Day 374

For the past four or five years we've spent Christmas Eve afternoons doing gift wrapping at a Barnes & Noble store. The bookstore lets various charities do gift wrapping in their stores during the holiday season for donations. This has been a good fundraiser for Dalmatian Rescue. Chrismas Eve is usually the best day of the season for us, because the stores are filled with forlorn looking guys who have waited until the last possible minute to do their Christmas Shopping. Most of these guys would do anything to avoid wrapping their last minute gifts themselves and they often donate generously when they learn we'll do their wrapping for them. Sometimes, these guys will even ask if we would pick out their gifts for them as well. Today, we thought we could attract a little more attention to our gift wrapping station if we had some real Dalmatians with us. Dot & Dash were our ambassadors for the breed today and they did quite well working the crowd. Whenever Dash made his trademark squeaking noises, people would go "Aww..." and throw five dollars into our donation pot. Everyone thought Dot and Dash were cute, and the odd little noises Dash made were much more effective for soliciting donations than those brass bells the Salvation Army guys always ring.

Last Christmas Eve, we had a major snowstorm in Dallas. This year it only rained. It's definitely the kind of weather where you want to stay inside where it's warm. With the weather so bad in other parts of the country, I really wouldn't want to be flying anywhere today. I'm content to spend the holidays at home doing as little as possible. The dogs must feel the same way. They're both already asleep. Dot and Dash didn't really do all that much today, but you'd never know it by looking at them now. You'd think they'd both climbed Pike's Peak instead of standing around letting little kids pet them in a Barnes & Noble store.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 373

I did some last minute shopping at Northpark today and was amazed at the crowds. I've never seen the mall this packed with people before. The place was total gridlock. I was stuck in parking lot traffic for so long on the way home that it reminded me of the Dr. Who re-run I watched during breakfast this morning. This was the episode where the doctor encounters a group of people trapped on a motorway in New Earth. It often took the people on this motorway six years to reach the nearest exit. The Northpark parking lot was pretty much like this today. Either the recession hasn't hit Dallas yet, or people just don't care. Every time I've ventured out of the house this week, I've immediately become immersed in a beehive of buying activity. Some stores are so picked over that they look half empty.

As Christmas approaches I get fewer and fewer work-related calls. Some clients are on vacation and the rest are in the process of wrapping things up for the year. I'd be amazed if I get any new projects for the rest of the year. I should use these slow periods to do something fun, but I seldom do. Slow periods like this make me nervous. What if things don't pick up again after the first of the year? What if it stays slow like this forever? Business almost always does pick up again after New Year's Day, but I'm in a very unpredictable profession. You never really know.

Being nervous isn't entirely bad. It forces me to think about how to improve what I do. One thing I've already decided is that I'm going to do is upgrade my office computers and software. I didn't really think that getting a cell phone and an iPad this year would make any difference at all, but surprisingly it did. It just makes sense that I should take the next step. If I bring everything in the office up-to-date, maybe I'll see even more dramatic improvements in the year ahead. I hate to spend the small profit I made this year just buying new equipment, but as they always say: nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 372

I had another meeting with my financial advisor today. We agreed to buy some things and sell some things, but I still don't feel very comfortable. Five years ago, I felt like like I could retire whenever I felt like it. Then along came the financial meltdown of 2008. I lost so much between October of 2008 and the March lows off 2009 that I still haven't fully recovered. I'm left with a feeling somewhere between irritation and dispair. Let's just say I don't think about retirement much anymore. Sure, the market has gone up in recent months and I've even benefited from the current bullish sendiment. It's all pretty fragile though. One day of bad news can easily erase an entire month's worth of market gains. I still hope to get back to even one of these days, but I've got a long way to go. One or two of my friends have already gotten back to even. They were the ones smart enough to buy gold at the end of 2008.

The dogs were jumpy at training class tonight. There was one aggressive dog that went after some of the other dogs and this incident put the rest of the dogs in class on edge. Dash seemed scared the entire evening. I think most of you already know that Dot an Dash were rescued. We don't know much about their life prior to adopting them, but I'm convinced that Dash was abused at some point. On evenings like tonight when there is a lot of commotion and people start yelling at their dogs, Dash doesn't do very well. We made it through the evening though and now both dogs are happily asleep on their beds.

