Day 285

What a busy day! We had to leave the house by nine this morning in order to get out to the Castle Hills Golf Club in time to register all the players for today's Dalmatian Rescue golf tournament. The car was filled with large banners, multi-media equipment and silent auction items. No golf clubs though. I don't even play golf. This event always seems to require a huge amount of preparation and I'm always tired when it's over. It's usually our most successful fund raiser though and this year the event will help pay for expensive orthopedic surgery that two of our rescue dogs needed so they could walk normally again.

Every year, I drive around the course in a cart and take pictures of each team for an instant multi-media show that we play for the golfers during the awards dinner. I've gotten a lot better at shooting sports pictures after five years of doing this. When I first started, I was always too early or too late when I tried to capture a golfer's tee off shot. By the time I snapped the shutter, the ball was already thirty yards away. Now, I can usually get a shot that shows the ball only about a foot away from the club just after it has been struck. I've finally seen enough golf swings through the viewfinder that I know to snap the shutter just a fraction of a second before I see the club connect with the ball.

I certainly felt connected today. I sent a Tweet from my iPad while I was sitting in a golf cart on the ninth hole of the Castle Hills course waiting for the next team to arrive. I think there was even a GPS tag attached. Not that anyone cared what I was doing at that particular moment in time, but it's still kind of neat that things like this can be done with such ease. I still enjoy checking on the dogs with the iPhone petCam too, although the application is kind of buggy and crashes my computer more times than it works.

The tournament was a success, although I noticed that we didn't have as many golfers or sponsors as we did the year before. Slowly but surely, the faltering economy is taking its toll on rescue organizations like ours. People still donate, but not as much or as often. The dogs don't know that times are tough though. Most of the Dalmatians that come into the rescue program still have heartworms and some like Kobe and Humphrey have required very expensive surgery as well. It's a never ending struggle to rehabilitate theses dogs, but events like today's golf tournament certainly help.

Now that I've committed to writing something new each and every day, I feel a bit like Cinderella when midnight approaches and I still haven't published my blog post. My coach hasn't turned into a pumpkin yet, but I've come pretty close. It's kind of weird that I've actually changed my plans several times already to avoid missing a day. It's not like climbing Mount Everest or anything, but I'd still like to make it through an entire year without missing a day. Tonight could have been a problem. Last year it took a long time to get things packed up after the tournament and we didn't get home till after midnight. This year, a lot of people stayed to help and everything went smoothly. It looks like I've got almost an hour to spare.

It was a good day. We helped some dogs. The weather was great. Even the dinner was pretty good.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day