Day 276

I had to go out to Bexel again today to pick up some equipment for an upcoming video shoot and on the way home I found myself caught in rush hour traffic with a beautiful white Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder in front of me and a rusty old beater behind me that had plastic bags duct taped to the door to cover a broken window. This stark contrast pretty well sums up Dallas these days. Even though Northpark has transformed itself into a Texas version of Rodeo Drive, there are still plenty of nearby Wall Marts filled with people buying groceries with their Lone Star Cards.

I kind of straddle both worlds. On a slow month, I could easily qualify for public assistance myself, but I would never consider it in my wildest dreams. I think everyone needs to earn their own way in this world. I'm convinced that absolutely anyone can be successful. There isn't really any secret to success. It's mostly just hard work. I remember one of my first supervisors telling me that it was important that I always acted professional in everything I did. I asked him what "professional" meant and he said "it's the ability to do good work when you're having a bad day." It's really that simple. I never forgot that.

I don't know whether the woman driving the Lamborghini Gallardo Spyder in front of me got the car through hard work or not. There's probably an interesting story though. There aren't very many of these cars in the entire country. I do know that Aerosmith drummer Joey Kramer was the first person in America to buy one. I think Top Gear's Jeremy Clarkson has one too. Hard worker or not, I'm sure the woman in the Lamborghini had a valid driver's license, which is a lot more than I could say for the driver in the beater behind me.

When I got home I still had work to do. Somehow all my Thursday website work has gradually slipped to Friday. I was busy today. Initially, these recurring website updates started coming to me on Tuesday, so maybe if I wait long enough they will continue to slip all the way back to Tuesday again. I used to be bothered by all these delays, but I'm slowly learning to love them. I've always though of myself as fairly slow, but if the rest of the world is even slower, it makes me look good.

I've almost had the iPhone a month now. I take it everywhere. I use the GPS maps to find client meetings quickly when I'm running late. I use the weather radar to find little dry pockets to walk the dogs on rainy days. I even used the petCam today to check on Dot and Dash while I was out at the Bexel offices. There's only one thing I haven't done with the phone yet. I haven't called anyone. I guess I'm not a typical cell phone user.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 275

Yay! I finally got the petCam to work. You might wonder why I even need a petCam. I rarely go anywhere and the dogs are seldom more than two feet away. Some people call Dalmatians the Velcro dogs because they always seem to be glued to your side. There's a much bigger chance of me stepping on them while they're under my desk than needing to watch them from across town on my iPhone. Nevertheless, I had to have the petCam.

This is so typical of me. I'll spend untold hours fiddling with things that are absolutely useless in my daily life and then run out of time to do the essentials. I did manage to learn a few things about wireless networks and port forwarding during my struggle to master streaming video, but if history is any guide, I'll be quick to forget everything again. If the petCam ever quits working, I'm sure it will take me just as long to figure it out a second time as it did the first.

Project Runway was interesting tonight. The challenge for the contestants was to create a sportswear look inspired by Jackie Kennedy. Nobody seemed to have a clue about Jackie Kennedy or fashion in the 60's. Even Mondo's winning look somehow missed the mark. I can't imagine Jackie wearing anything I saw tonight. I know the whole idea was to use Jackie as a muse and then update the look to make it "fashion forward." How can you update something you don't even understand though? The 60's could just as well been medieval England to these guys. The judges weren't very kind this evening, but they were kinder than I would have been. I would have sent several people home.

David, the neighborhood jeweler, called this afternoon and said he'd managed to repair the little Russian pendant watch I gave him last month. I probably shouldn't have even bothered to have the watch fixed since it isn't worth much, but I like to see things working. The watch is just another version of the petCam story. I'm fascinated with watches, but I don't even care what time it is. I'm late everywhere I go.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 274

Today was uneventful. Generally, I like uneventful. I paid my quarterly estimated income taxes. I updated several websites. I corresponded with clients about upcoming jobs and ongoing problems. Days like this are peaceful. I keep myself busy, but I seldom talk to anyone. When there are no emergencies or fires to put out, I usually have time to fix myself pancakes for breakfast, do a load or two of laundry and play with the dogs for a while in between my webmaster chores.

One odd thing happened today. When I was walking the dogs this morning, I started seeing swirling abstract colored shapes in my field of vision. I would close my eyes and the colors would still be there. I could see the dogs walking ahead of me, but it felt like someone had overlaid a second layer of stuff over what I was looking at. The sensation went away in about fifteen minutes, but it was a little unsettling. I hope I don't start having eye problems. There's certainly enough wrong with me already. My Dad had macular degeneration when he got older and that is certainly not anything to look forward to. Maybe it's nothing. I think my eyes were probably just tired. I used to have perfect vision, but years of staring at computer monitors have taken their toll.

Since we've missed our dog training class for two weeks in a row due to bad weather, I didn't think that Dot and Dash would do well tonight. Dot actually had a good night, but Dash wasn't all that obedient. He seldom is. Dash was too excited seeing all the other dogs again tonight to concentrate on anything. You'd think that both dogs would be perfectly trained after all these Wednesday classes, but Dash still doesn't even come when he's called half the time.

