Day 1352

I went to a business networking breakfast this morning. About once a year this networking group invites me to join them as a prospective member. Even though I'm not a morning person, I always go to these meetings, because breakfast at The Park Cities Club, where the meetings take place, is fabulous. Once I arrive, the group quickly realizes how unbusinesslike I am, and I don't hear from them again for months at a time. This has been going on for years. After a while, they forget and invite me to join them again.

Although I am very good at what I do, I am definitely out of my league with this bunch. Almost everybody in the group is a CEO, CFO, or COO of a major company. I guess I'm a CEO too, but my only employee is a dog. The guy sitting on my right at breakfast told me that while he was staying at his vacation home in Hawaii during the financial crisis in 2008, he noticed how far real estate values had plummeted and stared buying up distressed beach properties. His definition of a distressed property was anything under $500,000.

I'm still a bit baffled at why this group would be interested in me as a prospective member, but I could definitely learn a lot by joining. I've never seen a more motivated bunch of people in my life. Most of these guys have already made several thousand dollars before I even get out of bed in the morning. I don't know if I made a better impression than I did at previous network breakfasts, but I may actually become a member this time. They're interested in having me create a website for them.

Dot did well during her acupuncture session today, but she couldn't go in the water therapy tank because the vet said she had the beginnings of a staph infection on her skin. Evidently only blemish free dogs can go in the tank. Dot is supposed to get a bath twice a week with a special medicated shampoo until her skin clear up. This ought to be interesting. A bath once a month is once too often for Dot. She hates getting a bath.

The neighbor's dog got loose today and attacked Dot and Dash while we were walking. I knew this would happen eventually. The dog is very dog aggressive and goes nuts whenever we pass by the neighbor's fence. The dog bit Dash and was trying to go after Dot when the neighbors arrived and got the dog under control again. Luckily, no damage was done. Dash got nipped in the but, but the bite didn't break the skin and Dash was back to normal as soon as the bad neighbor dog was taken back inside.

I found some vector art on the Internet and did the print job I screwed up yesterday all over again. When I was looking for good stock images, I thought I'd apply to join one of the stock sites as a contributing photographer. I'd forgotten what a pain it was to become a contributor to a stock agency. I had to submit ten high resolution images and add lots of meta-tags and technical information to each image before I could even submit it for review. I did this once before with another stock photo agency and only made pennies from the sale of the images once they finally accepted me. Ironically, I think it will be much easier to become a member of an elite business networking group full of high powered CEO's, than to have my photos accepted by a stock agency that will pay me pennies per image at best. That's life though. I've learned over the years to leave no stone unturned. We'll see what happens in both cases.

Mandy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 918

I was invited to one of those business networking breakfasts this morning. In theory, these type of things seem like a good idea. A group of non-competing business owners get together for breakfast and agree to use each other as vendors and suppliers whenever possible. There is supposed to be only one member in the group for each type of business. You might be sitting at a table with a dentist, a real estate agent, a body shop owner and an insurance agent. This sounds like a good way to introduce your services to a receptive audience, but whenever I'm invited to one of these things there is already somebody else who does websites. Today, the other guy who did websites was making the morning's presentation. When I was introduced, I just said I did the same type of thing as the other guy.

I honestly don't know why I'm even invited to these things. I don't seem to fit in. I don't even want to fit in. While the others around the table are talking about their Spring ski vacations or the upcoming marriages of their kids, I'm just wondering when I can get home to walk the dogs. The last time I was excited to be around a group of people talking about their chosen profession was when I used to go to SXSW in Austin every Spring. Being around a bunch of talented indie filmmakers was exhilarating. I always came home from the festival wanting to make another film myself. Somehow, looking at a PowerPoint presentation describing yet another small business marketing plan isn't quite the same. I shouldn't complain though. Breakfast at the Park Cities Club is always great. If the breakfast were served at 9 AM instead of 7 AM, the whole thing might be worth a try.

A lot of people in our dog training class must have gotten caught in last week's big hailstorm. When we got to class tonight, everyone was showing their iPhone videos of the storm to each other. I'm still amazed at how much damage a twenty minute storm like this could cause. Janet finally managed to get her car into the body shop today, so we're both driving loaner cars at the same time. I just hope that there's not another hailstorm in the near future. I want to get these loaner cars returned safe and sound. I've already learned the hard way that damaging someone else's car is much worse than damaging your own.