I've got to go back to the doctor tomorrow for a follow up visit to eveluate my recent surgery. I'm feeling pretty good this week, so I don't anticipate any surprises. I'd just as soon finish out the rest of the year without any more surprises at all. Dalmatian Rescue does gift wrapping at Barnes & Noble stores during the holidays to raise money for the dogs. Janet & I usually take the Christmas Eve shift, because we seldom have anything better to do. This year they want us to bring Dot and Dash to the store with us. That might be an afternoon full of surprises right there.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 371

Yay! Not only did I happen to see one of my Paypal ads on the Internet today, I also found out that Dalmatian Rescue was selected as one of the winning charities in the Paypal FundRazr contest. We got off to a slow start, so I didn't think we actually had a chance of winning. Everyone worked really hard to share the application though, and in the end our efforts paid off. The whole idea of a viral fundraising tool that you use on Facebook is pretty new to most charities, but I think it could be a game changer for many. Once you try it, you realize that there are whole new ways of reaching out to people. Hey, if you've got a charity or a cause that you care about, you ought to go take a look at the FundRazr application yourself. If this tool can raise money to help save Dalmatians. it could certainly help your church or charity as well.

With the year drawing to a close, it's time to start thinking about what I'm going to do in 2011. About this time last year, I decided that it was time for me to quit being such a Luddite and try my hand at social networking. I started this blog. I got myself a cell phone. I even joined Facebook. I don't think the verdict is in yet, but can certainly see the potential in this brave new world. Social networking tools are a super easy and efficient way to stay connected with friends and colleagues. I've already re-established a few business connections that might actually bring me some work in the year ahead. On the other hand, all this social networking can be incredibly time consuming. Once you've got a blog, you've got to keep feeding it with new content. It's very much like putting out your own little daily newspaper. Once you've got a bunch of Facebook friends, you can't just ignore them either. After all the blogging, the messaging and the posting to forums is done, there really isn't much time for anything else.

At any rate, we'll see how it goes. I do know that the house is a bit messier since I started blogging. Things on a time line, like client website updates and getting this post published before midnight always seem to take priority over things that can wait until tomorrow. Even keeping the large printer unclogged seems to have taken priority over basics like vacuuming the carpets and watering the plants. Maybe next year's goal should be to strike some sort of a balance. This is easier said than done, since I'm not a very balanced person. I usually either get obsessed by something or completely ignore it. We'll give it a shot though. Balance is good.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 370

I love an eclipse. I've actually seen quite a few of these events. I've seen one total eclipse of the sun, half a dozen partial eclipses of the sun and countless eclipses of the moon. I haven't seen anything like the eclipse that starts a little later this evening though, mostly because there hasn't been one quite like this for 372 years. Tonight a solstice and a total lunar eclipse coincide for the first time in a very long time. We watched the full moon rise on our evening walk and later tonight I'll go outside again and watch the eclipse itself as it starts around midnight.

For the first time in three months I finally remembered that bulky and brushy trash pickup is tomorrow morning and hauled the large pile of dead tree limbs that have been an eyesore in our backyard out to the street to be collected. It's hard for me to remember "big trash" day, because the city won't let you bring your trash out to the street while it's on your mind. You've got to wait for one specific day each month and if you forget, you wait again until the same day next month. I'm not good at this sort of thing, although I guess it would be easier if I just marked "Big Trash Day" on my appointment calendar, like everything else I tend to forget. At any rate, all the unsightly limbs are finally gone. Now, I just need to replace the unsightly dirt with some new grass.

I tried using my iPhone camera on my walk with Dot and Dash tonight for the first time. This is much easier than trying to take pictures with a heavy DSLR camera around my neck while the dogs are tugging and pulling me around the next bend in the road. I actually managed to get a few halfway decent pictures while the dogs were busy smelling critters in the bushes. I think I'll try this again. I've missed a huge number of great photos on our daily walks over the years, simply because I didn't have a camera with me. I'm really impressed with this little camera. Too bad I have no control over the shutter speed or aperture though. Maybe there's an app for that.

