Day 966

I read an article in the current issue of Advertising Age saying that digital media creatives got paid less than half what their traditional creative brethren were used to making. Having played on both sides of this fence, I can attest to the fact that this article speaks the truth. This doesn't bode well for future graphic designers, writers, and photographers. Occasionally, I still wonder where the glamorous world of Mad Men went, but I think I know.

Back when I was a kid, I was usually the odd duck in school. Being totally self absorbed wasn't just unusual, it was strongly frowned upon. This has all changed. After several generations of teachers telling their pupils that they all were special and that everyone was creative, people began to believe this was true. "It's all about me" went from being a lonely cry of defiance to becoming the mantra of an entire generation. Suddenly anyone who had ever designed their own online Christmas card began to think of themselves as graphic designers and people like me weren't nearly as unique as they used to be.

It's all supply and demand. When everybody wants to do something cool and fun, those jobs  aren't going to be worth as much. I remember years ago having a conversation in a bar with a group of photographer friends. Everyone was complaining about the intense competition and wondering how we were going to make any money. A more practical friend joined the conversation and said we all should go buy a big garbage truck and start hauling hazardous waste. "You'll be rich in less than a year," he said. "Because nobody wants to do jobs like that."  So true!

Occasionally, I still work on fun things, but like the Ad Age article said, the money isn't what it used to be. I wouldn't encourage a kid to get into advertising these days. I wouldn't even encourage them to invent video games or become a social media expert. I think the only salvation is to learn to do something that is really hard. Learn math. Discover the next Higgs boson. Do something that most of your friends aren't even capable of doing. I'm sure that many of you noticed that guy with the purple mohawk in the control room during the Curiosity landing. That guy was the mission flight director. I'm sure that NASA or JPL could have cared less if this guy wore a mohawk. They probably wouldn't have cared if he came to work naked, because he was really good at what he did.

So, what did I do today after all this lofty talk? Well, I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot. I took out the garbage. I wrote a few things that will be billed at today's pitifully low rates. That was about it.

Lou is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 965

I was disappointed to see so many disparaging comments about the Curiosity lander on the Internet this morning. Where was the universal applause that followed the moon landing in 1969? Sure, there were a ton of positive comments about Curiosity, but they came with an undercurrent of disapproval. Some said the NASA money should have been used to feed the hungry. Others said that the imagination and technical wizardry of NASA scientists was misplaced and should have been used to turn the Sahara, the Gobi, and Antarctica into gardens instead.

You've got to be kidding! What would be the point of turning the Sahara and Antarctica into gardens? If you turned the entire planet into a wonderful place for humans to live and breed, that's exactly what they would do. Why is it that overpopulation is the one problem that most humanists just don't want to deal with? There are way too many people already. Personally, I applaud the audacity of the Curiosity team at JPL. I think the most appropriate role of the best and brightest among us has always been to test the limits of what is possible. What a waste it would be to use the best and brightest to simply level the playing field for the rest of us. Yay Higgs boson. Boo endless debates about universal healthcare. Ultimately, there is more benefit in a few reaching Mars than in millions sitting in front of televisions, watching future episodes of "The Real Housewives of Antarctica."

This is the beauty of dogs. They aren't judgmental. They don't nitpick about website designs. They don't take an amazing technical achievement and try to turn it into political fodder. I like the simplicity of eating, sleeping, and doing the best you can at whatever happens to capture your fancy. By and large, I don't care what other people do with their time and their money. I am human though, so occasionally I get up on a soapbox like everyone else. I'll admit that I do like technology and admire people with big dreams. If there was a starship headed outbound, I'd want to be on it. So, three cheers for the Curiosity team and their amazing achievement. If you have to raise my taxes to pay for more ambitious spaceships in the future, go right ahead. If you want to raise my taxes for anything else though, just forget about it.

