Day 3000

Unless you're a blogger, keeping a journal for 3000 consecutive days probably doesn't seem like a big deal. Trust me, it is a big deal. Year after year I sit here every single evening trying to think of something coherent to say. You know how daily life goes. Sometimes it is eventful. Other times it isn't. Often, nothing happens at all. I've learned a lot over the years. For starters, every day matters. If you look closely enough you can learn something from the most inconsequential things.

Today I learned where to find Venus and Mercury in the evening sky. Both planets were near the horizon, so they were difficult to see right after sunset. I kept looking though and eventually spotted Venus and the much dimmer Mercury slightly above and to the right. I wish it were easier to view the stars from my yard. The Oak trees form a canopy that obscures everything. If there is something I want to see, I walk to a small clearing in the park.

I finally got my tax materials to the accountant. It wasn't as easy as I thought. First, I needed to make a copy of my Quickbooks files and discovered that my CD burner was broken. I had to transfer the files to the laptop, so I could use the its CD drive. Then, I thought I could transfer the files quickly using iCloud, but the laptop wasn't authorized on my iCloud account. By the time I got everything straightened out, I could have walked the files over to the accountant.

I found a lot of feathers in the yard this morning. One of the neighborhood feral cats probably dragged another dead bird in the yard. This probably explains why Dash has been so interested in the corner where the feathers were. I doubt that he ate the bird, but he could have swallowed a feather or two. This might have explained why he threw up the other night. Maybe it wasn't the vestibular disease after all. He could have just eaten something bad.

I finally figured out why I didn't get my test results from my doctor's appointment last week. The doctor is on vacation. I bet he's taking a ski vacation. This would be the time of year to go to Telluride or Park City. It's also the time to go to SXSW in Austin. Back in the day, I used to go to this festival every year. I was even a featured speaker a long, long time ago. The festival is much too fancy for me now. I doubt that I could afford to attend. Today people go to hear Elon Musk and Steven Spielberg. I'm amazed at how this thing has grown. It's as big as Sundance now. Maybe even bigger.

I'm trying to decide whether to fix the CD burner. Nobody even uses CD's anymore. Nevertheless, I hate having a broken drive in my main computer. I got a price on replacing the Apple Superdrive and it wasn't as bad as I thought. Maybe I'l take the computer in later in the week and have a new drive installed. At the very least, I'll need it next year when I get my taxes ready for the accountant.

I'm still hoping to keep blogging until I reach Day 5000. I might not live that long, but we'll see. Blogging has certainly changed over the years. I used to have several hundred regular readers. Now, I've probably got about a dozen at best. Honestly, I don't know why any of you keep reading. This isn't War and Peace. It is still a work in progress though. I hope you come back tomorrow because the story isn't over yet.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2279

Daylight Savings Time begins tonight. Why do we even need Daylight Savings Time? It's always been a nuisance to me. Proponents say this annual time shift saves energy and reduces crime. Opponents say that it increases heart attacks and is economically disruptive. There is little hard evidence that it does much of anything, but I will have to re-set quite a few clocks tomorrow morning. So much for sleeping in on Sunday morning too. Whenever we wake up tomorrow, we will already be late.

There was a light mist when we walked the dogs this morning, but as the day progressed, the sky gradually got brighter. By the end of the day, I actually started to see patches of blue sky. I was glad to see things start to dry out, since I had lots of errands to run today. It was just a normal Saturday, but days like these are so much easier when you aren't wet. I filled the car with gas, got supplies at Home Depot, and picked up groceries for the week. Janet and I both typically go grocery shopping on Saturday. I get the things you can buy in bulk, and she gets the fresh and perishable things. We never shop together. That would be a disaster.

I wish I could figure out when Dot was going to poop. I keep trying to make her incontinence a rational, predictable process and it just isn't. I try to be alert and get her outside in time, but often she surprises me and there is a mess to clean up. I don't even think she realizes she has to go anymore. Her bowels work perfectly, but the nerves that communicate the process back and forth to her brain have short circuited. Dot still has cancer, but all her visible problems are neurological. It's sad to see her decline, but heartening to see how well she has adapted to her limited mobility. She is handling the whole situation so much better than I would under similar circumstances.

