Day 1092

For a while today, I thought it was Monday. That's the kind of day it was. I guess that yesterday was so uneventful it has already slipped from my memory.

It's was still unusually cold this morning. At least I remembered to turn the outside faucets on just a smidgen, so the lines wouldn't freeze. I'm always forgetting that the greenhouse has running water, since I never use the building anymore. There are probably other types of cold weather maintenance I've forgotten about as well, but it probably isn't worth worrying about. Sub-freezing weather seldom lasts long in Texas.

I got my December invoices posted today, but I didn't have time to take them to the post office. I did remember to make appointments with the hepatologist and the urologist. Most importantly, I remembered to take Dash to the vet. That's when I realized it was actually Tuesday. We're going to have to change his antigen dosage. After almost a year of no symptoms, his skin allergies are returning again.

I finished a couple of writing assignments today, but so far, it still looks like December is going to be slow. Actually, December is always slow for me. Things pick up quite a bit from January through March however. I sure wish someone would give me something exotic and exciting to work on. I'm tired of sitting behind this computer. There used to be travel assignments to break up the monotony, but those are rare these days. Sometimes when I'm doing press releases these days, clients just ask me to pretend I'm at the events I'm supposedly covering.

I wonder if the music store liked the repairs I made on the broken guitar amp? I noticed on the FedEx website that they received the package I returned today. I actually think I did a great job of putting the broken cabinet back together again. My woodworking skills are pretty good. From a distance of more than six inches, you'd never know the amp had been damaged at all. Although I'm delighted to have a brand new amp now with no damage whatsoever, I wonder if the music store ever realized how easy it would have been to convince me to keep the broken amp. All they would have had to do was sell me the broken amp at a special "damaged goods" price and they wouldn't have needed to send a replacement at all.

What a world we live in. I turned on the TV while I was eating diner tonight and within a span of three minutes I learned that there had just been a mass shooting at a shopping mall in Portland, the North Koreans had just launched a missile that could reach the United States, and huge crowds were still rioting in Egypt. I'm tired of all this chaos. When I retire, I'd think I'd like to live in a very small town, far away from anything exciting or dangerous. I'd still need to have broadband access, of course.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1086

I got a call this morning from a guy I used to work with during my ad agency days. He asked me if I would be interested in designing and maintaining a website for an oil and gas company that a friend of his owned. "Sure," I said. "That sounds great." "There's just one complication," the guy says. "This is a staff position and you'd have to move to Argyle, Texas." Oops! The opportunity didn't sound so great anymore. I can't think of one good reason why anyone would want to live in Argyle.

I passed on the oil and gas job and went back to work on my own website projects. It's been a very busy week. Of course, not all the activity has been work related. A lot of it centered around the two big guitar amplifiers sitting in the living room. Today, I took everything apart, traded out the electronics in the two amps, and then put the amps back together again. It took quite a while to do everything properly, but at least now I've got one amp that's a keeper. I boxed up the broken cabinet, which ironically now contained the brand new amp head from the replacement amp and took the package back to FedEx to be returned to the music store. Hopefully, this little episode is over now.

This time last year I was writing several watch articles a day. At the time, I thought the work load was insane and wished the articles and the endless deadlines would just go away. One year later, it appears my wish has come true. I'm lucky if I write several articles a week these days. It just goes to show that you should never take anything for granted. It's amazing how much the company has to keep changing, just to keep the doors open. One year I'm producing network TV commercials for Pepsi and Mountain Dew and a few years later, I'm taking pet pictures. Granted, there have been some big comebacks as well, but it's certainly been a bumpy ride.

