Day 1876

I don't know what possessed me to start editing video again. I learned to edit many years ago using a Media 100 editing system. This software has been obsolete for so long that no computers I currently use will even run it. I loved Media 100 and used it faithfully during my most prolific years as a producer. The company was bought and sold several times and eventually just disappeared. I was forced to turn to Final Cut Pro and learn a whole new way of editing. Just when I was getting good with Final Cut Pro, Apple abandoned it in favor of a whole new platform called Final Cut Pro X. You wouldn't think that adding an X at the end of the name would change much, but it changed everything. I hate Final Cut Pro X.

I still try to edit using the old version of Final Cut Pro, which hasn't been updated in years. When I'm in a hurry, I often find myself trying to use techniques that only work in Media 100. It's a sad case of old dogs and new tricks. To make matters worse, many of the keyboard shortcuts in Final Cut Pro 7.0 only work with an old style keyboard with a numeric keypad. I haven't used one of those large, wired keyboards in years. Nevertheless, I stumbled through the day, relearning tricks and techniques on the fly. By the end of the day, I had a rough cut put together that seemed to flow reasonably smoothly from beginning to end. Sadly, I could have finished three videos in the same amount of time ten years ago using a slower computer and some rather rudimentary editing software.

This is why I mostly stick to writing these days. As long as you continue to write frequently, your writing skills don't tend to become obsolete. Working with technology is another story entirely. I've got entire shelves in the office filled with perfectly good software that is no longer supported. There's nothing wrong with this software. It just just won't run, mostly because today's modern operating systems won't recognize it. The early versions of Microsoft Word and Photoshop were just fine by me. Ten versions later, they both have become huge bloated monsters that take a long time to load and require huge hard drives. Most of my other business software is the same way. I'm tired of re-learning how to edit video or code websites every three years, but you've really got no choice. Software companies don't want you to continue using the same applications for decades. They want to sell you something new and bigger, with even more features. Now, they don't even sell you the software. You just subscribe to it, so they can keep changing things on a weekly basis.

I had plans to get out today, but they never materialized. There were so many false starts in my editing project that I only had time to walk the dogs and go to the bank. It wasn't a bad day. There were no looming deadlines and nobody was screaming at me. I just sat quietly at my desk wishing I had a time machine. Frustration was definitely the word of the day. Talk to me in a week and I'm sure I'll be up to speed on Final Cut Pro again. Maybe I'll have to buy a numeric keypad, or maybe I already have one in the storage warehouse somewhere. The video will get done though, and it will be nice.

Dash goes back to the cancer center for his regular three month re-check tomorrow. There's a little growth on his tail that I want them to check. I don't think it is anything to worry about, but I'd rather be safe than sorry. After a full year of treatment, I'm not ready for any more surprises.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day.

Day 1875

Dash took his last Palladia pill today. He is officially finished with his chemotherapy treatment. Dash is scheduled for another three-month re-check with his oncologist on Wednesday, but I think we are finally done. We've been doing this chemo routine for so long now that it will seem weird not to don the purple rubber hazardous material gloves every few days to put his medication in a little dogfood meatball for him to eat right after his dinner. Dash seems very healthy now, and I hope he stays that way.

With cancer treatment behind us and last week's satellite launch fading to a fond memory, life has definitely returned to normal. I have re-entered the world of slow drains, toilets that run, impossible deadlines, and birds that poop on my car. To add insult to injury, the weather has returned to normal as well. Instead of yesterday's almost balmy 65 degree temperatures, we woke up to a very chilly 23 degree hard freeze. I don't know how it got so cold in just a few hours, but I didn't dwell on it. We all bundled up and got the day started with a brisk morning walk.

There was lots to do today. I started logging the video footage I shot last week so I can begin editing  soon. There were several website edits I need to make for clients, along with the inevitable pile of bills to pay. I tried to see if I could teach Quickbooks to automate some of these recurring payments, but my version of the software is out of date and doesn't seem to support EFT. It was easier to just write a check and take it to the post office than to figure out something new.