Margo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 964

I'm looking forward to watching live coverage of the Curiosity rover landing attempt later this evening. This landing seems incredibly difficult compared to the bouncing beach ball landings of Spirit and Opportunity in 2004. Even though I have a short attention span, I was utterly fascinated by these two earlier rovers and would visit the JPL website just about every evening for at least three months to look at the new pictures that had been transmitted to earth. I cheered the unstoppable Opportunity on as it made its epic journey toward the Victoria Crater. I rooted for the intrepid little Spirit as it slowly climbed through the Columbia Hills. When I was in college, I was convinced that there'd be humans on Mars by now. I never dreamed we'd channel all our creative energy into making smart phones instead. At any rate, even though the space program has slowed to a crawl, I still welcome any sort of forward progress. If the Curiosity makes a successful landing later this evening, maybe we'll still make it to Mars in my lifetime.

It was so hot today that I didn't even attempt my normal Sunday to-do list. The dogs got their walks and a little off leash time at the dog park, but that was about it. The yard chores will just have to wait until a cooler day. Since I couldn't find anything good to watch on TV this afternoon, I was forced to do a little website work. This was probably a good thing, because I finally finished the loathsome online form revisions I've been avoiding for weeks. Forms have always been problematic for me because I'm not very good with tedious details. All you have to do is mistype one little thing in an online form and it won't work properly. Hopefully the seven new forms I created today will work perfectly when the client tests them on Monday.

I was eating dessert tonight when something came on TV saying that sugar was increasingly being linked to many forms of cancer. Damn! I've known for years that sugar isn't good for you, but this show made it seem worse than tobacco. According to the doctors being interviewed, you just shouldn't consume any sugar at all. This probably wasn't the best show to be watching while eating chocolate gelato and peach pie. So far, alcohol, salt, sugar, white flour and of course my beloved bacon are all to be avoided. What's next?  Personally, I miss the days when everybody smoked cigarettes and nobody wore seatbelts.

I don't really know what's on the docket for tomorrow. Maybe I'll just wait and see which of the squeaky wheels squeaks the loudest.

Morgan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 963

The heat is relentless. Since today was one of my two official weekly "watering days," I turned on the sprinklers before breakfast this morning. I gave the yard a good soak, but within a few hours it was bone dry again. It's going to be an uphill battle keeping the remaining vegetation  alive for the rest of the Summer. Lack of rain isn't the only problem the yard is facing either. Yesterday, I noticed a huge flock of small birds descend on the back yard and begin carefully pecking at something. At first I though the birds were eating bugs, but then I noticed that they were eating seeds. They were eating all the Rye grass seed I had sowed just one day earlier! No wonder I'm having trouble filling in the dead spots in the St. Augustine grass. The birds are eating all the seeds before they even have a chance to sprout.  Why couldn't the birds have gone after all the spiders in the yard? We have enough spiders to feed a small army of hungry birds.

When I was grocery shopping today, I couldn't resist picking up a 12-pack of Shiner beer. Yeah, I know. I can't drink any more. Although it was tempting, I didn't crack open a cold one when I got home. I just put the beer away for a special occasion. The times when I'm in a genuinely celebratory mood are so few and far between that I figure the occasional alcohol purchase couldn't possibly hurt my health. With the way things have been going lately, that little cache of beer should last me till Christmas.

Yesterday's U-verse repair seems to be working. The broadband signal hasn't gone down once since the technician installed the new gateway. Now, the only problem I have with AT&T is that they keep taking away my favorite channels and replacing them with programming that I wouldn't watch if you paid me. We've lost three or four channels already and just a few days ago, we lost another. When I tuned in today to watch one of my favorite shows, I was greeted by another Spanish language channel instead of the program I wanted to watch. Jeez, how many Spanish language channels do you need AT&T?  I would think 25 of these ridiculous channels would be enough. Maybe I just don't fit the demographic profile of the customer that U-verse is looking for. Oh, well. We could always switch back to Time Warner Cable I guess. It would certainly be easy enough. The cable guys didn't even bother to take down their wires when we switched services.

Tomorrow is dog park day. The grass up at the dog park is still nice and green. It's nice and green because the city doesn't think it needs to follow the same watering rules it imposes on everyone else. The dog park looks like it gets watered every day.

