Day 2922

When I went to the gym this morning, it was closed. Weird. I can remember going to the gym on Christmas Eve before. I guess I should have checked to see if there were holiday hours this year. Since this was the only thing I had planned today, I came home and wondered what to do next.

I decided to take a camera and photograph wildlife in the park. I hadn't done that in a long time. The weather was cold and windy, but the light was perfect so I decided to go anyway. Typically, I would see a lot of small animals on a day like this, but all I saw were birds. I think things have changed since the coyotes returned. The rabbits are probably wary now. We frequently see carcasses on our morning walks. Dash is a little too interested in these dead rabbits, but they make me feel sad. The bunnies don't really have a chance against the coyotes.

One thing you notice about wild animals is that they're always eating. Looking for food appears to be a full time job. This was certainly true today. The ducks, the cormorants, the pelicans, and even the little sandpipers were all looking for their next meal.

I used to take longer walks in search of a good photograph, but it was very cold, the camera was heavy, and my foot hurt. I'm getting old. Today's excursion definitely burned just as many calories as I normally expend at the gym and the pictures I came home with were more interesting than the basketballs I photograph at the gym. I should do this more often.

The house smelled good this afternoon. Janet was baking a pie to have with our Christmas dinner tomorrow. When the baking was finished, we gave Dash an afternoon walk. All in all, it was a very quiet day. We used to wrap packages at local bookstores on Christmas Eve, but I don't think Dalmatian Rescue does these type of fundraisers anymore. Once or twice, I remember being caught in nasty snow or ice storms coming home from these Christmas Eve events. Luckily, we don't seem to have this type of weather anymore. The world does seem to be getting warmer. Just not today.

It's a pretty safe bet that the gym will be closed tomorrow too. I'm not sure what we'll do on Christmas Day since we can't spent the entire day eating. Sometimes Janet likes to go to a movie on Christmas. She's mentioned wanting to see Murder on the Orient Express. A lot depends on how Dash is doing tomorrow. A movie seems more interesting than the Dr. Who Christmas Special. Who would have thought that I'd totally lose interest in Dr. Who. Things change I guess.

Whatever we end up doing, I hope that each of you has a very Merry Christmas.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2199

It was a quiet day. I don't think I'll hear from my clients again until the first of the year. I'm more or less caught up on things, so I spent the day catching up on correspondence and wrapping Christmas presents. Correspondence these days mostly consists of talking to customer service about broken things. My favorite weather radar application crashed recently, so I needed to figure out how to get it running again. Since the application is subscription based, I couldn't just download a fresh copy and start over. First, I had to prove that I actually had a subscription when no records of it seemed to exist. It was my fault, since I apparently forgot to register the software, but the whole process was still far more complex than it needed to be. The fact that I subscribed to this service in the first place shows how addicted to weather radar I am. I generally hate the entire software subscription model and stubbornly continue to use outdated copies of all the Adobe products to avoid subscribing to the dreaded Creative Cloud. It's a good thing I wasn't busy, because it took several hours to get the weather radar working again on all my devices.

Two more watch winders have broken, so I sent another letter to the watch winder company, asking for a return authorization number. Hopefully, they will fix these two like they did with the first one. The company was very nice when the first winder broke and sent me a brand new replacement at no charge. I wonder if they'll continue to be this nice when they discover that every product I've bought from them has turned out to be defective. Truthfully, I probably don't even need the watch winders anymore, since I've gone over to the dark side and wear the Apple Watch almost exclusively now. Judging from the reviews I'm probably in the minority here, but I really like the Apple Watch.

I finished wrapping my Christmas presents this morning and put them under the tree. Dalmatian Rescue used to do gift wrapping at local bookstores during the holiday season as a fundraiser and I got surprising good at wrapping packages. It's not a skill I use much anymore, but my packages do look clean and crisp. I doubt that I'll wrap any more packages until this time next year.

When we were returning from walking the dogs this morning, I saw the garbage truck coming down the street. WTF? My trash can was not out at the curb yet and neither were the cans of most of my neighbors. Why was trash pickup two days early?  Maybe it was because Christmas was on a Friday this year. At any rate, since the automated trash truck goes up one side of the street and then returns along the other side, I had time to get my can in place just before the truck picked it up and dumped it in the hopper. Of course the can was mostly empty. Most of this week's trash was still in the house.  It's silly to obsess about the garbage truck, but since the city only picks up once a week now, trash can pile up fast.

