Day 1429

It's that time of year again. I brought home a big pile of photo and lighting equipment from the storage warehouse in preparation for the first of our Santa Paws photo events this weekend. If it seems a little early for a picture of your dog sitting on Santa's lap, just look around you. The Christmas season is already in full swing. There are Christmas tree lots on every other corner. Stores are filled with lights, cards, and decorations. Some people are even starting to decorate their yards.

Every year the equipment seems heavier and it seems to take me a little longer to set up for these events. These Santa photos are all for a good cause though. I guess lugging this heavy gear around is what I've been doing all the workouts for.

I picked up my suit from the tailor today and the moth holes are gone. Reweaving is kind of amazing. Even when I look at the repair with a magnifying glass, I can't see any evidence that a moth hole was ever there. Now that I've taken care of the moth problem, I need to take care of the ticks. Dash seems to attract ticks like a magnet. Oddly, even though they walk together, I rarely see a tick on Dot. I check Dash for ticks every evening, but sometimes I miss a few. This morning I found one crawling on me. Yuck. It's all part of having dogs though. If you have a dog, you're eventually going to find a tick.

Dot did really well at her water therapy session today. She seems to enjoy these sessions. The water is nice and warm. The place is quiet. And the vet techs all like her and feed her treats. Dog class is another story entirely. Sometimes the dogs like their training class too, but not tonight. The only thing Dot and Dash wanted to do at class this evening was go home again. I can't really blame them. It was really cold this evening. I thing the temperature is supposed to get down in the mid-twenties later tonight. I finally remembered to set the outdoor faucets dripping, so they won't freeze. Since there are no valuable plants to bring inside, I guess we're all set for the first hard freeze of the season.

It looks like my breakfast recipe is actually going to be published in the SXSW Cookbook. I had to sign a release form today verifying the my recipe was original and not copied out of another cookbook. I'm glad I didn't have to sign anything guaranteeing that nobody would get sick from eating my recipe. I'm not really a very good cook. If somebody told me a few years ago that I would end up being featured in a film festival cookbook, I would have just laughed at them.

I wish tomorrow was Friday. This week is kind of dragging along. I've got lots of writing and website assignments to finish tomorrow. It's time to go to the gym again as well. One of these days I'll surprise you with something new and original. It won't be tomorrow though.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1428

While the rest of the city prepared for tonight's expected freeze by bringing in their ferns and potted plants, I just brought in the 24-volt battery from my electric lawn mower. For the past two years I have failed to do this and the expensive battery froze and had to be replaced. This year will be different. Starting today, the battery joins all the other clutter on my office floor and I'll probably trip over it ten times before Spring.

There just isn't enough time in the day anymore. I had a simple agenda today.  All I needed to do was walk the dogs, write a single article, get my November invoices in the mail, go to the gym, and pick up something for dinner at the grocery store. I methodically went from one task to the next and by the time I was finished, the sun had already set and I had to give the dogs their evening walk in the dark. I'm not a real fan of standard time. Things would work out better for me if we had daylight saving time all year long. Hey, I'm not a morning person. I don't care if it's light in the morning, but I definitely need that extra hour of daylight at the back end of the day.

The problem with simple lists is that they're usually only simple because you forgot something. What I forgot to mention in the agenda above was that Tuesday is also Dash's day to go to the vet. Going to the vet is pretty much the same as going to the doctor. It eats up a lot of time. You spend a lot of time waiting in the lobby and a very short time visiting with the doctor. Dash is never well behaved while he is waiting. There is a large parrot in the lobby that he is obsessed with. I don't know whether Dash wants to play with the parrot or eat it, but I can't seem to convince him that the parrot will bite him if he gets too close to the cage.

I worry too much. While I was at the gym, I noticed Dash doing something strange on the nanny cam.  I almost cut my workout short to drive home and see what was happening, but then I noticed that Dash had gone back to sleep again. Staying at the gym didn't alleviate all my worries though. I'm always afraid that one of the old people who go to this gym are going to hit my car. These people are the worst drivers I've even seen. You've really got to be careful when you leave the parking lot. 

