Day 4391 - New Years Day

Happy New Year. So far, the year seems to be off to a good start. We got up late, took Dawn on a pleasant walk, had a nice breakfast, and got started on a brand new year. I got an automated call saying that a prescription was ready, but when I went to the pharmacy, it was closed. Since the roads were practically empty, I thought I'd finish some of the errands that seemed like too much trouble yesterday when everything was a madhouse. I got gas and then went back to Central Market to pick up something for a New Years dinner. What a difference a day makes. I should have just stayed home yesterday and done all my shopping today. The store had been completely restocked overnight and everything looked fresh. There weren't many shoppers either. I got some fresh Maryland Crabcakes, Garlic Shrimp, Bacon Wrapped Asparagus, and Potato Salad. I also found a new brand of spicy ginger ale that I thought I'd try.

When I returned home, Janet and I took Dawn on another walk and then I continued walking. The temperature was in the mid seventies, so I just wore a t-shirt and shorts. This was a huge mistake. About halfway through my walk, the cold front everyone has been talking about finally blew through town and the temperature almost instantly dropped twenty degrees. I've never experienced such a sudden temperature change. The wind picked up as well. I was freezing for the remainder of my walk. It felt like a long three miles.

Luckily the most interesting part of the walk occurred before the cold front arrived. I saw the Bald Eagle again. I'm pretty sure you only see the male eagle during these rare sightings. The female eagle is still sitting on her nest, hidden away in the forest somewhere. I don't know if the eggs have hatched yet. I think this makes five times I've seen the eagle since the pair arrived in Dallas. I also saw both Muscovy Ducks. Today there were about a mile apart. I always thought this pair was inseparable, but they haven't been getting along lately. 

I usually have a cold drink when I return from my long walk. Not today. I was freezing. I asked Janet if we had any hot chocolate and it turns out we do. I fixed a big mug of hot chocolate and gradually warmed up. When I saw how cold it is going to get tonight I went outside and set all the faucets on drip. The greenhouse is in such dilapidated shape that when I went inside to adjust the greenhouse faucet, the door fell apart. I had to hammer the thing back together so I could close it again. Janet and I would both like to just tear the greenhouse down and put up a carport there. Our street has gotten so busy in recent years that it's almost impossible to get out of the driveway on a busy day. Moving the cars to the back would be a good idea.

I finally worked up my nerve to begin experimenting with the new star tracker. I read the instructions several times, inserted the Micro SD card in the proper slot, and charged the battery with my new USB-C charger. That's as far as I got. The next step would be to format the SD card and update the firmware. Since it was almost time for dinner at this point, I decided to wait until tomorrow to do anything further. A lot can go wrong when you try to update the firmware on a new device.

I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. It's supposed to be 22 degrees at sunrise. We've got plenty of warm coats, but I'm not sure Dawn will want to walk with these type of temperatures. Every winter I cross my fingers and hope that the furnace doesn't go out. It's happened before and it can be pretty miserable. A power outage during freezing weather isn't fun either. One Winter we had a four day power outage after an ice storm and it got so cold in the house that we had to go stay in a hotel. Sure hope that never happens again.

Anything could happen in 2022, but I'm going to try and remain optimistic. Everyone seems to be in a panic about the Omicron variant, but few people seem to be getting very sick. A lot of people didn't even know they were infected until they had to take a mandatory Covid test to travel. Maybe if everyone catches Omicron, we will finally reach the herd immunity everyone's been waiting for. I hope so. I'm not sure if we'll be taking Dawn on her Sunday outing tomorrow. It all depends on the weather.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3660 - New Years Day

We did manage to stay up until midnight last night. We had cheese and crackers and a little champagne as we watched the fireworks on TV. I can't imagine standing up for hours in Times Square just to see the ball drop. It was hard enough staying awake inside our own house. New Year's celebrations always seem a bit anticlimactic to me. One second after midnight everything still seems the same.

