Day 167 - Memorial Day

Like virtually everyone else in America, we went and ate boatloads of grilled and smoked meats with friends today. Our friends adopted Willow, a wonderful dog that Janet and I helped to rehabilitate after she had been run over by a car and abandoned by the side of the road. Willow is now a happy, playful girl who has fully recovered from her injuries. It was nice to see her running and jumping around the backyard without a care in the world. Many folks thought she'd never walk again, but after three difficult surgeries and over a year of rehab, she's just fine now. Willow and her companion Jasper spent the afternoon begging for table scraps like any normal dogs at an outdoor barbecue.

I enjoyed the opportunity to eat bacon and bratwurst and other foods my doctors would frown on. The men talked politics and tended the grill in the back yard while the women worked inside on craft projects that could be sold at future Dalmatian Rescue fundraisers. There was lots of potato salad and pickles and pie to go along with all the pork being barbecued on the grill. It was the kind of old-fashioned holiday my parents would have enjoyed. I enjoyed it too. Even though our hosts make their living wrestling with technology, just like I do, we didn't talk about IT problems and computers. Instead, we talked about dogs, vacations, Harley Davidson bikes, and great grilling recipes. It was a distinctly all-American afternoon. And I guess that's exactly the way it should be on Memorial Day.

The only problem with holidays is that I inevitably get behind on everything else. The house is a mess, the car needs to be washed and I still haven't cut the grass this week. I know tomorrow is going to be a busy day as well, because my clients will try their best to cram five days of work into the week's four remaining days. The house might have to stay messy for a while, but I'll gradually get caught up on things. Eventually, I always do.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 166

It was a nice, quiet day. I'm glad when I get an opportunity to use the words nice and quiet together in the same sentence. It doesn't happen all that often. Deuce got adopted today and he'll go to his new home tomorrow. We've also have some new volunteers who are helping us with walking the rescue dogs on Sunday mornings. Things are looking up at Dalmatian Rescue.

When I took Dash over to Vhea's Laundromutt for his weekly bath, I noticed that a baby bird had fallen out of its nest near the dry cleaners next door. At this time of year, birds routinely fall out of their nests in our neighborhood. Most of them get eaten immediately by cats, but this one looked like it still had a chance. I told Vhea about the bird's predicament and she found a tall ladder and carefully placed the bird back in its nest. The nest happened to be right in the middle of the letter "O" in the dry cleaner's sign in front of the building. Birds seem to like to make nests in outdoor signage. A few years ago, a bird made a nest in the sign in front of Janet's company and managed to catch the sign on fire when the illuminated letters turned on at night. Birds have also made a nest in our mailbox several times and we've had to put up an alternate mailbox until the eggs hatched and the baby birds flew away. Once, a substitute mail carrier wasn't looking and dropped mail in the box on top of the birds and caused an uproar at the post office. All the regular mail carriers knew about the birds and were rooting for them to make it. I had to make a special grate that would allow the mother bird to feed the babies, but would still keep mail out. To this day, I don't know what that substitute mail carrier was thinking. I had placed a giant sign right next to the alternate mailbox that said "Mail goes here. There are baby birds in the other box."

After several attempts, I finally figured out how to make multiple photo albums on my iPad, I need to remember that this thing is not a little computer; it's really just a giant iPod touch. As a photographer, I wish there was a better way of adding and deleting photographs. It's kind of a pain to have to hook it up to another computer and synchronize photo albums using iTunes when all you want to do is delete a shot that you think sucks. I can't complain too much though. Once you finally manage to get the photos into the iPad and arranged the way you want, they really look wonderful.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 165

I wish you could buy groceries on the iTunes store. It's so easy to purchase stuff on iTunes that it's easy to forget you've actually bought anything. Well, it's easy to forget until you look at your charge card bill a month or so later anyway. I've already bought quite a few apps for my iPad. If only buying software for a regular computer was so easy and inexpensive. I'd love to be able to click a button on my office computer and buy Adobe CS-5 for ten bucks and then watch the whole thing being automatically installed in less than a minute.

Unfortunately, grocery shopping is one thing I still can't do on iTunes. Every Saturday, I have to deal with this chore in person. The supermarket was crowded today and everyone except me had their buggies filled with potato chips, hot dog buns, beer, watermelons and anything else you could conceivably eat on a Memorial Day picnic. The store where I shop has all these little kiosks scattered around where people can sample food. There was total gridlock at one kiosk where a vendor was cutting hot dogs in half and giving them away. People were waiting in line for ten minutes just to get their hands on half of a hot dog. This isn't my idea of fun. As I watched all the people queue up to wait for free food, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

It's not officially Summer yet, but it's starting to feel that way. It was over 90 degrees this afternoon and very humid.  Every year about this time I seriously question why I ever moved to Texas. I used to live in Seattle and the weather was much nicer there. I think it came down to a choice between nice weather and a nice job. I picked the job, but I still miss the mild weather.

