Day 1208

We went to another casino party tonight. Janet and I usually play roulette at these charity fundraisers, mostly because we are the designated roulette dealers whenever Dalmatian Rescue has similar events. Sometimes we can pick up tips from other dealers that we can use ourselves. Not tonight. The pair at the roulette table this evening were the most inept roulette dealers we've come across yet. They didn't know the odds on the board. They would routinely pay numbers that didn't win and forget to pay number that did win. They seldom paid winners the right amount either. These dealers didn't even appear to know how the game was played. Nobody got mad though. We were just playing with monopoly money and the entire evening was for a good cause. Janet and I are much better roulette dealers than these bumblers though.

The weather finally cleared up today. With an abundance of clear skies and warm temperatures, the dogs finally got the enjoy the newly landscaped back yard. It would have been a good day to do a little more gardening, but I'm still not sure where all the poison ivy plants are hiding. The meds are starting to work, but I still think it's going to be at least another week before the itching subsides.

I had to get all my Saturday chores finished a little early today, since we needed to leave the house for the fundraiser by 6 PM. We ate dinner at the event, so that saved a little time. The rest of the day was spent grocery shopping, doing laundry, vacuuming, making fresh juice out of a big bag of oranges, and looking for the source of the latest leak up on the roof. I couldn't find where the water was coming in, but I did get clean sheets on the bed and gave the dogs a nice long walk before we left for the evening.

I hope I remembered how to use the DVR correctly. I set up the machine to record the new Dr. Who episode this evening, but I haven't had time yet to see if my efforts were a success. So far, the new season of Dr. Who looks like it's going to be a good one. I'm kind of pleased that I've finally mastered the television. I no longer have to watch shows when they are aired. Now, I can watch them any time I want.

Tomorrow is definitely going to be a dog park day. I can tell Dash has cabin fever from being cooped up too long. He needs a chance to run off-leash. With all the rainy weather we've been having this Spring, we've missed our Sunday visit to the dog park for several weeks in a row.

Sam is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1005

I'm quite familiar with the concept of luck. I've spent a lot of time in Las Vegas and my favorite charity likes to use casino parties as fundraisers. I'm usually the roulette dealer when we have these casino parties. I can tell you one thing about roulette. If you play long enough, it is a mathematical certainty that you will lose all your money. Sure, the odds are pretty good in roulette. Sure, some lucky people do win huge amounts. The arithmetic works against you though. If you play long enough, you will lose.

The winners in roulette are those who put a huge stack of chips on red and then walk away when the ball lands on red. The same can be said for most games of chance. The winners are those who make a conscious choice to leave the game after they get lucky. Of course if you have the resources to stay in the game longer, your chances of getting a random lucky break improve, but it's still a game of chance.

I think politicians are like gamblers. Sometimes good things happen and they have the good fortune to be able to take credit for them. Sometime bad things happen and they take the blame instead. In both cases, the politicians are not nearly as much in control of events as they think they are. I like to imagine politicians sitting in the basket of a hot air balloon. There is a big wheel attached to the basket which they love to turn. They think they are controlling the balloon's direction, but you and I both know it is really the wind.

Dalmatian Rescue has another casino party tonight. People always have fun at these events. I think people basically like to gamble. How else could you explain the choices many people make. I'm not much of a gambler myself. I'll take a sure thing any time I can get it. It's a sure thing that I'll be tired tonight when we return, so I'll post a little early today. I'm a methodical person. I'll spin the wheel for other people, but I certainly don't want to take the chance of missing a post myself.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 858

What a busy weekend it's going to be. After breakfast this morning, we met some other volunteers to set up the gaming tables for tonight's Casino Party fundraiser. Since Dalmatian Rescue hasn't done one of these events in a while, I'd forgotten how heavy the tables are. Actually, the tables seem to get heavier with each passing year. Luckily, we still have enough volunteers to lug everything around to events. Casino Parties have been a good source of revenue for the group over the years.

I went over to my storage warehouse after we set up the tables to dispute a recent bill. They had charged me twice last month. I took my credit card statement to show them the mistake and all they did was show me their own records showing that I had only been charged once. "But it's right here on my bill," I said. "Two charges on the same day from you guys that are identical to the penny." "We'll look into it," was all the manager said.  Things like this are happening with increasing frequency. I used to get one mistake on my credit card bill every five years. Now I get them virtually every month. I think people just don't care anymore. They just run whatever you're buying under the scanner that reads the bar code and they're done. Same thing for running your card through the credit card reader. I remember running my card through twice at the storage warehouse last month, because the manager said my first try didn't go through. Obviously, it did go through since two transactions made within minutes of each other are on my bill.

This is once of the things I hate about modern life.  You car gets repaired wrong. Your mail gets delivered to the wrong house. Erroneous charges wind up on your credit card bills, and still nobody really cares. When you talk to someone about all these annoying little problems, you can tell they wish you would just go away. Nobody wants to deal with your little problems, because they're tired, want to go home, and all have bigger problems of their own to deal with.

