Day 2326

You'd be proud of me. Instead of wasting time on Facebook and wondering why nobody was reading the blog anymore, I decide to be productive. I cleared all the water off the roof, along with a huge messy pile of wet catkins that was trapping the water and creating duck ponds that would never evaporate. After the roof was dry and clean, I called the roofer and got him to agree to come out and patch the areas where the elastomer coating was peeling away again. I'll probably have to wait until the rainy season is over before the roofers actually get here, but at least I got the process started.

Since I was semi-successful with the roofer, I  called my watchmaker and asked if the watches he was repairing for me would ever be finished. I hate to bother the guy, since I know he's busy, but he's had three watches of mine for over two years now. He told me that the watches would be repaired by Summer and I reminded him in a friendly way that he told me the same thing last Summer. This watchmaker is very good and I'm in no hurry, but I still think two years is long enough.

The watchmaker isn't the only one who's slow. I took a tape deck in for repairs last November and just got a call yesterday saying that it had finally been fixed. To be fair, these guys did have to custom make a rubber pinch wheel that no longer existed anymore. When I went to pick up the multi-track deck, I dropped off a mastering deck that had the same problems with disintegrating transport belts. Rubber doesn't last forever. The rubber hoses in your car's engine eventually become brittle and crack. The protective foam in camera cases eventually turns into an awful goo. I'm discovering now that the rubber transport belts in tape recorders don't last that long either. I'm sure my Beta SP video recorders are going to suffer the same fate soon. The only difference is that they'll be even more expensive to fix than the audio recorders. Why do I punish myself this way? All this stuff is obsolete.

I was feeling pretty good about getting things accomplished when I returned from running errands this afternoon, but the feeling was short lived. The house felt warm and Dot was panting. It didn't take me long to figure out that the air conditioner had broken. I immediately called my HVAC guy, but they had already closed for the day. I methodically tried to revive the air conditioner by throwing breaker switches, rebooting the fancy WiFi thermostat, and disconnecting the entire system for a while. Nothing worked. I finally decided to try a new air filter, just in case the new thermostat software had some sort of sensor that would shut down the system if the filter got too dirty. The filter actually seemed reasonably clean, but I didn't have much to lose. Surprisingly, replacing the filter worked and the air conditioner roared back to life. This was a disaster averted, since Dot can't handle the heat anymore. I was worried about her. Hopefully the compressor will keep running through the night, but I probably should have the HVAC guys come out anyway. Better safe than sorry.

I had some website updates to finish today and did a good job of biting my tongue when the client suggested a number of things that I thought were silly. I don't fight these things anymore. If you want something that looks a bit clunky or might confuse your customers, it's your call. At this stage of my career it just amuses me that everyone thinks they're a creative genius. Ten years ago silly suggestions would have driven me crazy.

I hope I get to go to breakfast tomorrow. The next wave of severe weather is supposed to arrive around midnight tonight. Maybe the storm will be out of the area by morning. It's hard to tell. The weather forecasts haven't been very accurate lately. Accurate or not, I should have looked at the forecast before I went up on the roof this morning. If it rains, that was a wasted effort.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1930

You can certainly get a lot more done when the weather is nice, the dogs are behaving, and you've had a good night's sleep. I had a feeling that today would go well when I walked Dash this morning with clear blue skies overhead and dry ground under my feet. Dot gets a walk now as well. She only goes a very short way down our street, but it makes her a lot happier. It seemed fitting on a day like this that we celebrated with bacon for breakfast.

The front yard looks much better now after I finally mowed it this morning. I had to mow the yard twice, once at a high setting and again at a lower setting. The Spring weeds had already grown too tall for the mower to handle the job in a single pass. I like the convenience of electric mowers, but they sure aren't as powerful as my old gas powered Yazoo.

I was able to wash the car while the dogs were sleeping this afternoon. I'm still not sure about leaving Dot alone, but I could easily hear her bark while I was cleaning the car on the carport, so this didn't worry me. Dot and Dash not only slept through this chore, they slept through all the Sunday chores. I was able to do a load of laundry, write another article, clean up dog poop in the yard, and look for new wasp nests under the eaves before they eventually woke up and wanted to be fed.

