Day 552

For the first time in three months I remembered that big trash day is tomorrow and hauled a bunch of backyard eyesores out to the curb. Gone are the two rusty wire deer that were Christmas yard ornaments at some point in the past. Gone is the defunct lawn mower that sat behind the green house for so long that a small tree started growing through the handle. Now that I'm finally starting to get the hang of throwing stuff away, I'll have to admit that it feels good to get rid of some of this junk. I guess the real question is when to stop. I have so much stuff that is technically useless that I could easily go too far.

I continued my cleaning by taking a few more things over to the storage warehouse. When I was there, I noticed that they had painted the floors gray again. I don't know why they do this. Two days after the paint has dried, the floor gets all scratched up again from people dragging their furniture out to their waiting U-Haul van. Before the week is over, the floor looks even worse than it did before. If the warehouse people really want a nice looking, maintenance-free floor, they ought to strip all the paint off and just acid stain the concrete. It's none of my business though. I just go to the warehouse to avoid draging even more junk out to the curb.

It's time for a haircut again. I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm seriously considering abandoning my stylist and just going to a barbershop. My hair has seen better days. I really don't think that someone in a trendy salon who has "art director V" on her business card can do all that much more for this hair than a plain old barber with clippers. Old habits die hard though. I'll probably think about this for at least another year before I actually act on it.

As much as I hate the idea, I'm going to have to start walking the dogs earlier in the mornings. It's just too hot outside. It's too hot for Dot and Dash and it's too hot for me. Where is an indoor, air conditioned dog park when I really need one? Unleashed, I miss you guys.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 551 - My Birthday

When I looked at my Facebook page today, I thought that I'd have a ton of birthday greetings, just like everybody else does on their birthday. There was nothing at all. Not one single Happy Birthday. This puzzled me at first and then I looked at my profile page and realized I'd never even bothered to fill out the birthday field. Oops. Thinking that I still might pick up a few stragglers if I filled out the birthday field with the birthday itself partially over, I added today's date, clicked save and my profile was updated. Almost instantly, birthday greetings started to arrive. I don't know what this all proves, but I think it proves that people are spending way more more time on Facebook than I thought they were. I try to answer these birthday notices that Facebook sends out myself, but I probably miss a ton of them, since I seldom look at my page everyday.

The dogs love birthdays. They learned about wrapped packages a long time ago at Christmas and now they think that whenever they see a wrapped up package, it's for them. Dash walked off with several of my presents before I had a chance to open them, while Dot waited patiently for her Sprinkles dog cupcake. Whenever we get cupcakes from Sprinkles for a celebration, we make make sure to get dog cupcakes for Dot and Dash as well.

I discovered today that I share a birthday with Dirk Nowitzki. That's pretty good company. I've known for some time that Guy Lombardo and Paula Abdul were born on this day, but somehow it seem a lot neater to share a birthday with Dirk. Oh, did you know that Moe from the Three Stooges was born on June 19 too.

I did start caulking the house today like I promised I would. What did I learn from this experience? I learned that anything involving standing on a ladder outdoors in the Summer is hard work and I learned that a tube of silicon caulk doesn't go very far. I thought one tube would do the job, but it looks like it's going to take about ten tubes to go around the perimeter of the house. I did have enough caulk to seal the hole where the bees got in. Now I just need to seal all the other holes where they might go next.

The park was almost empty today when I took the dogs on their evening walk. There were a lot fewer people having picnics than on Mother's Day. The place was packed with families on Mother's Day. Probably the Mom's in Dallas just had more sense than the Dad's did. I always wondered why Dad would take Mom to a hot dusty park filled with ants and poison ivy when she'd probably really rather go to a nice restaurant.

The dog park was pretty empty today too. I don't think that had anything to do with Father's Day though. It was just a very hot day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 550

I knew I was in trouble when I went to the battery store and was greeted by two new guys wearing green shirts instead of the customary red. I've been buying watch batteries at this store for years and had gotten to know the sales guys. They always gave me the jewelers wholesale price on watch batteries, even though I wasn't a jeweler at all. I did buy a lot of batteries though. When these new guys rang up my total, the price was almost three times what I was used to. I told them that I had always gotten a discount, but when they looked on their list of jewelry store accounts, of course they couldn't find me. I really couldn't justify my discount other than the fact that the other guys had always given it to me. I handed the stack of batteries back and told the guys in green that I would just buy them online. As I was walking out the door, one of the guys said, "let me see what I can do." He looked a little book and came up with the jewelers price again. I walked away with twenty five batteries.

This little scenario illustrates why small business is having a tough time these days. Nobody, including myself, wants to pay retail anymore. Can you blame us. There's an app right on my iPhone that lets me compare and find the lowest price on almost anything, anywhere in the world. It's much easier to order something directly from China over the Internet than it is to look for a lower price across town. Don't get me wrong. I love little retail stores. I just don't support them anymore. Times are tough and I want the lowest price on everything. Why would I want to pay $3.25 for a watch battery when I can get the same thing for 95 cents somewhere else.

So, there you have it. A few companies gear up to sell their stuff to the entire world on the thinnest of possible margins and the rest go out of business. The battery store probably won't go out of business. They'll struggle along and make less of a profit by giving customers the discount they want just before they walk out the door forever. The same thing has happens in my own business. I'm still busy, but I'm lucky to make $50 doing exactly the same things that used to bring in $500. To make the same income I used to make, I have to work a lot harder.

