Day 1321

Today was pleasant. The weather was surprisingly mild for a July day in Texas. Janet fixed a nice breakfast. The dogs enjoyed their visit to the dog park. They even saw several dogs that they knew. When we returned home, I got the lawnmower out and mowed until the yard looked presentable again. I'm more or less caught up on work assignments too. The only thing that was missing today was a mid-afternoon Dr. Who marathon on BBC.

Since I finished my weekend cores early, I decided to brave the crowds at the mall and go looking for a better WiFi camera to monitor Dash when I'm away. I may have overdone it. The camera I came home with not only has a great picture, it also monitors sound, keeps track of the temperature and humidity, allows two way communication, and plays a lullaby on command. Yes, I really bought a baby monitor instead of a pet monitor. I guess people with babies are even more apprehensive than I am with the dogs, since this thing had features that had never even occurred to me before.

The icing on the cake was that the camera actually worked. Sometimes they don't. I read all the reviews and they were split 50/50. Half the people thought this was the best WiFi camera on the planet and the other half thought it was a worthless piece of junk. I bought the camera making the assumption that the 50% who hated the camera had never hooked anything up to a WiFi network before. Routers, firewalls, and wireless gateways aren't always friendly with each other and it is often difficult to introduce a new piece of equipment to the system. Luck was on my side today though. The camera works like a charm.

The electrician is coming to fix the garbage disposal at 7:30 AM tomorrow. Lord knows why he wants to come so early, but it's just as well. Maybe he'll be able to get the faulty wiring fixed in time for me to take the dogs on a walk at their normal time and proceed with my Monday work day. You never know with electricians though. He may fix the problem in five minutes, or he may tell me that the entire house is not up to code and that everything needs to be rewired.

I hope I have time to go to the gym tomorrow. It's been more difficult to establish a regular schedule than I anticipated. Dash has a vet appointment every other Tuesday and Dot has a vet appointment every Wednesday. Walking the dogs and carting them around to their various appointments eats up a lot of time. Work is erratic too. Some days there is so much to do that I don't even have time to eat. Other days are so quiet that I have trouble staying awake. Workout or no workout, I'll be a happy camper if I have a working garbage disposal at the end of the day.

Queenie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1089

We're done! After photographing hundreds of dogs and snapping thousands of images, the Santa Paws pet picture events are over for another year. This is a good series of fundraisers for Dalmatian Rescue. Every picture we take helps to save another abandoned Dalmatian. Even though it is a good cause, I'm still glad the photo marathon is finally over. It's tiring taking pictures of dogs all day. Dogs aren't very impressed by photography. They've got better things to do. Some dogs like to chew on Santa's beard. Other dogs like to pee on the muslin backdrop. Very few dogs listen to the photographer at all. Despite all this, we still manage to get good pictures. Everyone seemed happy with their photos this year, and most said they'll be back to see us again next year.

With the holiday pet photos finished, it's time to clean the house and pack away some of the photo gear. I'll be taking a lot of stuff back to the storage warehouse tomorrow. Although I take pictures for clients all year long, I rarely use big sets. Maybe with all the Santa Paws gear back in its place again, we can finally get the house looking nice. It will definitely be an uphill battle. If you ever saw my office, you'd probably think the whole effort was hopeless. I'm convinced that somewhere underneath all this clutter is a thing of beauty. We've just got to find it.

With all the Santa Paws photo events during the past three weeks, Dot and Dash have been getting shortchanged on their weekend outings at the dog park. We'll try to make amends tomorrow. The weather looks nice and I can't think of one good reason not to head up North for a little play time. It's probably good to avoid our own park tomorrow anyway. There's a big marathon race on Sunday and the place will be packed with people.

Our dog training class had a Christmas party tonight, but Janet and I were both too tired to attend. By the time I got all the photography stuff unloaded out of the car and took the dogs on their evening walk, all I really felt like doing was taking a long nap. Janet hasn't completely recovered from the food poisoning episode either. Maybe by this time next week, everything will be back to normal.