When I woke up this morning, I was surprised to notice a big ugly bruise on my left hand. I don't remember dropping anything on my hand or bumping into a wall yesterday, so the whole thing is a mystery. You see these kind of bruises on old people a lot. I'm sure they bump into things all the time and don't remember it later. I hope I haven't got to that point yet.

I didn't bother going to the gym today. Mowing the yard twice was all the workout I needed. Dash was enjoying the nice weather this morning so we took a longer walk this morning too. Somehow, I don't think I'll ever be able to incorporate going to the gym into my regular routine. I'll go when I'm feeling fat, or weak, or tired, but I'll never become a gym rat. Some people, including Janet, love this type of activity, but I can usually think of other things I'd rather be doing.

I'm coming to the realization that we're never going to be able to get rid of the ugly rugs. We had lots of rugs on the floor when Spot got older and the rugs stayed with us for the rest of Spot's life. In retrospect, we should have kept Spots collection of rugs, but I didn't have a storage warehouse back then. Dot has been healthy and active for so long that somehow I didn't think she'd ever get old until she was diagnosed with cancer last year. Seeing her joy at taking short walks down the street again makes me realize that you're only as old as you think you are. Despite everything that has happened to her during the past twelve months, Dot doesn't think she's old. In her mind, she's still a young dog. That's probably why she's still with us today.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1928

I was a model of efficiency today. I got up at 6 AM and walked Dash in the dark. Less than an hour later, I was eating breakfast at my favorite restaurant. By the time Janet left for work, I had already returned home, switched on the computer and was ready to start the day. It's too bad that I'm not a morning person. It's actually quite pretty walking the dogs just before Dawn. I could still see the stars when Dash and I left the house this morning. As the sky slowly brightened, the birds began to sing. By the time  we returned home, the Eastern horizon had an orange glow and the day had commenced. As pretty as this celestial progression was, I'd still rather sleep in.

I had lots of work to do today and the dogs were surprisingly cooperative. They both slept soundly for most of the morning, allowing me to write two new articles and update five websites. Dot didn't even wake up when the roofers arrived around 10:30 AM. I was sure that all the banging around on the roof would startle Dot and start a frenzy of barking, but she slept through the entire repair job. Dot is slowly going deaf and occasionally that's a blessing. I doubt highly that the roof is as good as new, but the roofers were quite nice and took care of everything I pointed out to them. With any luck, the roof is good to go for at least another year, when we'll probably have to patch and repair all over again.

I'm amazed at how well Dot is walking now. Several times a day, I take her out in the back yard with a leash tied to the rear handle of her harness. This way she can walk on her own, while I still have a way to protect her from falling if she slips. Each day Dot's sense of balance and her ability to hold up her own weight improves a little more. We walked around in the yard for almost ten minutes this afternoon and Dot never faltered or slipped. My main job now is to keep her from doing something stupid. She would still run after the neighborhood cats if she could and she hasn't quite learned that the only way to stay stable is to walk on the carpets and stay away from slick surfaces. We're getting there though, one step at a time.

I've already got a long list of things to do tomorrow. There are checks that never made it to the bank, bills that never got paid, and prescriptions that need to be refilled. The grocery list is pretty long as well. The only thing I don't seem to need is gasoline. I don't spend very much time at the pump anymore, since I don't go anywhere. I think I only spent $9 on gas last week.

This would probably be a good weekend to see if the lawn mower works. If I wait much longer to mow the front lawn, the grass will be too tall for the mower to handle. I think all the vegetation has come to the conclusion that Spring is here. Lawns are green again and flowering trees like redbuds and dogwoods are in bloom. The wildflowers are still a long way from reaching their peak, but I see a new variety start to come into bloom almost every day. The only bad thing about Spring is that the wasps and roaches return. It's almost time for the snakes to return as well. Before I get too euphoric about Spring, I need to remember that this is when my seasonal allergies start to flare up as well.