Tomorrow, an insurance broker is going to explain Obamacare at our Wednesday morning breakfast meeting by showing us an old episode from The Twilight Zone. That ought to be interesting.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1427

It was one of those days. I was late to a meeting, but when I arrived full of excuses for my tardiness, I discovered that my client had completely forgotten about the meeting and I had to reschedule anyway. This was the start of a day jam-packed with miscommunication.

The service that put my account on auto-renewal without my knowledge is now saying that I have to formally request a discontinuation of service in writing before I can leave them. When I asked why, they said the necessity of making a cancellation request in writing was listed right on the back of their invoice. I looked on the back of the invoice I had just received and this unusual requirement was nowhere to be found. I can already tell that severing ties with this bunch is going to be a problem.

 I took a bunch of stuff from this weekend's rescue event back to the storage warehouse today. Janet told me later that I had taken back the wrong stuff, so I'll have to go back and bring it all back home again. I guess we're going to use some of the stuff at the Santa Paws photo events that begin later this month. There are a bunch of these fundraising photo events this year. Since my knees are even worse than they were last year, it makes me tired just thinking about photographing dogs all day.

There was one silver lining in the largely dark cloud that was today. I got some lab results back that said my lipids and cholesterol levels were all back within the normal range again. My glucose and blood sugar levels have come back to acceptable levels as well. Now, all I've got to do is get my liver working as well as my other organs.

I clicked on one of those "would you like to upgrade" buttons that frequently appear when you launch certain types of software. When the upgrade finished installing itself, I discovered that it would no longer work. After spending almost an hour trying to track down the problem, I discovered that the new upgrade will only work with the new Mavericks operating system. Jeez, it would have been nice if the company had told me this before I clicked the upgrade button. I don't want or even need Mavericks yet. I was eventually able to re-install an older version of the software, but I wasn't able to regain the time I lost messing around trying to fix this irritating problem.

Maybe everything will click smoothly into place tomorrow. One can always hope. Dash has a vet appointment and there's a writing assignment with a tight deadline as well. As long as the sun is shining, I should be able to get everything done without a problem.

Today is Veteran's Day. I noticed that a lot of people were changing their profile picture to World War II era photos of their Dad in uniform. This is a nice tribute, but it made me wonder if this tradition will continue when today's children grow up. They didn't call our parents The Greatest Generation for nothing. Today, we all express gratitude to those who serve, but fewer and fewer of us have actually worn a uniform ourselves. It's a much different world than our parents lived in. I'm not sure it's a better world though. In fact, I'm pretty sure it's not.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1426

Pet Fair occupied most of our day today. Janet and I went and set up the Dalmatian Rescue booth after we finished breakfast this morning. When everything was ready, we came back and got our Dalmatians. We were joined at the event by our friend Turtle The Painting Pit Bull, who creates original paintings with her paw. Dot and Dash aren't nearly this creative, but they put on a good show begging for dog treats. The kids seemed to enjoy our "Make a Dalmatian" game today. They completely ignored the realistic looking adhesive spots I cut out last night though, preferring novelty spots made to look like hearts or dog bones. We has a steady group of people come to our booth throughout the afternoon, but we certainly weren't the most popular attraction. What kids really wanted to do was hold a snake. There was a reptile education booth where kids could hold a large snake if they wanted. The kids were lined up five deep to hold these snakes and get their picture taken. The snakes were more popular than a nearby booth filled with cute puppies, which tells you something about the next generation in this country.

Dot and Dash were remarkably good, considering how long the event was. They were gentle and friendly when kids came up to pet them and they didn't even bark excessively. At some point during the afternoon, we has a psychic at a nearby booth read the dogs paws. I'm as skeptical as the next guy about psychics and palm readers, but this lady nailed it with the dogs personalities. She knew nothing in advance about Dot and Dash, but was able to describe their somewhat unique personalities with great accuracy.