Little Lexi, the new Dalmatian I met last Sunday at K-9 University already has a home. Sometimes a dog just gets lucky. I can't remember a dog in our rescue program finding a home so quickly for quite a while. She still gets to be "Dalmatian of the Day" though and today seems like a good day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 369

It's hard to believe that it was snowing in much of the country today. It was another pleasant Fall day in Dallas. The sky was clear and the temperature was seventy-five degrees. The trees in our backyard are finally starting to acquire the beautiful red and gold colors that people further North experienced several months ago. I know there are people in town who are wishing for snow right now, but I'm not one of them. I enjoy these mild Indian Summer days we've been having lately. Last year we did get some snow around this time of year and it was a huge mess. We tend to get ice storms here instead of snow and the roads become a demolition derby. It's bad enough driving in the rain here in Texas, but when the roads ice over, all bets are off. I remember returning from an evening Dalmatian Rescue event last Christmas during an ice storm and I thought I'd never make it home. I"ll leave the snow and ice to my Northern friends. Days like today are much more enjoyable.

There was a new Dalmatian up at K-9 University when we went to walk the dogs today. Her name is Lexi and she's cute as a button. I think this girl is already adopted and is just here temporarily until she goes to the vet and gets all her shots. When we get a small female in the rescue program, they tend to find a home almost immediately. The larger males aren't always so lucky. When you get to know these dogs, you start to wonder why some dogs get picked and others don't. Sometimes extremely nice, well behaved dogs get totally ignored. Other times dogs with serious behavior problems get picked right away. I guess the dog world isn't that different from the people world. Life isn't always fair.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is next week. The year will be over soon. It's always interesting to listen to the politicians and the TV commentators make their predictions about what 's going to happen in the year ahead. I don't think any of them even have a clue. Nobody can predict the future. I don't even know what's going to happen tomorrow.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 368

I want the Tardis for my storage room. I definitely need something like the Tardis that is larger on the inside than it is on the outside, because my storage room is completely full. Full or not, I was forced to shoehorn even more junk into the tiny room this afternoon, because it was cleaning day at our house again. It's amazing how stuff accumulates. I had totally forgotten about the hazmat suit I got in a moment of panic on the day after 9/11. I guess I don't need that anymore. I haven't found much use for a basketball Dick Vitale gave me fifteen years ago either. We found an old fashioned matched set of luggage that had Janet's name on the baggage tags, but she couldn't remember ever using them. I also found the install disc for a Palm Pilot that I'd looked everywhere for several years ago when the Palm crashed and took all it's contact information with it. Of course, now that I found the disc, the Palm Pilot is gone. I think it got thrown away on a previous cleaning day. Janet takes her unused stuff straight to the Goodwill store on cleaning day. I usually take my stuff to the storage room instead. The storage room is kind of like a holding cell for obsolete objects that I've grown fond of. Eventually, I do throw stuff away, but only when the room becomes so full that the door won't shut. If only I had the Tardis.

I fixed my favorite recipe for breakfast this morning. Actually, it is the only recipe that I've ever come up with in my life. I like it though. I start by cutting up sausage and ham into small squares and letting them brown in a fry pan. Then I slice and dice red and green bell peppers and add them to the meat. When this has cooked a few minutes, I add some black pepper and four tablespoons of hot chipotle salsa to the mix. I let this simmer for about five minutes and then fold in three eggs. I whip the eggs really fast with a spatula until the whole mix acquires the consistancy of peanut butter. The eggs are not like a scrambled egg at all, but are smooth and creamy instead. Finally I spread the dish on thick slices of toast and eat it. It sounds ridiculous, but it is actually quite tasty. Maybe I should try something more ambitious, but my culinary quest seems to have ended at breakfast eggs. I guess I have invented a few weird variations on French Toast too, but I don't know if that counts.

I needed to get another memory card for one on my cameras today and came home with something that holds 48 GB of data on a tiny chip the size of my thumbnail. This is simply amazing to me. Earlier in the afternoon, I came across one of my first video editing hard drives in the storage room. It was state-of-the-art at the time. The thing weighed fifteen pounds and was the size of a toaster. I thought it was an enormous hard drive at the time. This expensive brick could store a whopping 5GB of data.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 367

I feel poor today. I usually pay bills around this time of the month, but today there were a couple of extra checks to write. Property taxes are due. I never used to think about property taxes when I had a mortgage. The property taxes are built into your mortage payment and you don't really notice them. It is only when you pay the mortgage off that you begin to notice just how much the government is taking for the privilege of letting you own a house. I hate these property taxes because they always come due at the end of the year when there are a lot of other obligations anyway. What can you do though? You either pay the tax or lose the property.

