Day 2418

I finished my writing assignment and got a thumbs up from the client shortly after I submitted it. By the time I get paid a few months from now, I'm sure that I'll have completely forgotten about this project. Such is the nature of my work. I've written a staggering amount of words over the years, and very few of them are of any consequence. I keep hoping that this blog has meaning, but maybe it is just like all the forgettable ads. They say that writing keeps the mind agile, but it certainly doesn't do much for my long term memory. Occasionally, I'll pull out an old portfolio from the 1970's and it will seem like the ads were written by someone else. Did I really do these things? Old award show books have my name on them, so I guess I did.

I'm sure I'll read something one of these days where researchers prove that a lack of sleep causes memory loss. I'm still not doing very well in the sleep department. It takes longer to write the blog than it used to, so I rarely get to bed before midnight. Dot wakes me up at 3 AM almost every night when she poops. And Janet gets us all up very early, so we can walk and feed the dogs before she leaves for work at 7 AM. I guess I could go back to sleep after I eat my breakfast, but I'm wide awake by then.

Dot has added a new wrinkle to our daily routine. Se has decided that she doesn't like me putting the disposable pad under her butt while she is resting in her bed. When I try to position the pad, it makes her mad and she gets up and wanders around aimlessly for a while. I have to follow her around while she does this, because she can't walk ten feet without my assistance. After we have repeated this process three or four times, she finally settles down and goes to sleep. I try my best to accommodate Dot's moods, because stress is not good for her. Actually, most of the time she is very relaxed. It is me who is under a lot of stress.

I had trouble picking up Dash's phenobarbital today. There was a new pharmacist and apparently his records were out of date. I'm glad we got everything straightened out, because Dash was completely out of pills and it's not a good idea to skip medications that are designed to control seizures. I have these type of problems with my own prescriptions as well. I have a few medications that I know I'll need to take for the rest of my life. Why do I constantly have to renew these things or get a new prescription from my doctor every six months? It would be so much easier if they'd just give me a giant bottle of pills that would last the rest of my life.

Maybe I'll ask for a giant bottle of pills when I go to review my blood test results tomorrow. I hope that none of my test results have deteriorated because I'm in no mood to change my diet and lifestyle again. I'll be really mad if my doctor asks me to give up sugar to prevent diabetes. I went without sugar for over two years and it wasn't very fun. There are days when you really need a bowl of ice cream. I think today was one of those days.

Queenie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2050

I actually got out of the house today. I took a couple of Janet's watches up to my watchmaker to get the batteries changed. She had stopped by the Omega store in the mall over the weekend and they wanted an insane amount of money to change a battery. The amount was so high that it was almost as if they were telling her, "We just want to sell you overpriced new stuff. When it breaks, we don't ever want to see it again." I told Janet that I knew a guy who was still reasonable and fair. I enjoy talking with the watch repairman. We are both relics from a bygone era. We talk about fast cars, fine watches, and the futility of running a small business in today's world. I don't see the watchmaker much anymore. I can't afford to collect watches anymore. I can't even afford to keep them all running anymore. I was pleased when the watchmaker told me that the new mobile website I'd built for him was actually helping his business. Evidently, people really do use their phones to visit websites these days. Who knew? I just use my phone to check the weather.

I also fixed Janet's running shoes today. She was ready to throw a pair of somewhat new looking Nike's away when I told her that I just glue mine back together. The soles never seem to wear out on running shoes. They just fall apart first. The glue that seems to substitute for any type of legitimate stitching begins to delaminate fairly quickly. I discovered one day that I could just use Superglue to re-attach the soles to the upper portion of these shoes and they were good as new. I just use an old Jorgensen clamp from my Dad's workshop to bind the sole to the shoe while the glue is drying and thirty minutes later they're ready to wear again. After fixing the shoes and getting the watch batteries replaced, I felt like I'd had a reasonably productive day, even though I'd done no design or writing at all.

