Day 567

I'll have to admit that I was just as surprised at the Casey Anthony verdict as everyone else. The TV was on when they read the verdict and I remember looking over at the screen and thinking "Jeez, they must have forgotten something...she's got to be guilty of something." Later in the day, I heard a commentator say, "you can't just convict somebody for being a bad person" and my first thought was "Well, why not?" Life would be a lot more peaceful if you could convict someone for being a bad person.

I'm certainly no expert, but I do have a theory why the jury returned a "not guilty" verdict. In my own little world, just about everyone I know is disgusted with the government. It doesn't matter if they are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. They are all disgusted with the government about one thing or another. Ordinary citizens don't get that many chances to tell the government what they think. Sure, you can vote the bums out of office, but even that doesn't seem to fix anything. The rising star you voted for will probably just turn out to be the next Anthony Weiner. Maybe that jury in Florida was just fed up and felt like telling the State to stuff it.

Speaking of stuff. More outdated stuff got boxed up and went to the storage warehouse today. I managed to clear off two entire shelves. Granted, this isn't huge progress, but it is something. If I can keep this up and continue to remove a little clutter every week, I may still meet my goal of having a clean office by the end of the year.

I've got a much more immediate goal for tomorrow. I need to get up two hours earlier than normal. I promised my friend Tom that I'd go to his next business networking breakfast when we had lunch last week and that breakfast happens to be tomorrow. It's been a long time since I said anything coherent at 7:30 in the morning, but I'll give it a shot. I've got to dress up nice as well. This shouldn't be a problem. I've got tons of business clothes that I never, ever wear. At any rate, it would be nice to make some new contacts. People like what I do. My doctors, my veterinarians, my contractors, my watchmaker and my old ad agency buddies have all become clients. I don't get out much though. Maybe it's time to meet some new people. Unfortunately, I don't have any business cards to pass out at the breakfast. When I ran out five years ago, I never bothered to reprint any.

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Day 566 - Independence Day

I've taken so many pictures of flags that I could probably show you something patriotic on the Fourth of July for the rest of my life. One year, one of my clients based their entire advertising campaign around the idea of flags and I went all over Dallas, taking pictures of every flag I could find. Some of the pictures turned out pretty nice. I took this one on a highway overpass, looking back at the city just after sunset. Every time a large truck went by, the entire bridge shook. I remember thinking at the time that it was a lot easier taking pictures in an air conditioned studio.

The dogs got to enjoy yet another new dog park today. We thought this one would be real fancy, since it was located in the Park Cities, but it was basically just a large vacant lot with a fence around it. Dot and Dash didn't seem to care that the park was missing a few amenities. There were new things to smell and new places to pee. Dash chased birds for a while and Dot sunned herself. You can tell they enjoy these outings. It's just too bad that Dash doesn't travel better in the car. He's usually OK on the way home, but the outbound trip to someplace new is always stressful. Dash makes such a commotion that he's going to cause a wreck one of these days.

I keep hearing on TV that there is unprecedented interest in the Casey Anthony murder trial. I think I know why. There's absolutely nothing else on TV these days. When I turned on the television at breakfast this morning, every single channel was broadcasting the closing statements live. You couldn't avoid this trial if you wanted to.

I'm ready to box up some more things to take down to the storage warehouse, but I'm having trouble finding the boxes. I know that I saved the boxes, but they're way at the back of the warehouse, covered up by years of other things that were relegated to storage. I did such a good job of utilizing ever available inch of space in the storage unit that the place looks like a Rubic's Cube now. To rearrange things I have to remove boxes in just the right order or nothing will budge. I'm envious of those guys who have huge storage units that they turn into man caves. A man cave would be nice. It would have to be air conditioned though. My storage space is just a narrow, very hot little room filled with dusty boxes.

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