Now that I have the car configured perfectly for Dot, I just realized that I will have to take everything apart again whenever I need to transport Dash. Dash won't let me pick him up and place him in the car. He flays about in a panic whenever I try, so I just let him jump in by himself through the tailgate when we need to go somewhere. I'm not sure where he's going to ride now.

Despite all the difficulties, this month has gone pretty fast. Problems get solved and new problems arise to replace them. I guess this is what life is all about. Sometimes I think it's all a weird game of Whack-a-mole.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1487

One of my regular readers suggested that I should quit complaining about the weather and just read a book on rainy days. That's easy for her to say. She's retired. When I retire, I'll probably do a lot of reading. Since I'm still working, I deal with problems like losing clients instead. Another website client went bye-bye today. I've gained a few website clients this year as well, so I'm basically even for the year, but this slow erosion of my online business is still troubling. I lose a lot of these jobs when my client's kids graduate with their worthless marketing degrees and want to do the website themselves. Yes, parents don't just let the kids continue to live at home until they are 27, they give them jobs when they graduate as well.

For those of you who are wondering, I chose to ignore the rain and go out for a decent Friday morning breakfast anyway. The dogs pretty much made the decision for me. They were so dirty at the end of their morning walk, that I decided a little more dirt wouldn't make one bit of difference. I cleaned the mud off the dogs and then proceeded to get mud all over the freshly washed car. The eggs were sure good though.

I finally managed to talk to my neighbors about the tree on my roof. They are nice people and appear to still be making an effort to get the tree people to come out and remove the tree. I can't really complain. I've been having my own problems with one of the oak trees in the back yard. My own tree guy promised me that he'd come out before Christmas and clean up the mess made by the power company guys during they ice storm. It seems like it's been quite a while since Christmas now, and he's still not here.

Although it wasn't a terribly productive day, I still managed to make it to the grocery store and get my January invoices in the mail. I'll have to remember to take the newly departed client off my monthly invoice list. It would be embarrassing to keep billing them after they fired me. Hey, at least it's Friday. I have no idea what the weekend has in store for me. It probably depends entirely on the weather.

Murphy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 695

I was watching one of those Lynda.com training CD's today to brush up on software I use in my work. Even though I tried to stay focused, I kept falling asleep. The training CD was well produced and very professional. The problem was that the subject matter was totally boring. This is stuff I do all the time. Let's face it. A lot of what I do is boring. I just needed to watch the CD, so I could learn how to do the boring stuff faster and hopefully, a lot more productively. The instructions that came with the CD said it would only take me half a day to watch all the course material. Wrong! I think it's going to take me about three weeks. My head is so filled with useless technical information already, that I'm going to have to take this new information in small chunks so it won't explode.

There's the new camera I've got to master as well. This little learning exercise is a bit easier, since the new camera is just a better version of equipment I'm already familiar with. I practice taking little movies of the dogs in the back yard after lunch. I not quite ready for prime time yet, but it shouldn't take that long. Sometimes this continual learning process gets tiring. It's absolutely essential though. If I didn't try to stay ahead of the curve and discover new and better ways of doing things, I wouldn't even have a business today.

One of the rescue groups I work with is having a big fund-raising event this Sunday. We had our final run through meeting tonight and the whole thing seemed quite complicated. I was glad that my task on Sunday was taking video of the event and not setting up tents or running the silent auction.

We're still having beautiful sunsets just about every evening. I hope you're enjoying them as much as I am.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 681

It was a chilly, gray day. Janet got me up early to walk the dogs, because it was supposed to start raining any minute. The rain didn't actually begin until well after supper, but it's definitely raining now. The colder weather this morning reminded me that I still hadn't picked up my jacket at the tailor after I asked them to put in a new zipper last week. After picking up the jacket, I went to the bank and then back home again. There's no point in going far on a chilly, gray day.