I got another new website launched and online today. I only like to work on one design project at a time, but now that this project is almost finished, it means I need to start looking for another website client. This is not as easy as it sounds. I'm not a big, fancy interactive shop like Razorfish, and I don't sell cheap cookie-cutter template sites either. Most of my clients started by doing one of those cheesy "website tonight" type of template sites on GoDaddy and ended up hating it. Then they priced big companies like Razorfish and couldn't come close to affording them. I was the only alternative left.

Now that the bees are finally gone, guess what I spotted today? Carpenter ants! I've started seeing the characteristic little piles of sawdust around the edges of some of the windows. Carpenter ants aren't as bad as termites, but they do eat wood. Looks like I'll be making another trip to the pest control store next week.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 549

I think we've become far too dependent on computers. I was picking up some things for dinner at Central Market tonight and I noticed that the big sign that said 20% off on all deli items if your total is $20 or more was back again. The last last time they had this special, I missed the total by 2 cents and didn't get a discount. I knew I would get it tonight though, because I was hungrier and would probably buy more. Sure enough, when I got to the register my total was $32. No discount appeared on the register display though. The check-out girl couldn't understand why I didn't get the discount, so she called the manager over. He looked at my register tape and said that I didn't really go over $20 because the Rotisserie Chicken didn't apply. I told him that I didn't buy a Rotisserie Chicken. He looked through my bag and pulled out a clear plastic box that said Rotisserie Chicken on it. "Here it is," he told me. "Jeez, look what's inside that box," I told the manager. He looked again and guess what he saw. A couple of Ribeye Steaks. How they ended up labeling steak as chicken I'll never know. I got my discount. I think I also got the steaks for the price of a Rotisserie Chicken, but it was too complicated for me to do the math.

It is the middle of the month again, so I paid my bills today. I used to pay bills the moment they arrived in the mail, but the whole process is so unsatisfying that I only do it a couple of time a month now. At least when you buy a nice pair of pants or a new computer, there is some satisfaction involved. When you pay an electric bill, there is no satisfaction whatsoever. Electricity is kind of like air to me. Why should we have to pay for it at all? I'm sure the electric company doesn't think this way though. Probably the cable company, the phone company and the gas company don't feel this way either.

I've noticed that the webworms have returned to the park again. They are devoring hundreds of beautiful mature pecan trees. You'd think the city would do something about this, since it's getting worse every year. I see city crews out all the time pruning trees or putting weed killer on the edges of the bike paths. The worms are fairly easy to control with Orthene, but I've never seen any attempt to get rid of them. Probably there's some sort of "save the webworm" group lobbying the city council to leave them alone.

I'm going to put silicon caulk around the edge of the roof this weekend. I think the bees are gone for good. One problem solved, ninety-nine left to go.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 548

I'm just glad when days like this are over. As soon as the dogs morning walk was finished, it was non-stop work. There was a photo-shoot to take more employee pictures. There were websites to update. There were articles to write. There was a rescue group meeting to attend. In a way, it was just a normal day, but usually there are little breaks between these things. Today it was non-stop all day long. I just got back from the rescue group meeting and as the discussions lingered on, I found myself looking at my watch and thinking "oh dear, I've still got the blog to write too."

Today's the day I need to take the week's trash out to the street as well. Luckily, Dot always reminds me about this one. She seems to be obsessed with trash bags. As soon as I start emptying wastebaskets and carrying trash bags around the house, she starts barking like crazy. She'll follow me all the way out to the garbage cans behind the house and won't relax until all the trash has been properly disposed of. She barks at garbage trucks too. Only garbage trucks. Moving vans and utility vehicles of a similar size, she completely ignores. The more time I spend around dogs, the more I realize that they have just as many superstitions and strange obsessions as people.

Have any of you started getting those BranchOut invitations on Facebook? Evidently Facebook is starting it's own version of LinkedIn. Just what we need: one more thing to keep track of. I definitely have mixed emotions about this one. Now that I've embraced social media, I like to be connected to lots of people. I'm actually starting to get business from social media connections now, and in this economy, that's definitely a good thing. On the other hand, the only way you can invite someone to join your BranchOut network is to post an invitation on their wall. I'm sure when people see these invitations, they seem exactly like all those irritating Farmville game requests and those other things that say "so and so has just answered a question about you." Maybe I should take the lazy man's route and just send a blanket invite to all my Twitter followers. That way I will have a business contact list populated by thousands of YA writers who are working on a vampire novel. Who knows. Maybe this would actually be better than having a list full of advertising people. The advertising people are more likely to be vampires themselves.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 547

Not a bad day! My meeting went well with my new website client. There were a few changes and additions, but we're on the home stretch. With any luck, the site will probably go live early next week. I also finally got the new version of Quark Express installed on my computer, so I'm back in business doing print graphics as well. One thing I really like about Quark 9.0 is that you can easily export projects that are already formatted properly for Kindle and iPad. Maybe I'll try to turn my dog stories into an e-book. Other people are certainly doing this. Who knows. Maybe people will end up reading my stories while they're sitting by the pool, like in those Kindle TV ads.

Dash has got to be the most stubborn dog in creation. For the past week or so I've been thinking he was getting too hot on his walks, mostly because after walking about 300 yards, he would dig his heals in and refuse to go any further. Often, we had to cut our walk short and come home, even though Dot wanted to go further. Today, acting on a hunch, I let Dash set the direction and Dot and I just followed him. He was full of energy and walked as far as he normally does in cooler weather. Where did he want to go? You guessed it. He wanted to go back where the coyote pups have their den. This is exactly where I didn't want the dogs to go.

It was kind of a sad day at dog class tonight. One of our class members got kicked out of class because his dog attacked another dog for the second time in three weeks. In the six years I've been going to this class, I've never seen anybody get kicked out before. This was serious though. I think the teachers made the right decision. Even though everyone really likes the dog's owner, you just can't have a dangerous, aggressive dog in a training class. If people can't feel safe about bringing their own dogs to class, they'll just quit coming and the whole class will fall apart.

