Day 3401

Weather reports can be frustrating. Ever since I woke up this morning I've been waiting for the monster storm with baseball sized hail that was headed our way. Janet changed her plans and stayed home because her previous car was damaged during a hailstorm. I took my morning walk in a slow drizzle because I was convinced that the weather was going to get worse as the day progressed. The rain never arrived. Actually, the sun is shining right now. Go figure.

There is still rain in the forecast. Now it is supposed to arrive around midnight. We'll see what happens. Texas weather is often totally unpredictable. I just hope that the storm moves through town and is well to the East by morning. We need to pick up Dash at the cancer center early tomorrow morning and drive him to our cremation appointment. I definitely don't want to do this during a hailstorm.

It's been easier than I thought to keep taking 10,000 steps a day. There's always plenty of time to walk when there's nothing else to do. I don't think there's any danger of turning into Forest Gump or anything, but I might start taking much longer daily walks. Why not? Walking alone in the woods is a great way to collect your thoughts. There are people who think I need to find a hobby. Actually, daydreaming is a pretty good hobby.

More of my art sold at auction this weekend. These secondary auctions aren't nearly as exciting as the  big ones in New York last Fall, but at least things are selling. So far, I've only had one piece that didn't get any bids at all. I've replaced most of the art that used to hang on our walls with pictures of the dogs. These pictures make me happier anyway. It's been a long time since I was an avid art collector. I'd rather look at pictures of Spot, Petey, Greta, Dot and Dash.

When we were cleaning today we found a humongous pile of dead ants under the microwave. I wonder how many years it took for that pile to accumulate? When the house settled, it left a small crack near a window frame in the kitchen. Ants came through this hole every Spring. I always sprayed, but apparently the ants were tough. Most of them kept going until they reached the microwave.

One of Dash's vets sent us a lovely bouquet of fresh flowers. They smell wonderful and remind me that we always used to keep fresh flower in the house. That didn't last for long. As we both got busier with work, the flowers would often be dead for weeks before we even noticed. I think Spot ate some flowers too. That episode put an end to the flowers. It just became too much trouble to keep track of which plants were safe for dogs and which were dangerous. With Dalmatians it's better to assume that everything is unsafe unless the dogs are being supervised.

Now that I'm getting more sleep, I thought that my resting heart rate would go down. Surprisingly, the opposite has happened. Fitbit is full of mysteries. It tells you just enough to get you wondering, but not enough to do anything really useful. I probably was just as healthy before I started counting my steps.

Bella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3362

We had a little bit of everything today. There was a light rain when I woke up. About twenty minutes later a line of thunderstorms blew through. There was even some dime sized hail for a while. The severe weather disappeared as quickly as it arrived. By the time we finished breakfast there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The temperature warmed up quickly and it wasn't long before I needed to turn the air conditioner on. I think the high temperature today was almost 80 degrees. This was Texas weather at its finest.

After the storms moved to the East, I thought Dash would enjoy a walk. I was surprised at how tired he seemed. He slept well and seemed in good spirits this morning but he was very slow and stumbled more than usual while we were walking. The same thing happened this evening. Maybe we should have skipped the walks today. It's hard to tell with Dash. One minute he seems fine and a few minutes later he seems exhausted.

It only rained for forty five minutes, but that was enough to fill the roof with water again. I ran the pumps for a few hours and then went up on the roof later in the day to sweep the remaining water away. Removing the standing water quickly seems to be the key to keeping the leak from returning. I'm already seeing a few new tears in the elastomer material. I have a feeling that it's just about hopeless to keep this roof watertight for very long. Two roofing companies are currently working up bids to replace the roof. I'll probably get one more bid before I make a decision. However this ends, I don't think it will be a pleasant experience.

I used the self checkout when I was getting groceries this morning. I had some fresh fruit in a bag with no bar code. When I weighed the fruit at checkout, I thought I'd have to type in some kind of a code number. Nope. The scanner automatically recognized the fruit correctly even though there was no packaging or bar codes. How did it do that? Automation is really getting sophisticated. I wonder if anyone will have a job fifty years from now.

Since it was such a nice day, I washed the car this afternoon. This was probably a futile gesture since it is supposed to rain again on Monday. Removing the water from the roof was probably a futile gesture as well. So far, the one chore that has paid off was giving Dash a bath. After several walks and countless trips outside to pee, he still smells clean.

Maybe I'll start working on my taxes tomorrow. I should have had everything ready for the accountant by now. The more unpleasant the task, the longer I tend to put it off. Amazingly, everything still gets done. It may not get done on time or even done properly, but I'm no slacker. I've already got a long to-do list for tomorrow that probably won't get done either.

