Day 2026

Breakfast was the only thing that seemed like Friday today. I was busy all day long, but nothing was work related for a change. After we ate and took Dot and Dash on their morning walk, Janet and I drove up to Lewisville to take pictures of the new Dalmatians in the rescue program. We photographed six new dogs, which is more newcomers than we've had for a long, long time. It was fun getting to know a new bunch of Dalmatians again. Each of these new dogs was very friendly and got along well with their kennel mates. They were such a good looking, well adjusted bunch that I think all of them will find their forever homes very soon.

With so may new dogs, I began thinking that it might be time to completely redesign the Dalmatian Rescue website. I spent the rest of the day playing around with ideas. I wanted a mobile friendly design that looked more contemporary than the existing site, while still being easy to update as dogs found their homes. Designing these mobile friendly sites is tricky. I came up with something I really liked in the desktop version, but it didn't look that great when viewed on a phone. I actually made quite a bit of progress today, although the site is far from finished. Since this is a long, holiday weekend, I may have time to get all the kinks worked out before Monday. I'd better work fast though. If the new Dalmatians find homes before I get the website finished, I won't have much to show.

Several of our earlier Dalmatians loved to eat June Bugs in the Summer. It was fairly disgusting to watch the dogs eat these things while they were still alive, but our vet said they could cause no harm. Luckily Dot has no interest in eating bugs, but Dash has become obsessed with them lately. Every time we let him out to pee in the evening, he spends all his time looking for June Bugs. He doesn't find many, but that doesn't deter him from looking. I guess it could be a lot worse. One of our first Dalmatians would eat his own poop if you didn't watch him like a hawk.

I'm not really looking forward to tomorrow's fireworks displays. We've had so much rain this Spring that we don't really have to worry about an errant Roman candle starting a brush fire like people do out West. We do have to worry about the dogs though. Very few dogs, including our own, like the sound of fireworks. Fireworks and thunderstorms are all the same to them. Since Dot is partially deaf now, maybe she'll sleep through most of the commotion. I think we'll just stay inside tomorrow evening. Even without all the noise, the mosquitoes in the evening are terrible.

I spent most of the day today thinking it was Saturday. I'll probably spend most of the day tomorrow  thinking it's Sunday. Maybe if I accidentally do my Sunday chores on Saturday, I'll end up having the real Sunday free.

Bob Hope is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1669

Today was one small problem after another. My phone battery inexplicably went dead when it was supposedly fully charged. Unfortunately, this didn't prevent me from having irritating phone calls. I was on the phone with technical support at GoDaddy for over an hour, trying to resolve a client's website problem. The tech support guy kept insisting that the problem was on my end and that everything was working perfectly for him. I tried half a dozen "fixes" that the GoDaddy guy suggested, all to no avail. After spending an inordinate amount of time rebooting my computer and trying different browsers, the guys finally says, "Oh wait a minute. I just noticed that we have a job ticket open for a problem just like the one you are describing." Yup. The problem was with the GoDaddy servers after all.

Later in the day, a client called me and told me he was being audited. He said he wanted to give me a heads up, because the auditor told him that his suppliers could end up being audited as well. Great! That's just what I need. I was audited once. It wasn't fun. After three days of going over my life with a fine toothed comb, the auditors found that I'd done everything correctly. My tax returns were perfect and I owed the IRS absolutely nothing. The experience certainly wasn't free though. My accountant sent me a big bill for handling the audit.

When I went out to water the lawn this morning, I noticed that someone had unhooked my sprinkler from the garden hose and thrown it across the yard. Was this petty vandalism, or just code enforcement trying to send me a warning? I'll probably never know the answer. There are water restrictions in place this Summer, but I don't think they prevent you from watering before 10 AM. I'll have to get on the web and check the regulations. If it was code enforcement who unhooked my sprinkler, they'll be back.

The restaurant was really crowded when I went out for breakfast. Friday's always seem to be crowded these days. I think this just proves that we have already made the transition to a four day work week. It's amazing how much more congested everything is on a Friday. The roads are crowded. The stores are crowded. And lots of people are still eating breakfast at 10 AM when they should have been at work. I'm not sure what is going on, but Dallas certainly wasn't working very hard today.

Dash has discovered June Bugs. Luckily, Dot has never been interested in eating bugs, but Spot and Petey were obsessed with them. This is the time of year when June Bugs and Cicadas are everywhere.You can't go outside without hearing the characteristic "song" of these tasty dog treats. Now, when I let Dash out in the evening to pee, all he wants to do is hunt for Cicadas. He hasn't caught many so far, but he has definitely developed a taste for the bugs.