Maybe I can actually get caught up tomorrow. I'm getting closer and closer to catching up on all the unfinished jobs I'm working on. Who knows. I might have time to clean up the office a bit. I doubt that I'll have time to read a book, but that would be nice too. It seems like ages since I've found time to read a book.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 273

I'm angry. I talked to three different doctors today and none of them would agree to give me the Peginterferon injections in their offices. I've been a patient of all of these doctors. They have large clinics with well trained nurses and proper refrigeration to store the anti-viral drugs. I've received shots for everything from dog bites to poison ivy from these doctors, but for some reason none of them want to give me these particular shots. When I ask them why, they just say that it isn't done that way. Something is very fishy about all this. Why would a clinic that gives all manner of shots day in and day out, refuse to give this particular shot? Even the doctor who prescribed the treatment wants me to give myself the injections.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I suspect it has something to do with money. It always comes down to money in the end. Either the drug is dangerous and the doctors don't want to assume the liability if something goes wrong, or the manufacturer is charging them just as much for the drug as they are trying to charge me. I'm sure everybody would rather have me pick up the tab. Either way, it doesn't seem fair. I hate these Catch-22 situations. My health insurance company says that if I can get my doctors to give me the treatment in their offices, all I will have to pay is a normal co-pay. The doctors say that if I had better insurance, the prescription drug charges wouldn't be a big deal anyway. It is a big deal though. It's $1400 per month vs. $75 a month for treatment that could last up to a year.

Janet, as always, takes a more pragmatic view of the whole situation. I asked her what she thought and she said "What's the point of trying so hard to hang on to your money if your only alternative is being dead?" She makes a good point, but I still think I'm being ripped off.

I told the Germans that I'd like to accept the writing assignment in Alberta. Hopefully, we can get the travel itinerary worked out quickly, so I won't be fretting about money for the rest of the month. I never used to care about airfares and hotel bills when my clients routinely picked up the tab. Now that I am expected to build travel charges into my bid, all these additional costs can be confusing. I've occasionally lost money on jobs by not keeping a good handle on travel costs. To add to the complications, I will be spending US dollars and Canadian dollars for travel expenses, but I will get paid in Euros. I'm not even sure if this is a good thing or a bad thing. Hey, it's a job though. In this economy, just about any job is a good job.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 272

I think I put my plumber's kid through college today. My plumbing problems were worse than I anticipated, but at the end of a rather long day, just about everything is fixed. I thought I was going to have to replace the garbage disposal, but it turned out that nothing was wrong with it. The basic problem was that all the plumbing lines in the entire house were filled with years and years of gunk. After snaking out all the plumbing lines, I had the plumber take a look at my ailing Moen faucet. Three plumbers in a row have refused to touch the thing, since parts are no longer available. This guy was good though. He managed to put together a working faucet from parts I had saved from various broken faucets I've accumulated over the years from my rent property. Since both houses are the same mid-century modern architecture, they share a lot of the same hardware. I was delighted to have the vintage faucet working again, so I went from room to room, asking the plumber to fix everything that had water running through it. I learned a long time ago that when you find a good plumber, you've got to take advantage of it.

I actually enjoy having plumbers over to the house. I usually learn something from them and often I can help them out as well because we often discover that I have a better selection of tools than they do. Today's plumber even liked dogs, which was definitely a good thing since Dot barked almost the entire time he was at the house.

Plumbers, electricians and HVAC repairmen seem to take pride in their work and are usually very knowledgeable. The fact that they have to be certified and pass certain tests in order to work in the state of Texas automatically puts them several levels above roofing contractors and tile guys. I've generally had good experiences with plumbers and feel comfortable recommending them to friends. Roofers are an entirely different kettle of fish. Maybe there's a good roofer out there somewhere, but I've never met one. As far as I'm concerned, they're all worthless. It's really too bad that plumbers don't fix roof leaks. I'm sure they'd do a much better job than all the roofing contractors I've tried.

I got an e-mail today from one of my German clients asking if I'd like to fly to Alberta and interview some people for an article they'd like me to write about a large gas pipeline project they're involved with. Sure, why not? It's only a seven hour flight, plus another four hours of driving even further north from the Edmonton airport. Actually the project sounds fun. I hate to have to front the travel costs for a project like this, but my client is pretty good about paying expenses quickly. If I get my invoices in in a hurry, they might even pay before my travel bills arrive. I'm going to tell them I'd like to take the assignment. I really need to start writing for the corporate folks again. I used to make a real good living doing this sort of thing. I can tell you from experience that writing pays much better than designing websites.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 271

I was fretting about a weird router problem that was preventing video streams from getting out to the Internet until the garbage disposal broke and flooded the kitchen with gallons of water. Plumbing problems are a good reality check. A clogged drain or a broken toilet can quickly make just about any computer problem seem trivial. Calling a plumber has quickly risen to the top of tomorrow's "to do" list. Even though I have a tendency to postpone things like going to the dentist, I'm always quick to call a plumber. There's nothing like having a lot of water in the wrong places for ruining your day.

Plumbing problems notwithstanding, today was actually pretty hard to ruin. For the most part, it was a very pleasant day. The current  batch of Dalmatian Rescue dogs are coming along nicely. Each time we see them, they seem healthier and better socialized. Dash seems to be getting used to riding in the car too. When we took our own dogs up to the Wagging Tail dog park this afternoon, Dash didn't whine much at all. Actually, the only time there was a problem was when he lost his tennis ball under the driver's seat and started barking incessantly to get it back. He does this at home too, but it's a lot easier to retrieve a ball from under the bed than from an inaccessible part of the car when you're on a freeway.