By the time we packed up our stuff and took the dogs home again, the day was almost over. I barely had time to take Dot and Dash on a short walk before the sun set on the Western horizon. When we returned to the house, there were burgers for dinner. Cheeseburgers are always a good way to end a busy day. This type of meal isn't on my diet anymore, but what the hell. I worked hard today and deserved a treat.

Tomorrow, it's back to work again. I have a combination medical exam and website meeting scheduled with one of my physician clients. I have a feeling that I'll find out a lot more about the health of the website than about my own health.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1425

Dot and Dash got a bath this morning, since they'll be representing Dalmatian Rescue at a rescue event tomorrow. We went to a new self-bathe place near Janet's office and the dogs weren't impressed. The facility was actually quite nice, but it didn't matter to Dot and Dash. They hate getting a bath. The manager of the place ought to get some sort of salesmanship award. We walked away with two clean dogs, two new dog harnesses, and a pound of dog treats.

Since we'll be at the rescue event tomorrow, I decided to go to the gym today. The place was even emptier on Saturdays than it is on Sundays. This still seems strange to me, but Janet explained it to me this way. "People have things to do on weekends," she told me. "You're the only person I know who makes going to the gym the main event of your day." Maybe so. At any rate, it's nice to know when the place will be empty.

The Christmas tree stands are already going up all over town. Sure seems way too early to me. Jeez, it's not even Thanksgiving yet. If you went out and bought a Christmas tree today, it would be a dry stick of kindling wood by Christmas. You don't even hear much debate anymore about whether Christmas is being over commercialized. Everybody knows the answer by now. The answer is yes.

There's a lot of talk around town about the upcoming 50th anniversary of the Kennedy assassination. Has it really been 50 years?  This really makes me feel old, since I remember the day like it was yesterday. I was going to high school in Alaska in 1963. That same year, a new group called The Beatles created a sensation with a song called I Want To Hold Your Hand. Where does the time go?

I'd like to think that the ensuing years were all eventful and important, but probably a lot of them were just like today. I didn't change the world today. I washed a dog, bought groceries for the week, shot a few baskets at the gym, and put clean sheets on the bed. That's about it. After I finish writing the blog, I'm going to cut out a lot of little adhesive black spots that children can attach to the big dog in our "make a Dalmatian" game tomorrow.

Nope, I don't think I'll be changing the world tomorrow. Fifty years ago, I actually thought I might. I think a lot of us did. Little did we know that it would be the world that changed us instead.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1424

There's got to be some correlation between how much sunlight I receive and how much work I get done. It didn't rain today, but the sky was so dark and overcast that the streetlights stayed on all day. I didn't get much done at all. If the sun was shining, lord knows what I might have accomplished.

I got a utility bill in the mail for a service I canceled six months ago. This has happened before. More and more companies sign you up for automatic renewal by default and it's becoming next to impossible to actually cancel your service. Services you signed up for on the Internet are the worst. They all seems to have some sort of automatic renewal enabled. Service is so terrible these days that I seldom want to renew anything. It's frustrating.

I did have a nice breakfast, but you probably know that already. It's Friday, isn't it? I almost posted a picture of my eggs, until I remembered that this is what I did last Friday. Hey, if I can't inject some variety in my life, at least I need to create the illusion of variety. That's why you get an out-of-focus picture of my grey, gloomy day instead.

I actually had time to go to the gym this afternoon, but I was still sore from yesterday's workout. I did a load of laundry and tried to unclog my printer instead. The printer was quite clogged this time, so I did a Google search to see what other people were doing. The best advice I could find was to unlock the 4880 print head and squirt some distilled water on the capping station. We'll give that a try. I wonder what people did before there was a YouTube answer for every question in the universe. Where do people find the time to make all these YouTube instructional videos? I haven't had a question in a long time where I couldn't immediately find the answer on YouTube or Wikipedia. The answer might not have been correct, but does it even matter these days?

We get to try out our "put the spots on the Dalmatian" game at a rescue event this weekend. Janet and I haven't actually cut out the spots for the children to apply yet, but I guess that's what we will do tomorrow evening. There isn't much to watch on TV anyway.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1423

The return of nice weather meant it was time to take care of some things I'd been postponing. I removed falling leaves and standing water from the roof. I got a big bucket of soapy water and washed the car. I gathered up all the trash and took it out to the curb. I went to the grocery store and finally made it back to the gym.