It wasn't as cold as it was last New Year's Day, but it still felt like Winter. After watching the usual 'Year in Review' shows on TV as I slowly drank my morning smoothie, I bundled up in a warm coat and took my walk. While I was walking, several old World War II aircraft flew directly overhead. It looked like they were headed for the Cotton Bowl where there was a rare outdoor hockey game today. Several minutes later I heard a loud explosion. I thought it was thunder, but I checked my phone and there was no rain in the area. Maybe there were fireworks when the planes did a flyover of the stadium. The noise must not have been serious because I've heard nothing about it on the local news.

I sent another query letter to a magazine this afternoon. I've been writing commercially for most of my life, but trying to establish myself as a 'different kind' of writer still seems a bit futile at this point. I'm definitely an outsider in the world of publishing. The magazine world seems very weird to me. Circulations are still dropping dramatically and every year well known magazines disappear. At the same time the competition to appear in these magazines keeps growing. Since I'm trying to write for semi-scientific magazines, most of the writing seems to come from the academic world. If I ever do manage to get an article in Sky and Telescope, I'll probably be the only author without a PhD.

Now that the new year is underway, I need to resume my efforts to fix up the house. There is still one guy who hasn't gotten me a bid yet for replacing the roof. He's had a year to put his bid together. I'd just forget about this guy and assume that he's not interested, but he came highly recommended. I'm sure he'll be too expensive anyway, but I'm determined to get a bid. I also need to get another Oak tree removed in the back yard and either repair the greenhouse or tear it down. Now I'm thinking that tearing the building down and putting up a carport so we could move our entrance to the back of the house might be a good idea. The appliance repairman is on my list too. The washing machine is still making a funny noise during the spin cycle. I've given up on finding someone who can fix the sliding glass door.

I wish the house was maintenance free so I could use the small amount of time and energy I have left to concentrate on going to rocket launches and observatories. You've got to have a place to live though. The house was beautiful when we moved in, but that was a very long time ago. Age is not always kind to old buildings. It's not very kind to old people either.

I'm pessimistic by nature. I generally feel that the glass is half empty, but I'm going to try my best to remain positive about 2020. A lot of good things could happen this year. I just need to remember that nothing is going to happen unless I make an effort. I have a feeling that the days of accidental success are over.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3295 - New Year's Day

I got a surprising amount of sleep last night, especially considering that I'd stayed up past midnight to greet the new year. Two glasses of champagne didn't seem to bother me either. There was no reason to get up early today. It was cold outside and we had no plans. We all slept in until well past 8 AM. At some point during the night I got up to let Dash outside, but I barely remember it. These nightly disruptions are routine now. Pooping in the bed a few hours later wasn't a big deal either. Dash has gotten pretty good about staying on his puppy training pad. I just slide out the soiled pad, roll it up and replace it with a fresh puppy pad. Dash never even wakes up.

Before I went to bed last night I watched the New Horizons flyby of Ultma Thule on NASA TV. There wasn't much to see. The probe was more than four billion miles away and it would take another six hours for the signal that the mission had succeeded to reach Earth. The fact that we will soon get a look at something located way beyond Pluto is amazing to me. We are so good at science like this and yet for some reason we still can't get along with each other.

I imagine that quite a few people will make a New Year's Resolution to be more agreeable this year, but few will succeed. There are just so many reasons to be irritated at our fellow man. If Dash was a human he would be in an assisted living home by now. He's a dog though, so I'm willing to do anything I can to make his last day's comfortable.

Dash loves his walks so we all got bundled up and braved the cold this morning. It was a gloomy, grey day but at least it wasn't raining. Dash is so intent on smelling things these days that he forgets about his rear legs. I'm constantly having to steady him by holding the handle on his harness to keep him from falling over. While we were walking I kept thinking it was Sunday and was thinking about having pancakes for breakfast. I was actually kind of surprised when I remembered it was only Tuesday. The entire holiday season has been like this. It's hard to tell what day it is.

