Day 430

I discovered something cool today. Have any of you ever heard of Kickstarter? I never heard of this website until I bought a LunaTik watch kit a few weeks ago and discovered that the entire project had been funded by Kickstarter. This unique site makes it possible for virtually anyone to fund or find backers for their latest project or dream. It's kind of like Kiva or MicroPlace, except that instead of making small loans to businesses in third world countries, it lets people like you and me become venture capitalists and fund new projects that we think deserve to see the light of day. I was amazed to discover that quite a few films and even gallery shows are being financed this way. I wish they had something like this when I was making documentary films. The hardest part of making a documentary is finding the financing. Kickstarter is the first thing I've ever seen that really levels the playing field. After spending about half an hour browsing though an interesting selection of current projects, I began to think that if I ever make another film again, this might be a very viable way to finance it. It's just amazing how the Internet has changed everything. Just about every week I see something that forces me to totally rethink the way I've been doing things. I haven't received the LunaTik I ordered yet, but I assume I will one of these days. They're probably still being made in China.

I wish I could totally rethink the way I'm dealing with my roof problems. I was up on the roof this afternoon and think I found where the water is coming in. The solution is not very high tech though. I still just take a tube of Henry 209 sealant and spread it liberally around all the suspect areas. The next time it rains I get to see whether I was successful.

At least I was successful at getting rid of the rotting pumpkins on the front porch. As pumpkins age, the outer skin gets thinner and thinner. These particular pumpkins were so fragile that if you even touched them, they disintegrated into a wet puddle of pumpkin mush. The three large pumpkins were still as heavy as fresh pumpkins though. Removing the pumpkins proved to be just as messy as patching the roof. At least the pumpkin mush was easy to wash off my hands and clothing. Unfortunately, I can't say the same for the tube of Henry 209.

I'm glad we've got a three day weekend coming up. I doubt that we'll spend much time celebrating past presidents, but it's always nice to have an extra day off.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 429

I hope I never become one of those people who feel compelled to tell their life story to bank tellers and pharmacists. I always seem to wind up behind someone like this when I'm in a hurry and all I want to do is quickly make a deposit or pick up a prescription. All you have to do is say "How are you today," and the floodgates open with these people. I'm patient though and wait my turn. I know that the only thing more irritating than holding up a long line by telling total strangers what your grandchildren had for breakfast this morning is complaining to other strangers about what the person ahead of you is doing. I don't want to become one of those people either.

Maybe I was in a hurry today because I'm falling behind again. I need to go get a haircut. The leaves in the back yard are really starting to pile up. It's time to take the Land Rover in for maintenance again. Tax time is fast approaching. And I guess it's time to get rid of the pumpkins. There are still several very pathetic looking pumpkins on the front porch that were left over from Halloween.

That's the problem with life today. If you spend your time doing things that bring in money, there is very little time left over for tending to rotting pumpkins. I do what I can. The trash is out on the street, waiting for tomorrow's ridiculously early trash pickup. The checkbook is balanced again, after a few mystery purchases were finally identified. Maybe I'll go up on the roof again tomorrow. It's probably dry enough to pour some more patching compound on the leaky areas before it rains again.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 428

I got an invitation to a Stern Monroe reunion in the mail today. This agency closed its doors almost twenty years ago, so I was amazed that someone had managed to track down enough people to invite. I can forget someone's name three weeks after I've met them, so I'm always impressed with reunion committees that manage to find people who've been lost for decades. I've skipped a lot of reunions over the years, but I'm planning to go to this one. Stern Monroe was actually one of the ad agencies I enjoyed working at.

I'm thinking it might be fun to have a reunion of the old band I used to play in. I've managed to find the lead singer, the drummer, the lead guitar player and the keyboard player on Facebook. Only two more band members to go. Of course most of us don't even live in the same city any more, but that is probably a minor problem compared to the task of remembering enough songs to get through a three set gig.

