Day 3758

I'm always curious about what is going on in my own industry. Have you noticed the enormous number of new commercials on TV lately? Everybody seems to have a brand new commercial about how their pizza is untouched by human hands after it leaves the oven or a message that you can still buy all your favorite things online. We're all in the together, these commercials say. How are these commercials even getting made? The last time I looked, most of my friends in the business were considered non-essential and are currently unemployed. It takes a lot more than ten people to produce most commercials and a lot of these new ones look pretty sophisticated. Is there an exemption I don't know about, or are a ton of people just ignoring the rules?

I've also wondered with all the news about infected cruise ships and aircraft carriers why anyone would think that it would be a good idea to send a ship to the rescue in New York City. What could possibly go wrong? At first the Navy said the hospital ship would only be used to relieve the pressure on other hospitals by taking non-coronavirus overflow patients. There were good reasons for this. I remember seeing an interview with the captain of the ship saying that it was next to impossible to disinfect a ship. Now, here we are only a few days later and the ship is taking Covid-19 patients. Go figure.

Who decides what is essential? I see roofers, lawn care services, and tree trimming companies continuing to work normally in my neighborhood. If anything, they are even busier than usual. If I owned a small neighborhood business, this would seem terribly unfair. Most of these little shops were struggling to stay in business on a good day and usually had only a few customers at a time. When you leave Walmart open and shut down all the little neighborhood businesses, it is going to destroy them. Personally, I'm glad that I am retired. I would be so mad if I were still trying to keep a business alive.

My big activity of the day was mowing the grass. I should have done this several weeks ago, but it has been too wet and rainy this Spring. The grass was tall and the mower really wasn't up to the job, but I got it done. Sometimes I like having an electric mower, but when the grass is tall I wish I still had a gas powered mower. At least my battery is still good. I've been keeping it inside all winter and it seemed to help.

Janet and I knew it was going to be hot today so we took Dawn on a very early walk. Like all our Dalmatians, she doesn't like the heat. The sunrise walk was actually very nice and Dawn loved the cool morning air, but the new schedule made eating breakfast even later than usual. Janet was already fixing her lunch by the time I finished drinking my smoothie. I should make a smaller smoothie, but I  like the recipe and can't be bothered to change the ingredients. Two eggs is easy. So is a whole banana. What would I do with a left over half of a banana?

It's pretty clear that this virus isn't going to bring us all together. It's a shame that our country is just as hopelessly divided as it ever was. I'm glad I'm not making the decisions. You'd probably hate them. I'm not going to argue with you though. If you like dogs, you're OK with me.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3209

I always learn something new on my way to the gym. I was listening to an episode of This American Life where Julian Koenig's daughter was talking about how her Dad became increasingly bitter toward the end of his life. Julian Koenig, if you're not in the ad biz, was one of the greatest copywriters of all time. According to his daughter, he was mad because he thought that George Lois, his art director partner, had stolen his ideas over 40 years ago. He was convinced that he never got credit for ads that were really his. It didn't matter that he was one of a small handful of writers inducted into the Copywriter's Hall of Fame and had been a role model to young copywriters like me, he was still pissed at George.

George and Julian were still working when I started out in the business. They were legends. Hearing Julian's daughter describe the giant egos that inspired shows like Mad Men brought back a lot of memories. Everyone who works in an ad agency creative department thinks that their ideas have been stolen by somebody. Maybe it was their boss who stole them. Maybe it was a co-worker. Often it is the client who is guilty. It's all so petty and yet it is very real. It's not like you're curing cancer when you come up with a clever headline. You get to think that trivial things are important.

Ultimately Julian Koenig regretted going into advertising at all. He was proud that he was considered the best in the business, but he concluded that the business itself was worthless. His daughter said that at the age of 88, he wished he had become an environmental scientist instead. I'm glad I don't obsess about my days in advertising like Julian did, but I understand his sentiments. I kind of wish I had become an astronomer instead of pursuing a career in advertising. I've had ideas stolen too, but I didn't lose a lot of sleep over it. Maybe I was angry for a week or two, but I can't imagine brooding for 40 years. Jeez. I can't even remember what I did 40 years ago. When I look at my old portfolio from the 1970's, it seems like someone else wrote the ads. I'll have to admit, they were pretty good though. I must have written them.

