Day 1025

The Cormorants and Coots have returned to the lake again. I find these seasonal migrations reassuring. At least something in this world stays the same from year to year. Truthfully, not very much in nature stays the same. I've noticed this year that Johnsongrass is slowly but surely erasing the beautiful native prairie near our house. Sparrows have occupied all the Martin Houses in the area as well. I wouldn't call these two things a sign of the apocalypse, but it's not exactly good news either.

I got lucky when I stopped by the cool restaurant for breakfast this morning. The place was virtually empty. I got to enjoy a delicious meal without overhearing a bunch of trendy people salt and pepper their conversations with words like sustainability and codependency.

Since some of my clients pay me in Euros, I never know quite what I'm going to make until I exchange the money for dollars again. I think I picked a good day today, since the Euro was down. Things were much better though before the Federal Reserve started printing money again and caused the dollar to weaken. It's way too complicated for me. Life was so much easier when I just went to work at an ad agency and collected a paycheck every two weeks.

One of Janet's charities is having an Octoberfest fundraiser this weekend. Janet will be working the event, but for me it will be a good excuse to have a rare special occasion beer with a bratwurst. I think my liver will forgive me for the occasional special beer. Honestly, I haven't had a drink since the last special occasion. Regular readers will know that these things don't happen all that often.

Lightning is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 856

Slip sliding away. That's the way I'm feeling these days. Every week, checks for $200 or $300 dribble in, along with bills for several thousand dollars. I wonder how long you can sustain this kind of impossible math.

Luckily, I had some very good years. I don't think those days will return however. The world has fundamentally changed. I listen to all the politicians promising jobs if you'll elect them and I wonder what on earth they are thinking. You can't promise jobs in a global economy. If someone in China or India can do the job for 1/3 of what I would charge, they're going to get the job. End of story. To survive in this brave new world, you have to lower your prices to stay competitive and hope that a larger audience for your products or services will make up the difference. This strategy might work well for Coca Cola and McDonald's, but it certainly doesn't help me much. I just end up working longer and harder for less money.

It doesn't help much to fret about such things though. Once the metaphorical Pandora's Box has been opened, it can never be closed again. In an increasingly interconnected world, great economies are trying their best to equalize. It's like those science experiments in high school chemistry class where liquid in two connected containers always stayed at the same level. My economy is getting worse. Yours may be getting better. Maybe in three or four generations, everything will be wonderful, but it's not a pretty sight now.

At least I still have things to do as I slowly get poorer. I worked on some websites today. I sent out invoices like notes in a bottle and continued writing articles. The dogs did their part to keep the leaky ship afloat. They chased squirrels in the backyard.

I asked the real estate agent today why he wanted to price my rent house so low, especially when there were similar properties for sale in the same neighborhood at considerably higher prices. "Look at how long those houses have been on the market," he told me. "When a house has been on the market for 400 days, the seller just hasn't come to grips with reality yet."

I'm sure the agent is right. It's no fun to come to grips with reality. Reality can be downright depressing. That's why I'm going to try the trendy restaurant my advertising friends like for breakfast tomorrow. Maybe they'll have a great breakfast that will perk up my entire day. Maybe if I continue going to this place, it will become "my" trendy restaurant. Stranger things have happened.

Marley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 777

One of my European clients paid me using Paypal this morning. I couldn't believe how easy and painless the whole process was. I can still remember the days when I used to get a check in the mail from international clients. I would take the foreign check to my bank where they never knew what to do with it. They usually told me to go downtown to the main bank where there would be someone who could exchange my Deutsche Marks for dollars. The process varied, depending on who I talked to, but it was always a giant hassle. Paypal changed everything. These days, working internationally a snap. The sender just makes a deposit in their own currency and it automatically comes out in dollars on my end.

It still seems amazing to me that it's just as easy to get work from people living thousands of miles away as it is from a neighborhood business down the street. This is one aspect of the online age that I'm pretty happy about. I could do without social media however. It's a giant black hole that sucks up all my time and most of my energy. Life was much easier when I just met people for coffee.

Thanks to Alan from Birding in the Falkland Islands I now know that the lonely bird in yesterday's photo is an American Kestrel. This happens to be the smallest falcon in North America, which is pretty cool. It's nice to have this amazing little bird in the neighborhood. I won't need any help identifying today's picture. Yes, I know it's a squirrel. It's easier to photograph birds than squirrels and other animals. The birds know they can fly away and aren't scared of the dogs. Anything on the ground is fair game though and the dogs make every effort to catch it.

People keep asking me who I'm rooting for in the Superbowl. I don't know. I like Dallas, but they didn't even get in the playoffs. I like Pittsburgh, but they didn't do so well this year either. Towards the end, I was rooting for Denver because I like Tim Tebow. That didn't work out either. I guess I'm just hoping that Budweiser runs a commercial with a Dalmatian in it.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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