Day 947

Have you ever noticed that if you took away all the cute cat and dog pictures on Facebook, all you would be left with is an endless stream of politically correct and occasionally incorrect opinions from people you actually know? I don't know about the rest of you, but I don't want to know this much about the beliefs of people I actually know. Please guys, just let me live in blissful ignorance. All this being said, I still think my Facebook stream is better than my Google+ stream, where everyone seems to think that a dash of science and a giant group hug will cure all the world's problems.

Coming face-to-face with all these opinions everyday is a bit discouraging for me. It has made me realize that as a society, we have reached a point where we will never come to a consensus on anything. Instead of uniting behind a common goal, like going to the moon or winning WWII, we have  become a bunch of ineffectual competing tribes, with no loyalties beyond our own tribe. Maybe it won't even matter. I have a feeling that in thirty years or so our world will start to resemble that Mad Max - Beyond Thunderdome movie.

Since there's a good chance I won't be around in thirty years, I concentrate on more pleasant things. I really enjoyed going to the Panasonic seminar this afternoon. I couldn't begin to afford most of the video equipment that the manufacturers demonstrated today, but it's nice to know that it's out there. So, who goes to these types of seminars? Increasingly, it is the cameramen and editors who are employed by professional sports teams. I routinely see folks who work for the Cowboys, the Mavericks, and the Rangers at these events. I guess it makes sense. Professional sports organizations still have the money to buy boatloads of this expensive high-tech equipment. The rest of us don't. The rest of us are faced with the prospect of making cheap YouTube videos on our iPhones.

I think I'll go back to the empty restaurant with good food tomorrow. It's really peaceful there. I'll listen to a piano concerto and watch birds splashing in the bird bath right outside the front window while I eat my whole grain pancakes and a pulled pork breakfast taco. It's only Thursday evening, but TGIF anyway.

Jade is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 946

I found out today that one of my clients is considering sending me to Las Vegas to cover a big fashion event next month. That's certainly an improvement over yesterday's dismal news. I just wish the good news was more consistent. If I had known what a roller coaster ride owning a small business was when I started my company in 1990, I probably would have been a lot nicer to the creative directors I used to work for.

Hey, I've got my freedom though. Today it was the freedom to be stupid. I mistakenly took my evening meds this morning instead of my regular morning meds. There is a reason that I'm supposed to take the evening meds just before bedtime. One of the pills I take is Simcor. This drug causes the small blood vessels near the surface of the skin to expand, resulting in a pronounced flushing sensation. All morning I felt like I was burning up. My skin was bright red and blotchy and I felt like I had a bad sunburn. This is normal, but usually you're asleep when the flushing occurs and you never notice it. It didn't help that I had four cups of coffee this morning either. You're not supposed to have hot beverages right after you take the pill. Oh, well.  I'm fine now and I'm less likely to absent mindedly make this mistake again.

If I can get my work finished in time, I'm planning on going to a video production seminar hosted by Panasonic tomorrow afternoon. I used to go to these type of things quite often when I was doing more video production. Now, it is becoming harder to justify the time away from the office when I'm bogged down in website work. I think I'll go anyway though. For some reason I still think video production is fun and you've got to take your fun wherever you can get it these days.

Dot and Dash did well in training class tonight. It was hot this evening, but that didn't seem to slow the dogs down. They both had one of their better nights. I'm proud of the little rascals.

Beemer is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 945

Not really a great day. When I was monitoring the websites I manage this morning, I happened to notice that one of them had been completely replaced with another design. That caught me by surprise. Hey, I'll be the first to acknowledge that clients come and go. I've lost clients because they grew larger and wanted something so fancy that I was unable to deliver it. I've lost clients because they became smaller and no longer wanted to pay my fee. I don't think I've ever lost a client because I did shoddy work. It bothers me that these guys nuked my site and hired another design firm without ever calling me to say there was a problem. The last time I talked to these guys, I had just finished some updates that they requested and was told to expect some new bios for two new employees. Everything seemed fine. Obviously it wasn't, because it appears that I've been fired.

Personally, I just think it is extremely rude to dump a vendor without any sort of a notice or explanation. If there was a problem, I'm sure it could have been resolved. Most problems can be resolved fairly easily. I'm still not sure what is going on, since the client didn't return my calls. I do have my suspicions however. I know that one of the client's children works at the firm that did the new website. That's life. I've never been one to cry over spilled milk, so I'll just move on.

