Day 998

I got this e-mail last night that said "Congratulations, you're one of the top 100 Twitter users in Dallas." What? I wasn't even aware that I used Twitter very much. Curiosity drove me to the website that made this astounding claim and sure enough, I was listed as number 56 among the city's most active Twitter users. I was right up there with the aspiring musicians and over-the-hill athletes. I wondered how this could have happened, and then I realized that since the Twitter API makes it so easy to turn virtually anything into a Tweet, I had a lot more Tweets than I thought. I'll have to admit that I kind of like Twitter. It's the perfect medium for people like me who like to throw notes out to sea in bottles. I've accumulated a lot of Twitter followers and I don't know any of them. I can tell you one thing. It's a lot easier to deal with 20,000 people you don't know on Twitter than 20 you actually do know on Facebook.

Janet and I met some cute Dalmatians today up at the Dalmatian Rescue kennels. The new guys, Delilah, Annie and Eli, were quite small and all three were completely adorable. Two of the three dogs were still being treated for heartworm disease, but when these little guys get well, they should find homes almost immediately. I haven't seen a more appealing group of Dalmatians since the last group we photographed.

When I went to install the new printer ink I bought earlier in the week, I realized, much to my chagrin, that I had written down the wrong part numbers and had purchased colors I already had. Now, I've got to go back to the printer store and exchange these cartridges for the colors that are actually empty. Some of you probably think that I rattle on way too much about this silly printer, but it has become a symbol of life's frustrations for me. When I first got the printer, I was fascinated by the gorgeous prints I could make. I learned how to make beautiful Giclée fine art prints using wonderful archival papers that would last 100 years. Friends saw these prints and started asking me to print things for them. They just thought my printer was a bigger version of their own printers and never realized how much trouble it was for me to prints things for them. I eventuality realized the printer was only good for making fine art prints, so I spent a lot of time printing my best images and was able to use these images to get invited to show in several good galleries. This seems like a story with a happy ending. It would have been a happy ending if I hadn't come to despise the gallery world. Making it in the gallery world made advertising seem like an honest days work. I've never seen anything more phony and contrived than the business side of fine art. So, there you have it. I had become an expert fine art printer with no desire to participate in the art world anymore. I had no desire to make Giclée prints, but my love of machinery compelled me to maintain the bulky printer and keep it functioning. A love/hate relationship if there ever was one.

Luckily I have no such ambiguities when it come to Dot and Dash. I dearly love these dogs. They ought to have fun at the dog park tomorrow. A cold front blew through last night and it is at least twenty degrees cooler today. Finally, it feels like Fall!  I'm looking forward to the changing of the seasons. This Summer has been a hot one.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day