Day 1125

We saw a bobcat on our walk this evening. Although the park is full of bobcats, it is rare to actually see one. My guess would be that the cat was just catching some rays like everyone else this afternoon. It was a beautiful day. Luckily, Dot and Dash had the good sense to leave the bobcat alone. I don't think it would be smart to mess with a bobcat. On the way home we saw a disheveled looking man wandering through the woods carrying a container of gasoline. Personally, I'd be a lot more wary of that man than any bobcat.

Since it was a clear day with blue skies all the way to the horizon, we though for sure that the dog park would be open. Guess again. When we arrived with Dot and Dash the park was closed. Sure, it rained yesterday, but that was yesterday. Today was nice. Sadly, you're at the mercy of the city whenever you go to the dog park. If someone from Parks and Recreation doesn't feel like coming out and unlocking the gate, you're screwed.  The dogs showed their displeasure about this unfortunate turn of events by howling and barking the entire way home. A road trip with this pair would be like a journey into the Twilight Zone. I don't think you'd emerge with your sanity intact. Oh, did I mention we're planning a road trip.

I'm getting intrigued with the idea of using a sprayed-on foam roof to solve my roof problems.  I've been researching this type of roof on the Internet and on the surface, it seems like the perfect solution. The roof is completely seamless, so there are no joints or seams that can crack later. The foam has excellent insulation value, to the house would stay warmer on cold days like this. It's pretty cost effective too, compared to other alternatives. There must be something I don't know, or I would have heard of this before. Maybe the foam is flammable and a spark from one of the irritating designer piñon pine logs my neighbors use in their fireplace would burn the house down. Maybe the foam is an environmental hazard and I'd have to have a hazmat crew remove it before I could sell the house. Maybe the stuff is just fragile and a falling branch of two would ruin the whole thing.  I'll have to find out more.

I'm watching the Golden Globes as I write this.  I had trouble finding a live video feed initially, but then I went to Twitter and found one immediately. The Internet feed appears to be live, but I don't think I'm watching NBC. All the comments on the website are in Arabic.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1124

The rain has returned. There was enough of a downpour this morning to scare both the dogs and send them shivering under my desk. I didn't have the heart to leave and start my errands until the rain let up a bit. Eventually, I was able to get my shopping done and even got the water off the roof when the rain finally stopped late in the day. Unfortunately, right after dinner a brief hailstorm swept through the neighborhood. I'll be back on the roof tomorrow.

I've been writing about my roof for so long that Google Adsense ads are starting to show up on the blog from commercial roofers who specialize in flat roofs. A couple of these ads look intriguing and I've bookmarked them. It would be ironic if all my complaining actually led to a solution. The odd thing about Google Adsense ads is that they seem to be directed toward me instead of to my readers. I'm not supposed to click on the ads though. That would be cheating.

The temperature must have dropped 30 degrees this afternoon. Texas weather is hard to get used to. One day, you're wearing a t-shirt and shorts. The very next day you've looking for your goose down coat. Things go back and forth from one extreme to the other for most of the Winter. You never know what to expect. I am always pleasantly surprised when I wake up and see clear blue sky through the bedroom windows. It still happens ocassionally.

I'm glad dogs live in the moment. If they thought ahead like I do, they'd already be fretting about whether they'll get to go to the dog park tomorrow. Right now, things don't look too good. Dot and Dash aren't concerned about the dog park now. They're more focused on who's going to get the best spot on the bed. About ten o'clock tomorrow morning they'll start thinking about the dog park. If it's still raining, they'll both be expecting me to make it stop. Getting rained out of the dog park is a serious thing for a dog.

Murphy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1123

I got a flu shot today. I'm not a big fan of flu shots and seldom get them. I think the reason I got one this year was that I didn't want people saying "I told you so" if I actually came down with the flu. Everybody I know has already gotten their shot and they keep asking me if I've had mine yet. I figured it was just easier to get the shot than explain my theory that the whole flu panic this year had been created by a 24-hour news cycle that continually needs something to scare us with. Remember the bird flu? Whatever happened with that one? Wasn't the bird flu supposed to wipe out civilization as we know it? I think you have to take all media scares with a grain of salt. I can bore you with pictures of pancakes, but the cable news channels can't get away with this kind of behavior. They're determined to scare us into watching more often.