The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. I wrote a few articles. I prepared to re-launch another client's website after an extensive makeover. I went to the bank to deposit a few small checks that probably won't even pay this month's electric bill. I didn't deal with the bug problem yet though. I'm going to save that loathsome task for a day when I have a bit more positive energy.

If you asked either of the dogs, you would never have guessed that anything was wrong at all. They're both sprawled out on the bed right now, lost in dog dreams. To them, it was another perfect day.

Riley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 944

Do you procrastinate? I do. Although I get quite a bit done on most days, I am continually reshuffling the deck and putting the most loathsome tasks at the very bottom of my to do list. There is a downside to this strategy. If you haven't guessed it already, there comes a time when all the fun projects are finished and you are left with an endless list of things you never wanted to do in the first place.

I can probably stave off disaster for a few more days, but pretty soon I am going to have to buckle down and do the nasty Javascript coding for the pretty website shell I have already finished. Even worse, I'm going to have to rid our house of bugs. Bugs have been particularly bad this year. With dogs in the house, I hate to use insecticides. About the only safe way to exterminate the little beasties is to use a a special poison bait that you place inside your electric wall outlets where your pets can't reach it. This involves removing all the baseplates in the house and sometimes even unscrewing the metal outlet box itself. You put a little of the putty-like bait inside each outlet and light switch and then put all the baseplates back on again. This technique actually works, but the last time I did it, it took me all day. Yeah, I know that it's disgusting to think that bugs make their home in between your walls, but they do. I'd much rather have the bugs die quietly behind the sheetrock than inside the bathtub.

I woke up to sunlight this morning. The power is back on, all the battery devices are charged again, and life is back to normal. In a surprising move, the power company restored the electricity last night exactly when they said they would. Power outages are so common in our neighborhood that I've seriously considered getting a big backup generator. So, what stopped me from this practical solution to an ongoing problem? Well, the expense, for starters. A generator to power your television while you're camping is one thing, but a generator large enough to power your house and keep the air conditioner running is an entirely different animal. Not only is the generator itself quite expense, you then need to hire an electrician to install a switching system to take your generator power on or offline. This is not something that you would want to do yourself. If you hook things up wrong, you could end up sending your generator power back through the grid and fry the repairmen on the pole behind your house who is trying to restore your power. I've decided that a better solution is just to go to bed early when the power is out.

If there is anyone from the BBC reading this blog, please send some new episodes of Dr. Who and Top Gear over to the states. I think I've seen every available episode at least five times by now. Too bad these shows are the only thing I like on TV.

Laura is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 943

We almost got struck by lightning today. The lightning strike was so bright that it seemed like studio strobes going off directly overhead. The thunderclap came just milliseconds later. I would think that the lightning strike was less than a 1000 yards away, since the sound of the thunder arrived so quickly. The thunderclap was so loud that it set off car alarms on a nearby street. It goes without saying that the dogs totally panicked. I had a hard time controlling them as we tried to get back to the house before the real downpour started. This storm just came out of nowhere. Luckily, we returned home safely about two minutes before the skies opened up and the rain began in earnest. I usually look at the weather radar on my iPad if I'm going out in questionable weather, but the radar wouldn't have helped me in this case. The storm didn't blow in from the West or the North; it just materialized directly overhead. When I looked at a time lapse view of the weather radar later, it appeared that the storm didn't even exist when we started our walk. The storm cell just suddenly formed right over the lake in less than five minutes. That's Texas weather for you. It's always full of surprises.

The storm apparently wasn't through with us when we got home. About ten minutes after the rain started, our power went out. Three hours later, the power is still out. I'm making today's post using my laptop and a portable 4G hotspot.  Reporting a power outage is frustrating now because everything is automated. It is impossible to talk to a real person. After you answer enough automated questions using your cellphone keypad, you eventually get an ETA for when the lines will be repaired, but you can never find out what is actually wrong. According to the phone message, it will be another three hours before power is restored. I'm sure the laptop battery will be dead before then.

As you can see, Dot and Dash got a bath today. It definitely wasn't a very auspicious day to give the dogs a bath, but how were we to know? They both got soaked all over again when we made our retreat from the park and tried to get home before the next lightning strike. At least the weather was nice when we went to the dog park earlier this morning.