I don't think my own memory is much better than the dogs memory anymore. They certainly forgot a few things at training class tonight. This is the first time we've had nice weather on Wednesday evening for a long time now and all the dogs in class were a little rusty. Dot and Dash probably did as well as anyone else though. The dogs might not have wanted to do the exercises, but they were definitely excited to see each other again. I'm still surprised at how social Dash has become recently. He was determined to say hello to every dog in class tonight.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 427

I am the world's worst at time management. I only had one thing to do outside the office all day and I still managed to be an hour late. It wasn't like I had a deadline crisis or anything. I was just late. I started revamping a client's website this morning after I walked the dogs and when I looked up it was almost 2 PM. When I saw the time, I should have thought "Damn, Dash and I need to be over at the vet right now." Instead, my first thought was "Well, I better go take a shower and get this day started." It was only after I was actually in the shower that it dawned on me that I was late for the vet appointment. It was a fairly typical day actually.

I learned all sorts of odd little facts today. I learned that if Better Business Bureau members want to display the Better Business Bureau logo on their website, they have to pay $500 extra a year in dues. I discovered that a surprising number of my Facebook friends aren't putting their real birthday on their page. I discovered that my portfolio tracking software will download my stocks to the iPad just fine using 3G, but crashes when I try to do the same thing using WiFi. I discovered that The National Geographic Channel is actually owned by Fox. I discovered that when I take Dash in to get his anal sacs expressed, only one of them is usually full. All of these things are perplexing to me, but I suppose none of them really matter.

It's hard to believe that it's already the middle of February. It's even harder to believe it was almost 80 degrees today. I walked the dogs this afternoon in shorts and a T-shirt. Wasn't I shoveling ice on the roof less than a week ago? With the unusually balmy weather, it looks like we'll be having training class again tomorrow. After three weeks of bad weather, the dogs have probably forgotten everything they've learned.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 426 - Valentine's Day

I got an assortment of pink muslin backdrops, support poles, tripods and sparkly cardboard hearts put back in the storage warehouse until we need them again for our next photo event. Since I was already out and about, I decided to stop by Sprinkles and pick up some cupcakes for Valentine's Day. The store would have been empty if it weren't for the hundreds of other men standing in line ahead of me, doing last minute Valentine's shopping just like I was. The line snaked halfway around the block and once you were inside the store, there was a whole new line of people waiting to get up to the counter to pick up their cupcakes. I picked out what I wanted when I got inside the store and by the time someone was ready to take my order, my cupcake picks were all gone. I don't know what the fascination is with these overpriced pastries, but I bet this store is making a huge profit. At any rate, I picked out some alternate flavors, including two little dog cupcakes for Dot and Dash and was on my way.

The mail was full of interesting surprises today. I got a little card swiping gizmo that lets me accept credit card payments with my iPhone. Does anyone actually want to use their credit card to pay me? Not that I know of. Hey, if anybody ever does get a strong desire to send me money with their credit card though, I'll be ready.

My latest website project passed another approval hurdle today. With any luck, we'll launch the site by the end of the week. This means it's about time to start looking for new business again. I've got to make a special effort to get out and mingle more this year. Just about everybody I know is a client now. That's not saying much though. I don't know that many people.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 425

We set an all time record today for number of dogs photographed at a single event. I lost count at around 40, but there might have been even more. All I know is that I filled up five compact flash cards, which I've never done before. We must have shot 1500 images this afternoon. Everybody was really happy with their pictures. We had a few equipment problems, but nothing serious. The T-shirt press kept blowing fuses in the building, so we couldn't make T-shirts and tote bags. One of the compact flash memory cards got fried too, but luckily it happened after everyone had received their prints.