I didn't do much today. The days when we would watch the Rose Bowl parade followed by an entire day of football seem so long ago. Even the names of the bowl games have changed. They are all named after corporations now and some of them aren't even on New Year's Day. To avoid doing household chores, I caught up on some overdue correspondence. I wrote the roofer, begging him to hurry up with repairs. I wrote the friend who is selling my train collection. He wants to lower prices, since sales have been slow. I'm still hoping that someone like me will wander into his store and buy everything. I sent Christmas greetings to a few people even though Christmas is over. Why not?

I didn't finish breakfast until well after noon and by the time I took a shower Dash was already waiting for his evening walk. Where did the day go? Jeez. Where did the year go?  2018 seemed to slip by awfully fast. Dash ended the year a little bit healthier than he started it. Like Dot, he is very determined to make the most of the time he has. Auctioning my art this year was an interesting experience. It actually got me interest in art again. Unfortunately, I don't have any left.

Like many people, I hope that 2019 will be better than 2018. You've got your reasons and I've got mine. Whatever you're hoping for, I wish you luck. All I know is that anything could happen during our next trip around the sun.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2930 - New Year's Day

Dash seemed a bit out of sorts this morning. I felt the same way. Maybe I just can't handle alcohol anymore. Against all odds we managed to stay awake until midnight and opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate the New Year. You wouldn't think a couple of glasses of bubbly would bother me, but who knows. I sure felt strange this morning. I shouldn't be too quick to blame the champagne. For all I know, it might have been the chili we had for dinner last night.

It was way too cold to walk this morning and Dash and I didn't feel like eating. This didn't seem the best way to start the year, but it sure beat last year. If I remember correctly, we began 2017 with Dot throwing up at sunrise and throwing us into a panic since all the vets were closed for the holiday.

Eventually, Dash ate his breakfast and my stomach began to settle down. I kept waiting for it to warm up, but it never did. The temperature remained in the teens for most of the day. Janet went to the gym and I went back to bed for a while. When I got organized enough to take a shower, I noticed that the shower pan was leaking again and got the wet/dry vacuum to suck the water out that had gotten under the tiles. It wasn't much of an effort, but it was all I could muster.

My mid-afternoon it had warmed up enough for Dash to take a walk. It was still cold, but at least the temperature was in the twenties instead of the teens. I bundled Dash up, put on two warm coats and off we went. Dash wasn't bothered by the cold at all. It was just me that had gotten soft.

Several people on my Facebook feed said their New Year's resolution was to stay alive for another year. Sounds like a plan to me. I seldom make New Year's resolutions. A New Year's resolution would be a radical step for someone who doesn't even make grocery lists. I don't need to lose weight. I eat fairly healthy already. I guess I could become a kinder, more caring person, but why bother. Just staying alive for another year is probably as good as it gets.

There isn't much to photograph on cold days like this, but I did see a Downy Woodpecker. The little bird was very industrious, looking for food among the branches. Animals spend all their time eating in the Winter. Raptor sit on top of trees looking for mice. Squirrels dig up the nuts they hid earlier in the year. Egrets and herons look for fish. I just need to make sure the coyotes aren't looking for Dash.

I guess the new year starts in earnest tomorrow. I need to finish my website project. I'm way behind on this design which isn't like me at all. It's hard to get motivated when you know the end result doesn't really matter. Janet, who has always been a workaholic, is thinking about retiring again. She says her heart isn't in it anymore. I know how she feels. As the workforce continues to get younger and younger, it no longer feels familiar. The big question for us is what to do next.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2575 - New Year's Day

I had no desire to get up this morning. My body reminded me that I don't drink anymore. Just the small amount of champagne I had last night to celebrate the New Year slowed me down considerably. Dot kept us on schedule though. She always does. When I saw her trying to get up, I instantly jumped out of bed and raced to open the back door. To celebrate our success at peeing outside, we all went back to bed for another hour.