When I went to pick up prescriptions this afternoon, I stopped by the T-Mobile store to see if they knew why my little 4G hotspot didn't work while I was in California. They didn't. This handy gizmo used to be a lifesaver on business trips, but increasingly I find that the mobile hotspot is being blocked by many hotel WiFi systems. I probably don't even need the hotspot anymore, since so many phones offer tethered Internet access these days. I could probably save a lot of money if I could just systematically eliminate things like this that I no longer need. But what do you give up when you think you need everything? I could have actually used that mobile hotspot in California if it had worked.

I'll probably spend half a day editing tomorrow and the other half of the day trying to figure out why Final Cut Pro isn't working properly. I guess I could use Avid Media Composer instead, but I find that it's easier to relearn things I've forgotten when using Final Cut Pro. I used to be so fast using these software tools. Use it or lose it, they say. I've almost lost it. I guess the only thing I do every single day now is write this blog. If I ever forget how to do this, I'm doomed.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1663

I complain so much about Dallas that one of my friends suggested I move to New Zealand. Not a bad idea. The place is beautiful. It's isolated. And the people are friendly. I wonder if they have Dalmatians there? Truthfully, I really don't know where I would like to go next. Janet doesn't have a favorite spot either. Maybe we ought to ask the dogs where they would like to go.

The only place I went today was the gym. The gym has turned out to be my go-to place when I'm bored. I have a feeling that some of the regulars go there for essentially the same reason. Whatever random day I happen to go, they're always there. I can't imagine being as faithful as these regulars, but it's not a bad place to hang out. It's nearby. The exercise has got to be doing me some good. You don't even have to think very much. There are definitely worse places to be.

There was a lot of complaining about fireworks displays on my Facebook wall this morning. It's funny. Young people love watching fireworks. Older people are more likely to tell you that they'll never go to a fireworks show again. It must be some kind of line in the sand when you stop saying "Wow" and start complaining about the ants, the mosquitoes, and the difficulties in finding a parking place. I agree with Dot when it comes to fireworks shows. They're loud and entirely unnecessary. I think I've already crossed that line in the sand.

There's a channel on TV that seems to play nothing but old Seinfeld shows. The episode where George Costanza became a hand model was on tonight and it still makes me laugh. It's weird that these shows are still funny decades later, while most new comedies don't even bring a smile to my face. The writing just isn't that good anymore. George Carlin was much better at political commentary than John Stewart. Johnny Carson is still the gold standard. Jimmy Fallon doesn't even come close. It occurs to me that I could save a bundle on my cable bill by cutting the cord and just buying boxed DVD sets of my old favorite shows instead.

There's a cool feature on Janet's sewing machine that lets you sew detailed lettering directly on fabric. You can pick fonts and sizes and everything. She wanted to sew the dogs names on bandanas today but neither of us could remember how to use the fancy and somewhat complicated feature. The "use it or lose it" nature of skills like this is starting to bother me. I am forgetting things at an alarming rate, simply because there is no need for the knowledge anymore. Lord help me if I ever need to do an old school analog edit using tape machines again. I've got a perfectly good video edit suite in my office that I used to use all the time. I haven't even turned the tape machines on in two years. Nobody needs tape in a file based world. I wonder if anyone needs me? Maybe I ought to start a museum. I'd be a great curator of old stuff. Ask me about Dinky Toys, Osborne Computers, Citroën automobiles, and Betacam recorders. If only these things were still relevant.

Isabella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1515

Breakfast was definitely the high point of the day. It's still cold. There's still snow on the ground. And I'm still bundled up in sweaters while I work. The furnace is working fine. The hot air just doesn't seem to make it all the way to the office in the back of the house. The dogs are smarter than me. On cold days they hang out near the heating vents in the living room, where the air is still toasty warm. I guess I could take a laptop and work in a warm room too, but I can't even write a simple letter without staring at a huge high definition screen anymore. Yes, I'm running Microsoft Word on a high end video editing workstation. Hey, I've got to use this stuff for something.

Much to my chagrin, Dot and Dash seem to love being walked separately. Dot takes sedate ladylike steps along the path, stopping periodically to smell things along the way. Dash charges through the brush, feeling a new sense of power now that he's in charge of his walk. I like seeing the dogs happy, but they are making a shambles of my schedule. I still got everything finished today, but it was only because the weather was so nasty that I wasn't tempted to do anything else.