I spent a huge amount of time learning how to code and build responsive, mobile friendly websites and I'm already starting to forget what I've learned. Once again, I'm facing the "use it or lose it" dilemma. There just aren't enough new projects coming in to keep my skills honed. I've designed cool new websites for clients whenever I've had the opportunity, and updated all of the existing websites I manage. I updated a lot of sites for free just to show off my new skills. I thought everybody would be delighted with all the new capabilities they were getting, but a lot of people didn't even notice anything was different. Many of my clients forget they even have a website until a customer complains about it. Such is life.

I noticed on the news the other day that Barack Obama was speaking at SXSW this year. How did SXSW ever become such a big deal? Jeez, I spoke at SXSW in the mid 1990's. There were probably only 40 people who attended my talk, but I actually was a presenter. How times have changed. I miss being on the cutting edge. You can't look backwards though. I keep looking forwards into a very uncertain future.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1630

The long awaited SXSW Cookbook arrived in today's mail. The book was printed in China, which might explain why it took so long to be published. The well designed, hard cover cookbook looked absolutely beautiful. It was well worth waiting for and I was proud to be included. I am without a doubt, the least famous person in the star studded book, which seemed to include recipes by every millionaire start-up tycoon in Silicon Valley. My recipe is simple and unpretentious. So were my talks when I was asked to be a presenter at SXSW back in the 90's. I'm still kind of amazed to be included among this compilation of A-list multimedia luminaries. I need to save this book. It proves that for a brief moment in time, I was a mover and shaker too.

Today was certainly simple and unpretentious. I wrote two press releases, balanced my checkbook, and picked up some more phenobarbital for Dash at the vet. I got up early to take advantage of the still cool mornings. It's getting too hot for long walks in the afternoons, but I like to make sure that Dot and Dash get at least one good outing before the park turns into a humid furnace.

I read an article today that said Leptospirosis vaccinations for dogs were not effective and maybe even dangerous. This was unsettling, because Dash just got his annual Leptospirosis shot last week. I am increasingly frustrated by a lack of consensus about just about everything in this world. You can pick just about any subject and find well reasoned, but radically diverging viewpoints. Nobody agrees about anything these days, especially when it comes to medicine. I have yet to read the definitive article about what causes diabetes. People can't even agree on whether sugar is the culprit. Nobody can agree on the best food to feed your dog, whether eating wheat and grains is OK, or whether vitamins and supplements do anything at all. I know vegans, people who swear by a Paleo diet, and people who eat whatever they want. All of them think they're right. It's even worse when the subject is politics. I'm convinced that this once great melting pot of a country will remain hopelessly divided for the rest of my life.

I've completely given up on people, but I do wish that everyone could agree on what is best for dogs. Dogs don't get to choose their own healthcare plan, so I think we owe it to them to look out for their best interests. I always want to do what is best for my dogs, but occasionally it occurs to me that everything I know about dogs is just somebody else's opinion. Vets used to says that dogs needed rabies shots every year. Now, it's every three, or in some cases, five years. Is this why Spot got cancer?  I'll probably never know for sure. Doctors will probably never completely agree about my own health either. The playing field is always changing.

In an uncertain world, I would appreciate a calm and uneventful Tuesday. I've grown tired of all the drama and disagreement. To get this uneventful day off to a good start, a big bowl of oatmeal would be just fine.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1591

I managed to compound the problems I was facing with an already busy day by making small mistakes in virtually everything I touched. Maybe I just had too much on my plate today. I suspect it might have been my tendency to ignore the details however. The details I forget are inevitably the first thing my clients always notice. All's well that ends well though. I think I managed to get everything fixed.

Dot did great at her physical therapy session today. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that she was actually getting younger. Her rear legs seem stronger now and she doesn't stumble as often. More importantly, she hasn't had a seizure since  we started to do acupuncture on a regular basis. I asked the vet if there might be a connection between the acupuncture and the seizures, and she said that although there was no way to prove things conclusively, at least two other patients of hers quit having seizures when they started having acupuncture. There is some anecdotal evidence that acupuncture can help prevent seizures in certain situations. Maybe Dot is one of the lucky ones where acupuncture really makes a difference.

