Day 3435

I was pleased to see the guys who arrived this morning to bury the new fiber optic cable that AT&T installed last week. I wasn't so pleased when one of the guys digging the trench broke the new cable and I was back to square one again. If there is a lesson to be learned from this, I guess it would be to never let anyone with a shovel get anywhere near a fiber optic cable. Murphy's Law always prevails. Needless to say, the crew with the shovels had no idea how to fix the cable. I had to make an appointment with a fiber optic technician to come out and install the cable all over again.

Amazingly, the technician actually did come out today. I was impressed. The guy told me that even though it was company policy to bury these cables so that they would remain undisturbed, quite a few got damaged anyway. If they would just dig the trench a little deeper I don't think they'd have this problem. Most of these cables that run from the distribution box to the house are only a few inches underground.

It took quite a while to get me back online again but hopefully there won't be any more problems for a while. My neighbor has finished messing around with her fence and I'm certainly not going to be doing any digging. I asked the technician when 5G was coming to Dallas and he told me that it was already here. The super high speed service hasn't arrived in our neighborhood yet, but I'm sure it will.  I'll be getting messages from Apple urging me to upgrade my phone and messages from AT&T urging me to upgrade my network. Personally, I don't think I need a faster connection. Who really needs to download a movie in two seconds anyway? What I need is a connection that doesn't go down every time we have a heavy rain.

I still haven't heard from NASA. I haven't heard from a roofer who still owes me a bid and one of the auction houses I've been dealing with either. Sometimes I worry that important messages are being quarantined or deleted by the industrial strength spam filter on my web server. You never know what winds up in the spam folder. I seldom look at these messages because they don't even come to my computer. I can log into the server and inspect the quarantine folder if I want, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are thousands of spam messages. It's easier to pretend that these messages don't exist.

I'm tempted to stop people I see walking dogs so I can pet them. I haven't done this because I remember when people would stop me when I was walking Dot and Dash. I always tried to give the dogs long enjoyable walks even when I was busy working. Not surprisingly, they always had a way of making me late. It's hard to let your dog smell every tree when you're on a schedule and you definitely don't want to stop and chat when you've got a conference call in thirty minutes. I can tell that a lot of the younger people walking dogs are on a schedule. You can see it in their eyes. I'll sometimes talk to older retired people I know in the neighborhood. I leave the younger working people alone. They've got enough on their plate already.

Janet and I were talking about working the other day. We miss working in a lot of ways. We both enjoyed our jobs but don't want to deal with rush hour traffic anymore or trying to please a much younger boss who knows far less than we do. I'd love to find someone who will give me challenging things to do, pay me well, and then just leave me alone. No meetings and no big collaborative group efforts. Lots of luck with that. Hard to believe now that I actually had this type of arrangement for many, many years. I guess I was lucky.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3310

I try to leave myself plenty of time whenever I make an appointment. Let's face it, I'm slow and Dash is even slower. You'd think an appointment at noon wouldn't present a problem. Wrong. I actually got up early this morning, but by the time I'd walked Dash, made the bed, cleaned up dog poop on the living room floor, fixed breakfast, and taken a shower, I was already late.

I get my hair cut every couple of months. I've been going to the same stylist for decades and see no reason to change now. This periodic trip to the mall gives me an opportunity to see if the outside world has changed. It seldom does. There was a new Model 3 on display at the Tesla store and I noticed that a new KAWS Companion sculpture had been added to the Mall's art collection. Everything else was the same. I was surprised at how nice the low cost Tesla looked considering the bad press it has been getting. I'm always surprised at the popularity of Brian Donnelly's art. I guess I'm getting old. I don't understand the popularity of Banksy either.

I didn't linger at the Mall today. I skipped the usual window shopping at the Apple Store and watch boutiques. There is just no desire to buy stuff anymore. It was good to get a haircut though. I always feel better after a haircut. My hair is almost white now, but at least I still have hair. I'm looking more and more like my Dad every year.