Most of the dogs we photographed today were little, purse-sized canines and as a result, I spent a good part of the day down on the floor so I could be eye-to-eye with them. The photos came out great, but I can't say the same for my knees. By the end of the day you practically had to peel me off the floor. Despite the aches and pains, little dogs are still still easier to photograph. They hardly ever knock over the set or chew a hole in anything. When they try to run away, they're not as hard to catch either. I can often scoop them up with my left hand while I keep right on shooting with my right hand.

I hope clients don't start calling until Tuesday this week. I'm still looking at a ton of stuff that either needs to go back to the storage warehouse or at least get returned to its proper place in the studio. It's going to take me a long to to clean everything up tomorrow, but I still don't feel like getting started tonight. I'm just too tired. Hey, the important things got done. We had a successful fundraiser for Dalmatian Rescue. Dot and Dash still got their regular walks, although I'll admit that we did have to return home by moonlight this evening. I'm even going to get the blog published on time. I think I'll sleep well tonight.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 424

It looks like we're going to be real busy tomorrow. Good Morning Texas and D Magazine have both done features on our Valentine's Day pet photo event, and evidently, we are booked solid for the entire day. Janet and Dot went up to the store this afternoon for a meet and greet with customers about Dalmatian Rescue, while I retrieved some props from the storage warehouse and went looking for spare batteries for all the equipment.

So much equipment is required for events like this that I'm always worried that something will break and bring everything to a grinding halt. I've got a backup camera, backup lights, a backup power supply and plenty of extra batteries. I guess all you can do is be prepared and hope for the best. Something unexpected always happens when pet are involved, but usually it's no more serious than a dog pooping on the set. So far, nobody has gotten bitten.

Dash is finally starting to mature. When we took the dogs over to Vheas's Laundromutt this morning for their bath, he didn't make much of a fuss at all. If I didn't know better, I could have sworn that we were bathing a normal dog. He whined a little, but no more than any of the other dogs. Maybe Dash just doesn't like water. I can certainly sympathize. I'm not very fond of water myself these days. Even though the roof is completely dry now, water is still seeping through the Sheetrock ceiling in the living room. Lord knows how much water leaked into the one foot cavity between the roof and the interior ceiling during the snow storm last week, but it must have been a lot.

I've still got to finish packing up the backdrops and the lights. It would be such a luxury to have a totally separate set of traveling gear that I could just leave packed and ready to go at all times. Maybe someday. For now I'll just continue packing and unpacking and packing all over again. At least it's probably good exercise.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 423

As I watched the historic events in Tahrir Square on television this morning, it got me thinking about how fundamentally the Internet has changed everything we do. This peaceful revolution might not have even gotten off the ground without the Internet and it's power to bring people together. The fact that it's become relatively easy for anyone in the world to communicate instantly with everyone else in the world doesn't leave the politicians with many places to hide. Everything is connected now. We may have lost our privacy, but I think we have gained something as well. It's harder to fool people now. Unscrupulous merchants almost instantly get bad reviews on Angie's List. Neighborhood Associations form groups on Facebook to fight zoning changes. Flash Mobs form at the drop of a hat to sing Handel's Messiah in shopping mall food courts. Perhaps Egypt's revolution was just a Flash Mob carried to it's logical conclusion.

I think we are right in the middle of the largest social experiment the world has ever known. We already take things for granted that would have seemed inconceivable fifteen years ago. Facebook has become our neighborhood. Twitter is how we gossip. And anybody, anywhere in the world can become our friend or join our cause. Personally, I think this is a good thing, although living in an interconnected world is still something I'm getting used to.

I have clients in Europe that I've never met personally. This would never have happened without the Internet. Who knows? Maybe there are people in South America or Asia who would be interested in helping Dalmatian Rescue. I've got to learn how to reach out to these people. I still remember the first time someone in China wrote me and send pictures of their two Dalmatians walking with them in Tiananmen Square. I was amazed that they even had Dalmatians in China.