It's so quiet in the house when the power is out. Usually, there is always the hum of the air conditioner, which is frequently augmented by the sounds of the dishwasher, the washing machine, or the dryer. Even the main computer makes a lot of noise. Now the house is silent. All I hear are a million cicadas outside. I have a feeling the the television won't work when the power is eventually restored. That's what happened the last time the power went out.  The U-verse box lost all it's programming and we ended up having to call AT&T to get everything working again.

Oh well, tomorrow's another day. I wouldn't be surprised if it's dry as a bone again by noon.

Gypsy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 942

About this time every year I start to wonder what ever possessed me to move to Texas. Jeez, I used to live in Seattle. I even lived in Aspen, Colorado for a while. I still remember the first time I exited a red eye flight from Seattle to Dallas for a job interview and smelled the Texas air for the first time as I walked up the jetway. The atmosphere was moist and humid and the heat enveloped me like a cocoon. It was only 9 AM, but it was August and it was very hot. As I was waiting for my bag in the Braniff baggage claim, I had a strong feeling that this wasn't going to end well.

Oddly, I never moved again. Even though I still hate the heat, and the tornadoes, and the humidity, I've lived in Dallas longer than all the other cities I've called home put together. Dallas just happened to be where I got tired of moving.

Living here certainly isn't all bad. Dallas is a great place to earn a living. Through good times and bad, there has always been an abundance of jobs in this city. If you can't find a job in Dallas, you probably just don't want to work. Dallas was also where I discovered the joys of having a dog. I never would have considered a dog in Seattle. A dog might scratch the hardwood floors or damage a painting. Dallas was probably where I finally became a somewhat decent person and shed these silly values. Nevertheless, it's still too damn hot here.

I wish I could remember when my day to water was. Even though the lakes are full this year, the city has imposed severe restrictions on lawn watering this Summer. I don't have much of a green thumb, so I used to water my lawn whenever I saw my neighbors water theirs. Now the neighbors all have automatic sprinkler systems that are programmed to water during the middle of the night, so I never get the reminder I need. I hate to be the only one watering during the day, since I'll inevitably pick the wrong day and get hit with a big fine. My indecision about watering day is already causing my front lawn to turn yellow. This whole situation is ridiculous. I don't need another reason to hate Summer.

Do you ever find that social media is a beast that constantly needs to be fed? When I started this journey, I thought that I'd never run out of things to say. Now I'm beginning to wonder. The sheer volume of material you have to produce to keep posting something fresh and original every day is almost overwhelming. I might have to become more introspective in the days ahead. There just isn't much to report when it's so hot outside that all you want to do is take a nap.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 941

I had breakfast at the restaurant with good bacon today. They might not have the healthiest food on the planet, but they certainly have some of the strangest customers. My waiter seated me next to a guy wearing a t-shirt that said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy." Never mind that this quote, commonly attributed to Ben Franklin, is a misquote and the founding father never really uttered these words. What caught my eye was that the guy was sweating profusely, even though the restaurant was quite cold. On the other side of me was an exceedingly old man who was talking enthusiastically to his wife about the guns he wanted to buy at the next gun show. His wife said nothing, but had a look on her face that clearly said "Hey old man, if you keep this shit up for another five years, I'm going to shoot you with one of those guns."

Behind me, I overheard a group of sullen social services workers making disparaging comments about the people who used their services. Then one lady changed the subject and started talking about her dog and everybody became happy again. I don't think people can tell much about my mood by sitting next to me at a restaurant. I'm usually fairly impenetrable, although I have noticed that in certain Southern restaurants, a waitress will occasionally poke me on the shoulder and say "Put a smile on your face boy. Things aren't that bad." Today's pancakes and bacon were actually quite good. It didn't seem like Friday the Thirteenth at all.

The stock market definitely needs a few more days like today. Gold, equities, and many commodities all closed on the upside today. Usually, one of these things cancels the others out in my portfolio and I end up with nothing. Last month's dismal performance still leaves me down for the year, but things are starting to look up.

Work was fairly uneventful today. I did manage to finish a couple of small projects before the weekend, but truthfully, it wouldn't have mattered if I had waited until Monday to turn them in. I should have driven Janet's lunch over to her office, but I didn't notice that she had forgotten it until 3 PM. I guess it was a little late by then.