I finished the day by paying a few bills and picking up a new supply of Plavix for Dash at the pharmacy on my way home from the post office. It seemed like a very busy day, but as usual I didn't get much done. Janet and I both wonder how we used to get so much done when we were younger. Now, just taking care of the bare necessities can eat up an entire day.

It was a little warmer today, but the weather is still damp and nasty. This type of weather must accentuate smells, because Dash spends even more time than usual smelling things on damp days. Smell is everything to him lately and he will frequently walk straight through muddy areas to get to a smell he likes. I've always got to have a spare set of footwear for him because his boots and socks usually need to go in the laundry after a walk. My own boots are usually muddy as well. Sometimes I feel like I spend half my day cleaning stuff. When Dash poops in the bed, I might spend the entire day.

After today's excursion, I see no need to leave the house tomorrow. The outside world just isn't that enticing. I still enjoy walking through the park, but I don't take many photos anymore. I have to concentrate on keeping Dash from falling. I didn't realize how good I had it when Dot and Dash were young and healthy. Walks were a joy back then. We walked a lot further, but it was relaxing. Relaxing isn't a word I use very often anymore.

Shelby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2438

There are many things I'd rather do than go to a vet appointment on a rainy day. For starters, the traffic is terrible when it rains in Dallas. Dash's storm phobia is getting worse and he hates to be left alone in the house. Dot doesn't like riding in the car in any kind of weather. It's not a good combination. I apologized for being late to my appointment, but apparently my absence wasn't even noticed. I'm not the only one who has problems with their dogs in bad weather, so everybody else was late to their appointments too. There was a backlog of dogs in the lobby and we ended up having to wait about an hour to start our therapy session. Actually, the wait was good, because it gave Dot a chance to calm down. By the time the vet was ready to see us, Dot was getting sleepy.

We had a good session today. The acupuncture relaxes Dot and hopefully relieves some discomfort. The water therapy is supposed to strengthen her rear legs and prevent further muscle atrophy. Dot was strong enough to exercise for the full fifteen minutes today and the rain was almost over by the time we made our way home. We spent most of the afternoon to get these fifteen minutes under our belt, but I suppose it was worth it.

I was going to pay bills and do some bookkeeping this afternoon, but I never got around to it. I never got around to going to the vegan take out place either. I ended up just having a can of soup for dinner. Maybe I'll get caught up tomorrow, but I kind of doubt it. It's supposed to rain tomorrow as well. It's actually supposed to rain for the rest of the week. I should be used to how time consuming the dogs can be on rainy days, but I still underestimate the difficulties.

Dot has added a new wrinkle to our daily routine. About the time everybody else is getting ready to go to sleep, Dot gets a second wind and becomes very restless. This would be a good time to give her a walk, if it weren't for the fact that it is 11 PM and pitch dark outside. I don't know what has caused this change, since she used to be ready to go to bed for the night as soon as she's had her evening meds. Now, I'll take her out in the back yard three or four times and hold up her legs as she wanders aimlessly around. I'll get her situated in her dog bed and then two minutes later, she's barking and wants to get up again. It's taking longer and longer to get her settled in for the night.

I wish tomorrow was Friday. I wouldn't mind getting rid of Thursday entirely. Six days in a week would be plenty for me. Unfortunately, I don't get to choose these things. I'll try to do something useful tomorrow, even though I find the day completely redundant. For now I'll just concentrate on getting Dot to go to sleep.

Toby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2171

I don't know why it's so hard to get Dot out of the house in the morning. I've been trying to get her ready for physical therapy earlier and earlier, but we still arrive at the vet late. Afternoons used to work a lot better, but we don't have that option now. It's like herding cats to get Dash in the bedroom where he needs to be, while simultaneously positioning Dot near the front door. I have to bribe the dogs with treats and that doesn't always work. When I lure Dash into the bedroom with a treat, Dot usually follows. Then when I try to get Dot back out by the front door, Dash thinks he can get another treat if he gets to the front door faster. I end up with Dash at the front door and Dot in the bedroom, which is exactly the opposite of what I need. Frequently, Dot heads for the back door instead, so I take her outside just in case she needs to pee. She'll usually just aimlessly wander around for a while and by the time I back the car out of the driveway, we're already late. It's frustrating to say the least.