We've got to get up early tomorrow and give the dogs a bath. Dot is making a personal appearance at the Foxy Paws store to promote Sunday's photo event and she needs to look her best. She also needs to act her best. Dot, if you've listening, please, no barking at the little dogs who come into the store in someone's purse.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 422

The lines between my real world and my virtual world are becoming increasingly blurred. I noticed today that the contact list in my cell phone now has Facebook profile pictures attached to most of the entries. I didn't put those pictures there. They just appeared. I guess I must have clicked some sort of button at some point that allowed this to happen, but I don't even remember. Everything is interconnected now. I don't think most of us are even aware of what is going on. When I go to the grocery store, I get coupons printed on my receipt for the same sort of items I just bought. I did my invoices for the month today and I noticed that a reminder about when each invoice was due was automatically added to my iCal calendar. All of these things are happening without any intervention on my part. I've automated my Twitter account so that appears like I'm Tweeting even when I'm not. Oddly, the synthetic Tweets seems to get more comments than the spontaneous real ones. I wonder where this is all going to lead. Maybe I'll get in my car someday and it will just start driving towards some place I happened to "Like" on Facebook.

I'm getting real tired of all this ice up on my roof. I had to get up there three times today to sweep off water that was accumulating from the melting ice. My plan seems to be working though. So far, no more water has leaked into the house. There may even be a hidden benefit to all this ice wrangling. Getting ice off the roof is pretty strenuous activity. I have a feeling that I may have lost a few pounds this week.

Good Morning Texas ran a segment this morning about the pet photo event we're doing this Sunday at the Foxy Paws store. The segment was really more about the store itself, but they did mention that the pet pictures were benefiting Dalmatian Rescue and showed a picture of Dot that I had taken. Dot is becoming quite the media diva. This is the second time she's been on TV. She was featured in our local newspaper last year as well.

I sure hope they pick up the trash tomorrow. Our neighborhood hasn't had trash pickup for two weeks now and it's really starting to pile up.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 421

I learned all sorts of little tidbits today. Did you know that anyone can accept credit card payments now just using their cell phone? No contracts. No expensive equipment required. All you do is download a free app at the app store and the software company sends you a little card swiping gizmo that plugs into the earphone jack of your iPhone. It's all free and the transaction charges are way cheaper than what I'd typically pay for a merchant account at my bank. I immediately signed up for this service. I haven't lost many jobs because I couldn't accept credit card payments, but why lose any? I never bothered to get a merchant account for my company because clients only want to pay by credit card once in a blue moon. Now I can accept charge cards on my phone when I need to and never worry about monthly charges when I'm not using the service.

I also learned that YouTube is getting a lot more sophisticated about music licensing. One of my clients wanted me to take a video off their YouTube page and embed it in their company website. I've done this dozens of times, but this time after I embedded the video on the client's site, I got a message saying that EMI Publishing had restricted it to playing on the YouTube site. YouTube must now have some sort of synchronization licensing agreement with music publishers just like radio stations do. I'm going to have to learn more about this, because YouTube used to just pull videos with unlicensed music off their site. I've had problems with this for years, because clients always seem to insist that they can use the Beatles, or Pink Floyd, or the score from an academy award winning film in their corporate videos without paying for it. I don't know whether this new direction YouTube is taking will make things easier or worse for me. It's never been easy to explain music licensing anyway. I anticipate a lot of "if it's playing on YouTube, why can't you make it play on my website" type of questions.

My roof is covered with ice again. I thought that this time I could limit the water damage by sweeping off all the snow covering the ice first. If there is less frozen stuff to melt, there will be less water to leak inside when the weather warms up. I spent several hours getting rid of the snow, but the ice itself is still up there. I'm going to be real glad when Spring arrives sometime in April.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 420