If you want to avoid the flu, I've got a tip for you. Just stay away from little children. Little kids are always sick. Pretty soon their parents get sick. Then their teachers at school get sick and finally I get sick. As long as I avoid kids, I stay pretty healthy. I guess this advice doesn't work if you actually have kids though.

I discovered why my Lombard laptop can't connect to the Internet.  The short answer: it's too old. The slightly longer answer: First generation WiFi networks used WEP encryption which was supported by the Apple Airport card. Modern WiFi networks now use sophisticated WPA encryption, which although it is much more secure, isn't recognized at all by older computers like the Lombard. I guess I could just plug the old laptop straight into the U-verse hub using an Ethernet cable, but what's the point.

I got an e-mail today telling me that I was as "Class Member" in a class action suit against Facebook for improperly using people's identities for their own purposes. I wonder if everyone on the planet is a "Class Member" in this lawsuit? I just always assumed that invading people's privacy was what Facebook was all about anyway. Personally, I don't think this lawsuit will go anywhere. I'm sure that when we all signed up for Facebook in the first place, there was some very tiny legal type somewhere that said by signing up for the service, we gave Facebook the right to do whatever it damn well pleased for all eternity.

For future reference. If all I've got to show you is a picture of pancakes, chances are it was a very boring day.

Pepper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1122

I got the Apple Lombard back today. It worked perfectly. Well, actually it didn't work perfectly. I couldn't connect to the Internet anymore. Unbeknownst to me, during the years that the Lombard sat unused in my closet, WiFi standards had changed and the built-in Airport WiFi card didn't work anymore. This was kind of ironic, since it was this computer that practically invented built-in WiFi. I don't even think you could even buy a laptop with built-in WiFi before the Lombard.

I don't want to keep kicking a dead horse, but this is just one more example of how little respect that old electronics get in today's world. Old computers get about the same amount of respect as soured milk or stale bread. It doesn't seem fair to me. Vintage guitars and amplifiers are revered by musicians. Vintage mechanical watches are often worth much more than their contemporary counterparts. Even old vinyl record albums have their fans. When I tell people that I still have a working Osborne-1, all I get are glassy stares. Nobody even cares.

I got a call from a friend today that I hadn't seen in a while.  When I rhetorically asked him what had been happening in his life since we last talked, he told me that he'd had a heart attack, was unable to work for almost a year, sold his house, and was now on permanent disability. Whoa! I wasn't expecting that. This guy was very athletic and I always thought he was healthy as a horse. Apparently, so did he until the heart attack hit him. I think that our health is much more fragile than most of us would like to admit. It was also disconcerting to realize that, unlike my friend, I didn't even have long term disability insurance. I'm not even sure it matters if you're a writer though. Insurance companies are getting pretty tough. Most of them tend to think that if Stephen Hawking can still write, then other writer's disabilities must be trivial.

The weather was much nicer today, and so was my mood. The roof is clear and dry again. The buckets are gone in the living room and the house looks more or less normal if you don't look up at the ceiling. Even the dogs stayed clean today. The only fly in the ointment was my visit to the muffler shop. I was going to get the rattling catalytic converter replaced, but when the technician pounded on both converters with a little hammer and told me he thought it was the left hand converter that had gone bad, it gave me pause. For months I've been driving around thinking that the right hand catalytic converter was the bad one. I'll have to think about this one.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1121

Days like this you simply endure. The rain started late last night and never stopped. It's still raining. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that the roof did leak again. The leak wasn't that bad this time, but it was enough to make a mess. The dogs were true to form too. They insisted on going out, and then as soon as they realized what the weather was like, they wanted to come back inside again. We all got soaked on our walks, because even though Dot and Dash hate the rain, they still insist on pooping at their regular place, over a mile away. While we were walking, I noticed that the lake was getting pretty wet too. One of the piers was almost completely under water.