When we finally do arrive at the vet, Dot usually does pretty well. Today she did excellent in the underwater treadmill. She was able to complete her full eighteen minute routine while doing several short intervals where we cranked the treadmill up to a higher speed. Maybe barking at the office cat got Dot energized today. I asked the vet why Dot wasn't building muscle mass in her rear legs with all the exercise she's been getting. Evidently, the older you get, the harder it is to build muscle tissue. Tell me about it! The same thing is happening to me. After all the time I've spent at the gym and walking the dogs, my arms and legs are still getting thinner.

Therapy days always get Dot off schedule. We had another accident today while I was taking Dash on his evening walk. I have a feeling that running the washing machine continually is one reason why I'm having trouble keeping the humidity low. I was just about ready to place an order for a dehumidifier today. Janet liked the machine and I'd read several good reviews. Then I accidentally stumbled on a fairly articulate bad review. Evidently this machine uses much more electricity than the manufacturer states. Running it continually can get expensive. At least it doesn't seem to break. One guy said he'd run his continually for five years without a problem. I have yet to find a dehumidifier that everybody likes. Maybe that's just not going to happen.

I saw an ad for a Panasonic camera today that lets you focus after you take the picture. That's what I need. When I take a camera along when I'm walking the dogs I almost always leave the lens on autofocus because I have my hands full already. Inevitably, when I'm focusing on some animal in the woods, the camera will think that what I was really looking at was a nondescript tree branch about a foot behind the critter I was trying to capture. A shallow depth of field looks great if you're focused on the right thing. Most photographers will tell you that good bokeh is highly desirable, unless the only thing in focus is an ugly stick or clump of grass. This new camera calculates the closest and most distant objects in the frame and then quickly takes a series of up to twenty pictures at every distance in between. You can select the focus point after you take the shot. I'll have to look into this.

Hopefully, Thanksgiving will be quiet and relaxing. It would be nice to sleep in late for a change and it would be even nicer to be able to go out for dinner without worrying about whether the dogs will freak out during a thunderstorm.  Could we just put a hold on the rain until Friday?

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2165

I didn't have time to take a shower this morning because I was waiting for the HVAC guy to come over and give me an estimate for installing a whole house dehumidifier. The HVAC guy was running late, so he didn't make it over at all. Damn, I could have taken a shower after all. I tried real hard to be on time for Dot's physical therapy session, but I was late too. I just can't seem to get Dot out of the house in the mornings. If I point her toward the front door, she inevitably wants to go out the back door. I always oblige, because I think she might need to pee. I'd rather be late than have Dot pee in the car. For the second week in a row, I had to stop the car midway to the vet's office to re-position Dot after she had gotten stuck in an awkward position. Oddly, nobody seemed upset when we arrived fifteen minutes late. I suspect they were running late as well. It was just that kind of day.

There was extra laundry this morning because Dot pooped in her bed again. It's just as well that I didn't take a shower, because I discovered that there is still a leak in the shower pan. My caulking job appears to have failed. When people ask if life has returned to normal after the pipe leak, I just smile and say yes. It's easier to keep my mouth shut, because I know that nobody wants to hear what I really feel. At this point I don't think life will ever return to normal. I've kind of forgotten what normal is.

Even work was problematic today. For some reason only one of the four web cameras seemed to work after I created four new pages where customers could view the cameras online. Since the embed code for all the cameras was more or less the same, I couldn't figure out what was wrong. After talking with the client, we unplugged each of the cameras and then plugged it in again. This is what you do with electronic devices when you can't think of anything else. The reboot seemed to work. The client can see all the cameras now, although they still don't work in Firefox for me. Instead of scratching our heads for the rest of the day, we decided to tell people just to not use Firefox to view the website. Works for me. Very few people actually view the cameras anyway.

