Day 2508

I discovered some old birthday and Christmas gift cards in a drawer that I'd almost forgotten about and decided that this would be as good a time as any to get that iPad I've been wanting. There was also a gift card from the electric company in the drawer. I guess it was some sort of customer appreciation gift. When I called the number on the card to activate it, I was told that the card had already expired and was worth nothing. Jeez, the card wasn't that old. Thanks for nothing electric company.

There are all kinds of ways I could rationalize this purchase. The iPad will make a great teleprompter when I do corporate videos. It will let me sit down next to Dot in the evening while I write the blog. I could go on and on. The truth is that there aren't any good reasons why I need a new iPad. I just wanted to do something frivolous for a change. It's been a long time since I did something fun and frivolous.

I don't think Dot is ever going to poop outside again. For the past week she has almost exclusively done her business while she's asleep. If I prepare things right, this new schedule makes for a relatively easy cleanup, but it also has me worried. Is the Tramadol causing this change of behavior or is this just another aspect of the aging process. Dot's vets don't have a definitive answer. The older she gets, the more we are in uncharted territory.

I've started seeing screws and nails in our street again. This seems to happen whenever someone is remodeling their house and it drives me nuts. Can't contractors clean up after themselves? I've ended up getting so many nails in my tires over the years that it isn't even funny. It's not just me either. Just about everybody I know in Dallas routinely gets nails in their tires.

I'll be glad when the time changes next week. Not only will it be easier to see debris in the street, it will also be easier to walk the dogs. It's pretty dark when we take our morning walk now. On clear days the skies lighten quickly, but on overcast days it seems to stay dark for the duration of our walk. Dash is scared of the dark and just about anything spooks him on these pre-dawn mornings. Personally, I enjoy watching the stars gradually fade out as dawn approaches. Dash has other ideas though. It's going to be easier to walk him after the time changes.

This week would be an ideal time for the roofers to come out and make their repairs. The skies are clear. The roof is dry. What's not to like? Have I heard from the roofers lately? Of course not. I'll call them again tomorrow. Like everything in my life, the roof requires patience.

Pearl is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 402

I had a new business meeting today. I think everything went well, but I won't really know for sure until I show them a prototype website design sometime next week. All my website clients are different, but they all share one thing in common. Whenever I ask them to show me an example of a website they like and admire, they inevitably take me to some wildly extravagant corporate site that probably took two years to build and had a budget in excess of $100,000. Everyone seems to think that I should be able to duplicate these high-end sites for a few hundred dollars and have everything up and running in less than a week. Today, the example sites I was shown were for Audi and for a major university. Budgets may have declined for retail storefront websites, but expectations are as high as they ever were.

I've been trying to put one of those little favicon icons on my business website today. No matter how much I monkey around with the code, the icon just won't display properly in my browser. For some reason, someone else's favicon shows up, even though my icon file is sitting right where it should be on the web server. It's kind of embarrassing. I've put these things on other people's sites, but I can't seem to get one working on my own. This is why I can never seem to get caught up on everything these days. Trivial little projects like this can eat up hours and hours of time. I'll figure it out though. By this time next week, there will be a favicon on my site. Hopefully it won't be the same strange little cartoon duck I saw up there today.

It was still dark when I took the trash out to the street for pickup this morning. Sometimes I wish I was more of a morning person. The sky was absolutely beautiful. Venus was exceptionally bright and I could see Saturn as well. Did I go get a telescope and do a little predawn observing? Nope. I was cold. I went back inside and got a cup of coffee instead. I've missed a ton of fabulous sunrise pictures over the years because I was still under the covers. That's just the way it is though. I never was a morning person and never will be.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day