Willow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1076

The dogs got an unexpected treat today. The weather was so nice that they got to visit two dog parks in a single day. After visiting the first park, it just didn't seem right to go home just yet. Dot and Dash seemed to agree, so we paid a visit to a second dog park about five miles further North. With double the number of trees to pee on and an abundance of friendly dogs to sniff, a good time was had by all. Although we don't get New England style Fall colors here in Texas, we did see quite a bit of red and orange today. This is undoubtedly my favorite time of year.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. When we returned from our dog park expedition, I mowed the grass and raked leaves. Raking leaves is just as much a part of the Fall experience as photographing them.

My old answering machine hasn't been recording any messages lately. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that messaging technology has changed and my ancient machine is obsolete. Today seemed as good a day as any to retire the ancient machine and set up the voice-mail account that came with my U-verse service. When I finally got the U-verse voice-mail working, I was amazed at how many options I had. I could selectively prioritize and block calls. I could forward them anywhere I wanted. Best of all, I could even keep those annoying anonymous telemarketing calls from coming through at all. I could even program things so the voice-mail messages showed up on my television screen. Pretty fancy for a guy who never gets calls in the first place. If I was smart, I would have done what many of my friends have done and dropped the land line entirely. Old habits die hard though. For the time being, I'll keep the land line around just to keep the telemarketers happy.

I finished watching the Firefly series on DVD today. The show was actually pretty good. I'm surprised that I completely missed the series when it was on the air ten years ago. I've heard that after the short lived 14 episode series ended, Joss Whedon made a feature length movie called Serenity in hopes of getting the series extended. It didn't happen. I'll have to look for a copy of this movie now. I want to see what happens next.

I have an appointment for my annual physical exam tomorrow afternoon. I dread these exams, because nothing good seems to come of them. Usually something suspicious but largely inconclusive is discovered and I have to go thorough even more tests to determine what is really going on. What is the point of all these tests? I can tell you what is going on right now. I'm getting older.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 866

I'm increasingly feeling like the captain of a sinking ship. Everything is broken. Lately, when I embark on a repair project around the house, I find myself having to repair my tools before I begin. When I retrieved the handy aluminum garden cart from the greenhouse this morning to begin installing the St. Augustine sod, I discovered that both tires were flat. No problem, I thought. I got the air compressor out of the utility shed and began pumping them up. Neither tire would hold air. The rubber was so dry and brittle that the tires wouldn't make an airtight seal around the rim. Oh, well. I tried. While I had the air compressor out, I decided to check the tires on the Defender. One rear tire was inflated to 40 PSI, while the other was only inflated to 17 PSI. I could understand the low, leaky tire, but how did the other tire get more air in it? A mystery for sure. I never inflate tires to more than 32 PSI.

After two trips to the grass store and many more trips transferring the grass sod from my car to the back yard using my broken garden cart, I was ready to begin. Janet bought some top soil in big bags yesterday. We spread the top soil on the tilled soil to smooth it out and then put the squares of St. Augustine sod on top. The grass looks good, but after we installed all the sod I bought today, only 1/3 of the yard was actually covered. Either the yard had gotten bigger, or the squares of sod had gotten smaller. By my rough calculations, this means at least four more trips to the grass store and 100 more squares of sod before the job is complete.

Our regular Sunday trip to the dog park was the most relaxing thing we did all day. The city could stand to plant some new grass too, because the park is starting to look just as bare as our back yard. The dogs didn't seem to mind the lack of grass. There seems to be an unwritten rule among dogs that the dirtier you are, the more status you have. All the dogs in the park today seemed perfectly content digging holes and rolling around in the dust.

It's hard to believe that it's almost May already. April just zipped by. With tax season out of the way and a real estate agent trying to sell my rent property, there is nowhere to go but up. Hey, I may even try to make some new business calls next week.  That would be a first for a year that is now almost half over.

Parker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 865

Getting the rototiller going this afternoon wore me out. For starters, gas engines that haven't been used in four years don't like to start. I must have pulled the starter cord a hundred times before I got any type of combustion. Once I got the tiller to start, it refused to stay running. Finally, after the engine had warmed up and the lines had been cleared, I got the raucous two-cycle noise I was looking for. Once I actually started tilling the soil, I wondered why I even bothered. It was like tilling an asphalt parking lot. The ground was so hard that the tiller would bounce a foot in the air when it hit a particularly hard spot. The machine was vibrating so badly that my right hand kept bumping into the kill switch and stopping the engine. I thought about duct taping the kill switch open, but I was getting tired and I knew that if the tiller got away from me, there could be some serious damage.