Eventually we made it to the park and the dogs had a lot of fun racing around and sniffing other dogs. Now that the weather is finally starting to get a bit cooler, the outdoor dog parks are becoming more enjoyable. I still miss Unleashed, but it's safe to say that there's probably not going to be another indoor dog park in Dallas for a long time. After someone loses a lot of money on a new idea, there are very few people who want to try the same thing again.

I wish I could find a plumber who could repair all the water related problems in the house, but that would be a lot to ask. There's the persistent roof leak, the shower pan that needs to be re-tiled, an old Moen faucet that needs a new and totally non-existent cartridge, a trap on a bathroom sink that is close to rusting through, a toilet float that gets stuck, and an ice maker inside the refrigerator that doesn't make much ice anymore. If this is starting to sound suspiciously like one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" lists, that isn't what I had in mind. The kitchen sink is actually the biggest problem right now. We need someone to fix everything and the kitchen sink.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 270 - 9/11

It's hard to believe that it's been nine years since the towers fell. It still seems like yesterday. This is one of those days that will be etched in my memory forever. I'll always remember a day when another teacher came into my high school English class in Fairbanks, Alaska and told us that president Kennedy had just been shot. I'll always remember a day watching a small television screen in the student union at the University of Arkansas as Neil Armstrong set foot on the surface of the moon. And I'll always remember eating breakfast in my own home and looking up at the television in the kitchen to see smoke billowing from the South tower of the World Trade center. I was watching the Today Show on NBC. At first nobody know what was happening, but it wasn't that long before a second plane flew into the North tower on live television and the world changed forever.

It was difficult to believe that what I was seeing was real. I'd been inside these buildings. I'd ridden the elevators to the roof and looked out over the New York skyline. Just a year or two before the towers fell, I remember taking a picture of them from my hotel room at the UN Plaza. It was just after sunset and the buildings were lit up and full of activity. In an instant, all that was gone.

One week after September 11, I flew to Germany on a business trip. There were lots of people with guns in all the airports and most of the passengers on the Lufthansa flight with me seemed nervous. I could tell that something had fundamentally changed, but I didn't realize just how much had changed until a long time later. Before the towers fell, I used to travel frequently on business. Now, I sit in a small room and conduct virtually all my activities over the Internet. I used to think that my career was important, but I got involved with Dalmatian Rescue shortly after September 11 and now my live is centered around dogs.

I don't really trust people anymore. I certainly don't trust politicians. I don't trust "humanists" either. Politicians are full of promises, but I don't think they really have the capacity to bring us world peace, or fix the economy. Politicians and humanists who think mankind can do anything it wants need to do some basic reading about probability theory and stochastic processes. The universe is a lot more complex and random than they'd like to believe. On days like today, I often think those people who put "Shit Happens" bumper stickers on their cars have a better grasp of how the world really works than our leaders do.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 269

Do you ever feel like you're just treading water? It happens to me a lot. The day isn't a disaster or anything, but it's hard not to feel like Davy Crockett at the Alamo. At the end of the day, all you've done is postpone the inevitable for one more day. Today I fought the clogging production printer again. I just about gave up and hauled the ailing machine out to the curb for the trash truck to pick up, but it finally stopped giving me error messages and printed the large poster I needed. I wonder how long I can keep nursing this thing along? The printer is kind of like my Beta-SP camera. It produces beautiful results when I eventually get it working, but it's old, parts are expensive and nobody wants to support it anymore. Until I can afford a new printer, all I can do is keep on trying to keep the cranky thing working.

I guess I've got to keep trying to get my medical problems resolved as well. I made an appointment to see my regular doctor today and hopefully, he'll be able to help me get my insurance problems with the Peginterferon ironed out. I need to make an appointment with Dash's vet as well to see if we can finally resolve his skin problems. Everyone thought the bronzing condition was caused by a bacterial infection in his hair follicles, but maybe it's allergies instead. The problem does seem to be seasonal. Dalmatians frequently have bad allergy problems and that's about the only thing I still haven't tested him for.

One good thing did happen today. I managed to launch the medical clinic website a week ahead of schedule. This leaves me with only one more website still in the development stages. Probably in two or three weeks, I'll be finished with everything. It's been nice to have a full plate this Summer, but the busy days are winding to a close. It's probably time for me to start pounding the pavement again and drum up some new business.

This weekend, it's time for me to spin the roulette wheel again. Dalmatian Rescue is having another Casino Party fundraiser. I've done these things so often now that I could almost be a casino dealer in my sleep. As long as I don't fall asleep at the wheel, I'll be OK.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 268

I don't understand health insurance. Did you know that the same treatment can end up having wildly different costs, just depending on whether your medicine is administered to you in a doctor's office or if you take it yourself at home. Which is more expensive? Not what you might think. My insurance usually pays 90% of in-plan medical expenses after I meet my deductible. It only pays 50% of my prescription drug cost, however. Why does this even matter?  Well, if I get the Peginterferon I need at my neighborhood pharmacy, I pay a small fortune for it. If I go to the doctor and get them to give me the shot instead, I just pay a regular co-pay. This seems totally crazy to me. Why should the exactly same medicine have one price if it is coded for health insurance as "necessary medical procedure" and a much higher price if it is coded as "prescription drugs?" I'm still trying to get my doctor to just order the medicine and give me the shots in his office. It's an uphill battle though. Everyone seems to want me to take the more expensive route. Even if the drug wasn't so expensive, I wouldn't want to give myself these shots at home anyway. I hate the sight of needles.