I think it's time to get out the caulking gun and seal up all the little cracks around the edge of the roof. From the look of things, all the honey has been removed from the hive by now. Even the neighborhood scavenger bees are gone. Now, all I have to worry about are the June Bugs in the back yard. Spot, our first Dalmatian, used to love June Bugs and ate hundreds of them. Dash doesn't appear to have the stomach for the critters though. He likes the taste, but our vet told us that eating the bugs may be partially responsible for the stomach problems he's been having lately.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 546

I think I'm totally maxed out. Every day, I begin with some vague plan to start something new, but by the time I finish my regular website updates, walk the dogs, make a trip to the bank and post office, write my watch articles, do a load of laundry and post something new to the blog, the day is over. Tomorrow will be the same thing all over again. I'm not complaining. I just can't figure out why it takes me so long to do these routine and often mundane things. I think I used to be faster. I also used to have lunch with friends several times a week. Now I just say Happy Birthday to them once a year on Facebook.

A big chunk of today's time got used up sitting in my vet's lobby with Dash. Luckily, there doesn't seem to be anything seriously wrong with him. He doesn't have Crohn's disease and he doesn't have Giardia either. This is all good. We decided to add a probiotic supplement to his food and see if that helps. The more I hear about Probiotics, the more I think it might be good for me to start taking them too.

Now that my office is a little less cluttered, I'm starting to see other things that I could get rid of as well. If I could just pare things down to the stuff I actually use, my office would be as tidy as a Japanese zen garden. The place has kind of become a repository for memories. All four walls are lined with books. At some point I actually read most of these books, but I haven't taken one off the shelf in years. The tape machines can probably go too. I finished my last project on video tape early last year. With everything being recorded to tiny memory chips these days, I think it is highly unlikely that anyone will ask me to do something on video tape ever again. The tape machines look cool though. I feel real professional surrounded by tape machines.

I've really got to get over this need for gear. When I was working on the trade show project in Houston last May, I realized that I can do everything anyone would ever ask me to do using a single laptop. There's just no need for video tape machines, mixers, limiters, compressors and all sorts of other 19 inch wide boxes that screw into a slot in my audio rack. Everything can be emulated in software now. I guess all I need these days are a fast laptop and my huge honking Epson printer.

I'm meeting with a client tomorrow to wrap up another website project that I've been working on this Spring. Hopefully, everything will go well and I'll be done. I'm always happy when I can get a project moved from my server over to the client's server. That's an accomplishment that feels almost as good as a clean office.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 545

I'm finally starting to get comfortable with the idea of giving stuff away. Don't get me wrong. I still don't feel any inner peace from this process of simplification, but I am able to get rid of stuff now. Maybe the reason this is all so hard is that I always envisioned that at some point I'd have this huge loft building where I could spread everything out and have lots and lots of room all my photography equipment, musical endeavors, painting experimentation, woodworking projects and so on. Maybe there would be a separate huge room for electric trains and another just for framing pictures. I don't think this is ever going to happen though. I have no desire to live in marginal industrial neighborhoods with affordable lofts anymore. The dogs rule now. A small house near a beautiful park where the dogs love to walk is a much better alternative.

It's time to toss stuff. Maybe, even though I'm a die-hard Gemini, one of everything is actually enough. Today, I took three very large CRT monitors and an old aerial reconnaissance camera down to the animal rescue resale shop. I thought this effort would clear out a large amount of space in the storage warehouse, but when I was ready to leave, the place looked just as full as ever. At first I was confused and then I realized I'd put the big stack of boxes that was blocking the door back on the shelves I'd just emptied by removing the monitors. It's slow progress, but I do feel like I'm accomplishing something.

I also finally resolved the mystery of how my recent software purchase got totally screwed up. When I made one of my daily calls to the support center, my call mistakenly got routed to the company's headquarters here in the United States instead of going to the offshore call center like it normally did. This time the representative I talked with almost instantly had a grasp of the problem. She found my account, told me that it had mistakenly gotten merged with the account of someone else and then proceeded to cancel my order as I had requested. This all took less than five minutes. When I asked why repeated calls to the support center weren't able to produce this result, the representative said. "Oh, we only provide the offshore call center with a very limited amount of information. They can't access the same database that we can." I'm still puzzling over this one. What use is a customer support center if they don't have any information? If I hadn't accidently reached the wrong person this morning, my order would still be in limbo.

It was interesting to me to see how many people seemed genuinely happy to see Lebron James fail last night. The Internet was buzzing with Lebron James jokes this morning like: Today is National LeBron James Day. Everyone gets to leave work 12 minutes early! and Why didn't LeBron James go to college? He didn't want to show up for finals. I think this all has a lot to do with people's expectations of loyalty. You certainly expect loyalty from a friend and Cleveland definitely considered James a friend. Not anymore. John Kasich, the governor of Ohio, issued a resolution today praising the Dallas Mavericks for their loyalty, integrity and teamwork. Of course there were all these people in Ohio saying the governor should be concentrating on "serious things" instead of praising the Mavericks. Hmm. I'd say loyalty actually was a serious thing.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 544

I made a major effort to reclaim the office from the clutter monster today. I found warranty cards that I had never filled out for things that had broken years ago. I found a radio that was full of old corroded and oozing batteries. If I had taken those batteries out five years ago, the radio would probably still work. I found some blank quarterly estimated tax vouchers from 2003. I wonder if that was the year I paid a penalty for not doing my quarterly's correctly? I found hundreds of floppy discs. What do you do with floppy discs? I don't have anything in the office that will even read a floppy anymore. After filling two large black trash bags with useless crap, shredding a bunch of papers that were totally meaningless to me, and taking a big plastic Container Store tub full of maybe items to the storage warehouse, I managed to clear about nine square feet of floor space that had remained hidden by boxes for months. I still have a long way to go before I have a tidy looking office again, but I'm making progress.