Pebbles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 962

The U-verse repairman came out to the house today. We've been having problems with losing the broadband signal lately. The phones, the TV, and the Internet would go dead at random times during the day and then return after about five minutes when the modem went through an automatic re-boot cycle. This wouldn't have been a big deal if it happened once a month, but it was happening up to ten times a day. At any rate, this was like any other repair day. The dogs barked like crazy while the repair technician tried to isolate the problem. The dogs were so loud that I eventually asked the repairman if he minded if I let them out of the office, so they could see who was in the house. The guy said he had big dogs himself and didn't mind.  Dot calmed down as soon as she had a chance to smell the repair technician, but Dash though I'd brought him a  playmate. Dash was totally friendly, but I eventually had to pen him up again, because he wouldn't leave the repairman alone.

Eventually, the technician completed his inspection and said that I needed a different type of 2Wire gateway, because the house was too far from the AT&T switch for the original modem to function reliably. When I asked why the previous technician installed a faulty modem in the first place, I didn't really get a good answer. I got the impression though that the original modem was probably the only thing that the previous technician had in the truck at the time.  When today's technician left, he said that my network was running 40% faster than it was when he arrived. Maybe so. It certainly doesn't seem all that fast right now however. Hopefully, this repair will last longer than the last one, which failed in less than a month.

I felt like I had stomach flu all day. Janet said it was probably because I ate rotten food in the refrigerator again. How was I to know?  I guess crab meat spread on top of a portobello mushroom cap won't stay fresh for a week in the frig.  The leftovers certainly didn't smell bad, but I'll be the first to admit that my sense of smell isn't so good. My lack of a good olfactory system does come in handy at times. Especially when the dogs fart in bed at night.

I'm glad the weekend is here. I live for the weekends these days. It's not that anything all that exciting happens on weekends, but it is nice to get a brief reprieve from the world of arbitrary deadlines and dumb questions. I got the weekend started with some tasty pancakes and a three rashers of bacon this morning. Unfortunately, stomach was less than impressed. I think it was still trying to deal with the bad crab I fed it yesterday.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 961

Someone asked me recently what I did for a living and I told them that I basically say "blah, blah, blah," using fancier words. I'm sorry that I don't have a more exalted opinion of marketing, but does it really even matter? I don't think so. I'm good at blathering though, so I'll probably continue to make a decent living.

I continually hear people say that the secret to happiness is to follow your dreams. If I took these people literally, I'd never get out of bed. Hey, I have great dreams. It's just dealing with being awake that's the problem. I continue to forge ahead though. My role models are the Energizer Bunny and George Mallory. When George was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he famously replied "because it is there." Life is like that. It is simply there.

The weather report said it was going to be 110 today. The temperature actually only got up to 106, so I guess we got lucky. It's hard to believe at this point, but last Summer was even hotter than this. I think we set an all time record high at this time last year.  I can always tell that temperatures are reaching extremes when I see tractors mowing down the native prairie grasses in the park. Emotions run high about the small patches of native prairie that still remain in Texas, so the city is very reluctant to mow. When it's this hot and dry however, the danger of brush fires are high, so the grass has to go. We saw the mowers today. Oddly I also saw several egrets following closely behind the tractors. It's amazing how adaptable animals are. I think these egrets had discovered that when the prairie grass was disturbed by the mowers, bugs and other food were much easier to catch.

I picked up a nifty little carbon fiber tripod today for my upcoming job in Las Vegas. The whole thing weighs less than two pounds and folds down to just 13.4 inches. It still holds my heavy camera steady though. Amazing!  I just love technology. I also love bacon, so I'm trying to decide where to go to breakfast tomorrow.

