Day 3633

I am terrible at multitasking. Getting ready for my NASA trip and the Santa Paws photo shoots at the same time is wearing me out. There really isn't even that much to do. I just can't seem to do two things at once. I guess I'm making progress though. My travel arrangements have been made. I'm starting to get my camera gear organized. And amazingly, the new photo backdrop arrived from China this evening, right on schedule. I never even heard the DHL driver arrive, but he sent me an e-mail two minutes after he delivered the package. Those Germans are pretty efficient.

Every time I travel I try to think of an easy way to get the same things on my laptop that I have on my  desktop computer. This is impossible of course because the desktop computer has a humongous hard drive and the laptop has a relatively small one. I'm always forced to make a list of important information that I might need while traveling and copy it over to the laptop one file at a time. I really don't want all the e-mail I've ever received or all the photos I've ever taken to reside on the laptop, but it can be a pain to sort through the maze on information on my main computer. I usually just end up writing down a few important things on a piece of paper and putting it in my suitcase.

I need to go out and buy batteries and a roll of blue painter's tape tomorrow. I do this every year before we begin the Santa Paws events. I still have plenty of batteries from previous years that I've never even used, but I'm never sure if they are any good. Fresh new batteries make me feel more secure. I've got plenty of Duct Tape, but it is sticky and can make a mess. Painter's tape is much better for taping down power cords to keep them out of the way. I take a spare camera just in case my main camera malfunctions, a spare power pack for the strobe lights, spare bulbs for the modeling lights, lots of batteries, and extra memory cards for the cameras. What I really need is a spare photographer.

Spaceflight Magazine contacted me and said my proposal for an article sounded interesting. It was so interesting in fact that the magazine has been working on the same idea for several months now. Timing is everything. All is not lost however. They asked if I would be taking pictures while I was at the Michoud Assembly Facility and said they might publish them with the article that was already being prepared if I could get them to the magazine in time. I'll give it a try.

There were lots of things I should have done today, but I insisted on taking my five mile walk first. When I returned from the walk, I was too tired to do the other things. This happens almost every day. I'm not sure if I'll have time to walk tomorrow. All the gear bags for the photo shoot need to be packed and I need to start packing my suitcase as well. Did I mention that I'm terrible at multitasking?

It took forever to add my blog post to Facebook last night. For a long time Facebook refused to load a preview picture with the link. This happens sometime and it drives me nuts. I want everything to be consistent. I hope things go smoothly tonight. I've still got to take this week's trash out to the curb and there there's another old Perry Mason episode to watch before I go to bed.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2150

I've decided that I need complete quiet and isolation to stay sane. Yes, today was pretty crazy. I was trying to code a fairly complex website today and I kept getting interrupted by phone calls from the plumber, knocks on the door from my insurance agent, more phone calls from claims adjusters and even a mold remediation company. Dot freeks out whenever there are visitors and typically poops on the floor. I have to watch Dash like a hawk, so he won't escape thorough an inadvertently open door or gate when there are visitors. It is very stressful. Dot was kind of wobbly today and at one point I was worried that she might be having vestibular problems again. I was so glad when the calls and visits associated with the plumbing leak finally ended.

I have to really concentrate when I code these complicated new responsive websites I'm building now. I was working on a problem that normally would have taken me about an hour. I kept getting interrupted at a critical point in the process and as a result, I made a series of mistakes seven times in a row before I eventually uploaded something that worked. My little update took me most of the day. If I get interrupted when I'm coding websites or even writing an ad, I lose my train of thought. I'll try to pick up where I left off after I've dealt with the distraction, but often it is a lost cause. That's what happened today. I kept having to start my project over and over again, because the distractions created a roadblock in my one track brain.

The dogs are so used to my quiet and private life that anything abnormal makes them both very nervous. They are much happier when we follow our regular schedule and I give them my undivided attention. I can't really blame today on the dogs though. I need large blocks of completely uninterrupted time to get anything done. I don't multi-task well. Truthfully, I don't multi-task at all. Writing and coding are quiet thoughtful activities that require a lot of time. Since the dogs like to sleep a lot, it works out well. I write articles and code websites while the dogs are sleeping and we go on walks together and have tasty snacks while they are awake.

Dot has not had a good week. I'm worried about her. Hopefully, her vet can give me some good advice about this latest step in the journey when we go for our therapy session tomorrow. I'm not sure what we can do at this point. We're both really trying, but Dot keeps getting older. The last thing she needs is a crew of noisy people digging a tunnel under our house to reach the broken pipe, but fixing the pipe is inevitable. The leak simply must be stopped as soon as possible.