Eventually, we all got up and started our morning routine, but the New Year definitely got off to a slow start. Dot peed on my house slippers yesterday, so I thought I'd throw them in the washing machine. This just revealed how poorly they were constructed. One of the shoes fell apart and appeared to be made of some sort of compressed paper. This was definitely a job for superglue. I didn't have enough superglue left, but found a bottle of Gorilla Glue in the utility room. The stuff doesn't dry very fast, so the jury is still out on this experiment.

I finally found the receipt for the candelabra base LED bulbs that wouldn't fit in my floor lamps and took them back to Home Depot to exchange for some more of the old fashioned halogen bulbs I was trying to avoid. The guy in the electrical department didn't realize that there were several sizes of candelabra screw threads either. Apparently, I was the first person who had purchased this style of LED bulb. Maybe someday I'll be able to abandon incandescent bulbs entirely, but it wasn't going to be today.

I had high hopes of seeing Neptune this evening, but it wasn't meant to be. The faint planets are almost impossible for someone like me to find in the sky, unless they happen to be located very close to something familiar. Tonight there was a conjunction of Neptune and Mars. I could definitely find Mars. Neptune is supposed to be easily visible through a pair of decent binoculars, but you can't see it through clouds. Like the candelabra base LED bulbs, I will have to wait until some other time.

I wish I had some sort of game plan for 2017. If I had a goal, I probably could accomplish quite a bit. I've had long term goals before. I worked really hard to build my business back in the early 1990's. I worked hard to get healthier when I discovered I had Hepatitis C. I need to remember that keeping Dot alive is not really a realistic goal. I can do my best to keep her happy while she's here, but I have little control over how long she's with us on this earth. Just getting from one day to the next is not a very ambitious goal. I know I can do that. What could I realistically achieve that would actually make me happier if I was successful? I'm stumped.

Goals are a lot like the sailboats I see out on the lake. From a distance they look so peaceful and serene. When I'm out on the water, it all looks different and I almost instantly wish I was back on dry land. I have a feeling that I don't understand sailing any better than I understand goals.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2208 - New Year's Day

I woke up around 5 AM to the sound of Dot trying to throw up. Why does this always happen on a holiday? I remember we had a similar problem on Thanksgiving. We took her outside and she immediately tried to eat leaves. This would have only made things worse , so we brought Dot inside again and let her lick an ice cube until she calmed down a bit. I don't know when we discovered that licking an ice cube often causes the urge to throw up to subside, but it sometimes works. Maybe she just had a dry throat. The next time I took her outside, she pooped instead of trying to eat leaves again. We got lucky. We all went back to bed for another hour or so and then fixed the dogs breakfast and had our first walk of 2016.

It was still really cold outside. If it wasn't so important for Dot to keep moving her rear legs, I think we'd just skip the walks on days like this. When we returned, Janet went to the store to get some orange juice to make Mimosas with the leftover New Years champagne while I cooked French Toast for breakfast. It was a nice way to start the year, expecially since Dot wasn't as sick as it first appeared.

After breakfast I installed the new version of Media Composer I downloaded yesterday. The first thing I saw when I opened the application was a large error message telling me that my computer didn't have enough memory to run the software. WTF? My computer has lots of memory. I work with huge files in Photoshop all the time and had no problem running the previous version of Media Composer. Apparently all the trouble I went through yesterday to update this software was for nothing. It wasn't going to work. I sure wish I'd known this before I bought the new version.

I enjoy a challenge though, so I was determined to make this work. After a little research on Google, I realized that Avid really wanted me to be running their software on one of those sleek new black Macintosh towers that look like some sort of a space age wastebasket. My own computer was way too old and slow. Hey, not so fast. A little more research revealed that my aging Mac might still be able to run the new software if I maxed out the memory. It was worth a try. So, where do you find computer memory on New Years Day? Oddly, Fry's was still open today.

