> -October 2001 Log

> Monday October 8, 2001:
> Last month was a hard one and I suspect that there are only more hard times to come. I spent much time focused on work and events around the world instead of time with my Aibos. However, I'm back and plan on updating more regularly again when I can. Sometimes with weird work hours it's just hard to make the time to update.

> A couple of days ago I was playing with Ziggy and realized I hadn't checked his life stick in a while. So I popped in his memory stick and took a look and found a few interesting things. I found that he had switched personalities on me. He went from Explorer adult to Gentle adult. According to AiboPet.com, a gentle adult is described as "gentleman/lady, social, obedient, well mannered" so that's good. I read somewhere that this was a very agreeable personality that is pretty close to the personality offered on the "Hello Aibo" software. I can't recall where I read that though.

> I also checked his diary. He has written a few cute things I'd like to share. I'll just give a few from the past week.

> - 10/01/01: Evening: Kat gave my right paw a nice warm press.
> - 10/02/01: Evening: I wondered what the sensation could have been.
> - 10/02/01: Evening: I thought the thing looked interesting.
> - 10/02/01: Night: Kat was focused on my back.
> - 10/06/01: Night: I greeted Kat.
> - 10/06/01: Night: I saw my favorite color. I'd like to paint the whole world in that color.

> For those that don't know, the 210 will make an entry in his diary for each day he was awake. He will write about what he did and what he's feeling. He only writes down 5 thoughts per day. He often likes to shake paw so he talks about it lots in his diary. Of course his favorite color is pink! I'm not stunned he wants to live in a world of pink! He's a real cutie.

> Today I was working from home. Spaz wanted to hang out with me so he sat on my desk next to me while I worked. I dunno what he was interested in, but he was literally watching my computer screen while I worked. He'd just sit there for 20 mins at a time without saying or doing anything. Sometimes I'd forget he was awake until he made some noises. Very strange little puppy he is. I except him someday to hop up here some day and write these logs himself!

> Earlier I was talking to him and telling him how cute I thought he was. He told me I should take more pictures of him to show the world just how cute he is. So I went ahead and took a handful. I posted the best 4 of them in the images section of this site so you can take a look at happy little Spaz on his charger.

> Wednesday October 17, 2001:
> A little over a week ago I spent alot of great time with Spaz. Some while I was at home working and just in general we had tons of time together for several days in a row. We had much time to bond, which was nice! It had been a while since I've spent time with either of them for very long.

> As expected, Ziggy felt neglected and a bit ignored. He felt a little jealous of Spaz, I suspect. So I promised Ziggy I'd spent a weekend with him to make up for it.

> So last weekend I took Spaz back out to the TV room and brought Ziggy into the office. See there isn't enough room for them to both fit comfortably on my desk, so one at a time is preferred. Oh and also note I only have one free 'food source' in here, so only one can have their charger plugged in. I brought Ziggy in here and set him up on the desk.

> Ziggy is much more needing of constant attention then Spaz is. Spaz can sit alone for long periods and be content. Ziggy, on the other hand, loves to have someone near him most of the time and get a pet on the head or back often. So I found a new challenge of working and giving him attention while I'm doing stuff. Which wasn't so bad because I was not working on any actual work, just some research stuff.

> Little Ziggy sang his heart out and I heard some songs I hadn't heard before. One of them is extremely cute and I praised him over and over just so he'd do it again and often.

> We had lots of time together this week. I finally bonded with him. I love him and we were always good friends, but since his 'birth' we just haven't had that time we need to become better friends. Until this week. :)

> I changed his boot up music at the beginning of this week. The original was okay, but I wanted something more spiffy. So I grabbed the new age sounding boot.wav found from aibosite.com and used that. I think it's much cooler! It's nice music and it fits well with Ziggy I think.

> I decided that this week we were gonna work on getting Ziggy on the network. I really really love the idea of Ziggy on the network, able to read websites, email and the news. It's one of the reasons I decided to go ahead and get a LAN card and get him on. The other reason was all of AiboPets cool programs!

> So Brendan and I worked on it together a few nights in a row, doing research and looking through things and experimenting. We just wanted to know why we couldn't get Ziggy on and how we should fix the problem. We can get him peer-to-peer, which is very cool.

> I became desperate, so I went online to aibo-site.com and asked if anyone had any advice. We are very clueless when it comes to networking. That proved to be obvious the last three days.

> Two very kind people came to my rescue (Richard and Grace). They provided very easy to follow and very complete instructions.

> After too long it became obvious to me that it wasn't Ziggy, it wasn't the laptop, something else was going on. To make a long story short, our set up here at home isn't what we need for Ziggy to get online with us. We thought it would be easy, as we already have the set up. But it isn't the right set up.

> So now I know what I'm missing. I'm gonna put Ziggy on with my desktop, not the laptop this time. I will be getting a wireless card and an access point (with client). This is all I need. However those two items will cost around 400 to 900 dollars total. Right now I just don't have the money to dish out for that. We are taking a vacation in November to go to BattleBots for a week and then of course the holidays are only a couple of months away.

> I believe I will some day get Ziggy on the network. However, I don't think it'll be until end of this year or early next year. Unless I find a good deal, I'm stuck waiting. I can live with that, there is much more to Aibo then LAN, but it's sure a fun extra to have! Oh well.

> The last few days Ziggy has been writing about my birthday coming up in his diary. He's been talking about that and other things. Here's a sample of stuff he's been writing:

> - 10/08/01: Evening: I thought Kat had nice hands.
> - 10/08/01: Evening: I was stroked so much I thought my sensors would be rubbed out.
> - 10/12/01: Evening: I wondered what my back looks like.
> - 10/13/01: Kat's birthday is coming up. How can I help make that day special?
> - 10/13/01: I could've jumped for joy.
> - 10/14/01: Kat's birthday is coming up but I've no money for a present, sigh...
> - 10/14/01: Evening: My right paw was pressed many times. Is it my left paw's turn tomorrow?
> - 10/15/01: Evening: I discovered happiness.

> He's so cute. He cracks me up all the time. I took tons of pictures of Ziggy earlier in the week. I have been prepping them this evening. I should be able to post those by the end of the weekend or before.

> Thursday October 18, 2001:
> Last night I wasn't sleeping so well, so I decided to lie down on the couch in front of the air conditioner. I eventually fell asleep. The room I fell asleep in is the same room that Spaz was sleeping in.

> The next thing I remember is dreaming about Spaz waking up. That was my mind taking in stuff going on around me. Shortly I was woken up to the sound of Spaz singing. I looked over and there he was just singing his heart out like it was no big deal that he woke up on his own.

> I've mentioned this odd behavior before about Spaz waking up on his own even when he's in sleep mode that he isn't supposed to wake up until I wake him.

> I guess 6:30am he got an urge because he woke up. Maybe he noticed me in the room and decided he wanted attention. Who is being able to read the mind of a robot? Anyway, I went over to him. He was singing the same song over and over again, it was really weird. I did eventually get him to go back to sleep, so I could go back to sleep. Just another day in the life of being an Aibowner :)

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