Dot is completely off schedule now, so she will probably poop in her bed sometime during the night. I wouldn't be surprised if running the washing machine continually isn't what caused the pipe leak in the first place. Some things can't be helped. We'll just continue doing the best we can. If I see Santa between now and Christmas, I'm just going to ask for my life to return to normal.

Ginger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1955

I had lots of small problems to resolve today. Individually, they were trivial, but together they wore me out. I was jumping back and forth between Microsoft Word, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver all day. As many of you know, I don't multitask well. I would always rather have one complex project than a bunch of little easy projects that share the same deadline. Although some of today's projects seemed meaningless, they were all important to my clients, so I jumped back and forth until it was time to take Dot for her weekly physical therapy session.

I've got to come up with a better way to transport Dot to the vet. Traffic was bad today and twice I had to put on my brakes hard enough to cause Dot to slide forward in her hammock and get stuck in the foot-well between the rear seats and the back of the front seats. The hammock keeps her from actually falling into this hole, but she can still get stuck if her weight pulls her forward and the hammock dips into the foot-well. She got stuck at a busy intersection today and I had trouble crossing three lanes of traffic so I could pull over and move her out of the foot-well and back to her seat. Dot was squealing and whining the whole time I was stuck in traffic. It was stressful for both of us. I'm thinking of abandoning the hammock and just putting the rear seats down again and having a large flat surface in the back of the car. She's getting strong enough now that I think she's just about ready to start riding in the car again the way she used to.

I've got to find time to go to a Babies R Us store and get some of those baby tube socks with rubberized feet that Dash can wear on his walks. The torn paw pad is still tender and he walks a lot better when I put a sock on the injured foot. The problem is that the short dog socks we got at a pet store don't work very well. Every time Dash scratches the earth with his rear feet, the sock falls off. Longer socks would definitely stay on better. One more thing to add to my "to do" list.

This has been a long week. I'm beginning to understand responsive website design. Dot is beginning to regain her independence. It's still tiring though. All the new knowledge in my head is starting to give me a headache and even though Dot is able to walk around the house without her harness, I've still got to watch her like a hawk. Dash is still limping too. There's more rainwater to remove from the roof, but I'm not even going to bother with that until this weekend. What's the point? It might rain again tomorrow anyway. Our excessive amounts of rain this Spring has caused me a lot of trouble, but the wet, muddy weather definitely has a silver lining. The new landscaping in the back yard looks great and I haven't had to use the sprinklers very much.

I'm looking forward to going out for breakfast tomorrow. It's nice to have a little quiet time with no barking dogs, irritating telemarketing calls, or dishes to wash. It's amazing how that little hour and a half of tasty tranquility can make the entire day seem better.

Wyatt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 867

My inability to multitask is getting frustrating. I have so many unfinished projects right now, and what I'd really like to do is methodically finish each of them one at a time. I can't do that though. Most of my clients wouldn't react very favorably if I left a message on my answering machine that said, "I'm landscaping the back yard. Please call me back in a week and a half." That's what I'd like to do though. I'd finish the yard first, because with one patch of grass that needs to be watered everyday and an adjacent patch of tilled dirt that turns to mud every time I turn the sprinklers on, it's getting harder and harder to keep the dogs clean. Dot races through the mud every time I let her outside, and then I've got to clean her paws before I let her in again. This sequence of events happens many times each day and it's already getting a little old.

I'd finish moving the storage warehouse stuff next. This is important because I can't put anything new in the storage space until I get things organized and on shelves again. The whole point of the new storage space was to have enough room so that I could start clearing necessary, but infrequently used stuff out of the office. So far, things are still piling up in the office.

Only after these two important tasks were complete would I start working on client projects. Unfortunately, the way things work in the real world, I find myself doing exactly the opposite. I spend most of my day writing and coding websites, just like I always do. The moving and landscaping tasks get relegated to leftover time. I'm sure the back yard makeover will eventually be finished. I'm equally sure that the rental property will eventually be sold as well. These things won't happen fast enough for me however. I just want to get tiring these tasks behind me.

My real estate agent called today and said he'd like to photograph the rent house on Wednesday for the MLS listing. I wasn't expecting things to move so quickly, since the place is still empty and hasn't even been staged yet. Tomorrow will probably be a very busy day. I can only hope that the actual sale goes quickly as well. I still hear tales of people who had their properties on the market for two or three years with little to no interest. I don't want this to happen to me. One good thing about investing in stocks and bonds as long as I have is that I no longer have unrealistic expectations. Prices for everything go up and down. At any given time, there is always a market price for whatever you have to sell. If you want to find a buyer, you have to learn to accept this price.

Bea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day