Along with the warmer weather comes a host of new things to watch out for when I walk the dogs. Last month it was poison ivy. This month it's snakes. The snakes have all come out of hibernation and they're everywhere in the park. There are at least ten species of snakes that are native to this area, and I can never remember which ones are the poisonous ones. I almost stepped on a huge snake on our afternoon walk. It was over four feet long and looked suspiciously like a Water Moccasin. You never know what dogs are going to do around a snake, so I try to stay as far away from them as possible. Even snakes aren't going to keep the hordes of picnickers away this weekend though. By Tuesday morning, half the stuff I saw piled in people's grocery buggies this afternoon will be littered all over the park.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 164

I picked up a new Dalmatian today at the Richardson Animal Shelter. Her name was Molly and she had been surrendered to the pound when her owners got divorced. It's amazing how often this happens. You'd think that even if the couple didn't like each other anymore, at least one of them would still love the dog and want to keep it. This must not be the case however, because Dalmatian Rescue has picked up at least six dogs that were dumped at an animal shelter when their owners got divorced.

When I was filling out the paperwork to get Molly transfered to the Dalmatian Rescue program, I saw two different couples bring their dogs in to surrender them to shelter.  When the animal control officer at the front desk asked the people why they were surrendering their dogs, both people said they had moved to an apartment building that wouldn't allow dogs. I heard the animal control officer say "Why don't you just move somewhere else," to one of the couples, but they didn't respond. People amaze me. I've heard some people actually tell animal control that they were "donating" their dog to the city when they surrendered it. It's as if they want to walk away from the shelter believing that they have done some sort of good deed, instead of facing the reality that their dog will probably be euthanized in less than a week. Molly is safe though. She's already at our vet getting a full health checkup. As soon as she's healthy and has had all her shots, we'll make sure she finds a good home.

I'm looking forward to having a three day weekend. For the past month or so, I've felt it was almost impossible to get caught up on everything. I don't know if I'm getting slower, or if life is just getting more complicated, but my "to do" list is pretty long these days. Every time I get ready to tackle some long overdue project around the house, some new work crisis hits the fan and I'm back to square one again. Today was a little different. Most of my clients left early for the Memorial Day weekend and it was Molly who put me behind. I enjoyed getting her out of harms way though. She's a sweet dog and I'm sure she'll get adopted soon.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 163

When I was out of the office today I made a telephone call from my iPad and it actually worked. I'm delighted. Now I have the cell phone I've always wanted: big, bulky and totally impractical. Janet thinks I'm nuts to waste time trying to use a bulky tablet computer as a phone, but it works for me. I can use Skype to call for free when I'm in Wi-Fi range and use Whistle over 3G everywhere else.

I remembered a bunch of important files that I forgot to back up yesterday, so I continued my backup efforts for another day. I'm sure when the next big computer crash occurs, the files that I really need will still be the ones that I forgot to back up. That's always what happens. I used to back up everything, but now it's simply too much trouble. When a single photo image can be 100 megabytes or larger and the source material for a typical corporate video ends up filling up an entire terabyte hard drive, you learn to be selective about what you back up. I don't bother to back up video files at all. It's much easier to just save all the original video tape and redigitize it if necessary.

I wish the city would decide when they were going to pick up the trash on our street. First, they cut back our twice a week service to a single day. Then, just when everybody was getting used to the trash truck coming on Friday afternoons, they decide to come at 6 AM on Friday morning instead. Practically everyone on the entire street missed the trash pickup last week. They wouldn't come back either. I'm ready for them this week. I took my trash out to the curb this evening. I noticed that a lot of my neighbors did the same thing. It's going to be a bonanza for the raccoons and possums in the neighborhood tonight.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 162

Not a great day. When I went to fix my morning coffee, I noticed that a new piece of artwork in the kitchen had fallen off the wall and broken. I sorted through assorted canisters, glassware and spice bottles on the counter top where the small mixed-media sculpture had fallen, but I couldn't find the missing pieces. I did find a big cockroach hiding under the microwave, but that definitely wasn't what I was looking for. After breakfast, I turned on the office computer to start working and nothing happened. I think the power supply has finally burned out. Nothing I tried would bring the beast back to life. When I went to the storage warehouse to drag home a spare computer for the third time in less than a month, I noticed that there was a big nail in my rear tire. The tire was holding air, so I'll deal with that problem another day.

I have really got to become more disciplined about backing up everything to an external drive on a daily basis. It's becoming a huge hassle to take hard drives and memory out of one computer and put them in another, just so I can continue working. Unfortunately, not working just isn't an option. I had a meeting with one of my veterinarian clients around noon, but when I got up to the clinic, I discovered that the doc had been called away to perform an emergency surgery. I had to wait quite a while, so I had time to finally try out my new iPad. This seemed like a good time to answer today's e-mail. The 3G Internet connection on the iPad worked like a charm. Lots of spam was coming into my inbox, just like my other computers. I typed my messages on the touch screen keyboard and hit send. Nothing happened. After a while a message box appeared that said "SMPT Server Not Responding." Oops. I guess I didn't configure the e-mail client correctly. I can never remember the port numbers for the POP and SMTP servers, so I just gave up and read magazines in the lobby until the doc was ready to see me.