The stock market continues to confound me. Just a few days ago I was happy to see some stop loss orders kick in, seemingly protecting me from the day's 300 point loss. Now, just two days later, the market has already regained most of the losses from the big sell-off and I'm wondering why I sold some perfectly good stocks. That's the trouble with protection strategies. They may protect you from the next zombie apocalypse, but they don't protect you from human nature. It all comes down too fear and greed. My fear triggered someone else's greed and the market went back up again.

Dash is sleeping through the night again, so maybe the Probiotics we're giving him are working. Dot is visibly stronger on her walks, so maybe the water therapy is working as well. My new Hepatitis-C meds aren't making me sick either, so hopefully they are working as well. Medicine is great when it works. It just doesn't work all the time.

It's supposed to warm up this weekend. I've even heard that we may see a little sunshine. With all the mud that appears after a thaw, it's probably too much to ask for the dog park to be open. It would sure be nice though. Dash is getting cabin fever.

Stortz is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1407

Another wayward website client came back to the fold today. It's nice to have the business again, although I'm not sure how long this is going to last. I guess I really shouldn't waste too much time fretting about the permanence of clients. I'm not very sure how long any of them are going to last.

The Apple product announcement today was interesting. The new operating system is free again, which is a nice change from the recent past. The Mac operating system always used to be free in the old days. There a danger in free though. If I don't have to pay for an upgrade, I'm much more likely to install it before I'm ready and screw up everything. I seldom install a new operating system because I really need the new features. It's a lot more likely that I'll install it on a day when I'm really bored. That's always when I get into trouble.

I'd like to get one of the powerful new Mac Pro desktops that are coming out in December. Do I need something this awesome? Probably not. If I still did a lot of video editing, I could pretend that I really needed this thing. Since I just use Microsoft Word most of the time, it's a bit of overkill. If I got this futuristic computer that looks like a shiny black trash can, I'd need a new monitor too. The new ultra high resolution 4K monitors this thing supports probably cost more than the computer. Oh, well. It's something to think about. Maybe I'll get a big video job between now and December.

Since I've been having trouble syndicating the blog to Facebook and Twitter lately, I decided to  install HootSuite. This was probably a mistake, since every time I've installed something to reduce the time I spend on social media, it has always seemed to increase it instead. Maybe HootSuite will simplify things though. I spend about an hour a day keeping up with a laundry list of social media accounts and that's way too much.

The dogs would much rather have me spend my time with them. Now that the weather has gotten cooler. we've started taking long, meandering walks along the shoreline. Both dogs like to smell things near the water's edge and I know Dash is going to fall in the lake one day. Dot is a bit more sedate, but she definitely has more energy than she did during the Summer heat. For the time being, we're all enjoying ourselves.

Much to my surprise, I managed to make it back to the gym today. Maybe Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday is doable after all. If I could find the time to workout three time a week, I might actually start to see some progress.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1044

When I was a kid, I used to watch The Twilight Zone every Friday evening. It was one of my favorite shows. At the time, the endings to those shows never failed to surprise me. Occasionally, they even scared me. I've started watching The Twilight Zone again on cable. What a difference a few decades makes. Now each episode seems like a simple morality play, where someone must come to terms with good and evil. These are surprisingly uplifting tales about angels, devils, fear and greed; all with a moral at the end. How could I have been scared by these little dramas? Many of the episodes could be used as Sunday School lessons. Times have certainly changed. Just think about what scares us today.

The other surprising thing about those old Twilight Zone episodes is how good the acting was. You'll see someone who looks a lot like a young Robert Redford, and when the credits roll at the end, it turns out that it actually was Robert Redford. Just last night, I watched an episode where the lead was played by a very young Carol Burnett. I've also seen William Shatner, Charles Bronson, Elizabeth Montgomery, and Burgess Meredith in Twilight Zone episodes. It says a lot about our society today that I've gotten hooked on The Twilight Zone again. It's not because the shows are bizarre or frighting, but because of the simple goodness they now represent.