Peginterferon prices weren't the only thing that didn't make sense today. I bought some new Anton Bauer batteries last week for my Beta-SP camera. They look just like my old batteries and work just fine in my camera. There is only one tiny little problem. I can't recharge them! The manufacturer has changed the design of the battery so that it can only be recharged using their newest digital battery chargers. Why? I already have a perfectly good Anton Bauer quad charger.  Why should I have to pay $500 to get another one?

I guess it doesn't make sense either that if I was classified as an "existing customer," I could get in to see my dentist in three days, but now that I'm classified as a "new customer," I need to wait three weeks. This doesn't bother me nearly as much as the impossible to charge batteries though, because I need the batteries now and I'd just as soon wait to see the dentist.

I can't even figure out why Dash's coat is turning brown again. I thought we'd solved his skin problems, since his coat was looking so good earlier this Summer. We haven't changed his food. He's still using the same medicated shampoo. Nothing has changed at all, but the bronzing has reappeared again.

Oh, and one more thing that doesn't make any sense. Apple has made a big deal recently out of telling everyone that all the apps available for the iPhone will automatically work on the iPad. Why is this just a one way street?  iPad apps definitely don't automatically work on the iPhone. Life is just too complicated sometimes.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 267

It rained hard all night. Much to my amazement, there were no puddles of water on the floor when I got up this morning. Finally, my roof repairs seem to have worked. My luck didn't last long however. While I was eating breakfast, the power went out. There were so many power outages due to the weather that we were without electricity for most of the day. Needless to say, this slowed everything down a bit.

When we lose power, the computers are down, the Internet is down, the answering machine doesn't work and the dogs are restless. You can still take a shower and wash the dishes because we've got a gas water heater, but that's about it. The house is so dark without electricity that I went out several years ago and bought several fluorescent camping lanterns. These lanterns are surprisingly bright and usually allow me to read or get a little work done with a pad and paper. Not this year. We store the lights outside on the porch in a big hamper with the leaf blowers and other garden tools. When I went to get the lanterns, I discovered that rain had gotten into the box and the lanterns were sitting in several inches of water. This wasn't water from today's rain either. It was brownish standing water from a long time ago. The batteries were a rusty, gooey mess and none of the lamps worked. Since there wasn't much else I could do anyway, I spent the next several hours trying to remove the rust and battery acid from the lanterns and get them working again. When I finally got the lights functioning, the power came back on.

It's a good thing we have electricity again too, because I think I used up all the clean bath towels drying off wet dogs today. Before I went to Northpark to get my hair cut, I took advantage of a brief break in the stormy weather to walk the dogs. Both Dot and Dash absolutely refuse to do their business in the yard when it rains and grow increasingly frantic when it becomes apparent that I can't make the rain stop. I'm sure they think I control the rain, just like I can open doors and turn on light switches. I've learned to check the weather radar frequently on days like this to find little windows of time when I can get the dogs out to their favorite places to pee. Since there was no electricity today, I ran the battery down on my iPad checking the weather radar. I didn't have enough power left to check my e-mail,  but the dogs did get to do their business.

I thought we sere home free on the way home from our walk, because I saw the sun starting to peek through the clouds a bit. That certainly didn't last long. As soon as we got back to the house, I started hearing the emergency sirens going off all over the neighborhood. I turned on the radio and discovered there was a tornado headed our way. I gathered the dogs together and we waited out the storm in the one little hallway that might have a chance of surviving a tornado. Glass houses and storms aren't usually a good mix. The tornado actually did touch down in several parts of town, but luckily the wall cloud veered off and headed north before it got to our house.

Everything is back to normal now. We've got electricity. The rain has stopped. I'm a little behind on my website work, but I do have two working storm lanterns.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 266

It sure would have been nice if the Labor Day weekend was a four day holiday. Nothing went very smoothly today. It was a very rainy day for starters. The remnants of hurricane Hermine have finally arrived in Dallas and although it is no longer much of a storm, it is certainly wet. A lot of time was eaten up this morning cleaning wet dogs and sweeping water off the roof. When I finally was able to get down to business, I discovered that my client's missing website still hasn't reappeared. The DNS is pointed at the correct servers now but the site is still missing in action. Everyone seemed missing in action today. Several people left urgent messages on my voicemail while I was walking the dogs, but when I returned their calls, I kept getting those irritating automated systems that won't let you talk to anyone.

I finally got tired of listening to the endless "if you want to talk to someone in human resources press 3, if you want to talk to someone in billing, press 4" messages, so I just got in my car and drove over to the clients offices. Surprisingly, this is often the fastest way to handle something. Isn't technology wonderful?  It's actually easier to drive across town and go see someone in person than it is to get them on the phone.

This plan worked pretty well, so on the way home from my client's office I stopped by one of my doctors to try and resolve an insurance problem the same way. I should have known better. Insurance problems can never be resolved with a simple conversation. You have to send at least twelve letters back and forth and get a third party involved before anything even starts to happen.

I was real proud of myself for finally making an appointment to see the dentist today.  I guess the dogs shamed me into making the call. Their teeth look better than mine do now. Unfortunately, my dental appointment isn't until October. My dentist asked if I was in pain and then proceeded to tell me that it had been so long since my last visit that I was going to have to be treated as a new patient again. The first available appointment for new patients was October 4. I guess it's a good thing I wasn't in pain. Actually, I wasn't all that upset about the long delay because I didn't really want to see the dentist in the first place.

