Day 170

It was an odd day. I'm supposed to be a guest this weekend on the Horror Movie Show podcast, so I was trying to review the films that are going to be featured on this week's episode while I was doing my other work. As I've mentioned before, I'm not the world's best at multi-tasking. It was kind of distracting watching old 1990's horror films while I was doing my weekly website updates. I did manage to get everything finished though. One thing I noticed was that "scary" theater release horror films of twenty years ago are a lot more discrete than your average police or hospital drama on prime time television today. Everything is so explicit these days. I think I like the old films better.

I found a cool little app for my iPad today. It lets you watch real-time weather radar anywhere in the world. I'm going to get a lot of use out of this one because it will give me a "heads up" on when to expect Dot to come and hide under my desk. There were storms all around us today, but strangely we didn't get a drop of rain. Dot is terrified of storms. I'm sure they're much scarier to her than old horror movies. I've tried everything I can think of to calm her, including a special Anxiety Wrap that looks a lot like a tight fitting dog sweater. I was skeptical of the Anxiety Wrap at first, but a veterinarian friend told me she used one for her dogs and that it actually worked. The wrap does seem to calm Dot during storms, but I have to remember to put it on her before the storm arrives.

Even though it didn't rain today, we had a power outage anyway. I think the power in our neighborhod is less reliable than some third world countries. I have my computers connected to a backup battery and a surge protector, but they don't always work. The frequent surges and outages have caused me to burn up several power supplies. It's irritating, but there's not much I can do. I hate to complain to the power company. The last time I complained, they sent a tree crew out and severely mutilated one of the large oak trees in my backyard, saying the branches came too close to the power lines in the alley behind the house. This once beautiful tree was given such a severe haircut that you can even see the lopsided thing from Google Earth.

I'm going to give the phone company one more chance to fix my beloved kitchen wall phone. The repair guy is supposed to come out tomorrow. I'm sure Dot and Dash will bark continually while he's here. They're great little watch dogs, but repair people aren't very fond of them. Oh, well. I doubt the guy will be able to fix the problem anyway.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 169

I'm having an unusually difficult time trying to decide whether to scrap our aging phone system and upgrade to something better. Ordinarily, I'm all for newer and better solutions to just about anything, but I keep hanging on to these old phones. Many of my friends have abandoned their land line phones entirely and just use cell phones for everything. I'm still skeptical of anything that depends on me remembering to keep the batteries charged, however. Just about any time I've really needed a cell phone, the battery was dead. The same principal applies to cable or IP-based phone systems. The power goes out frequently in our part of town and when there's no electricity, the old wall phone in the kitchen is typically the only thing in the house that still works. That's the great thing about old fashioned telephones: they're self powered. When the fax machine, the answering machine, and even that magic-jack thingie that plugs into your computer all quit quit working due to a power outage, the simple wall phone in the kitchen still works like a charm.

Unfortunately, my reliable kitchen wall phone isn't working anymore either. I think a mouse ate through the wiring in the ceiling last Winter. I've had the AT&T repairman out twice, but apparently it isn't easy to fix phone lines in a flat roof house. The only way to check the wiring would be to rip the sheet rock out in the living room. I'm faced with a choice of ugly looking replacement wiring stapled to the wall, or something completely different. Would Vonage be a good solution? Should I just get an iPhone?  I don't know. I really just want the old kitchen wall phone back.

Dash was so good in obedience class tonight that I had to check and make sure I didn't have Dot on the end of the leash. It isn't that he's doing anything better, but I can tell that he's becoming much more consistent lately. Slowly but surely, I'm beginning to feel I can depend on him. We even did some of the training exercises off-leash tonight. I guess it's about time he's finally become dependable. We've been going to these classes almost four years now. Jeez, I certainly hope it doesn't take me four years to find a dependable phone.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 168

I woke up this morning with all sorts of ideas about how to solve little problems around the house. None of them worked. I was convinced that the little door that dispenses soap in the dishwasher wasn't opening because I had switched to liquid dishwasher detergent. I finally found some of the old fashioned powder detergent and tried it out this morning. The dispenser door still got stuck and wouldn't open. Then I thought that if I could get someone to cut the large mirrored medicine cabinet door in the bathroom in half to make two smaller doors that opened in the center, it might actually work again. The door is so heavy that the first time I opened it, it started to pull the hinges out of the wall. It's been sitting on the floor ever since. Nice idea, but I cracked the mirror taking it to the glass shop to be cut.

I also found some polymer clay that's exactly the right color to patch the chip in the sculpture that fell off the wall last week, but I'm going to save that repair for a day when I feel a little luckier. You're supposed to bake the polymer clay in the oven to harden it, and I need to make sure I won't catch the rest of the sculpture on fire or even melt it. There used be a show on television called Murphy Brown. Murphy had a handyman named Eldin who seemed to be at her house continually, working on an endless series of home improvement projects. If I were rich, I'd keep a handyman just like Eldin around to fix the endless list of things that break around here. I'm pretty good at fixing some things, but I'm even better at getting in over my head and making a mess of everything.

It almost hit 100 degrees outside this afternoon. Our short Texas Spring is definitely over. The dogs hate the heat and our walks are getting slower and slower. I have to remember not to take my morning shower until after I finish walking the dogs in the morning. I'm usually drenched in sweat by the time we arrive home again, and if I've already taken a shower, I've got to take another one all over again.