Scout is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 960

There are few things more frustrating than dealing with a bureaucracy. Case in point. I've been getting letters from the city for several months now, saying that Dash wasn't registered and threatening me with a big fine. Each time I get one of these letters, I call animal control and tell them that Dash is indeed properly registered and read them his current tag number. Usually, I just leave a voice mail message because it's hard to get through to city employees. Today I got lucky and ended up talking to a real animal control officer. I read her the identification number on the registration tag on Dash's collar and she said she would look it up and call me back. About twenty minutes later I got a call informing me that the tag Dash was wearing really belonged to Dot. I told the lady that this was impossible, since the dogs get their city tags at their annual exam and Dot hadn't even had her exam for 2012. The woman insisted that the tag belonged to Dot and that I needed to get another tag for Dash. I told her to call my vet and they would straighten things out. After a while I got another call from animal control. "Everything has been straightened out," the lady said. "Just put Dash's tag on Dot's collar and we'll send you another tag for Dash." "Can't you just change your records to show that the tag you currently have listed as Dot's really belongs to Dash?" "No, we can't do that," said the lady. "Dot is already registered." This conversation could have gone on all day. I just couldn't seem to get through to animal control that Dot hadn't even had her 2012 annual exam yet and couldn't possibly be registered. Oh, and the city says that Dot has already had her rabies shot too. Nope. That's not true either. The bottom line is that the city is happy now, even though things are hopelessly confused.  At least I won't get hit with a $2000 fine.

I wish our yard attracted nice little critters like hummingbirds. This year, all it seems to be attracting are wasps and spiders. There are so many spiderwebs on the hedge at the back of our yard that it looks like one of those white flocked Christmas trees. Hopefully, these spiders serve some useful purpose, because there seems to be more of them every year. Luckily the bees haven't returned this year, but we sure have plenty of wasps. There are wasp nests everywhere. I tried to spray some of these nests today without getting bitten and somehow ended up getting bug spray on my tongue. Yuk!  I went inside and immediately rinsed my mouth out. I don't think I've been poisoned or anything, but it definitely wasn't a good taste.

It was so hot at dog training class this evening that all the dogs seemed to be doing their exercises in slow motion. Everyone brought plenty of water for their dog, but the dogs weren't interested in working. Who could blame them. Unlike people, dogs are sensible creatures. I know that Dot and Dash would much rather have stayed home this evening with their noses in front of an air conditioner vent.

Snoopy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 959

Mercifully, the robo-calls and insanely negative TV ads have stopped. I don't know which of the many candidates calling the other guy a liar won today's election, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough. Maybe we'll get a brief respite before the onslaught of political advertising begins all over again. By the time November arrives, I'll probably be wishing we had a monarchy.

I finally got the company who told me that I owed them $672 a few days ago to admit they'd made a mistake. They had the audacity to tell me that they'd only received my check a few days ago. I might have bought this lame argument if there wasn't a canceled check showing that they received and cashed my payment over a month ago. These guys ought to run for public office. They've certainly got the lying part down.

Apparently, the document that I hand delivered yesterday isn't finished yet. Even though I used the exact pictures the client specified, they told me that they didn't think the photos would look this way in the finished brochure. We've got to try some new pictures now. Why is it so hard to look at the components that go into something and visualize the finished result? I can do this. A lot of people can't though. Sometimes, I think I spend half my time doing layouts that will never see the light of day, just so people will have something tangible to circle and draw lines through with their felt tip markers. It always seems to be much easier to edit something than to fill a blank page.

Did I tell you I got the job to cover the big Women's Wear Daily fashion event in Las Vegas next month? This ought to be a fun project. I'm already starting to make arrangement for interviews and location photography. Since most of my work is done staring at the same computer I use to write the blog, it's nice to get out occasionally. Who knows. Maybe the Singapore job will come through as well.

The dogs and I certainly aren't getting out quite as much as we did earlier this Spring. It is relentlessly hot outside now. Dot and Dash can't take the heat and neither can I. Our walks are shorter now, but we still make an effort. I'm ready for Fall. Believe it or not, I'm even ready for rain.

Shelby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 958

I burned some PDF files to a CD and drove them over to a client this morning. It was easier to drive across town than it would have been to explain yet again how to use YouSendIt or Unzip large files. Sometimes I worry that I could lose all my clients at the drop of a hat. None of them are very tech savvy, and most don't seem to have any use for the Internet at all. One client still prints out their website so they can read it on paper. You might think that dealing with Luddites would be stressful, but I find the old ways reassuring. Truthfully, it's still a lot easier to send a fax than it is to communicate using GoToMeeting or Evernote.