When I discovered that I wasn't completely broke after paying all the bills, I decided to buy a few things online. I must be the world's worst online shopper. Every time I try to buy something, I find myself calling the company's help line to ask why the whole process isn't working as I expected. Today, when I tried to check out, the website kept charging me postage, even though there was a big banner on the website landing page saying that all postage was free from now until Christmas. When I finally reached the help desk, the conversation went kind of like this: "I'm trying to check out and I can't find the free postage option on your shipping menu." "Let me look at your ticket sir, and see what you are ordering." "OK, I"ll wait" A short pause and then I hear "Sir, that item doesn't qualify for free postage." "Why not? Your website says you are offering free postage on everything you sell until Christmas." "Well, everything except the item you're buying....we still have to charge postage on that."

This kind of thing happens to me more than you might think. There's always a Catch-22 that lets them weasel out of the sweet deal I thought I was getting. I went ahead and ordered anyway, but the experience was irritating. Catch-22 scenarios like this are commonplace when I take my car to be repaired. I'm starting to realize that online shopping can be just as confusing.

I'm glad the weekend is here. I never really caught up on things after spending Tuesday in the hospital. I guess it doesn't take much to throw me off schedule. Hey, weekends are for catching up though. Tomorrow, I'll catch up on everything. And if I don't? Well, there's always Sunday.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 366

I feel a lot better today. I'm almost back to my old self again. It's still surprising to me when a doctor delivers exactly what they promised. Too many times you try something your doctor suggests and end up feeling worse than you did before. At least this guy didn't just give me another pill to take. I'm tired of all these pills. Every time I listen to one of those pharmaceutical company commercials on TV and hear the legal disclaimer at the end telling people that the pill can cause everything from hair loss to sudden death, I wonder why we've grown to depend on pills so much. I'll take a guy with a space-age laser any day of the week.

Gremlins are getting into some of the older websites I've designed. Increasingly, I'm discovering that things I designed five years ago just don't look right in modern browsers. I had to re-code something today that looked good several months ago, but now looks horrible when viewed using the latest version of Firefox. Luckiy, I was able to fix the problem, but looking at what I'd done before made me realize that I was a pretty sloppy designer five years ago. Live and learn I guess. By the time I bring my current crop of mistakes up to code, I imagine that the web will have morphed into something entirely different again.

I got a call on my cell phone today and it startled me. I get so few calls on this phone that at first I thought the ring tone noise was the sound the phone makes when the battery is fully charged. It's still hard for me to wrap my head around the idea that phones are for incoming messages too. I mostly just use them for outgoing messages. Truthfully, I mostly just use my iPhone to take pictures with. It's got a great little camera.

Now that I'm getting more familiar with Facebook, I'm starting to wonder whether it's rude to ignore game requests. I really don't have the time to play those Facebook games, but I'm starting to get a lot of requests. I don't even know what half of them mean, but usually they have something to do with Farmville. Hey, don't be offended if I don't play Farmville with you. I've still got watches to photograph.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 365 - Blogiversary

I think I picked the right name for this blog. On a day where my doctor said I should relax and take a long hot bath, I celebrated my first blogiversary by doing what I always do. I worked. I tried to make a foolproof map for a client who said that Google maps were sending his customers to the wrong place. I added links to a Facebook fan page for a company that only has four fans. I tried to understand why my financial advisor was in such a hurry to get me to buy something today after ignoring me for three months.

I did these mundane chores while trying to pass broken pieces of the kidney stones that the surgeon broke apart with his laser yesterday. I thought I was home free when I was released from the hospital, but evidently it is not uncommon for pieces of the stones to be left behind after the proceedure. All in all, it felt more like a day to simply endure than a day of celebration.

The day did deserve a celebration though. At least a small one. Today was a milestone for me. I completed an entire year of blogging without missing a single day. Each day ended with a new post and a new photograph. I became a more disciplined writer this year and in the process, I made new friends, became part of a larger community of bloggers and gained some valuable insights into where my life was headed.