All the dogs seem to want to do these days is eat. I try to be very quiet when I'm snacking in the kitchen, but they always seem to hear me and come racing out for a treat of their own. This is problematic now, because Dot can't get to the kitchen as fast as Dash anymore and she gets mad. To make the small journey from one end of the house to the other, I need to hook her up in her special harness and support her rear legs in case she starts to fall. This involved procedure kind of takes the fun out of eating a few Fritos in the kitchen. I shouldn't be eating these high cholesterol salty snacks anyway, but I'm kind of like the dogs. What else are you going to do on a hot Summer day?

I discovered a quick and fairly easy way to update the new Dalmatian Rescue website, so that's one more thing I don't have to worry about. I was a bit apprehensive about converting an animal rescue website to a mobile friendly format, because these sites change so frequently. I'm so used to making these periodic updates using Dreamweaver that I wasn't looking forward to changing the complex code required in a responsive site. The whole process wasn't as hard as I thought, so maybe this old dog still has a few tricks left after all.

While I was driving up to the watchmaker's office today I listened to someone on NPR talk about different things you could do to keep memories from fading away as you age. Supposedly, a seventy year old person only retains half as much new information as a child. Makes sense to me. I was like a sponge when I was younger, soaking up an enormous amount of information every day. Now I can barely remember where I put my reading glasses. Luckily, writing seems to be one of the best ways to ward off senility. If there are bonus points for developing an ability to write about nothing at all, I should be good to go for a long time.

Deuce is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1495

Every year about this time, I get a letter from my accountant telling me that it's time to start gathering my tax records together. The letters go out early, because he knows that it takes people a long time to locate everything. I don't mind the idea of paying taxes. It makes perfect sense that we all pay for the roads we use and air traffic controllers and the research it takes to look for a cure for cancer. What irks me about paying taxes is that most of the money I hand over to the government every year is just wasted. The money that isn't wasted most likely goes to fund programs that I don't even believe in. I wonder what would happen if we all paid the same amount of income tax, but got to decide where it would go. I wouldn't mind funding programs I believe in. If we all got to do that, I have a feeling that the country would look a lot different.

Most of my opinions about the world are formed by what I see in my own little neighborhood. Lately, I've started seeing a whole lot of government waste. Somebody has decided that the park needs new signs. Most of the important areas in the park already have identifying signage, but apparently, they need brand new signs. I've started seeing a huge number of elaborate stonework and welded metal signs going up. Each of these small monuments to government waste often take a crew of six to ten stone masons and craftsmen up to three weeks to complete. The new signs are usually placed right next to the old simple wood signs that were there all along. I have an idea what happened here. At some point in the past, a bond issue was passed to improve the park. A small percentage of the total, maybe 2%, was designated for signage. Since the original bond issue was for tens of millions of dollars, the total amount designated for signage was probably quite large. Somebody was hired to administer the signage budget, and rather than admit they didn't actually need all that money, they decided to embark on the world's most elaborate park signage program and spend every cent. That's just the way government works. No bureaucrat will ever admit that someone gave them too much money to spent.

Our January weather certainly is weird this year. Another cold front blew through last night and we woke up to near freezing temperatures. Once the sun came out, the temperature rose rapidly and by the time I took the dogs on their evening walk, it was almost seventy degrees. That's quite a swing in a single day. I started the day wearing my goose-down winter coat and ended it wearing a t-shirt.

I've been asked to print a large poster for a February adoption event and am somewhat chagrined to realize that I've forgotten how to make these large posters. I used to do this all the time and was quite good at it. Jeez, this is exactly what I've been trying to keep the large printer unclogged for. I can't believe I've forgotten how to use the large printer. My memory is a sieve. You know what they say: use it or lose it. It won't take me long to get up to speed again, since everything I need to know is already on Wikipedia, but this is a bit embarrassing.

Dovey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 973

Klout has been monkeying around with its algorithm again. My score went from 48 to 64 overnight. I can't put much credence in this newly elevated score however. I remember the last time Klout changed their algorithm, my score dropped from 60 to 30 overnight. You just wonder if anybody takes this seriously anymore. This company has reinvented itself so many times in the past two years that it makes your head spin. My Klout "style" has gone from Feeder, to Networker, to Specialist, to Broadcaster. I haven't changed a thing. I pretty much still ignore everything except for the blog. Even though the company is silly, I will admit to liking the Klout perks. Klout perks are custom made for a solitary person like me who measures the success of his day by what comes in the mail.