I went back to eating oatmeal this morning, but the whole time I was fixing my breakfast, I kept thinking that tomorrow was Friday and I would finally get to go out for a real breakfast. I need to come up with a better solution for feeding myself. I'm actually a pretty good cook, but my OCD tendencies make cooking excruciatingly slow. I often find that I've wasted half the day fixing myself a simple meal. When I'm chopping vegetables, I have to cut everything into precise little squares. The meat has to be browned just so, and heaven forbid that I substitute another spice for the missing one in the spice rack. None of my compulsions make the food taste any better, but they sure do waste a lot of time. I've also noticed that I tend to wash all the dishes by hand before I put them in the dishwasher.  I don't know why I do this, but I suspect it has something to do with trying to make things easier on the machines. By some twisted logic, I think that the dishwasher will last longer if it doesn't need to deal with excessive amounts of dirt.

One of my clients mentioned that she had an idea for a TV series that she would like to pitch. There was a time when I would have jumped at this obvious opportunity to help her put together a pilot episode. I have the experience and I have the equipment. I just don't have the energy anymore. Production is a lot of work. Fifteen years ago I was going to SXSW every Spring, hoping to make connections and find funding for video projects I wanted to do. Now, I'm wondering if I'll ever get behind the camera again. Years ago, I was totally perplexed at all the changes my Dad went through as he got older. Now, I think I'm starting to understand.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1523

I got a pleasant surprise this morning. I received a publisher's proof of my entry in the upcoming SXSW Cookbook. I was amazed. My recipe looked really good. Somebody had actually followed the directions and cooked the recipe, just so they could photograph it for the cookbook. I didn't know they were going to do that. I also didn't know that they were going to give me a really nice write up that made me look like much more than a reclusive guy who works at home with his dogs.

Maybe I was more back in the days when I routinely used to attend SXSW. I couldn't even afford to go to SXSW anymore. The festival wasn't a star studded event like Sundance back then, but it was still a big deal. The year they asked me to be a speaker at the event, fellow speakers included folks like Steven Soderbergh and Matthew McConaughey. I'm without a doubt the least famous person to have a recipe in this illustrious cookbook, which includes recipes by luminaries like Guy Kawasaki and Randi Zuckerberg. It's an honor to be included. I felt kind of the same way when Paypal selected me to be a spokesperson for their advertising a few years ago. I'm kind of a ghost now, but it's nice to be remembered.

It felt like Spring today. Temperatures were in the seventies and there was a nice breeze. Weather like this always brings a ton of people out to the park behind my house. For years, the place used to be a quiet wooded area and then one year the city passed a big bond issue to revitalize the park. Now the park is a popular destination for people from all over the area. With people come problems. Almost every time there's a really nice day I see fire and rescue folks on the lake rescuing swimmers and unlucky folks who managed to sink their kayaks. I don't know what happened today, but while I was giving Dot and Dash their evening walk I saw a large firetruck with seven firemen, a fire department rescue boat, a police car, and an ambulance. I hope everybody was OK, but it didn't look good.

My second Jawbone UP band has broken. I've gotten hooked on wearing these diminutive activity trackers, but they sure don't last very long. Janet and my stockbroker have had their bands go kaput on them too. I wonder why they can't make the batteries in these things last longer. That's usually what goes wrong. One day you wake up and realize the battery just won't charge anymore and you're just wearing a silly looking loop of rubber.

I'm so happy that Dot has made a complete recovery from what could have been a very serious accident. Dalmatians must have iron stomachs. Spot ate broken glass and lived. Petey ate several birds and some rather large barbecued rib bones. Greta just gnawed on the legs of my prized Palazzetti Tomasa dining room chairs, which didn't hurt her at all, but it sure made me sick.

It definitely looks like a dog park day tomorrow. The weather is absolutely fabulous this weekend. At least temporarily, the ground hog is forgiven.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1429

It's that time of year again. I brought home a big pile of photo and lighting equipment from the storage warehouse in preparation for the first of our Santa Paws photo events this weekend. If it seems a little early for a picture of your dog sitting on Santa's lap, just look around you. The Christmas season is already in full swing. There are Christmas tree lots on every other corner. Stores are filled with lights, cards, and decorations. Some people are even starting to decorate their yards.

Every year the equipment seems heavier and it seems to take me a little longer to set up for these events. These Santa photos are all for a good cause though. I guess lugging this heavy gear around is what I've been doing all the workouts for.