I had a lot easier time making a hair appointment for tomorrow. That's probably because I see Betty every month for a haircut and it's been ten years since I've been to see the dentist.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 265 - Labor Day

In honor of Labor Day, I spent most of the day laboring to make the yard, the house and even the cars look a little nicer. I used to get a certain degree of satisfaction from doing these sort of cleaning and straightening tasks, but now most of them seem like a lost cause. I'm never going to get the yard looking great. I've put in new Bermuda grass four times already and within a single season the Johnson Grass and Chickweed seeds blow in from the park and establish themselves all over again. The only way to get rid of the weeds is either to spend an enormous amount of time working in the yard, or to use strong chemicals to kill them. I won't use chemicals because of the dogs and I don't have all that much time to spare, so I end up just mowing the weeds.

I finally repaired the broken door to the greenhouse even though it involved yet another trip to Home Depot to buy the fasteners I needed. I've bought these fasteners three times already, but I always lose them before I get around to making the repairs. This time, I repaired the door immediately after I got home from Home Depot, so the parts wouldn't have time to disappear again. Fixing the greenhouse is another lost cause. Every time I try to grow something, critters from the park will get inside and eat the plants. What the rats don't eat, the squirrels will. I don't know how the animals manage to get inside the building, but they always find a way.

I also got some Meguiar's Fine Cut Cleaner and polished out all the little dings and paint scrapes on our cars. This is just about as futile as trying to get rid of weeds in the yard. The cars look great now, but the next time either of us goes to the mall, someone is sure to roll a shopping cart into the car or scrape something with their door in a tight parking spot. It's just part of living in a city. Look at the cars all around you the next time you go grocery shopping. Every single one of them is full of little dings.

When the cars were clean and polished, we drove up to K-9 University to walk the Dalmatian Rescue dogs again. The kennel is closed on holidays, so if we don't go up there, the dogs just sit in their cages all day. Not surprisingly, the Dalmatians were glad to see us. "Wild" might be a better word to describe them. We gave them each a nice long walk and headed home again.

On the way back, Janet needed to pick something up at one of those humongous mega Wall Mart stores. I hate to even go inside those stores. They're always crowded, and when you're ready to check out, there's inevitably someone ahead of you in line who is trying to pay for their stuff with an expired credit card. Today it was someone who dumped an entire purse full of coupons on the counter and expected the cashier to give her credit for every single one of them. It took forever. I'd much rather pay a little more somewhere else in exchange for keeping my sanity.

Even though nothing much happened, the three day holiday zipped by way too fast. Tomorrow, it's back to solving website problems and paying bills again. I have a feeling that work is just as much of a lost cause as keeping weeds out of the yard.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 264

The park was filled with holiday picnickers today. I've spent so many years walking through this park with my dogs that I know every inch of it. Sometimes I feel like telling people "Hey, you're eating your lunch where all the snakes are." or "Your kids are going to have a real bad case of poison ivy in two or three days if they keep playing over there." I usually just mind my own business though and walk on by. Nobody would listen to me anyway. Everyone has their own ideas about the perfect place for a picnic. I guess if you spread your blanket right over the top of a fire ant mound, you'll learn to try somewhere else the next time.

Janet and I thought we'd try something else when we washed the dogs this week. We switched dogs. The theory was that maybe Dash would be better behaved with Janet. Nope. Same old bad Dash. He just hates a bath and it doesn't seem to matter who is bathing him. It is nice to have clean dogs though. Especially when they insist on sleeping on the bed with you.

I was tired all day. Probably I just didn't get enough sleep. I should learn to turn off the TV when I'm ready to go to bed. All too frequently, I'll start absentmindedly channel surfing instead and end up staying up even later. Last night I happened to find a Dr. Who marathon around midnight. I ended up watching three shows in a row. I'd seen these shows before, but they were good ones and I enjoyed watched them again. Sadly, I'm the same way with books. I'd probably do just fine with ten or twelve books. By the time I finished the tenth book, the first one would seem fresh and new again. My mind is kind of like a continuous tape loop that goes round-and-round recording something and then erasing it a little later. This isn't necessarily a bad thing though. My poor memory and short attention span have probably actually helped me in advertising. Even though clients come to me over and over again with essentially the same problem, it always seems new to me. You'll never become stale if you have to keep reinventing the wheel every time you do something.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 263

When I was running errands today, the odometer on the Land Rover crossed over into uncharted territory. I've driven the car 100,000 miles. I've never kept a car this long before. In the past, I've typically traded my cars in on something new before they reached 40,000 miles. Times have changed though. The heady days when I thought it was necessary for some inexplicable reason to own three cars at the same time are long gone. Cars are more expensive now. I don't drive as much as I used to. And perhaps most importantly, I really like this car. After all these years, the Defender 90 is still cool. Even if I could afford something new, I'm not sure what could replace this iconic piece of machinery. I just wish I was as good at picking stocks as I seem to be at picking cars. Every car I've ever owned was worth more when I sold it than when it was new. Strangers still walk up to me in parking lots and want to buy the Defender. These cars have become quite desirable, but sadly vehicles like this are no longer imported into the United States. No airbags. Isn't that silly? Why would you even want airbags in an off-road vehicle anyway?