Somehow, I remember that tilling the soil used to seem a lot easier. Today I had trouble even getting gas into the tiller. It used to be that filling your gas powered yard tools was as simple as putting a spout on your gas can and pouring until the tank was full.  Now, with all the child proof safety features on modern gas containers, you practically have to read an instruction manual to figure out how to get the gas to flow. I sprained my thumb trying to get one of the child proof latches to open and I don't even have children. After all my efforts, I will admit that the back yard no longer looks like an asphalt parking lot. It looks like a field of boulders instead. Dash certainly likes the new look. As soon as I let the dogs out to inspect things, Dash immediately started digging holes in the newly loosened earth.

The only easy thing I did today was finish writing my April writer's group assignment. I wish that real life was as easy as doing things on the computer. Sure computers crash from time to time, but they seldom make you sweat or cause you to sprain an ankle. I wish that cleaning the house was as easy as defragmenting my hard drive. Just hit the start button and wait till it's finished. That would be nice.

The worst thing about getting ready to plant grass is that I've still got to go buy the grass and actually plant it. St. Augustine sod is heavy, because each square consists of a tiny surface of light grass attached to a base of heavy clay. The grass people say that this clay will dissolve and disappear as soon as the roots get established. The clay actually never disappears. It turns into a rock hard layer that practically has to be dynamited if you ever want to plant grass again.

We'll try to go to the dog park early tomorrow. If we waited until we finished planting the grass, I'd be too tired to go to the dog park. I'm sure Dot and Dash will enjoy having a green yard again. For a while they'll be able to sun themselves without turning into little dust balls. Then, the inevitable will happen. They'll race around and tear the grass up again and we'll be right back where we started.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 838

The dogs got a nice outing at the dog park this morning. When we returned home, I settled down for a long afternoon of chores. I'm so far behind in getting the rental property ready to show again that I decided to spend the entire afternoon cleaning the place up.

I re-hung the closet doors so the handles were facing outward again. I removed mountains of cable that had been stapled to the walls by the Direct TV and U-verse guys. I vacuumed all the floors. All these tasks were just a sideshow though. The main event was painting. I painted over all the dings, dents and wall anchor holes that I had Spackled during my previous visit. I thought I was doing a pretty good job until the first coat of paint dried and I realized that my touch up paint wasn't quite the same color as the rest of the wall. Damn!

The paint was actually the very same paint that I had used to paint the walls three or four years ago before my renter moved in. Unfortunately, the paint on the walls had aged and darkened a bit over the years. Now, instead of just touching up around the nail holes and miscellaneous scrapes, I'm going to have to entirely repaint the walls. This is why renters are so frustrating. They think they deserve a medal for cleaning the oven before they leave, while at the same time they're creating a host of new problems that they aren't even aware of.

When I was walking the dogs this evening, we passed a local rock band playing in the park. These guys had a full kit with a good PA system and everything. They were playing to an audience of five people. I think there were six people in the band. The odd thing was they actually sounded pretty good. These guys were mostly just playing old Eagles songs, but any cover band who can do a credible job playing Hotel California in a public park is OK with me. I still don't know what they were doing out there. The dogs weren't very interested in hanging around to find out.

Tomorrow's going to be a busy day. I've got to re-schedule the appointment with the electrician, I've got to make a new appointment with Dot's vet to see if they can determine why she's so tired and shaky on her legs. I've got to see if I can get the washing machine repairman to commit to finishing the job he started over a week ago. We've been without a washing machine for quite a while now. If I've got time, I need to go to the one paint store in town that can still mix the proper color of paint for my rental property. A couple of gallons should do. Oh, and I need to set up a meeting with that guy who wants a new website for his company. I guess that's enough for one day.