I picked up my suit from the tailor today and the moth holes are gone. Reweaving is kind of amazing. Even when I look at the repair with a magnifying glass, I can't see any evidence that a moth hole was ever there. Now that I've taken care of the moth problem, I need to take care of the ticks. Dash seems to attract ticks like a magnet. Oddly, even though they walk together, I rarely see a tick on Dot. I check Dash for ticks every evening, but sometimes I miss a few. This morning I found one crawling on me. Yuck. It's all part of having dogs though. If you have a dog, you're eventually going to find a tick.

Dot did really well at her water therapy session today. She seems to enjoy these sessions. The water is nice and warm. The place is quiet. And the vet techs all like her and feed her treats. Dog class is another story entirely. Sometimes the dogs like their training class too, but not tonight. The only thing Dot and Dash wanted to do at class this evening was go home again. I can't really blame them. It was really cold this evening. I thing the temperature is supposed to get down in the mid-twenties later tonight. I finally remembered to set the outdoor faucets dripping, so they won't freeze. Since there are no valuable plants to bring inside, I guess we're all set for the first hard freeze of the season.

It looks like my breakfast recipe is actually going to be published in the SXSW Cookbook. I had to sign a release form today verifying the my recipe was original and not copied out of another cookbook. I'm glad I didn't have to sign anything guaranteeing that nobody would get sick from eating my recipe. I'm not really a very good cook. If somebody told me a few years ago that I would end up being featured in a film festival cookbook, I would have just laughed at them.

I wish tomorrow was Friday. This week is kind of dragging along. I've got lots of writing and website assignments to finish tomorrow. It's time to go to the gym again as well. One of these days I'll surprise you with something new and original. It won't be tomorrow though.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1315

It took forever to make an appointment with an appliance repairman to come out and fix the garbage disposal. After talking on the phone for fifteen minutes with a friendly, but almost unintelligible customer service representative based far outside the borders of the United States, the line went dead and I had to call again and repeat the entire process all over again. The actual repair visit seems like it will be just as convoluted as the call to set things up. I asked if the repairman could put a new disposal on the truck, just in case the old one couldn't be fixed. Nope, this couldn't be done, I was told. Repairs and installations were two different departments with completely different technicians. If the repair was unsuccessful, I would have to call a second technician to come out later and install a new disposal.

Not to worry, said the service representative on the phone. Apparently, my disposal was still under warranty and the repairs might be free. "If the disposal is still under warranty, why don't we skip the repairs and just install a new one," I said. Nope, they couldn't do that either. I apparently only had a "parts warranty," not a full warranty for the entire disposal. If the disposal was completely trashed and new parts couldn't fix it, there was no warranty at all.

It looks like my recipe will be included in the SXSW Cookbook. I won't know for sure until the book is actually printed in March of 2014 though. Truthfully, I was quite surprised that my recipe made the cut. I called my dish "Lazy Man's Savory Sausage Omelet" and the directions for preparing it would make any real cook cringe. The recipe was authentic though. I didn't copy anyone else's recipe. This mess is all mine.

Even though today was a slow day, I almost didn't make it to the gym. I wasted so much time making an appointment with the appliance repairman as well as answering several confusing client questions via e-mail that the day seemed over before it began. Nothing seems easy these days. Simple tasks that used to take five minutes now seem to drag on for hours. I don't know whether to chalk these frustrating delays up to simple incompetence or look for something more fundamental. Something has changed though. Nobody will give you a simple, straight answer anymore. You have to first fill out an online form, or answer a long series of automated questions on your phone. I usually just say "Speak to a Representative" over and over again when the phone asks me what I'd like to do next. Sometimes this gets me a real person, and other times it doesn't.

Dash seems completely back to normal again. I still set up the nanny cam every time I leave the house, but it might be years until he has another seizure. Dash's blood work came back completely normal today and he has no tick borne diseases. I guess I'll just add seizures to my long list of life's mysteries.