In between these activities,  I found time to update several websites as well, but it was definitely a day where my body got more of a workout than my mind. As I grow older, I'm finding that the physical side of my day is growing, while the mental side is shrinking. One reason for this is that I'm slower than I used to be. It takes me longer to do simple things like mow the grass, make the bed, and walk the dogs.

A more fundamental reason for the decline in brain strain is that people seldom ask me to do mentally challenging things anymore. In the early years of my creative career, I would frequently be asked to do amazing and impossible things. Things that required imagination routinely came my way, because people just assumed that creative people handled all the imagination stuff. Now that's all changed. After several generations of teachers telling their students that they are all special and unique, everybody thinks they genuinely are creative. Perhaps they are. It's not for me to judge. All I know is that I'm not the Wizard of Oz anymore. People don't send me to exotic locations to edit commercials, or pay me exorbitant sums of money to write a headline. If there's something cool to do, most  people tend to want to do it themselves these days. Hey, I don't blame them. I've always wanted to save the best stuff for myself.

What passes for work today is usually stuff that other people don't want to do. They all think they could do these things just as well themselves if they had more time, so they don't really value anything new that I might bring to the party. What they want instead is for me to execute their idea. Advertising has always been like this to a certain degree, but at least there used to be an illusion of glamor. Now, I'm just an idea monkey. Writing ads and sweeping the water off the roof get all mixed up in my head, because one thing seems no more intrinsically valuable than the other.

Maybe that's why physical days like today seem more honest to me. I can actually feel my muscles getting stronger. Hey, maybe I'll live a few days or a few months longer as a result. Physical activity is something tangible I can understand. I'm not so sure what completing other people's ideas brings me. Mostly it's just a lot of frustration.

Chase is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1422

The speaker at today's breakfast meeting was a financial planner who talked about how an increasingly global economy will affect your investments in the years ahead. I happen to agree with his somewhat gloomy assessment that printing money only postpones problems and that in the long run, our current economic situation is unsustainable. We have opened a Pandora's Box that can't be closed and there are many economic bubbles out there that will eventually burst. I just hope that that it will take at least forty years for the world to start looking like a scene from Mad Max at Thunderdome. I'll be gone by then. Ten years, or even twenty years, is a little too soon to return to the Middle Ages for me. I'd just as soon continue to live in denial and pretend that everything's fine.

Dot was certainly in fine form today. She was strong and steady on her morning and evening walks and did exceptionally well at her physical therapy sessions. Just about every Dalmatian I've gotten to know seems to prefer cooler weather and Dot and Dash are no exception. Temperatures in the mid-50's, like we had today, invigorate them. Personally, I'd prefer the temperature to be about 20 degrees higher, but I'm not going to be picky about these things. I'll be the first to admit that it was a beautiful day.

I got several new assignments today. This should keep me busy through the end of the week. If there's time left over, I'll sweep the standing water off the roof and wash the car. I won't wash the car with water from the roof though. It is already stained a tobacco brown from all the pecan shells. I'm going to try to get back to the gym tomorrow. I got the results from one of my recent blood tests in today's mail and for the first time in about six months, they are looking good again. That's really all the encouragement I need to continue with my diet and exercise regime. I just like to know that something is working.

Sunsets are back again. The dogs and I had a pleasant sunset walk along the shoreline this evening. I enjoy this time of day, but it's a moving target. I'll need to remember to walk the dogs a little earlier each day as the days grow shorter. You've got to time these excursions right, because the difference between dusk and complete darkness is only about thirty minutes.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1421

The rain continued for a second straight day. I put raincoats on the dogs this morning, but halfway through their walk, they decided that they didn't want to wear them anymore. I took the coats off, and the dogs got wet. They didn't like that either. Sustained rain really tests my patience. The car gets muddy. The house gets muddy. The dogs constantly need to be cleaned up. On days like this, I'm either cleaning dogs, doing laundry, or looking at the weather radar on my iPhone.