I thought I might have time to clear the water off the roof during a brief lull in the storm, but before I was even halfway finished, the rain started again in earnest and erased all my hard work. Some of you have wondered why I don't just go out and get a new roof. Well, it's not as easy as you think. The house is fifty years old and has settled in several places. As a result, water on the roof puddles into ponds, instead of draining off the edge like it is supposed to. It is not enough to simply put on a new roof. All the plywood decking under the roof must be leveled and replaced with a new decking that has a slight pitch so the water will drain properly. This is called an "engineered" roof and it is quite expensive. I've learned that roofers don't want to do carpentry work. I've also learned that general contractors, who could help find the proper carpenters, don't want to hire good roofers in the first place, so they can keep more money for themselves. Worst of all, the few commercial roofers who are experienced at covering large flat spaces don't even want to give me a bid. I don't have a large flat space. I have a very small flat space and they don't think it is worth their time.

In between drying off wet dogs and positioning buckets over dripping spots in the ceiling, I wrote watch articles. This didn't seem very glamorous either. I keep thinking that real watch writers get invited to polo matches in Argentina and fly around the world going to watch conventions. I can't imagine that the other watch writers spend most of their time cleaning mud off of two Dalmatians.

The Macintosh repair guy called today and told me he could fix my Lombard laptop. He seemed real excited about the old Lombard and called it a collectors item. This wasn't all that surprising to me. Just about everything I have is a collectors item to somebody. I have very good taste. I'm just not very practical. So here I sit, listening to water drip into plastic buckets as I tell a technician to go ahead and fix an aging laptop that I will probably never even use.

Mack is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1120

I got my January invoices in the mail today. I also got Dash's anal glands cleaned at the vet. Both events held about the same degree of excitement. There's something about an all day rain that just takes the wind out of my sails. When I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions, I saw a wet pencil lying in the road and it seemed to sum up my day.

The dogs seem to think that I have the ability to stop the rain, the same way I can open and close doors for them and make food appear when they're hungry. Every time I would let them outside today, they would give me this "make it stop" look. I wish I could make the rain stop. I could certainly have used the hours I spent cleaning mud off the dogs, off my shoes, and off the floor for something better.

Rain always makes me nervous about water leaks. No leaks today, but I could hear the dreaded dripping sound at any moment. I joined Angie's List recently in hopes of finding a good roofer. So far, Angie's List has been a huge disappointment. The minute I joined, I started getting tons of junk e-mails for all sorts of household services. What's that all about? I thought the whole point of Angie's List was to avoid advertising hype. Apparently not. The list, and its companion universe of post cards, e-mail blasts, magazines and coupons are jam packed with ads. You don't really see many negative reviews on the list either. I think people are wary about saying negative things online now in the wake of all these lawsuits resulting from a bad review on Yelp.

At any rate, I'm still not sure that a roofer who truly understands residential flat roofs even exists. There are plenty of companies who know how to put a quality flat roof on factories, warehouses, gymnasiums, and other large expanses of real estate. These companies aren't interested in residential roofs though. They're too small, and it isn't cost effective for them to mess with them.

So far, giving Dash a snack at night seems to be working. He hasn't thrown up for three days in a row and the only difference is that he now gets a rice cake just before bed.

Jordan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1119

I feel cheated. Remember when I told you that I had discovered some new HD channels on my TV? Well, they're all gone. It's turns out that this was just an evil holiday promotional ploy by AT&T to suck people like me into paying even more for their monthly bundle. It wasn't that I failed to notice the HD channels earlier. They just weren't there. These new channels appeared briefly during the holidays as free programming, but today it was back to normal. All I got was an onscreen message saying "You have not subscribed to this channel. Please press OK to upgrade to our premium service." I should have known. You never get something for nothing at AT&T, Comcast, or Time Warner.

I took my old Apple Lombard laptop up to the Apple repair center in Plano today. Yeah, I know I should have just thrown the old laptop away, but I feel compelled to bring this thing back to life. Although I have a much faster and more capable laptop now, the old Lombard was always the real workhorse of my business. This computer traveled the world with me and was always there for my biggest and best assignments. It's almost laughable now that I depended on this computer and it's tiny 6 GB hard drive for almost everything. My phone is more capable now and has a much larger memory. Even the thumbnail sized SD cards my camera uses hold much more information than this computer. I'm a loyal person, not a practical person. I'm bringing the Lombard back to life just for old times sake.

