Day 760

I got up early this morning to have my cholesterol tested at the neighborhood health food store. I used to have to stand in a long line for these low cost blood tests, because there are a lot of old people in the neighborhood who apparently get up at the crack of dawn to come to these events. I finally discovered a surefire way to be first in line every time. I come about ten minutes before the store opens and stand in front of the door. I'm never the first to arrive. I'm just the first to get out of my car. The rest of the people sit in their cars until the owner opens the door and turns on the "open" sign in the window. Sure enough, I was first in line again today. It's a simple plan, but it works every time.

We had reservations for the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the art museum at 1 PM, so wouldn't you know; just about when we were getting in the car to go downtown, the telephone repairman arrives to check on a buzz in the line. It never fails. I'd called the telephone company two weeks ago about this noisy line, but they never told me when they were going to come fix it. I opened up the back gate, so the guy could get to the box on the side of the house, and then we left. As you might expect, when we got home, the buzzing noise in the line was just as loud as it was before. I've lost all faith in repair people. Basically, we live in a throw away society and nobody can fix anything.

It was fun going to the exhibit. I haven't been downtown in several years. I used to have a lot of clients with downtown offices, but they all moved to the suburbs years ago. Downtown Dallas appears to be thriving though. There were lots of new buildings; especially in the arts district.

If you are even remotely interested in fashion, the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit is well worth seeing. Is it art? Definitely! I know it's just a bunch of dresses, but there was more creativity and imagination here than I saw hanging on the walls in the rest of the museum. All that being said, Jean Paul Gaultier is definitely an acquired taste. I couldn't imagine anyone actually wearing most of these androgynous, bondage inspired outfits. The show was spectacular though. The mannequins were eerie, with the lifelike moving eyes and mouth that was projected on each face. From a few feet away, the mannequins looked like they were alive.

Once we were back home again, I had difficulty telling whether the furnace was working or not. I know it's the middle of Winter, but it got so warm today we almost had to turn the air conditioner on.

Kasey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 759

The furnace repair folks were over at the house promptly at 8 AM this morning. They worked on the furnace for about an hour and a half and during the entire time they were here, Dot barked incessantly. She worked herself into such a frenzy that she ended up pooping in the front hallway. I tried to keep her quiet, but it really didn't do much good. Dot is so bad about having other people in the house that I hate having to call repair people. I'm sure the repair people don't like all the commotion either. Half of them are convinced Dot will bite them and the other half are just irritated at the noise. I guess it wasn't really surprising that after the furnace technicians charged me $220 and left, the furnace wasn't working any better than it was before they arrived. This has happened before.

Since Dot had already had her little incident in the hallway, I didn't think the dogs could wait for their walk until I finished breakfast. As soon as the furnace truck pulled out of the driveway, I put on their leashes and took them on a belated morning walk. By the time we got back home, Dot and Dash were back to normal again, but it was too late for me to have breakfast. I had already entered the fasting period before my MRI and I couldn't eat at all. It was just that kind of a day. I didn't get anything to eat until dinner time.

The MRI was almost identical to a CAT scan, except it was a lot noisier. The machine makes a noise like a jack hammer while it is running, but you can hardly even hear it, because the technicians make you wear headphones during the scan and pipe in "easy listening" music at volumes even higher than the noise of the machine. The only thing I didn't like about today's scan is that it was one of those "enhanced" scans where they pump you full of dye to increase the contrast of the images. The dye stings a bit when it enters your veins, but it's no big deal. The whole process takes about thirty minutes. Periodically, you hear the technician telling you to hold your breath through the headphones and then it's over. I got dressed again, put all my metallic objects back in my pockets and went home.

Considering that I'd already had some blood drawn yesterday, had some more drawn today at the MRI place so they could formulate the right strength of dye, and will have even more drawn tomorrow for a cholesterol test, I'll well on my way to the Guinness Book of records. I don't think I've ever had as many tests done to me as I have this year.

In between the furnace repair and the MRI, I managed to find time to update several websites. One of the updates involved removing video clips I had shot and replacing them with similar, but fancier looking, clips shot by a local television station. I thought my videos were just fine, but hey; I got paid for putting them up and now I'm getting paid for taking them down. It's a living.

Tomorrow, we're finally going to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the art museum. We planned to do this last month, but there just hasn't been time. I think this is the first thing we've done purely for fun since we went to the Pryamid Room for Thanksgiving dinner. At any rate, I'm looking forward to seeing the exhibit. Until then, I'd better go put on a sweater. The house is getting cold again. I can't believe that furnace is actually working worse now that it was before the repair guys came. Maybe Dot was trying to tell me this morning that these guys didn't know what they were doing.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 745

I think I'm ready to start 2012 with a clean slate. I've got the new orphans added to the animal rescue sites I manage. I've completed my watch articles. I've sent all the content for my oil and gas project off to Germany. I've even finished most of my bookkeeping and accounting for the year.

Now it's on to projects of a more personal nature. I discovered that nobody's referring me for a MRI because my doctor is on a skiing vacation. Still have to resolve that one. I need to get the furnace folks out to the house again too. The furnace is actually behaving worse after its Winter service than before. I have a feeling that I'm going to have a major problem unclogging my large format printer soon, because I haven't turned it on in over three weeks. I've just been too busy.

Janet wants to see the Jean Paul Gaultier exhibit at the DMA while it's still in town, so we may do that this weekend. We'll certainly go to a dog park. Since it's a holiday, we may even go twice. New Year's Eve itself will probably be pretty quiet. After years of playing noisy New Year's Eve parties in a rock band, I much prefer to just stay at home and watch old Dr. Who movies these days. I'm certainly looking forward to having some good champagne tomorrow evening. Although I can't drink anymore, I grant myself an exception on holidays.

I noticed that all the Adgitize widgets have disappeared on my blog today. I guess that means that Adgitize is gone for good. I'm still a bit sad to see this venture fail. I've seen so many good ideas fail over the years and so many bad ideas succeed. There's just no justice in the world sometimes.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day