Janet had an office Christmas party tonight, so I had to improvise a way to take Dot on her evening walk without Dash at her side. I ended up walking backwards down the alley with a treat in my hand so Dot would follow me. Eventually her sense of smell kicked in and she started walking on her own, but it seemed to take us forever to go a single block. You have to be patient with Dot. If you try to hurry and don't give her plenty of time to poop on her own schedule, she'll inevitably go in the house five minutes after you return home.

I finally found a portable dehumidifier in a store that I could actually see and touch. The machine looked flimsy and was made entirely out of plastic. Yup. It was made in China. I remember the online reviews for this model said that the water reservoir was very hard to empty without spilling water on the floor. I tried to remove the reservoir on the showroom model and concluded that the reviewers were right. I'd be spilling water big time if I tried to empty this awkward plastic bucket when it got full. I still don't know what to buy, but I definitely know what I'm not going to buy.

As if to prove that this was not an auspicious day, a PVC pipe connected to an outdoor sprinkler system in the park broke right as Dash and I were walking over it on our evening walk. We were immediately soaked. Don't even ask why the city is putting a sprinkler system out in the woods in a public park. Just another example of your tax dollars at work.

I'm looking forward to going out for breakfast tomorrow. I don't really expect Friday to be any different than today, but it would be nice to start things off with an hour of relative peace and quiet.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2060

I wake up every morning with a logical, well thought out schedule that everyone completely ignores. Clients could care less about my plans. The dogs don't care either, even though most of what I do has been designed with them in mind. The city of Dallas always thumbs its nose at my plans. It is almost impossible to leave the house without encountering an accident, a construction crew, or a broken stop light that brings traffic to a standstill and makes me late.

I really only had two things to do today, but keeping these simple tasks on schedule was next to impossible. The package I needed to pick up at the UPS will-call counter wasn't there, even though I received an e-mail saying it was ready to pick up. I eventually got things sorted out, but by the time I got home it was already time to take Dot downtown to her physical therapy session. I got the car ready for Dot, but she was on an entirely different schedule and was in no hurry to leave the house. It took a while to get her hooked up in her harness and then she didn't want to poop in the yard, so I knew there was a 50/50 chance she'd poop in the car. It was late, so we had to go anyway. On the way to the vet we got stuck at a malfunctioning stop light that was only letting three cars get through before it turned red again. The light changed five times before we made it through the intersection. The trip downtown took twice as long as it normally should. Luckily, our vet is always late too, so we were both back in sync when we arrived.

Dot did pretty well today. She actually seemed to have more energy than I did. This heat is becoming unbearable. October can't come soon enough. Even though I water the shrubs every day, the yard is still drying out. The house isn't insulated well enough to stay cool in the Summer, so the air conditioner has to work extra hard. Even the tap water is warm now when you turn on the cold water tap. The ground is so warm that it actually warms up the water as it it goes through the underground copper pipes to the house. I'm not surprised that Dot actually seems to like using the underwater treadmill these days. The water is nice and cool.

I watched bits and pieces of the presidential debate this evening. My initial impression was that each of the candidates did reasonably well. It often seemed like they were debating with the three moderators instead of with each other. The moderators seemed to have gotten some sort of directive from the network to make the show provocative. They kept trying to ask gotcha questions that would make them seem tough and probing to their news anchor peers. I'm not really a careful listener to these type of things, but my gut feeling was that the 10 candidates were more or less united on many issues and the moderators were just doing their best to stir things up. This was a little disappointing. I really didn't learn anything new tonight, but then I'm not a big fan of either politicians or news anchors. I would have rather watched a new episode of Dr. Who.

