Day 88

My leasing agent called me yesterday and said that she thought she finally had a tenant for my rent house. This means I can't put off fixing the leaking toilet any longer, so I went down this afternoon to install a new fill valve. A minor repair like this should have been an easy ten minute job, but as usual, I forgot a few essential things. I should have remembered that I needed to replace all the rubber seals and gaskets along with the fill valve itself. Needless to say, the job took a little longer than I expected.

I got back the double-sided Xemex from my watchmaker today. I was totally amazed to see this thing again, since even the factory authorized service center in Ohio said it couldn't be fixed. David is an amazing watchmaker though. He hand-made a special part for me that is no longer available anywhere. The watch appears to run perfectly now. Oh, I forgot to mention...this amazing watchmaker is also the same guy who broke the watch in the first place. If there's a lesson to be learned here it is this: you should never yell and scream at people when things go wrong. Be patient, act nice, and things will eventually work themselves out. I try to remember this always, even though it is difficult when dealing with healthcare and insurance people.

Last week I felt like yelling at the iStockphoto people for rejecting some shots I happened to like a lot. Well, this morning I looked at those photos again with a more critical eye and you know something...the iStockphoto folks were right. The photos sucked. I never should have sent them in the first place.

Everyone seems to celebrate St. Patrick's Day today in Dallas, even though the actual holiday isn't until next Wednesday. I guess it's more fun to drink on a weekend. I didn't even have a beer today, which only proves one thing: having a lot of willpower and having a lot of fun are two different things entirely.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day