The yard looks better too. I mowed the grass in the front and the back and pulled up the vines that have been trying to strangle the Wax Myrtle tree in the courtyard. I even cleaned the air duct filters, which I should have done three weeks ago. When I was cleaning up today, I couldn't believe how many unopened things I found. There was unopened software. Unopened small electronic gizmos. There were a lot of unopened envelopes. I don't know when I thought I was going to get around to opening these things. Some of them were five years old.

The dog park was virtually empty again today. I kind of like it this way. There are no parking problems and very few worries about fights breaking out with other dogs. Actually, any kind of park is more enjoyable to me when it's empty. The Winter empty days are more pleasant than these 100 degree scorchers though. I can't wait for the cold, foggy mornings to return so the dogs and I can have the park to ourselves again.

I'm writing the blog a little early tonight, because I want to watch game 6 of the NBA finals. I'd like to see Dallas win this. I think they deserve it after all the struggles they've had over the years. It's kind of amazing that they're even in the finals. There were certainly a lot of years when getting in the finals was the last thing on anybody's mind.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 543

OK. This required a certain leap of faith. I took down the magic strip on the side of the house that caused all the bees to leave. Tonight, more bees are supposed to return. According to the beekeeper, these won't be the same bees though. They will be scavenger bees that just want the remaining honey that's still in the hive. When all the honey is gone, the thieving neighborhood bees will leave too. I asked the beekeeper what the bees do with the honey they steal. "Oh, they just add it to the honey in their own hives," he said. So, bees aren't all that different from people. They just want to see who can accumulate the most stuff.

The dogs had a busy day today. We took them both up to an adoption event at a PetCo store in Plano. Dot and Dash were both well behaved, but we didn't accomplish much for Dalmatian Rescue. The store was virtually empty. The whole time we were there, only two people came by our table.

Later in the day, we went to the annual Summer party for our Wednesday training class. The party took place in the park behind our house, so we just walked to the event. The dogs were much more interested in the fried chicken the people were eating than in the competitive events for the dogs. We entered Dot in one of the races, but she wasn't very interested. After winning her initial heat, she and a cute little Vizsla named Laine refused to leave the starting line in the semi-final race. Dot really doesn't like the heat. We took her inside the pavilion building where lunch was being served and she lay down right next to an air conditioning vent.

Everything is back to normal now. Dot and Dash are sleeping on their blankets. I just finished watching a surprising Dr. Who episode where River Song turned out to be Amy Pond and Rory's daughter. It's hard to keep track of this show after the universe has been destroyed and recreated several times and most of the main characters have died and been brought back to life, often to end up living in a parallel universe somewhere. This isn't like MI-5 where the characters routinely get killed and just leave the show. Everyone seems to come back in Dr. Who. I fully expect to see Rose Tyler and Donna Noble return again at some point.

I wonder if scavenger bees are feasting on honey right now. I'll probably never know. Since the beehive is actually inside my inaccessible flat roof, I'll never actually see it. I believe it is there though. There is certainly a lot of circumstantial evidence that it is there. Maybe the inside of my roof is like the Tardis: bigger on the inside than on the outside. There certainly were an enormous number of bees exiting the roof the other day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 542

Kudos to Ace Bees. It hasn't even been 48 hours since the beekeepers came out to the house and already all the bees have flown away. I guess I'm almost ready ready for stage two of the process. This is where I remove the special strip with the smell that the bees don't like and let the other neighborhood bees come and steal the rest of the honey. So far, everything has worked exactly the way the beekeeper said it would. Coincidentally, I received a message on my LinkedIn wall this morning from someone who lives in my neighborhood. He said he was sorry that I probably had inherited his bees. Apparently three or four months ago, he had a similar bee problem at his house and when his bees flew away, he though they might have flown over to my house. We'll never know for sure. Bees don't talk. It does make me wonder though were my colony of bees are going to make their next hive. Hopefully, it will be somewhere in the nearby park, instead of another house.

I certainly don't have any accolades for the company that sold me the Quark Express software a few days ago. When I discovered that they were indefinitely out of stock of the product, I tried to cancel my order today. The person I talked to on the phone told me that the company couldn't cancel the order because my order number corresponded to a different customer name. Everything looked correct when I logged in to my website account, but I couldn't convince the offshore call center people that I was really me. When I couldn't get the call center folks to give me the name and number of someone who actually worked for the software sales company here in the United States, I gave up and called Paypal for help instead. At least Paypal knows who I am. Maybe they can help me get the order canceled. One thing is certain. I'm definitely not buying anything from these folks again.

I happened to catch part of my favorite Dr. Who episode while I was washing dishes today. This was the show where the doctor and Amy Pond meet Vincent Van Gogh and take him back to the present day Louvre so that he can see for himself that he had succeeded as a painter. I don't know why this show resonates with me. Probably because I think that nobody will remember me after I'm dead either. Lots of TV today. Janet and I were watching the National Geographic Channel during dinner and happened to see a re-run of the show I did with the friendly goat. The last time I saw this show, I viewed it on an old 4:3 Sony Trinitron. The footage I shot looked great then. This time, I watched the show on a new 16:9 flat screen. Everything looked like it was cropped all wrong. I guess it makes sense. I shot the footage on a 4:3 Beta-SP camera. Oh well. I doubt that I'll be using a 4:3 aspect ratio ever again.