I hope this weekend is quiet and uneventful, with cooler temperatures than we had today. I'm probably just dreaming. Especially about the cooler temperatures.

Sophia is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 922

The dreaded white grubs have returned to our yard. Later in the Summer they will become June Bugs. Right now they are still in the larval stage, feasting on the roots of our new St. Augustine grass. These little beasties are hard to get rid of without harsh chemicals. Janet found something on the Internet today that was supposed to be effective at controlling the grubs while being completely harmless to dogs and other animals. My mission this afternoon was to go to garden stores and get some of this stuff. It didn't take me long to discover that Milky Spore, the grub eradicating bacteria that Janet found, wasn't effective on our kind of grub. Milky Spore was meant for controlling the grubs that turn into Japanese beetles. Since we don't have many Japanese beetles in Texas, the garden stores didn't carry any of the stuff.

I did discover that beneficial nematodes were the safest, most effective way to control grubs in Texas. Unfortunately, you are supposed to introduce the nematodes to your environment in February. It's too late in the season for them to do any good now. As so often happens, I acquired the right knowledge at the wrong time.

I've been trying to acquire the right knowledge at the right time before I buy a guitar. I've been learning all sorts of fascinating things about Fender Stratocasters and Telecasters. When you go into a music store, you will see a huge variety of Stratocasters at prices ranging from under $300 to well over $3,000 dollars. All of these guitars look identical. At first this odd pricing structure mystified me, but apparently Fender is determined to make something for everybody. The $300 Stratocaster Squire may look pretty much the same as the $3,000 Custom Shop Stratocaster, but there are a myriad of subtle differences.

If Land Rover followed this kind of marketing strategy, you could buy a very inexpensive Range Rover that had vinyl covered seats, a Honda Civic engine, and no four wheel drive at all. For a little more you could get a car that looked the same, but had a better engine and leather seats. Pay yet a bit more and you could get the normal Range Rover you buy today. At the top of the scale would be a Range Rover that was hand assembled using titanium screws by technicians with a minimum of thirty years experience. I can't decide whether Fender's pricing strategy is brilliant or idiotic. It does allow a kid just learning to play to have a guitar that looks essentially the same as the customized rarity that some rich collector just paid $10,000 for.

It's getting hotter at the dog park. This means that there are a lot of clean, well groomed dogs that head straight for the nearest mud puddle to cool off. Labs and Goldens seem to be the first to occupy these mud puddles that appear near all the park water fountains. Luckily, Dot and Dash won't get anywhere near these muddy areas. They won't even drink out of the doggie water fountains. We have to take their own water bowl along with us and fill it up for them before they will drink anything. You may think the Dalmatians are spoiled, but I suspect they are just trying to avoid all the dog spit left behind in the common bowls by the messy Labs.

Rio is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 547

Not a bad day! My meeting went well with my new website client. There were a few changes and additions, but we're on the home stretch. With any luck, the site will probably go live early next week. I also finally got the new version of Quark Express installed on my computer, so I'm back in business doing print graphics as well. One thing I really like about Quark 9.0 is that you can easily export projects that are already formatted properly for Kindle and iPad. Maybe I'll try to turn my dog stories into an e-book. Other people are certainly doing this. Who knows. Maybe people will end up reading my stories while they're sitting by the pool, like in those Kindle TV ads.

Dash has got to be the most stubborn dog in creation. For the past week or so I've been thinking he was getting too hot on his walks, mostly because after walking about 300 yards, he would dig his heals in and refuse to go any further. Often, we had to cut our walk short and come home, even though Dot wanted to go further. Today, acting on a hunch, I let Dash set the direction and Dot and I just followed him. He was full of energy and walked as far as he normally does in cooler weather. Where did he want to go? You guessed it. He wanted to go back where the coyote pups have their den. This is exactly where I didn't want the dogs to go.

It was kind of a sad day at dog class tonight. One of our class members got kicked out of class because his dog attacked another dog for the second time in three weeks. In the six years I've been going to this class, I've never seen anybody get kicked out before. This was serious though. I think the teachers made the right decision. Even though everyone really likes the dog's owner, you just can't have a dangerous, aggressive dog in a training class. If people can't feel safe about bringing their own dogs to class, they'll just quit coming and the whole class will fall apart.

I think it's time to get out the caulking gun and seal up all the little cracks around the edge of the roof. From the look of things, all the honey has been removed from the hive by now. Even the neighborhood scavenger bees are gone. Now, all I have to worry about are the June Bugs in the back yard. Spot, our first Dalmatian, used to love June Bugs and ate hundreds of them. Dash doesn't appear to have the stomach for the critters though. He likes the taste, but our vet told us that eating the bugs may be partially responsible for the stomach problems he's been having lately.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day