It appears like I'll never be able to completely relax when walking the dogs. There is always some sort of danger on the horizon. Last week I noticed that a guy with two aggressive dogs had moved into one of the rent houses down the street. The house where the guy lives has a very rickety back fence. I know that the previous renters who lived in this house have had their dogs escape through this fence. When I see the aggressive dogs racing around in the back yard, I have this sinking feeling that this isn't going to end well.

I just don't have a whole lot of faith in my fellow man anymore. Some of the nicest people I know are completely incompetent. On the other side of the coin, many of the most competent people are complete jerks. Where is the balance? It seems like there should be more people who are brilliant, completely practical, and nice all at the same time.

The new website I launched yesterday seems to be getting good reviews. This is a huge relief to me, because I don't think that all the king's horses and all the king's men could put the old site back together again. When I was going through the process of updating the site, I frequently became baffled by the code I wrote in 1995. What was I thinking? A lot of this code doesn't even make sense to me anymore. Of course, the Internet was different then. Most of my clients were using Windows 95 and Flash hadn't even been invented yet. Those were the days. I don't think I would even hear about PHP, API's and all the other complexities that bedevil me today until quite a few years later.

Penny is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 957

Dash was better behaved in the car today than he's been in a long, long time. It would be nice to know what causes his panic attacks, but maybe we'll never know. The only thing that I can think of is that we have finally weaned him off of the Phenobarbital he's been taking for several years. The vet wanted him to take Phenobarbital to reduce the chance of another epileptic seizure, but he hasn't had a seizure in so many years that Janet and I decided to take him off the drug. It takes a long time to get off Phenobarbital. You have to reduce the dose very gradually, so there will be no side effects. The whole process took about three months, but last week he finally had the drug completely out of his system. Maybe there is still a risk of seizures, but I think Dash is better off without having to continually deal with a powerful barbiturate in his system.

I finally completed the animal rescue website I've been renovating this afternoon and re-launched it early this evening. Doing something over again is never quite as much fun as doing it the first time. I think the makeover is actually a big improvement over the original site I designed, but I'm certain that, in my desire to simplify things, I accidentally eliminated some stuff that needed to stay. The original design evolved over a period of many years and eventually became so complex that it was difficult to navigate and almost impossible to update. This new design will be easy to update. In fact, making the site easy to modify was my primary objective. Being the webmaster of an animal rescue site is kind of like being the manager of a motel. You get new visitors almost every day.  Maybe this time around, I won't be faced with re-inventing the wheel every week.

Dot and Dash had a great time at the dog park today. I was really surprised, since it was just as hot outside as it was last Sunday. Somehow, both dogs had more energy this week and raced around like it was a Spring day. I have no idea where this burst of energy came from, but some of it must have rubbed off on me. When we got home, I mowed the grass, vacuumed the house and had enough mojo left over to finally finish the animal rescue website.

I was pleased to get a lot done today, but I don't really expect today's get-up-and-go to last through tomorrow. After all, tomorrow is Monday. You can't expect much out of a Monday. I'll dip my toe back into the muddy waters of deadlines and delays. When I pick up the phone, I'll probably get put on hold. The postman will probably bring a pile of bills as well. That's what happens on Monday's. I suspect that I'll eat cold cereal for breakfast. I never have a desire to cook on Monday's. I don't have a desire to do much of anything on Monday.

Tink is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 956

If you work in customer service, I apologize in advance. Probably the next time I talk with you, I'm going to be angry. Why? Because customer service can't seem to solve customer problems anymore. It doesn't matter if I'm talking to tech support about a website problem, or to my bank about an erroneous charge on my statement. Whatever the problem happens to be, it doesn't get solved. Today, I got a bill for $672 that was paid in full several months ago. I have the canceled checks from my bank that prove I paid the bill. The canceled checks don't seem to resolve anything though. I just keep getting billed again and again. Customer service agents probably don't even listen anymore. If I got screamed at eight hours a day for ineptness and broken promises, I probably wouldn't listen  either. What a horrible job being a customer service representative must be. You don't really have the authority to do anything, or fix anything, but you've still got to be friendly and keep saying "I understand" over and over again.

