Day 1391

It was a beautiful day to do things that I didn't really want to do. Although the skies were clear and blue this morning, the dog park apparently still hadn't dried out from yesterday's rain and was closed for maintenance. Dot and Dash were disappointed and so was I. Without an outing to the far away dog park to divert me, I had no real excuse to avoid mowing the grass, cleaning the roof, and cleaning up the clutter in my office.

Every time I mow the grass in October, I keep hoping I'm done for the year. I've mowed as late as December, unfortunately. You never know what Mother Nature has in store for you here in Texas. When I was up on the roof today, I noticed that the section under the Elm tree was relatively clean. There was some staining under the two Oak trees, but the the real damage was being caused by the Pecan tree. It wasn't even my tree either. It was the neighbor's Pecan tree that was causing all the problems. One of my fantasies has always been to have no neighbors whatsoever. This will probably never happen though. I like having a vet that's only a mile away and restaurants I can walk to. Actually, the only thing I don't like about urban living is all the people.

It is getting harder and harder to walk Dot and Dash together. Dash is a bundle of energy, while Dot is growing increasing frail. If I walk slow enough for Dot, Dash grows impatient and if I walk fast enough for Dash, then Dot can't keep up. Today, I gave Dash a brisk, long walk near the shoreline he loves to smell and then returned to the house to give Dot a much shorter, slow walk behind the house. I wish I had time to do this during the week, but often it's hard to find time to walk the dogs at all on weekdays. I guess we'll just do the best we can.

I'm increasingly tempted to click on the "go paperless" option that banks, merchants, and health care providers continue to send me. I've actually needed paper back up for record-keeping in the past, but I feel I'm being overwhelmed by paper these days. I get so much junk mail that I hate to even open it and end up throwing most of the mail into a big box and save it for days like today when I reluctantly sort through the mess. Most of this mail is totally unnecessary, but at least with printed information, you don't need to remember a dozen different passwords. Passwords and computer crashes are the main reason that paper isn't dead yet.

I finally got a good night's sleep last night. Both dogs slept soundly and nobody threw up. Sleep is good! Hopefully, tonight will bring more of the same. Dot did have a bit of a limp when the got out of bed this morning, but I think it was just her arthritis. She frequently wakes up with some stiffness in her legs these days. So do I, actually. None of us are getting any younger.

Cassie 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 558

On Sundays I try to attack the big pile of unopened mail and useless paper that still clutters my office. Once again, I managed to fill one of those big black plastic trash bags without the room looking any tidier at all. I really need to look at my mail more often. When the mail arrives each day, I quickly scan for bills and checks and then leave the rest unopened for months at a time. The only thing I hate worse than getting mountains of junk mail each month is receiving important mail in envelopes that look exactly like there's junk inside. Every month or so, I need to look through all the junk, just to make sure there's not a past due bill tucked in between all the advertising messages.

I sort the paper into different piles. There's stuff I don't understand, but save anyway because maybe I will understand it sometime on the future. Most of this paper is from my financial advisor. There are bank and brokerage statements that I put in a big ring binder. There are lots of expired coupons that go straight in the trash. There are handwritten notes that I make when I am on the phone with clients. Most of these make no sense to me within a week after I write them, so they go in the trash too. I always find a few surprising things that I wish I'd noticed earlier. Today I found two new credit cards that I still needed to activate and a letter from a bank saying that an account had gone dormant because I hadn't used it in a year and a half. There was also a galley proof of my Who's Who in America bio that I should have approved months ago and a discount offer from Facebook offering me from $25 to $500 if I would try running a Facebook ad for my company.

When I gave up on the pile of useless paper, I tried printing some old poster files on my new printer. Last week I told one of my clients that I would reprint some of their old posters that I produced five years ago. I thought this would be easy, but of course it isn't easy at all. I found the old files in Quark Express easy enough, but when I clicked the print button, a dialog box appeared that said media assets were missing and that I needed to relink them. Damn. Since I switched from my old computer with four hard drives to this new computer with a single humongous drive, all my photo and font files are in a different location. After manually re-linking a few files, I realized that I didn't even have some of the old photos anymore. Maybe I won't be able to reprint these old posters after all.

After last weeks rains, the grass needed mowing again. When I was mowing the front yard, I noticed that the leak in the water main had been fixed. I had been meaning to call the city about this leak for months, but it wasn't a high priority, especially since the leak was on the city side of the meter. I was wondering how the city even knew about this leak, but then Janet told me that the meter reader had probably turned in a report after he opened the lid to the water main and noticed that the meter was buried under a foot of water. At any rate, the grass is easier to mow now without the big patch of wet grass on the downhill side of the water main.

We're going to the dog park earlier on Sunday's now to try and beat the heat. This morning, there was a light breeze and it was actually pleasant outside. The dogs seemed to enjoy the cooler weather too. They both wanted to stay a lot longer than they did last week.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 509 - Mother's Day

I think last night's Wine on the Roof party was the most enjoyable of these events I've been to yet. The weather was perfect. Everything was extremely well organized. The award recipients were gracious and after each of their acceptance speeches, nobody regretted giving them their award. It was a nice evening. It hard to believe I've been involved with these things for ten years now. To me, it still just seems like yesterday that we were planning the first one.

Since it was Mother's Day today, the dog park was pretty empty. Everyone was probably having a special brunch with Mom when we arrived with Dot and Dash. The dogs had a great time though. I think they like the park better when it isn't crowded with too many dogs. Dash actually played with a few dogs today and although Dot is seldom playful, she certainly enjoyed the beautiful Spring weather.

This afternoon, I finally threw away about seventy-five pounds of old magazines, advertising samples and ancient financial records that have been cluttering my office. I don't really think I need American Express receipts from 1987 anymore. I don't need advertising samples from companies that don't even exist anymore either. I can't believe I did so much work for Memorex Telex. Where is Memorex Telex these days? Out went years of Communication Arts and EQ magazines, along with a surprising number of of old French Vogue magazines and a few old Esquires and Atlantic Monthly magazines that I must have saved because someone I knew had gotten a story published in them. I saved a few old AdWeek magazines with pictures of a much younger me drinking cocktails at various advertising functions. I threw away a lot more though. The ad agency world and me are ancient history now.

As a result of my efforts, I now have room to store away some photo backdrops and camera equipment that has been sitting in a corner on the office floor for months now. I've still got a long way to go, but I am determined to have a nice working space again by the end of the year. If I was really brave, I would just tell Janet to throw away everything that irritated her the next time I went away on a business trip. I'm sure I would be alarmed when I returned, but I probably wouldn't be missing anything of real value. Everything I need to do my job is on this computer now. It's actually been here for over five years. I am still surrounded by paper, but only because I've spent a good part of my life writing and designing things that were meant to be printed on paper. One of these days, I'm going to have to acknowledge that paper has become irrelevant. My clients don't use it anymore. My bank and my accountant don't want it anymore. The post office still delivers piles of it to me everyday, but I throw 99% it straight in the trash.

I was a big step for me to finally be able to throw away most of my paper ad portfolio. I haven't really lost anything though. The same stuff is already on my iPad.

Dalmatian of the Day

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