Haley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 837

Janet and I went to another charity fundraiser tonight. I think this one benefited children instead of animals, but they're all pretty much the same. We used to spend more time at these things, but now we pretty much just eat our dinner and come home. With Dot's rear legs getting increasingly shaky, we both hate to leave her by herself for long periods of time. I ended up bidding on a pallet of St. Augustine grass at the silent auction, since I'm going to have to be putting in new grass anyway in a few weeks. We played a little roulette out of habit, but we were home before nine.

I started moving some stuff into the new storage space this afternoon, mostly because I needed to bring home some special steps I had in storage that will make it easier for Dot to get up in the bed at night. I had these steps made for Petey when his legs started to go and they actually work pretty good. Now, we've just got to teach her how to use them. She still seems to want to take a flying leap up into the bed instead of gently walking up the steps.

The steps were buried away pretty well, so I ended up moving quite a few things from the old storage space to the new one just so I could get the dog steps and bring them home. While trying to find the elusive steps, I uncovered a dental drill, a vacuum tube powered, 1950's era lie detector machine and an original Elsworth Kelly painting. I don't do much now, but this odd little room reminds me that I have led an interesting life.

I was going to go down to the rent house and do some painting today, but I spent so much time at the storage warehouse that all I had time to do was go to the grocery store and walk the dogs before we had to leave for the charity dinner. If we were smart we would have just eaten at home and left a little later for the event. The food was terrible. These guys need to find a new caterer next year.

It looks like it's going to be a great day to go to the dog park tomorrow. The weather was beautiful today and it looks like it's going to stay this way for the rest of the week. I think Dot's days of racing around are over, but she still likes to wander through the park and smell the flowers.

Smiley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 831

Our weekly trip to the dog park was the high point of the day. After we returned and had a little lunch, it was non-stop chores. I went to Home Depot first, to try to get a battery for my lawn mower before the grass in the front yard gets two feet tall. Although the store was still selling my model of mower, they had no replacement batteries. "We used to have batteries for these." was the best response I could get out of anyone. The salespeople couldn't even point me to a service center. Everyone seemed totally dependent on the Home Depot website. I already knew what the website said however. It said that this battery was out of stock online. Oh, well. Too much grass up front. Not enough grass out back. What are you going to do? Maybe I can get the battery rebuilt where I buy my watch batteries.

Later in the afternoon, I kept the promise I made yesterday and went down to clean my rental property. I'm happy to say that the Goo-be-Gone stuff actually worked and most of the candle wax and sticky stuff on the stone floors is gone. Now I've got to figure out how to get the Goo-be-Gone off the floors. It's some kind of petroleum based product and it doesn't seem to evaborate.

The big Molly Bolt wall anchors in the living room were a lot harder to remove than the sticky stuff on the floors. I managed to get most of them out, but I've got to go back and plaster over the holes. Now, the living room looks like someone used the walls for target practice. Renters are a complete mystery to me. I just don't understand why they do some of the things they do. In one of the bedrooms, someone took off the four sliding closet doors and put them on again backwards. Why? I just don't know what this proves. I've still got a lot of work to do, but I ought to have the place presentable enough to show a real estate agent in a week or two.

I think I'm getting too old to be cleaning sticky stuff off floors on my hands and knees. All I know it that every bone in my body was sore when I arrived home for dinner. I hate to pay someone to do this stuff however. It's simple mindless work. I used to be able to do this type of cleaning all day long. Unfortunately, the operating word in this case is "used to." If my hands rebel at scrubbing a floor, Lord help me when I pick up a guitar again.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 824

There is a big storm on the way with as much as eight inches of rain predicted for tomorrow. Like it or not, today was the day to bag up all the leaves in the yard and get them out to the curb for bulky trash day. If the leaves become waterlogged again, we'll be stuck with them for another month. Today was the day to try and get the roof patched as well. It's been dry for a while now, so it's easier to spot the small cracks where water gets inside.

Before tackling these tiring chores, we took Dot and Dash to the dog park. Dot is back to her old self again. The park is turning green again, which is a big improvement over the pile of dirt it is in the Winter. While the dogs were playing, we saw Dash try to protect Dot from an overly aggressive dog. We've never seen this before. I think dogs send signals to each other that we don't see or hear. Dash probably understood that Dot was still vulnerable and not quite herself. Dash was quite the hero, chasing the big black dog who was trying to hump every dog in the park away from Dot.

