Day 1053

I was delighted to receive a payment from one of my European clients today. Then, about two hours later, I was dismayed to receive a letter from the medical testing lab saying my liver enzymes were way too high again. It went back and forth like this all day. I was pleased when the FedEx man knocked on the door and handed me the new lens I've been waiting for. On the other hand, I was disgusted to see the price of gold drop $40 an ounce in a single day.

I've noticed something new in Blogger. It says "Your blog is now eligible for Google Affiliate Ads." What's that all about? There's also a new little dialog box with a picture of a camera, a bicycle, a blender, and a running shoe. Evidently if I blog about one of these things, I might make a little money. I don't want to blog about any of these things. Knowing Google, it would be a very little amount of money too. I've been running Adsense ads for ages and have never even made enough to pay my phone bill. I think I'll just ignore these Affiliate Ads.

I had to turn the air conditioner back on today. We are only a few degrees away from an all time record high for November 2. It was almost ninety degrees outside this afternoon. Pretty weird, especially when a lot of the country is already getting snow. I'm happy enough to see the warm weather continue. The office isn't insulated very well, and it tend to get chilly when the weather turns cold.

I hope you folks in New York and New Jersey get your power back on soon. The longest I've ever had to go without electricity was five days. I think it's already been five days for some folks in the Northeast. The things I remember most about our big power outage was that food goes bad in the refrigerator very quickly and there really isn't much to do in the evenings without any electricity.

I didn't get to go out for my Friday morning breakfast today. I had to stay and wait for the FedEx delivery guy instead. My package required a signature and I wasn't about to let the driver take the package to my neighbor's house in my absence. Both my neighbors are like a black hole for misplaced mail. If something gets delivered to their houses by mistake, it can be weeks before I see it again. So, I waited, and waited, and waited. Sometimes there really isn't much to do even with electricity.

Delilah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1052

I went and visited with my watchmaker today. Although Kevin is technically a client, he seldom has much for me to do. Good watch repairmen don't need to advertise. With so few young people going into this line of work, the handful of remaining watchmakers have more work than they know what to do with. I wanted to learn how to repair watches once and quickly discovered that I was much too clumsy to become a good watch repairman. I would continually drop tiny little screws on the floor and never see them again. This is why I was visiting Kevin today. Janet doesn't even want me to change the batteries on her watches anymore, so I take them to a professional instead. My own watches are a different story. I've got so many basically worthless timepieces that I can afford to lose a few screws with my clumsy ways.

One of my New York clients called me today. He said he'd been sitting in his car waiting to get gas for over an hour and a half. We talked for a while about upcoming assignments and then he abruptly told me he had to go. Evidently someone was trying to cut in line right ahead of him and he wasn't going to let that happen. I'm glad I don't live on the East Coast right now.

I got the large format printer running for long enough this afternoon to print out some posters I needed for an upcoming animal rescue event. After printing only four posters, the red warning light came on that said I needed more Light Cyan ink. Didn't I just buy a lot of expensive ink the last time I used this printer? This is getting ridiculous. I'm beginning to think it would be a lot more economical if I just scrapped the printer and took a CD with the file to Kinkos whenever I needed to print something big.

Years ago, when I was fascinated with automobiles, a friend told me that practically anyone could afford to buy an old worn out Ferrari, but that you had to be rich to keep it running. I'm discovering that this is true with practically everything in life. I've got a fabulous printer, but I can't afford to keep it filled with ink. I've got a ton of old watches, but I can't afford to keep them all running. It's too bad that simplicity never really appealed to me. I'm surrounded by musical instruments I can no longer play and perfectly good shoes that haven't kept pace with my expanding feet. A day will come when I'll probably even have more blog posts than I know what to do with.

Jeda is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1051 - Halloween

The scariest thing about today was the total lack of activity. I felt like I'd fallen into a black hole. No calls. No e-mail. No work. I'm not even close to the hurricane either. Usually I'm pretty busy in October, but this entire month was pretty dead. I hope this isn't a sign of things to come.

Our dog training class had their annual Halloween party this evening.  Everyone dresses their dog up in costumes to compete for prizes in a variety of categories. Sometimes we go to a lot of trouble to make our own original costumes and win nothing. Other times we just buy a cheap costume from a party store and win. There's no rhyme or reason to this thing. Dot won tonight in the Diva category wearing a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader outfit. Dash went as a fireman, but won nothing.

I'm always amazed at how much trouble some people go to for a party that seldom lasts over 45 minutes. Tonight one family dressed their dogs up as Ghostbusters, complete with very realistic proton packs on their backs. There was also a Great Dane wearing a saddle and two German Shepherds dressed as wolves in sheep's clothing. Their owner, Little Red Riding Hood, said she made the sheep costumes using the seat covers from her car. The dogs didn't get candy, but there were plenty of dog biscuits to go around. I'm sure your kid's Halloween party was very similar.

I think I made a big mistake ordering something from New York during the hurricane. The store says my order has been shipped, but FedEx begs to differ. They say their trucks aren't even operating in certain parts of the city yet. It appears my lens has fallen into a black hole as well. I'm sure I'll get the order eventually, but I sure wasted my money on FedEx second day delivery.

I didn't get a pumpkin this year. Every time I get decorative pumpkins for the front porch they end up rotting and I have a big mess to clean up around Christmas. Nothing to clean up this year. It's onward to November. I've already voted, so next Tuesday is no big deal. When Thanksgiving rolls around I'm sure everyone will be thankful that all the political ads have finally disappeared from our televisions and phones.

Roxy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1049

I've been watching coverage of Hurricane Sandy off and on throughout the day. I'm glad I don't live in a hurricane zone. We have tornadoes here in Texas, but the odds of actually being struck by a tornado are relatively small. Tornadoes are very localized. A tornado can destroy houses in one block and leave the homes in the next block completely untouched. Texas tornadoes come and go fairly quickly too. Usually if you are under a tornado alert, it will typically all be over in an hour or two. Hurricanes last a lot longer and are much harder to avoid. It looks like Hurricane Sandy is over seven hundred miles wide and is in the process of swallowing up entire states. I'm glad I'm far, far away and I hope that my readers on the East Coast will stay safe.

Monday's are typically slow, but today was not your average Monday. I was busy most of the day making changes to various websites. Most of the updates were easy, but one request was for something I had completely forgotten how to do. Instead of admitting that I didn't have a clue about making this particular update, I spent a couple of hours on Google researching the subject and brushing up on my Javascript skills. By mid-afternoon, I had everything running smoothly. The whole episode taught me a valuable lesson: never put any code on a website that you are likely to forget later.

A saw a large hawk on our morning walk. I think it was a Ferruginous Hawk, but it could easily have been a Red Tail Hawk instead. There are lots of bunnies in the park this year. The hawks have probably returned to eat the bunnies. I need to start taking my camera again, because these birds are beautiful when you catch one in flight.

It's kind of weird to turn on the television and hear people talking about the weather instead of the election. I actually prefer hearing about the weather, even if it is a big storm. I hope the hurricane passes quickly though. I need to order some camera equipment from B&H in New York, and it will be nice when my East Cost clients get back to work again. I certainly didn't get any assignment from the East Coast today.

Dakota is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day