Learning something new can often be slow and tedious. For me, tackling something I don't really understand usually involves searching fourteen different variations of "why won't this work?" on Google and seeing if I can glean anything useful from the poor fools who tried to learn the same thing ahead of me. Today I did a test run of my new WiFi photo transfer system and learned that it is basically useless. The WiFi card actually works fine and transfers files flawlessly to a nearby computer. The unexpected problem is that it is so darn slow that you could never use it in an environment where you are taking hundreds of images an hour. I guess I could have learned this ahead of time by reading all the discussions about this subject floating around on photography forums and user groups. That's not the way guys do things though. We typically buy something first and then figure out through trial and error if it is a piece of junk. At least I didn't destroy my camera. About thirty minutes after I put the card in the camera and started shooting, I found a long list of cameras on the Eye-Fi website, along with a warning that your camera could be ruined if you tried to insert the card. Luckily, my camera wasn't on the list.

I remembered today that I'd accidentally let one of my domain names expire. I wish I'd remembered this two months ago when it actually did expire. This was a domain that I had thought would be valuable to me at some point. Apparently, it's not all that valuable. Two and a half months after I let the domain expire, it was still available. Nobody wanted it. Chagrined, but unbeaten, I renewed the domain and made a mental note to keep better track of these things in the future.

It's supposed to start snowing again tonight sometime after midnight. I don't hate snow or anything, but all I can think about at the moment is that all the time and energy I spent cleaning the ice off the roof recently has totally gone to waste. If we get freezing rain followed by snow, as they're predicting, I'm going to be up on the roof later this week doing the whole cleanup process all over again.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 419

Everything is back to normal. The mailman finally delivered our mail today. I hung the pictures back on the wall that I was afraid were going to get damaged by the roof leak. I temporarily put away some of the winter coats festooning the coat rack in the hallway and even had some success bleaching away the stains in the sheet rock caused by the roof leak.

It's hard to believe it's February 7 already. This weekend is our big Valentine's Day pet picture event at The Shops at Willow Bend. It looks like we're going to try the new WiFi setup that will let me transmit images directly from the camera to the printing computer. If this works it will save a huge amount of time. If it doesn't work? Well, that's why I'm taking backup equipment so we can still do things the old way if necessary.

When I turned on the TV this morning I learned that Michael Vick had been given the keys to the city by Mayor Pro Tem Dwaine Caraway during Superbowl weekend. The keys to the city? Say it's not true. The real mayor, Tom Leppert quickly issued a statement saying that he didn't condone or authorize this honor, but that did little to stem the controversy. Now the city is divided into two camps. One side thinks Vick should still be serving time in prison and the other side thinks football is more important than animals. When I hear people saying that Vick "served his time" or that "it's time to move on," I keep thinking that he's still a multi-millionaire and is still playing with the NFL. Maybe he went to prison, but he sure didn't seem to lose much in the process.

I wonder if it's even worth trying to find where the leak in the roof is again? My success rate at finding this leak is certainly less than stellar.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 418 - Super Bowl Sunday

I felt a lot of sympathy for those guys who were trying to get all the ice off of the Superbowl roof yesterday, because today I was doing exactly the same thing on a much smaller scale. The temperature was in the mid 50's, most of the snow was gone, but I still had three inches of solid ice covering my roof. The fact that I was up on the roof shoveling ice while wearing shorts and a T-shirt is all you need to know about Texas weather. Our weather makes no sense at all. It took most of the day to get all the ice removed. I couldn't break it up by pounding it into little pieces with a shovel like I did with the driveway ice. It would be pretty easy to break through the fragile tar & gravel roof and have an even bigger leak than I started with. I was careful though and now the dripping water in the living room has finally stopped.

With my home maintenance duties out of the way, I went down to the Culwell & Son Superbowl Sale and bought some clothes. I don't need any more clothes, but I go to this unique five hour sale every year because it's hard to resist 75% off the regular price. I got a great deal on a couple of sweaters that I'll probably be wearing pretty soon. The weather forecast says it's going to snow again before the end of the week.

