Thursday, November 1, 2012

Day 1052

I went and visited with my watchmaker today. Although Kevin is technically a client, he seldom has much for me to do. Good watch repairmen don't need to advertise. With so few young people going into this line of work, the handful of remaining watchmakers have more work than they know what to do with. I wanted to learn how to repair watches once and quickly discovered that I was much too clumsy to become a good watch repairman. I would continually drop tiny little screws on the floor and never see them again. This is why I was visiting Kevin today. Janet doesn't even want me to change the batteries on her watches anymore, so I take them to a professional instead. My own watches are a different story. I've got so many basically worthless timepieces that I can afford to lose a few screws with my clumsy ways.

One of my New York clients called me today. He said he'd been sitting in his car waiting to get gas for over an hour and a half. We talked for a while about upcoming assignments and then he abruptly told me he had to go. Evidently someone was trying to cut in line right ahead of him and he wasn't going to let that happen. I'm glad I don't live on the East Coast right now.

I got the large format printer running for long enough this afternoon to print out some posters I needed for an upcoming animal rescue event. After printing only four posters, the red warning light came on that said I needed more Light Cyan ink. Didn't I just buy a lot of expensive ink the last time I used this printer? This is getting ridiculous. I'm beginning to think it would be a lot more economical if I just scrapped the printer and took a CD with the file to Kinkos whenever I needed to print something big.

Years ago, when I was fascinated with automobiles, a friend told me that practically anyone could afford to buy an old worn out Ferrari, but that you had to be rich to keep it running. I'm discovering that this is true with practically everything in life. I've got a fabulous printer, but I can't afford to keep it filled with ink. I've got a ton of old watches, but I can't afford to keep them all running. It's too bad that simplicity never really appealed to me. I'm surrounded by musical instruments I can no longer play and perfectly good shoes that haven't kept pace with my expanding feet. A day will come when I'll probably even have more blog posts than I know what to do with.

Jeda is today's Dalmatian of the Day
Watch of the Day