In an effort to clear out some additional space in my storage warehouse, I gave away four inkjet printers, two scanners, a CRT monitor and an old Acoustic Research turntable to a resale shop run by an animal rescue group I like. All these things that I gave away still work. Most of them actually look like new, but I doubt that anyone will want them. Nobody wants old technology. You can't even give it away to schools. There's probably a 99% chance that my old printers and scanners are already in a dumpster somewhere. At least I have now room to fill up the storage space with newer old junk.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 541

Janet had dental surgery again today, so I started the morning by driving her to the dentist. I've got plenty of things wrong with me, but at least I've got good teeth. I would dread going to the dentist as much as Janet has over the years. Even the little dental video I shot last month made me cringe. All that being said, I actually have been to the dentist this year. That's a lot more than I could say for some of the previous years.

The beekeepers arrived this afternoon to remove the honeybees from my house. Since they weren't able to physically remove the hive without totally tearing up the house, they did something else instead. First, they applied caulk to the cracks in the wood that were providing the bees with an entrance to the area under the roof where they made their hive. Then, after they had created a small, defined entrance/exit area for the bees, they placed a chemical strip that apparently bees absolutely hate. They said that within 48 hours, all the bees will leave and re-locate three to five miles away. After all the original bees are gone, I am supposed to take down the chemical strip and give other neighborhood bees access to the hive. The neighborhood bees will then raid the hive and steal the remaining honey. When the honey is completely gone, all the thieving bees will disappear as well. When all the honey stealing bees have disappeared, I am supposed to seal all cracks around the eves of my roof with silicon caulk and then the problem will be solved. For all you critter loving folks out there, no bees are supposed to be harmed during this elaborate process. Well, I guess I did manage to harm a few of the bees already when I tried to get rid of them with Demon WP last week. Only a tiny fraction of the thousands of bees that inhabit the hive were affected though. At the time, I had no idea just how many bees actually inhabit a good size hive. If I knew that thousands and thousands of bees were living under my roof I would have been very scared. At any rate, we'll see how this all works. The entire process is supposed to take about a week.

I ordered some new software for the company today and was quite surprised to see that sales tax was added to my Paypal payment. One of the main reasons I order most things online is to avoid paying sales tax. Hmm. I guess I just assume that all online merchants are far, far away. When I checked the website again, I discovered that the company I just ordered from was right here in Texas. Oops.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 540

What did I learn today? I learned that Ooma, which I always thought was pretty cool, won't work with my Motorola SBG900 gateway. I learned that online merchants are increasingly using their own checkout systems when you choose to pay with Paypal. I learned that my new Colorburst RIP requires a dongle. None of these things are particularly good for me. The Ooma VOIP phone system requires a wired connection to your Internet gateway to work. Boo! I discovered the Paypal problem when I renewed some domains this morning on Network Solutions. Their checkout system automatically tells Paypal to use instant transfer instead of a credit card and then adds insult to injury by adding themselves as a "recurring payment" on your Paypal account. Boo again. And what's the deal about dongles? I thought dongles on software went out of fashion in the nineties. Dongles used to be the bain of my existence when every music creation/editing program on the planet required one. Everyone was in a panic about software piracy back then and developers made it so hard to actually use their software that it was hardly worth the trouble. Luckily, multiple software licensing dongles that use up all your available USB ports are largely a thing of the past. I guess Colorburst still thinks they need one though.

Getting rid of bees is more expensive than I thought it would be. It's going to cost $300 to have the bee guy come out and remove my bees. I guess this is money well spent though. If I can't get up on the roof to remove rain water, I'm going to need some even more expensive roof repairs. Bees aren't my only critter problems either. Just when I'm finally getting the new grass in the back yard established, there is now some sort of nocturnal animal that has been digging large and fairly deep holes in the St. Augustine turf to get at something they want underground. Whatever the animal wants is buried about eight inches under the surface. It's probably a Possum digging for grubs. The grubs aren't good for the grass either, but this isn't the way I would choose to get rid of them.

Our teacher wanted us to bring a dog toy to training class with us tonight. The theory was that playing with the toy in short 30 second bursts during the training exercises would keep the dogs energy up as the weather gets warmer. This theory didn't work very well with Dash. All he wanted to do was play with the toy. It actually took me much longer than the required 30 seconds just to get the toy out of his mouth again so we could return to sitting and healing.

At least Dash is feeling better. I'm kind of worried he might have Crohn's disease though. The symptoms certainly correspond to what's been happening with him lately. We'll find out one way or the other when we go to the vet next Tuesday.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 539

Today was the day I was supposed to take Dash to the vet. Unfortunately, I canceled the appointment yesterday. I thought Dash was well again, since he has seemed absolutely normal for over two weeks now. So what happens this morning? His diarrhea returns, he poops on the carpet and throws up his breakfast on his morning walk. These were exactly the same symptoms that caused me to make the appointment in the first place. I called the vet again and tried to get my appointment back, but of course someone else had already taken it. Now I've got to wait until next week to get Dash in for a check-up again. This time I'm going to keep the appointment, whether he seems sick or not.

I drove up to Carrollton after breakfast to pick up the missing check that turned up yesterday. I guess I could have waited a few more days and the check would have come in the mail, but I'm a superstitious person and I didn't want anything else to go wrong. Airplane crashes aren't the only things that happen in groups of three. I think a lot of things go wrong in threes. Hey, why take chances.