We're in uncharted territory with Dash now. Since the vet has run out of ideas, we have been left to our own devices on the best way to control his nightly vomiting. Pills certainly aren't the answer. I hate to over medicate a dog, especially for long periods of time. Janet said she sleeps better when she has a snack before bedtime. We tried giving Dash a snack before bedtime last night, and he slept soundly all night. I guess we'll try the same thing again tonight.

The big liver specialty clinic called today to set up an appointment. When I called them back to confirm my visit, it was a bit disconcerting to hear their call center message. "Press 1 if you are a cancer patient," it said. "Press 2 if you are a transplant recipient," the message continued. When it got to "Press 3 if you are on the transplant waiting list," I didn't want to hear any more. Hopefully, my own appointment is just a precautionary visit.  I feel fine.

Misty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1118

I took some filing cabinets from the office over to a little resale shop that benefits homeless animals. I love this place, because you can donate absolute rubbish and they always act like it's exactly what they needed. They are really doing me a favor to even take this old stuff, but they always make me feel like I'm the one doing something good. I like that. I have a feeling that these folks are just nice, but maybe they're being polite in hopes that I'll eventually bring them something good.

After I got rid of the unneeded furniture, I went back home and tried to thin out the closets a bit by getting rid of equally unneeded clothes. I used to just throw away shirts that I couldn't button around the neck any more. Since most of these tight fitting clothes from younger years are already gone, I have to rely on Janet to tell me which things are hopelessly out of style. If I hold something up and she makes a face, it goes in the throw away pile.

Spring cleaning is kind of like peeling an onion. There are usually layers upon layers of mess, and once you have dealt with the top layer, it just reveals something else waiting underneath. When I removed the filing cabinets today, they must have been in a damp corner, because there was a layer of mildew on the wall behind them. I then had to set up a portable heater to dry out the wall and still haven't finished scrubbing everything down with bleach. I found an old Macintosh laptop when I was cleaning things out this afternoon. I plugged it in and got nothing. Dead as a doornail. When I removed the battery, it was date-stamped 1999. I don't know it it's even worth the effort to try and find a working 1999 Apple laptop battery. Probably not. Even if I managed to get the computer working again, I'm sure it is so slow that I would find it useless.

Dot and Dash had a great time at the dog park today. They both seemed a bit alarmed when we began to take an alternate route to the park. Both dogs started barking like crazy in the back seat. I'm sure they were saying something like "Turn around immediately, this isn't the right way." To quiet things down in the car, we returned to the old route. As soon as the dogs recognized their surroundings and knew where they were going, they both settled down again and were good for the rest of the journey.

I have a feeling that next week is going to be busy. It's time to get the car safety inspected again, and before I can do that, I need to get a new catalytic converter. I have a feeling that the old clattering converter would be a dead giveaway that my emission system isn't up to par. I've grown to hate state safety inspections over the years. They continue to grow more and more complicated. I think I should be exempt anyway, since I don't drive very much. In our state, humans aren't even involved with the safety inspection. It's all in the hands of a computer. They hook your car up to some sensors and the results get sent straight to Austin. In the old days, I could talk my way out of minor infractions. There's no one to talk to anymore though. This automated life really doesn't suit me. It probably won't be long before I have to give a DNA sample just to get my prescriptions filled.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1117

There was a new Dalmatian to photograph today. We haven't had many Dalmatians available for adoption recently, so it was fun to go meet Vegas, the new girl. With her friendly, happy temperament, she should find a home quickly.

I didn't sleep very well last night. Dash woke everyone up around 4 AM, wanting to go outside to eat grass and throw up again. When he doesn't throw up, I think the antihistamines are working.  When he does throw up, I think they are doing nothing. Who knows. Dash has certainly been to the vet enough times about his condition, but nobody has arrived at any conclusion. Apart from this odd behavior, he seems perfectly healthy. At any rate, as soon as Dash threw up, he went right back to sleep, while I stayed wide awake. 