Dot gets an ultrasound scan tomorrow to see whether her tumor has grown. Hopefully it has stayed the same or even shrunk a bit. I'm always a bit nervous about these scans because they place Dot on her back in a cradle to do the imaging. With all the problems she's had with her spine, there's always a danger that a nerve could get pinched again. She needs the test though. All I can do it tell them to be extra careful with her. At least it's Friday tomorrow. The trash has been taken to the curb and I'm ready for the week to be over.

Margo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1931

Nothing was in sync today. The landscapers were supposed to come out early this morning to fix up the back yard. They didn't arrive until 4:30 PM. Janet was worried that having strangers in the yard all day would aggravate Dot, so I agreed to give her a doggie Xanax before they came. This was a big mistake, because the drug had worn off completely by the time the landscape crew actually arrived. To make matters worse, the Xanax didn't seem to calm Dot at all. She and Dash got in a barking match and wouldn't shut up until I fed them part of their dinner around 2:30 PM. Dot was more agitated than usual for most of the day. All the drug seemed to do was make Dot's legs weak again. Everything is more or less back to normal now, but I won't be using Xanax again.

The landscapers must have been trying to cram two jobs into a single day, because when they finally did arrive, they stayed until well after dark. It was almost impossible to take the dogs out to pee and Dot ended up pooping in the kitchen because she couldn't wait any longer. I hope the yard looks amazing tomorrow, because right now the whole effort hardly seems worth it.

Tomorrow will be weird as well. The landscapers are returning in the morning to put in some new St. Augustine turf and I've got to wait for a signature required Fedex delivery as well. I usually just redirect FedEx and UPS packages to the nearest service center these days, but since this is FedEx Ground instead of regular overnight Fedex, the service center is almost an hour away. I can't really leave anyway, so I'll just have to wait and wait while the dogs are barking at the landscapers in the back yard. Maybe I ought to take Dot's Xanax instead. If the FedEx guy takes my package to the neighbor's house, I'm going to need something stronger than Xanax.

Waiting for the yard guys today made me realize that I've almost totally lost my ability to roll with the punches. I'm still able to put in an enormous about of effort when required, but I expect things to go right. It irritates me when people are late or a store isn't stocked with what I drove halfway across town to buy. I want everything to be consistent and predictable and it seldom is. I wish that I knew years in advance when appliances were going to break or clients were going to send me work. Disruptive events like landscaping should always begin and end on time. Maybe this is why I like dogs so much. Dogs are extremely predictable. Just don't try to surprise me. It usually doesn't end well.

Predictably, I'll get up early tomorrow and walk Dash before Janet goes to work. I'll have cereal for breakfast because I don't want the milk in the refrigerator to go bad. I can have eggs later when the milk is gone. Since I'm done with my taxes and caught up on work, I'm not sure what I'll spend the day doing. Hopefully, the landscapers can finish their remaining work quickly, because I don't want to spend tomorrow doing what I did today. Oddly, I would welcome rain tomorrow. The roof is fixed, and if it rains, I won't have to water the new grass.

Sparky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1436

I woke up late and barely made it to my breakfast meeting. Wednesdays aren't my favorite day anymore. There's just too much going on. I usually change three times on Wednesdays. I wear a suit to the networking breakfast. I change into raggedy dog walking clothes and work boots when I return. Then later in the day, I put on some respectable casual clothes to take Dot for her weekly physical therapy session. I try to complete at least one writing assignment between the dog's morning walk and Dot's vet appointment. Then when I'm back to the office for good, I tackle the day's website revisions.

I'm sure that many of you have much more hectic days than this, but I don't do hectic anymore. If I did, I'd still be sitting in a status meeting at a big ad agency somewhere, instead of working in a quite room with a dog under my desk.

I'm still having problems with my large printer. I guess I waited too long between cleaning cycles. Since I no longer have a need for large museum quality prints, maintaining this complicated printer has become a giant nuisance. The printer is so heavy that I can't even move it by myself, so taking it to a repair center is problematic at best. I had to have a friend help me install the thing years ago and it's sat in the same dusty office corner ever since. Remind me to never buy anything that uses ink ever again.