Today was like watching paint dry. It didn't seem like anything happened all day. I did manage to complete one of my writing assignments, but I saved the others for later in the week. There's no sense in using up all my work in a single day. Things are so slow that I think I'll go to another video editing seminar tomorrow. In addition to chowing down on a plate of free brisket and coleslaw for lunch, I'll learn how to migrate my studio to a tapeless work flow. Actually, I haven't shot anything on video tape for several years, so I guess I'm really going to this event for the barbecue.

The dogs had a new exercise to learn at training class this evening. They had to run a gauntlet between two long rows of sitting dogs. Dot and Dash both did pretty well at this odd task, although I doubt that they'll have much use for this skill later in life. It's weird. Those old Twilight Zone shows seem completely normal to me now, but dog training class occasionally seems a bit like traveling through another dimension, a dimension not only of sight and sound but of mind. Your next stop...The Twilight Zone.

Ellis is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 986

I hope today wasn't a precursor to what I have to look forward to during the rest of the week. I was way too busy today. I'm still trying, without a lot of success, to work my way out of last week's backlog. Today was video editing day. I cut together several short videos and managed to get one shipped off to the client. The editing would have gone a lot smoother if I wasn't constantly interrupted by other things. I have a feeling that this is the new normal. Instead of having the luxury of working three weeks on a project, I'm given three hours instead. Lord help me if I decide to skip a day. Skip three days and I'm screwed. With a steady succession of small tasks that command equally small budgets, the only way to succeed is to keep moving. I've more of less mastered this treadmill, but I regret that I never realized just how good I had it fifteen years ago.

One thing did please me today. One of the impromptu videos I put together about the WWD Magic show looked just as good as a similar video put together by a local Las Vegas TV news crew. The news crew had a cameraman, a sound man, an announcer, a producer, and lots of expensive equipment. I just had me. When I saw the news crew photographing some of the same stuff I was, I was afraid they would make my own video look pitiful. The two videos ended up looking very similar however. Both were hurried and rushed. I guess nobody has the luxury of a three week deadline anymore.

The dogs are the only ones who still seem to lead the life of luxury. Dot and Dash consistantly get up late, eat frequently, and are always looking to be entertained. Luckily, it's easy to entertain a dog. If people were even half as accomodating, life would be good.

Tomorrow, I've got another video to edit, along with the usual array of short articles and website updates. If I can find the time, I need to look for an arborist to finish the job of removing the tree on the roof. Hmm. I wonder how much that is going to cost?  If experience is any guide, getting rid of the fallen tree will cost me a lot more than I could earn for a similar amount of effort. I can't complain though. I tried to do the job myself and I failed. I'll always hire a pro when necessary. I hope my clients continue to feel the same way.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 772

I got up much earlier than usual this morning. There weren't any early meetings or places I needed to be. The only reason I can think of for bounding our of bed at the crack of dawn is that the dogs were good last night. I finally got a decent night's sleep. Usually Dot and Dash wake up three or four time a night to bark at imagined noises or try to find a better spot on the bed. They wake me up every time. Last night for some unexplained reason, they both curled up in a ball and didn't move a muscle until morning.

Did I get a lot more done with my extra hour of time? Not really. Just when I was getting ready to take the dogs on their morning walk, it started raining again. Since the weather radar showed that the rain would only last an hour, I just watched TV for a while until the clouds lifted.

When we returned from our morning walk, I was right back on my usually tardy schedule. Today I finished up a little promotional video for one of the rescue groups I work with. This video was due so long ago that I doubt anyone still remembers why it was needed. I finished the video anyway, because I knew the group was meeting tonight and I wanted to be able to say I'd done something this week in case I was asked. This just happened to be the first video I'd shot using the Panasonic AG-AF-100 camera and I was kind of surprised at how good the footage looked. I really need to start using this camera more often.

Since it looks like it's going to be clear and dry for the rest of the week, I spent more time than usual getting the water off the roof. I'm hoping that the roof will actually dry out, so I can inspect for cracks again and do my best to seal them. At least that exceptionally windy day we had sometime last week blew all the dead leaves off the roof. The roof is finally clear of debris and ready for repairs. Unfortunately, it still leaks.

The furnace repairman is supposed to come out to the house tomorrow morning at 8 AM to fix the furnace. I'm surprised they even bother to come out anymore. The problem is intermittent and the dogs bark so loud that it is impossible to hear odd little furnace noises anyway. I wish I knew how to fix the furnace myself. This whole process seldom comes to a satisfactory conclusion.

