Day 392

Although the day ended well, it certainly didn't get off to an auspicious start. I woke up with a clever new plan to transfer my huge image files over to my new computer. I'll spare you the geeky details, but I'd just started the file transfer process and was fixing breakfast when a guy from the power company unexpectedly shut off the power to the house. Of course, the computer, the external disc array with all the pictures, and everything else that was turned on in the house immediately died.

When I ran outside to find out what was going on, Dash immediately took advantage of the situation and ate my breakfast. I should have put the food on top of the refrigerator or in the microwave oven like I usually do, but I was in a hurry to catch the electric company guy before he disappeared. It turns out they were installing new electric meters with built-in WiFi so they wouldn't need meter readers anymore. The new meter automatically transmits how much electricity you are using back to the electric company in real time. This is exactly why the whole jobs situation isn't going to be resolved any time soon. It doesn't matter who controls the house or the senate. The reality of the situation is that companies not only don't want to hire new employees, they're actually bending over backwards to get rid of the ones they already have. These days just about everybody would much rather have a machine do the job than a person who expects health care and a 401K.

After the dogs quit barking and the house returned to normal, I went to have lunch with my friend Harry. Harry is the only person I know who has had a book on the New York Times best seller list. It's still a bit of a mystery to me how my friend made the transition from advertising copywriter to best selling parenting author, but I'm definitely impressed with his success. Harry now has eleven books in print. We used to talk about local advertising gossip when we got together. It's probably a sign of the times that today we traded iPhone apps and speculated about how to use Twitter to promote our businesses. A few years ago neither of us even knew what social media was. Now it's pretty clear that's it's going to shape our future.

My luddite historian sister thinks that things like e-mail and Facebook are tools of the devil and still expects me to send her hand-written letters. I think she's out of touch. Like it or not, Facebook has become the new neighborhood. I know lots of people who haven't even bothered to get to know their flesh and blood neighbors, but they couldn't imagine not checking their Facebook status every morning. It's a brave new world out there. I guess you either embrace it or get left behind.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day