Day 1572

Apparently, there's a lot going on in Dallas this weekend. The Final Four is in town and AT&T Stadium is being converted into the nation's largest basketball arena. Bruce Springsteen will be giving a free concert in Reunion Park tomorrow, and it's Duck Commander weekend at the local NASCAR track. All this means to me is more traffic to avoid. You couldn't pay me to attend any of these events. My Dad loved collage basketball, but I never understood the attraction. The closest I ever got to the college game was producing a series of TV commercials featuring Dick Vitale. I did see Springsteen in the mid-1970's at a small theater in Seattle before he became a superstar. He still sings some of the same songs today. I've never been to Texas Motor Speedway at all. It's too loud and too far away for me. I almost went to a Rolling Stones concert there once, but I'd already seen the Stones several times and like I said, the speedway is too loud and too far away.

I'll let everyone else fight the crowds this weekend. I'm perfectly content to give the dogs a long walk in the park if the weather's nice, and hole up inside with them if it rains again. It rained sporadically today, but there were frequent dry patches, so I was able to walk the dogs and get all my shopping done without getting wet. The weather forecast says there is a 100% chance of rain tomorrow. I'm not putting a lot of faith in the forecast though, since the weatherman has been wrong about 50% of the time this week.

There were lots of errands to run today. I picked up some fresh fruit at the grocery store. I renewed some prescriptions at the pharmacy. And I got some new furnace filters for the start of the air conditioning season. I always get the best filters I can find, but the house is still dusty all the time. A dust free house and Dalmatians are two things that don't naturally go together.

My hair is getting curly again. It was curly for most of my life and then it got straight and very fine for about four years. Now, it's getting curly again. I wonder what all this means? Maybe now that my liver is starting to function normally again, my hair is returning to normal as well. Or maybe I'm just using a different kind of shampoo. Like most guys, I have no idea what I'm really washing my hair with. I usually just pick up the first bottle I see at the store that says shampoo on the side of the bottle. I can't even get that right half the time. Once I washed my hair with conditioner for two weeks and didn't even know the difference. I'll spend some time thinking about what software to install on my computer, or what lens I need for my camera. Shampoo?  Not so much.

Angel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1353

I'm not a very observant person. Janet asked me this morning why I'd been washing my hair with conditioner all week. I wondered why the shampoo in the new bottle I bought last week was kind of hard to rinse off, but I never really questioned it. The bottle was the same color and shape as the last bottle of shampoo. I guess I never read the label when I threw it in the grocery cart. I wonder how long it would have been before I noticed the discrepancy myself. Sadly, I probably would have used the entire bottle without noticing that I wasn't really using shampoo on my hair at all.

I'd like to think I'm a keen observer of the world around me, but the truth be known, I'm generally oblivious to most things. Probably the main reason I take nice pictures it that I'm surrounded by beautiful things and eventually I notice them.

I'm starting to notice that some machines are a lot more popular than others at the gym. I wonder if this is because certain machines give you a better workout, or because they are just more pleasant to use. I tend not to use the popular machines because I don't like waiting for them to become free. It has occurred to me that my workouts might not be doing me any good at all. I really need to take some sort of orientation class and learn what these machines are actually designed to do. One thing that has surprised me is that I actually enjoy shooting baskets. I never enjoyed playing basketball, or even watching the game, but it is oddly rewarding to sink several baskets in a row.

When I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from the gym, I took a good look at the cars in the parking lot. Even if money were no object, I have a hard time getting excited by any of these cars. I might like the Honda Element if they made one twice as big. I might like a Ford Transit Van if you could get one with a big V-8 engine, fat sporty tires, and a luxury interior with a Sat-Nav system. Where are the newer versions of my Defender? Surely, somebody must make a short wheelbase truck with a big engine, two seats, and a large, completely flat space in back where I can put a full size dog crate. Extra points if the body is made of aluminum and the engine has a manual transmission.

This week went surprisingly fast, considering that not very much happened. Work has been unusually slow this August. If things don't pick up soon, it's going to look pretty bleak when I send out my September invoices. You can never predict the future though. In my line of work, things can go from dead quiet to totally stressful almost overnight.

Duke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day