Day 1373

I don't seem to be cut from the same cloth as other business people. I don't know what to talk about at these new Wednesday morning networking meetings. The younger folks are talking about their bicycles and upcoming 10K races while the older folks are talking about vacation homes in Hawaii. Everyone is focused like a laser about making new contacts. Jeez, I forgot to even bring any business cards with me this week. I did join a conversation with several guys who wanted to drive a Tesla. Hey, I'd kind of like to drive a Tesla too. Today's presentation was about leveraging the power of your LinkedIn contacts. Hmm! I don't even like LinkedIn and seldom spend any time on the site. The LinkedIn fans didn't understand why I preferred Twitter and Google+. We could probably learn something from each other. I have way more social media contacts than these guys, but they seem to actually be making money from theirs. Money is usually just the accidental result of doing something else for me. I've never been focused on making money.

Like I said earlier, I could learn a lot from these early morning meetings. When it comes my turn to make the morning presentation, I'll have to resist the urge to present topics like "How to make just enough to get by while dressed in your underwear," or "brainstorming while walking Dalmatians." I dread the day I have to bring a guest. I don't know anyone who would get up this early. Well, that's not entirely true. Janet gets up this early every day, but she would never go to these type of meetings.

Dot had a much lighter workout today, since she stumbled and fell on her walk yesterday. Her physical therapy session started with acupuncture to relax some tenseness in her back and then progressed to a slow, almost relaxed, workout in the water therapy tank to stretch her leg muscles. So far, I think Dot has spent more time at the gym this week than I have.

My chronic indecision might not be good for buying a car, but it sometimes works to my advantage in the stock market. My broker recommended that I sell several stocks yesterday and I told him I'd think about it. Today, the market had a great day and the stocks that the broker recommended selling went up like a rocket. Three more days like today could pay for my new car. It will never happen though. Probably the market will reverse direction tomorrow and all of today's gains will evaporate.

I have an appointment with my hepotologist tomorrow. I hope my liver is still functioning as it should. I'm eating all the right foods now. I'm exercising regularly. I'm keeping my weight and blood pressure under control. I don't know what else I can do. I wonder if the new treatment they've been promising me has finally been approved by the FDA?  This new treatment has been delayed even longer than Land Rover's new Defender 90 introduction.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1352

I went to a business networking breakfast this morning. About once a year this networking group invites me to join them as a prospective member. Even though I'm not a morning person, I always go to these meetings, because breakfast at The Park Cities Club, where the meetings take place, is fabulous. Once I arrive, the group quickly realizes how unbusinesslike I am, and I don't hear from them again for months at a time. This has been going on for years. After a while, they forget and invite me to join them again.

Although I am very good at what I do, I am definitely out of my league with this bunch. Almost everybody in the group is a CEO, CFO, or COO of a major company. I guess I'm a CEO too, but my only employee is a dog. The guy sitting on my right at breakfast told me that while he was staying at his vacation home in Hawaii during the financial crisis in 2008, he noticed how far real estate values had plummeted and stared buying up distressed beach properties. His definition of a distressed property was anything under $500,000.

I'm still a bit baffled at why this group would be interested in me as a prospective member, but I could definitely learn a lot by joining. I've never seen a more motivated bunch of people in my life. Most of these guys have already made several thousand dollars before I even get out of bed in the morning. I don't know if I made a better impression than I did at previous network breakfasts, but I may actually become a member this time. They're interested in having me create a website for them.

Dot did well during her acupuncture session today, but she couldn't go in the water therapy tank because the vet said she had the beginnings of a staph infection on her skin. Evidently only blemish free dogs can go in the tank. Dot is supposed to get a bath twice a week with a special medicated shampoo until her skin clear up. This ought to be interesting. A bath once a month is once too often for Dot. She hates getting a bath.

The neighbor's dog got loose today and attacked Dot and Dash while we were walking. I knew this would happen eventually. The dog is very dog aggressive and goes nuts whenever we pass by the neighbor's fence. The dog bit Dash and was trying to go after Dot when the neighbors arrived and got the dog under control again. Luckily, no damage was done. Dash got nipped in the but, but the bite didn't break the skin and Dash was back to normal as soon as the bad neighbor dog was taken back inside.

I found some vector art on the Internet and did the print job I screwed up yesterday all over again. When I was looking for good stock images, I thought I'd apply to join one of the stock sites as a contributing photographer. I'd forgotten what a pain it was to become a contributor to a stock agency. I had to submit ten high resolution images and add lots of meta-tags and technical information to each image before I could even submit it for review. I did this once before with another stock photo agency and only made pennies from the sale of the images once they finally accepted me. Ironically, I think it will be much easier to become a member of an elite business networking group full of high powered CEO's, than to have my photos accepted by a stock agency that will pay me pennies per image at best. That's life though. I've learned over the years to leave no stone unturned. We'll see what happens in both cases.

Mandy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day