I got in the car and drove to Fry's. I bought two 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM memory modules and then went on Google again to figure out how to open up my computer. Against all odds, I had the right kind of tiny screwdriver to open the case, installed the memory modules properly, and everything worked. The next time I tried to open Media Composer, it worked. This new version sure looks a lot like the old version, but there must be something to make it worth all the trouble I went through to install it.

New Years used to be a day where everybody watched the Rose Bowl Parade in the morning and then spent the rest of the day watching four different bowl games on TV. First there was the Sugar Bowl. Then came the Cotton Bowl. The big one was the Rose Bowl in California, followed by the Orange Bowl in the evening in Florida. Now, most of these bowl games are named after a corporate sponsor and aren't even played on New Years Day. The Cotton Bowl Classic isn't played in the Cotton Bowl anymore. There is still a game with this name, but it is played in the Dallas Cowboys stadium on New Years Eve. I have no idea who won.

Today didn't even seem like a holiday, but it wasn't a bad way to start the year. Dot gave us a scare this morning, but she's OK now. My computer gave me another scare, but I still managed to show it show it who's boss. We made it through the first day of 2016. Now, there's only 364 days to go.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1843 - New Year's Day

It was so cold today. The temperature hovered around the freezing mark for most of the day, while a steady rain soaked the ground. The forecast warned of sleet and slush, but it never materialized. Nothing froze except for me. I thought I'd managed to find little windows of opportunity to walk the dogs on the weather radar, but Dot and Dash weren't quick enough and we got soaked both times. It seemed like I spent a good part of the day cleaning muddy shoes and drying the dogs with bath towels.

Janet went to the gym today, but I didn't feel like driving in this weather and stayed home all day. I'm getting frustrated that I'm still using Lion as the operating system on my desktop computer, so I thought I'd investigate how I could upgrade my system without having to upgrade all my important applications as well. Applications like Media Composer and Pro Tools are very picky about which operating system you use. They are also very expensive. If I was still doing a lot of video work, I'd just bite the bullet and upgrade everything to the latest versions. That seems a bit excessive though when I only do a few video jobs a year. Everything works fine now, as long as I keep using Lion as my operating system. After checking around on the user groups it looks like there is a free maintenance upgrade to my current version of Media Composer that would allow me to move up to Mountain Lion.  Of course Apple has already discontinued Mountain Lion and moved on to Mavericks and Yosemite. Apple has become very frustrating now that they have largely abandoned creative types and want to make all their computers work just like an iPhone.  Not my cup of tea. I don't think I ever want to install Yosemite.

When I'm house bound on a cold day, I do laundry and fix things. I should have stuck with fixing a light switch or something simple. Trying to resolve all my computer problems was very unsatisfying. I downloaded a few things, but didn't have the nerve to install them. I need to do some more research before I start replacing things, or I could easily make matters worse. To tell you the truth, I enjoyed using Apple products a lot more back in the days when everything was running on OS 9. Lots and lots of little companies catered to the needs of creative folks back then. Now that Apple has discovered the real money is in selling phones, they've largely abandoned folks like me. I don't care about the Cloud or talking to friends on Facetime. I don't even care about laptops. I just want a big desktop computer with a huge monitor that will run the stuff I need for work without ever crashing.

The only thing I don't like about compression pants is that you have to keep taking them on and off all the time. They're great for walking the dogs in the cold, but too hot to wear around the house all day. I'm really glad that men never started wearing panty hose. It's a giant pain to get these skin tight things on and off. It would be nice if someone made them with a fly in front too.

It was hard to remember to take the trash out to the curb this evening. It didn't seem like a Thursday at all. It didn't seem like New Year's Day either. When I was younger, New Year's day was mostly spent recovering from New Year's Eve. Now, it seems like a non-event. There used to be four bowl games that you watched back-to-back whether you liked football or not. You started with the Rose Bowl in California and ended late in the evening with the Orange Bowl in Florida. Now, there are well over thirty different bowl games starting in mid-December and going all the way through January 12. The Orange Bowl is called the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl now and the Cotton Bowl isn't even played in the Cotton Bowl stadium.