Val is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2291

I basically spent the entire day setting up new e-mail accounts and migrating websites from one server to another. The good news is that about 80% of what I moved still works perfectly. The bad news is that the remaining 20% doesn't. I hope I never have to change web hosting companies again. My website is like a house that has been remodeled too many times. When I was troubleshooting this morning, I discovered code that hadn't been updated since the mid 1990's. A lot of clever things I did back then are completely obsolete and aren't even supported anymore. Instead of redesigning the site, I simply abandoned pages when they quit working and moved on. There are tons of orphaned pages on this site that I should have never moved to the new server, but since I couldn't remember why there were there in the first place, it was easier to move everything. I'll sort it all out later.

I got a call from a woman this morning who was interested in having me build a website for her business. She had started a gluten free baking company and wanted to sell her bread online. Unfortunately, she had no bread for me. The was the third referral I've received this year from someone who basically wanted a website for nothing. It's discouraging. I explained that there were a lot of drag and drop templates available that would let her inexpensively build her own website, but that it took a long time to design a good custom site and I was doing this for a living. Maybe she doesn't even need a website. I've seen people who've done pretty well using nothing but a free Facebook business page.

The Internet has changed so much that I'm wondering why I'm even bothering moving everything to a new server. One of the sites I moved today was for a greeting card company I started many years ago. The cards were beautiful, but the company never went anywhere. I initially thought that the greeting cards could be used to raise money for Dalmatian Rescue, but the company didn't even generate enough revenue to pay for the cards I had printed. There may still be a box of greeting cards hidden away in the storage warehouse somewhere, but the website is about all that remains of the company. The last inquiry I received about greeting cards was five years ago.

It rained a lot last night, but luckily the worst of the storm passed North of us. I saw on the news this morning that there was lots of hail and wind damage in some of the nearby suburbs. I always worry about hail storms at this time of year. They can pop up out of nowhere and do a lot of damage. Janet's car was practically destroyed during a sudden hailstorm a few years ago. Even without the hail, the weather has been weird this week. In theory it is Spring now, but I'm still wearing my winter coat on our morning walks. It's way too cold for March, but at least it isn't raining every day like it was last year.

I still can't decide where to have breakfast tomorrow. Having too many choices confuses me. When I first started eating out on Friday mornings, I'd try a different restaurant each week. This wasn't really satisfying, since some of the restaurants were terrible. It may be time to try this again though. I realized last week that I don't have a favorite anymore.

Chelsey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1241

It's ironic. For many years, I've driven rugged, go-anywhere 4-wheel drive vehicles and yet I'm still reluctant to take my car out in the rain. After Janet's Land Rover was nearly demolished by baseball sized hailstones in an unexpected thunderstorm last year, I've had a healthy respect for Texas weather. I almost canceled my hair appointment today because I didn't want to risk getting the brand new loaner car all dinged up. After looking long and hard at the weather radar app on my iPad though, I decided to go ahead and get the much needed haircut. From all indications, the worst of the storm looked like it was going to pass South of us. Luckily, I was right.

Hailstones aren't the only thing I worry about when it rains. Dot and Dash are both terrified of thunder. They totally freak out during a bad storm. Since they have both had seizures in the past, I worry that a bad thunderstorm might trigger another seizure. There's always the roof leak too, but since I've finally decided to get a new roof, I've almost given up on the old roof as a lost cause.

So far, all my worries were unwarranted. The strategically placed buckets in the living room were all dry when I returned from my haircut. Dot and Dash seemed calm enough too. No damage to the LR4 either. Even though today's thunderstorm didn't amount to much, I still hate rain. I often fantasize about living in a climate without rain, but these places are usually full of snakes and scorpions, which I don't like either.

I'm getting hooked on online take-out meals. There's a restaurant right near the post office and if I place an online order right before I go to mail a letter, my meal will be ready for me when I arrive. No waiting at all! Since I have no real desire to actually eat inside the restaurant, this is perfect for me. I'd order breakfast this way too, but none of my favorite breakfast places have an online menu yet.

This week has gone quickly. I've managed to get completely caught up on my writing work. I've already taken the garbage out to the curb for tomorrow's weekly trash pickup. I'm definitely looking forward to tomorrow's brief respite from my regular oatmeal breakfast. Now, if the rain will just stop, everything will be perfect.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1124

The rain has returned. There was enough of a downpour this morning to scare both the dogs and send them shivering under my desk. I didn't have the heart to leave and start my errands until the rain let up a bit. Eventually, I was able to get my shopping done and even got the water off the roof when the rain finally stopped late in the day. Unfortunately, right after dinner a brief hailstorm swept through the neighborhood. I'll be back on the roof tomorrow.