By the end of the day, I had managed to back up all my critical files on DVD disks and was limping along using an old obsolete Mac to finish my webmaster duties. I wish I was more of a pro-active person. I'm really good at reacting to a crisis, but I never plan ahead well enough to avoid the problems in the first place. I remember when I was younger and living in Seattle, I had a car with a dead battery. Instead of running out and getting a new battery right away like I should have, I parked on hills for almost a month and let the car roll forward for a bit to start it. This ridiculous plan actually worked, since there were steep hills both where I lived and where I worked. I never even considered what would happen if I had to drive somewhere where it was flat.

I guess I'm a bit like Dash. He's eating grass again today. I'm sure he never considered that eating grass is going to give him a bellyache about six hours from now, just like it always does.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 161

If today was a battle between the high-tech and low-tech forces in my life, low-tech definitely won. I had to return the Bluetooth headset I got the other day because I couldn't figure out how to pair it with my iPad. I tried and tried, but it just wouldn't work. I should have known better than to buy anything without an Apple logo on it and expect it to work with an Apple product. I've been down this road before. At any rate, after a quick Google search, I discovered that nobody could get their Bluetooth headsets to work with their iPads. Even though the iPad has built-in Bluetooth capabilities, it apparently doesn't work with 99% of the Bluetooth devices out there. It will work fine with a cordless Apple keyboard, but that's about it. I guess Apple really doesn't want you to use the thing as a telephone.

So, how did low-tech win so easily today?  I needed to buy some sandals, because it's starting to get way too hot outside to continue wearing my Red Wing work boots for walking the dogs. I went down to DSW Shoe Warehouse and tried on a pair I liked. They fit. I bought them. And that's all there was to it. Now, why can't technology be a bit more like buying shoes?

My German clients liked the initial draft of my petrochemical story, except they want me to make it twice as long. Yikes! Does this mean I'm going to have to double my limited knowledge of oil refineries? I certainly hope not. I think it does mean that I'm going to have to do a few more telephone interviews with people in foreign countries though.

There was no sign of the gas company repair crew in the back alley today. I sure hope they fixed the gas leak yesterday. Maybe I ought to wait a while before doing any outdoor barbecuing.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 160

I finally got my tax refund in the mail. Unfortunately, half of the money has already disappeared to pay my accountant for figuring out how much I was going to get back from the IRS in the first place. The other half? Well, it's gone too. I already spent it before I realized how much my accountant was going to charge me this year.

When I let the dogs out after lunch to dig holes in the yard and chase squirrels, I noticed several men wearing hard hats and doing something with a strange looking test instrument behind the house. Although the gizmo they were using looked straight out of Ghostbusters, I didn't think they were looking for ghosts. When I inquired about what they were doing, one of the men told me in a combination of English and Spanish that they were trying to find the source of a gas leak. "Is much gas leaking," I asked.  "Oh, quite a bit," said the other man.  Nice!  It's a good thing I wasn't going outside for a smoke or something.

I actually got quite a bit done today, despite a total lack of motivation. One of the hardest things about running your own business is that you don't have a boss to continually tell you what to do every day. Life seemed so much easier when I was an ad agency copywriter. I would just go into the office in the morning, pour myself a mug of coffee, eat a few donuts and then wait for the creative director to give me an assignment. Now, with nobody to tell me to keep working, it's easy to get sidetracked. There are temptations everywhere. When I was eating breakfast this morning, I noticed that there was an all-day Torchwood marathon on the BBC channel.  Although I would have liked to have grabbed a huge bag of Cheetos and watched TV all day, I didn't. I continued to work on my petrochemical article instead. You realize very quickly when you are running a small business that if you don't keep working, people don't keep paying you.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 159

Dot and Dash went to their second birthday party in less than a week. This time, the party was for Tom, our obedience class instructor, who invited everyone in the class to bring their dogs. As you might expect, when you combine lots of large dogs with backyard burgers, there were more than a few burgers snatched off people's plates by the dogs. The dogs were actually remarkably well behaved, considering the amount of food nearby. Tom was convinced it was because he had trained them so well, but more likely the dogs knew that if they stayed quiet, their owners would slip them hot dogs and chips to eat under the table.

Tom is a marathon runner and he invited some of his running and cycling buddies to the party as well. The dog people and the type-a running people were a distinctly different crowd. The runners seemed uncomfortable with all the dogs milling about and would shoo them away if they came near their plates. One high-strung woman jogger would periodically shriek, "that dog's about to pee on your lawn chair." Most of the dog people could care less if a dog peed on a chair. At one point or another, dogs have peed on just about everything we own. I can tell you from personal experience that it's not a big deal if a dog pees on a lawn chair. The runners seemed to think otherwise however and as the afternoon progressed, the joggers and the dog people slowly migrated to opposite sides of Tom's yard. Despite all the type-a joggers, it was a very enjoyable afternoon. The weather as perfect. The burgers were great. And nobody got bit.