I noticed that all the birthday greetings on Facebook yesterday caused my Klout score to go up three points. Hmm. Is this what Internet influence is all about? Maybe so. Probably the folks with really huge scores are the people who post all those LOL Cat pictures.

Alamo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 911

The additional information requested by Fannie Mae was finally located and shipped off for review. Everyone seems to think that the buyer's loan will be approved now, although it's pretty obvious that the closing will be delayed a few days. I learned long ago not to count my chickens before they hatch, so I'm not celebrating until I get a call from the title company to come sign the documents and hand over the keys. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly from this point forward.

I was getting the dogs ready to go to training class this evening when a sudden thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere and dumped tennis ball sized hail in the back yard. I had taken the dogs on their evening walk only thirty minutes earlier with blue sky overhead. People who haven't spent time here never understand Texas weather. Conditions can turn on a dime. One minute it's clear and calm and a few minutes later you're drenched. Today's sudden thunderstorm brought some of the largest hail I've seen in years along with it. For several minutes it sounded like people were dropping large rocks on the roof. At least I was home and inside. When Janet got home from work, she told me that the hail had broken her windshield. The storm didn't last long, but it certainly lasted long enough for Dot to panic. Even though the thunder and lightening stopped over an hour ago, she still isn't back to normal.

For the past several days, I've been hearing on the news that a new study shows the average family's net worth in the United States had dropped almost 40% since 2008. That's an enormous loss of wealth and security in a very short amount of time. At first I though that this study was preposterous, but then I got thinking about my own situation. The real estate I own has dropped dramatically in value. My stocks have cratered. Clients don't want to pay me as much anymore. Gas is expensive. It's all a giant mess. I don't know if I've lost 40%, but I've lost quite a bit. If the entire country has lost 40% of their wealth, we're all in big trouble.

One of those business networking clubs wants me to join them again. Those of you who have been reading for a while will remember that this happened once before. I'm kind of torn. On one hand I really need to reach out and meet some new potential clients. I dislike marketing so much that I almost never go out and market my business anymore. On the other hand, I'm not a morning person at all. The thought of getting up at six-thirty every Wednesday to go to a seven-thirty breakfast meeting makes my skin crawl. I do like eating breakfast though. If they serve bacon, it might almost be worth it. We'll see.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 568

I got up early and went to my friend's business networking breakfast this morning. When I arrived at the Park Cities Club, there were actually two groups having breakfast meetings. I didn't know this at the time, so I just sat down with the first group I saw. This turned out to be a Bible study group and when they saw I didn't have a Bible with me, they told me that my group was meeting in a different room. The breakfast was actually pretty interesting. It was a small group of about twenty people and every one of them was a CEO of a different company. Luckily, the conversation didn't get around to the size of our respective companies, but I think the others could easily guess that my own company was pretty small.

I don't know if this group will ask me to join them, but if they do I probably will. Judging from the surroundings and the way the other people were dressed, I would think that the dues for this club are pretty steep. I'm sure I could pay for the dues pretty easily though if I just quit running my Google Adwords ad. So far, my Adwords ad has increased my website PR ranking a little bit, but it hasn't brought me any business at all. My gut feeling is that talking with real people about real business leads is a lot better investment than all the money I've dumped into useless Internet ads. This club serves bacon for breakfast too. I can't forget that.

The only problem with new business is finding the time to work on it. I was so busy today that I couldn't have worked on a new project if I tried. The day was filled with website revision requests, conference calls and writing assignments. I got finished just in time to quickly eat a few leftovers in the refrigerator for dinner and get Dot and Dash ready for dog training class.

I don't know why we even have these classes in July. The dogs are hot, the people are sweaty, and everybody keeps looking at their watch to see when the hour of training exercises is up. I guess these hot Summer classes do help us keep up a certain level of discipline though. It's kind of like making the bed every morning. Some days I don't feel like making the bed. Some days, when the dogs crawl back under the covers before I even have time to get dressed, I don't even see the point in making the bed. I always make the bed however, just like I always write the blog. A little discipline is good. If your life involves a certain amount of swimming upstream, I'm convinced that discipline will get you where you're going a lot more effectively than Prozac.

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