Day 2948

Another uneventful Friday. My pancakes were delicious. Maybe next week I'll make an omelet. I'd almost forgotten that my special omelet recipe made it into the South by Southwest cookbook a few years ago. I was probably the least famous person in this celebrity studded cookbook, but it was still cool to be selected. The only downside to today's meal was that I used up the last of the Italian sausage. There's only one place in town that makes this stuff the way I like it, so I'll have to drive across town to pick up a new supply next week. Let me know if you hear of any amazing new breakfast restaurants. Until then, I'm content to eat at home.

I talked to a dealer I've known for years about helping me liquidate one of my collections. I didn't think he'd be interested, but he seems willing to help for a percentage of the sale. Before we can get started, I need to provide a complete inventory of the collection. Lord knows how long that will take. Most of the stuff is in unmarked boxes in the storage warehouse. I don't even know what I have anymore. If making an inventory was a pleasant task, I would have done it years ago. I guess I should have known that you can postpone unpleasant tasks, but you can seldom avoid them entirely.

People who collect memories probably have an easier time decluttering than people who collect stuff. We all become forgetful as we grow older. When you forget your memories, your problem is solved. When you forget where you've put all your stuff, the problem just becomes more difficult. I hope I can take care of this collection by the end of the year. Then next year, I'll start on another one.

It was much warmer today. Dash didn't need to wear a sweater under his harness and I didn't need to wear a second coat under my down jacket. The fact that I would call a windy, forty degree day "warm" just goes to show you how cold it's been for the past week. I'm ready for Spring. Unfortunately, I don't think Winter cares what I think. We've had plenty of ice storms in February and March.

I got two more writing assignments today. Two articles isn't enough to pay the electric bill, but it's nice that a few people still remember me. I could write two articles a day indefinitely, but I was in no hurry to start writing immediately. I'm going to save these jobs for next week. Hey, I already wrote something last Thursday. With assignments so few and far between, I need to spread these things out.

Am I the only one who's grown tired of all the drama in Washington DC? All the TV stations have a countdown clock showing how many hours are left before the government shuts down again. Who cares. These shutdowns are meaningless. The government starts back up again in a few days. All the government workers get paid. Both sides blame each other for the mess and then the whole cycle starts all over again. The next time the government shuts down, we should just leave it closed indefinitely and see what we can do without. Congress would be the first to go. They aren't doing anything anyway.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1526

Another stressful day. We've known for some time that Dash has a lipoma in his neck. These fatty tumors are very common in dogs and most of them are benign. When I took Dash for his antigen shot today, his vet thought that the lipoma had grown a bit and wanted to run some tests to make sure it wasn't malignant. She aspirated cells from several sections of the tumor and sent them off to a pathologist for analysis. We should know the results before the end of the week. If the growth is a normal fatty lipoma we don't need to do anything. If the cells are abnormal or malignant, more tests and even surgery may be required.

I certainly hope the growth isn't cancer. We have had two dogs that have had cancer. Spot, our first Dalmatian, remained cancer free after some serious surgery that removed six inches of his intestines. Gretta wasn't so lucky. She died two days after a surgeon tried to remove a cancerous lobe from her liver. She didn't even make it home from the surgery center. Hopefully, the growth in Dash's throat is benign. It is in a difficult place, right next to his carotid artery. It would take a very skilled surgeon to successfully remove it.