This morning, Ann and Janet were away at a rescue event in Grapevine, Texas, so I walked the K-9 University dogs with another volunteer. This guy was real good at clicker training and within thirty minutes he had our resident wild child Lance sitting and healing like a show dog. I was impressed. On the way home, I stopped by Fry's Electronics and got a Bluetooth headset. I'm determined to turn my iPad into a telephone. I don't know why I'm wasting time with this though. I don't even like to talk on the telephone.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 158

I usually try to do something useful around the house on Saturday. Sometimes, I actually improve things and other times I just make a mess. Today I finally hung a large picture that had been leaning against the wall in my office for over six months. I must have left the picture leaning against the wall too long, because when I hung it in the living room, I noticed that the wood frame had become warped and developed a pronounced bow in the middle. I hung it up anyway. With the picture hung, I tried to use bleach to get rid of some rust stains in the ceiling that were caused when water was leaking through the roof this Winter. I should never be allowed to handle bleach. I did a good job of getting rid of the stains in the ceiling, but I also spilled bleach on the pair on jeans I was wearing and ruined them.

When I was walking the dogs this evening a woman stopped me on the bike trail and asked if I knew the name of this part of the park. At first it seemed like an odd question, but then she explained that her car had been broken into while she as jogging and she was trying to get the police to come out and investigate. She said they needed an exact location to respond to her call. It wasn't long ago that you could have just told the police that you were over by the bicycle bridge on the North end of the park and they would know exactly where to come. Then somebody at city hall got the bright idea of putting hundreds of small round signs in the park, each printed with a unique number that corresponded to the sign's GPS coordinates. Now, the police won't answer any calls in the park unless you give them the location number that's painted on one of these signs. I guess if you get mugged in-between a sign, you're just out of luck. At any rate, I pointed out several of the ubiquitous round 911 signs to the woman and told her she could take her pick. Another example of our tax dollars at work. We used to have actual park police who patrolled the park all the time. Now we've got a lot of round signs.

I've been thinking about adding an RSS feed to my business website. Technorati and some of those other website ranking authorities seem to take you a lot more seriously if you have a feed and feed subscribers. It certainly wouldn't be hard to add a feed. It's basically just a little text document on the web server. Every time I get ready to create the XML code though, a little voice in my head says "Hmm, if someone actually subscribed to Sealander & Company, what would they get?" I don't know. If you subscribe to this blog, you get a new post every day. I seldom change anything on the website though, so I have no idea what I'd be actually be sending in the feed. Probably nothing. Maybe I need to learn a little more about feeds.

The dogs seemed tired all day. I don't think they are quite the party animals they think they are. A little birthday celebration, a plate of fresh chicken, and they've both got to sleep it off the next day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 157 - Dash's Birthday

While I was waiting for the Brazilian petrochemical folks to call me on Skype this morning, I got a call from HorrorGuy, who wanted me to be a guest on an upcoming Horror Movie Show podcast in June. This illustrates the value of leaving blog comments. I had left several comments about science fiction films on The Horror Movie Show blog and evidently they now think I'm a movie expert. In truth, I'm not an expert about movies or anything else. I'm just an ad guy, who like most other ad guys, is a fairly good bullshitter. I'm certainly not a Skype expert either, so I was a bit worried that I'd push the wrong button and end up having HorrorGuy and the Brazialian petrochemical executives on the same call. I'm sure most oil and gas folks have plenty of horror stories of their own, but I doubt that they'd want them broadcast to the world on a podcast. The Brazialians never called though, because they couldn't get Skype to work on their end. I eventually ended up just calling them on a regular telephone later.

Today was Dash's birthday, and to celebrate, we took both dogs to Cafe Lago for dinner. Gabi, who owns Cafe Lago is a friend and runs one of the most pet friendly restaurants I've ever seen. There is even a special dog menu with specially prepared chicken and egg dishes that are both tasty and healthy for pets. We'd never taken the dogs to a restaurant before, so we were a bit worried that they'd steal food off someone's plate or cause a big commotion and get us thrown out of the place. They were very well behaved though, and seemed to know that this evening was something special just for them. The only mishap was that Dot snatched some of birthday boy's chicken before he got a chance to eat it.  The dogs enjoyed their evening out so much that we'll definitely have to take them back to the restaurant again. I enjoyed my meal as well. The restaurant is basically a place to go for Tapas,  but there's a Cuban pork sandwich on the menu that is absolutely fabulous.

Today was unusually busy for a Friday. Some of my website clients were behind on their updates this week, so I ended up making the changes today instead of Thursday like I usually do. My telephone interview with the petrochemical executives went quite well when I was finally able to place the call. I think I have enough information now to put together a decent article for my German client. One thing that really struck me while we were talking today was that the Brazilians are genuinely proud of their energy industry. These folks, unlike many Americans these days, think that drilling for oil is a great thing and they want to find and refine as much of the stuff as they possibly can. It was refreshing to listen to people who were proud of their country and its growing economic strength. Many Americans seem almost embarrassed to talk about our strength anymore and want to apologize instead. This is why the future probably belongs to the Chinese and the Brazilians. These countries are the way we used to be. I remember being very proud when John Kennedy promised the world that we were going to the moon in ten years. We actually did it too. Now all our presidents can promise are extended unemployment benefits. America seems to have lost its mojo and that's sad to me.