I'd love to see the sun tomorrow, but I don't think it's going to happen. It looks like we're going to have another very cold, rainy day. Janet thinks we ought to go to a movie. Jeez, I haven't been to a movie in a theater in almost three years. It might be fun. It certainly would be more fun than doing laundry and fixing computers.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1839

When I was cleaning the bird droppings off the car this morning, I inadvertently rammed my head into the edge of an open car door. I was on my way to the gym, but I had to wait about twenty minutes until the bleeding quit. The last thing I wanted to do was answer a bunch of questions from total strangers about why there was a big bandage on my forehead. Luckily, my blood clots quickly. I fed the dogs a couple of extra dog treats while I was waiting and then I was on my way.

The TED talk on the car radio today was about memory. Evidently most of us are very selective about our memories and forget the vast majority of what happens to us each day. I probably forget more than most of you. The guy on the TED stage was explaining how we can train our memories to remember much more, but I'm not sure I'd want to do that. I'm convinced that my lack of memory has been responsible for much of my success in life. I reinvent the wheel continually, since I have very few formulas stored away. I am able to do routine things over and over again without getting bored, because it all seems new to me. I'm convinced that thinking of new and original solutions to everyday problems keeps the brain a lot more agile than simply pulling a tried and true solution out of your memory bank. Advertising would have driven me insane decades ago if I remembered every ad I ever did.

The Nike running shoes I wear to the gym are wearing out, so I thought I'd pick up a new pair while I was out and about today. Good lord! How do you rationally select a pair of running shoes these days? There are literally thousands of styles, colors and prices to choose from. Each model seems purpose built for something or other, but without trying on dozens and dozens of shoes, I didn't have a clue which I would like best. I didn't like the new featherweight styles that looked like they'd fall apart in three weeks. I didn't like all the neon colors or high-top basketball styles either. I finally found something that looked more or less like my old shoes and bought a pair. I probably need to start looking for some new dog walking boots too. My sturdy waterproof Redwing boots aren't waterproof anymore. They just don't make shoes like they used to.

It's hard to believe that it will be 2015 in just a few days. It seems like yesterday when Janet and I opened a bottle of champagne to welcome a new millennium on December 31, 1999. Everyone was worried about the Y2K bug and the year 2000 sounded very futuristic. Oddly, not much has changed in fifteen years.

I've got an early morning physical therapy session scheduled for tomorrow. It seems all wrong to have physical therapy before breakfast, but it can't be helped. This is just a weird holiday scheduling anomaly. Pretty soon it will be 2015 and everything will be back to normal.

Lou is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1478 - New Year's Day

Some people think that what you do on New Year's Day foretells what you'll be doing for the rest of the year. I certainly hope that isn't the case. I thought I'd organize a growing pile of healthcare records in a ring binder this afternoon. It took a lot longer that I thought to decide which records to keep and which I could throw away. When I started to shred the throw away pile, I realized that the paper shredder was jammed and completely full. I took the machine apart and cleaned it out, which took longer than I thought as well. When I got this task finished, I got out the vacuum cleaner to clean up my mess and discovered that the bag was completely full. I knew I had more vacuum cleaner bags somewhere, but once again it took a lot longer than I thought to find them. This was kind of how the entire day went, as one easy task after another morphed into something more difficult than I anticipated.

The dogs, on the other hand, might have a great year to look forward to in 2014. The first thing they did on New Year's Day was go to the dog park. The weather was perfect, there were no aggressive dogs in the park, and Dot and Dash both had a great time. They've been waiting for this outing since November, so we spent a long time at the park, letting them both get a lot of pent up energy out of their system. Dot was surprisingly strong today. Even though we take things one day at a time with Dot, it is always gratifying to see her defy the odds and act like a much younger dog.