It was a good game tonight. Even though my team didn't win, it looked like they easily could have several times. The game was close enough that it kept my attention until the final minutes. I can't say the same thing for the commercials. This year's batch of ads weren't all that good. The only commercial I saw all evening that deserved to be in the Superbowl hall of fame was the Volkswagen "Darth Vader" spot where the little kid thinks he has used the force to start his Dad's car. This commercial made me smile. Most of the others just left me scratching my head. I guess Chrysler's homage to Motor City was pretty good too, but that's only two out of literally dozens of heavy-handed clunkers. There seemed to be an awful lot of car commercials from recently bankrupt companies this evening. I bet they were paid for with stimulus money.

Here's hoping it doesn't snow again this week. I don't want to spend the day shoveling ice on the roof again for a long time.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 417

What a difference a day makes. Although the temperature was still in the teens when we woke up, it got up over fifty later in the day. Yesterday's ice and snow quickly turned to slush and mud. The roads weren't slippery at all. Apparently, nobody bothered to tell the post office or the sanitation department about the nicer weather. We still didn't get any mail delivery or garbage pickup today.

I drove down to the post office again this afternoon and was finally able to retrieve a small stack of mail. What I took home looked more like one day's worth of mail instead of an entire weeks worth. The postal clerk claimed that this was all they had though. If this is true, it would be the lightest week for mail we've had in many years. Usually, a week's worth of mail would fill a grocery bag. The pitiful little stack with a rubber band around it that I took home this afternoon couldn't possibly be everything.

I was quite pleased about the warmer weather until I started hearing a dripping sound in the living room during dinner. Yup. It was the roof leaking again. It was already dark, so I couldn't get up on the roof to see if I could remove the melting ice. I'll just have to get out some buckets tonight and wait until tomorrow. I even thought about getting the ice off the roof yesterday, but when I had difficulty getting it off the driveway, I thought the roof could wait a while. Ice is even worse on the roof than water, because there is no way of removing it in a hurry. When the ice starts to melt, it becomes a giant water reservoir, continually feeding new water to the leaky area. I need to wait until the ice turns slushy though to clean everything up. Falling off the roof would probably be a little worse than bumping my head on the driveway.

Emmie, one of our new Dalmatians, has already been adopted. Good for her! Now, we've just got to find homes for the rest of them.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 416

No mail again today. I don't think I can remember when we've gone an entire week without mail delivery. It's weird. I can get to the post office, but they can't seem to get to me. Whenever I go to the post office to pick up the mail, they say my mail is out on the truck and I'll have to come back later. Somehow I think I'll never see this week's mail again.

The dogs don't worry about where the mail is. They had a great time frolicking in the snow. There were new smells to investigate and lots of trails in the snow to follow. Dash seems to like the snow better than Dot. She was concerned about keeping her balance like I was, while Dash jumped around and generally tried to knock us all over.

Going out in the park with the dogs was fun. Going out on the roads with all the crazy Texas drivers was another matter entirely.

I think Dallas could win some kind of award for having the worst Winter drivers anywhere. The roads were still real icy today and there were cars in the ditch just about everywhere. Most of the roads were passable if you took your time and didn't put on your brakes too fast. When I went out today, I wasn't worried about the ice ahead of me. I was a lot more worried about the big pick up trucks behind me going 40 miles an hour as I was approaching a stop light. If everybody would have just kept moving slowly, I don't think there would have been many problems at all. Unfortunately, there was always someone who would try to get out of a slippery situation by pressing the accelerator to the floor, spinning sideways and blocking all the other traffic on the road. When this happened, everybody got stuck. When you are forced to stop on an icy hill, it can be pretty hard to get started again.