I thought my life was boring before I started the blog. Nothing has really changed, but I feel more connected now. I think that writing everything down one day at a time has made me a bit more appreciative of what I already have in life and a lot less likely to whine about what I don't have. It's really not a bad life. I'm active in animal rescue. I have a few clients who still depend on me. I have Janet and two of the best dogs in the world. That's more than enough for me. If I started this blog five years ago, every day would have been a major whine fest. I don't feel that way any more. I'm still a bit cynical and I don't always feel like getting up in the morning, but at least I can acknowledge now that there's a reason why I'm here on this earth.

Year two is likely to be very much like year one. I don't think that's a bad thing though. There are still plenty of Dalmatians who need a home. I lost my largest client this year, but was able to replace the billing by adding three smaller clients and doing a lot of hard work. I intend to keep working and keep learning. Hey, I may have been the last person on the planet to get a cell phone, but I did get one this year. I finally got a Facebook page as well. Who know what next year will bring. It might be hard to top a year where Dot and Dash got on the evening news and I was selected to be in Paypal ads, but it's worth a try.

I'll continue taking things one day at a time. I'll write it all down. And I'll do my best to appreciate each day as it comes. I hope you guys will continue the journey with me, because I've certainly enjoyed having you along for the ride.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 364

Getting kidney and bladder stones removed isn't the most pleasant thing in the world, but it certainly could have been a lot worse. I don't like hospitals. I'll have to admit though that the doctors and nurses at Medical City couldn't have been nicer. I struck up a conversation with my anesthesiologist and discovered that he took his cat to one of my veterinarian clients. It's a small world. I think I may have taken pictures of the anesthesiologist's daughter while she was working as an intern for the veterinarian. I couldn't really remember however. I've taken lots of employee pictures. The anesthesiologist said his daughter couldn't decide whether to become a writer or a vet. I told him that she should stick with veterinary medicine. There aren't many unemployed vets, but there are tons of unemployed writers. As the drugs started to kick in, the last thing I remember was my surgeon and the anesthesiologist talking about dogs.

When I woke up, I remember telling the surgeon that I didn't want to be catheterized if at all possible. Too late. I already was, and I ended up being wheeled out of the hospital with a bag full of pee strapped to my waist. That old rule that says the customer is always right doesn't seem to apply to doctors. They're going to do whatever they want no matter what you say. I'm sure that most doctors get sick of listening to me anyway. I'm always suggesting that they try treatments that my veterinarian has used on my dogs.

My day at the hospital put me a bit behind with my work, but I'll have plenty of time to catch up tomorrow. Based on my current condition, I doubt if I'll feel like going anywhere. On the eve of my first blogiversary, I'll have to admit that it was a pretty interesting year. I didn't miss a single day either, which is amazing for a lazy guy like me. Come back tomorrow and share a little virtual birthday cake with me. I hope all of you will join me for another year.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 363

I had to do my pre-admission check-in for my surgery tomorrow at Medical City. Not surprisingly, this ate up a big chunk of my day. It's a total mystery to me why there isn't a master patient database somewhere that all these doctors could just subscribe to. Everyone asks you exactly the same questions, over and over again. Yes, I had knee surgery back in college, but I certainly don't remember who the doctor was. Yes, I take blood pressure medication, but don't ask me to spell the name of the pill. Why do they give drugs names like Pantoprazole and Propranolol anyway? Nobody can spell words like this. Most people can't even pronounce them correctly. And then there are the questions like "Do you have religious beliefs that would cause you to refuse treatment?" Uh, if I did I probably wouldn't be sitting here in this chair talking to you. The one that always gets me is "Have you been to this hospital before?" Jeez, all this paperwork you're collecting and you don't even know if I've been here before. What do you do with this paperwork anyway?

At some point during the afternoon, a nurse handed me some papers and asked me if everything looked correct. "What's this number mean?" I asked her. "Is this my cholestrol level?" She gave me this deadpan look and said, "No John, that number is your age."

When I got back to the office, I had all sorts of little website problems to fix. One of my clients was having their Grand Opening today. I've been hoping to get the details about the Grand Opening for several weeks now, but never was able to get any answers. Left to my own devices, I just changed the main page to say "Now Open for Business." That ought to cover things for a day or two. Another client wanted me to shoehorn five pages of information into a single nested table cell. Needless to say, this broke the layout apart. I don't think I'm ever going to design a website using nested tables again. Nobody wants to edit their content to fit neatly inside these tables anymore. They'd rather have their site function like a sprawling Facebook wall that scrolls down forever. Personally, I think this looks messy, but what do I know?