Eating pork on New Year's Day is supposed to bring you luck. We had pork ribs for dinner, so who knows. I'm not superstitious, but I do love ribs. I'll take good luck whenever I can get it. I didn't have any chicken today either. They say eating poultry on New Year's Day will bring poverty in the year ahead. You're not supposed to wash clothes today either, but that's going a bit too far.

Maybe in a week or two, I'll get back on schedule again. It's seems like Sunday evening, but it's really just hump day and we've got two more work days before the weekend. Dot has her acupuncture session tomorrow, although it is usually today. On Friday, I usually go out for breakfast, but I already did that on Tuesday. It's all very confusing. I wonder if 2014 will be a good year. 2013 was a mess, although the stock market did surprisingly well. If we learned anything last year, it would be that it is totally pointless to try to predict the future.

I wonder if the weather on New Year's Day is a harbinger of what's to come as well. It would be nice if that were the case. The weather was fantastic today. The sky was clear, there was no wind, and the temperature got up to 70 degrees. Pretty nice for a Winter's day.

Hunter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1113 - New Year's Day

A lot of my bright ideas end up in frustration. I can usually visualize in intricate detail exactly what I want or need. I just can't find it anywhere. This inability to find what's in my mind's eye was made abundantly clear today when I continued my quest to find a new floor lamp. I know exactly what I want. I love these new LED bulbs. The high output 24 watt PAR bulbs have beautiful fluted aluminum vents that function as heat sinks. These bulbs are so attractive that they don't even need a shade. What I'd like to find is a simple torchiere floor lamp that lets me plug one of these bulbs directly into the top. Ideally, the aluminum pole would be the same color and texture as the bulb itself, so the entire unit looks seamless. It's easy to draw what I see in Photoshop, but can I find these lamps anywhere?  Nope. They don't seem to exist outside my mind.

I wonder what lies ahead for me in 2013? I'd like to see an end to medical problems. I've got enough medical problems already. I'd like a few new clients. Two or three would be fine. Hey, I'm not greedy, I just like to stay busy. I'd like a little sanity to return to the stock market. At some point in the future, my retirement is going to depend on the investments I make today. I think it's sad that you could probably do just as well these days betting on sports teams in Vegas as most people do with their investments. Most of all, I hope that the dogs stay healthy. Dot and Dash are my best friends and I don't know what I'd do without them.

While I'm wishing for things, it might be wise to wish for some warmer weather. I asked Janet how long this cold weather was going to last, and all she said was "It's Winter." Historically, we can get nasty, cold weather here in Dallas all the way through the end of March. I guess we'll all survive until Spring, but I don't know how much more mud I can handle.

I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow. As I recall, this particular doctor is even more behind than most and I usually spend a long time waiting in the lobby. I think I read all the magazines in this guy's lobby three years ago.

Damn. I didn't eat any black eyed peas today. Black eyes peas are supposed to bring prosperity in the new year, and usually I'll have a bowl just to play it safe. I have a feeling that black eyes peas aren't going to make a lot of difference in 2013 unfortunately. With what's coming down the pike, it's going to be an uphill battle for anyone to stay prosperous.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 747 - New Year's Day

The dogs had fun today. There were lots of walks, a trip to the dog park, and several tasty holiday plates to lick. I'm sure they'd prefer to live like this everyday, but on most days Janet and I work while the dogs spend their time sleeping. Nobody did much sleeping today. After staying up way too late last night watching a Top Gear marathon on TV, we all got up surprisingly early.

The smell of cooking permeated the air for most of the day. While Janet cooked, I attacked a large pile of papers that has been accumulating in one corner of the office since late May. Most of these papers were old insurance and financial statements that I kept because I didn't really understand them when they first arrived. If I get a bill in the mail, I'll pay it right away. If I get a spreadsheet or financial chart in the mail however, I'll usually just throw it in a big box to deal with later. I guess later came today.

