Day 2918

There always seems to be more bills to pay in December. Instead of spending my time with Dreamweaver and Photoshop today, I found myself staring at Quickbooks. It looks like I survived another year, but I still hate paying all these bills. Since I was thinking about financial matters anyway, I began wondering whether this new tax bill was going to be good or bad for me. Depending on who you're listening to, this bill is either the best thing since sliced bread or one of the seven signs of the apocalypse. There is no middle ground here. In our polarized society, you either love something like this. or you hate it. Actually understanding the bill doesn't even seem to matter.

At first I thought the bill was going to be terrible for companies like mine because I heard that a lot of common Schedule C deductions were going away. Then I heard that small businesses could take advantage of new pass through provisions that would tax business profits at a much lower rate. That would be good. Who knows. It's all speculation at this point. I won't really have a clear idea of how this affects my own business until I start doing my 2018 taxes in the Spring of 2019. I'll be over 70 then and probably won't even have any clients, so I doubt that it matters much.

I finally got some feedback on the website project I finished a few weeks ago. The client likes it. That's a relief. Without this project hanging over my head, it will be a lot easier to throw myself into my new website project. I'd like to do something bold and original, but I think the client would be better served by just picking a readily available website template tailored to their specific industry. There are very sophisticated templates available now that cater to the needs of just about every type of industry. You don't need me anymore. Jeez, what am I doing? It's become way too easy to talk myself out of work.

The weather was much better today. It was foggy this morning, but there was no rain. Foggy days are great for photography, but I really didn't have the time. I had bills to pay, prescriptions to pick up at the pharmacy for Dash and myself, and a dog crate to find in the storage warehouse. Janet had loaned the crate to a friend of hers and they wanted it today. Since the large collapsible metal crate got relegated to the storage warehouse after Petey died many years ago, it was buried under tons of other stuff by now. I did manage to find the crate, but it would have been easier to buy Janet's friend a new one.

I took a raggedy pair of jeans to the tailor this afternoon to get some sturdy knee pads sewn on. These pants are so worn that I should have thrown them away a long time ago, but they are still my favorites for walking the dogs. When the pants are repaired, they will be a perfect match for the old rubber boots that I've repaired using shoe goo and tire patches. Never say die. Years ago, I had a client who was one of the best menswear retailers in the country. He would be embarrassed to see me now. I have gone from sartorial splendor to a haphazard hobo look. Ugly but serviceable. That's me these days.

I don't have any plans yet, but I'm sure tomorrow will be just as exciting as today. I really need to find a good book to read.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2895

I should have quit while I was ahead. I finished my writing assignment this morning and delivered it to the client. So far so good. Next, I started to work on my website assignment. This was supposed to be easy, but I couldn't get the Wordpress template to do what I wanted. I floundered around for hours experimenting and reading tutorials on the theme the client selected. So far, I still haven't found what I need.

Templates drive me nuts. They work pretty well if you don't try to change the default settings. Once you start creating your own settings, you've gone down a rabbit hole. If I was creating this site using HTML and Javascript, I'd be done by now. I'm pretty confident I'll master this eventually. "It's just a template," I keep telling myself. Hey, I went down so many blind alleys today that tomorrow should be easy. I've already eliminated a ton of things that don't work.

I didn't even attempt to work on the roof today. Messy manual labor and messy website development don't mix very well. I was hoping I'd get the website finished today so I could concentrate on the roof tomorrow. That's not going to happen. I guess the weather will determine what I do next. I don't have a firm deadline on the website, but I know I'd got to get the roof finished before it rains.

I also know I've only got a few days to test my lights and cameras for the upcoming Santa Paws photo shoot this weekend. Everything should work, but will it? I haven't used most of this stuff since last years holiday pet photos. I've got an extra Norman power pack, and extra strobe, and an extra camera body in case something breaks. This still leaves a fairly small margin of error. If one light burns out I'm fine. If two lights burn out, I'm screwed. My equipment has worked perfectly for decades, but eventually my luck will run out. Nothing lasts forever.