I made the mistake of eating a big dinner tonight, mostly because I knew I wouldn't be able to eat anything tomorrow. Now I feel drowsy. I should never eat a big dinner. A big breakfast usually puts me in a productive mood for the entire day. A big dinner just puts me to sleep.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 362

Today was a cleaning day. We have these cleaning days periodically when so much stuff acumulates around the house that you can't get from one room to the next without tripping over something. Janet seems to relish starting fresh and has no qualms about throwing things away. I tend to just move things from one pile to another. I don't know why it is so hard for me to throw things away, but I can always come up with at least ten reasons to keep some dust gathering object I haven't used in five years.

At last Friday's Dalmatian Rescue Casino Party, all the dealers were supposed to wear a black turtleneck under their dealer vest. I don't wear turtlenecks much anymore, but I knew I had a few tucked away somewhere. As I dug through the dresser drawers in search of the illusive black turtleneck, I realized that I had tons of perfectlty nice clothes that I hadn't worn in ages. They were all neatly stacked underneath the clothes I wear everyday. Rather than dig through a stack of clothes for something new to wear, I would just wear whatever was on top of the stack over and over again. I eventually found a black turtleneck to wear to the casino party, and in the process, I also found a bunch of clothes that were so old that even I didn't mind tossing them. I like to find things like this that I can make a big show of throwing away on cleaning day in hopes that it will draw attention away for all the other junk I'm still planning to keep.

The keeper junk that won't fix in the house anymore usually winds up in the storage warehouse. The problem I'm having is that the storage warehouse has gotten so full that I'm going to need another storage warehouse soon. Recently, when I was over at my storage room, I accidently knocked over a stack of boxes and trapped myself in the back of the room. It took me at least ten minutes to climb over all the rubble and reach the door again. Ithought it was going to be like one of those mining disaster stories you see on TV. When I cleaned everything up, I realized that I didn't even know what is in many of these boxes anymore. Unfortunately, whenever I try to throw one of the boxes away, I usually become fascinated by the contents and decide to keep it a little while longer. I don't know whether I accomplished much today or not. I managed to throw away several pounds of old underwear and unstylish shirts, but couldn't bring myself to part with anything else. Four bulky studio lighting stands went to the storeroon, along with a watch timing machine I never learned how to use and a laminating machine I cant find supplies for anymore.

Tomorrow I've got to go to Medical City for pre-admission check-in prior to Tuesday's surgery. I don't know why they wouldn't let me do this on Tuesday morning, but they seem determined to make me waste as much of my time as humanly possible. I've already spent more time filling out paperwork than the surgery itself is going to take.

I still haven't fully recovered from this weekend's full calendar of dog events. I'm yawning as I type this and think I'll go to bed early tonight. A good night's sleep never hurt anyone.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 361

Today was the last of our three Santa Paws pet picture events for Dalmatian Rescue. I lost count of the number of dogs we photographed today, but there were definitely quite a few. We had a steady stream of customers from the moment we opened the doors this morning until we wrapped things up late in the afternoon. We were shooting inside one of the doggie care care play areas at Waggin' Tails Dog Daycare and by the end of the day Santa and I were smelling pretty doggie ourselves. Considering the number of dogs we photographed, the day went remarkably smoothly. All the dogs were well behaved, with the possible exception of one who tried to bite Santa's beard off. People take their dog's Christmas photo pretty seriously. I had to take more than 100 shots of one dog because his owner really wanted a picture where their dogs tongue wasn't hanging out. After trying every trick we knew, I finally got the shot she wanted.

After we wrapped up the photo event, I came home and took Dot and Dash on their evening walk before we left again for another doggie event. This time it was the annual Christmas party for our Wednesday evening dog training group. I was hungry after the long day up at Waggin' Tails, so it was nice to be able to be able to enjoy a traditional Southern Christmas meal catered by Celebration Restaurant. The party was at a lake house within walking distance of our house, but we drove anyway. We had a Chinese gift exchange after dinner and after all the horse trading and gift stealing was over, Janet and I wound up with a cute wicker picnic basket filled with stuff your dog would enjoy on a picnic. The most coveted gifts were dog blankets and dog beds, but we did pretty well with our picnic basket. At least we didn't leave the party with a sack full of poop bags like one guy near us did.