I've been writing about my roof for so long that Google Adsense ads are starting to show up on the blog from commercial roofers who specialize in flat roofs. A couple of these ads look intriguing and I've bookmarked them. It would be ironic if all my complaining actually led to a solution. The odd thing about Google Adsense ads is that they seem to be directed toward me instead of to my readers. I'm not supposed to click on the ads though. That would be cheating.

The temperature must have dropped 30 degrees this afternoon. Texas weather is hard to get used to. One day, you're wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The very next day you've looking for your goose down coat. Things go back and forth from one extreme to the other for most of the Winter. You never know what to expect. I am always pleasantly surprised when I wake up and see clear blue sky through the bedroom windows. It still happens ocassionally.

I'm glad dogs live in the moment. If they thought ahead like I do, they'd already be fretting about whether they'll get to go to the dog park tomorrow. Right now, things don't look too good. Dot and Dash aren't concerned about the dog park now. They're more focused on who's going to get the best spot on the bed. About ten o'clock tomorrow morning they'll start thinking about the dog park. If it's still raining, they'll both be expecting me to make it stop. Getting rained out of the dog park is a serious thing for a dog.

Murphy 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 918

I was invited to one of those business networking breakfasts this morning. In theory, these type of things seem like a good idea. A group of non-competing business owners get together for breakfast and agree to use each other as vendors and suppliers whenever possible. There is supposed to be only one member in the group for each type of business. You might be sitting at a table with a dentist, a real estate agent, a body shop owner and an insurance agent. This sounds like a good way to introduce your services to a receptive audience, but whenever I'm invited to one of these things there is already somebody else who does websites. Today, the other guy who did websites was making the morning's presentation. When I was introduced, I just said I did the same type of thing as the other guy.

I honestly don't know why I'm even invited to these things. I don't seem to fit in. I don't even want to fit in. While the others around the table are talking about their Spring ski vacations or the upcoming marriages of their kids, I'm just wondering when I can get home to walk the dogs. The last time I was excited to be around a group of people talking about their chosen profession was when I used to go to SXSW in Austin every Spring. Being around a bunch of talented indie filmmakers was exhilarating. I always came home from the festival wanting to make another film myself. Somehow, looking at a PowerPoint presentation describing yet another small business marketing plan isn't quite the same. I shouldn't complain though. Breakfast at the Park Cities Club is always great. If the breakfast were served at 9 AM instead of 7 AM, the whole thing might be worth a try.

A lot of people in our dog training class must have gotten caught in last week's big hailstorm. When we got to class tonight, everyone was showing their iPhone videos of the storm to each other. I'm still amazed at how much damage a twenty minute storm like this could cause. Janet finally managed to get her car into the body shop today, so we're both driving loaner cars at the same time. I just hope that there's not another hailstorm in the near future. I want to get these loaner cars returned safe and sound. I've already learned the hard way that damaging someone else's car is much worse than damaging your own.

I noticed that all the birthday greetings on Facebook yesterday caused my Klout score to go up three points. Hmm. Is this what Internet influence is all about? Maybe so. Probably the folks with really huge scores are the people who post all those LOL Cat pictures.

Alamo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 913

The rent house was sold today. I signed all the papers this afternoon at the title company, turned over the keys to the new owners, and that was that. It's over. I was relieved that the whole process was finally finished, but I can't say that my mood was exactly celebratory. I guess my initial thought was "one down, one to go." I've got one more mid-century modern house, but hopefully, I'll continue living in the remaining house for a while. I was really happy with my real estate agent. He really understood the peculiarities of selling a 1960's house in 2012. My agent is young. I suspect he'll still be around when it's time to retire and sell the other house. I'd definitely use him again.

I tried to help Janet get her car into the body shop today for repairs. I guess I didn't realize how bad the hailstorm actually was.  All the rental cars in  town are already gone. The Land Rover body shop said the soonest they could start repairing Janet's car was July 14. There are literally thousands and thousands of cars in Dallas that were seriously damaged by yesterday's storms. The Land Rover dealership itself was right in the path of the storm and my service representative told me that over 200 of their cars were damaged, including all of their loaner cars. When they told me this, I started to worry, because my own car is still at the dealership for repairs. I had them check and they told me I was one of the lucky ones. My car was already inside the shop when the storm hit. Some people weren't so lucky. The body shop told me that several cars they had just finished repairing were damaged all over again before their owners had a chance to pick them up.

