Day 2555

I can't keep up with the weather. It's cold again. Maybe I just imagined wearing shorts yesterday. This morning's walk saw the return of warm coats and gloves. The dogs seemed to enjoy the brisk weather, but I was just perplexed. What happened to yesterday?

Dot and Dash seemed determined to test my patience today. Dash barked constantly while I was trying to eat breakfast. He woke up Dot, who had been sleeping peacefully and then she started barking too. Meals used to be relaxing, but not anymore. In the morning they want me to feed them treats and in the evenings I have to be careful the Dot doesn't pee on everything. It's a three ring circus.

It took me most of the afternoon to get my December invoices out and finish a very modest amount of online Christmas shopping. Once Dot wakes up after her morning nap, she is determined to stay moving for the rest of the day. Since she can't move very far without my help, I am constantly walking her up and down the hall with periodic excursions outside to smell things. I don't know why Dot is so restless now. She doesn't seem to be in pain or anything. Actually, she seems pretty happy as long as I attend to her, but she sure doesn't want to take an afternoon nap anymore.

Eventually the dogs get tired, but I almost always end up getting tired first. My work has always required long periods of solitude. Without this peace and quiet, my writing lacks focus and the code I write often doesn't work at all. Even though I'm not nearly as busy as I used to be, it's still hard to concentrate these days.

I never did find time to go to the post office today, but at least the small stack of invoices is ready to go. Years ago, I bought a humongous box of Number 10 envelopes. I jokingly told a friend that when this box was gone, it would be time to retire. Guess what. After doing my invoices today, there are only two envelopes left. Is the empty envelope box trying to tell me something? It probably really is time to retire, but then what would I do? Taking care of Dot is exhausting. I don't have the energy to start anything new. For the time being, work provides an essential link to a world that I have become detached from. Deadlines and clients remind me that there is still a world beyond cleaning up dog poop.

I wonder if Mark Cuban is feeling silly after predicting a huge stock market crash if Trump was elected. So far, the Trump rally has been pretty substantial. It's certainly helped my portfolio. If things could continue like this for another year, I might finally get back to even. The crash of 2008 was devastating for me and I still haven't recovered all I lost. I'm a realist though. I don't expect miracles. The market will continue to remain volatile. Dot will continue to grow older. And I will continue to slowly work my way toward Day 5000. The key to all of this is to just keep moving.

Savannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1059

It's amazing how often little things end up consuming large amounts of my time. I wanted to get November invoices out today. Everything was ready to take to the post office, but I couldn't get the envelopes to print. Printing envelopes used to be a piece of cake with older printers, but now I have one of those "multifunction" printers and one of the functions that Epson seems to have left out was envelopes. I can't just slide the envelopes into a little slot anymore. I have to take out the paper tray and reconfigure it for envelope sized pieces of paper. If I'm off on the dimensions by even a tiny amount, the envelopes get stuck and I practically have to take the printer apart to clear the paper jam.

Some of you might ask why I don''t just use the large format printer I'm always talking about instead. Nope. That won't work either. The large printer won't even accept something as small as an envelope in the paper tray. Although I could have hand addressed all the envelopes much quicker, I persevered and finally got the multifunction printer to work. As I drove to the post office with the envelopes, I kept thinking that this was a lot of work for the small amount that I actually billed out this month.

I wonder if any of my Entrecard friends are noticing that their blog traffic continues to slowly drop long after the demise of the Entrecard network. That's what seems to be happening with me. For the first time in years, my blog traffic is actually lower than my company website traffic. If you're a regular reader who has never signed up to become a regular blog follower, humor me and sign up now. It won't change anything, but it will make me feel better.

I got an e-mail today with an ad for a low cost film scanner that records directly to an SD card. No computer required. I have a fantastic old Canon scanner, but I haven't been able to use it for years, since it hooks up using a SCSI cable. Jeez, how long has it been since you've used a computer with SCSI peripherals?  I don't even own one anymore. At any rate, I may get this new little film scanner. I've still got thousands of 35mm negatives that I've never digitized yet. Maybe when I can't think of any new ideas, I'll at least be able to retrieve some really good old ones. I continue to think that I shot some of my very best photos in the 1970's. I can't remember what they were though. It would be interesting to scan these old negatives and see if they can hold their own with the stuff I'm doing today.  We'll see.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day