Jazz is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 763

I spent way too much time this morning putting together my little video demo for the Shop NBC folks. Honestly, I don't know why I bothered. I mumble when I talk. I often get a totally blank look on my face when I'm listening to someone else. When I look down, my chin disappears. I don't know what these guys were thinking when they asked me to be a pitchman on a shopping channel. Oddly, the video did have a certain charm. Janet helped me make it, playing the "host" while I was the "guest." We do have a good sense of humor. I don't know if they were looking for humor though. Like Janet told me when we finished the demo, "Hey, if they'd asked us to make this twenty years ago, we would have been pretty good." Somehow, I doubt if I'll ever hear about me selling things on TV again.

I may not get the Shop NBC gig, but it does look like I'll be getting more work from my German client. I got an e-mail today from the public relations coordinator I met with in Houston last month and they want me to bid on a good size project. This is great news! I really need to get more corporate work if I want my business to grow. I'm totally maxed out on small, low budget jobs that make me tired and earn me very little.

Remember that I told you I met with my financial adviser yesterday? Well, I got a message from the guy today telling me that all the charts he was showing me for a company he was recommending were really for another company that he wouldn't recommend at all. Really? You certainly could have fooled me. All these charts with their moving average lines look exactly the same to me. My adviser apologized for his mistake and then sent me new information about the "good" company. I'll have to call the guy tomorrow and see whether we actually bought the bad company or the good company. The two charts still look the same to me.

I've got a photo shoot tomorrow. I'm going to be taking more employee photos that will eventually wind up on the company's website. I've taken tons of pictures for this client before, but now they've gotten it in their heads that they need to look prettier. I'm kind of dreading tomorrow. I never take a makeup artist with me, because it's just not in the budget. Good makeup is what they need though. It's not the lighting, it's the makeup.

The furnace still isn't working properly. It will operate normally for about half a day and then the burners refuse to light for no apparent reason. The only way I can get it to start is turn the furnace on and off at the thermostat several times in a row. I know the service folks aren't going to want to come out again. They've been here twice already for this problem and told me they'd fixed things both times.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 699

I went up to the Fry's store in Plano today to pick up one of the last available Panasonic SDXC Memory Cards in the area. I guess a lot of stores are discontinuing these cards because nobody wants to pay this much for the extra speed they offer. At any rate, when I went to look up the location of the store on the Internet, there were five comments below the location map that all essentially said "Don't even bother to go to this store because they have the worst service in the universe." I went anyway, because they were the store that still had the memory cards. Sure enough, the service was just as terrible as everybody said. I went at 2 PM when there were very few people in the store and it still took me over 45 minutes to purchase the memory card. Then, when I got home I discovered I had actually bought a used store demo, instead of a new card.

I got all the footage I shot yesterday logged and burned to several DVD's for the editor on the project. I offered to edit the video myself, but I'm kind of glad that nobody took me up on my offer. With all the Dalmatian Rescue Santa Paws photo shoots I've got scheduled for the rest of the year, I really don't need anything else on my plate.

My watch client is starting to sell watches on Shop NBC, which is a lot like QVC. They asked if I'd be interested in being a guest presenter on the show. Sure, I'd be interested, but I don't know if I'd be all that good for sales. I ought to recommend Janet as a presenter. She can sell anything.

The dogs are getting fairly relentless about their evening walk. I was trying to get a press release finished this afternoon when Dot and Dash decided that they'd rather take a walk instead. The both started barking and slapping me with their paws. It wasn't long before I abandoned the press release and got their leashes. I still got the job out on time though after we got back.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 697

I shop at Sam's Club frequently. It's definitely not my favorite store, but prices are low. The irritating thing about Sam's it that once you get used to buying something, they package it in a larger container and make you buy even more. Instead of buying two bottles on Windex, you have to buy three. Almost every week, something gets less convenient to buy. Today, I needed to get butter, and instead of the normal boxes with four sticks of butter to a pound, they just packaged the butter in giant one pound slabs. You had to buy four of these slabs at a time. The huge mounds of butter wouldn't even begin to fit on a butter dish. Who needs this much butter? I passed on this item and went on to the next thing on my list: glucosamine chondroitin pills. I had to buy two large jars. Much to my chagrin, I found that I already had glucosamine when I got home.