My doctor's appointment took a lot longer than expected this afternoon. When the doctor finally arrived, he apologized for the delay and said that there had been complications in a surgery he had just completed. This was certainly better than my typical excuses for being late. The best I can usually come up with is that the dogs wouldn't poop on their walk.

My delayed doctor visit ate up so much of my time that I didn't even come close to getting to the gym today. Like it or not, it looks like it might be a two workout week. While I was sitting in the doctor's lobby, I checked on the dogs using the nanny cam app. Both dogs have a highly refined sense of time. Ten minutes before their dinner time, they were both sleeping. Thirty minutes after their normal dinner time, they were sleeping again. Right at dinner time, they were barking and making a big commotion. They were mad that I was late.

It was dark before I got home to take Dot and Dash on their evening walk. I hate walking at night for a variety of reasons. We didn't see any coyotes tonight, but we did see three suspicious looking people lurking around in the dark and what appeared to be a drug deal taking place in one of the parking lots. I prefer the park in daylight myself.

The rain is supposed to continue through tomorrow. This means that my morning networking breakfast, Dot's acupuncture appointment, and our evening dog training class will all be impacted by the bad weather. I don't know why rain bothers me so much, but it does. When the sun finally reappears, I'll clean the house, wash the car, and my tidy little world will be back to normal.

Coach is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1420

Today was dismal. The skies were sullen and grey, accompanied by a cold, all-day rain. I would have preferred to just have stayed under a blanket today, but I had to pick up some more phenobarbital for Dash at the vet and the dogs still needed their walks. Every time I went outside, there were muddy shoes that needed to be cleaned and wet dogs that needed to be dried off. I wish I could just train the dogs to use a catbox on days like this, but we all know that's not going to happen.

While we were walking in the rain, I noticed a film crew working in the park. There were four grip trucks, several tents, and a large motor home for the actors. Why would anyone want to film something on a day like this? Maybe they were in the park for the same reason I was. Some things just can't be postponed. On the other hand, maybe the movie had a scene that takes place in the rain. In that case, they picked the perfect day.

This would have been a perfect day for me to hunker down and write, but I seldom get writing assignments on Mondays. Usually the writing assignments start filtering in later in the week when I have plenty of other things to do. Without any pending deadlines to spur me on, I uploaded some more pictures to Shutterstock. So far, more people seem to be downloading my images on Shutterstock than on iStockphoto. Although this is encouraging, Shutterstock pays less, so I doubt that the increased activity will net me any more money in the long run.

When I saw my Hepatologist recently, he suggested that I probably ought to see a kidney specialist. Apparently, the radiologist had noticed that something had changed in my kidney on the MRI they took. I don't know why each organ in the body needs its own doctor, but that's apparently the way it works. You'd think that a liver doctor would work on kidneys too, since they both filter things. Nope! I needed to see a kidney doctor, so that's where I'm going tomorrow.

I wonder how long it will be before I see the sun again. I do much better when the sun is shining. The weather forecast isn't encouraging. It looks like there will be at least two more days of continuous rain.

Ginger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1419

You never realize how many clocks there are in your house until the time changes. Everything seems to have a clock hidden away inside it these days. There's a clock inside the television. There's a clock in the answering machine. There's a clock in the stove. It's not surprising that there's a clock inside the clock radio, but it is surprising that almost all my cameras contain clocks. If that's not enough, there are plenty of clocks on the walls and in the halls.

The dogs seems to have a built-in clock as well. They did not want to fall back with the rest of us this morning. So much for getting that extra hour of sleep. Dot and Dash insisted on getting us out of bed the same time they got up yesterday. Clocks mean nothing to these guys. In their defense, it was a nice day for a walk. The weather was perfect.