I'm just glad the furnace is still working and the house is warm. No real damage from the bump on the head yesterday either. I feel sorry for all the restaurants and small businesses around town who have been counting on the Superbowl to make up for what they've been losing in this bad economy. I heard that 300 flights were canceled at DFW airport today. Fans aren't just curtailing their Superbowl shopping and partying, some of them aren't even able to get here at all. They say it's going to be warmer tomorrow. Here's hoping the weatherman is right.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 415

The first thing I did this morning was fall on the ice and hit my head on the concrete driveway. I've had a headache for the rest of the day. This weather is absolutely treacherous. It's not just ice on the roads now. It's ice everywhere. All the remaining snow has turned into thick sheets of ice. It's hard to go ten feet without falling on your butt. I wish I could just train the dogs to use the toilet, but they insist on going on their regular walks. I really need a pair of golf shoes or football cleats. Even my good hiking boots don't have any traction on this ice. I have to look for grassy areas and kick through the ice sheet with every step to avoid falling over. I don't know how the dogs manage to stay upright. They do slip and slide a bit, but they certainly seem to get around a lot better than I do. Their claws must give them the extra traction I'm looking for.

Still no mail delivery today. I drove down to the post office to see what was going on and discovered that the postmaster didn't know much more than I did. He did tell me that Cindy, our regular mail carrier, was sick and that they were using a substitute this week. He also told me that the mail carriers were authorized to come in early without finishing their deliveries if conditions looked bad. I guess conditions looked bad to the new guy all week, since I still haven't received any mail. It'll be a miracle if I ever get all of this week's mail. I wouldn't be surprised if some of it got thrown under the mail truck's tires to get out of a ditch.

Everybody seems to be blaming the city's weather related misfortunes on the Superbowl. The street would be clear, they say, if all the sand trucks hadn't been diverted to clear the streets around the Superbowl. Yesterday's power outages would never have happened if the Superbowl hadn't sucked up all the power. On and on it goes. I've never heard so many things blamed on the Superbowl in my life. I think the real reason for all the slowdowns is that we just don't know how to cope with Winter down here. Hey, if we wanted snow and ice, most of us wouldn't have moved to Texas in the first place.

Nobody seems to know if the garbage trucks are going to pick up the trash on our street tomorrow morning. Somehow, I doubt it.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 414

We woke up this morning to rolling power outages and a temperature of only thirteen degrees. This wasn't a good combination. Our house isn't well insulated and you could feel the temperature drop minute-by-minute. It would have been nice if TXU had warned people that they were going to be shutting the power off periodically throughout the day. I've already had several computers ruined by the surges associated with power outages. Luckily, the first outage occurred before the computers turned themselves on for the day, so I was able to unplug everything that might be damaged. It got pretty cold for a while this morning, but everything seemed to stabilize around noon. At least in the Winter, you don't have to worry about food going bad in the fridge when the power goes out. All's well that ends well though. We're warm as toast now. The furnace repairman even stopped by today to check out my intermittent furnace problems and give the old furnace a clean bill of health.

I took advantage of the lack of electricity this morning to switch out the computers in the office. I am now officially using the new computer for everything. It must have been weeks ago when I told you guys that I got the new computer, but this is the very first blog post I've published using it. One reason I waited so long was Dreamweaver. I use Dreamweaver every day and I knew that once I started using the new version, I'd have to spend a lot of time downloading a whole new batch of Dreamweaver Extensions and getting used to the "improvements" in the application. Sure enough, when I got to work after the power returned, I discovered that some of my favorite Dreamweaver MX extensions don't even work on CS-5. I found what I needed on Adobe Exchange though and I'm off and rolling again.

I haven't seen the park so empty in a long time. When I took the dogs on their evening walk I noticed that my boot prints in the snow from yesterday were still the only footprints around. Absolutely no joggers today. In fact, I didn't see anybody at all. We must have been the only ones foolish enough to go outside. I think Dot ate a little mouse while we were walking today. There was a rustling in the tall grass and she pounced on something and started chewing. Whatever it was, it was gone before I could open her mouth and look inside. It must have been a mouse. All the horse poop in the park is frozen now.