I tried, with little success, to get some old USB webcams to work with my newer computers this afternoon. It's frustrating trying to get old peripherals to work with new computers.The equipment is usually perfectly good. It's just been abandoned. Very few manufacturers continue writing new drivers for their old printers, scanners, and webcams. It's much more profitable for them to simply sell you a brand new piece of equipment. The only reason I keep this old stuff is that I still have the old computers as well. As long as you pair old stuff together, everything works fine. It's only when you try to pair the old with the new that the problems start.

I'm still kind of fascinated by the new HD channels I've discovered on our TV. HD images look great. Of course, old shows like The Twilight Zone and Seinfeld look exactly the same on HD. If they weren't shot in high definition in the first place, they're not going to look any sharper twenty years later. Sports and live rock concerts look fabulous though. I suppose that a lot of movies look fabulous in high definition too, but I seldom have time to watch movies anyway.

Maybe I'll go to bed early and make up for the sleep I lost last night. One can only hope that Dash will decide to sleep soundly tonight. The weather is warming up a bit, so maybe tomorrow will be nice. A good night's sleep, a late breakfast, and an early trip to the dog park sounds like a plan to me.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1116

I put away the Christmas decorations for another year. If this year zips along as quickly as the previous one, I'll be getting them out again before you know it. I don't know why time seems to pass so quickly now. I get much less done than I used to, but all the available hours remain filled while the time races along at an alarming rate.

The usual Austin indie bands didn't accompany my breakfast at the cool restaurant this morning. Instead, I listened to the same Beatles tunes I heard in the elevator when I went to the doctor on Wednesday. Overheard conversations were a bit different too. Two girls with purple streaked hair at the next table were talking about how to get into the best sororities at SMU. Although the attire was different, I could have heard this same conversation thirty years ago. Sometimes I wonder if anything changes at all.

I accidentally discovered that there were channels on the U-verse TV above 1000 last night. Most of these new channels were in high definition too. I don't know why I never discovered all these additional channels before. I guess I never went channel surfing above 300. The ironic thing is that for over a year, I've been thinking I was watching HD TV and I actually wasn't. Shows what I know.  Maybe I'll eventually get the hang of the television, telephones, and Internet all coming through the same IP pipe. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to our caller ID. It was there two weeks ago and now it's gone. I have a feeling that the dogs turned it off somehow. Their waging tails hit the set-top box every morning when they are trying to get us out of bed. They could have easily changed one of the settings.

I might have finally figured out why Dash is throwing up. In today's pile of junk mail was a inconspicuous little post card with tiny type on one side. The card was from the water department and the tiny type said that the city's water treatment plant had failed to meet quality standards during the month of December. Jeez! You'd think something like this would have made the evening news. Nope. This tiny little post card was the first I'd heard that our tap water might be polluted. You'd think with all the tax money we give the city, they could at least give us clean water in return. Oh, well. Janet and I have been drinking bottled water for years. Maybe we'll have to start pouring the Ozarka bottle into the dogs bowls as well.

Hunter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1115

I had a photo shoot today. The theme for the assignment was "helping hands" and the models were a baby, a pre-teen girl, their mom, and a puppy. I thought the shoot went pretty well, but I'm not sure the baby would agree. Every time the puppy touched her hand, the baby said "owie".

After taking hundreds of images, I'm sure I managed to get something the client will like. My favorite is to your left, even though one of my models appears to be missing. If it wasn't for lugging all the heavy lighting equipment around, I would enjoy photography more than writing. Photography is definitely more immediate. Writing and photography are both about capturing moments to me, but writing seems to require a bit more introspection on my part.

In an effort to keep from spending my entire day cleaning Dot's paws, I raked all the leaves in the  back yard over the top of the muddy path Dot always uses when she races out the back door to bark at things in the alley. This temporary fix will probably work for about ten seconds, but I had to do something. It doesn't matter if the yard is muddy or dry as a bone. Dot always insists on bolting out the back door like a race horse out of the starting gate.

After the Christmas and New Year's holidays are over, it's always hard for me to come to grips with the fact that there are five work days in every week instead of four. Four work days seems plenty to me. Janet thinks I should get used to seven work days. That's what the world is coming to apparently. Until that day comes, I'll continue to treat Friday as my own little holiday. I'm looking forward to another big breakfast tomorrow. After that, I may write a small article. That should do it for this week.