Emmitt got adopted today and we did a special Christmas picture for his new owners. I was worried that nobody would want to adopt an eleven year old dog when Emmitt entered the rescue program, but he found a wonderful home with a lady who was actually looking for an older dog. Dogs like Emmitt are is why we have the endless fundraisers and spend our weekends doing events like we did today. Making sure that every Dalmatian has a home may not be as grand and glorious as saving the whales or stopping global warming, but it certainly works for me.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 360

I got a glimpse of the future today and it wasn't pretty. My friend Harry Harrison called me this morning and asked me to take a look at the website he was launching for his new book. The website looked great and I asked him who his designer was. Harry said he did the website himself on his laptop using iWeb. I'm doomed. The website Harry showed me was just as professional looking as anything I do for my clients. Harry and technology have never been friends. If he's doing his own websites now, pretty soon Janet will be doing them. I often wonder how I'm going to earn a living five years from now. The Internet has democratized virtually everything I do. You can buy fantastic stock photos on the Internet for just a few dollars. There are inexpensive, professional looking web templates that can be customized for just about everything. A lot of people have phones that can take better movies than my expensive and obolete Beta-SP equipment. What's a creative boy to do?

I got a knock on my door this morning and it turned out to be a guy who wanted to look at my Defender 90 in the driveway. He had just bought one of these vehicles for himself and I guess he was very fond of them. At any rate, I'm glad he stopped by. Turns out the guy was a restoration specialist who was remodeling a house down the street. I showed him a few things that were falling apart on my house and he said he said he could fix them. The guy also collects watches and unlike many people working in the construction business in Dallas, he speaks perfect English. If this guy is any good, it will be the luckiest thing that has happened to me all month. Good contractors are really hard to find.

I just finished packing up all my photo equipment for tomorrow's Santa Paws photo event. I've got my website work for the week finished as well. It's been a very busy day. As soon as I finish today's blog entry, I'll take the dogs on their evening walk and then it will be time to transform myself into a roulette dealer for this evening's Dalmatian Rescue Casino Party. I usually don't post to the blog this early, but I know I'll be too tired to do much of anything when I get home. There'll still be EC and Adgitize dropping to do later, but I can do that in my sleep. Too bad I couldn't get one of you guys to do my clicking for me.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 359

I wish I could find the brake pedal and slow down the rest of the year a bit. There is simply too much going on. Tomorrow evening, Dalmatian Rescue is hosting another casino party and it's time to be a roulette dealer again. On Saturday it's going to be another long day of pet pictures at Waggin Tail Dog Daycare. I've got to have surgery next Tuesday. Oh, and next week is my blogiversary too. I've been wanting to do something original and exciting, but I still can't decide what to do. It will probably be a last minute decision, like everything else in my life.

My Dad would have been 93 today if he were still alive. He passed away quite a while ago though. It used to be easy to remember his birthday because it was two days after Pearl Harbor day. Now, I find it hard to remember anymore. I find it hard to remember a lot of things. I've been on Facebook long enough now that the friends from high school are starting to resurface. Some of these people I remember well, but others don't even ring a bell. I think my brain is kind of like a tape loop. Everything in the present tense is sharp and clear, but before these experiences can find a permanent home in my long-term memory, they all get erased and replaced by something new.

There wasn't much worth remembering today anyway. I spent a couple of hours doing year-end accounting. I went to the post office and bought a roll of stamps and some envelopes. I called Marquis Whos Who and asked if they would stop the ridiculous amount of spam they were sending to my inbox everyday. Turns out it wasn't the real Who's Who that was sending the mail. It was a scam designed to capture your identity. Somehow I kind of suspected that. It also turns out that I'm not even in the Who's Who in America book anymore either. They said I went so many years without updating my profile that they just dropped my bio from the book. Oh well, easy come, easy go. Did I want to be reinstated? Hmmm... Not really.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 358

I discovered today that some of my recent pictures of Mow the goat and his dog friends are featured in a story by Diane Herbst on the popular Tonic.com website. The pictures looked good and they even gave me a photo credit. Diane also writes for People Magazine and Newsweek, so maybe the famous goat will wind up on the cover of Newsweek one of these days.