One of my doctors wants me to take a pill that he says will improve my cognitive abilities. I scoffed at the idea at first and was actually a bit insulted. Hey, my business is thinking up solutions for people and I feel at times that my life is like doing a complex Sudoku puzzle that never ends. Maybe the Doc is right though. Janet changed the dog's food recently and now I can't seem to remember which dog eats which bag of kibble. I have a feeling that I've been feeding Dot's food to Dash for several weeks now.

There are thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow. I hope the forecast is wrong. Rain slows me down tremendously. I think I'm only half as productive on a stormy day. The dogs are terrified of thunder and lightning. I don't like to drive in the rain. And even though I put an entirely new roof on the house this year, I still worry about leaks.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1427

It was one of those days. I was late to a meeting, but when I arrived full of excuses for my tardiness, I discovered that my client had completely forgotten about the meeting and I had to reschedule anyway. This was the start of a day jam-packed with miscommunication.

The service that put my account on auto-renewal without my knowledge is now saying that I have to formally request a discontinuation of service in writing before I can leave them. When I asked why, they said the necessity of making a cancellation request in writing was listed right on the back of their invoice. I looked on the back of the invoice I had just received and this unusual requirement was nowhere to be found. I can already tell that severing ties with this bunch is going to be a problem.

 I took a bunch of stuff from this weekend's rescue event back to the storage warehouse today. Janet told me later that I had taken back the wrong stuff, so I'll have to go back and bring it all back home again. I guess we're going to use some of the stuff at the Santa Paws photo events that begin later this month. There are a bunch of these fundraising photo events this year. Since my knees are even worse than they were last year, it makes me tired just thinking about photographing dogs all day.

There was one silver lining in the largely dark cloud that was today. I got some lab results back that said my lipids and cholesterol levels were all back within the normal range again. My glucose and blood sugar levels have come back to acceptable levels as well. Now, all I've got to do is get my liver working as well as my other organs.

I clicked on one of those "would you like to upgrade" buttons that frequently appear when you launch certain types of software. When the upgrade finished installing itself, I discovered that it would no longer work. After spending almost an hour trying to track down the problem, I discovered that the new upgrade will only work with the new Mavericks operating system. Jeez, it would have been nice if the company had told me this before I clicked the upgrade button. I don't want or even need Mavericks yet. I was eventually able to re-install an older version of the software, but I wasn't able to regain the time I lost messing around trying to fix this irritating problem.

Maybe everything will click smoothly into place tomorrow. One can always hope. Dash has a vet appointment and there's a writing assignment with a tight deadline as well. As long as the sun is shining, I should be able to get everything done without a problem.

Today is Veteran's Day. I noticed that a lot of people were changing their profile picture to World War II era photos of their Dad in uniform. This is a nice tribute, but it made me wonder if this tradition will continue when today's children grow up. They didn't call our parents The Greatest Generation for nothing. Today, we all express gratitude to those who serve, but fewer and fewer of us have actually worn a uniform ourselves. It's a much different world than our parents lived in. I'm not sure it's a better world though. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1421

The rain continued for a second straight day. I put raincoats on the dogs this morning, but halfway through their walk, they decided that they didn't want to wear them anymore. I took the coats off, and the dogs got wet. They didn't like that either. Sustained rain really tests my patience. The car gets muddy. The house gets muddy. The dogs constantly need to be cleaned up. On days like this, I'm either cleaning dogs, doing laundry, or looking at the weather radar on my iPhone.

My doctor's appointment took a lot longer than expected this afternoon. When the doctor finally arrived, he apologized for the delay and said that there had been complications in a surgery he had just completed. This was certainly better than my typical excuses for being late. The best I can usually come up with is that the dogs wouldn't poop on their walk.