If any of you have had to switch to Obamacare, you have my sympathies. I'm on Medicare now, and even though the government has had decades to work out all the kinks, Medicare is still a huge mess. I'm almost certain that Obamacare will be worse, since it's brand new. I found out today that even though I enrolled in Medicare over six months ago, none of my claims have been processed. Apparently Medicare still thinks my "employer" is paying for my health insurance, not realizing of course that I have been my own employer for over twenty years. The group insurance plan I discontinued last June when I enrolled in Medicare is still listed as my primary health insurance and Medicare is listed as secondary insurance on Medicare's own website. After calling three different numbers and sitting on hold for almost an hour, I finally ended up talking to someone who understood my problem. They have an entire department dedicated to resolving these type of problems because they are so commonplace. I think it's called the Coordination of Benefits Department. The lady I talked to was very nice and told me that she had updated my records to indicate that Medicare was now my primary insurance. She never told me how the group plan I discontinued over six months ago had gotten into the system however. Evidently mistakes like these are quite common when you are self-employed. When I asked if there was anything else I needed to do, the lady casually mentioned that I needed to have all my doctors submit their claims again. "But you already have all their information," I said. "Can't you just reprocess it?" No can do, the lady told me. The doctors will have to start over and resubmit all their claims. They'll have to wait ten days before they do this too. That's how long it takes for the government databases to be updated with the new information they entered today.

A can light in the bathroom ceiling burned out this morning. I got a ladder and looked at the fixture, but couldn't find anything wrong. I hate to call an electrician because they will charge me $300 or more to do something simple that I could do myself.  I hate to do this job myself either. If I remember correctly, the last time I tried to fix something up on the ceiling was when I managed to get my neck out of joint and had to go to physical therapy for three months. Whatever happened to the fixture also managed to ruin one of my fancy new LED light bulbs. These LED bulbs are supposed to be indestructible and last forever. Apparently not.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. I can't think of many good things that happened today at all.

Bailey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1495

Every year about this time, I get a letter from my accountant telling me that it's time to start gathering my tax records together. The letters go out early, because he knows that it takes people a long time to locate everything. I don't mind the idea of paying taxes. It makes perfect sense that we all pay for the roads we use and air traffic controllers and the research it takes to look for a cure for cancer. What irks me about paying taxes is that most of the money I hand over to the government every year is just wasted. The money that isn't wasted most likely goes to fund programs that I don't even believe in. I wonder what would happen if we all paid the same amount of income tax, but got to decide where it would go. I wouldn't mind funding programs I believe in. If we all got to do that, I have a feeling that the country would look a lot different.

Most of my opinions about the world are formed by what I see in my own little neighborhood. Lately, I've started seeing a whole lot of government waste. Somebody has decided that the park needs new signs. Most of the important areas in the park already have identifying signage, but apparently, they need brand new signs. I've started seeing a huge number of elaborate stonework and welded metal signs going up. Each of these small monuments to government waste often take a crew of six to ten stone masons and craftsmen up to three weeks to complete. The new signs are usually placed right next to the old simple wood signs that were there all along. I have an idea what happened here. At some point in the past, a bond issue was passed to improve the park. A small percentage of the total, maybe 2%, was designated for signage. Since the original bond issue was for tens of millions of dollars, the total amount designated for signage was probably quite large. Somebody was hired to administer the signage budget, and rather than admit they didn't actually need all that money, they decided to embark on the world's most elaborate park signage program and spend every cent. That's just the way government works. No bureaucrat will ever admit that someone gave them too much money to spent.

Our January weather certainly is weird this year. Another cold front blew through last night and we woke up to near freezing temperatures. Once the sun came out, the temperature rose rapidly and by the time I took the dogs on their evening walk, it was almost seventy degrees. That's quite a swing in a single day. I started the day wearing my goose-down winter coat and ended it wearing a t-shirt.

I've been asked to print a large poster for a February adoption event and am somewhat chagrined to realize that I've forgotten how to make these large posters. I used to do this all the time and was quite good at it. Jeez, this is exactly what I've been trying to keep the large printer unclogged for. I can't believe I've forgotten how to use the large printer. My memory is a sieve. You know what they say: use it or lose it. It won't take me long to get up to speed again, since everything I need to know is already on Wikipedia, but this is a bit embarrassing.

Dovey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1465

The incompetence of government agencies continues to amaze me. I got a letter today saying that it was time for me to renew the vehicle registration on my Defender 90. What was all that paperwork I signed when I sold the car? Surely these guys must know by now that I no longer own the Defender. I get dozens of letters from Medicare and I have yet to understand any of them. I bet you could reduce the cost of healthcare significantly if you just fired all these useless letter writers. Even the dogs have their problems with government bureaucracies. Every year, Dash gets a letter from the city saying that his city registration has expired. This always takes place about one month after my vet issues Dash brand new registration tags. It's no real surprise that the ObamaCare website doesn't work. Nothing in government at any level works. I have no faith in government anymore.