Too bad you can't tag animals on Facebook. I've noticed that the pet pictures I took at last Saturday's Santa Paws event are starting to pop up all over the place on people's profile pages. People love these pictures. I'd be more that happy to take pet portraits year round, but unfortunately there isn't much demand unless I'm donating my time at an animal rescue event. I guess it makes sense. At the rescue photo events I participate in, you can get a package of pictures for $30 that would cost $400 or more at my normal day rate.

I wish I could tell you about a new client or an exciting project I was working on. Nope. Not today. It wasn't that kind of day. I spent my time punching new holes in Santa's wide black leather belt because Santa lost a little weight this year. Tomorrow I need to wash the Christmas backdrop at one of those laundromats with the huge washing machines because some of the dogs peed on it last week. You definitely don't want the smell of dog pee on your photo backdrop, because then all the dogs will insist on peeing on the same spot. Such is the life of a pet photographer.

None of the dogs were very well behaved at training class tonight. It was too cold. Most of the dogs in our class looked like they'd much rather be sitting at home in front of the fireplace, instead of doing obedience excercises in a cold and windy field. I don't blame them. They'd better get used to it though. It's a long time until Spring.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 357

Brrr. Winter has definitely arrived. Even though I went to high school in Alaska and spent several Winters in Idaho, I just can't take the cold anymore. I guess I've lived in the South to long. On days like this when the temperature never climbs above the mid-thirties, I walk around freezing all day. I cranked up the heat and wore a sweater around the house while I was working, but I was still cold.

Our neighbors have started burning designer logs in their fireplaces again. When I go outside to walk the dogs, the neighborhood smells like Colorado is burning. The smell is almost overpowering. I lived in Aspen right after I graduated from college and I know the distinct fragrance of piñon pine. I never dreamed I'd see people paying several dollars for a small log of the stuff in the grocery store however. These expensive designer logs really seem to have caught on. You can buy mesquite firewood, as well as maple, pecan and the current favorite, piñon pine just about anywhere. We don't even have a fireplace, but on cold days like this it doesn't seem to matter. The smell of the neighbor's burning logs comes right through the walls.

Dash had to go to the vet for another antigen shot today. His skin condition has really improved since he started taking the injections. Now, we only have to have the shots once every two weeks. While I was over at the vet, I discovered that the story of Mow, the friendly goat and his dog pals is still alive. Evidently someone at People Magazine is doing a feature on the animals and they want me to send them some of the pictures I've been taking.

This month is just racing by. It's time to get my invoices out again. It's just about time to get Christmas cards in the mail too. I don't think I'll send cards out this year though. I don't remember many mailing addresses anyway. Sending e-mail has become so ubiquitous that actual physical addresses just gather dust and are eventually forgotten. Every time I change computers, I lose a ton of old addresses because I never bother to export all the contact information over to the new computer. It just doesn't seem to matter anymore. If you lose someone on your Rollodex, you'll eventually find them again on Facebook anyway.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 356

I started the day by driving Janet to her periodontist for dental surgery. Next week she'll return the favor by driving me to Medical City for my own minor surgery. Both of us used to to be able to go years without visiting the doctor, but those days appear to be over. Lately, if I don't have a doctor's appointment myself, I'm taking one of the the dogs to the vet. It's always something. My health hasn't really changed all that much, but I'm definitely trying to take a little better care of myself.

I'm also trying my best not to let the holidays put me behind the 8-ball at work. The Christmas season is traditionally a busy time for advertisers. I always seem to have a lot more website updates during December. Today I worked my way through a laundry list of small changes and there'll probably be more tomorrow. I've given up on getting caught up on everything this year. All I want now is not to get even further behind. I'm in awe of bloggers who manage to keep half a dozen different blogs current at the same time. Once I get my work done for the day, this one little blog is more than enough for me.

I am getting some help from you guys though. Today, I'm very pleased to feature our very first blogger Dalmatian of the Day. Today's dog is Emma, a sweet deaf Dalmatian who was rescued recently by Katherine at Shoot Me Now. Be sure to visit Katherine's blog and read more about Emma's adventures. Emma may be deaf, but her sense of smell is still intact. If there is a tennis ball anywhere in the room, Emma will find it.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day