Sometimes I think that Dash has ESP. Even though we started our day exactly the same way we always do, Dash seemed to know that Janet was going to be gone today. He followed her around like glue this morning and wouldn't take his walk at the regular time. He wouldn't even eat his breakfast. When Janet left for the Golf Tournament, Dash moped around the house for at least an hour. Then, when I was right in the middle of my own breakfast, he decided he was OK again and headed for the back door. I put my breakfast aside and quickly got him suited up to walk. You've got to seize the moment with Dash.

I waited until Dash was taking his morning nap before I left for the gym. It's safe to leave him for an hour or so, just not all day. When I returned, Dash was still sleeping in exactly the same place on the bed. He never even woke up. I wish I could sleep like Dash. When he wakes me up at night, he's back asleep a few minutes after I take him outside to pee. I'm usually wide awake, staring at the ceiling while I listen to him snore.

Hershey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3048

It was a nice, uneventful day. Everyone got enough sleep. Dash seemed in good spirits. And the weather was wonderful. I had no plans for the day and was determined to keep things that way. I went to the gym right after walking Dash and eating breakfast. It was the path of least resistance. You don't have to think at the gym. You just follow routines.

There were plenty of things that needed to be done around the house when I returned, but I watched another episode of The Expanse instead. Now I'm all caught up on Season 3 and will have to start watching the show on Wednesday evenings. I can see the appeal of binge watching on Netflix now. A lot of current season shows are available for streaming on the SyFi Channel, but all the commercials are there. To avoid the commercials, you have to wait until you can find what you're looking for on Netflix, Amazon Prime, or iTunes. It's probably worth the wait.

I probably should have a little more respect for commercials. They did provide me with a pretty good income for decades. In retrospect, I wish I'd worked for Space X. Going to Mars seems like a worthy goal. Getting someone to eat a taco, not so much.

The world of The Expanse is pretty bleak. Apparently, 200 years from now we are still involved in continual wars and are on the verge of annihilating ourselves as a species. Personally, I don't think humanity will have spread across the solar system in 200 years. It's been almost 50 years since we went to the moon and we haven't been able to get back there yet. Maybe I'm wrong. Medicine and technology are advancing faster than I ever imagined. I could never have predicted that I'd be walking around with a little phone in my pocket that was so powerful it has basically replaced my camera, my computer, the weatherman on TV, my rolodex, and most of my friends.

It's kind of irritating that I'm having problems with acid reflux again. I thought I'd put this all behind me. After taking Pantoprazole for ten years, my doctor convinced me to stop and I was actually doing very well without the proton pump inhibitor for at least three years. I'm almost certain the problem is just a lack of discipline on my part. When I was being treated for Hepatitis C, I completely changed my diet. For the first time ever, I was really eating healthy meals. It made a difference. After I was cured, I gradually began backsliding. I still don't drink and try to eat healthy meals, but I am eating red meat and pasta again. I've resumed eating bread and occasionally enjoy a pizza. Sadly, I can't handle Italian food anymore. Even a cheeseburger is risky these days. A mostly vegetarian diet completely eliminated the acid reflux, but it was so boring. There's always a price to pay for pleasure.

It's hard to believe that it's almost May. It's been such a chilly Spring that the furnace is still coming on at night. I should enjoy these cool mornings, because they won't be around much longer. The temperature will be over 100 soon and I'll be turning 70. I'm not looking forward to either event, although my advanced age will get me out of jury duty.

Parker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2327

I enjoyed breakfast this morning. I returned to the hipster cafe and for a moment it felt like I was back in Seattle. It was a dark rainy morning and the place was filled with young people in plaid shirts sitting silently nursing their coffee while some slide guitar blues played on the sound system. Forty years ago I used to eat breakfast in the original Starbucks at First and Pike before I went to work at a downtown ad agency and the ambience felt the same. Everything old is new again I guess.

Occasionally, I really miss Seattle.  This is where I made the transition from architecture to advertising. Young architects don't make much money and when I realized I could double my salary almost overnight by becoming an advertising copywriter, I never looked back. It was surprisingly easy to get a job. Nobody majored in advertising in college back then. I once had an art director partner who used to be a Navy fighter pilot. One of my supervisors used to be a wrestling coach. Everyone was an extremely good bullshitter. I didn't have much of a portfolio at the beginning. I just told them I was an architect and I was in. Good times. It was just like that Mad Men show on TV.