Luckily, the dreary day was good for something. I made myself a pot of chili to eat and set about catching up on work. I edited another video for my doctor client, wrote another watch article and tried to get caught up on another week's worth of website revisions. It wasn't a pretty day, but it definitely was a productive day.

The dogs didn't seem to mind being cooped up in the house while I worked. They don't even like the thought of rain, so every time I let them out in the yard, they immediately came right back in the house anyway. It was definitely more comfortable inside. The furnace was working. The house was toasty warm. And there were plenty of dog blankets for them to sleep on.

I need to remember to turn on the television and watch the Rangers game. With any luck, they could win the World Series tonight. The team certainly came close last year and hopefully they can go all the way this time around. It might not be raining in St. Louis, but it's raining cats and dogs in Dallas right now. I wish I'd remembered to take the trash out to the street a little earlier. I'm going to get wet, but I still got a lot done today.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 647

I got some Chili at Central Market today. I've been hungry for Chili all day and take this as a good sign, especially since I haven't been hungry for anything for the past several weeks. Maybe my appetite is finally returning, one spice at a time.

I got an amazing amount of stuff done today. The only explanation for this productivity I can think of was that there really wasn't much else to do anyway. I finished editing the two videos I shot yesterday and got them both up and running on the doctor's website. I wrote a new watch article and got my monthly writer's group submission finished and turned in as well. This might not seem like a lot of work, but video editing is a lot more time consuming than writing. To finish two commercials in a day is actually pretty good.

When I was walking the dogs this evening, I slipped on some loose gravel. Yikes! My neck didn't like that one bit. I'm so tired of feeling fragile. I'm gaining a little more mobility every day, but this recovery is going so slow. I sure hope this neck problem heals quicker than the dislocated shoulder I had a couple of years ago. That mishap seemed to take months before everything returned to normal. Walking the dogs four to five miles a day has been a mixed blessing. I'm in a lot better shape than I would be otherwise, but the dogs are strong and they've definitely taken their toll on me. When they both see a squirrel at the same time, it's all I can do to hold on to them. Did I mention the dislocated shoulder...

This weekend is the big Dalmatian Rescue Charity Golf Tournament. A lot is riding on this tournament, since the rescue group makes over half of its yearly income on this one event. This year, Dot and Dash are going to the event as "ambassadors." It's kind of a tradition to bring dogs to the tournament. The really well behaved dogs ride around in golf carts and visit the players, while the rest hang around the clubhouse and beg for treats. Dot and Dash are getting a bath tomorrow, so they'll look good at the event. I'll take a bath too, but I'm mostly worried about making sure I have enough fully charged batteries to take the hundreds of pictures I'll need for the dinner presentation. After doing these golf pictures for all these years, I have a lot of respect for sports photographers. Compared to my days of shooting fashion, sports photography is hard work.

Sage is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 623

Every once in a while I wake up feeling like I'm going to fly like an eagle. Most days a feel a lot more like a pigeon. I hunt and peck. I make a little money. I never end up flying very far from where I started. I typically have a hard time getting up in the morning. Sometimes I stay in the shower until all the hot water runs out. Let's just say I don't start the day singing a rousing chorus of Good Morning Sunshine.

All this being said, I do manage to get a lot done when I finally kick myself into gear. Today I made revisions on just about every website I manage. I finished a couple of articles, took Dash to the vet for his bi-weekly antigen shot, and picked up another month's supply of meds for myself at the pharmacy. The day was a pigeon's dream.

I've been hearing a lot lately about Facebook's new privacy settings. They evidently let you individually select which people you want to see various posts that are on your wall. Sounds like a lot of trouble to me. Facebook still doesn't have the filter I want. I wish they had some kind of zip code filter. I would use it to filter out my neighbors. Increasingly, people I see almost every day are asking me if I saw their Facebook message. Why don't they just tell me in person? It would certainly be a lot easier, because I almost never look at that messages section of Facebook.

I'm keeping the back yard really wet, in hopes that the Fescue seed we planted this weekend will sprout and cover some of the dead patches. So far, the only result of this frequent sprinkling has been two muddy dogs.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day