Cleaning up runny dog poop on the office carpet and driving across town to pick up the check definitely put me behind this morning. I had made plans to go to an Avid Technology editing seminar later in the day, but I never managed to get caught up in time to make a second trip across town. By the time the dogs had finished smelling every tree on their evening walk, the seminar was half over. I guess it was no great loss that I missed the presentation. I had been thinking of getting Avid Media Composer for an upcoming video editing project, but the project went away when the client decided to edit it themselves.

I guess I made progress today. I went to the pet store and got a new bottle of Natures Miracle to get rid of the smell in my office. I got another watch article written. I put a little money in the bank. Tonight we'll see if Dash can hold his dinner down. I hope he feels better. My guess is that he's been eating too many June bugs in the back yard, but with a dog like Dash, it could be anything.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 538

I had my interview with the FBI today for my friend's background check. I thought the agent would ask me a lot of tricky or probing questions, but the whole experience was more like going through an airport line with the TSA folks. The questions were very general and largely unnecessary. "Is your friend a member of a subversive group that is trying to overthrow the United States government?" That sort of stuff. Jeez, guys...what kind of friends do you think I have? I will say one thing though. Our government pays our federal agents well. As I was finishing up my Starbucks coffee after the interview, I noticed the agent driving away in a big black Mercedes.

For several weeks I've been wondering what happened to a missing check from one of my clients. They said they cut the check back in May, but I never received it. Today the mystery was solved. Somehow the check got stuck to the back of another check and both checks were mailed to someone else. Does the other vendor return the check addressed to me? Nope. They cash it. This doesn't give me a whole lot of faith in the banking system. You wouldn't think this vendor's bank would deposit a check that was written to a completely different company, but they did. At any rate, I'm going to get my money. I don't think I'm going to trust the post office this time though. I'll just drive up tomorrow and pick it up.

I noticed that Apple introduced iCloud today. So far, I haven't been a big fan of cloud-based computing. For the most part, having your documents in the cloud is slower and a bit buggier than just having them all on a big hard drive on your desk. I imagine I'll end up using iCloud whether I want to or not, however. Knowing Apple, this thing will be so completely integrated into the operating system that I won't even know I'm using it. It will just start syncing things whenever I charge the battery or something.

I called a bee removal company today and left a message, but they never returned my call. I guess they were just too busy buzzing around town.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 537

I slept in late this morning. Apparently, nobody else did, because when I woke up, everybody was gone. Janet likes to get the dogs out early on weekends, so she had taken Dot and Dash on their morning walk. I was moving so slow, that by the time I made the bed and put fresh water in the dogs bowls, everyone was back again.

Since the Summer heat is officially here, we went up to the dog park earlier than usual as well. I don't think we'll need to worry about finding a parking place for the rest of the Summer. The crowd was definitely lighter today. There were only a small handful of dogs at the park, but luckily Dash still found someone to play with.

On the way home, we stopped by Vheas Laundromutt and both dogs got a bath. Even though neither of them have had a bath in at least three weeks, they still remembered that it was something they mutually hated. Dash disrupted the place with his trademark shrill bird noises, while Dot just shivered and shook. It was all over in ten minutes though, and then we all went home and had lunch.

I find myself working on weekends a lot more than I used to. Since the hourly rates for what I do keep declining, I need to make up the difference in volume. As a result, I'm constantly busy, but I still feel broke most of the time. In between today's paying jobs, I managed to get all three of the new dogs we've picked up recently on the Dalmatian Rescue website. These dogs should all find homes quickly. They are friendly, easy going, and most importantly, healthy and free of heartworms. Scooby, one of the three is today's Dalmatian of the Day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 536

We took Dot and Dash shopping for new collars today. They love going into any type of store, but dog stores are just about the only places that will tolerate them. Dot, being a typical girl, couldn't find anything pretty enough, but Dash came home with a spiffy new collar. This was no ordinary collar, mind you. This one was beaded and hand-made in Kenya by the Maasai.

After the shopping excursion, Janet and I went to meet the three new Dalmatians who just entered the Dalmatian Rescue program. One of the new dogs was Scooby, who I rescued earlier in the week. The other two, who were rescued by Ann and Pat, were named Shelby and Maverick. I remember naming a dog Ranger last year when the Texas Rangers were playing in the World Series. I have a feeling that Maverick's name might have something do do with how well the Dallas Mavericks are doing this year in the NBA playoffs. All three of these new dogs are fabulous and by some stroke of good luck, none of them have heartworms.

A fire engine went by with its siren wailing while I was taking the dogs on their evening walk. All the sudden I heard a cacophony of howling in a nearby patch of brush. I instantly knew what I was listening to. The neighborhood coyotes have had pups. May is typically when coyotes have their litters. I have heard this frenzied howling before. I turned the dogs around and we started walking the other way. Better safe than sorry. Dash just isn't predictable around coyotes. He usually starts barking and growling at them, which is not good. I definitely don't want to provoke a mother coyote while she is protecting her den.

I've come up with a plan to keep my new large-format printer from clogging all the time like the old printer did. I'm going to start using it as my everyday printer. It's a bit of overkill to use this huge printer to print Microsoft Word documents, but it might actually save money. I can't even begin to guess how much expensive ink I've wasted in cleaning cycles trying to unclog the old printer. Maybe this plan will work better than my plan to get rid of the bees. It's time to call a professional beekeeper to come remove them. I had a dream about the bees last night. Well, it was more of a nightmare actually. The bees had gotten inside the house and were attacking us.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 535

I got distracted today trying to repair the rubber case on a Suunto watch. These watches are little technological marvels with built in altimeters, barometers, compasses and GPS tracking. Unfortunately, this state-of-the-art technology comes in a cheesy rubber case that starts to fall apart the minute you begin wearing it. I've patched, glued and tried to repair my Suunto case so many times that it probably wouldn't be waterproof anymore if I sneezed. I don't know why so many manufacturers put absolutely amazing technology in cheap plastic cases. The Zoom video camera I got for my blogging stint in Houston was the same way. The camera itself was full of professional features and performed very well. The case, on the other hand, was absolute crap. If you even held the camera too tightly in your hand, you would break it. There are companies like Sound Devices that manage to but fabulous technology in rugged, durable cases, but you pay an arm and a leg for the extra protection. I guess cheap plastic cases are a strange thing to be whining about, but I hate the stuff. I think everything should be made out of titanium.