Watson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 940

I had lunch with a friend who used to be my boss today. My friend has always been good at landing on his feet and, unlike a lot of other ad folks I know, is still the creative director at a well respected ad agency. We had fun talking about how the business has changed and who among our friends have survived.  The lunch wasn't just a trip down memory lane though. The agency happens to have some high profile jewelry accounts and I just happen to have some experience writing about luxury goods. I was hoping to get a little work from my old buddy. I think I have reason to be optimistic. My prospects of getting jewelry account projects are probably a bit better than getting that trip to Singapore from my other client. I'm a dreamer though. I'm still hoping that both things will come through.

I ought to have lunch with ad friends more often, because this is still the most dependable way to get business. I don't know if I have the capacity to actually eat lunch anymore though. I quit eating lunch about five years ago and now whenever I have a noontime meal, I feel full and bloated for the rest of the day. I still feed the dogs a rice cake at lunch, because they've grown to expect something to eat. I don't eat anything though. Mostly because I don't like rice cakes. It's hard to believe that I used to eat three large meals every day, washed down with various alcoholic beverages. I just can't do it anymore. I still eat a big breakfast, but there's nothing for lunch and usually a light supper. '

I read an article today that said it was very important for bloggers to answer all their comments and establish a dialog with their readers. Is this what you guys really want?  I hope not. I'm terrible about answering comments. I usually just post things like a guy on a deserted island, throwing notes out to sea in a bottle. Occasionally, some of those bottles wash up on a distant shore and are discovered by beachcombers. At least that's how I think it goes.

I can tell it's been a long week. I'm ready for it to be over. I'm already thinking about what to order for breakfast on tomorrow's Friday restaurant outing. Pancakes sound good to me.

Winston is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 939

I decided to merge the blog with Google+ this morning. I'm not sure what the implications of this move are, but Google has made the whole process so easy and transparent that I'm beginning to wonder if they are making plans to just abandon the Blogger platform at some point. The blog looks pretty much the same, so I'm happy enough. Who knows? Maybe I'll even find some new readers.

I haven't been getting enough sleep lately. I think one of the reasons I'm waking up tired every morning is all the weird dreams I've been having. I'm not much at dream interpretation, but these dreams are so consistent that they've got to mean something. I always seem to be wandering around looking for something that should be easy to find. I wander the halls of large hotels, looking for my room. I go from deck to deck on cruise ships, looking for my companion. Sometimes I just ride elevators up and down for the longest time. I've found myself in ad agencies where I used to work, looking for my office. Last night I dreamed that I was watching TV in bed and couldn't find the remote to turn the TV off. At first I wasn't sure that this was a dream, because I actually was in bed. When I woke up however, the TV was off and the only noise I heard was a dog snoring next to me. These aren't exciting dreams, but they are tiring.

I used my waking hours this afternoon to catch up on correspondence and finish some writing assignments. I'd already wasted half the morning watching back-to-back Dr. Who episodes while eating French Toast and sausages. Maybe travel would make things more interesting. One of my European clients caught my interest the other day by dangling the prospect of a trip to Singapore in front of me. The temptation was brief and tenuous at best, but it was enough to get me researching flights from DFW to Singapore. Wow! Singapore is a long way away. Travel time varies from around 24 hours to well over 48 hours, depending on how many stops you have to make along the way. One of the more popular routes to the Far East from Dallas goes through London. This seems backwards at first, until you look at a globe and realize the benefits of traveling over the pole. I'd love to go to Singapore to do the interviews for my new assignment, but somehow I have a feeling I'll be sitting right here at my desk, doing my research on Wikipedia.

The weather was beautiful for dog training class tonight. The nice weather didn't seem to impress the dogs however, because most of them weren't very obedient. The only thing Dash wanted to do tonight was the long down exercise, where the dogs had to lie down and stay in the same spot for five minutes. Dash is good at lying down and doing nothing. It is one of his favorite things.

Sophia is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 938

Janet left for work so early this morning that even though I went back to bed for a couple of hours, I still ended up getting up an hour earlier than normal. The extra daylight was useful and I ended up getting a lot more done than I usually do on a Tuesday. I finished an article I've been avoiding and I think I'm up to speed on most of my website revisions now. Most importantly, I got my July invoices in the mail this afternoon. That's always important, because it means that there should be money to pay the bills in August. It seems to be taking me longer to get my invoices posted these days, but I think that's a good thing. More invoices in the mail means more billable projects.

I've started learning the names of the wildflowers that I've been photographing on our daily walks. I've been pleasantly surprised to discover that many plants have prosaic and even descriptive names. The Winecup flower looks almost exactly like a small wine goblet and the Pincushion flower definitely resembles a pincushion. Firewheels, which are abundant around my house, remind me of Fourth of July fireworks, while Trumpet Creepers look just like miniature orange trumpets. Sure, there are a lot of weird names that I'll never remember, but I do know that I've seen butterflies getting nectar from butterfly weeds.