Most of the paper ended up going straight into the paper shredder, but a few documents ended up being transferred to another brown box because they still seemed important enough to deal with later. I didn't really deal with any of the paper today. What would be the point, since most of it was mailed to me last Summer. I really should check the "I'd like to go paperless" box on some of these things. Maybe this year I"ll stop saving the paper entirely. I used to be so meticulous about saving everything for my accountant, until he revealed to me last year that he didn't even read it. "If I actually looked at all those ring binders you send me," he said. "I'd have to charge you a lot more." OK. I think I'm getting the picture now. All my accountant wants is a disc with my Quickbooks files. My stockbroker doesn't like to send me paper because when I actually do look at it, it usually makes me mad. And what about all those things from the health insurance company that say "this is not a bill" even though they look like a bill. What's that all about. Maybe I will go paperless this year.

I tried to unclog my big printer today and ran out of ink before the cleaning process could be completed. I probably shouldn't have even bought a new large format printer. Making huge prints used to seem real important to me when I was interested in doing gallery shows. I don't think gallery shows are worth the trouble anymore. It usually costs more to frame a large show than you make in sales. The more shows you have, the more money you lose. After a while you end up with a storage warehouse full of unsold pictures. I've loaned pictures to clients and friends all over town, and I still have a storage warehouse full of unsold photos.

I wonder what surprises 2012 has in store for me? Even though I think I know it all, there is always something major that totally catches me by surprise. I hope my health holds out for a few more years. It was kind of touch and go this year. I guess I ought to count my blessings though. I'm actually more active than I was ten years ago. I can still fit into the same size jeans I wore in college. Even though my liver is a bit dodgy and I'm a bit too close to becoming a diabetic for my comfort zone, everything still basically works. We'll just take things a year at a time.

I'm not even going to wish for any more work this year. I've got all the work I can handle. I do wish all my clients the best though. Maybe if their business improves in 2012, they can afford to pay me a bit more.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 382 - New Years Day

What do Dalmatian owners do on New Years Day? They go visit other Dalmatians, of course. We were invited to share New Years Day dinner with friends, and Dot and Dash got to go along to see their pals Willow and Jasper. All four dogs are Dalmatian Rescue alumni, but you would never guess that any of them had lived part of their lives on the streets. These are dogs who expect to be covered with a blanket when they go to sleep at night. Spoiled? Well, maybe. I just think they are normal, well adjusted house pets with their minds focused on getting a piece of the baked ham we were having for lunch.

Dot and Dash love exploring new places. They discovered new places to pee in our friend's back yard and tested the hospitality of their canine hosts by playing with Jasper and Willow's squeeky toys. It was surprising how quickly the dogs adapted to a new situation. Within a matter of minutes, they were all acting like they'd been together for years. I'll admit that bacon-wrapped scallops did help break the ice, but after that, all four were the best of friends. They spent the afternoon begging for table scraps and sniffing butts like any other normal dog.

While the dogs were being dogs, the people tried their hand at a game of Taboo. You'd think after all the years I've spent as a writer, I'd be great at word games. I'm terrible. I never remember the rules and end up doing things that lose my team a turn over and over again. I certainly didn't do my team any favors today as I was constantly blurting out clues that were already on the forbidden list. If you want me on your team for a word game, it is best to pick a game like scrabble where I don't have to talk. I don't do so well at games like Pictionary or Taboo that require you to describe something while the clock is ticking. The clock almost always runs out before I finish my thought.

I was real proud of the dogs today. It wasn't all that long ago that we thought we'd have to sedate Dash to take him anywhere more than a few blocks away from home. He made the trip to Flower Mound and back without anything traumatic happening though. He's really improving. There's still hope that we'll be able to take him to the beach someday. Dot and Willow are little divas who get along with anyone. Dash and Jasper both have "issues." It was very encouraging to see all four dogs get along so well. I think the year is off to a good start. Dinner was delicious. Everybody laughed. And nobody got bitten.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day