Day 1642

The grass has been cut. The yard looks nice. The refrigerator has been restocked. There are clean sheets on the bed and all the laundry has been done. This is usually what I do on a Saturday. These small chores are just a way to kill time while avoiding larger more arduous chores. If I was more ambitious, I would rebuilt the rotting greenhouse, fix the leaking shower pan, or paint all the window trim. These multi-day projects are much more difficult that they initially seem. You start to paint and you realize that the wood underneath needs to be replaced first. You pick up a wrench and realize that you don't have the right sized socket. Most of my trips to Home Depot are the result of a poorly planned major project. Once I've started something, I never seems to have the right tools, or even the right skills to finish it properly. When I stick to smaller things like mowing the grass, vacuuming, and changing watch batteries, I can feel like I've accomplished something without getting myself in a lot of trouble.

I finally came up with a solution to the web design problem that has been bothering me all week. I don't know why I had my eureka moment on a Saturday, but I'll take what I can get. I quickly prototyped my idea to make sure it would work and made plans to show the final result to my client sometime next week. It was just a dumb coding problem, but figuring it out without help from anyone else was much more satisfying than mowing the grass.

I occasionally wonder where would be the best place to retire. I don't have the answer, but I know we don't want to stay in a big city like Dallas. Whenever I've done any research, I'm always surprised to discover that cold northern states like North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wyoming have happier people and a better quality of life than southern favorites like Florida and California. Warm weather appears to attract problems. If I could learn to love the cold, Wyoming might be great. Few places are prettier and farmers and ranchers are the best people. Wyoming also has the lowest taxes in the country. On the downside, there's that giant volcano under Yellowstone park getting ready to explode. It that thing blows, you'd probably want to retire as far away as possible. Australia or New Zealand sounds about right.

I've got to get back to the gym tomorrow. I don't know what happened this week, but I never found time to workout at all. I guess mowing the grass counts as exercise, but sitting at the computer working on website problems and eating kolaches and bacon stuffed bagels for breakfast doesn't count for much. To end on a positive note, Dash's tail looks better today. Maybe he's finally learning to leave it alone.

Dai9sy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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