Day 2669

I found out this morning that the guy who played lead guitar in my old band is dead. I was going to wish him Happy Birthday on Facebook and when I went to his page I discovered that he had passed away last September. I'm so out of touch these days that this isn't the first time this has happened. I'm kind of wary about wishing someone my age Happy Birthday now without checking to make sure they're alive first. I'm not sure about the etiquette of these things, but it seems disrespectful to send a Facebook greeting to a dead person. Although it's a little late now to pay my respects, I was really sorry to learn about my old friend. He was a good guy. The years I spent playing in a band with him were some of the best.

I cut myself again today and didn't even notice until hours later. This is the second time I've done this recently. I have a feeling that I'm scraping my arms on branches in the yard when I'm holding Dot up when I take her outside to pee. I have to really concentrate when I'm walking her around like a marionette. I used to be able to just walk behind Dot, holding up her rear end as she walked. Now, her front legs are starting to become weak as well, so I need to provide support for both the front and rear. It's kind of awkward and hard on the back, so I have to be careful that I don't trip. It's not really surprising at all that I don't notice when I've bumped into a tree.

Blueberries are back. There was a big supply today, but they had doubled in price. I wonder sometimes how stores keep a steady supply of seasonal items. These berries probably came from South America instead of California or Mexico. Somewhere there's a guy who's job it is to source berries from all over the world, so people like me can enjoy them in their smoothie all year long. I'm always impressed that things like this work so smoothly. Maybe I'm not as much of an isolationist as I think I am. I enjoy having access to fresh fruit all year long. I routinely buy coffee from Ethiopia and Sumatra. And I'm continually amazed that you can get good sushi in Dallas.

The indestructible pants I bought at REI last year are already falling apart. I'm disappointed, but Janet tells me that you're not supposed to wear the same pair of pants every day. The knees of these pants tore first, which isn't surprising since I spend half my day on my knees cleaning up poop, or trying to get Dot back in an upright position. If lifting weights is supposed to build muscle, I don't understand why I'm still having trouble with muscle atrophy. After two years of lifting a fifty pound dog, I should look like the incredible hulk by now. Sadly, my muscle mass hasn't increased at all and all I've done is tear up both shoulders.

It looks like we got a bumper crop of wildflowers this year. The fields and meadows around our house are in full bloom now. I'm seeing new varieties almost everyday. Some flowers only bloom for a few days and others stick around for months. Some bloom very early in the morning and disappear by midday. It's fascinating to watch this pageant of color unfold. I spotted some Lazy Daisies this morning. I wonder who names these things.

I'm going to have to be careful when I walk the dogs in the park tomorrow. Every year, hundreds of families have their Easter Egg hunts here. Nobody seems to hide real eggs anymore. They hide plastic eggs filled with candy and chocolate. The kids never seem to find all the eggs, but the dogs do.  Since chocolate is poisonous to dogs, I definitely don't want Dot and Dash to go snooping around in the grass for stuff the kids left behind. It's amazing how much litter appears every Easter. Nobody even tries to pick up their mess.

It's been a long day. Two rugs and a blanket got soiled, but it could have been a lot worse. Dot is tired now and so am I. Hopefully we'll get some decent sleep before we start all over again tomorrow.

Krissy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 562

I had lunch today with Tom, the keyboard player for my old band The Fabulous Has Beens. Tom is on the far left in the picture and I'm the guy playing bass in the pink shirt. It was fun catching up on things while we were eating unhealthy fried foods at the Flying Fish. Like the rest of the band, Tom and I hadn't seen each other in years and had recently reunited on Facebook. Time had certainly taken it's toll on both of us. In some ways, it was hard to believe we both used to be rockers. In other ways, nothing had changed at all. Tom is a health insurance specialist now. I took this as a golden opportunity to complain about my own health insurance woes, but Tom told me I was a lot better off than I thought I was. "A lot of people working at good companies have worse plans than yours," he told me. Tom wanted me to join him at a breakfast business networking group he was a member of sometime next month. This would probably be a good idea for me. I don't get out much. Right now, the only networking I do is saying Happy Birthday to people on Facebook.

I think I set a new speed record for website design today. Well, it was a record for me anyway. I designed and launched an entire new website for one of my clients in a single day. Granted, it's not the most complex or fancy site in the world, but it works and actually looks pretty nice. It's kind of ironic. I got the site up so fast that the DNS still hasn't had time to finish moving from it's initial parking place at GoDaddy to the new servers at the hosting company. The site is finished, but nobody can see it yet, mostly because it generally takes a while for the DNS to propagate after you point it to a new location. I've tried to explain DNS propagation to my clients before but I don't think I've succeeded. I'm sure they think I just haven't finished the site yet.

It's hard to believe that the year is already half over. I certainly haven 't accomplished anything spectacular during the first half of the year. I guess there's still six months left to set the world on fire. Hey, I've got 200 blog followers now and 3,000 Twitter followers. That should count for something. Maybe I'm actually managing to make a boring life seem interesting. On that note, I'll go take out the garbage. It's Thursday night and that means it's time to haul the trash out to the street again. How time flies.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 428

I got an invitation to a Stern Monroe reunion in the mail today. This agency closed its doors almost twenty years ago, so I was amazed that someone had managed to track down enough people to invite. I can forget someone's name three weeks after I've met them, so I'm always impressed with reunion committees that manage to find people who've been lost for decades. I've skipped a lot of reunions over the years, but I'm planning to go to this one. Stern Monroe was actually one of the ad agencies I enjoyed working at.

I'm thinking it might be fun to have a reunion of the old band I used to play in. I've managed to find the lead singer, the drummer, the lead guitar player and the keyboard player on Facebook. Only two more band members to go. Of course most of us don't even live in the same city any more, but that is probably a minor problem compared to the task of remembering enough songs to get through a three set gig.

I don't think my own memory is much better than the dogs memory anymore. They certainly forgot a few things at training class tonight. This is the first time we've had nice weather on Wednesday evening for a long time now and all the dogs in class were a little rusty. Dot and Dash probably did as well as anyone else though. The dogs might not have wanted to do the exercises, but they were definitely excited to see each other again. I'm still surprised at how social Dash has become recently. He was determined to say hello to every dog in class tonight.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day