I wish I didn't worry so much. Every time Dash jumps on the bed, I worry that he's going to tear his ACL. Every time I go in the utility room, I worry that the water heater is going to develop a leak and flood the house. I worry that my car is going to break down every time I leave the house and I worry that we'll be attacked by an aggressive dog every time Dash and I go on a walk. I don't spend a lot of time worrying about Kim Jong-un or rising sea levels. Some things are out of my control. It's the little things right here at home that bother me most.

Maybe tomorrow will go smoothly. If I take care of the easy things first, I should be fine. I need to balance my checkbook. It's time to order more printer ink. I need to re-glue one of Dash's protective boots. I'll do the laundry. When I take care of those things, I'll think about battling Wordpress again.

Spots is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1935

I never could decide what day it was today. Janet was off work, so it seemed like Saturday when I woke up. After I walked Dash, I went and had my regular Friday restaurant breakfast anyway and then it seemed like Friday for a while. A lot of people seemed to be having a holiday picnic in the park today, but the mail got delivered and the bank was open. My Jewish clients took the day off for Passover, but very few of my Christian clients took the day off for Good Friday. I wonder why the stock market was closed and the banks were open? For most of the morning I thought it was Saturday and then several of my clients started sending me website revisions and I thought it was Friday again. It was a very confusing day.

Dot seemed tired today. I hope we didn't work her too hard on the treadmill yesterday. Janet thinks I worry too much. The vet thinks I worry when I should. And I always think that I'm overlooking something terribly important that could cause a setback. I don't spend much time thinking about my own health, but I really want Dot's recovery to go as smoothly as possible.

I learned how to make those transparent frames that you often see on birthday card websites. These frames allow people to superimpose their own uploaded pictures inside a transparent area on a pre-existing template to create their own customized postcards to share on social media. I knew Photoshop could do this, but it took me a while to get all the layers in the right order. I finally figured everything out and uploaded the finished template to my client's iPhone app. Yes, clients aren't content with websites anymore. They want their own iPhone and Android apps. I guess this makes sense, since everyone except me finds most of their information using their phone these days. Call me old fashioned, but I still use the desktop computer for almost everything. Just about the only thing I use my phone for is to take pictures and to check how many steps my UP band has logged for the day.

Every once in a while Facebook is actually useful. A friend was complaining about telemarketers on her feed a few days ago and someone else left a comment said she ought to try Nomorobo to eliminate all the robo-calls. I was intrigued and looked up Nomorobo on Google. It was free and seemed to work with my U-verse phone system, so I installed it. Almost immediately, the number of telemarketing calls I receive dropped dramatically. I don't really know how this works or why it is offered for free, but I'm glad someone told me about it. Telemarketers are the bane of my existence. Sometimes I get fifteen calls a day. If this service can cut that number down to five calls a day, it is definitely worth it.

Since I thought it was Saturday for most of the day, I'll probably think it is Sunday tomorrow. It really doesn't make much different which day it is. Weekend errands are still just weekend errands on either day. There are still bills to pay, groceries to buy, and a new lawn that needs to be watered.

When I was a kid, my parents always use to wake us up really early on Easter morning and take us to an Easter Sunrise Service that was held in a drive-in theater for some reason. My Mom, if she were still alive, would be upset that I haven't maintained this tradition. If I see the sunrise at all, I will be walking Dash.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1641

I got up early to get my blood tested before breakfast. I walked the dogs first, of course, but I was still at the doctor's office before 8 AM. As you might imagine, I'm getting a bit tired of getting blood tests all the time. Everyone seems to want one. The urologist tests for PSA. My team of liver doctors test for liver enzymes and viral load. My GP seems most interested in cholesterol and blood sugar. Even the dogs get frequent blood tests. Dash gets tested once a month to monitor his chemotherapy drugs. Dot got tested recently before she got her teeth cleaned. I think I should have invested in Labcorp stock. I have a feeling that doing lab work for doctors is a growth industry.