Seattle was where I discovered music. I started writing jingle lyrics at the ad agency and decided I wanted to become a songwriter. I met a lot of musicians and had a great time, but never became the next Bernie Taupin. I did gradually start acquiring gear like I saw at the studios where we recorded the jingles however. Some of the gear, like the vintage multi-track recorder that just came back from the repair shop, still exists. I spent quite a bit of time on Google this morning searching for a PDF copy of the instruction manual for this recorder. When it returned from the shop, I realized that I no longer remembered how to use the machine. I've been using Pro Tools for so long now that using an actual analog tape recorder seems a bit like alien technology. After quite a bit of searching, I found a copy of the manual and downloaded it. Wow. This was a complicated machine. I must have been a lot smarter in my twenties and thirties.

Since it seemed a bit ambitious to re-learn audio engineering before lunch, I moved on to something much simpler. I installed the new cartridges in the big production printer and began the cleaning routine to unclog the lines. The printer works again. The tape recorder works again. I'm not sure that I'm running on all cylinders though. I find it harder and harder to begin anything that is remotely arduous or ambitious. I hope I don't become like my Dad. He was an excellent wood carver and continued to buy carving tools almost until the day he died. Somewhere along the line he got Parkinson's Disease and could no longer use the tools. They just sat there and accumulated dust in their original boxes. I don't want my gear to wind up that way. It needs to be used.

There were more tornado warnings today, but the really bad weather stayed to the West of us as it traveled rapidly to the Northeast. We got enough rain to scare Dash, but not enough to wake up Dot. Since she is almost deaf now, she slept peacefully through the storm. I'm glad I figured out my air conditioning problem yesterday, because it would have been hard to get a technician to come to the houes today. I canceled the emergency service call and rescheduled a regular Spring system checkup for early next month.

It's hard to believe that April is almost over. Summer will be here before you know it. I need to learn to appreciate the rain because it isn't going to last. In just a few months from now, I'll be begging for rain.

Parker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1691

Today was pleasantly quiet and uneventful. Dot had moments when she was shaky on her feet, but then there were other moments when she seemed almost normal. She still seems to be improving a little bit with each passing day. Both dogs got excited when a neighbor's cat unexpectedly appeared in the yard. I didn't want Dot to injure herself by chasing after the cat, but when I took her out on a leash to investigate, she was surprisingly nice. The cat eventually got tired of the barking Dalmatians and left. Janet would like to have a cat, but whenever Dot and Dash get near one, they prove they aren't up to the challenge yet. Both of them have a strong prey drive and think cats are just a larger member of the squirrel family.

I hope our unseasonably cooler temperatures continue. It was in the low 70's this morning when we took the dogs for an early walk. Even later in the day when the sun came out, the temperature only rose to the mid-80's. I can remember several Summers when the temperature was above one hundred degrees for the entire month of August. This is much better. It almost feels like early Fall.

Our list of weekend errands has grown back to it's normal size. After breakfast, I went to the vet to pick up some more phenobarbital for Dash. Then I want to the pharmacy to get my own meds, filled the car with gas, and got groceries. When I returned home, Janet left to do her errands. We still don't feel comfortable leaving Dot alone. Mostly the dogs just sleep when we're gone, but there's always a chance that Dot might fall and be unable to get up again. After Dot ate the carpet earlier this year, I'm not sure I'll ever be completely comfortable leaving her alone again. Thinking back, I'm beginning to think that frantically eating a hole in the carpet might have been an early sign of distress caused by the tumor growing inside Dot's intestines. How were we to know though? Dogs eat things they aren't supposed to all the time.

I discovered today that one of my former co-workers has written a book about his career in advertising. This guy became somewhat of a superstar after we worked together in the early seventies, so I imagine it is an interesting book. I bought a copy to see if I remembered any of the stories. If I wrote a book about my own career in advertising it would just be an extended version of that old Johnny Paycheck song "Take This Job and Shove It." I was a creative fellow, but I wasn't a very good employee. I worked at seventeen different agencies before I finally realized that the only boss I was ever going to take seriously was myself.

Maybe I'll finally get a decent night's sleep this evening. We set an alarm and remembered to get Dot up at 2 AM to pee last night. The bed was dry, but I had a hard time getting back to sleep after we all came back inside. Since Dot was having trouble getting back in the bed, I just got a blanket and went to sleep on the floor with her. I'm pretty sure she slept better than I did.

Scout is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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