The time may have changed today, but nothing else did. Our Sunday routine went like clockwork. Janet fixed a delicious breakfast, we took Dot and Dash to the dog park, and then I went to the gym. I'm pleased that a trip to the gym has become part of my Sunday routine. I'm not usually that busy on Sundays anyway, and this certainly seems like a better use of my time than watching old science fiction movies on Hulu. Basketball and hitting the heavy punching bag are still my favorite activities. I don't really like free weights that much, and the resistance machines are quite effective, but boring. Now that I'm starting to see some real results from my efforts, it all makes sense though. Exercise will become a permanent part of my personal health triangle, along with weight loss and a better diet.

I thought I might see a nice sunset on our evening walk, now that the time has changed. I even charged up the batteries in the lightweight digital camera that I used to frequently take with me on dog walks. Unfortunately, it was cloudy this evening. It was a lot colder too. I think a front is moving through. There is rain in the forecast now, but that's OK. I have a dry roof these days and I don't think I need to drive or take the dogs anywhere tomorrow. Hey, let it rain.

Wolfgang is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1418

When I went to mow the lawn this morning, the mower wouldn't start. I was baffled. Everything worked perfectly the last time I mowed the grass. I went through all the normal troubleshooting procedures, and then out of frustration, I hit the mower with a hammer and it sprang back to life. It's sad that it's come to this. I just don't have the patience to carefully and methodically take things apart and put them back together anymore. I used to be able to fix anything, and now I just feel like hitting my recalcitrant machines with a hammer.

I had a hard time getting to sleep last night. Sometimes this happens for no apparent reason. When you can't sleep, the night can seem pretty long. Listening to the two snoring and farting dogs on either side of me didn't make the time go any faster, but eventually it was morning again.

When I went for my blood test at the health food store, there was already a line of old people waiting ahead of me. I usually try to go early and avoid the lines, but I couldn't seem to get organized today. The line moved surprisingly quickly and since I has to fast for the test, I went to breakfast at a nearby restaurant afterwards.

I took the suit with moth holes to the tailor and listened to a little Chinese lady explain the process of re-weaving to me. Somehow, I don't think the results will be nearly as invisible as promised, but what are you going to do? I can't let the moths win this one.

By the time I made a few remedial website updates, did the laundry, and made the bed, it was time to feed the dogs again and take them on their evening walk. This might be the last full daylight evening walk for a while. The sun will be setting an hour earlier now, so we'll be taking a lot of sunset walks during the month of November.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1417

It was a busy day. After walking the dogs and eating breakfast at my favorite restaurant, I went to help a friend get a website set up. We accomplished everything we needed to do over a cup of coffee at Starbucks while using public WiFi. Before I finished my coffee, we were done. It was that easy. In a nutshell, this is why there is no money in website design anymore. Well, there's no money in designing private websites anyway. As we've all learned recently, there's apparently still plenty of money available to design websites for the government. Maybe I should have bid on designing HealthCare.gov myself. My site might have crashed too, but the cost would have been way lower than the reported $112 million that the government has already paid the main contractor.

I found a moth hole in the suit I wore to last Wednesday's networking breakfast. I went to a tailor in the neighborhood to see if they could fix the suit. They said that they probably could, but that the cost for reweaving would be $70 per moth hole. Jeez, it's tiny little moth hole. I hope I don't have a lot of moth holes. I'd better check the rest of my suits to make sure that they aren't riddled with $70 holes. It's been ten years since I've worn some of these suits, so the moths have had a long time to do their dirty work. The odd thing about these old suits is that they are back in style again. Lapels, pleats, and fabrics have changed quite a bit over the years, but now they are right back where they started from. I kind of lucked out, since my weight is right back where it started from as well.

As an experiment, I've been submitting some of the same photos to both Shutterstock and iStockphoto. As you might expect, some get accepted and some get rejected, but there is no consistency between these two stock photo sites. Since both sites are incredibly picky about the images they accept, you'd think they'd reject the same images. Nope! An image that has too much grain for Shutterstock might be just fine for iStockphoto. An image that iStockphoto considers out of focus might be perfect for Shutterstock. There is no rhyme or reason to the process. I've had pictures taken with an iPhone accepted and pictures taken with a Hasselblad rejected. Go figure!