Chase is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1114

Every time I have a doctor's appointment in a hospital environment, I am amazed at the sheer size of what we have come to call our healthcare system. I grew up in a small town and the only reason people went to the hospital was to have a baby or to get their tonsils out. What a different world we live in now. Hospitals have become small cities with thousands of employees and hundreds of ways to die.

I don't like to go anywhere near a hospital. You're more likely to get sick in a hospital than in almost any other place in the world. I got Hepatitis C when I received tainted blood products in a hospital during the 1970's. Back then hospitals routinely bought blood from winos and the medical community wouldn't even discover what Hepatitis C was for another twenty years or so.

I think things are even worse today. You hear stories almost every day about people going to the hospital with a very minor ailment and leaving with a nasty antibiotic resistant MRSA infection. I guess it makes sense that bad things happen in hospitals. That's where all the sick people are. Luckily, I didn't have to stay long today. It was just a quick trip for a second opinion. It took me longer to get in and out of the multi-level parking garage than it did to see the doctor. As you might expect, the doctor I saw today disagreed with the previous doctor. This happens a lot. It wasn't so bad though. I liked this doctor's conclusion a lot better than the first one, so I think I'll just go with it.

The stock market had a banner day today. Equities went up. Gold went up. Even my managed futures accounts went up. This financial trifecta almost never happens. It's kind of ironic to me that Wall Street is celebrating some last minute compromise legislation that isn't going to solve anything at all. Even though there wasn't a lot of logic in today's huge gains, I'll take what I can get. I learned long ago that the stock market is nothing more than a barometer that measures the world's collective fear and greed. Today, the fear subsided just a little, and the greed took over.

I got my warm coat back from the tailor today. The last time they put in a zipper for me it cost $16. This time it cost $40. As far as I can tell, the zippers on both coats look exactly the same. Go figure. I have a feeling that I was charged more for the zipper on today's coat because it was a more expensive coat. I didn't complain though. Maybe there's a zipper shortage.

At least I was warm then I took Dash to dog training class this evening. I don't think Dash was very warm though. He didn't seem to want to be at class at all. I put his sweater on before we left the house, but he still didn't want to sit on the cold ground. I don't blame him. If it was up to me, I'd just skip training class until spring.

Lilly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1113 - New Year's Day

A lot of my bright ideas end up in frustration. I can usually visualize in intricate detail exactly what I want or need. I just can't find it anywhere. This inability to find what's in my mind's eye was made abundantly clear today when I continued my quest to find a new floor lamp. I know exactly what I want. I love these new LED bulbs. The high output 24 watt PAR bulbs have beautiful fluted aluminum vents that function as heat sinks. These bulbs are so attractive that they don't even need a shade. What I'd like to find is a simple torchiere floor lamp that lets me plug one of these bulbs directly into the top. Ideally, the aluminum pole would be the same color and texture as the bulb itself, so the entire unit looks seamless. It's easy to draw what I see in Photoshop, but can I find these lamps anywhere?  Nope. They don't seem to exist outside my mind.

I wonder what lies ahead for me in 2013? I'd like to see an end to medical problems. I've got enough medical problems already. I'd like a few new clients. Two or three would be fine. Hey, I'm not greedy, I just like to stay busy. I'd like a little sanity to return to the stock market. At some point in the future, my retirement is going to depend on the investments I make today. I think it's sad that you could probably do just as well these days betting on sports teams in Vegas as most people do with their investments. Most of all, I hope that the dogs stay healthy. Dot and Dash are my best friends and I don't know what I'd do without them.

While I'm wishing for things, it might be wise to wish for some warmer weather. I asked Janet how long this cold weather was going to last, and all she said was "It's Winter." Historically, we can get nasty, cold weather here in Dallas all the way through the end of March. I guess we'll all survive until Spring, but I don't know how much more mud I can handle.

I have another doctor's appointment tomorrow. As I recall, this particular doctor is even more behind than most and I usually spend a long time waiting in the lobby. I think I read all the magazines in this guy's lobby three years ago.