Janet had a similar problem last night making airline reservations. She got a brochure in the mail promising a special discount, but when she entered the promotion code on the airline website, it refused to take it. A friendly customer service representative said that the discount was real and that the promotion code should work.  Unfortunately, it didn't. I suggested just calling the airline and making reservations the old fashioned way. You know what was wrong with that plan?  The airline charges more for tickets if you talk to a real person. Catch-22. The extra charges for talking with a real live person would just about negate the discount anyway.

I'm increasingly convinced that the world is just broken. There is an election in Texas next Tuesday and as voting day approaches, there has been a relentless barrage of TV ads and robo-calls from all the candidates. The message is simple. All the candidates are essentially just saying "my opponent is a liar."  Enough already!  Maybe you're all liars, but after listening to all these negative commercials, I don't think I want to vote for any of you.

At least the dogs continue to bring pleasure.  Dot's visions isn't so good, and for the past several weeks she's been thinking that an old burned fireplace log in the neighbor's driveway is actually the neighbor's cat.  The log and the cat are about the same size and both are black, but that is the only resemblance. She has been so frantic to chase the log that I let her get up close to it today. She was so embarrassed to discover that the cat she wanted to chase was just a piece of wood that now she won't go anywhere near it.

We go to the dog park tomorrow. The sight of happy dogs playing brings a smile to my face as well.

Queenie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 955

I saw a woman make the sign of the cross before diving into a humongous platter of food this morning. I don't know whether she was blessing the food, or asking for God's assistance in finishing her plate. Yes, you guessed it. I went back to the restaurant with good bacon today. I often overhear people talking about losing weight in this restaurant, but I seldom see thin people. I guess we all have good intentions. I didn't notice whether the woman invoking God finished her plate, but I certainly finished mine. Bacon tastes even better when you haven't had any for several weeks.

Do you ever have days when you feel you are literally drowning in e-mail? Today was one of those days. Every time I tried to answer a question, it seemed to generate two more questions. I never did manage to get all the questions answered. Lots of the mail I received had pictures attached. The pictures were supposed to go on various websites, but as you might expect, none of them were the right size or format. I used to work myself into a panic and ruin my weekends in an effort to get these Friday afternoon assignments off my desk. Now, I just save most of the work until Monday. I can usually work in peace on Mondays, while everyone else is having staff meetings.

I don't know about you, but I'm ready for Summer to be over. It's too hot to walk the dogs unless I get them out really early in the mornings. The grass is drying up because of the city's watering restrictions. The air conditioner runs constantly now. I don't even want to see what this month's electric bill is going to be. I think people are generally in a better mood in the Winter as well. The phrase "hot and bothered" isn't just an expression, it's the literal truth.

At least it's Friday. Despite the heat, that's good enough for me. Hey, the stock market was up today. My clients all seem happy. Janet and I had a delicious dinner tonight. As far as I'm concerned, all is well with the world.

Deuce is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 954

It's weird that after all these years, certain things still baffle me about HTML. Today, I noticed that when I inserted a rather ordinary nested table into a page I was working on, the entire page shifted a few pixels to the left. If I took the table out again, everything would shift back to the right. Obviously, there was something wrong in the code, but I just couldn't find it. Maybe it was something as small as a single misplaced tag. I wasted a huge amount of time looking for discrepancies, but the table itself seemed to work perfectly. I finally gave up and inserted a similar invisible table in all the other pages on the site, so everything would shift a few pixels to the left. The site looks and works perfectly now, but two or three years from now I won't have a clue why this particular website has tables with nothing in them strewn all over the place.