With all the water problems I've been having with my roof, I was kind of hoping that yesterday's hail storm might have have left enough dents in the roof that my homeowner's insurance might finally spring for a brand new roof. I climbed up on the roof this afternoon to look for signs of damage. Nothing! No signs of damage at all. The roof looked exactly the same as it did before the storm. It's just a leaky old roof.

I went to Cafe Lago for breakfast this morning. This is the place where we sometimes take the dogs for dinner. I don't know why I haven't thought of this place before. It's right in the neighborhood and I've always liked their dinner menu. I guess I just forgot that they served breakfast as well. I came at 10 AM, which is when I usually eat breakfast, and I was the only one in the place. The owner cooked my omelet. The food was great and I kind of liked being the only one in the restaurant. I'll be back.

Shadow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 912

The hailstorm last night was even worse than I thought. In the light of  day, Janet's Land Rover looked pretty well demolished. The hood looked like someone had spent ten minutes banging on it as hard as they could with a hammer. The windshield was broken. Some of the taillights were broken. There were even some serious dents in the doors. I'll bet that the insurance adjusters are going to be very busy today. There are probably thousands of cars like this all over town. It's weird. Janet and I will probably both have loaner cars at the same time. My own car is still a long way from having its own extensive list of repairs completed.

Luckily, there's one thing that does appear to have reached its conclusion. The buyer of my rent property got their loan approval this morning. We are scheduled to close tomorrow. I never dreamed that buying and selling property would become so complicated. The last time I did this, the whole process seemed much, much simpler. Oh, well. At least selling a house is safe. If you sell something to a stranger on Craig's List, you have to worry about getting abducted or killed.

Can you believe that it's the middle of June already?  I've got to remember to pay my quarterly estimated taxes tomorrow. Next week, it's going to be my birthday again. Seems like we just did this not too long ago. Jeez, where does the time go.  I've still got a few Christmas thank-you letters that I haven't written yet.

I hope the buyers enjoy my rent house. I still have a lot of fond memories about that place. I guess it would be hard not to have good memories. I was younger, healthier, and had a glamorous ad agency job when I lived there. I didn't have Dalmatians though. I didn't have a dog at all. On balance, life now is much better.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 911

The additional information requested by Fannie Mae was finally located and shipped off for review. Everyone seems to think that the buyer's loan will be approved now, although it's pretty obvious that the closing will be delayed a few days. I learned long ago not to count my chickens before they hatch, so I'm not celebrating until I get a call from the title company to come sign the documents and hand over the keys. Hopefully, everything will go smoothly from this point forward.

I was getting the dogs ready to go to training class this evening when a sudden thunderstorm appeared out of nowhere and dumped tennis ball sized hail in the back yard. I had taken the dogs on their evening walk only thirty minutes earlier with blue sky overhead. People who haven't spent time here never understand Texas weather. Conditions can turn on a dime. One minute it's clear and calm and a few minutes later you're drenched. Today's sudden thunderstorm brought some of the largest hail I've seen in years along with it. For several minutes it sounded like people were dropping large rocks on the roof. At least I was home and inside. When Janet got home from work, she told me that the hail had broken her windshield. The storm didn't last long, but it certainly lasted long enough for Dot to panic. Even though the thunder and lightening stopped over an hour ago, she still isn't back to normal.

For the past several days, I've been hearing on the news that a new study shows the average family's net worth in the United States had dropped almost 40% since 2008. That's an enormous loss of wealth and security in a very short amount of time. At first I though that this study was preposterous, but then I got thinking about my own situation. The real estate I own has dropped dramatically in value. My stocks have cratered. Clients don't want to pay me as much anymore. Gas is expensive. It's all a giant mess. I don't know if I've lost 40%, but I've lost quite a bit. If the entire country has lost 40% of their wealth, we're all in big trouble.

One of those business networking clubs wants me to join them again. Those of you who have been reading for a while will remember that this happened once before. I'm kind of torn. On one hand I really need to reach out and meet some new potential clients. I dislike marketing so much that I almost never go out and market my business anymore. On the other hand, I'm not a morning person at all. The thought of getting up at six-thirty every Wednesday to go to a seven-thirty breakfast meeting makes my skin crawl. I do like eating breakfast though. If they serve bacon, it might almost be worth it. We'll see.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day