Does anyone want to buy a Citroën SM that has sat untouched in an aircraft hanger for ten years? The car ran great a decade ago, but I suspect that it will take quite an effort to get it running again. I'm sure the fuel lines and gas tank are gummed up and will need to be removed and cleaned. I've done this once before and it's not an easy job. All five suspension spheres will need to be replaced. The car will certainly need a new heavy duty battery and probably new tires as well. Hopefully, no corrosion has taken place in the engine itself. I loved this car when I bought it in 1972, but in recent years it has become an albatross around my neck. The mechanics who used to keep the car running smoothly have all retired or moved on. My favorite mechanic is now a DJ on a local jazz radio station. Parts are next to impossible to find these days. Even ten years ago I was scared to drive the SM around town because I knew that there were no more new body parts available worldwide. If I had unlimited resources, I would ship the car off to SM World in California and have it completely restored. Unfortunately, I haven't had unlimited resources in a long, long time. Even though the car is highly collectible and Jay Leno has one, it's time to sell the thing.

I've had a lot of cars over the years and the complexities of keeping old cars running are one of the main reasons I switched to collecting watches instead. Watches are little and you can keep them in a drawer. I enjoyed watches for a while until they began to fall apart just like my cars. A good watch needs a watchmaker just as much as a car needs a mechanic. Watch repair is expensive and time consuming. In the long run, I don't think I will be any better off with watches than I was with cars. They all break eventually. I think Janet will have the last laugh at my obsession with collecting stuff. She has no interest in collecting things and prefers travel instead. Travel is all about collecting memories and in my experience, memories tend to get better over time. Eventually, the memory is better than the actual experience was. She'll have great memories, while I preside over a kingdom of rust.

To keep my body from turning to rust, I went back to the gym again today. Another week of regular workouts and I'll be back to where I was before the ice storm. I don't enjoy exercising that much, but I do enjoy seeing progress. Hey, I finally got the large printer working again. That's progress. The city hauled away most of my downed tree limbs this morning. That's progress too. Surprisingly, something seems to happen almost each and every day. There's always some sort of progress. Who knows, maybe one of these days I'll sell the Citroën SM too.

Ranger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1054

For the second time in two years, I received a letter from the Missouri Department of Revenue telling me that I was behind on paying my Missouri state taxes. WTF? I have never lived or worked in Missouri in my life. I thought I had this whole thing resolved last year when I finally managed to talk to someone in the Missouri tax department who told me the whole thing was a bureaucratic mistake. The person I talked to must not have told anyone else though, because I got exactly the same letter again this year. And you still wonder why I don't have a lot of faith in government agencies? I only know what I see, and I see a lot of incompetence in government agencies at all levels. Of course, I see a lot of incompetence in the private sector as well. There is more than enough incompetence to spread around these days.

The time changes tonight. I used to be so obsessive that I'd reset all my watches whenever there was a time change. Now, I don't even bother. There's always something lying around that shows more or less the right time, whatever the season happens to be. For someone who likes watches, I have very little interest in what time it is anyway. A couple of hours one way or the other isn't going to change my life very much.

Janet finally got her car back from the body shop today. There were so many cars damaged in the big hailstorm last June, that it has taken until now for many cars to get repaired. Janet's car was literally in the shop for three months. This was only a hailstorm too. I can only imagine how long it is going to take before people in New York and New Jersey get their lives back to normal after the hurricane. Sadly, some of them never will. After Katrina, a lot of people in New Orleans just gave up and moved to Dallas and Houston. They're still here.

