Karin C

I'm buying a Macbook Pro computer as a gift for someone, and I want to know what the pros and cons are for buying at a Mac Mall store, which I understand is not directly affiliated with Apple, vs. buying the same Macbook Pro at an Apple Store. Which is the better place to buy the computer, bearing in mind that I'm giving it to someone else and they'll have to deal with any problems the computer develops.

The person I'm getting the computer for is essentially an "applications person," he's familiar with using PC's that run Windows software, he's a very smart person but he's not really expert at computers in general and Apple computers in particular. He has an iPad and loves it, and his background is electrical engineering.

So where should I buy the Macbook Pro?

Just recently I was able to purchase a collection of magazines that covered news and topics of interest for Arabian Horse breeders and owners. The magazines date from 1950 through 1959, so they're all about 50 years old.

I would like to scan some of the photographs that are in the magazines and put them up on a website, but I don't want to violate copyrights. FWIW, the specific magazine (Arabian Horse News) is no longer in business, and the website is non-commercial in nature, purely informative. I would like to scan some of the photos in the magazines and post them to so people can see the horses that are pictured.

Would this run afoul of copyrights on the photographs? Some of the photos have photographer credits, and were presumably taken by professional photographers, but a lot of the photographs are obviously amateur photographs, given the quality, and are uncredited.

Can I make scans and post them on this website?

Thanks!

I was inspired by the survey question a little earlier. Strangest non-equine critter I've ever encountered at the stable was an armadillo in Texas at 4:00 AM. Man, those things are strange-looking...little tiny beady eyes.

Second place: not exactly strange, but at one of the barns I boarded at, I came back from a show at 2:00 AM and after putting my horse back in his stall, I needed to get some sweet feed to mix his bute with. I opened the feed room door-- first time I'd gone in there at night-- and there must have been three dozen rats!!!! Not mice, full-grown rats!!!! When I turned the lights on, they were flying around the tack room looking for hiding places, careening off of walls and bouncing off the feed cans. When I told the stable manager about it, she told me: "Next time you have to go in there at night, pound hard on the walls and make some noise for a couple of minutes before you go in!" No thanks, I think I'll pass...never went near the feed room when it was dark after that.

Your non-equine critter adventures?

My daughter is 16 and it seems that she would almost rather die than actually call to talk to her friends. The preferred mode of communication is apparently texting or eMail.

The subject came up when I ws trying to get my daughter to tell me what plans she and her friends were making for a group shopping situation where I was going to pick them up and drop them off. I wanted to know what time, how many kids, where were they meeting, etc., all the reasonable stuff a good chauffeur needs to do her job. My daughter told me she had left emails and text messages for friends.

"Why don't you call them?" I asked, foolish me. I was informed in so many words that teens don't TALK to each other, they text and eMail to each other, and only old foggies like parents actually expect to pick up the phone and talk to people.

Is this really the way of things with teens? Observation seems to bear it out, but I want to know what others find to be true.

Thanks!

I went looking for the sugar skulls in a number of panaderias and mercados around Hawthorne and up around Harbor City, and nobody had any. Can anyone advise me where to go to get sugar skulls? Thanks!

The question about horse obsession got me started thinking. I collect a number of different horse-related items:

Carnival horses: http://reviews.ebay.com/Carnival-Horses_W0QQugidZ1...

Kentucky Derby glasses: http://horseracing.about.com/od/history1/a/aa04039...

Books, magazines, catalogues, other publications related to Arabian and Thoroughbred horses.

Racetrack pins and badges.

Breyer model horses.

So it made me wonder: what kinds of horse-related collections do you have?

...How on earth do they know I'm going to be putting it on them? I swear they must be able to read minds, because no matter how careful I am to try to conceal what I'm going to do, when I get the tubes of Advantage out they run and hide.

Does anyone else have cats that seem to be able to mind-read and know when you're going to put flea stuff on them? Any ideas how to keep them from running and hiding all over the house?

Wayne Lukas won the Hopeful (Gr. 1) with Dublin, a classy son of Derby-Preakness winner Afleet Alex and $700K earner and Gr. 1 stakes winner Classy Mirage, from the family of champion filly Dark Mirage.

Bob Baffert won the Del Mar Futurity with Lookin at Lucky, a classy son of Smart Strike (sire of Curlin) out of Private Feeling, a Grade 2-producing (Kensei, Dwyer S. and Jim Dandy S.) mare from the family of champion sire Bull Lea.

Do you give either of these colts a chance at the Breeders Cup Juvenile?

Daughter and I just finished an intense discussion that started over a news item about parents not being informed enough about what their kids are doing in cyberspace/dangers of cyberspace.

My daughter is smart, savvy, she's never done anything to give me cause to worry, but it seems like every time you turn around there's a news item about a teen who is smart, savvy, has never done anything to worry her parents, who has become the victim of some unspeakable predator.

I know the news exaggerates the risk, but all the same I want my daughter to be safe when she goes off to college in two years. I want her to understand that you can be smart, savvy, a good person, careful and still not be safe.

I've given her a copy of Gavin de Becker's excellent book "The Gift of Fear." It scares me that she seems so sure she can steer clear of trouble. I don't want to turn her into someone who's afraid to go outside by herself, but I don't want her to be so fearless she walks into trouble. Any advice? Anyone else feel the same way about their daughter?

I've enjoyed the trivia questions and quizzes that people have posted. I thought I'd have a try at posting some breed-specific trivia questions that are on the advanced side and see how they go.

First quiz, Arabian breed the subject.