The grocery store was near the doctor's office, so I decided to get my weekend shopping done on the way home. I wanted to put the groceries in the refrigerator before I went out for breakfast, but Dot didn't agree with this plan. She thought I was home for good. When it became apparent that I was going to leave again, she started barking. I checked in on the dogs using the baby monitor when I got to the restaurant and Dot was still barking. I could tell by her tone that she wasn't alarmed at anything, she was just mad. I felt a bit guilty, so I only had two cups of coffee instead of my usual three and went straight home again. One I got home, the barking stopped and the dogs just went to sleep.

When I'm not really busy, I keep trying to improved my knowledge of WordPress. I'm not very fond of WordPress, but increasingly, this is what my clients want me to use. It's easy to understand why I'm not a fan. Easy-to-use WordPress themes are slowly but surely destroying my web design business. You can put together a WordPress site in a couple of hours without any coding knowledge. The themes are dirt cheap to buy and generally include some pretty sophisticated features. What's not to like, you might ask? First of all, it can be difficult to make a WordPress site look truly unique. All the themes look more or less the same to me. My ISP tells me that they are not very secure either. I tried modifying a standard WordPress theme this afternoon to give it my own special style. I wasn't very successful. Using a theme is easy. Changing a theme is hard. Since I'm the one who keeps wanting to change these themes, I suspect I'm wasting my time. My clients don't even care.

Dash did a good job at keeping his tail from bleeding today. I didn't have to bandage or clean it at all. Maybe he just didn't do much wagging today. Whatever he did, I hope he keeps it up. A few more days like this and the tail might actually have a chance of healing.

I didn't make it to the gym this week, but I can't really remember why. Somehow, I managed to go twice last week when I was busier than I am now. I'll probably have time to go workout on Sunday. I'll get the rest of my exercise by mowing the grass and pulling weeds. Father's Day won't be a big deal. I'm not a father.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1569

As soon as I heard we would be having severe weather tomorrow, I began to reschedule my Thursday appointments so I wouldn't have to leave the house. I've spent so many years around storm phobic dogs, that I've become storm phobic myself. To me, rainy days are when tree limbs fall during a thunderstorm and crush your lawn furniture. Rain is when your car gets pelted with golf ball sized hail. It's when your dogs panic and dig a hole in the carpet or try to jump through the living room window. Rain makes your roof leak and your electricity go out. I don't like rain.

I was able to move most of tomorrow's appointments to either this afternoon or Friday. This made today pretty busy, but I'm glad I cleared the deck for tomorrow. If the dogs don't like the look of things tomorrow, we'll all just get under a blanket and wait things out.

Dash's blood work looked good, so the cancer center renewed his prescription for Palladia for another two weeks. Hopefully, my own blood work looked good as well. That lab test was one of the Thursday appointments I rescheduled for this afternoon. I think they are testing Dash's and my own blood for exactly the same thing. The doctors don't want our platelet count to become so low that we become anemic.  So far, so good for both of us.

I thought I was going to get a lot of writing done today, but there were a few snafus and I didn't get much done at all. This just means I will be even busier tomorrow. One of the website clients I lost late last year launched their new replacement website today. I was curious, so I took a look. The new site was much more elaborate than anything I typically do. Could I have designed something this fancy? I suppose so. Could I have done this site for the price the client probably paid? I doubt it. I'm not positive, but the new site looked a lot like one of those customized Wordpress templates. Sure, the companies that crank out these sophisticated template sites can offer them at a very low cost. They specialize in a particular industry and all the sites are essentially the same. Clients don't seem to care. They just want all the bells and whistles for a low price. I still like to design one-of-a-kind sites from scratch, but I'm becoming a dinosaur. Who am I kidding. I already am a dinosaur.

People often ask why I don't just do Wordpress template sites myself. To make this business model work, you need economies of scale. In a nutshell, you need to be a much bigger company than I am willing to be. When you can sell essentially the same thing over and over again to a huge audience, you can charge a much cheaper price. When you only do something once, you have to charge more.

