Day 464

I submitted my first article to the BRAINZ group today. BRAINZ is a group of writers who all contribute an original essay about the same topic each month and then post the results on a website. I got invited to become a member of this group because one of the contributing writers liked my blog. I probably joined the group because it was flattering to be asked to join something called BRAINZ. If the writers group had been called The Doofus Club, I doubt that I would have joined. It will be interesting to see what the other writers have to say about this month's topic. I still might end up looking like a doofus.

At least I didn't end up looking like a doofus at tonight's animal rescue meeting. I presented the Gone with the Wind poster I've been working on and everybody loved it. I've still got to add the final verbiage and do some technical tweaking so everything will print properly, but the poster is basically done. I'm glad everybody liked what I've come up with because we're running out of time and I really didn't have a Plan B anyway. I'm still kind of amazed that this idea actually worked. The dog's smile almost exactly mimics the little mustache he's wearing and strangely, the cat actually does look madly in love with the dog.

The weather continues to be exceptionally nice. I hope the clear skies and 70 degree temperatures continue for a few days because there have already been a few setbacks in getting the new heat pump installed at my rent property. Most of the problems involve renting the proper crane to lift the heat pump to the roof. I hope you guys never have to rent a construction crane. They are very large and very expensive. I would have much rather purchased a new HD video camera for myself than a new air conditioner for my renter. Sometimes we don't get to choose these things, however. It's right in the lease that providing a habitable building is one of the things the landlord is responsible for.

I heard on the news this morning that some government agency was paying a staffer $110,000 a year to update Facebook pages. What were the rest of us thinking? We've all been doing this sort of thing for free.

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Day 460

I mowed the grass for the first time this year. This means I'll be mowing the grass every week from now through the end of September. I have two lawn mowers: an electric Black & Decker and a gas Yazoo. Both mowers have their shortcomings. I usually use the electric mower because it's very easy to start and doesn't require gas. It's not very strong however, and almost always bogs down and throws a circuit breaker in tall grass. The Yazoo mower is strong as a tank and will mow through anything, but it's almost impossible to start. I used the electric mower today and sure enough, it gave up the ghost at the first sign of tall grass. Now I've got two mowers that won't start and another item added to a growing "to-do" list.

There was a very visible police presence at the Wagging Tail Dog Park when we took Dot and Dash up to play this afternoon. They must still be having problems with people breaking into cars in the parking lot. I'm glad that the police are patrolling the park now. I'm not so glad that this type of crime is becoming an increasing problem throughout the city. I really don't think that Dallas is any worse than any other big city. Unfortunately, it's pretty bad everywhere.

Emmitt was the only rescue dog that could take a regular walk today. The rest were still completing their heartworm treatment. Poor Emmitt. He's eleven years old and nobody seems to want a senior dog. We keep hoping that someone will offer him a home. Our senior dogs do find good homes, but sometimes it takes a little longer.

It's definitely going to take a little longer than usual for me to put together the "Gone with the Wind" poster I've been working on. So far, I'm piecing together sections of four different photographs to create the final image. Getting two animals who weren't that fond of each other in the first place to look like they're falling in love is proving to be a bit of a challenge. I think I've come up with a solution, but it's going to take a couple more days of Photoshop work to get the image to a point where I can show it to anyone.

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Day 457 - St. Patrick's Day

Today's photo shoot was quite a bit different than yesterday's. Instead of taking pictures of search and rescue dogs, my job was to recreate the classic movie poster for Gone with the Wind using a dog as Rhett Butler and a cat as Scarlett O'Hara. My dog model was supposed to be very friendly with cats. And the cat was supposed to like dogs. As you might expect, that's not the way it turned out. I took some shots of the pair together, but it certainly didn't look like a love scene. After about five minutes miss kitty let us know that she wasn't going to tolerate a dog sniffing her much longer. We all decided that the prudent course of action would be to photograph each animal separately and then put the shot together in Photoshop. I really wish nobody even knew about Photoshop. Every time a shot gets difficult, I hear a chorus of "you can fix it in Photoshop" from whoever is on the set with me. You can definitely do a lot with Photoshop, but as far as I know, the software can't make animals like each other. It remains to be seen whether I can create any chemistry between this unlikely couple with my computer. Personally, I'd scrap the dog and just use the pictures of the cat. Apple, the cat, is hot. She's kind of the Heidi Klum of the cat world.

Today was a very busy day. When I wasn't trying to recreate Gone with the Wind with animals, I was working on my bid for the big week long oil and gas trade show in Houston this May. I think I'm already late in submitting this bid, but it's been complicated. I've finally got prices in from all the crew members I've assembled for the project, so all I need to do now is put everything together in Excel and turn it in. If the folks who are waiting for my bid happen to be reading this, I promise I'll have everything ready for you tomorrow. Really guys, your project is just as important to me as putting lipstick on a cat.

It was surprisingly warm today. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn it was early June. I resisted the temptation to turn on the air conditioner however. I know that as soon as I turn on the air conditioner, my electric bill is going to triple.

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Day 443

I finally got all my ring binders and file folders full of receipts assembled and took them over to my accountant's office. I thought they would be pleased that I had finally switched over to the Quickbooks accounting software they've been trying to get me to use for the past several years. I asked if they could read the disk with the Quickbooks file I had made for them. "Sure, we can read it just fine," they told me, "but you've set up all your files wrong." I guess I shouldn't have been surprised. I set the files up in a way that made intuitive sense to me. Whenever I do something that makes sense to me, it rarely makes sense to anyone else. When I asked if they could work with what they had, they said they could, but it would probably cost me a little more. Again, this is pretty much par for the course. At lease I can finally check this task off my list.

One of the animal rescue groups I work with has their big fundraising event of the year in May. I always do the promotional materials for this event and this year the theme is going to be based on the movie Gone With the Wind. Somehow at tonight's planning meeting, I agreed to recreate the classic 1939 movie poster with a dog dressed up as Clark Gable and a cat as Vivien Leigh. I have no idea how I'm going to get a cat to look up lovingly at a dog wearing a clip-on moustache and a white shirt open to the waist, but I've got about a week and a half to figure it all out. One thing is already certain. Dot and Dash aren't going to be in this picture. I couldn't bring either of them within ten feet of a cat without total chaos breaking out on the set.

I was supposed to start on my new annual report project today, but I never received the input material. I guess some things never change. Even back when I used to do a lot of annual report projects, I never got the input material on time. Hey, at least it's Friday tomorrow. I always like Fridays...mostly because the next day is Saturday.

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