My delayed doctor visit ate up so much of my time that I didn't even come close to getting to the gym today. Like it or not, it looks like it might be a two workout week. While I was sitting in the doctor's lobby, I checked on the dogs using the nanny cam app. Both dogs have a highly refined sense of time. Ten minutes before their dinner time, they were both sleeping. Thirty minutes after their normal dinner time, they were sleeping again. Right at dinner time, they were barking and making a big commotion. They were mad that I was late.

It was dark before I got home to take Dot and Dash on their evening walk. I hate walking at night for a variety of reasons. We didn't see any coyotes tonight, but we did see three suspicious looking people lurking around in the dark and what appeared to be a drug deal taking place in one of the parking lots. I prefer the park in daylight myself.

The rain is supposed to continue through tomorrow. This means that my morning networking breakfast, Dot's acupuncture appointment, and our evening dog training class will all be impacted by the bad weather. I don't know why rain bothers me so much, but it does. When the sun finally reappears, I'll clean the house, wash the car, and my tidy little world will be back to normal.

Coach is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1067

Some people seem to be worried that I'll be late for the Dalmatian Rescue photo event tomorrow. Now, where would they get that idea? Hey, I'm just the guy who routinely eats breakfast at 10 AM and is seldom even awake when this event begins. Not to worry though. Janet runs a tight ship when it comes to Dalmatian events. She won't let me be late.

I noticed that someone is building a charging station for electric cars right across from the cool restaurant when I was eating breakfast this morning. I think they picked the right location. Probably the patrons of this restaurant are the only people in Dallas who would even think of driving an electric car. I noticed I got a few dirty looks this morning. I was wearing a leather coat. I guess it's not cool to wear leather any more. Most of the guys were wearing plaid wool lumberjack shirts with carabiner clips dangling from their belt loops as key rings. I used to dress like that too. About 40 years ago. It's weird how the 60's keeps being recycled over and over again.

I scanned a few negatives this afternoon using the new film scanner I got recently. It's actually not as good as the ancient Canon scanner I used back in the dawn of digital imaging. On the flip side, the new scanner is much easier to use and dirt cheap. It's just one more example of the democratization of technology. At some point, somebody probably conducted a focus group about the old Canon scanner and added the features that the majority of people wanted, while subtracting all the things that were expensive to manufacture. I can't really complain though. The more I look at these old negatives, the more I realize that they aren't nearly as good as I remembered.

A chemical plant exploded in Garland, about ten miles east of me, this afternoon. The sky was filled with thick black smoke for the rest of the day. Looking at the smoke plume in the distance as I walked the dogs, I thought about what I'd been seeing on the news recently and counted my blessings that I live in a part of the world where giant explosions aren't commonplace.

Alvin is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 846

It's hard to get an early start when your dogs don't want to get up either. Dot and Dash have been my alarm clock for many years and when they don't feel like getting up, I'm always off to a late start. Today, we got started on our morning walk so late that I had to resort to eating cereal for breakfast. I'm a slow cook, so sometimes just eating cold cereal for breakfast will give me an extra forty-five minutes.

I don't know why I was in a hurry anyway. Not a lot happened today. I was a bit embarrassed that I complained so much about my bill with the electrician the other day. When I was writing checks this afternoon, I noticed that I had paid a similar bill for almost the same amount in 2008. The electrician hadn't raised his prices after all. They were always high. I wonder why this bill seemed so high and the earlier bill didn't? The only thing that I can think of was that I was making a lot more money in 2008 and being overcharged for something wasn't as much of a big deal. Oh well. Fair is fair. I paid the entire bill, even though I'd told the electrician two days ago that I wasn't going to.

I got a call from the accountant's office today. It looks like even though the company billed out twice as much as it did the previous year, I'm still going to have a tax loss. Bad investments and healthcare expenses largely offset any gains I made with the company. I don't know if this is something to celebrate or not. So, there's no big tax bill this year, but apparently I didn't make any money either.