When we got back home, it was time for work. Janet and I must have bagged thirty bags of leaves in the back yard. The leaf blower sent an almost equal number into the street in front of the house where passing eighteen wheelers scattered them to the four winds. The yard looks much better now and is ready for a new St. Augustine turf to be installed in early April. I still can't believe the turf we put in last year only lasted one year. I think I'm going to till the soil before installing the new grass this time. The grass people said not to do this last year, but I don't think they realized how hard the clay in the backyard is. The roots never got established, even though we watered constantly. Hopefully, tilling the soil and adding some additional topsoil will help this time.

With a big rain coming, I knew I had one last chance to find the roof leak and patch it. I did find one little hole that still looked damp when the rest of the roof was dry. I dragged the shop vac up on the roof and tried to suck water out of this hole before I patched it. Amazingly, over two gallons of water came out. There is something a bit hopeless about this entire situation. I need an entirely new roof. Unfortunately, I can't really afford one yet. I keep patching and hoping for the best.

All in all, it was a pretty good day. Janet and I are tired. The dogs are tired. We're ready as we can be for whatever comes our way.

Nick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 816

It rained all day. The furnace apparently can no longer be repaired. The new sump pump I bought for the roof today doesn't even work. Need I say more? Some of my friends keep telling me that I need to keep the blog upbeat and positive. Truthfully, I do get more followers when I'm upbeat and positive. Nevertheless, there are still days when everything sucks. This was one of those days.

The dogs were amazingly quiet this morning when Marty came over to look at the furnace. I was amazed at how quiet they were and so was Marty. What was so different about today? The only thing I can think of is that Janet was home. Either the dogs are more confident when she's home, or they don't feel the need to protect anything when two of us are here. The difference was amazing. I was actually able to hear when Marty told me that the furnace was on its last legs and probably wasn't worth repairing again.

I don't know where I'm going to be able to find a decent pump. The pump I bought today was advertised as the perfect utility pump, capable of pumping of 3000 gallons an hour. What nobody told me is that the pump needs to be sitting in at least six inches of water before it will start pumping at all. There's a lot of water on the roof, but it isn't six inches deep. The new pump didn't work at all and I'll have to take it back tomorrow. My old metal Simer Geyser pump was almost indestructible and would suck up standing water even if it was only 1/4 inch deep. All these new pumps are constructed out of plastic and appear to be made for the sole purpose of creating decorative fountains in backyard ponds. None of them work very well for getting water off a flat roof. Sign of the times I guess.

I was trying to figure out how to get the little red location circle in the right place on my client's embedded Google map this afternoon. I experimented by inputting slightly different addresses to see if I could get the circle to move and then I realized that this was a stupid plan. Even if I did manage to get the circle in the right place, it would still show the wrong address. I think I'll just take down the Google map and replace it with a Bing map.

It doesn't look like the dogs will get to go to the dog park tomorrow. With all this rain, the park probably isn't just muddy. There's a good chance it's underwater.

Ely is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 810

It was interesting watching the dogs at the dog park today. One reason I like dogs so much is that they never hide their personalities. Active, energetic dogs are unabashedly wild. Shy dogs aren't a bit shy about letting you know exactly how they feel. All the dogs seem to instinctively seek out other dogs with similar personalities. Dot is not playful, but nobody pushes her on the issue. Dash is a bit shy, but puppies seem to seek him out. The dogs who like to chase each other at breakneck speeds from one end of the park to the other, always seem to leave the more sedentary dogs alone. The humans seldom have to intervene, because the dogs already know what kind of animal they are.

Even though there were dramatically different canine personalities in the park today, all the humans seemed pretty much the same. I'm sure the dogs owner's were just as diverse as their dogs, but we humans are so much better at masking our feelings. The people just talked politely with each other, while the dogs lived out their K-9 fantasies in public. I think the dogs have the right idea.