When the shopping and laundry was done, I experimented with my editing software to see if it was going to be easier to edit files from my new video camera in Final Cut Pro or Avid Media Composer. Final Cut seemed the clear winner. This may be because I know Final Cut backwards and forwards, while I'm still learning to use Media Composer. On the other hand, Final Cut Pro may be easier to edit with, because it transcodes the AVCHD files to ProRes, while Avid tries to edit them directly. I don't think my computer is fast enough to edit AVCHD files directly.

We're still having spectacular sunsets. Tonight, the dogs and I got quite a show on our evening walk. The sky seemed like it was on fire. It was almost like that scene in The Poison Sky episode of Dr. Who where the earth's atmosphere burns. If the dogs would actually stay put while I told them to stay, I could have gotten a few more pictures. With squirrels to chase and strong smells everywhere, I'm lucky to get any clear images at all. The iPhone doesn't help matters either, since there is no control over shutter speed. At dusk, most iPhone pictures are blurry anyway.

Tomorrow is Pet Fair. I'll be taking video footage of the event from noon through 4 PM. This is an event for kids, so I'll probably have plenty of pictures of bounce houses, face painting, and children holding puppies. Hopefully, it won't rain.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 694

I think the French Toast I made myself for breakfast might have been the high point of the day. I didn't have any writing deadlines, so I thought I'd try to finish the rest of the videos I've been editing for my medical client's website. I made pretty good progress, but I've still got one more video to go. The odd thing is that even though my computer is much faster than the ones I used to edit with ten years ago, it still takes me just as long to render things. Back then I was editing standard definition 4x3 video and now I'm editing 16x9 high definition video. There's so much more information to crunch that my speedy new computer doesn't save me any time at all.

One of these days pretty soon, I'm going to have to walk the dogs real early and then go back and retrace my steps with a camera. I've been encountering beautiful sunsets and evening skies just about every day this week. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to take any photos that I could sent to the stock photo agency, since all I have with me when I walk the dogs is my iPhone.

Today's market sell-off was discouraging. It's getting to seem like market fundamentals don't mean anything. The market just bounces around wildly on rumors and fears. There isn't much difference between investing and gambling anymore. People who bet on sporting events can produce just as many charts and statistics as market technicians. Unfortunately, neither bookies or brokers can predict the future. The best either can do is look at past results and establish probabilities. Actually, I think sports fan might have the upper hand these days. If you know your teams and players, you probably have a better chance of winning your bet than folks who play the market like me. Will Europe implode and create a financial black hole that sucks us all in? That's what the smart money thought today, but in truth, nobody really knows.

The dogs definitely knew there was training class tonight. By 7 PM, they were circling around the front door, waiting for us to put their leashes on. They're not always obedient in obedience class, but they do seem to enjoy going.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 592

I was doing some video editing today and discovered, much to my chagrin, that my little laptop is much better suited for this task than my large, and very well equipped desktop machine. I kind of suspected as much when I was editing YouTube videos on the fly in Houston last May, but I never had anything convenient to compare. The desktop is only a few years older than the notebook, but the difference in processor speed apparently makes a huge difference. It's things like this that force me to buy new equipment a lot more often than I'd like. Once you've experienced faster, it's real hard to go back to slower again.

The dogs got their trip to the dog park today, instead of on Sunday as they usually do. Tomorrow, I need to take Janet to the airport and it's just going to be too busy. I don't think the dogs care what day they go to the dog park. They just like the attention. Dash was much better behaved today. We placed a spray bottle filled with water in one of the cup holders in the console between the front seats. We didn't even need to squirt Dash with the water. He just looked at the bottle and kept his mouth shut. I may be wrong, but I think this would tend to indicate that Dash doesn't have any underlying fear of cars. He's just being a bad dog.