Life goes on though. I have a new business meeting tomorrow. With any luck, I'll get an opportunity to design another website that I can continue to maintain in the future. I write new articles almost every day and make a deposit at the bank every two or three days. I'm just going to have to resign myself to the fact that even though I'm busy and often tired, I'm not making as much as I was fifteen years ago.

I saw today on the news that Facebook bought Instagram for a billion dollars. My first thought was a sincere hope that Facebook doesn't end up ruining Instagram. They're ruined plenty of good ideas before. Hey, I love this little app and use it all the time. My second thought was that I sure wish I had invented Instagram. Probably everyone in that entire company is a millionaire now. Amazing! This simple little photo sharing app on my iPhone is worth more now than the entire New York Times Corporation.

Livy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 587

Early this morning, I took Janet up to pick up a loaner car while her car was in the shop and then went and got gas for my own car. My tank was almost empty and I didn't want to wind up stranded as well. By the time I got home again, the dogs were indignant that their morning walk was late. Both dogs are creatures of habit and would like their lives to run like clockwork. They always let me know when I am out of sync or off schedule. I don't know why they were in such a hurry to go outside. It was just as hot as it was yesterday and the day before. They both bounded out of the house like usual, and five minutes later their tongues were hanging out and they were ready to come home again.

I got some positive feedback regarding the translation job I'm bidding on, so I decided to have a positive attitude and go ahead and get started. I usually have to translate several pages of something like this anyway, before I can get a sense of how to bid the job. I translated six or seven pages today and will turn in my bid tomorrow. Translating is more like putting together a jigsaw puzzle than regular writing. The words are already there. You just have to get them to make sense again.

Hanging out on Google+ could easily give you an inferiority complex. The famous people and the pundits get an unbelievable number of comments for saying fairly ordinary things, while everybody else gets ignored. It's still interesting reading though. I'm usually so oblivious to what's going on in silicon valley that it's not hard to impress me with something new. Today, I downloaded and started to use Evernote. This isn't exactly a new application, but I'd never heard of it before. Evernote is actually extremely useful in my line of work and I probably should have started using it several years ago. I also followed a link to a cool site that shows real time traffic information for Dallas and other cites. This one is going to get bookmarked on the iPad right away, since you can see at a glance which roads are congested and should be avoided.

The giant market meltdown that was supposed to happen today if congress didn't reach an agreement on the debt ceiling never materialized. Somehow this didn't surprise me. I take what all the pundits say with a grain of salt these days. Even some of those Internet wizards who pontificate on Google+ are probably wrong.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 442

I called my accountant's office today and asked how much time I had to get my tax files over to them. They told me everything was due yesterday. Oops. Somehow, I thought I had at least another week to get things ready, but that's the kind of week it's been. I seem to be behind on everything. I've already placed and paid for the ad I'm going to to be running for my company. The only thing missing is the ad itself. I haven't designed it yet. I could go on with other examples of things that haven't quite made it out of the starting gate, but you get the idea. It's March already, but it still feels like February.

The weather was so nice this afternoon that I thought that Dash would do great in training class. Dash had other ideas. This was one of his worst performances in a long time. I don't think he did any of the exercises very well tonight. I don't know why he was in such a big hurry to get home though. As soon as the dogs got home, they had to do a fitting for the costumes they are going to wear in this weekend's Krewe of Barkus parade.

I noticed that the iPad2 was introduced today. This is typical Apple. I'm still learning how to used the first iPad I got and it's already obsolete. I don't think I'm going to trade mine in for the newer model though. The iPad2 is supposed to be faster and lighter than the original iPad, but the one I already have certainly isn't very heavy and it's certainly fast enough for me. I definitely don't need a camera in my iPad. I've already got a camera in my phone and the phone fits in my pocket. I really wish that technology didn't change so quickly. I've got far too many obsolete gadgets already.

Are any of the rest of you facing social media burnout? A blog post every day. Fresh Tweets for Twitter. Enough status updates so Facebook still thinks you're alive. Professional sounding LinkedIn updates about your business. It really doesn't leave you with much time to do anything else.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day