The weather was so nice today that I decided to tackle the leaves in the back yard after we got back from the dog park. Every Spring, it seems like there are more leaves than the year before, but I think it is a lot more likely that I just have less energy than the year before. There were certainly a lot of leaves today. In some spots the dead leaves had become compacted into a solid mass almost two feet thick. It was almost as if the entire yard had turned into a giant compost heap. One thing that you quickly discover when you rake leaves in the Spring is that you missed a lot of dog poop during the Winter. After several hours of using a rake and the leaf blower, I finally managed to get most of the leaves corralled into a huge pile in the middle of the yard.

Now, the leaves need to go into big plastic trash bags where they will wait for the illusive day when the city comes to pick them up. I need to check and see whether there is some special bag the leaves need to go into. I seem to remember a very angry neighbor last Spring who was furious, because after bagging all his leaves, the city refused to pick them up because they were in the wrong kind of bag. This seems like something the city would do, so I think I'll check first before I go to the trouble of bagging everything.

I may need to rethink my plan of buying a guitar and becoming a rock god again. I need to be able to spend an afternoon with a leaf blower first without being defeated by wrist pain. My left wrist just about killed me after two hours of swinging the leaf blower around with my left hand. I don't remember things being this bad last year. Carpal tunnel syndrome basically sucks.

Orion is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 789

Where is streaming video when you really need it? I've been trying to watch the Grammy's while I write this and I thought it would be easy to just open the show in a separate window and write while I watched. No such luck. Apparently, some folks still want you to watch the show on a regular TV. I've been going back and forth between the office and the nearest large flat screen. I like watching the Grammy's better than the Oscars or other awards shows because some of the live performances are amazingly good. I just finished watching the Beach Boys reunion and the harmonies were still pretty tight. Brian Wilson looked a little out of it, but it was amazing that he was even there with the rest of the band.

I've started noticing that the colder the weather, the larger and more aggressive the dogs are at the dog park. It was only a few degrees above freezing this morning, so the park was filled with huge, very active dogs. Dash totally lost his nerve and wouldn't play with anyone. I couldn't blame him. It was pretty rough and tumble today. We took the dogs Winter coats off, thinking they were cramping their style, but without his coat, Dash just ran away from the other dogs a little faster.

I ended up going to Target this afternoon to get a waterpic to ease my fears of being without a dentist. I hate going to Walmart and Target, but that's where you find these small appliances these days. I don't think I've been inside a Target or Walmart for several years. I prefer to imagine these stores don't even exist. I think I can sum up the discount superstore experience in four words: great deals; weird people. I did get my waterpic though. I'll probably still get a cavity before I find a dentist again.

I won't be doing Valentines pictures for the Dalmatians this year. It's getting harder and harder to find a good venue. We will be doing Easter pictures though. Get your little dogs ready for impossibly cute pictures sitting in an Easter basket, or on an egg, or something like that. Until then, I'll try try to keep myself busy writing about oilfield technology and shooting the inevitable employee pictures for websites you'll probably never see. Oh, in case you didn't notice: Adele was fantastic at the Grammy's tonight.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 775

There was a big fight at the dog park today. Two dogs went after each other and within seconds, ten more joined in the ruckus. By the time the owners got their dogs separated, there was definitely a little blood spilled. I'm really glad that Dot and Dash don't have the desire to pile on when they see other dogs get into a scuffle. They both walked away from the commotion this morning and retreated to the other side of the dog park. Maybe they take after me in this regard. I avoid confrontations whenever I can. I don't agree with other people about very much, but our differences are seldom worth fighting about. If I fought with everyone I disagreed with, I'd be battling someone 24/7. It's much easier these days to publicly ignore what goes on around me while privately thinking that everyone has gone nuts.

The weather was so nice today that I though it would be a good time to trim all the low hanging tree limbs hanging over the roof. One of our large oak trees has become quite overgrown and some of the limbs are actually touching the roof now. When I go up to get the water off after a rain, I am continually bumping my head on these low hanging branches. I'm certainly no arborist, so I just copied what I'd seen other tree trimmers do when I used to hire professionals. I thinned and I pruned and after a few hours, the two trees that overhang the roof looked a lot better. I think I may have found where one of the leaks might have started while I was up on the roof as well. Most of the roof was dry, but there were a few areas that were still damp right at the edge of a seam. I should have spray painted an arrow to mark these areas, because when the roof dries completely, they will look absolutely normal. This was just the right time to see the telltale signs of a leak. I couldn't find any spray paint around the house unfortunately, so I'll just have to remember where these problem areas are. I can't patch anything until the roof is completely dry.