I couldn't turn on the television today without landing on a channel that was showing live coverage of the debt ceiling debate in congress. I wonder if these guys have any idea how irritating their actions are to their constituents? The house wastes a lot of time passing a bill that they know in advance will never get though the senate. Then the senate turn around and does exactly the same thing in reverse. Two or three week ago I asked my broker if he had a contingency plan if the country defaulted. He brushed the whole thing off and said nobody would ever be stupid enough to let this happen. I wonder what he's thinking now? I think the odds are about 50/50 now that the country actually will default.

Two weeks ago I had three pair of those little Apple ear buds sitting on my desk. Now, I can't find any of them. I've looked everywhere and they've just disappeared. I think somewhere in my office there's a tiny black hole that just sucks things into it.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 590

I went to a video editing seminar today. I'm not actually editing anything right now, but I enjoy hanging out with other editors and commiserating with them about clients who have decided to edit their next TV commercial themselves using iMovie. It's happened to me, and it's apparently happened to a lot of other editors as well. The seminar today was about Apple's new Final Cut X and the implications it has for video editing professionals. It looks like Apple has chosen to throw editing pros under the bus in exchange for making it easier for everybody else to put together better looking YouTube videos. This democratization of the creative process was the same general theme I heard the magazine publisher talk about last Wednesday. In the publisher's case, it was bloggers taking over the role once held by newspapers. Today, the message was more about everyone in creation thinking that they are a filmmaker.

I'm not really worried though. I guess if worse comes to worse, I can always go down to the Apple store and get a job at the Genius Bar. Even though a lot more people are using editing software and recording everything that moves with fancy camcorders, their knowledge of how these gizmos actually work is paper thin. There will always be a need for someone who can get under the hood and fix something when it breaks. Creative folks need to remember this. I make more money fixing botched writing jobs and failed websites than I do building these things from scratch. I don't really like Final Cut X, but I might buy it anyway, just so I can learn how to use the software and be ready when my clients turned filmmakers start telling me that they can't get it to do what they want.

My doctors office called me twice today to remind me of my appointment tomorrow. Either they're getting forgetful, or something is wrong. Often, when they are eager to see me, it is to tell me to stop taking some pill immediately. I'm really not fond of pharmaceutical companies. If you take any meds for an extended period of time, you are essentially a guinea pig. A lot of side effects don't even begin to appear until years after you initially started taking the pill. Personally, I'd much rather go back to eating bacon for breakfast and drinking generous amounts of wine with dinner. It's just not fair that bacon doesn't have any health benefits.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 503

I am exhausted! I got up at 6 AM and didn't get back to the hotel until 6 PM. In between, I didn't even have time to go to the bathroom. Somebody brought me a turkey sandwich from one of those vending machines about 3 PM, but I didn't have time to eat it until almost five. To say I had "first day" problems would have been an understatement. I had huge problems.

There were no electrical outlets anywhere near the exhibit space, so I couldn't even use my good phantom power lav mics . I had to use the on-board camera mic instead and ended up picking up a lot of noise from the hall. The hall was so noisy in fact that I don't know if there was anything I could have done that would have made a difference. The pictures looked good. The sound: not so good. My video editing software crashed about ten in the morning. Luckily, I have two "users" on my laptop: both me. When I logged in as the "other" me, the software worked again. That was great. What wasn't so great was that my e-mail didn't work for the "other" me. I had never bothered to set it up and couldn't remember my SSL password. I kept logging and out all day long to work on the video and check my e-mail for approvals from Germany and Orlando. One me kept telling the other me that I didn't have administrative privileges and wouldn't give me the files I wanted. Most of my graphic files for the video were on the volume where the editing program didn't work. I kept having to drag them to the public folder and log in again as my other self to access them.

Remember, I originally bid this job with a four person crew. I'm still doing everything the four person crew was supposed to do, but there is only me. The people who were interested in the energy blog wondered why I wasn't writing all day. The people who wanted YouTube videos wondered why I was wasting time writing at all. I wasn't allowed by corporate to Tweet directly to Twitter. I had to e-mail my Tweets to somebody in Florida and then they would we Tweeted later after they were approved. When people out at the booth wanted me to Tweet something, they lost interest real quickly when I told them it wouldn't appear on Twitter until two days later

With all they problems I was having, I'll have to say that everyone in the booth was super nice to me. I think they understood what I was dealing with, since most of them had an insane workload themselves. The show itself was pretty amazing. There were 3-D virtual reality presentations. There was a Flash Mob who came and disrupted things at random intervals with pretty professional acappella vocals. There were elaborate models of things I only vaguely understand. My little YouTube videos were pretty Plain Jane compared to some of the things I saw today.