Dash is such a social dog. He seems to love going to the vet for his biweekly antigen shot now. All I have to say is "it's time to go to the vet" and Dash runs to the front hall where his leash is kept. Dot, on the other hand, runs back to the bedroom. She doesn't like to go to the vet at all.

We had a little rain right after supper.  It wasn't enough to give the grass a good soaking, but I don't think it was enough to cause the roof to leak either. I guess it wasn't much of a rain at all, because Dot didn't even get upset.

Keller is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 937

I got a request for the recipe for yesterday's tomato casserole. I'm usually happy to oblige with requests like this, because it shows that someone is actually reading the blog. I actually feel like a proper mommy blog now. Hey, tasty recipes and nice doggie stories. What more could you want? Truthfully, I'm in awe of mommy blogs. Somehow, I don't think guys with Dalmatians would ever qualify for their own special blog category. At any rate, I hope you enjoy the recipe.

I managed to finish updating the animal rescue website I was working on this weekend. I'm sure the site won't stay current for very long. Animal rescue sites are constantly changing as dogs and cats get admitted or adopted.  Nevertheless, it's good to have everything up to date again.

Once I completed my website project, the rest of the day was uneventful. About mid-afternoon I got a request to re-write another writer's article. I tried to weasel out of the job, but the client wasn't taking no for an answer. I never like to revise or re-work other people's writing. I'm just not a very competitive person and it seems distasteful to change someone else's work. Even if the writing is absolutely atrocious, I'd just as soon leave things well enough alone. Truthfully, 90% of advertising writing is rubbish anyway. Why split hairs over who's rubbish is better?

I wonder when the new season of Dr. Who is going to start? I've seen all the old episodes at least three times by now. Sadly, even these endlessly repeating re-runs are more interesting than most of the new shows on TV. I have yet to understand the popularity of shows like 30-Rock and Two and a Half Men. I guess shows like these are still classified as sit-coms, but they're not nearly as well written as shows like Sienfeld or Fraiser. Hmm. Maybe there actually is one category of 'other people's writing' that I wouldn't mind changing. Most of what's on television today desperately needs a re-write.

Greta is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 936

I wonder how Sunday got to be chore day? It's been chore day for so long now that I can't even remember how the tradition started. In fairness, we do go to the dog park on Sundays, and that certainly isn't a chore. Today we met some other Dalmatian owners at the park and the dogs all had a great time. The dogs went to sleep when we got home, but I went to work.

I got one of those long poles with a saw at the end and trimmed dead branches off the big Oak trees in the back yard. You'd think it would be hard to even reach the branches, but actually it was quite easy. I took the pole saw up on the roof and this additional height allowed me to reach quite a few dead branches. Having a flat roof can actually be useful at times, by providing a platform for all sorts of other activities.

I was hot and tired by the time I got the tree trimming finished, so I spent the rest of the afternoon inside, updating an animal rescue website. I don't think I'm as familiar with these animals as the volunteers who send me the pictures. After I made brand new pages for several of the animals, I discovered that many of them already had an active page on the website. Oops. Duplication wasn't what I was aiming for. I did make progress though. Maybe in a week or so, I'll have the site current again.

A friend of Janet's gave her some tomatoes she'd grown in her garden the other day, so Janet made a tomato casserole tonight. I'm typically a big meat eater, but this casserole was so delicious that it made becoming a vegetarian sound tempting. I think the only ingredients were tomatoes, celery, onions, toasted croutons, and some spices. There's nothing like fresh tomatoes. Delicious! They are so much better than the grocery store variety. We try to grow tomatoes ourselves periodically, but they never reach maturity. The squirrels always eat them before we get a chance.

Trevor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 935

There's one guaranteed way of making it rain. All I have to to is go to Home Depot and buy a bunch of things that would be handy in a drought. Since it has been pretty dry for the past several weeks, I picked up some soaker hoses to water the Photinia bushes. I got another sprinkler for a hard to reach spot in the back of the yard. I even got some more Henry 209 Roof Patch. The rain started before I even got home.