I got all sorts of minor technical issues resolved today. Yesterday's lost website has been found. Someone just moved the DNS to a server that didn't exist. All I need to do now is point the DNS to the correct servers and the site will reappear again. I was dreading getting this problem resolved, because it involved a call to GoDaddy tech support. I'll have to give credit where credit is due however. Even though they still don't have a toll-free support line, GoDaddy tech support is much better than it was this time last year. They were courteous and surprisingly helpful.

I also figured out why the nifty little PetCam app I got for my iPhone wasn't working. It was a firewall problem. It's always a firewall problem! The firewall wasn't letting the signal from the camera watching the dogs out to the Internet so I could see it on the iPhone. I never used to have firewall problems when I had a static IP address and connected to the Internet through a DSL line. You could always put things like web servers and cameras ahead of the firewall. Now that I've switched the office to a wireless network, firewalls are a continual hassle. Firewalls just don't play nice with things like Skype, web cams or games.

Dash apparently didn't play nice with Dot out in the yard last night either. He is a lot younger than Dot and sometimes he plays too rough. Dot must have strained a muscle when she was racing around with Dash because she was limping a bit this morning. By the end of the day she was fine again, but it reminded me that she is no longer a young dog. I really wish that dogs lived longer. We have way too many little urns sitting on the coffee table already.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 262

I was really busy today, but the weather was so nice that I feel foolish complaining about anything. Even driving around to all my meetings wasn't so bad, because today was one of those rare Dallas days where you could actually open your car windows and still feel comfortable. By all appearances, the nice weather put other people in a good mood as well. Both my website presentations went extremely well, and I think we are ready to take the sites online.

The only snag in today's smooth sailing was that one of my client's websites simply disappeared. My job for the weekend is to find the truant site and bring it back online again. I suspect that the client was trying to move the DNS and ended up transferring the domain incorrectly. Who knows though? There are a lot of reasons why the site could disappear. The ISP could have gone out of business. Hackers could have taken the site down. Maybe someone simply let the domain name expire. I'll find the missing site though. I know it's out there somewhere.

I'm ready for Hatch Chili month to be over at Central Market. For the past three weeks everything in the chef prepared section has been made with Hatch Chiles. I'll admit that they are tasty little peppers, but enough is enough. I've had Hatch Chili Twice Baked Potatoes, Hatch Chili Risotto, Hatch Chili Chicken Salad, Hatch Chili Tacos, Hatch Chili Borracho Beans, and Hatch Chiles stuffed with shrimp. It's definitely time for something new.

Hatch Chiles or not, I'll take Central Market over the stock market any day of the week. I'm increasing frustrated with my investments. Now that I've hedged my bets against the possibility of a "double dip" downturn, it's almost impossible to make any money. When the market has a good day like it did today, my inverse ETF's go down and cancel out all my gains. On the other hand, when the market tanks like it did earlier this week, my stocks go down and cancel out whatever I'm making from my short positions. I've got all these sophisticated strategies, but I could probably do just as well by putting my money under a mattress.

I'm glad we've got a three day weekend coming up. Usually by the third day of a three day weekend, we've actually gotten caught up enough to relax and enjoy the extra day. I think every weekend should be a three day weekend.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 261

I spent so long staring at a computer screen today that my eyes won't even focus anymore. I used to have 20/20 vision, but that was before I made my living staring at a rather large monitor sitting 15 inches in front of my face. These days, I'm constantly looking for my reading glasses. My distance vision is still OK, but my close-up vision is ruined. I thought the eye strain would diminish when I retired my old CRT monitors and got high definition flat screens, but somehow they seem to have made things even worse.

Tired eyes not withstanding, I did get a lot done today. I had to. Tomorrow I have two presentations. One is in the morning and the other in the afternoon. If all goes well, I'll be able to launch two more websites. And if things don't go so well? Well, then it will be just another normal weekend.

More rain today. This was a gentle rain with no thunder and lightning, so the dogs were happy campers. I did have to climb up on the roof and get the water off though. My new pump doesn't seems to be up to the job. In a race between the pump and my trusty push broom, the broom wins every time. I've gotten to where I can sweep all the water off the roof in about fifteen minutes. The pump takes more than two hours to do the same thing.

The new season of Project Runway just doesn't seem quite as good as some of the previous seasons. Maybe I'm just too tired to enjoy it. I still watch the show every Thursday, but the designers aren't as exciting this year. They spend more time talking about each other than they do about the clothes. Sometimes when they have the runway show on these new episodes, I don't like anything. Last year there were always two or three outfits on every show that I thought were fabulous. Who knows? Maybe the clothes are as good as they ever were. It could be the absence of martinis that has changed my perspective. My liver may thank me someday, but I still miss martini night.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 260

I felt bad today. This morning while I was getting dressed, a guy I used to work with called and asked if I could put together a tribute video for his son who had recently passed away. I knew exactly what he wanted, but there was no way I could get the video finished in time for his son's memorial service. I know how to produce these Ken Burns style videos that are made out of collections of still images. I just can't do one in two days.

I'm not saying that you can't do instant Ken Burns videos. It's certainly not rocket science anymore. I just haven't kept up with the times. Actually, just about any high-end wedding videographer could do what my friend wanted in about three hours. I've been to weddings where a film crew shoots the wedding and reception and then hands each of the guests a finished, fully edited DVD of the wedding, complete with a nice looking printed label when they leave to go home.

This is what the world is coming to: instant everything! I guess I could go out and buy the hardware and software to do instant videos and commercials too, but I don't want to. The world is already full of people trying to do things faster. I'm not really interested in faster. What I'd really like is enough time to put a little thought into what I do.