Project Runway is back. It's hard to believe that this show has been on the air for ten seasons now. Back when I still drank alcohol, Janet and I would have Martinis while we watched the show. I never cared much for shows like Survivor or even American Idol, but Project Runway was always one of my favorites. As contrived contests go, this one seemed pretty genuine. I can hear the show off in the distance on the TV in the kitchen as I write this. Janet must be watching. I've got to finish the blog first. The show's not the same without a Martini or Cosmopolitan in my hand anyway. I only watch TV during breakfast now. A long leisurily breakfast has become my one remaining luxury.

I read something recently that said dead Blue Jays were a sign that the West Nile Virus might be in the area. I saw a dead Blue Jay this afternoon while I was walking the dogs. Actually, you see quite a few dead birds if you are walking in the woods, but mosquitoes are bad this year and I'm starting to get nervous about the West Nile Virus. That's all I need on top of everything else that's wrong with me. Thinking you're not going to get bit by a mosquito in the South is ridiculous though. There are millions and millions of the little bugs and even if you spray a whole can of Off® on your arms and legs, you're still going to get bit occasionally.

I'm already looking forward to my regular Friday breakfast outing. The trash has been taken out to the curb. All my e-mail has been answered. It's been so hot this week that I even went up on the roof today to look for tiny cracks. I found some too. All in all, it's been a very productive week. I'm ready for bacon now.

Smokey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 953

What a weird day. I finally arranged a meeting with the client who unceremoniously dumped me earlier this month. I wanted to find out what had happened. Before I could even get a word in edgewise about how shabbily they had treated me, my former client started asking me how they could get the website back to the way it used to be. Apparently, the new guys had made such a mess of things in just two weeks that the client wanted to hire me back. This was certainly fine by me. The whole meeting had kind of a "let's just forget this ever happened" tone to it. That was fine too. I've been in situations where I felt like saying "let's just forget this ever happened" myself.

It looks like I got the job to cover the big fashion event in Las Vegas too. I may be doing a lot more than I thought I would, but it doesn't really matter, since I'll be working on a day rate. I'm used to being busy and I'll get as much done as I possibly can in eight hours.

I'm making good progress on the animal rescue site I'm currently revamping. This new site will be a lot simpler and easier to navigate than the site I initially designed over twelve years ago. One thing that I've learned over the years is that people don't really care how clever you are. They just want to find what they are looking for as fast as possible. Sure, it's nice to have a pretty looking site, but that's not usually why people are visiting. Hopefully, this new version I'm designing will connect stray dogs and cats with potential new owners even better than the original version.

Training class was kind of a mess tonight. Our teacher was gone for some reason and nobody else seemed to want to step up to the plate and lead the class in his absence. Dash and I certainly didn't help matters any. We didn't want to lead the class any more than anyone else did. Somehow, we managed to muddle through most of the exercises anyway. Dash actually did pretty well tonight. He's a self-starter. Since he never listens to me anyway, he was right in his element with a leaderless class.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 952

What is wrong with the world these days? We have become so fragmented and divisive that I feel like I can't even leave the house without someone asking me to choose sides. Everyone seems to have selected something to be passionate about, to the exclusion of everything else. In animal rescue circles I see people so passionate about spay and neuter programs that they wouldn't even consider that breeders might be good people too. Personally, I like the fact that there are Beagles and Poodles and Dalmatians. Responsible breeders are good pet owners too, but don't try to tell that to a spay and neuter zealot. They'll cut your balls off.

I heard recently that astronaut Sally Ride had died. By the time the news had made its way to Google+ it had turned into a heated argument about gay rights. Give it a rest guys. Sally Ride was always a very private person about her personal life. I think she would have preferred that people just say "Rest in peace."

Don't even get me started about religion. If there is a god who is smart enough to have created the universe, do you really think he'd approve of 37 different religions using his name to ridicule, diminish and even kill each other? I don't think so. Christians. Jews. Hindus. Muslims. Buddhists. Libertarians. Scientologists. All of you have a point, but you are only looking at part of the picture.

Maybe the polarized, divisive nature of today's society is what has caused me to become a bit reclusive. I used to be quite social, but it just isn't enjoyable anymore. People are always asking me to choose sides. I prefer the company of dogs these days. Hard work and dogs seem to make a lot more sense than arguing about health care and the middle east.

