking and a close second.  But it keeps you on your toes.  When the scenery is boring, that’s when I tend to fall asleep.  There’s nothing to see but sand, Joshua trees, and sagebrush.  If we do move that way again, my husband is not crazy about me driving because when we were moving here, I ran over curbs and off the road and didn’t even know it.  I guess we’ll have to stop more often for coffee next time.

This is what much of the six-and-a-half-hour drive looks like.

The next trip will be to Texas to check that out.  It’s not as if I don’t know what that’s like, but he wants to be at least an hour from my family because all of us talk too much.  We’ll need to check prices there on many things and see how affordable that is.  I’m not sure yet when this trip will happen.  Actually the sooner the better because it makes me anxious not knowing where we’re going and what size house we’ll end up in.  That might make getting rid of things easier.

So at the moment that’s our two options, southern California or south Texas.