I've been thinking about time today because I've been working on the watch repair website. Watchmakers work slowly and methodically, often taking six months or more to finish a project. I'd like to work this way too, but I could never get away with it. People don't put the same value on a website that they do on an heirloom gold watch. I think advertising people are more like plumbers. There's a clog in the marketing plan and we're the plunger.

No obedience class for the dogs tonight. It's raining outside. Inside with me, Dot is hiding under my desk, waiting for the world to return to normal.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 259

Sometimes it's the little things that end up being the most difficult.  I spent the entire day trying to decide whether a simple website background color was purple, burgundy, russett, rust, or some other reddish/bluish variant. I'm a bit of a color snob. I have a well-calibrated 30" monitor that I totally trust when I am doing print jobs. I'm confident that what I see on the screen will look exactly like what comes off a printing press later. None of this does me any good when I am designing websites though. Usually, when I see my site for the first time on the client's ten year old Dell monitor, I am horrified. The colors look completely different and often even the basic shapes are distorted, because someone has set the monitor to stretch the image to fill their wide aspect ratio screen.

This is the frustrating thing about websites. Something that looks good with Internet Explorer, might look terrible with Firefox. I use Safari but nobody else has even heard of it. Colors that look spot-on when viewed on a Mac might look oddly off when viewed in a Windows environment. The same font can look completely different on two different browsers. The variables go on and on. Why does this have to be so difficult? The bottom line is that the site needs to look good on my clients computers, because they're never going to see it on mine. I had so much trouble matching a color on a client's business card today that I finally just put a color swatch online and asked them to pick the color that came the closest. I thought I had nailed the color exactly, but it wasn't even close when we looked on their monitors.

Yeah, I know this sounds totally geeky and boring, but that's all that happened today. Dot got her teeth cleaned, but she isn't talking about it. When we came home from the vet, she gave me one of those "how could you" looks. She hates going to the vet. Her teeth look great though. A lot of people ignore their dogs teeth, but it's important to keep them clean. Gum disease can cause serious problems, or even death, for dogs later in life. Of course all this is probably equally true for me. I guess I'd better add "make a dentist appointment" to my to-do list.

I can't figure out why the battery on my iPhone runs out three or four times as fast as the battery on my iPad. The iPad will stay charged for almost a week, but the phone seems to need a charge almost every day. Maybe the phone just has a smaller battery. Or maybe it's still on even in sleep mode waiting for a call. My knowledge of cell phones is abysmally small.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 258

I spent most of the day working on the new medical clinic website. It ought to be ready to go live in about a week unless my client decides to change everything. I've learned not to get too excited when a site looks finished to me. There's always something that pops out of left field at the last minute. Sometimes I think these things I work on will never launch, but eventually they always do. The two veterinary hospitals that were new clients earlier this year have both launched their new sites. It won't be that long before this site is finished as well. Then I can move on to the watch repair website.

I guess the honeymoon is over with my new renter. I've actually been surprised that there haven't been any problems since I leased the rent house early this Spring. Old houses always have problems though. Today it was the plumbing. Luckily, a plumber was able to come out this afternoon and the problem was quickly resolved. I'm sure there will be other problems though. There always are. This is why I don't really enjoy being a landlord. People who rent don't like to deal with problems. If they didn't mind problems, they probably would have just bought their own house in the first place. Unfortunately, old houses are full of problems. It's one of those oil and water situations where things just don't mix well. The renters want me to make the problems go away forever, but all I can do is fix them. Things break in old houses. That's just the way it is.

The rent house is probably in much better shape than my own house. Things are always falling apart around here. Today, I was up on the roof again, trying to figure out why my new sump pump wasn't pumping off the water from yesterday's rain the way it should. The pump was humming away normally on the roof, but very little water was coming out the other end of the hose on the ground. I think the old hose has become clogged with debris and I'm going to have to go buy a new hose to go with the new pump. Somehow all these pumps end up being too complicated. That's why mostly I just push the water off the roof with a big broom these days.

Dot has her dental appointment tomorrow. Her teeth don't look quite as bad as Dash's were, but she still has a lot of plaque on her molars. When we had Dash's teeth cleaned last month, I felt guilty for not going to see the dentist myself. Now, with Dot getting her teeth cleaned as well, I feel even more guilty. I still haven't called my dentist though.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 257

When I was walking the Dalmatian Rescue dogs this morning, I spotted something in the bushes where the dogs like to pee. On closer inspection, what I saw turned out to be a large bolt cutter, an even larger crow bar, a black ski mask and a pair or rubber gloves. For a brief moment I looked at the bolt cutter and thought, "Hmm, I could use a tool like this" and then I looked at the ski mask and thought "I'd better not even touch this stuff." I was pretty sure these were burglary tools that had been dumped here after a break in. When the other dog walkers caught up with us, Ann called the police. I heard her say, "We'll be easy to find...just look for a bunch of Dalmatians." When the police arrived, they told us that there had been a string of burglaries in the area recently and that a crow bar had been used to gain entry. The thieves had been stealing narcotics from local doctor's offices. The police thanked us for our help and carefully put the tools in the squad car so they could take them in for fingerprinting.

We might have solved a crime, just because my dog had to pee. So, all you people who still think that Dalmatians are the Paris Hilton's of the dog world, I've got news for you. These guys are crime fighters too.