I don't remember manual labor always being this hard. Maybe I'm out of shape, or maybe I'm just getting old. Trimming trees seemed like hard work this afternoon. Maybe it was just the saw. The big reciprocating saw is pretty heavy, but it's a lot safer than a chain saw. A few years ago, an acquaintance of mine slipped while using a chain saw and the blade caught him in the face as he fell. After seeing what happened to this guy, I don't think I'll ever use a chain saw again.

Do any of you other bloggers use Entrecard? For the past several days I've noticed that I can't login to Entrecard anymore. The site seems dead. Maybe this is the end of the blog advertising sites. Adgitize closed its doors last month and before that several similar sites met their demise. It would be a shame if all these sites were gone. I discovered most of the blogs I currently follow using Adgitize and Entrecard.

Spirit is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 768

Another weird Winter day in Texas. It was clear and cool when I woke up this morning. As the day progressed, it got much warmer and windier. By the end of the day the winds were quite strong and seemed to be bringing the remains of a West Texas dust storm with them. The setting sun was almost totally obscured by dust and haze. I've been waiting for one of these days to get one of those pictures of a red ball sun hovering just above the horizon. Unfortunately when the conditions were perfect, I only had my iPhone with me. I could have gotten a lot better picture with a proper camera and a telephoto lens, but at least I have a record of this dusty, hazy day.

Earlier today at the dog park, we had trouble even finding a parking place. The warm weather brought people and their dogs to the park in droves. There were plenty of small, well behaved dogs for Dash to play with, but he didn't seem to be in the mood. I still can't figure out what it takes to bring out Dash's playful side. Some days, he'll race around the park with great abandon and other days, like today, he's kind of shy and never leaves our side. Even when the dogs aren't playful, I still think they enjoy the trip to the dog park. They love being off leash and having the opportunity to roam around and take in all the new smells.

Even though I would have preferred spending the afternoon watching Dr. Who re-runs on TV, I took advantage of the nice weather and did some tree pruning in the back yard. I removed all the dead limbs on the Photinia Bushes that I could reach with a pair of pruning shears. Some of the branches were too big and I'll have to go back later with a saw. While I was working, one of our older neighbors was walking down the back alley and told me how nice our yard looked. This is a sure sign that the poor guy has gone senile. The yard actually looks terrible.

I continued downloading Logic Pro today. I didn't realize how long it would take to download 15 GB of files over a WiFi connection. When I get everything in place, I'll be all set to do nice scores for TV commercials again. Never mind that nobody has asked me to do music for a commercial in almost three years. When they do, I'm ready.

Raider is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 767

Janet and I went to Grand Prairie this morning to pick up Molly and take her to the vet. Another pair of Dalmatian Rescue volunteers had taken Molly on the first leg of her journey from the Burleson, Texas pound to a PetSmart parking lot in Grand Prairie where we met them to pick her up and take her the rest of the way. When we arrived at the rendezvous point, we saw that Molly was a small dog who had led a hard life. She had bad skin, was covered with ticks, and cried when you touched her feet. We made her comfortable in the back seat and headed back toward Dallas for an appointment with the Dalmatian Rescue vet. Although she had an ingrown dewclaw and was suffering from poor nutrition, Molly was basically healthy. I don't think it will take this girl long to find a home. She has a great disposition and is going to be a wonderful companion for some lucky person.

