Day 1658

I looked at my calendar for July and it was already filled with vet appointments and doctor visits. When you add trips to the pharmacy to pick up prescriptions, this is pretty much how I spend my time. In any given month, at least three of these appointments will need to be rescheduled because I'd forgotten that I already had another medical appointment at the same time. So far, the only non-medical things I see for July are a day of jury duty and a visit with my financial adviser to discover why I feel so poor.

It's frustrating to see so many of my investments doing poorly at a time when the market is near an all-time high. I have nobody to blame but myself, unfortunately. Nobody forced me to invest in these losers. One of the worst things I did was get excited about the natural gas industry after making a documentary about a pioneering shale gas producer. Natural gas seemed like a sure thing at the time. It wasn't. I discovered that investing in small energy companies can be a very risky business. Live and learn has always been my motto, but this was a very expensive lesson.

I discovered today that one of the first bloggers I ever started reading regularly passed away this weekend. If I hadn't seen some other bloggers talking about the woman's obituary on Facebook, I never would have known. This certainly wasn't the first time I got the news about someone's death on Facebook. I've learned about the passing of high school friends, former co-workers, distant relatives, and several other bloggers all in the course of reading my Facebook wall. I guess it's a sign of the times. I was trying to explain social media to a friend about my age a few weeks ago and when I got to Facebook I just said "Facebook is where you go to see who died this week."

I've got to come up with a better plan for defending myself from biting bugs. Every time I walk the dogs, I'm eaten alive by mosquitoes and chiggers. It's too hot to bundle up these days, so when you wear shorts or go shirtless, you become a target for the biting bugs. I hate to use insecticides around the dogs, and few of the home remedies actually work. Last year at this time, the city was already aggressively spraying to control mosquitoes. This year, the mosquitoes are even worse and the city is doing nothing. The aerial spraying was so controversial last Summer that I suspect the city just gave up and decided to let the citizens itch. I thought the spraying program made a lot more sense than Lyme Disease, but a lot of people disagreed. You just can't keep everybody happy these days.

Dot did really well in the underwater treadmill this afternoon. It's amazing how strong and confident she is, considering her age. I hope the car continues to do well as we go back and forth to these physical therapy sessions. It was over 100 degrees on our drive home today.

Tucker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1086

I got a call this morning from a guy I used to work with during my ad agency days. He asked me if I would be interested in designing and maintaining a website for an oil and gas company that a friend of his owned. "Sure," I said. "That sounds great." "There's just one complication," the guy says. "This is a staff position and you'd have to move to Argyle, Texas." Oops! The opportunity didn't sound so great anymore. I can't think of one good reason why anyone would want to live in Argyle.

I passed on the oil and gas job and went back to work on my own website projects. It's been a very busy week. Of course, not all the activity has been work related. A lot of it centered around the two big guitar amplifiers sitting in the living room. Today, I took everything apart, traded out the electronics in the two amps, and then put the amps back together again. It took quite a while to do everything properly, but at least now I've got one amp that's a keeper. I boxed up the broken cabinet, which ironically now contained the brand new amp head from the replacement amp and took the package back to FedEx to be returned to the music store. Hopefully, this little episode is over now.

This time last year I was writing several watch articles a day. At the time, I thought the work load was insane and wished the articles and the endless deadlines would just go away. One year later, it appears my wish has come true. I'm lucky if I write several articles a week these days. It just goes to show that you should never take anything for granted. It's amazing how much the company has to keep changing, just to keep the doors open. One year I'm producing network TV commercials for Pepsi and Mountain Dew and a few years later, I'm taking pet pictures. Granted, there have been some big comebacks as well, but it's certainly been a bumpy ride.

Dog class has been a bumpy ride as well. Some days Dash is a star performer and other days he won't do anything. Dash is a very smart dog and I suspect he thinks the whole thing is silly. Hey, why would you want to leave a warm house just so you could go to a cold, windy field where an instructor tells you to sit, stay and heel? I could tell that Dot and Dash were cold tonight. When the instructor told them to lie down, they would immediately pop back up again into a sitting position as soon as their bellies touched the grass. The German Shepherds, Border Collies, and Labs seemed happy enough to lie down in the cold, damp grass. The Dalmatians would have nothing to do with it. I think that is a testament to their intelligence.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day