I'm not really looking forward to the change back to Standard Time this weekend. I can always get up a little later to walk the dogs in the morning, but there's no escaping sunset anymore when I walk the dogs in the evening. I try my best to avoid walking the dogs after dark. The coyotes start coming out around dusk and I'd hate to be attacked by a pack of them. I know that some people say coyotes aren't a threat to anybody, but it is well documented that urban coyotes are losing their fear of humans. I just don't trust them.

It looks like we're going to have another beautiful weekend. Since the grass is still growing in the front yard, I might have to drag out the lawn mower one last time.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1416 - Halloween

Halloween is a non-event at our house. I don't eat candy anymore, because I've got to watch my sugar intake, and all the kids in our neighborhood have grown up anyway. I didn't even buy a pumpkin for the front porch this year. I usually get a couple of pumpkins and leave them sitting on the porch until they eventually rot in mid-February. I finally realized that this is pointless. Now, the only pumpkins you'll find at our house are those that wind up in a pie. I do like pumpkin pie.

Our beautiful Fall weather has returned. When I walked the dogs this morning, the blue sky was dotted with puffy white clouds. As the sun rose, the landscape looked spectacular. This was one of the last mornings I'll be able to enjoy the Sunrise at a decent hour. Daylight Savings Time ends this Sunday and starting on Monday morning, the sun will almost certainly be high in the sky before the dogs and I venture outside.

Blue skies always put me in a good mood. The dogs had a nice long walk this morning. I finished all my work by 2 PM, and went to the gym again. Today, other people were using the basketball court, so I put on some boxing gloves and hit a punching bag for ten minutes. Much to my surprise, this was quite satisfying.

The local health food store sent me a reminder that they're having another cholesterol screening this Saturday. I just had a blood test at my doctor's office last week, but I think I'll go to the cholesterol screening anyway. I've got to confess that I've become addicted to blood tests. If insurance would pay for them, I'd have one every week. These tests are just about the only way to see if the meds I take and the many changes I've made to my diet and lifestyle are actually working. I always want to see good lab results, because I'd hate to be doing all this work for nothing.

This week has gone quickly. I've got a rare out-of-the-office meeting tomorrow, but I think I've still got time for a nice breakfast at one of my favorite restaurants. Who knows what November will bring? Hopefully, lots of interesting work and a continuation of the nice weather the dogs and I enjoyed today.

Roxy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1415

Wednesdays are busy enough when it's dry. When it rains on Wednesday, all bets are off. Today's unrelenting rain ensured that traffic would be congested wherever I drove, that Dot and Dash would be muddy wherever I walked them, and that virtually nothing I started today would be completed on time.

In wet days I wonder why I even go to these Wednesday morning networking breakfasts. I'm easily the least businesslike person in the room.  They'll probably kick me out of the group when they discover that I'm just going to these early morning meetings to eat bacon and see if my old dress suits still fit.

I had lots of writing to do today, but I managed to complete all my assignments. Hey, what else can you do on a rainy day? While I was writing, I kept the washing machine running with load after load of rain soaked clothing and muddy dog towels. The dogs still insist on a walk on rainy days. They don't like the rain, but they absolutely refuse to poop in the yard.

We kept our acupuncture appointment this afternoon, despite the rain. I would have preferred to stay home, but I think it's rude to cancel an appointment at the last minute. Dot did well in the underwater treadmill, but when the vet tried to test her balance and coordination by having her balance on a large rubber ball, she was pretty shaky. I wasn't really surprised. Dot is frequently shaky on flat, level ground these days. Nothing is going to turn Dot into a young dog again, but I still think that the physical therapy is helpful. She seems to enjoy the activity and maybe we can slow down the inevitable a bit.

Since it rained all day, they moved the dog training class Halloween party indoors this evening. Try to imagine fifty dogs in costumes inside a small room and you've got a pretty good idea what the party was like. I was amazed that there weren't more skirmishes between the dogs. It wasn't surprising that most people left as soon as the costume contest was over. With fifty dogs in a small room, you don't want to push your luck.

