Day 4867

By my low standards it was a busy day. After taking Dawn on her sunrise walk, I ate breakfast and began my Saturday errands. I filled the car with gas and did my weekly grocery shopping. The stores weren't crowded today, but everything still felt expensive. I don't think prices have changed recently. They just always seem high. 

I took my long walk a little early today because I knew I needed to pick up my unsold gear at the guitar store. There were lots of people walking dogs and I almost got run over by a bicycle. I saw my first baby ducks of the season today. A female Mallard was swimming with at least eight small ducklings behind her. Usually I see lots of baby ducks at this time of year, but these were the first I've noticed. Children were feeding bread to the geese again right in front of a big sign telling them not to feed bread to ducks. Nobody listens. I made decent time today because the weather was nice, but my feet still hurt.

When I finished my walk I went to the guitar store and picked up an unsold Ensoniq ESQ-1 and an ancient Moog rack mount device. I'm not even sure what the Moog thing does. It's definitely not a synthesizer. A mixing board that I used to use with my last band is still missing. I wasn't much help, because I couldn't even remember the brand of the mixer. I kept telling the owner of the store that it was big and heavy and was inside a square brown flight case. I wish I'd taken a picture of the thing, because I can't find anything like it on eBay. Maybe it's just too old. The ESQ-1 was much heavier than I remembered. It was in a flight case too and I had trouble lifting it into the car. This obsolete gear immediately joined a lot of other ancient and useless stuff in the storage warehouse. 

I don't know why I have so much trouble throwing stuff away. Almost everything in the storage warehouse still works because I always took good care of my stuff. I doubt that I'll ever use these things again though. The ESQ-1 was state of the art when I got it back in the late 1980's. Not so much anymore. I don't even have room to set the keyboard up in the office these days. It is probably destined to gather dust in the storage warehouse forever.

To my credit, I have managed to get rid of a few things. I sold most of my guitars, at least half of my model train collection is gone now, and most of the art I accumulated over the years has been sold at auction. I still need to get rid of the watches, but it's not worth the effort to sell most of them because they aren't worth anything. I never bought expensive watches and was mostly interested in things with strange and interesting dials. I have hundreds of odd and mostly useless watches. 

It looks like it is going to be raining when I go to Titusville next week. This is disappointing because I'm almost certain that the launch won't be canceled or postponed before I leave. It always rains in Florida and if you postponed launches whenever rain was in the forecast, these rockets would never get off the ground.  Even on a rainy day, there's always a good chance that the skies will clear by launch time. I've seen completely clear skies two hours after a big thunderstorm. At any rate, I'll fly down there and take my chances with the weather, just like I always do. 

It's supposed to start raining here later tonight, so I'm not sure that Dawn will get a Sunday outing tomorrow. It looks like it will be raining for most of the day, but our forecasts are often wrong. We'll see what happens. We can still go and get ice cream cones whether it's raining or not.

Mindy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1334

When we took Dot and Dash to our favorite dog washing emporium this morning, we discovered much to our surprise that it was no longer there. The building was empty with a "For Lease" sign on the door. There wasn't an explanation for the abrupt departure. Not even a "We've Moved" message or phone number. Something must have gone terribly wrong. Established businesses don't typically disappear overnight.

We managed to find an alternate place to wash the dogs, but it was a shame to see another neighborhood business bite the dust. Businesses I like seem to have a habit of going bust. I could make a long list of beloved restaurants, furniture stores, camera stores, indoor dog parks, old fashioned hardware stores, and esoteric hobby shops that are no longer around to amuse me.

I've often thought I ought to hire myself out as a new business consultant. In an odd way, my judgement is almost infallible. If I love your business idea, it's going to fail. If I hate your idea, you'll probably make millions. Time after time, businesses that I thought were tailor made for people like me just couldn't make it in Dallas. Businesses I'm not so fond of, on the other hand, seem to thrive. As evidence, there are Wal-Marts, McDonalds, and Payday Loan stores on every corner in this town.

I thought it would be a good day to recharge batteries today and discovered that an old Macintosh laptop that I had spent a considerable amount of money repairing not so long ago, wouldn't boot up anymore. I think I've only started up the old laptop three times since I had it repaired and now it's broken again. If my luck holds true to form, my warranty on the repair probably ran out two weeks ago. That's usually what happens. I don't need this computer at all, but I hate to throw it away. I need to join some sort of twelve step program for people who can't throw things away. I continually fix and repair old things I don't need and seldom use, "just in case" I might need them someday.

Dot and Dash are going to be doggie ambassadors for Dalmatian Rescue tomorrow. That's one reason we gave them a bath today. The dogs are usually quite well behaved at these pet store events. I seem to remember that this particular store has a big glass case filled with rabbits and ferrets however. Show me a dog that isn't interested in rabbits and I can almost guarantee it isn't a Dalmatian

J-Lo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 854

When I met with the real estate agent this afternoon, I got a dose of reality that I wasn't expecting. I've known for some time that real estate prices are falling in Dallas, but I had no idea how far they had actually dropped. When the agent showed me a comp list of what similar properties in the area were selling for these days, I was shocked. I had actually been inside a few of the houses on the comp list and never dreamed that they would ever be priced so low. Let's just say that if I sold my house just before the market peaked, I could have made 40% more than I would probably make today. I've owned the rent property so long that I'll probably still make a small profit if I decide to sell. I understand now why there is so much talk these days about people being underwater on their mortgages. If you bought in 2005 you'd be selling at a loss today.

Hindsight is always 20/20. I would have been much better off selling the rent property years ago, rather than convincing myself that I could always sell the place later, after a succession of renters provided me with an income for a while. Like many others, I used to think that real estate would never actually fall in value. I never planned on modern houses coming back in fashion either. My place use to be a very desirable rarity for people who liked such things. Now modern houses are so commonplace in Dallas that the rent property is just another modern house without all the amenities of the newer ones.

I liked the agent though and will probably use him to list the place. I wasn't even insulted by how little he thought my place was worth. Hey, how can you not like a guy who loves Citroen automobiles and wears a vintage Hamilton Ventura watch? The guy had an encyclopedic knowledge of Dallas architects too, and said he had enough mid-century modern furniture stored away that he could stage the place without charging me anything extra.

If I haven't learned the perils of hanging on to things too long by now, I probably never will. The house isn't the only thing I should have sold a long time ago. I had a beautiful vintage Vox Mark VI guitar in the storage warehouse that got totally ruined when water leaked into the room one Summer. Some of my favorite Bulova Accutron tuning fork watches are no longer repairable because I waited too long to restore them. Now most of the Accutron repairmen are dead and the supply of spare parts is gone. Nothing lasts forever. Apparently nothing is valuable forever either. Ashes to ashes and dust to dust, or so the saying goes.

Bella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day