Pongo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1312

Sometime I wonder how people with small children cope with all the uncertainties that come along with the inevitable childhood illnesses and injuries. Just dealing with one sick dog is more than enough for me. I had a lot of errands to run today and I was still worried that Dash might have another seizure. I found myself checking the nanny cam feed on my phone every five minutes or so. Dash was fine. The only thing I observed was that he is a very lazy dog. He didn't move an inch the entire time I was away. I wish I could say the same thing for Dot. There were scattered showers again today and Dot was a nervous nellie. Even though I was watching the camera to check on Dash, it was Dot who forced me to return home. At some point during the afternoon, I could tell she was going into her storm phobia mode. I looked at the weather radar app on my phone and sure enough, there was a storm directly over our house. I knew what to do. I curtailed a trip to the gym and came home. The dogs spent the rest of the afternoon huddled under my desk until the rain stopped.

It would have been nice to go to the gym, but I probably got enough exercise today anyway. I swept the water off the roof again this morning after another overnight rain. So far, the new roof is exactly like the old roof except that it doesn't leak. I'm surprised at how much rain we're getting in July. Most of my efforts to get the standing water off the roof have been an exercise in futility. Usually it is dry as a bone at this time of year. Since the roof doesn't leak anymore, I'm actually kind of happy to have the rain. It keeps the temperature lower, which means that Dot can still take her walks.

The garbage disposal quit working this morning. It didn't get stuck or jammed. It just won't turn on anymore. I can't find a circuit breaker on the disposal either. Do I call a plumber, an electrician, or an appliance repairman?  It could be a mechanical problem with the disposal itself. It could be an electrical problem. Or maybe there's some sort of internal fuse that burned out. The only thing I'm certain of is that I'm not going to try to fix the garbage disposal myself. Years ago, I tried to fix one of these things and ended up with such a bad leak under the sink that I had to call a plumber anyway.

I still haven't picked a recipe to send to the film festival recipe book. I think the deadline is tomorrow. My few original recipes are so simple and boring that a child could make them. I asked Janet what I should do and she told me to just pick something I liked out of one of our many recipe books and change it up a little. Wouldn't that be cheating I asked? She said that most recipes originate from other recipes anyway. This is probably true. There are literally thousands of recipes for lasagna, but they are all just different kinds of stuff layered between lasagna noodles and cooked in a baking dish. Omelets are all pretty much the same too. Beat some eggs, pour them into a skillet, and fold in whatever you want. Maybe I'm just not cut out to be a cook. I'd still like to be featured in that cookbook though.

Jade is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1308

It's been raining for two solid days and I haven't gone up on the roof once. There's still a lot of water up there, but I'm not nearly as worried about it because there are no longer any leaks. Any regular reader will quickly realize that two days of standing water on the roof with no attempt to remove it is nothing short of astonishing. Even without troublesome roof leaks, rain can still be problematic though. It's hard to walk the dogs. Today was a waiting game. The rain was fairly steady throughout the day, but I discovered if I kept an eye on the iPad weather radar, I could still manage to find little pockets of relative dryness when the rain would slow to a trickle and the dogs became brave enough to venture outside. It was one of those days where I used up a lot of towels. We would get wet. Then I would dry everyone off. And then we would repeat the process again.

I was invited today to send a recipe to be included in the 2014 SXSW Interactive Cookbook. It was quite an honor, since my recipe will apparently be included with other recipes from luminaries like Craigslist founder Craig Newmark, Zappos founder Tony Hsieh, and BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti. This invitation just shows how far I have fallen in recent years. Yes, I not only used to attend SXSW on a regular basis, I used to be a speaker there as well in the early years. There's only one problem with submitting a recipe of mine to this cookbook. I don't have any. I can only think of two original recipes I have created in the past twenty-five years and I can no longer eat either of them.

These days I hardly cook at all. I've succumbed to stopping by Central Market several times a week and picking up some tasty, semi-healthy items from the Chef Prepared section. It's kind of like eating out, except that I can eat at home with the dogs and there are no waiters to tip.  Today, I picked up a container of Kale, Chard, and Orange salad and another container with Walnut, Grape and Blue Cheese salad on the way home from the gym.

The gym is already starting to feel like a familiar place. I'm starting to establish a routine that suits me. I stay about an hour or so and work mostly on exercises designed to build up my upper body and core strength. A lot of people at the gym seem to be doing cardio workouts using treadmills and elliptical machines. I don't think I need this type of workout quite as much, since I spend so much time walking the dogs. Maybe I do though. I'm just making this up as I go along.

Even though it was a slow day, I still managed to get a few writing assignments finished. I have a feeling that tomorrow will be busier.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

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

Watch of the Day