Day 383

Around this time of year I'm always trying to think of new ways to make money that are actually enjoyable. There are plenty of ways to make money and there are plenty of things I enjoy. The difficulty had always been in combining the two. I've always had this fantasy of making my living as a songwriter. Seemed like it might work at certain points in my life. Hey, I'd written tons of advertising jingles. I knew people in Nashville. There was only one problem. I can't sing. This is kind of how it goes with my dream jobs. I always forget one critical element. I started a little greeting card company once. I designed some beautiful cards and had them printed. They were all square. I didn't realize at the time that the post office doesn't like non-standard sizes and was going to charge me double to mail my square greeting cards. I didn't sell many of these cards because it cost almost a dollar each to mail one.

Now I'm at it again. I keep thinking I ought to start a specialty advertising agency just for veterinarians. On some levels this makes a lot of sense. Half my current clients are veterinarians anyway. I love dogs and know a lot about veterinary medicine. What could go wrong? This might be a great idea if it weren't for the fact that I haven't met a veterinarian yet who actually believed in advertising. Most of them hate to advertise their business and some even think it is unprofessional. I still might give this a shot though. I do know a lot of vets and I guess you've got to play with the cards you're dealt.

I'm also curious to see whether I could produce professional videos using a DSLR still camera. A lot of the newer high-end digital still cameras can take fabulous looking HD video using an almost unlimited selection of lenses. The only problem is that these cameras don't capture sound very well. What if I went back to shooting double system sound like I did in the days when I was making movies with a 16mm film camera and a Nagra tape recorder? There are plenty of small timecode audio recorders available these days. I wonder if I could sync one to a DSLR camera? I might even be able to use my iPad as a timecode slate. Lord knows how many hours I'll waste this year fiddling with this idea. A smart person would find out if there was a market for this sort of thing before spending a lot of time perfecting the process. What fun would that be though?

We drove the dogs all the way up to Wagging Tail Dog Park this afternoon, only to discover that it was closed due to standing water. When Dot and Dash saw us turn around and head home without letting them out to play, they both started barking and whining. We had to look for an alternate dog park to keep our sanity. The dogs were happy enough when we stopped at a much shabbier looking dog park on the way home, but Janet and I both ended up with dog poop on our shoes.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day