Janet volunteered me to take a mother/daughter portrait of one of her friends tomorrow. The lady wants to have her picture taken at our lake, paddling in a kayak with her daughter. I asked her if she'd ever been in a kayak before and she said no. Hey, what could possible go wrong? Oh, did I mention that her dogs were supposed to be in this picture as well.

Wolfgang is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 868

If you still don't think the government has entirely too many rules and regulations, just try selling a house. I finished filling out a mandatory seller's disclosure form this afternoon. I wasn't really surprised at the questions about whether lead paint had ever been used in the dwelling. What surprised me were all the questions about whether the property had ever been a habitat for an endangered species of animal or if it has been designated as a wetlands area. They were very keen about floods too. They seemed to want to know if there had ever been a flood in the area since the dawn of creation. I don't remember selling property being this difficult before. Actually, nothing used to be this difficult. We have entered a brave new world where everyone is trying to protect us from ourselves. I still prefer a much simpler world where smoking is fine and seatbelts in your car are optional.

Nevertheless, I filled out a ton of forms and gave them all to the real estate agent. When in Rome, and all that. I couldn't help feeling that the forms were just a bunch of "gotcha" questions. Maybe if your roof had ever leaked, or your dishwasher has ever overflowed unto the kitchen floor, you wouldn't be able to sell your house at all. I wouldn't be surprised if the whole process was a bit like getting your car safety inspected. If your house isn't up to snuff in certain areas, there are probably government mandated repairs you need to make. They're probably expensive too.

I'm starting to get close to a self imposed deadline to show my initial website designs to my new client. To make sure I get finished on time, I devoted the entire day to working on the look of their new site. There's still a lot to be done, but I made a lot of progress today. Two or three more days like this and I'll have something ready to show. This doesn't mean I'll be done of course. It just means I'll be entering phase two: the inevitable revisions.

The vet called today and said the Dash has an elevated white cell count. This usually means that the body is fighting off some sort of infection. The vet said that she saw redness in his gums and that he might have the beginnings of Periodontal disease. I worry that he might have Ehrlichia or Lyme Disease, since I have seen ticks on him recently. I know just enough about medicine to be a perpetual hypochondriac. Unfortunately, I don't know enough to do anything useful.

Betsy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 567

I'll have to admit that I was just as surprised at the Casey Anthony verdict as everyone else. The TV was on when they read the verdict and I remember looking over at the screen and thinking "Jeez, they must have forgotten something...she's got to be guilty of something." Later in the day, I heard a commentator say, "you can't just convict somebody for being a bad person" and my first thought was "Well, why not?" Life would be a lot more peaceful if you could convict someone for being a bad person.

I'm certainly no expert, but I do have a theory why the jury returned a "not guilty" verdict. In my own little world, just about everyone I know is disgusted with the government. It doesn't matter if they are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. They are all disgusted with the government about one thing or another. Ordinary citizens don't get that many chances to tell the government what they think. Sure, you can vote the bums out of office, but even that doesn't seem to fix anything. The rising star you voted for will probably just turn out to be the next Anthony Weiner. Maybe that jury in Florida was just fed up and felt like telling the State to stuff it.

Speaking of stuff. More outdated stuff got boxed up and went to the storage warehouse today. I managed to clear off two entire shelves. Granted, this isn't huge progress, but it is something. If I can keep this up and continue to remove a little clutter every week, I may still meet my goal of having a clean office by the end of the year.

I've got a much more immediate goal for tomorrow. I need to get up two hours earlier than normal. I promised my friend Tom that I'd go to his next business networking breakfast when we had lunch last week and that breakfast happens to be tomorrow. It's been a long time since I said anything coherent at 7:30 in the morning, but I'll give it a shot. I've got to dress up nice as well. This shouldn't be a problem. I've got tons of business clothes that I never, ever wear. At any rate, it would be nice to make some new contacts. People like what I do. My doctors, my veterinarians, my contractors, my watchmaker and my old ad agency buddies have all become clients. I don't get out much though. Maybe it's time to meet some new people. Unfortunately, I don't have any business cards to pass out at the breakfast. When I ran out five years ago, I never bothered to reprint any.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day