Dash finally had some other dogs to play with when we went up to the Wagging Tail dog park this afternoon. The temperature was cooler today, so when we got to the park there were about a dozen people already there with their dogs. Dot doesn't really enjoy playing with other dogs, but Dash loves it. I think he's actually starting to look forward to the Sunday car trip now. Today, there was no panic at all. He mostly just sat in the back seat and looked out the window.

It's hard to believe that August is almost over. A lot of things on my Summer to-do list never got done at all. I never got around to putting new St. Augustine sod in the back yard. I never fixed the big bathroom mirror or the leaking shower pan. I haven't even worn most of the new Summer clothes I bought a couple of months ago. In fairness, I did stay busy and a lot of stuff came up that I wasn't planning on at all. I guess it doesn't really matter. There's always next year. Oh, and before I forget...you guys who were wondering what Duke looked like. He's today's Dalmatian of the Day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 256

Well, I guess I've oficially joined the ranks of the mommie blogs. People are asking me for recipes now. I can't claim to be a dog cake expert, but the basic rule for dogs cakes is no sugar. You can use a little molasses or fresh fruit for sweetening, but sugar is a no no. Wheat flour and oats are better for dogs too, although I'm sure you can use white flour if you insist. If you want to try your hand at a dog cake, this recipe for Apple Cake courtesy of Three Dog Bakery is especially tasty. Our dogs absolutely love it and I've been known to eat a slice or two myself.

2 cups wheat flour
1/2 cup quick rolled oats
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
6 tablespoons canola oil
1/2 cup molasses
1 1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce
1 large egg
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1 fresh apple, cored and chopped


That's it. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Mix together the flour, oats, baking powder and cinnamon in one bowl and the egg, molasses, oil, applesauce and vanilla in another. Start adding the dry ingredients to the bowl with the wet ingredients until you have a smooth batter. Then fold in the chopped fresh apple. Spread the batter evenly in the cake pan and bake for 25 to 35 minutes. For a cool looking dog cake, find some small, round cake rings and make a three layer cake like the picture above.

For the frosting, use 8 ounces of low fat cream cheese, 2 tablespoons plain yogurt, 2 tablespoons honey and 2 tablespoons flour. This is actually quite tasty and completely safe for dogs. If your frosting is too stiff to spread properly, just add a little more yogurt until you get the right consistency. If you happen to have one of those cake decorating turntables, you'll find that it's a lot easier to spread the frosting on the cake neatly. I don't think I could decorate a cake without a turntable anymore. You can't leave cream cheese frosting in the fridge for a week like a regular buttercream frosting. The cream cheese will start to crack and look bad fairly quickly. Usually this is not a problem, because the dogs eat up the cake almost immediately.

Baking a cake sounds more enjoyable than what I actually did today. Somehow a large tree limb fell on top of the air conditioner compressor last night. The limb was so heavy that I had to cut it in pieces with a saw before I was able to remove it. This isn't the first time this has happened either. Large tree limbs have just dropped off the Oak trees in the back yard several times before for no apparent reason. These falling tree branches always manage to destroy something like a bird bath or a potted plant when they hit the ground. Luckily these things usually happen at night while we're asleep. I'd hate for a large branch to fall and hit the dogs.

Apple has this free case program for the new iPhones to get people to put those rubber bumpers on their phones. It's supposed to fix the antenna problems that causes dropped calls if you hold the phone a certain way. Apple also sells a special dock for recharging the phone. If your put the skin on your phone the way Apple recommends, it won't fit in the docking station. Come on guys. Get your act together. Surely you could design an iPhone dock that wouldn't require you to take the skin off your phone every time you recharge the battery.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 255 - Dot's Birthday

The dogs love a party. Actually they love anything where food is involved, but birthdays are special because they get to eat cake. For several years we've been making Dot and Dash special sugar free birthday cakes. I even took a cake decorating class at Central Market a few years ago so I could learn to make a better looking dog cake. Several people have told us that we ought to start selling these cakes, but that probably isn't a good idea. They take way too long to make. The only reason we started making them in the first place was that the dog cake company we used to buy from went out of business. Nobody is going to get rich making fancy dog cakes.

Now that we have less time for baking, we take the dogs out to dinner instead. Cafe Lago has a special dog menu that is prepared by the restaurant's chef. Tasty doggie entrees like meatloaf and grilled chicken are good enough to order for yourself. The dogs love coming here so much that they've both become extremely well behaved. I think they know that if they start barking and bothering the other diners, they are going to get kicked out of the place and won't be invited back again. It's kind of amazing how well behaved they are at the restaurant, considering how bad they can be normally. When we take them out to eat, we could easily pass the pair off as guide dogs for the blind. They never act this politely at home.

Since I didn't have any compelling reason to leave the office today, I got a huge amount of work done on the new websites I'm currently developing. I wish I could figure out a way to design websites faster. My websites are a lot like my dog cakes. They are all one of a kind, and they seem to take forever to put together. My clients seem to love what I do, but I'm not really making all that much money, mostly because the whole process is so slow. I probably should have stuck to copywriting. I'm a fast writer, but I'm a very slow website designer.

I've got to go take pictures of Duke, the new Dalmatian Rescue dog, this weekend.  Some of you thought that yesterday's Dalmatian of the Day was Duke. Nope. That was Cammy.  I didn't have time to take pictures of Duke yesterday. I never seem to have time to do things when it would make the most sense.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day