In 1925, breakfast food magnate W. K. Kellogg purchased the initial acreage in Southern California on which he established his Arabian horse breeding farm. Kellogg eventually deeded the farm to the California State University system, and then the land and horses were passed on to the US Army Quartermaster Depot/Remount Service. When the Remount Service was turned over to the Department of Agriculture in 1948, the decision was made to sell the horses and the land.

The sale of some of the horses was accomplished in 1949, but before all the the horses or any of the land could be sold, a young California congressman sponsored legislation to sell the ranch and horses back to the W.K. Kellogg Foundation for $1; the foundation in turn donated the land to the state of California, with two provisos: one was that the land had to be used for educational purposes. It is on this land that the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona campus was built.

So here are the three trivia questions:

1. What was the name of the most prominent, noteworthy Arabian horse that was sold off from the Remount depot at Kellogg Ranch before the legislation that saved the ranch and the horses was passed?

2. Who was the first-term congressman who wrote the legislation that saved the ranch and the horses?

3. What was the second of the two conditions that allow the state of California to continue to use the land that was the Kellogg Ranch?

...someone comes up with something worse.

A mass poisoning of horses in San Diego: http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/08/01/california.hor...

This gives us all a new reason to be suspicious of people we don't know giving our horses treats.

I hope they catch the person and prosecute him to the full extent of the law!

Okay, my daughter and I watched "The Other Boleyn Girl" the other day, and she had all kinds of questions about who ranks highest as far as nobles: Earls? Dukes? Counts? Barons?

Can someone please explain which are the highest nobles, and maybe give a brief explanation of the differences?

Thanks!

...So if that's true, it follows that when you're comparing fillies, the best filly should have the biggest ears.

Okay, here's Zenyatta: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rockandracehorses/296...

And here's Rachel Alexandra: http://www.kentucky.com/304/story/812648.html

So who has the biggest ears?

(And for good measure, here's Zarkava: http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=5958059)

...Hardly got any notice in the news today?

As the architect of the Vietnam War strategy that saw the deaths of 58,000 Americans, you'd think that his passing would rate some commentary, even if today was the Michael Jackson memorial event.

Anyone have comments on McNamara's death and his influence on history in life?

Calumet is, of course, the leading breeder of Kentucky Derby winners, having bred 8 winners of the Derby.

Calumet Farm is noteworthy as the only breeder/owner of a Kentucky Derby winner to have won another noteworthy race with a horse they bred and owned.

Can you name the race they won and the horse they won it with?

He's won two legs of the English Triple Crown. His owners have said they intend to bypass the St. Leger, and I think most pedigree pundits would agree that he's not bred for the 1 mile 6 furlongs and 132 yards distance of the St. Leger.

But the chance to become the first English Triple Crown winner since Nijinsky II!!!!! Granted, the St. Leger isn't a race that is considered important for stallion credentials nowadays, and there are other races to pursue, most notably the Arc de Triomphe in the fall, joining his mom Urban Sea on the roster of Arc winners.

Would you like to see him win the Triple Crown?

There was an important vote at the Inglewood City Council last night, and the Council voted to approve the Environmental Impact Report that clears the way for an end to racing on the property and for the approvals process for development of the land as residential/retail/parkland. http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/51...

This is IMO insane. Inglewood simply cannot support the kind of development that the plan proposes. A major residential development on land in the nearby city of El Segundo, on the former Los Angeles AFB property, is languishing unfinished because the real estate market is in the tank; and in Hawthorne, another city bordering Inglewood, the Hawthorne Mall has been closed and boarded up for years because there just wasn't support in the community for that kind of retail facility. Five years or so back, a developer tried to get the Hawthorne Airport to close for development and the community refused to approve the plan because it was so obvious it couldn't succeed.

I hate the thought of a track that has seen the likes of Seabiscuit, Noor, Round Table, John Henry, Ack Ack, and many other great racehorses going under the wrecking ball. It disgusts me no end that the current owners of the track have taken little interest in promoting racing there. It also grieves me mightily that the politics here in California prevented Hollywood Park from getting slots. I'm not a fan of slots at racetracks, but they might have kept the track going for a while longer.

I gather that Los Alamitos, the Quarter Horse track in Orange County, is all set to expand from 5/8 mile to a mile and to take on some of the historic stakes races (like the Hollywood Gold Cup), with the California Horse Racing Board all set to assign at least some of the vacated Hollywood Park Thoroughbred dates to Los Al if Holllywood Park goes under. Pomona is another possibility, although there are complexities with that that make it more difficult that having Thoroughbred dates at Los Al.

Anyway, it looks like this winter's Hollywood Park meet will be the last. Sure makes me sad. Anyone have any thoughts on this situation?

My husband nominated me as goddess of glass marbles because I have about 50 pounds of marbles in glass jars around the house. So what would you be god/goddess of or patron saint of?

Jess Jackson announced that Rachel Alexandra is not running in the Belmont. http://www.bloodhorse.com/horse-racing/articles/51...

I'm actually not too surprised at the decision. Rachel Alexandra would gain nothing by running in the Belmont, and a hard race could knock her out until late summer or early fall. It is disappointing, it would have been good to see her run, but I'd rather have her connections take care of her and hope for a match-up with Zenyatta in late summer or fall.

David H has inspired me. But I'll give more info. Here goes.

He was sold for $12,000 as a yearling. The buyer observed afterwards, "I must have been standing in a hole when I bought him!" He ended a "jinx" that a great champion had failed to end the year before, and his son became the second horse with the same attribute to do what his sire had done.

Who is he, and what was the jinx he ended?