Today was all about hard work and dogs. I took Dash to the vet for his bi-weekly antigen shot and then I hauled a ton of brush and tree branches out the street for this month's "big trash" day. I think the bulky trash truck comes by tomorrow. Hopefully, it didn't come yesterday.  Oh, I did some website work too, but that doesn't even begin to compare to hauling several hundred pounds of wood out to the street.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 951

I started work on another website project today. Even though designing and maintaining websites is an important part of my business, I'm starting to wonder if they even matter anymore. A lot of people I know think that Facebook is the Internet and never go anywhere else. I've found that I've been able to reach more people in a single year using Twitter than I have during the previous ten years using my own company website. There is nothing remarkable about websites anymore. They have become just the same as the boatloads of printed brochures and collateral material I used to write before the Internet became popular. I wonder what the next big thing is going to be? I've made my living for many years by becoming an early adopter of whatever was new and fabulous. Unfortunately, I don't have a good feel for what is coming next anymore. Even worse, I'm starting to long for simpler times.

I'm starting to long for Winter as well. The heat has become relentless. The air conditioner never stops now. Even at night, the AC can't seem to manage to cool the house down to a comfortable 75 degrees. This Spring, I really thought we might have a mild Summer. Hey, we actually did have a mild Winter. It seemed perfectly plausible that an equally mild Summer would follow. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen. Summer is half over now, and it is very, very hot.

I'm not taking nearly as many photographs anymore. The vegetation in the park is dry and brown. The animals are all in hiding under the nearest shady bush. Even the lighting is too harsh for pretty pictures. I guess I could still wait until sunset, but I prefer Spring and Fall when the sun is running on my schedule. When the last of the Spring wildflowers die, I don't know what I'm going to photograph on our daily walks.

Dash threw up again last night. I have no idea why he does this periodically. I've taken him to the vet several times and they can't find anything wrong. He eats exactly the same food as Dot, who never throws up. He doesn't get into the garbage or eat dead things either. It's all a mystery to me. When he does throw up, it's always on the carpet too. There are plenty of easy-to-clean brick floors nearby, but he seems to prefer the carpet. As soon as he's made a mess of things, he goes right back to sleep and everything's fine. It's enough to make me want to throw up.

Jewel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 950

Dot and Dash got to go to a Dalmatian Rescue event today. To ensure that they would be good little ambassadors when we arrived at the Petco store, they both got a long walk and a trip to the dog park first. When we take the dogs to rescue events, people inevitably tell us that they've never seen Dalmatians that are so calm. It's not rocket science. Any dog that has walked for several miles and then raced around a dog park a few hours later is going to be pretty calm.

The trip to the dog park and the rescue event took up quite a bit of time, so it was a good thing we got a lot of our weekend errands done yesterday. It was way too hot to do outdoor chores anyway. With triple digit temperatures outside, even the thought of going back to work in the office didn't seem so bad. I finished the afternoon updating a website and then writing another watch article.

I think next week is when the city comes by to haul away brush and old furniture. This means I'd better get busy tomorrow and haul all the tree branches I trimmed a few weeks ago out to the street. If I miss the pick-up day, I'll have to wait an entire month before the truck returns again. Maybe I should look on Angie's List and find someone to do this sort of thing for me. I just signed up for Angie's List a few days ago when I saw a 60% Off sign-up special on the Paypal website. I haven't used the list yet and have my suspicions about all the reviews being genuine, but I bet I'll use it soon enough. I just can't find anyone reliable to recommend things like doctors and contractors anymore. When I worked in an office, there seemed to be an endless stream of recommendations from co-workers whenever I went to the break room to get a cup of coffee. Now, I work alone and the Dalmatians aren't talking. I just don't know who to trust anymore.

Things usually slow down in the Summer, but somehow I still find myself with a ton of website work to complete. I did manage to re-launch the big site I've been working on lately last Friday, but there's another that I haven't even started on yet. I think Monday would be a good time to start.

Pongo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day