The post office lost another check that I've been waiting for. This is the third or fourth time this has happened. The check was mailed on May 24 from just across town, so I definitely should have received it by now. It is not uncommon for the mailman to drop one of my letters in the wrong mailbox. What is uncommon is for the people who actually received my mail to take the time to return it. I guess I understand, but it still is frustrating. Most mail is junk these days. If you don't recognize something right away, you probably just throw it away unopened. That's what I do anyway. I hope I haven't accidentally thrown away someone else's check.

I think Summer is officially here. The dogs don't want to walk anymore. They're OK on their morning walk as long as I get started early enough. The evening walk is a disaster though. Usually, before we even get halfway, one of the two dogs will dig in their heels and refuse to move an inch further. I'll try all the normal sit, stay, heal commands, but they usually won't do anything. At this point, there's only one thing the dogs want to hear. When I say "are you dogs ready to go home," they both turn in unison and start walking briskly back toward the house. I'm not looking forward to July. Texas Summers might be one of the few things I dislike more than cheap plastic cases.

I started looking forward to the Memorial Day weekend at some point during the day and then I realized that the holiday was last week.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 534

I got a call from the FBI today, asking if I would be willing to be a character reference for a friend of mine who is in the middle of a background check for a high security clearance. The agent said they needed to have someone talk with me for about twenty minutes. I asked where they wanted to meet. "We're in Sacramento," the agent says. When I told him that I lived in Dallas, there was a long pause, and then the agent said he could transfer the interview to someone in my area. I told the guy that my friend could probably keep a secret pretty well. "Hey, I've known him for over five years and I still don't know what he does for a living," I say. The agent laughed and said someone would be calling me. Our government at work, I guess.

Dot's painting arrived in the mail today and it looked even better than the JPEG image I showed you guys a few days ago. Carolyn Finnell is a talented painter and we definitely want her to do a portrait of Dash as well. Several of our friends saw Dot's picture and said they would like paintings of their pets as well. I have a feeling that Carolyn might end up painting a lot more Dalmatians than she bargained for.

I might have to have a beekeeper come out and remove the hive from its mystery location inside my walls. The situation seems hopeless. I've sprayed three gallons of insecticide in and around the entrance to the hive and still the bees keep coming. The pest control store keeps telling me that lots of bees have been killed, but as long as the queen is still alive at the center of things, new bees will keep being attracted to the hive. So far, there seems to be an endless supply of worker bees willing to die for their queen. I'm still very reluctant to have the bee keeper come out though. He would have to tear a hole in the roof to get at where the hive is probably hidden. I have enough problems with my leaking roof already. If the beekeeper tears a hole in the roof, I'll probably never get it properly sealed again.

At least it's Friday tomorrow. I probably say that a lot, but that's the way I feel. Every weekend this little hampster can finally get off the hampster wheel for a little while.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 533

I came across one of my Paypal ads again today. I don't see these things all that often, but they're still floating around out there. I don't think the ads have changed my life much. Oddly, I am spending more on Paypal though. I find myself increasingly using Paypal instead of a credit card to pay for things, mostly out of a vague feeling of loyalty. Maybe that was the whole point of the ads. Go out and find some people who are wasteful spenders, feature them in ads, and then they'll spend even more. I'm still not sure why they picked me, but I do like the company. They're been really helpful to Dalmatian Rescue.

Scooby was neutered this morning and finished up his health checkup, so I picked him up at the vet this afternoon and took him over to The Velvet Snout. I initially thought that this was the most ridiculous name I'd ever heard of for a doggie day care/boarding facility. I'm starting to have second thoughts though. The name immediately rises straight to the top in Google searches. It's easy to remember too. Maybe in this age of Google, oddball names are the best. Before the Internet became ubiquitous, I was convinced that my own name was completely unique. According to Google, it is actually pretty common. There are Sealander architects, Sealander Environmental, Health & Safety companies, Sealander law firms, Sealander Real Estate agents and probably dozens of other companies that I'm not even aware of. Maybe Sealander & Company wasn't quite as original as I thought. Maybe if I called my own company The Velvet Snout twenty years ago, I'd be famous now.

One of the dogs in our training class is on Prozac now, just because he went after another dog about a month ago. I think that's sad. I've never been a big fan of mood altering drugs. Life isn't always pretty. Dogs bite. People get depressed. Life goes on. You've just got to learn to deal with it.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 532

I walked Dot and Dash early this morning, so I could be first in line at the City of Garland animal shelter when it opened. Ten minutes after the shelter opened its doors I walked away with Scooby, a nice looking young male Dalmatian who was living on borrowed time. Scooby was an owner surrender, but that wouldn't protect him very long. This friendly dog would be put down just like any other stray if nobody claimed him. I still find it hard to believe that so many people routinely dump their dogs at the pound like this. According to the animal control officer, Scooby's owners said he was tearing up the yard. That was it. Hardly seems like an offense worth putting a dog down for, does it? I'll bet you anything that Scooby never got daily walks or exercise. From the poor condition of his coat, he probably never got to come inside either.