I can't believe that there has been another shooting at Fort Hood. I don't understand why soldiers on a military base need to be unarmed. Using weapons is what most soldiers are trained to do. If the Fort Hood soldiers had their own sidearms, both of these Fort Hood shooting incidents might have ended quite differently.

I even stocked up on groceries today, so there is no need to leave the house at all tomorrow if the weather turns bad. I actually hope the weather forecasts are wrong and the thunderstorms leave us alone. Staying inside with two storm phobic Dalmatians on a rainy day is no fun at all.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1134

I eliminated one of the two rattles I've been hearing in my car by stopping by an Autozone store and adding a couple of quarts of oil to the engine. Now, I've just got to figure out where the missing oil went. There were no drips or oily puddles under the car. I don't think it was leaking. There was no blue smoke coming out of the tail pipe either. I have no idea where the missing oil went, but I had to add a lot more than I thought I would to get the dipstick back in the safe zone. Although the mystery of the disappearing oil wasn't solved, the mystery of my expensive oil changes was. I had no idea that fully synthetic oil cost as much as it does. I used to think Land Rover was ripping me off when I went in for an oil change. Now that I know how much the oil itself costs, their price for the service is actually pretty reasonable.

I had a lot of website work today. Since there wasn't much else to do, I managed to get all of it done. Most of my remaining clients seem to like the time consuming custom work I do. I have a feeling that it's just a matter of time before they succumb to the lure of lower cost mass produced alternatives though. I wish I could get excited about cranking out template sites myself. I can't though. I'd rather create five totally unique sites than five hundred copies.

I took Dash to the vet today. Sometimes I think he doesn't even realize he's going there to get a shot. He's a social dog and just likes all the attention he gets during these bi-weekly visits. Dash's skin condition continues to improve, so we cut him back to a half dose of his medication this week. It's amazing how directly a dog's health correlates to a good diet. Once we got Dash on the right diet, his health improved dramatically. I'm sure the same thing is true with humans. If I ate a carefully formulated bowl of dry kibble every day, I'd probably be healthier too.

The monthly big trash truck comes tomorrow. I looked around the yard for fallen limbs and other debris to drag out to the street. I couldn't find much this month. I think most of the loose limbs have fallen off our trees already. I'd bag up some of this season's leaves and haul them out to the street too, if they weren't currently being used as a mud barrier to keep the dogs paws clean.

Raider is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1024

I lost another website account today. My soon to be former client went to a conference and was pitched by one of those companies that offer standardized, template driven websites geared to a specific industry at very low prices. I patiently tried to explain to my client that all those cheap bells and whistles would be of limited value if their competitors all had exactly the same website. This argument went in one ear and right out the other. Apparently, one of their competitors had actually recommended this web developer to them. They didn't care if their website looked exactly like 100 other websites. They just wanted the cheap bells and whistles.

Inexpensive template websites have become the bane of my existence. I still do everything from scratch, and just can't compete with this mass produced approach. I feel like one of those obscure auto companies who were hand-building cars in a garage right after Henry Ford invented the assembly line. I still have some really good customers who seem happy with my work, but the writing is on the wall. I get e-mail everyday from companies offering to re-design my own website for free. I get other e-mails offering to host the site for as little as $9.95 a month. It's becoming a commodity driven business and I'm becoming a dinosaur.

Maybe I ought to just stick to writing. I think the bloom is off the rose when it comes to comes to photography, video editing, and website design. It's become increasingly easy to do these things yourself. People still don't like to write, however. Hell, they don't even like to read anymore. I actually have more writing jobs than I did a few years ago. I guess there still isn't a convenient iPhone app that will do your writing and thinking for you.

Although I missed the political debates last night, I couldn't avoid seeing everything rehashed on the morning news shows today. The pundits were right. Obama was definitely off his game. The guy looked like he was sleepwalking through the entire debate. The debacle serves him right if you ask me. He's been spending way too much time partying with the likes of JZ and Beyonce.

Jersey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day