We may never go back to the moon again in my lifetime, but I am proud to have two fabulous Dalmatians. Happy Birthday Dash!

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 156

Last month, after one of our Dalmatian Rescue pet picture events, the manager at Unleashed told me that if I brought down some of my photos, they would display them in the lobby and distribute some of my marketing post cards as well. I finally got the pictures printed and framed today. I need to be a little quicker to take advantage of opportunities like this, but other things keep getting in the way. At any rate, when I took the large framed photos to the dog park this afternoon, they still remembered their offer and said they'd hang the pictures tomorrow. One more thing I can check off my endless "to do" list. Hey, It can't hurt to be seen. Maybe I'll even get some business.

I don't know how my interview with the petrochemical executive in Brazil is going to go tomorrow. I got an e-mail from the guy's secretary telling me to call at 3PM, since I was two hours ahead of them in Rio and her boss wanted to do the interview at 1 PM. When I looked at a map, it appeared that Dallas was actually 3 hours behind Rio and I should be calling at 10 AM instead. Maybe Brazil doesn't have daylight saving time though and Dallas is only 2 hours behind. I have no idea when to call these people. Maybe they should just call me.

Yesterday's stock market woes only seemed to grow worse today. Everyone is worried about whether the Germans are going to bail out Greece and whether the Euro is going to fall even further. I used to do a lot of work in Germany. The Germans I worked with never liked the Euro in the first place and would have much rather kept their beloved Deutsche Mark instead. I can't imagine that these Germans are very happy about bailing out the Greeks. Oddly, when I first got the assignment to write this petrochemical article several months ago, I agreed to be paid in Euros. The value of the Euro had dropped like a stone ever since.

What an odd life I have. One day I'm dealing with multi-national corporations and foreign currencies. The next day I'm taking pictures of someone's dog.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 155

I'm just about ready to throw in the towel and give up on the stock market entirely. My broker called me today and said I needed to sell Joy Global and Citicorp because they had both dropped below their two hundred day moving averages. Jeez, it was less than a month ago that this very same broker convinced me that these stocks were undervalued and would be a good long-term buy. In all fairness, I can't blame the guy for not being able to predict the future. Nobody else is doing a very good job either. I think the markets aren't behaving rationally anymore because the entire world isn't behaving rationally anymore. It's frustrating to say the least. I find it increasingly difficult to make any money these days. Owing rental property sucks. The stock market is a volatile minefield. Customers are tightening their belts and cutting back on their advertising budgets. What's a boy to do? Oh, I know. I'll just put some Google AdSense ads on my websites. That will solve everything.

The dogs don't worry about finances, but they do worry about the heat. I've never seen a Dalmatian that liked Texas Summers. Now that the weather is starting to get warmer, I've noticed that Dot and Dash are walking a bit slower. Our morning walk usually takes about 45 minutes when the three of us are walking briskly. Today, it took almost an hour. By June I'll probably have to carry the dogs home. Neither of them know how to pace themselves. They race out the door tugging and pulling until they get hot and then they just stop. On a hot day it's hell getting them back home again after they both decide they've had enough at the halfway point. I try to tell them that I've got ads to finish and websites to design so I can continue to pay their vet bills, but they just look for a cool patch of grass to lie down in and refuse to budge.

Luckily, it cooled down this evening and the weather was perfect for obedience class. All the dogs in class did well this evening. The days are getting longer too, so that we aren't finishing class in the dark any more. It wasn't a bad way to end the day. Hey, when you've got two dogs who'll sit, stay and come when they're called, how can you keep worrying about the stock market.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 154

Once again I got the dreaded "Service Required - 0001001B" message when I turned on the printer this morning. This message basically means that the print head needs to be replaced, which is definitely not a do it yourself job on the Epson 4000. So far, I've been able to make this message go away by turning the printer on and off again a bunch of times. The "Service Required" message is appearing more frequently now though, and I'm afraid the printer is on it's last legs. I used to be able to justify the cost of a large format printer for the business, since some of my retail clients would use me to make their window display posters. Now, they can buy big prints on the Internet for less than I pay for ink and paper. I haven't had a client ask for a large print in several years, but the printer still makes beautiful posters for Dalmatian Rescue events when it's working.

If my clients weren't buying cheap stock photography on the Internet and even cheaper web design templates on the Internet, I could afford to upgrade my failing equipment at regular intervals. With budgets continuing to shrink, I'm forced to nurse and baby my old machines until that once in a blue moon "big job" comes along. I don't think I ever realized how easy I had it ten years ago. Times have definitely changed. Now I feel like a small mom and pop business after a big Walmart moves into town.