Dog class has been a bumpy ride as well. Some days Dash is a star performer and other days he won't do anything. Dash is a very smart dog and I suspect he thinks the whole thing is silly. Hey, why would you want to leave a warm house just so you could go to a cold, windy field where an instructor tells you to sit, stay and heel? I could tell that Dot and Dash were cold tonight. When the instructor told them to lie down, they would immediately pop back up again into a sitting position as soon as their bellies touched the grass. The German Shepherds, Border Collies, and Labs seemed happy enough to lie down in the cold, damp grass. The Dalmatians would have nothing to do with it. I think that is a testament to their intelligence.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1085

Things certainly didn't go according to plan today. Janet got food poisoning at an awards dinner she went to last night, and I needed to take her to the doctor this morning. As we sat in the crowded waiting room, it made me realize that my strategy of only making doctors appointments at 2:15 PM was a pretty good one.  We got to the doctor's office around 11 AM and I'm sure everyone there was trying to cram in a quick visit on their lunch hour. 2:15 PM is a great time to go to the doctor, since all the working people are back at work and the doctor is just back from his own lunch and hasn't had time to get behind with other patients yet. Considering that Janet didn't have an appointment at all, she actually got in to see the Doc fairly quickly. We were home again by 2:15 PM.

With Janet's emergency taken care of, I drove to the FedEx office to pick up the replacement for the guitar amp that arrived broken last week. I didn't want to risk another delivery to the house, because I thought the driver would just drop the heavy package again. When I got the big box home and unwrapped I was happy to see that this time the case was in perfect condition. I wasn't so happy when I turned the amp on and discovered that the volume potentiometer on both channels made a loud crackling noise whenever I turned the control knobs. I've seen very old and dirty amps make this sort of crackling noise, but never a brand new one. Oddly, the electronics on the broken amp sounded much better than on the brand new one.

After another call to my sales rep, the music store finally decided that it would be OK if I took the electronics from the broken cabinet and switched them with the electronics from the new cabinet. I think they were willing to do anything to avoid sending me a third amp. As long as I sent them back something resembling a guitar amp, they seemed to be happy. It will take me a couple of hours tomorrow to take the internal parts out of the broken cabinet and install them in the good cabinet, but after I do that, I think everything will be OK.

With all this going on, I didn't have enough time to take the Norman strobes to the repair shop. Hopefully, I can do this tomorrow, because there are still some more Santa Paws events for me to shoot. Somehow, amid all this confusion, I still found time to write an article and make some website revisions. Today's updates involved changing several women's names after they had gotten married. I should know better than to embed names in JPEG images. The young ones always get married right after I get their profile pictures finished.

Dot and Dash were good little nurses today. They seem to sense whenever either of us get sick and become very attentive. Both dogs were very gentle today and spent most of their time sleeping right next to Janet.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1081

The restaurant was filled with platitudes this morning. People would say things like "It's not the destination it's the journey" and their companion would excitedly exclaim  "Exactly, that is so true." These people had to be teachers. Who else would talk like this at 9 AM? I didn't say anything. I just ate my pancakes in silence, while wondering why there was a big sign on the wall saying "Have you tried our new menu yet?" As far as I could see, everything on the new menu was exactly the same as the old menu.

Since this weekend is another Christmas pet photo marathon, I did my grocery shopping right after breakfast. Maybe I ought to go to the grocery store in the morning more often. I did this last week as well and the meat and produce seems fresher than late in the day when I usually shop. I don't think early shopping will ever become a regular part of my routine though. I'll do just about anything to sleep in an extra hour.

When I got home, I began carefully re-assembling the broken guitar amplifier that I had taken apart yesterday. The broken pieces I had glued back together appeared to have dried well and everything fit back together perfectly. I was quite proud of my work. You could hardly tell that the amp had been dropped by FedEx at all. I don't know if the music store will appreciate all my hard work though. They might actually be expecting me to send them back a box full of bits.

Since our own dogs get their Santa pictures taken during one of this weekend's photo sessions, Janet wanted them to have a bath again. Dot hates a bath. She has gotten so good at gluing herself to the back seat, that it is just about impossible for me to get her out of the car and into the dog cleaning facility. Maybe she'll get lucky though. After this bath, I can't think of a good reason why she would need another one this year. I'm just the opposite of Dot. I like taking a shower. What I don't like is getting out and starting another boring day of work. Eventually, the hot water runs out though and makes the decision for me.

Belle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day