When I took Dot and Dash on their evening walk, crews were still disassembling all the tents, banners and porta-potties from this mornings big March of Dimes race in the park. These charity runs and walk-a-thons have become big business. I'm amazed at how complex it has become to stage one of these events. Even though the charities that have these large fundraisers are non-profits, there are a ton of small businesses that actually do make a profit from helping the event run smoothly. That's one thing about Dalmatian Rescue. Our charity events are simple. Just a few volunteers trying to save one dog at a time.

Joe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 837

Janet and I went to another charity fundraiser tonight. I think this one benefited children instead of animals, but they're all pretty much the same. We used to spend more time at these things, but now we pretty much just eat our dinner and come home. With Dot's rear legs getting increasingly shaky, we both hate to leave her by herself for long periods of time. I ended up bidding on a pallet of St. Augustine grass at the silent auction, since I'm going to have to be putting in new grass anyway in a few weeks. We played a little roulette out of habit, but we were home before nine.

I started moving some stuff into the new storage space this afternoon, mostly because I needed to bring home some special steps I had in storage that will make it easier for Dot to get up in the bed at night. I had these steps made for Petey when his legs started to go and they actually work pretty good. Now, we've just got to teach her how to use them. She still seems to want to take a flying leap up into the bed instead of gently walking up the steps.

The steps were buried away pretty well, so I ended up moving quite a few things from the old storage space to the new one just so I could get the dog steps and bring them home. While trying to find the elusive steps, I uncovered a dental drill, a vacuum tube powered, 1950's era lie detector machine and an original Elsworth Kelly painting. I don't do much now, but this odd little room reminds me that I have led an interesting life.

I was going to go down to the rent house and do some painting today, but I spent so much time at the storage warehouse that all I had time to do was go to the grocery store and walk the dogs before we had to leave for the charity dinner. If we were smart we would have just eaten at home and left a little later for the event. The food was terrible. These guys need to find a new caterer next year.

It looks like it's going to be a great day to go to the dog park tomorrow. The weather was beautiful today and it looks like it's going to stay this way for the rest of the week. I think Dot's days of racing around are over, but she still likes to wander through the park and smell the flowers.

Smiley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 473

A loud noise woke us up about 3 AM this morning. Even though I was still half asleep, I immediately knew what the noise was. Another drunk had lost control of his car after the bars closed and had driven through someone's front yard. The noise sounded a bit distant, so I thought it was someone else's yard this time. This morning when I looked outside, it became apparent that the car actually did hit the curb in front of our house. The car apparently bounced over our yard, landed in the neighbor's yard, and then bounced back out to the street again, when it skidded another 100 yards and came to rest near the stop light at the end of the street. This is just a guess, of course, but it is definitely what the skid marks and gouges left in the grass say happened. Believe it of not, this is the six or seventh time something like this has occurred. We live at the top of a hill and the street turns to the left a bit when it reaches our house. I guess if you're drunk enough, you just keep going straight. If drunk driving accidents reoccur so predictably in one particular neighborhood, you have to wonder how many wrecks there are citywide on an average Friday night. I bet there are hundreds in a city this size. No wonder there are so many tow truck companies in town.

Janet and I went to a party tonight. This was another charity fundraiser. I think this event was raising money for school scholarships instead of for dogs, but unless someone told you, it would be hard to tell the difference. There is always a meal, a silent auction, and usually some type of entertainment. Dalmatian Rescue does these type of things too. In fact, the entertainment portion of the evening was exactly the same as many Dalmatian Rescue events: an after dinner casino night. I'm always curious to see how the roulette table is run at these events, because Janet and I are the roulette dealers for Dalmatian Rescue. I think we are more professional than a lot of charity dealers, but there are still some groups that make us look like country hicks. Roulette is an easy game. You just have to remember the payout odds and get the chips off the table fairly quickly after each round of play. I'd much rather be the roulette dealer than run the craps table. Whenever I look over at the craps table, it looks like total chaos. People do seem to have a lot of fun playing craps though. Roulette players are much more sedate. The roulette table was certainly sedate tonight. For much of the evening, Janet and I were the only players. Too bad we were playing with monopoly money. Janet had a good night. At one point she was up over $25,000. It wasn't real money though. At the end of the night, we dumped our winnings in a pot for some sort of raffle and went home.

I took the posters for our Easter pet photo weekend up to City Vet today so they can begin promoting the event. I ended up using the same picture of Dot wearing bunny ears that I used for last year's poster. Hey, it was a cute picture and I know Dot would much rather have me reuse the photo than spend an afternoon dressing her up like an Easter bunny. From her point of view, Dalmatians were meant to chase rabbits, not dress like them.

Dalmatian of the Day

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