Any dog will eventually tear up the yard if they are dumped outside and totally ignored. I tell people all the time that Dalmatians are very active dogs and need a long walk every day. They also have very sensitive skin and don't do well if left outside. People don't listen though. They continue to get a Dalmatian because they are so pretty and then dump them when having a dog is no longer convenient for them.

When I got home from rescuing Scooby, I took Dash to the vet for his bi-weekly antigen shot. For quite a few months I've been thinking that these shots were a miracle cure, because his coat had started looking so much better. For a short time Dash was actually looking whiter than Dot. Now, all the bronzing and skin discoloration had returned and I have no idea why. Dash's diet is the same. His routine is the same. I can't think of a single good reason why he has brownish spots on his coat again. I guess I shouldn't be surprised though. Similar things happen with my own health all the time. Six months ago, I was convinced that my doctors had finally cured my persistent coughing spells that were often accompanied with severe heartburn. The coughing spells have returned though, after being completely gone for at least six months. I don't know why the coughing has returned. I'm still taking my meds. My diet is actually much healthier than it was a year ago. I even gave up drinking. Sometimes taking better care of yourself just seems pointless.

It's beginning to seems like buying a new large format printer was pointless too. So far, the new printer seems to exhibit exactly the same flaws that eventually drove me crazy with the old printer. I've only had this printer a week and I've already had to unclog the lines. You'd think that I'd at least get a six month grace period or something. Instant clogging just isn't fair. It looks like I'm going to have to upgrade my expensive RIP software as well. I've already discovered that the old RIP won't work with the new printer.

Scooby is getting neutered today. Tomorrow afternoon, I'll go back to the vet and take him over to his temporary new home. Boarding kennels leave a lot to be desired, but I'm certain this dog will get a lot more attention at the kennel than he ever got at his first home. We'll make sure that when he does find his forever home, he'll finally get the second chance he deserves.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 531 - Memorial Day

Holidays aren't a good time for dogs to go stray. We found out yesterday that there is a Dalmatian at the City of Garland animal shelter, but it was a bit complicated to figure out how to pick him up before his time expires. We always try to get these dogs as quickly as we can, because the shelters put them down quickly too. A lot of time you only have a 72 hour window of time to save the dog. At any rate, the shelter was closed today for the Memorial Day holiday. The vets where we take the rescue dogs were closed as well. Even if we could find a vet who would give the dog its shots, all the boarding kennels were full for the holidays as well.

Janet and Pat sent out lots of e-mails and finally managed to contact someone who could get directly in touch with the shelter. The dog was tagged for rescue and I will go to the shelter as soon as it opens tomorrow morning to pick him up. Hopefully this will be a healthy dog who doesn't have heartworms or Ehrlichia, but you never know until the vet looks him over.

I installed the printer drivers in my new printer today and tried to get it up and running. Easier said than done. These printers are meant to connect to your network using a Cat-5 Ethernet cable. I don't use a wired office network anymore though and the printer is located too far away from the computer to connect it using USB. I went to Fry's and bought a wireless print server. I couldn't get it to work though, because the installation CD was only for Windows computers. Never mind that it said right on the box that the thing was compatible with Macintosh. Who knows. Maybe the print server will work with my Mac. I don't think it is going to be easy though. When I went on the web and looked up a list of compatible printers for my little print server, the results came back in Japanese.

My back hasn't gotten any better. When I went to Fry's this afternoon, I shuffled around like an old man pushing a walker. I probably need to go to the doctor tomorrow. I don't know if that's going to prove anything however. The last time this happened, my doctor just gave me a list of exercises to do to build up my lower back muscles. I forget why he wouldn't give me meds, but I think the logic was that I needed to feel the pain so I wouldn't go do something else stupid and make the problem even worse.

Tomorrow it's back to work. It's not like I actually stopped working or anything. It's just a figure of speech.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 530

About a month ago, one of my Twitter followers, Louisiana painter Carolyn Finnell, wrote me and said she was interested in painting a Dalmatian because she had never painted one before. I sent her a picture of Dot that she could use for reference and then I kind of forgot about the whole thing. Today, Carolyn wrote again and showed me the finished picture. It was wonderful. She managed to capture Dot's personality perfectly. I look at this painting and it seems to convey more of Dot's spirit than any photo I've ever taken. Janet and I immediately bought the painting, before someone else could snap it up and then asked Carolyn if we could commission her to paint a portrait of Dash as well. These two dogs are really amazing and it would be nice to have a good painting of both of them.

It was a busy day today, especially considering it was a holiday. We went to the dog park earlier than usual, so the dogs wouldn't get too hot. When we got home, I immediately proceeded to get too hot myself by mowing both the front and back yard grass. I guess our short, pleasant Spring is already over. The temperatures are in the high 90's already and the humidity is typical for a Texas Summer: muggy and miserable. At least there was a breeze today. That made it seem a little bit cooler.

When I took the dogs on their afternoon walk, I noticed that a group of boy scouts were having an overnight camping outing in the park. The scouts were acting just like scouts have always acted, but the scout leaders were riding around in golf carts. I wonder what that's all about? When I was a scout, the troop leaders didn't ride around in golf carts. They hiked right along with us to ungodly locations where we got covered with chiggers and ticks and then came home with a case of poison ivy.

One other weird park encounter today. We passed a group of picnickers who were eating their holiday dinner about 20 feet from a very dead and smelly possum. The dogs and I could smell the dead possum from at least fifty yards away. It wasn't a very nice smell. It definitely wasn't a smell that you'd want around while you were grilling your Memorial Day brats and burgers. I don't understand people anymore. Maybe these were the same group of picnickers who had their meal right next to that tree that was on fire in the park a few months ago.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day