Whenever I'm defeated by technology, I go do something simple instead. I mow the grass. After I mowed the grass in the front yard this afternoon, I realized that one of the reasons the grass still wasn't growing well in the back yard was because I still hadn't raked all the winter leaves away. So I raked and mowed and then got the leaf blower out and blew the remaining leaves into the alley behind the house. The yard looks much better now. I didn't used to have to do anything about the leaves, because the wind eventually blew them all away. Now that all the neighbors are all building these tall wood privacy fences, the leaves seem to stay trapped in the yard forever.

Dash must have eaten something rotten again. He keeps scratching at the back door and when I let him out, all he does is eat grass. It's going to be a long night.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 153

It was finally dry enough today for me to go up on the roof with a caulking gun full of Henry Patching Cement and try to put an end to the nagging roof leaks. I've done this several times and I still have no idea what I'm doing. I've hired other people to patch the roof too, but they didn't know what they were doing either. Since water can seep through the tiniest crack or opening, you basically just spread the black tar-like sealer anywhere that you even remotely think might be the source of the leak. Unless a meteor falls on your roof or something, you're never going to actually see a hole in the roof. I found a couple of seams in the asphalt roofing material that looked like they might have gotten brittle and cracked, so I spread a big glop of the Henry Patching Cement around and hoped for the best. I also spread the stuff around all the areas where I remembered the roof had leaked before. When I was finished, I think I had as much of the messy cement on me as I had spread on the roof. It's supposed to rain this week, so we'll soon see if my efforts did any good.

When I turned the computer on this morning, I noticed that the clock had reset itself to 1969. Whenever this happens, it often means that the lithium PRAM battery on the motherboard has gone dead. I just replaced this battery last week however, so that probably isn't the problem. I like to think I know a lot about computers, but whenever I try to fix things myself, I usually just end up making matters worse. Truthfully, I probably don't know any more about fixing computers than I do about fixing roof leaks. Maybe I'll just leave the computer on instead of turning it off at night, since the problem only appears when I boot up the computer in the morning. Some people say that the hard drives will last longer if you never turn the computer off anyway. One thing is certain though. Whatever I do will end up being the wrong thing. I have a feeling that everything will be fine until then next time I'm two hours away from an important deadline. That's when the computer will choose to die.

I need to start getting more sleep. I seem to walk around perpetually tired these days. When I woke up this morning, I didn't want to get out of bed at all. I could have easily slept another two hours, but the dogs had other ideas. Their little internal clocks are so finely tuned that I probably don't even need the watches I wear or the clock on my computer. If I'm even five minutes late in fixing their breakfast, they both start barking and pestering me until I get back on schedule again. Of course, once they've been fed and had their walk, they go straight back to sleep again. Now, that's the kind of life I'd like to lead.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 152

In a day filled with walking dogs, washing dogs and taking dogs to the dog park, I eventually found a little time to open up the iPad box I got yesterday and see what was inside. The first thing I discovered was that Apple doesn't believe in instruction manuals anymore. The only instructions inside the box were printed on a small postcard sized piece of paper that basically just said "charge up the battery, plug the USB cable into your other computer, and see what happens." The whole setup routine takes place online.

Once I understood what was going on, I thought it would be a piece of cake to transfer all the information I needed from my other computer to the iPad. The tablet works just like an iPod, and syncs your information using the iTunes application. There was only one problem. Instead of just upgrading my system like a normal Apple user, I keep the old system drive and add new hard drives each time a new system is introdced. The main computer I use for work has four different hard drives that can boot five different Mac operating systems. The oldest of these drives contains most of my contact information, but it wouldn't sync up with the iPad at all because older version of iTunes on the drive wasn't compatible. The newest hard drive, containing the latest version of iTunes, worked just fine, but there was no contact information on the disk to sync. A bit ironic. Apple now offers this fancy "MobileMe" service that allows you to easily sync all your computers, iPods, iPhones and iPads remotely from anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, they never bothered to come up with a convenient way to sync different hard drives inside the same computer. I finally got all the contact and calendar information I wanted loaded in the iPad, but it sure wasn't as easy as just touching the sync button.

Two loose dogs came running after Dot and Dash while I was taking them on their evening walk today. There are signs all over the park saying "All dogs must be on a leash at all times" but people continue to ignore them. Luckily, these two dogs ware small and appeared to be friendly. This isn't always the case unfortunately. About a year and a half ago, Dash and I were attacked and badly bitten by a loose Pit Bull mix in our neighborhood. After that incident, I always worry when I see a loose dog in the park. Walking dogs in a city is kind of like driving a car in the city. No matter how careful you are, you still have to deal with all the other idiots who aren't careful at all.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 151

When I checked my e-mail this morning, there was a message that said "Congratulations, your iPad is here." You'd think my initial reaction would have been one of elation. Not really. My first thought was "Damn, I've got to go to NorthPark on a Saturday." Dallas shopping malls are a zoo on the weekends and I try to avoid them whenever possible. I like to shop when everybody else is at work and work when everybody else is shopping. Northpark is a peaceful, quiet place at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, but on Saturday afternoon, it's a battle zone. I had to go fight the crowds though. If I didn't hurry down to the Apple store and claim my iPad within 24 hours, I knew that Apple was going to give it to whoever was next in line.

