Day 2216

I bought some Powerball tickets today. I'll never win, but how can you pass up a chance at 800 million dollars. It's rare that I ever buy lottery tickets, but when I do, I'm always amazed that there are so many other people doing the same thing. Often the people ahead of me in line buy lots of tickets. Don't they realize that the chances of winning are so remote that the odds are about the same whether you buy one ticket of a hundred? You have a much higher chance of being struck by lightening than winning the lottery. Probably everybody has had a fantasy about winning the lottery. I'll confess that I've contemplated winning, especially when the jackpot is so high. I'd immediately buy a house without a flat roof. I can't even tell you how tired I am to have standing water on the roof every time it rains. Maybe Janet and I would hire our own personal veterinarian. I doubt that I would change very much. I'm happy enough with the way things are. It would be nice not to have to worry about money anymore though. I always worry about money.

The weather turned really cold this afternoon. Later tonight, we're supposed to get our first hard freeze of the season. Since I'm not looking forward to the prospect of ice on the roof, I reluctantly put on my warmest clothes and went up to remove all the water while it was still liquid. This isn't pleasant work in nice weather, but it miserable up there when the temperature is near freezing and there's a thirty mile an hour wind. I have a feeling that my days of doing this are numbered. The roof has two levels. There is a lower carport level and then about three feet higher is the main roof. I access the main roof from the lower carport roof and then climb or take a giant step up to the main roof. Now that I'm having problems with my hip, I'm not as agile as I once was. Getting my leg up and over the three foot gap between the two flat surfaces isn't as easy as it used to be. I'm careful and methodical when I'm up on the roof, but this is beginning to seem like a job for a younger man.

I'm having problems with Blogger again. I wonder if Google even cares about this platform anymore. I sure have been having difficulties uploading and posting lately. Blogger will work for a little while and then it will disappear. Sometimes the text will appear, but all the pictures disappear. This has been happening for weeks. I notice in the forums that other people are having the same problem, but usually Google tech support keeps saying that nothing is wrong. It's frustrating to have no control over something you've put so much effort into. Maybe I should have started a Wordpress blog, but it's way too late for that now.

When I was at the grocery store today, I noticed a woman who was randomly opening bags of popcorn and chips on the shelves and offering samples to other customers. The woman was clearly nuts, but apparently management hadn't noticed her yet. Some people took the chips she offered, but most shied away from her. When she offered ma a sample, I politely declined.  I really felt like saying, "Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be in Walmart?" Probably it will be a loon like this who will win the lottery tonight.

I keep hoping that the furnace keeps working. So far, so good this winter. How do you Northerners cope with this weather? It hasn't even snowed yet, and I'm already sick of Winter.

Mack is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2182

For the first time in a very long time, Blogger appears to be down. When I logged on to write my post tonight, I couldn't view my blog at all and kept getting a message saying "Whoops, that's an error. We apologize for the inconvenience." Somehow this seemed like a lot more than a minor inconvenience when I was faced with the prospect of missing my first daily post since I started the blog 2182 days ago. I did a quick Google search and discovered that other people all around the world were having the same problem. Somehow this was comforting. My blog didn't just disappear. Google is working on the problem and if I write slowly, there's always a chance that they will get everything fixed before I finish telling you about today's activities.

There were certainly plenty going on today. We completed our second Santa Paws photo shoot and for the most part, everything went well. Everyone was tired. Some volunteers wore the same clothes that they did yesterday. I didn't even have time to take a shower. It was a long drive to today's location, so I had to get up even earlier than I did yesterday. We got Dot and Dash walked and fed, packed the cars with equipment, and off we went. I wish I had time to diagnose what was wrong with my camera yesterday, but that will have to wait. I just took a different camera with me today and all was well. Camera problems are mine and mine alone. The rest of the crew has their own problems to deal with. Sometimes the printer refuses to cooperate. Other times our credit card reader won't work. Frequently, people are late for their appointments and we get off schedule. We're a good team though. At the end of the day, everyone has their pictures and goes home happy.

Our luck ran out with the backdrop today. Several dogs peed on it and one dog pooped. I need to remember to pack a bottle of Nature's Miracle enzyme cleaner with the rest of my gear. It's the only thing that works with these types of stains. Our host had some disinfectant cleaners, but the backdrop still smelled like pee when I got home. I hung it outside to dry and will see if I can salvage it after I deal with the U-Verse people tomorrow.

I'm being optimistic and assuming that the U-Verse repair folks will actually show up tomorrow. Sometimes they don't. This has been the longest service outage I've had in a long time and it's starting to get on my nerves. As a web developer, I really depend on having a good internet connection. The Internet should be as reliable at your water and electricity. Oops. Now that I think about it, the Internet is actually more reliable than our electricity and water. After living without water for a week in a home that has power outages after every thunderstorm, I realize now that nothing is all that reliable anymore.

I hope the U-Verse technician can quickly and quietly fix our broadband without upsetting Dot and causing her to poop all over the house. I hope I can salvage the pee stained muslin photo backdrop so I don't have to buy another. I hope I can convince the client who was ready to dump me on Friday that I can provide the same quality of service at the new ad agency he's considering. I hope I can keep a smile on my face for the rest of the Christmas party season. Nobody needs to know how I really feel.

After spending most of this weekend eating fast food, I realize why so many people are overweight and have diabetes. Junk food tastes so good that it's hard to resist. Too much sugar and salt is always pretty tasty. It's too bad I couldn't lose weight on a steady diet of pizza and burgers. I always enjoy the pizzas I eat while I'm working on location, but it's back to healthy food tomorrow. I have tremendous will power, but I often wonder what's the point of it all. The people eating junk food seem to be having more fun.

Emma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 513

I spent most of the day writing html code. Now that I've spent the past several months doing a variety of different things back-to-back, I realize that I don't really like writing html code. I'd really prefer to spend my time video editing and writing. Writing and video editing generally seem to pay better than designing web sites too. All this makes me wonder why I'm still spending so much of my time designing and maintaining web sites. Probably because people are still asking me to build them. Today's coding isn't going to make me rich, but I did make good progress finishing what I've started. If I keep on working this evening, I may even have something to present tomorrow.

I just noticed that blogger.com, where this blog is hosted, has been down most of the day. What's up with that? I've seen service disruptions of an hour or so from time-to-time, but never anything this long. Blogger has been down over 24 hours. I've never missed a daily post in the entire history of this blog, but this may be out of my control. I guess the only thing I can do is write today's post in a word processor and then hope that blogger comes online again before midnight. I don't know why all this bothers me, but it does. Surely a big company like Google must have a backup plan. At least they could do things like the power companies do when they have a rolling power outage. Instead of shutting the entire domain down and taking hundreds of thousands of blogs down with them, couldn't they just take a couple of hundred down at a time while they isolate the problem? I bet there are a lot of frustrated people right now.

There's plenty of other stuff for me to do however. Maybe blogger will be back up again after I take the trash out to the street. Maybe it will be up again after I vacuum the carpets. Maybe it will be up after I balance my checkbook. I'm not going to lose any sleep over this though. It's out of my control. I learned a long time ago not to worry about things that were out of my control. Oh well, if Blogger is still down at midnight, I'll just backdate today's post when it eventually comes back online.

The park looks exceptionally green and beautiful right now. It's the perfect time to take Spring wildflower pictures. Maybe I'll do this tomorrow if I get my new website finished in time. Last year the wildflowers looked kind of spotty, but we've had lots of rain lately and they look fabulous this year. All I need is a cloudy bright day without much wind. Wait a minute….today was a cloudy bright day without much wind. Why didn't I do all this stuff today?

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day