Day 2291

I basically spent the entire day setting up new e-mail accounts and migrating websites from one server to another. The good news is that about 80% of what I moved still works perfectly. The bad news is that the remaining 20% doesn't. I hope I never have to change web hosting companies again. My website is like a house that has been remodeled too many times. When I was troubleshooting this morning, I discovered code that hadn't been updated since the mid 1990's. A lot of clever things I did back then are completely obsolete and aren't even supported anymore. Instead of redesigning the site, I simply abandoned pages when they quit working and moved on. There are tons of orphaned pages on this site that I should have never moved to the new server, but since I couldn't remember why there were there in the first place, it was easier to move everything. I'll sort it all out later.

I got a call from a woman this morning who was interested in having me build a website for her business. She had started a gluten free baking company and wanted to sell her bread online. Unfortunately, she had no bread for me. The was the third referral I've received this year from someone who basically wanted a website for nothing. It's discouraging. I explained that there were a lot of drag and drop templates available that would let her inexpensively build her own website, but that it took a long time to design a good custom site and I was doing this for a living. Maybe she doesn't even need a website. I've seen people who've done pretty well using nothing but a free Facebook business page.

The Internet has changed so much that I'm wondering why I'm even bothering moving everything to a new server. One of the sites I moved today was for a greeting card company I started many years ago. The cards were beautiful, but the company never went anywhere. I initially thought that the greeting cards could be used to raise money for Dalmatian Rescue, but the company didn't even generate enough revenue to pay for the cards I had printed. There may still be a box of greeting cards hidden away in the storage warehouse somewhere, but the website is about all that remains of the company. The last inquiry I received about greeting cards was five years ago.

It rained a lot last night, but luckily the worst of the storm passed North of us. I saw on the news this morning that there was lots of hail and wind damage in some of the nearby suburbs. I always worry about hail storms at this time of year. They can pop up out of nowhere and do a lot of damage. Janet's car was practically destroyed during a sudden hailstorm a few years ago. Even without the hail, the weather has been weird this week. In theory it is Spring now, but I'm still wearing my winter coat on our morning walks. It's way too cold for March, but at least it isn't raining every day like it was last year.

I still can't decide where to have breakfast tomorrow. Having too many choices confuses me. When I first started eating out on Friday mornings, I'd try a different restaurant each week. This wasn't really satisfying, since some of the restaurants were terrible. It may be time to try this again though. I realized last week that I don't have a favorite anymore.

Chelsey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1433

I'll never figure out Texas weather. Less than a week ago the temperature was below freezing.  Today it was 90 degrees. I was so confused that I got out the lawn mower and mowed the grass again. It was actually a beautiful day, but it still seems awfully warm for late November. Some years we've has snow before this. We even turned on the air conditioner today. I didn't think I'd be doing that again until late next Spring.

The dogs certainly liked the warm weather. They were excited to see some of their friends from training class at the dog park today. They weren't so excited about their new harnesses, unfortunately. Somebody needs to invent a safety harness that actually works in the car. Dot and Dash either manage to wriggle out of their harnesses before we even get out of the driveway, or get stuck in them and force us to pull over to the side of the road to free them from a seat belt that has retracted and pinned them to the back of the car seat. Dot got stuck today. Dash is usually the one to wriggle out of his harness.

I was listening to one of those Ted Talks on NPR while I was driving to the gym this afternoon. The guy on the radio said the secret to happiness was in having low expectations. This thought startled me and on reflection seemed a bit profound. Most of the happy people I've met in my life had very low expectations. Conversely, the perfectionists and super achievers I've known generally weren't happy at all. The premise of this Ted Talk was that we have too many choices today. If we only have two or three choices, we just pick something and move on. When we have thirty choices, we agonize over making the right decision and are never happy with the result. With thirty choices, you just know that you could have picked something better. I'd never thought of things this way before, but it makes sense. Maybe I just have too many choices in my life.

Amazingly, everything got done today. The dogs got their visit to the dog park, all the shopping errands were completed, I even found time to hang the muslin Christmas photo backdrop out in the sun and spray it with Outright to get rid of the smell of dog pee. The nice looking front yard was a bonus. I wasn't even planning to mow the grass.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day