The humidity was so low today that I didn't even need the dehumidifier. Since the temperature was in the low 70's, I opened the back door and a few windows and let the dry outside air come inside. I used to just leave the back door open on rare days like this, but now I'm afraid that Dot will try to wander outside without her harness and hurt herself. A single unsupervised attempt to chase a squirrel could instantly erase months of physical therapy. I let Dot stay outside as long as she wants, but I'm always there to hold up her rear legs. There was only a small amount of poop to clean up today. It was a big improvement over yesterday's disaster. I'm getting almost as good at cleaning up poop in the house as I am at wrapping packages. I should add these skills to my resume.

Ziggy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 739

We spent the afternoon wrapping gifts at the Barnes and Noble store in Plano, like we usually do on Christmas Eve. For the past several years, we've been bringing Dot and Dash with us to these events and I'm always amazed at how well behaved they are. I think the dogs are actually better in public than they are at home. They're both good little ambassadors for Dalmatian Rescue. We always do better with donations when the dogs are with us.

It's funny how much you can tell about the economy and the general state of the nation by watching people shop on Christmas Eve. People aren't buying as much as they were four or five years ago, and they certainly aren't buying as many books. We wrapped almost as many Nook eReaders today as we did books.

There were definitely fewer people in the store this year than last year. The real surprise was the absence of last minute male shoppers. Usually over two thirds of the people who come to our gift wrapping counter are men who've put off their Christmas shopping to the last possible minute. They were gone this year. I don't think all these men suddenly decided to get their shopping done early. I just think they aren't buying books anymore. I don't know what these procrastinators are shopping for these days though. Your guess is as good as mine.

I woke up this morning fulling intending to get a little work done today as well. That certainly never happened. After the time we spent getting Dot and Dash ready for their package wrapping duties and the additional time we spent at the Barnes and Noble store, the day was pretty much gone. We all had a nice dinner when we got home and the dogs are already nestled all snug in their beds. I'm not sure if visions of sugar-plums are dancing through their heads, but they do seem to be dreaming about something.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 738

The week is over, but somehow it feels like the entire year is over. Most of my clients have already left for the holiday. I still have some unresolved issues with several jobs, but I have a feeling that it's going to be hard to get an answer to my e-mails until the first of the year. None of this slowed me down today, however. I kept right on writing watch articles and I think I'm finally up-to-date on most of my website revisions.

I send my last file out about 3 PM today and then went over to Culwell & Son to get that pair of shoes I've had my eye on. I really don't buy many clothes anymore, but when I do, I almost always go to this store. Most of the salespeople have been working here for twenty years or more, and they remember everything about you. I almost always walk away with something nice, because these guys won't let you leave the store wearing something that makes you look stupid. Since I often make bad sartorial choices, this second opinion is often invaluable.

I went ahead and made the little contest video about opening a B&H package. It took me longer to submit my entry on the B&H website than it took to make the video. Once I submitted my entry, I realized that I didn't have a ghost of a chance of winning. It turns out that this was another of those contests where the winner is determined by who gets the most votes online. Dalmatian Rescue has entered some of these type of contests in the past to win pet food or money to help the dogs, and it's just about impossible to win. You need to find thousands of friends to vote for you. At any rate, I've embedded the video below in case you want to hear what my voice sounds like. The rules for the contest were simple enough: just make a short video of a package you received from B&H being opened. Since you can only open a package once, the video is a one take wonder. Feel free to leave comments. I don't have any YouTube comments yet.



We gave Dot and Dash a bath this evening. They're both getting pretty savvy about baths now. Dot refuses to even get out of the car and Dash starts howling loudly as soon as he's in the stall. They're both clean now and ready for their role as Christmas Eve ambassadors tomorrow. For quite a few years, Dalmatian Rescue has done gift wrapping at Barnes and Noble stores during the holiday season as a fundraiser. We've discovered that if you bring real Dalmatians with you to the gift wrapping event, people are much more generous with their donations. We took Dot and Dash with us last Christmas Eve and they were actually quite well behaved. Of course, we took a big bag of dog treats with us to bribe them with.

Ziggy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day