I've got mixed emotions about rain in the Summer. I still have roof problems whenever it rains, but the yard really needs the water. You really can't have a dry roof without the worry of a dead yard. Today's rain was brief, but it packed a wallop. High winds knocked over a large construction crane, and then blew a man off a paddle board on the lake behind out house.

Since I was stuck in the house waiting for the rain to stop, I thought I'd try hooking up a MIDI keyboard to my computer. The keyboard had been hooked up to an older computer for years, but I had kind of lost interest in it. When I plugged it into my current computer, the keyboard didn't work at all. This initiated a long Google search to see what the problem was. I finally got the thing to work after a fashion, but the real problem is that Apple has no interest in staying compatible with older equipment anymore. This keyboard was just one of many things that worked perfectly on my older Macs, but has compatibility problems now.

I had a hard time getting the dogs to go on their evening walk. Dot kept hearing thunder off in the distance and didn't want to go outside. It didn't matter to her that the storm was over and the thunder was headed away from us. She was having no part of it. Eventually, the skies returned to normal and I took the dogs on their walk. They both refused to poop though, so it was kind of a wasted effort.

Maybe the weather will be better tomorrow. Then again, it might rain. That's the way it is during the Summer in Texas. You just never know.

Dalaney is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 934

Today was a somewhat social day for a solitary soul like myself. I went back to the cool restaurant for breakfast this morning and ran into a photographer friend who lives in the neighborhood. He and I could easily have talked about the declining revenues of commercial photographers, or what to do with old film cameras, but we found something far more interesting to chat about: the behavior of our dogs.

I find these little neighborhood restaurants fascinating. They are all located with a few miles of my house. They all have a basically similar menu. But each restaurant seems to attract a completely different group of people. The cool restaurant seems to attract advertising people, which isn't surprising, since advertising people are drawn to trendy things like moths to a flame. The restaurant with the good bacon seems to attract school teachers. I never dreamed that school teachers had so much time on their hands until I started going to this place. Surprisingly, the restaurant with the best food doesn't attract anybody at all. The place does a good dinner business, but nobody seems to come for breakfast. In another surprise, the restaurant with the unhealthiest menu seems to attract the very people who need healthy food the most. I actually like all these places, but still think my own cooking is the best.

I was starting to look like Don Imus on a bad hair day, so I went and got a haircut this afternoon. Morning and afternoon conversation is kind of a rarity for me. My hair stylist likes to talk about vacations and family problems. I don't like to talk about either of these things, but do my best to keep up my end of the conversation. I often think I could save a fortune by just going to a regular barber, but a good haircut is one of those little luxuries you really hate to give up. Betty is expensive, but she never fails to make me look younger, so I guess it's worth it.

I wish they had iPads when I was first learning to play the guitar. I've installed GarageBand on my iPad and am using it to practice playing my new guitar. It's fabulous. The iPad is small and unobtrusive and yet the GarageBand software faithfully emulates half a dozen well known guitar amps. If I play through earphones, I don't bother Janet either. So far, I'm having a lot of fun relearning things I forgot twenty years ago. The best thing is that playing doesn't bother my hand as much as I though it would. I'm beginning to think the exercise might actually be good for my Carpal Tunnel.

So, for those of you who think I'm too negative, I've had a good day. I had breakfast with a friend, got a haircut that made me look younger, and took a trip down memory lane with my Stratocaster. Not bad for a Friday.

Cisco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 933

Life is unpredictable to say the least. I think of myself as a rock 'n roll, art gallery kind of guy. Imagine my surprise when I learned that a nature magazine wanted to interview me for an article. That's what happened though. You can read the resulting interview in today's edition of Nature Center Magazine. I guess it all makes sense in an odd sort of way. I don't go to concerts anymore and I rarely visit art galleries. How do I spend my days? I walk my dogs through the woods.

Maybe my daily walks with the Dalmatians make me more of a nature buff than I might have thought. I've certainly learned a bit about plants and animals during our walks. I'll be the first to tell you that photographing squirrels isn't quite as exciting as photographing fashion models, but the same principles apply. I try my best to make the squirrels look pretty. I also try to avoid snakes and poison ivy. I just like the pretty parts of nature.

I thought I might be able to escape work entirely this week, but no such luck. My clients seem to be slowly but surely returning to their offices. I got several new assignments today and actually managed to finish one of them. I'm still slaving away on my big website makeover project as well. Remind me never to do a site with over 400 pages again. It's simply too big. Even though I created the original site that I am now in the process of updating, I can't even remember half the stuff I added over the years. As I struggle to simplify things, I wonder if any of these obscure pages were ever really important.