After circling the parking lot for fifteen minutes trying to find a parking place before the piranha shoppers rammed my car while racing to squeeze their huge SUV's into the rare available parking slot, I finally got my iPad. Then it was off to the grocery store to get food for the week and over to the storage warehouse to move some of the clutter in my office to a place where I wouldn't trip over it anymore. When these chores and a load of laundry were done, I went down to Unleashed to help with today's pet adoption event. There was a great crowd, but it didn't look like a lot of dogs were getting adopted. Most of the people who stopped at the Dalmatian Rescue booth were from one of the other rescue groups attending the event. Actually, it seemed like everyone in the building was from some animal rescue group. Nick didn't get adopted today, but at least he had a great time playing in the dog park.

I'm glad Dr. Who got moved to a later time slot on the BBC channel. Now, at least I've got an outside chance of getting caught up on Saturday chores before relaxing to watch my favorite show. I'm starting to get used to Matt Smith as the new doctor. I didn't think anyone could top David Tennant, but I'm already starting to forget him. And how do I like my new iPad? Don't know yet. I've been so busy today that I haven't even had time to take it out of the box.

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Day 150

Another soggy, wet day with dogs huddled under my desk, rainwater collecting on my roof and horrible traffic everywhere I drove. I fantasize about living in a place with cool, dry weather and a low pollen count. I used to live in Seattle, which was cool most of the year, but seldom dry. I've spent a lot of time in Las Vegas, which is dry most of the year, but hotter than hell in the Summer. I'm not looking for variety. I had plenty of variety when I was growing up in Alaska. Texas is full of variety too. Since I moved here I've experienced dust storms, flash floods and two tornadoes. Mild, boring weather is what I'd like to find.

When I started the blog I wasn't going to have any advertising. I wanted a clean, uncluttered look that would remind people of a classy magazine. For a few weeks, I did have a clean, uncluttered layout and absolutely no readers. Then I added Google Adsense and when that didn't bring many visitors, I added Entrecard. Where does it all end? Now I've added Adgitize. Pretty soon, my blog will look just as cluttered as eneryone else's.

There's another big dog event this weekend. This one is a combination garage sale, silent auction and pet adoption featuring over a dozen area rescue groups. I'm not even sure who is coming, but Dalmatian Rescue is bringing Nick, so he can get a little more exposure to people who might want to give him a good home. Nick is such a good looking, friendly dog that I'm amazed he hasn't been adopted yet. Hopefully, the rain will quit by tomorrow morning. Who knows. The rain might actually help attendance, since the event is being held at Unleashed. Every time we've been to the indoor dog park on a rainy day, the place has been packed.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 149

For some reason Thursdays are always the day I update the websites I manage. I don't know what is so special about Thursday, but it must have something to do with getting internal approvals. On Monday they know what they want to change. On Tuesday and Wednesday they try to find someone to approve the changes. On Thursday they give the changes to me. And of course on Friday, everyone goes home early. I never get much work on Friday.

This evening Janet and I went to a TopGolf party. TopGolf is weird kind of a cross between a driving range, a theme restaurant and a video game. You play with real golf clubs and hit regulation sized golf balls just like any driving range. What makes TopGolf unique is that inside every ball is a computer chip that tracks the distance and accuracy of your shots. You play in teams of four and try to hit targets from 50 to 250 yards away, as the computer keeps score and awards you points. It is definitely golf for lazy people. Oddly, after you've been playing a while, the whole experience seems remarkably like playing golf on a golf course. Well, I guess it's like playing golf would be like if you didn't have to drive the cart around from hole to hole and if waitresses followed you around the course, bringing you something to eat and drink every five minutes.

I'm not a good golfer. In addition to being left handed, I don't have great hand eye coordination. Other people worry about hooking and slicing the ball. If my swing connects with the ball at all, I consider the shot a success. One good thing about this TopGolf game is that you don't have to embarrass yourself looking for lost balls in the rough all the time. I do wish I could still drink though. When the rest of my team was on their fourth glass of wine, they all seemed to be having a lot more fun than I was drinking my lonely bottle of sparkling water. Too bad the liver is such an important organ. I wish it was more like the gallbladder and I could just do without it.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 148

The employee photos went well today. Everyone seemed happy. One person even asked if they could buy extra prints for themselves. All in all, it wasn't a bad day. I even got the interview I need to do with the petrochemical executive in Brazil scheduled for next week. Of course, the Germans who hired me are off in Malaysia somewhere and I'm still not sure what questions they want me to ask.

Maybe I'm finally starting to get the hang of multitasking. I was running late this morning, so when I let the dogs out in the yard after breakfast, I took a battery travel shaver and shaved outside while I was watching them. You'd think I could just let the dogs out in the yard like a normal person and go on about my business. That doesn't work with Dalmatians. If I let them the dogs of my sight for two minutes, Dot will eat dead birds the neighborhood feral cats drag in and Dash will eat so much bark that has fallen off the big oak trees in the yard that he will make himself sick. As dogs go, these two are fairly high maintenance animals.