After Molly had been safely delivered to the Dalmatian Rescue kennels, it was back to weekend chores for us. I made a web page for Molly and then went to the grocery store and got gas for the Defender. Although it was still a beautiful day outside, it was considerably colder than it was yesterday. It felt much too cold to go around with a pruning saw and trim hedges in the back yard, so I downloaded some software instead. I love the Apple app store. One by one, all Apple's favorite applications are becoming available on the app store at much lower prices than I've ever seen them before. I noticed today that's Apple's Logic Pro Studio was available for less than half of what the boxed version cost just several months ago. I've been thinking of buying Logic for a while now and was glad that my indecision worked out in my favor. It's a large program though. I started downloading the application several hours ago and it still isn't finished yet.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm getting tired of non-stop political coverage on TV. I watched a few minutes of the South Carolina returns this evening and then changed the channel and watched Betty White's 90th birthday party instead. Tomorrow looks like it's going to be another good day for the dog park. Even the dog park is more interesting that all this political coverage.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 761

Even though virtually nothing happened, it still seemed like a busy day. Sundays are always like this. We get off to a late start, and by the time breakfast and the weekly trip to the dog park are finished, it is mid-afternoon. Today, the dogs got a bath at Vheas Laundromutt after the dog park. Last week, the dogs that drooled all over Dash while he was playing caused his coat to turn brown again and the vet suggested a bath after being slobbered on by other dogs. Dash seems allergic to just about everything, apparently including dog spit.

I asked our vet about the strange stains on Dash's coat last week and she said this sort of thing wasn't that uncommon. It seems that some dogs have a lot of bacteria in their saliva that can cause a reaction if other dogs are exposed to it. Even stranger, if a dog has been recently vaccinated, traces of the vaccine can show up in the saliva as well, causing a reaction if the other dog is sensitive to the vaccine. Now we have to add dog spit to the long list of things Dash needs to avoid.

Every weekend, I've been trying to print some new images on my large printer and put them aside for a future gallery show. This activity helps keep the printer lines from getting clogged and may even help me get another show down the road. The new images are actually better than the ones I displayed at my last show. I just need to get my butt in gear and pack them in a portfolio case and take them around to some gallery owners. So, when will I find the time to do this? Maybe next year sometime. It certainly won't happen any time soon.

Janet is off work tomorrow. Her office exchanged getting off on Good Friday for getting off on MLK Day instead. This seems a bit strange to me, but it certainly shows the direction the country is headed. I wonder what Martin Luther King would have thought? He was a religious man. I bet he would have wanted people to keep Good Friday as a religious holiday.

Tomorrow isn't a holiday for me. I've got a stack of website and writing work to finish and I need to drive up to North Dallas for my quarterly review with my financial adviser as well. I hope my financial adviser has some good news to report, but that isn't very unlikely.

Betty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 754

Dash had an exceptionally good day at the dog park. I don't think I've ever seen him play as long or as enthusiastically. He's still scared of larger dogs, after being bitten by one. He is friendly with puppies though, and today he was lucky enough to find a young, but very large puppy who was just the right size. You can tell when Dash is excited. If you look closely at the picture, you'll notice that all four of his paws are off the ground.

I got a new set of fitted sheets a couple of weeks ago, and when I made the bed this morning the brand new fitted bottom sheet ripped at the seam. I usually chalk this sort of thing up to bad luck, but Janet insisted we take the sheets back and get a refund. Luckily, she was willing to do this if I could find the receipt, because I hate to take things back to the store.

I've got a ton of shoddy or broken things that I never bothered to take back or exchange. I probably should take things back more often though. The store refunded the price of the sheets without raising an eyebrow. The whole process was quick and easy. I probably would have gotten out the sewing machine, tried to repair the rip, and made such a mess of things that nobody would have even considered taking them back.

I still haven't gotten caught up with adding all the new dogs to the animal rescue site. Most of the new additions are puppies. It sure would have been easier just to make one new page called "puppies" instead of creating individual pages for each pup in the litter. All the little lab-mix pups look identical, so each of the new pages I've made look the same as well. The pages won't last long either, since we'll need all new picture when the pups get a little older. Oh well, it's all for a good cause.

Our week of beautiful weather seems to be drawing to a close. The weather channel says there a 100% chance of rain tomorrow. Not exactly the news I was waiting to hear. Dash has to go up to the animal ophthalmologist in North Dallas tomorrow. He hates riding in the car and he hates rain. That ought to be an interesting trip.

Jordan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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