Day 1426

Pet Fair occupied most of our day today. Janet and I went and set up the Dalmatian Rescue booth after we finished breakfast this morning. When everything was ready, we came back and got our Dalmatians. We were joined at the event by our friend Turtle The Painting Pit Bull, who creates original paintings with her paw. Dot and Dash aren't nearly this creative, but they put on a good show begging for dog treats. The kids seemed to enjoy our "Make a Dalmatian" game today. They completely ignored the realistic looking adhesive spots I cut out last night though, preferring novelty spots made to look like hearts or dog bones. We has a steady group of people come to our booth throughout the afternoon, but we certainly weren't the most popular attraction. What kids really wanted to do was hold a snake. There was a reptile education booth where kids could hold a large snake if they wanted. The kids were lined up five deep to hold these snakes and get their picture taken. The snakes were more popular than a nearby booth filled with cute puppies, which tells you something about the next generation in this country.

Dot and Dash were remarkably good, considering how long the event was. They were gentle and friendly when kids came up to pet them and they didn't even bark excessively. At some point during the afternoon, we has a psychic at a nearby booth read the dogs paws. I'm as skeptical as the next guy about psychics and palm readers, but this lady nailed it with the dogs personalities. She knew nothing in advance about Dot and Dash, but was able to describe their somewhat unique personalities with great accuracy.

By the time we packed up our stuff and took the dogs home again, the day was almost over. I barely had time to take Dot and Dash on a short walk before the sun set on the Western horizon. When we returned to the house, there were burgers for dinner. Cheeseburgers are always a good way to end a busy day. This type of meal isn't on my diet anymore, but what the hell. I worked hard today and deserved a treat.

Tomorrow, it's back to work again. I have a combination medical exam and website meeting scheduled with one of my physician clients. I have a feeling that I'll find out a lot more about the health of the website than about my own health.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1424

There's got to be some correlation between how much sunlight I receive and how much work I get done. It didn't rain today, but the sky was so dark and overcast that the streetlights stayed on all day. I didn't get much done at all. If the sun was shining, lord knows what I might have accomplished.

I got a utility bill in the mail for a service I canceled six months ago. This has happened before. More and more companies sign you up for automatic renewal by default and it's becoming next to impossible to actually cancel your service. Services you signed up for on the Internet are the worst. They all seems to have some sort of automatic renewal enabled. Service is so terrible these days that I seldom want to renew anything. It's frustrating.

I did have a nice breakfast, but you probably know that already. It's Friday, isn't it? I almost posted a picture of my eggs, until I remembered that this is what I did last Friday. Hey, if I can't inject some variety in my life, at least I need to create the illusion of variety. That's why you get an out-of-focus picture of my grey, gloomy day instead.

I actually had time to go to the gym this afternoon, but I was still sore from yesterday's workout. I did a load of laundry and tried to unclog my printer instead. The printer was quite clogged this time, so I did a Google search to see what other people were doing. The best advice I could find was to unlock the 4880 print head and squirt some distilled water on the capping station. We'll give that a try. I wonder what people did before there was a YouTube answer for every question in the universe. Where do people find the time to make all these YouTube instructional videos? I haven't had a question in a long time where I couldn't immediately find the answer on YouTube or Wikipedia. The answer might not have been correct, but does it even matter these days?

We get to try out our "put the spots on the Dalmatian" game at a rescue event this weekend. Janet and I haven't actually cut out the spots for the children to apply yet, but I guess that's what we will do tomorrow evening. There isn't much to watch on TV anyway.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1402

Today was an odd assortment of obscure tasks. Since the skies finally turned blue again, I went up on the roof and swept away a slurry of decaying leaves, pecan shells, and brownish water. I keep thinking that if I can keep the Fall leaves from turning into a big compost pile, the new roof will last longer. I could be wrong though.

Later in the day I found myself taking all the spots off of a vector art illustration of a Dalmatian. I needed to create a large image of a Dalmatian without any spots, so children at a Fall carnival could add the spots back one at a time and create their own Dalmatian. I sent the outline of the dog off to be printed on a 36" square sheet of plastic. Small kids should have fun putting the spots on a Dalmatian, shouldn't they? Hey, maybe it's a silly game, but it was all I could think of for our booth at this event.

Since work was unusually slow today, I found time to go back to the gym again. Three visits in one week is pretty good for me. I am still baffled by people who love to exercise. I don't find my workouts any different than vacuuming the floors, or mowing the grass. There's no endorphin rush for me. It's just another kind of work. I will admit that I enjoy shooting baskets on the gym's basketball court. Who would have thought? My Dad would have been pleased to see me pick up a basketball. It was his favorite game.

I just remembered that I left six of my favorite CDs in the Defender 90's CD changer when I sold the car. If the car is still up at the dealership, I should go up and get the discs while I can. You may wonder why it took me three weeks to remember that I'd misplaced my favorite CDs. I guess I don't listen to music much anymore. I certainly don't play CDs very often. Music is just files on an iPhone now.

I have to take Dot to the imaging center for her MRI first thing tomorrow morning. She's not going to be a happy camper when she discovers that she can't eat breakfast. Dogs live to eat and missing a meal is a big deal to them. She has to fast though, since they will be giving her anesthesia for her brain scan. I'll be glad when this is over with. I don't like to be anesthetized myself, but at least I know what's happening. The dogs have no idea what is going to happen to them, but I'm sure they blame me when they wake up again. They always give me one of those "how could you" looks when I pick them up after the procedure. This needs to be done though, so I hope Dot will be safe.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day