At training class tonight, our teacher asked what would happen if Janet and I switched dogs. I'm not sure, but I suspect that Dash would be much better behaved and Dot would act exactly the same as she always does. The dogs have distinctly different personalities. Dot has never won a ribbon in class, but she always comes when she's called and can sit still for five minutes without moving. Dash, on the other hand, has won quite a few ribbons, but he is completely unreliable. I have to always keep him on one of those long twenty five foot training leashes to make sure he won't run away. He often irritates people by barking in class, but on a good night he can do every single exercise perfectly. Basically, Dot always tries her best to please and Dash just doesn't give a shit.

I heard today that all the Apple stores in Dallas have completely sold out of iPads. Even the less expensive Wi-Fi models are all gone. Oh well, I guess it might be a while before I get one of these things. When my iPad does arrive, maybe I can take my feeble attempts at multitasking to a whole new level. Instead of shaving outside in the yard with the dogs, I might be able to write the blog outside in the yard with the dogs.

Someone needs to explain "Wordless Wednesday" to me. I always seem to write just as many words on Wednesday as any other day. I didn't talk to many people today though, so maybe that counts.

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Day 147

Against my better judgment, I went down to the Apple store and put my name on a waiting list for a 3G iPad. No wonder Apple stock is doing so well. The store was packed full of people trying to buy a product that wasn't even available yet. The sales people couldn't even tell you when it was going to be available. "It won't be long," a friendly guy in a black Apple T-shirt told me. Then he added my name to an electronic list and said I'd get an e-mail when my iPad arrived. I've convinced myself that I need one of these new iPads because it seems like a fabulous way to show a photo portfolio to potential customers.  Never mind the fact that I can already show a nice looking photo portfolio to just about anyone with the laptop I already have. Never mind the fact that many people would rather look at photographic prints instead of electronic images anyway. I've made up my mind. I need one of these iPads.

What a boring day! I think this blog would be more interesting and probably a little easier to write if I just changed the name to "A liar's journal" and wrote about interesting, imaginary things I'd like to do instead of telling you what I actually did. Real life can be exceedingly uneventful. If I didn't have the Apple store to talk about, I'd have to resort to telling you about ironing shirts and cleaning toilets. Oh, I guess I did make some phone calls and sent out several e-mails this afternoon trying to track down the status of various jobs that clients have decided to put on the back burner. I generally prefer cleaning toilets to these type of calls. At least you wind up with a clean toilet.

I've got some more employee pictures to take tomorrow. The job ought to be fairly easy because this company tends to hire good looking employees. I dread these type of jobs when all the employees are fifty pounds overweight and have two double chins. I really try the best I can. I tell everyone to open their eyes wide and not to squint. I explain the importance of a warm natural smile. I tell folks that if they look up a bit instead of down, the double chins will go away. It usually doesn't work. You'll never be able to please people who don't want to be photographed in the first place. I don't understand why some companies insist on putting up website pictures of their employees when the employees don't want to be photographed. And just so you know folks, if you're fifty pounds overweight and aren't wearing any makeup, I can't turn you into Heidi Klum in Photoshop. I'm a photographer, not a magician.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 146

It was definitely a Monday today. I couldn't seem to get caught up all day. There certainly wasn't that much going on, but everything I did seemed to take forever. I wanted to get this month's invoices out this afternoon, but the envelopes kept getting stuck in the printer. I had to print each envelope three or four times before I could get something that the postman could read. No wonder many of my clients have gone back to just using a rubber stamp to print their return address on the envelope. It's amazing how often technology designed to make your life more efficient actually ends up slowing you down.

I had to go to the grocery store today because I was too busy with dog events over the weekend to get any shopping done. I forgot to get half the things on my list because, you guessed it, I forgot to bring the list with me. I totally depend on lists these days. There are so many things to remember that I've just given up trying to keep them all in my head at the same time. I definitely need to add "call a plumber" to this week's to do list. The trap under the sink in Janet's bathroom just fell off somehow, and I don't think that the bucket I put under the sink is going to be acceptable for very long. With a house that was built in 1955, there is something that breaks or disintegrates just about every day.

I wish I could find some work that was fun but still paid well. The websites I design don't pay very well at all and the jobs that still have decent budgets are so complicated they give me migraines. At least this blog is still fun. For a very brief moment last night I noticed that "Some Assembly Required" had risen to number one in the Entrecard Personal Diary category. I never thought I'd see that happen. My rise to the top certainly didn't last long. I did a screen capture just to make sure I wasn't imagining things and about thirty seconds later the Entrecard website refreshed itself and I slid straight back to number five again. I'll probably slide straight to the bottom as soon as I stop dropping on as many sites as I can before my thumbs freeze up. I'm just waiting for the medical report that says Entrecard dropping has been determined to be a leading cause of Carpal tunnel syndrome.

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