While I was feeding the dogs lunch today, I heard a loud crash up on the roof. It sounded like a big, dead tree limb had fallen right over the bedroom. I climbed up to take a look and what did I see? Nothing! There were no fallen tree limbs, no debris, nothing at all. I even looked over the edge of the roof to see if the limb had bounced off the roof and landed on the ground below.  Nothing on the ground either. Now, I'm wondering if I was just imaging things. I know I heard a loud noise though. I'll probably wonder about this for weeks.

Isabella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 932 - Independence Day

It kind of felt like a work day this morning. Janet left the house early to serve as a judge in a neighborhood Fourth of July parade. I tried to get the dogs out on their morning walk before it got too hot outside. When we returned, I fixed myself French Toast for breakfast. After doing the breakfast dishes, I worked on my website chores, just like I usually do. When Janet returned from the parade around noon, we all decided it was a holiday after all.

The dogs got a treat and got to go to the dog park twice in a single week. We got a treat as well, since the weather was cooler and being outside was actually pleasant. I'm a little nervous about being outside though after seeing something on TV last night about a new case of West Nile Virus being discovered in our own zip code.

The city is supposed to be spraying for mosquitoes, but I haven't seen them spray in our neighborhood yet. There is still an abundance of mosquitoes outside. They're everywhere this year. People might have actually outnumbered mosquitoes in the park today however. As is usually the case on holidays like this, the place was packed. There was a 10K race through the park this morning. There were sailboat races down on the lake and there were impromptu picnics everywhere. I saw large swarms of dragonflies for the first time this Summer as well. I'd like to get some good photos of these interesting insects, but they never stay still. It's hard for me to even get the camera focused on them before they fly away.

We had barbecued ribs, potato salad and broccoli slaw for dinner tonight. It was good holiday fare. I even had a beer this evening. I remember similar holiday dinners when I was a kid. The only difference then was that while the parents were eating, the kids went around setting off all manner of fireworks. There were no regulations about fireworks that I can remember. My friends and I bought cherrybombs and M-80's by the dozens. We would put the M-80's inside rolls of toilet paper, throw them up in the air, and watch them explode. It was all a lot of fun, but it's a miracle that I still have all ten fingers.

Matao is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 931

For several days, I've been receiving e-mail from other bloggers warning me that Google Chrome browsers were restricting access to this blog, saying that it contained malware. What? There have never been any malicious widgets on the blog, and I hope there never will be. Since I usually use Firefox instead of Chrome, I wasn't even aware there was a problem until I received so many messages that I figured there must be something to the warning. I fired up Chrome to take a look, and sure enough, I was locked out as well. When I looked at the code for the blog, I discovered the words blogarama.com, which Google doesn't like. Like many bloggers, I used to display a button that linked to this site in hopes of getting more traffic. I removed the button over six months ago though, so I was still puzzled about why Google blocked me.

Well, it turns out that they blocked me just because I was lazy. Typically, I remove widgets, pictures and a wide assortment of other things from websites by just putting HTML comment tags around the material that I want to disappear. It only takes a few seconds to do this, and it's easy to reinstate the content if I change my mind later. I do this on my commercial websites all the time because my clients change their minds so often. Apparently, turning a link into a comment wasn't good enough for Google. They wanted everything scrubbed clean.  OK. You win. It was certainly easy enough to remove the comment too.

All this does leave me wondering about a society that is dead set on protecting everybody from themselves. Shouldn't we be able to decide for ourselves whether we want to visit a particular website? Shouldn't be be able to decide for ourselves whether to wear a bicycle helmet, smoke a cigarette, or drink a big gulp soda at a convenience store? It's all gotten pretty crazy. Most of the people riding bicycles in the park wear helmets, even though many of them are riding very slowly. On the other hand, I see people almost every day riding their Harleys down the freeway at 70 miles an hour with no helmet at all. Who is right? The Harley riders or the bicyclists? I'm probably on the side of the helmetless Harley riders, even though half of them will eventually get themselves killed. You really should be able to decide about motorcycle helmets, bacon, and websites on your own.

Today was even slower than yesterday. I think half of Texas is on vacation now. Other than searching for malicious code on my own blog and writing a little new code for for the website project I'm currently working on, I didn't get all that much accomplished today. I did make eggs and sausages for breakfast though, so it was a better day than yesterday.

Bob Hope is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day