So much for that old "Neither snow nor rain nor dark of night" adage about the postal service. Nobody has delivered our mail for three days now. I've seen postmen delivering mail in other parts of town, but they can't seem to make it to our house. This is probably just like our garbage pickup and this morning's rolling power outages. Somebody probably decided that everybody needed to come down to the post office and pick up their own mail during the bad weather, but forgot to tell the people who were actually receiving the mail. Oh well, tomorrow's another day. I guess I'll go down to the post office and find out for myself what's going on.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 413

The world was a sheet of ice when we woke up this morning. Dot raced out the back door as usual when we let her out before breakfast and she slid halfway across the yard. When I gave the dogs their regular walk a little later, I felt like I was mounting an expedition to the South Pole. They said on the news that this is the coldest that it's been in Dallas in fifteen years and I can certainly believe it. I put on a down ski jacket over two sweaters and I was still cold. One coat wasn't enough for the dogs today. I put two winter coats on each of them. Not surprisingly, we were almost the only ones in the park this morning. I saw one determined jogger, but that was about it. Luckily, I've been able to keep my balky furnace running, because my repair guy wasn't able to get out on the roads today.

The only time I ventured out on the icy roads was for a quick trip to take Dash to the vet. I could have rescheduled for another day, but my vet is only five minutes away and I do have the Defender 90. I thought I'd take the back roads to avoid the other cars sliding around like billiard balls. This was probably a mistake. Absolutely nobody was driving on the back roads and they were all still covered with a thick sheet of ice. It was like driving on an ice rink. I was surprised that anyone was even at the vet when we got there, but some hardy souls told me that they'd been at work since 7 AM.

To ward off cabin fever, I decided to fire up my old Media-100 video editing system and back up some video files before I retired the thing for good. I guess I waited too long. I couldn't even launch the application today. I did a hardware test and discovered that my Media-100 PCI card had gone bad. When did this happen? I have no idea. I haven't used the system to edit anything for almost three years. It's not even worth repairing at this point. The system paid for itself years ago, but it's still hard for me to throw it away. It's the only video editing system I know well enough that I never have to look at the manual. I guess Final Cut Pro and I are going to have to get to know each other a little better in the months ahead.

The temperature has dropped five degrees since I started writing this post. Either I'm a very slow writer or the temperature is dropping pretty fast. It's going to be in the single digits before morning. Every couple of hours I hear a loud thunk as something falls on the roof. I think that some smaller limbs are falling off our trees as they grow heavy from the ice that has accumulated. Sure hope the power doesn't go out tonight. When tree limbs start to fall, power usually goes out somewhere. Here's hoping that everyone stays nice and warm. I'm going to get out the blankets and make sure I have a warm dog right next to me tonight.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 412

All the weather reports say a big storm is headed our way. By tomorrow morning it is supposed to be thirty degrees colder with snow or freezing rain. With this in mind, I ran a bunch of little errands today and filled up my tank with gas. Nobody knows how to drive on ice here in Dallas and the smallest amount of the slippery stuff on the roads can bring the city to a standstill. Anything I can do today means one less reason to get out on the roads tomorrow.

I think I'm ready for whatever nature brings our way. There's just one little fly in the ointment. The furnace isn't working again. I called my furnace repair guys and they said they wouldn't be able to come out until tomorrow morning. That's fine. Wouldn't you know that when I got home from running all my errands this afternoon, there was a note on the door saying that the furnace folks had come by around 4:30 PM anyway. I can never seem to get coordinated with repair people. If I stay home and wait all day, inevitably nobody shows up. If I leave for even ten minutes to go to the post office, that's when they'll always show up.

One of my new clients has written me a check before I even got them set up in my accounting system. I love clients like this. Maybe this will be a good year after all. When I was at the DFW Pet Business Owners meeting yesterday, one of the more successful business owners told me that the secret to her success was contacting at least ten new prospects every day. I probably don't contact ten new people in a year. Maybe I'll try for eleven this year.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day