Damn. I didn't eat any black eyed peas today. Black eyes peas are supposed to bring prosperity in the new year, and usually I'll have a bowl just to play it safe. I have a feeling that black eyes peas aren't going to make a lot of difference in 2013 unfortunately. With what's coming down the pike, it's going to be an uphill battle for anyone to stay prosperous.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1112

I plugged in the guitar and played a little blues today. There certainly wasn't much else to do. It was a very slow day. The good news was that I hadn't entirely lost my chops. The bad news was that playing guitar for any extended length of time with Carpal tunnel hurts like hell. Who knows though. Maybe playing with a wrecked left hand will give my riffs a note of authenticity.

I wonder how many years of sitting in a little room and writing inconsequential advertising it takes before you go stark raving mad? When you factor in that my primary diversions are sweeping standing water off the roof and killing cockroaches that wander into the house, maybe I've passed that threshold already. At least it was a bit warmer today. The dogs didn't even have to wear their Winter coats.

I was amused today when I noticed that the stock market had a substantial rally when the President came on television early in the afternoon to say that everyone was close to striking a deal on the fiscal cliff. Of course five minutes after the market closed, some senators came on TV and essentially said "just kidding." There is no deal tonight because nobody wants to be the bearer of bad news. I have a feeling that this impasse could go on for weeks or months.

If we can stay awake until midnight, Janet and I will bring in the New Year with some champagne and a selection of cheese. I can't imagine standing out in the cold for hours to watch a mirrored ball drop, but seeing the event on TV in a warm house with a flute of champagne in your hand is actually kind of nice. 2012 certainly wasn't that memorable, but maybe 2013 will be better. Remember 1999 when Y2K was supposed to bring the world grinding to a halt on New Year's Eve? Nothing happened. People still say "party like it's 1999" though. What's that all about?  I have a feeling that it's going to be a lot like 1999 when we all sail over the cliff a little later this evening.

Happy New Year to all of you. I hope your first New Year's resolution is to continue reading this blog for another year.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1111

I made another trip to the storage warehouse this afternoon. Since I had already dealt with the vinyl albums, I decided to tackle the cassette tapes today. Since tape cassettes are so small, I was surprised to fill an entire packing box with the things. Some tapes were music I used to play in the car when I commuted between Seattle and Portland. Other tapes were samples of radio commercials I'd written and produced over the years. There were a lot of tapes.

The record industry has quite a racket going. They've somehow managed to con us into buying the same songs over and over again on different media. I've purchased vinyl albums, only to purchase the same thing again, first on cassette tape, then on a CD, and finally as an iTunes download. What will they think of next?

As I've been packing my music away, it has struck me that there hasn't been a lot of really memorable music in the past ten or fifteen years. The old albums I was packing away are still being played on the radio today. Actually, they're played everywhere from iPods to elevators. As I was watching the Kennedy Center Honors on TV the other day, I was mesmerized at the audience reaction to Nancy and Ann Wilson as they sang "Stairway to Heaven" during the tribute to Led Zeppelin. Everyone knew that song by heart and still loved it after all these years. Can you think of a similar reaction to anything you've heard recently? Probably not. Like it or not, the music that defined my generation, still defines music.

On the way back from the storage warehouse, I stopped by Home Depot to see if they had any less expensive floor lamps. They did. Although the lamps I looked at were dirt cheap, it only took a few seconds to see why. The pole lamps I looked at in the design studio the other day were fabricated from solid rods of stainless steel. The Home Depot poles were all constructed out of three foot sections of cheap aluminum that you had to assemble yourself. The lamps looked like they were made from old tent poles. The reason some floor lamps are $24 and others are $2400 is the same reason that a Lamborghini is not a Ford Focus. You get what you pay for. Too bad I can't afford either a Lamborghini or a fancy designer pole lamp.

The dogs don't worry about such things. For them, the best things in life are free. They certainly enjoyed their excursion to the dog park today. The weather was cold and brisk and it put all the dogs in the park in a frisky mood. Dash was exceptionally playful today and he even managed to get Dot to run with him for a while.

You'd think tomorrow would be a holiday, since Christmas Eve was a holiday last Monday. Apparently it's a work day though. Janet's working. Most of my clients are working. I'll probably be working as well.

