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