My primary contact at one of my clients has left to take a new job. I wonder what this means for me. Sometimes the new guys are pleased to find someone already in place who knows the ropes. Other times, they want to bring in their own suppliers and you get unceremoniously dumped. This one could go either way. I'll just have to wait and see.

While I'm waiting, I can occupy myself by re-learning how how to use a piece of gear I need for an upcoming job. I haven't used this gadget in over a year and I don't think I even remember how to turn it on. Remind me to never buy anything that comes with a 100 page instruction manual again. As my ability to handle complexity slowly diminishes, I find that I am using my iPhone for just about everything. Hey, the pictures are pretty good. The sound is pretty good. It even takes movies. Most people couldn't tell which pictures came from the iPhone and which came from the Nikon anyway.

I was amused to notice that one of the checks I deposited today was dated July 10th. Nice try guys. As if that was actually going to convince me that the check wasn't two months late. Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day. Will I still have Klout tomorrow? Will my memory for technical details return? Will I manage to finish anything at all? I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 479

My little two dog office had a busy day. I spent most of the day working on my new oil and gas annual report. When I wasn't puzzling over strange phrases like "our strategy is to capitalize on this growing trend for independent upstream companies to monetize their conventional assets by deploying capital to unconventional resources," I was on the phone. I made a rare international call to one of my clients in Germany this morning. This was the first time I'd used my iPhone to make an international call, and I was amazed by how easy it was. I am totally flummoxed by international calls. I never remember the correct country codes and seldom remember whether I'm supposed to dial 1 or not in front of the long string of numbers. With the iPhone, I didn't have to mess with any of this. All I did was touch my finger to my client's name in my address book and the call went through.

My reluctant plunge into the social media ocean is finally starting to pay off. I got a call this afternoon from an old client of mine who I recently reconnected with on Facebook. Would I be interested in working on some new product launch literature for a major wireless provider? You bet! Towards the end of the day, a blogger friend called and asked if I'd be interested in doing some professional blogging for his company. Things are looking up.

I wish my memory was a little better. As I was packing for the employee photo assignment I mentioned in an earlier post, a little voice in the back of my head told me to call my client and make sure I had the right day. Nope. Wrong again. The photo shoot is actually next Friday afternoon. Even though a had wasted some time packing up cameras, this mistake was really a blessing in disguise. I didn't have enough time to do the photos today anyway. As soon as I hung up the phone, I went straight back to working on the annual report.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 455

Many of yesterday's questions found answers today. I discovered that it actually is possible for a dog to develop a skin discoloration literally overnight. My vet said it was rare, but that certain types of bacteria infections could cause Dash's bronzing to reoccur exactly the way I observed. Dash now has an antibiotic spray that should clear up the problem in a week or so.

I also discovered that my client's web forms quit working because the hosting company had moved their account to a new server. The server upgrade was supposed to be 100% backwards compatible. Oops. Maybe the upgrade was 99% backwards compatible, but I know of one site that slipped through the cracks. After a couple of conversations with the hosting company's technical support folks, I learned how to patch the code and get everything working again. I can't really give the hosting company high marks for failing to warn my client about the server switch, but they were certainly helpful today. All my questions were answered quickly and most importantly, the fix worked.

The disaster in Japan really makes you realize how interconnected the world has become. When something of this magnitude occurs, literally everyone is touched by it in one way or another. I got a call from one of my suppliers today saying that shipments of a video camera I was ordering would be significantly delayed because there was expected to be a shortage of component parts that had been manufactured in a plant demolished by the tsunami. Several stocks I own were pummeled today by panic selling in the wake of all the nuclear meltdown news we've been hearing. I have a feeling that we won't know for months just how much this disaster will affect all of us.

For several weeks now I've had a photo shoot penciled in on my calendar for tomorrow morning. Just got a call from my client asking if I'd still be attending the marketing meeting tomorrow morning. Oops. What's embarrassing is that I think I initially scheduled this meeting in the first place. I can't seem to remember anything anymore.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day