Penny is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1110

I thought I'd go look for a lamp today. I've been so pleased with the LED bulbs in the ceiling can lights that I thought I'd find a nice looking floor lamp that used these high tech bulbs as well. The floor lamps in the living room and bedroom are the only lights in the entire house now that haven't been converted to LED bulbs. I went to a lighting studio that I remembered from the days when I was obsessed by furniture and was astonished at how expensive nice looking lamps had become. I found a lamp that would look quite nice in the house, but I wasn't about to pay more for a lamp than I paid for my laptop computer. A floor lamp is not a complex object. It's basically just a bulb at the end of a pole. How something so simple could get so expensive is beyond me. Maybe I should have gone to Ikea instead of a fancy contract lighting studio.

Although I failed to come home with a lamp, I did get a few things done today. I found the air compressor and my tires are now all at the correct inflation pressure again.  I got Janet some fresh blueberries at the grocery store. I got Dash's antihistamine prescription renewed at the vet. I even found a little time to practice my guitar.

Am I the only one who's getting completely sick of hearing about the fiscal cliff every time I turn on the television? If congress does nothing, very little will change in our day-to-day lives. Conversely, if they get their act together and pass some sort of legislation before the end of the year, very little will change either. The country will still be in debt and most of us will still personally be in debt. No matter what happens, we will continue to get up in the morning and plod along the best we can. Some things will get better and other things will get worse. The world will change and the next generation will still think all the changes are completely normal. What's not normal is listening to some of the local news anchors continue to call this year-end financial mess the "physical cliff."  Don't they know? The physical cliff has nothing to do with spending and taxes. The physical cliff was what Thelma and Louise drove their car over at the end of the movie.

I hope Dash's sinus problems clear up soon. I'm getting tired of getting up at 4 AM every morning to let him outside to throw up. Even though he's a lot lighter on his feet than Dot, he still tracks in a lot of mud too. I've got to get better at cleaning muddy paws when I'm half asleep. The bed was covered with paw prints when I woke up this morning.

Alle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1109

It must have rained last night. I slept through the shower, but there was ample evidence that a storm had passed through. The paths through the park were all muddy and the plants were covered with dew. There wasn't much evidence remaining that it had ever snowed however. That's the way the weather is in Texas. Easy come. Easy go. I was disappointed to see this new rain because it meant all my efforts to clear the ice off the roof yesterday were wasted. Of course, I didn't even have to look to know that the roof was now covered with two inches of standing water all over again. I really think I know how Sisyphus felt, pushing his immense boulder up that hill for eternity.

I got off to such a slow start this morning that I might as well just have ordered lunch when I finally arrived at my designated breakfast restaurant. Since I'm a stickler for ritual, I went ahead and ordered a big breakfast anyway. After I finished eating, I took my warm goose down jacket to a little neighborhood tailor to get a new zipper sewn in. The tailor said he could put a new elastic drawstring at the bottom of the coat as well. I'm glad there are still a few people like this around. I'd hate to throw away a perfectly good coat, just because the zipper was broken.

On cold, damp days like this I tend to get a lot of writing done. What else is there to do anyway? I wasn't under any deadline pressure, but I pretty much got caught up on things for the year today. I probably should have saved a few of these assignments for a rainy day, but hey, it was a rainy day.

I'm tempted to go buy a couple of bales of hay to spread around the back yard. It's going to be impossible to grow new grass until Spring anyway and the mud in the yard is getting worse and worse. I'm not really sure where you buy bales of hay in the city though. Some garden stores carry hay bales around Halloween to set your pumpkins on top of, but that's about it.

When I went to the grocery store today I noticed that my tires looked low again. It makes sense, I guess. Hot air expands and cold air contracts. I suppose I'll have to drag out the air compressor tomorrow and pump the tires up again. I can tell by looking that they only have about 20 pounds of pressure in them now.

I was looking forward to watching a new Dr. Who episode tomorrow, since I enjoyed seeing "The Snowmen" episode last week so much. Wouldn't you know. There isn't going to be another new episode until April. Didn't Series 7 begin last September? Jeez, I've never seen a show take so long to air 14 episodes.

Lou is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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