Day 1028

I spent most of the day carrying a small ceramic heater from room to room in a somewhat vain attempt to keep warm. Eventually, I decided to give up on the ineffectual little heater and just put on a sweater. My Northern readers would probably laugh at these antics. You guys seem to wear sweaters indoors all the time. I'm a Southerner though and prefer to pretend that Winter doesn't exist. I usually just turn the heat up and wear a t-shirt and shorts around the house all Winter.

Unfortunately, I can't turn the heat up yet, because the furnace is broken. The HVAC guys are coming out tomorrow to give me an estimate on replacing the furnace. This is probably going to hurt. A good furnace isn't cheap. There's really no alternative though. You can't live very comfortably without a furnace during the Winter. At least this is probably the last furnace I'll need to buy. The current furnace lasted twenty-five years. It will be a miracle if I last twenty-five more years.

I spent some time today getting my ducks in a row for a new technical article I need to write this week. I always learn something new when I research these articles.  Last week I learned that steam turbines powered railway locomotives during the 1930's. This week I learned that Germany has oil wells. Why did I think that Europe didn't have any oil of its own? Shows what I know.

I used to think that curators only worked in museums. Now, I think curation has a much broader appeal. The term has become an Internet buzz word with people curating pictures of cats on Pinterest and making lists of people who like chocolate on Twitter. I've never seen such an explosion of information gathering and list making in my life. I'm fascinated by people who love to make lists. Why?  I never make lists. Even though I sometimes talk about my "to-do" list, there is never an actual list. It is just a figure of speech. Jeez, I even go shopping without a grocery list. Although I don't understand this fascination with lists, I'm grateful that it exists. If it weren't for the list makers, probably nobody would read this blog. I got added to another list today. Almost immediately, 100 new people started looking at my photos on Google+. What a strange world we live in.

Madison is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1019

I wonder why people like to make lists? I've never been much of a list maker myself, but I seem to wind up on a lot of them. The last time I checked, I had been added to over 600 Twitter lists. I never thought all this list making mattered until I noticed that just being added to two widely read Google lists resulted in thousands of new Google+ followers almost overnight. The only reason I mention this is that this whole list making thing seems to work both ways. Now that Entrecard has disappeared, I seems to be disappearing from a lot of lists as well. There must have been a whole infrastructure built around the inflated traffic that blog communities like Entrecard, Adgitize, and CMF brought. Now that all three of these communities are gone, I think some of the blogs and bloggers and list makers who depended on these services are starting to disappear as well. Oh, well. It was probably all an illusion in the first place. I used to think I had over 400 regular readers every day. It was probably closer all along to the 40 that Google Analytics has been reporting recently. Easy come, easy go I guess. You can still add me to your next list though. Blogs that nobody reads might be a good category.

We gave the dogs a bath today, so they'd look nice for tomorrow's Dalmatian Rescue Golf Tournament. Since it's been raining cats and dogs all day, they won't look nice for very long if I take them out for an evening walk. The park is a giant mud-hole right now. Hopefully, the rain will quit soon. The dogs still won't poop in the yard. I need to clear the water off the roof before it gets completely dark as well. Most importantly, the golf course needs time to dry out before tomorrow's tournament begins.

The Dr. Who season finale is this evening. How can you have a season finale with only four shows? I missed one of those shows too. I'll be sure to watch this season's final episode tonight, but I can't help thinking that it wasn't much of a season. I've only seen two episodes so far. Didn't there used to be 26 shows in an average TV season?

I can't hear the sump pump running up on the roof anymore. Hopefully, it's just a circuit breaker that's been tripped. I'd hate to buy yet another new pump. It seems like I have to replace these things almost every year. Unfortunately, it's still raining too hard to go up on the roof and check things out. The last thing I need right now is to get struck by lightning.

Sweet Pea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day