Hopefully, I'll get a little more sleep than I did last night. I'm not even bothering with supper tonight. I'm too tired to walk half a mile to the restaurant on the other side of the hotel. Sleep actually sounds better than room service too. That's how tired I am.

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Day 495 - Easter

I got bit by a bear today. Bear is my neighbor's dog and he doesn't seem to like me. Ironically, the only reason I got bit was that Janet noticed two large Mastiff dogs who were running loose in the park while she was walking Dot and Dash and called me on her cell phone to come see if they were dangerous. While I was walking down to the lake to look for the loose dogs, I ran into my neighbor, who was returning home with his dogs. The neighbor dogs were on a leash and with their owner, but I got bit anyway. It wasn't a bad bite, but it certainly wasn't the best way to start off Easter Sunday.

When we took Dot and Dash to the Wagging Tail Dog Park later in the day, we saw two blind people get off a Handi-Ride bus and bring their service dogs to the dog park. When the couple took the special harnesses off the service dogs and replaced them with regular dog leashes, the two dogs immediately started acting like all the other dogs. They sniffed in the bushes, tugged on the leashes and I was afraid they might run off and leave the blind people. They never did though. I have to admire the couple for giving their service dogs a chance to act like regular dogs for a little while. I don't know where they found the nerve to do this however. All the dogs at the dog park were nice today, but some days they can get pretty rowdy.

When we got home from the dog park, I worked on a practice video, using the laptop editing software I'll be using in Houston. I thought the little video exercise would be a piece of cake, but I discovered all sorts of potential problems instead. Uploads took longer than I though. Putting together a decent music track from the small library of stock music clips I loaded on the laptop took longer than I thought too. I might have to travel with a much larger music library. At least adding graphics and logos worked as planned. I though I'd be able to get the whole segment cut and encoded in less than an hour, but it took me twice as long. I'll repeat the exercise tomorrow and see if I can come up with a smoother way of doing things.

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Day 385

I'm trying to simplify. Today, when I was setting up categories for my new accounting program, I decided that groceries would suffice as a category for all my grocery shopping. In my old accounting program, there were a multitude of sub-categories for paper towels, laundry detergent, juice, vegetables and lord knows what. It took me forever to reconcile things because by the time my credit card bill arrived a month after I bought the groceries, I'd totally forgotten what I'd bought. For years I just made up things to put in these categories. The totals were correct, but who knows if I really bought paper towels or not. I don't know why I felt compelled to fill out all the sub-category boxes, because my accountant told me several times that he wasn't interested in how much I spent on juice or multi-vitamins. Well, all that's in the past now. From now on, when I got to the grocery store all my purchases are just going to get lumped together as groceries.

I overcomplicate my life in so many odd little ways. I save the boxes for most things I purchase and put them in the storage warehouse. I always thought that if we moved to another part of the country someday, it would be good to have the original boxes to pack things in. Over the years, I've put some things back in their boxes as I've retired them. The problem I'm having now is that I can't remember which boxes are full and which are empty. I need to throw away some boxes to make room for more stuff, but I'd hate to throw away a full box. Especially if it contains a vintage camera or something. I'm having to open and look through all the boxes, just to see if they are empty or not.

As part of my simplification campaign, I'm going to switch to Final Cut Pro for editing video projects. I probably should have done this several years ago. I've edited using Adobe Premier, Avid Media Composer and Media 100. For some reason I grew fond of Media 100 and kept using it long after it fell out of favor in the editing community. Nobody uses Media 100 anymore. Come to think of it, nobody even uses video tape anymore. It's been several years since anyone asked me to finish a project on video tape. All they want is a DVD now. Maybe I'll be able to retire the tape machines soon. That would certainly free up some additional space in the office.

I took Dash to get his antigen shot again today. His coat is looking great and he only needs the shot once every two weeks now. I hope he stays healthy. My vet has gone on maternity leave again. She won't be back until March.

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