I'm hoping that things return to normal tomorrow. A little sunlight always puts me and the dogs in a much better mood.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1414

I noticed today that I've already made 25 cents from Shutterstock. Hey, it's only a matter of time before the money starts rolling in. It's kind of sad that people's creative efforts have so little value on the Internet, but that's just the way it is. Today's art directors routinely purchase fantastic stock images for just a few dollars that used to cost them thousands. At least photographers can upload a ton of images to a stock photography site and forget about them. Internet writers don't have that luxury. Writers are faced with coming up with custom solutions for pennies.

A certain amount of the writing I do is Internet-based. I'm always complaining about how low the pay scale is, but I have it so much better than some Internet writers. Some of these sites that pay for content advertise that writers can make as much as $3 to $10 dollars an article. Give me a break! This is no way to make money. I went through most of my career thinking that commercial writers should make a minimum of a dollar a word or $100 an hour. All I've got to say is that times have certainly changed.

Today was certainly a lot busier than yesterday. The dogs seemed to have regained their energy and wanted to go on a long walk. There were phone calls to answer and deadlines to meet. I paid some bills, updated a few websites, and finished another article.

I worked fast, because I was determined to get to the gym today. Working out three days a week seems just about right. Unfortunately, all it takes are a few snags in my schedule and those three days can easily turn into zero days. I lucked out today and everything clicked into place. I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot, picked up some dry cleaning, went to the post office, and still made it to the gym before 4 PM.

I'm going to need some more good luck to make it through tomorrow. All the local weather forecasts are predicting severe weather tomorrow. I dread taking Dot to her acupuncture appointment during a thunderstorm. She gets so stressed out during storms that it would defeat the whole purpose of the acupuncture. The acupuncture session is supposed to relax you and thunderstorms have exactly the opposite effect on Dot. If the weather is bad enough, I'm just going to cancel tomorrow's appointment. If there is hail in the forecast, I'm not leaving the house at all. After Janet's car was severely damaged in a hailstorm several years ago, I've become very wary about driving in bad weather. We'll see what happens. Texas weather is very unpredictable. I could wake up to clear skies tomorrow.

Dakota is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1413

Nothing big happened today. I took a small stack of documents to the new safe deposit box. I took an even smaller pile of shirts to the dry cleaner. And I picked up a single prescription at the pharmacist. Dot was tired today, so we took a small walk, instead of our regular much longer trek. I thought I was going to pick up a small puppy from animal control this afternoon, but someone else from Dalmatian Rescue had already arranged to pick up the dog before I could get my act together.

Work was equally slow. I had a meeting scheduled, but it got canceled. I made two small changes to client websites and answered a few e-mails, but that was about it. I should have used my time today to upload a large number of new pictures to Shutterstock, but I didn't. Once you get locked in a small frame of mind, it's hard to snap out of it.

I was just about to upgrade the computers to the new OSX Mavericks operating system when I saw a small notice on the Avid website saying that the latest versions of Pro Tools and Media Composer are not compatible with the new system. This always happens. Apple makes a big deal out of their flashy new system and none of the software I actually use for business works with it. Eventually the vendors come out with new, compatible versions of their software, but by then Apple is already off on another tangent. It's frustrating.

The cold front that passed through town this weekend seemed to accelerate the seasonal changes that were already underway. All the trees are changing color now and some are already dropping their leaves. Hopefully, there will be a few nice photography days before the trees are bare again. Since we have a lot of large, mature trees in our yard, there are a ton of leaves on the roof in the Fall. If it didn't rain so much, I would just leave the leaves up on the roof until Spring. A thick stack of leaves is sure to add some insulation value. Unfortunately, the leaves do get wet and turn into a soggy mess that retains water forever. For the rest of the Winter, I will have piles of heavy, wet leaves to push off the roof in addition to the standing water that accumulates year-round.

Dash has a vet appointment tomorrow, so it is questionable whether I'll be able to make it to the gym as I had planned. You'd think with the simple, uneventful life I lead, it would be easy to schedule things. Somehow, it never is.

Abi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day