When I went to the bank today, the teller handed me my deposit receipt and then immediately asked me if I'd like a receipt. When I showed him the slip of paper he'd just handed me, he shrugged and said, "Hey, it's Monday." I already knew it was Monday. None of my clients returned my calls today.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 167 - Memorial Day

Like virtually everyone else in America, we went and ate boatloads of grilled and smoked meats with friends today. Our friends adopted Willow, a wonderful dog that Janet and I helped to rehabilitate after she had been run over by a car and abandoned by the side of the road. Willow is now a happy, playful girl who has fully recovered from her injuries. It was nice to see her running and jumping around the backyard without a care in the world. Many folks thought she'd never walk again, but after three difficult surgeries and over a year of rehab, she's just fine now. Willow and her companion Jasper spent the afternoon begging for table scraps like any normal dogs at an outdoor barbecue.

I enjoyed the opportunity to eat bacon and bratwurst and other foods my doctors would frown on. The men talked politics and tended the grill in the back yard while the women worked inside on craft projects that could be sold at future Dalmatian Rescue fundraisers. There was lots of potato salad and pickles and pie to go along with all the pork being barbecued on the grill. It was the kind of old-fashioned holiday my parents would have enjoyed. I enjoyed it too. Even though our hosts make their living wrestling with technology, just like I do, we didn't talk about IT problems and computers. Instead, we talked about dogs, vacations, Harley Davidson bikes, and great grilling recipes. It was a distinctly all-American afternoon. And I guess that's exactly the way it should be on Memorial Day.

The only problem with holidays is that I inevitably get behind on everything else. The house is a mess, the car needs to be washed and I still haven't cut the grass this week. I know tomorrow is going to be a busy day as well, because my clients will try their best to cram five days of work into the week's four remaining days. The house might have to stay messy for a while, but I'll gradually get caught up on things. Eventually, I always do.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 166

It was a nice, quiet day. I'm glad when I get an opportunity to use the words nice and quiet together in the same sentence. It doesn't happen all that often. Deuce got adopted today and he'll go to his new home tomorrow. We've also have some new volunteers who are helping us with walking the rescue dogs on Sunday mornings. Things are looking up at Dalmatian Rescue.

When I took Dash over to Vhea's Laundromutt for his weekly bath, I noticed that a baby bird had fallen out of its nest near the dry cleaners next door. At this time of year, birds routinely fall out of their nests in our neighborhood. Most of them get eaten immediately by cats, but this one looked like it still had a chance. I told Vhea about the bird's predicament and she found a tall ladder and carefully placed the bird back in its nest. The nest happened to be right in the middle of the letter "O" in the dry cleaner's sign in front of the building. Birds seem to like to make nests in outdoor signage. A few years ago, a bird made a nest in the sign in front of Janet's company and managed to catch the sign on fire when the illuminated letters turned on at night. Birds have also made a nest in our mailbox several times and we've had to put up an alternate mailbox until the eggs hatched and the baby birds flew away. Once, a substitute mail carrier wasn't looking and dropped mail in the box on top of the birds and caused an uproar at the post office. All the regular mail carriers knew about the birds and were rooting for them to make it. I had to make a special grate that would allow the mother bird to feed the babies, but would still keep mail out. To this day, I don't know what that substitute mail carrier was thinking. I had placed a giant sign right next to the alternate mailbox that said "Mail goes here. There are baby birds in the other box."

After several attempts, I finally figured out how to make multiple photo albums on my iPad, I need to remember that this thing is not a little computer; it's really just a giant iPod touch. As a photographer, I wish there was a better way of adding and deleting photographs. It's kind of a pain to have to hook it up to another computer and synchronize photo albums using iTunes when all you want to do is delete a shot that you think sucks. I can't complain too much though. Once you finally manage to get the photos into the iPad and arranged the way you want, they really look wonderful.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 165

I wish you could buy groceries on the iTunes store. It's so easy to purchase stuff on iTunes that it's easy to forget you've actually bought anything. Well, it's easy to forget until you look at your charge card bill a month or so later anyway. I've already bought quite a few apps for my iPad. If only buying software for a regular computer was so easy and inexpensive. I'd love to be able to click a button on my office computer and buy Adobe CS-5 for ten bucks and then watch the whole thing being automatically installed in less than a minute.

Unfortunately, grocery shopping is one thing I still can't do on iTunes. Every Saturday, I have to deal with this chore in person. The supermarket was crowded today and everyone except me had their buggies filled with potato chips, hot dog buns, beer, watermelons and anything else you could conceivably eat on a Memorial Day picnic. The store where I shop has all these little kiosks scattered around where people can sample food. There was total gridlock at one kiosk where a vendor was cutting hot dogs in half and giving them away. People were waiting in line for ten minutes just to get their hands on half of a hot dog. This isn't my idea of fun. As I watched all the people queue up to wait for free food, I couldn't wait to get out of there.

It's not officially Summer yet, but it's starting to feel that way. It was over 90 degrees this afternoon and very humid.  Every year about this time I seriously question why I ever moved to Texas. I used to live in Seattle and the weather was much nicer there. I think it came down to a choice between nice weather and a nice job. I picked the job, but I still miss the mild weather.

Along with the warmer weather comes a host of new things to watch out for when I walk the dogs. Last month it was poison ivy. This month it's snakes. The snakes have all come out of hibernation and they're everywhere in the park. There are at least ten species of snakes that are native to this area, and I can never remember which ones are the poisonous ones. I almost stepped on a huge snake on our afternoon walk. It was over four feet long and looked suspiciously like a Water Moccasin. You never know what dogs are going to do around a snake, so I try to stay as far away from them as possible. Even snakes aren't going to keep the hordes of picnickers away this weekend though. By Tuesday morning, half the stuff I saw piled in people's grocery buggies this afternoon will be littered all over the park.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 164

I picked up a new Dalmatian today at the Richardson Animal Shelter. Her name was Molly and she had been surrendered to the pound when her owners got divorced. It's amazing how often this happens. You'd think that even if the couple didn't like each other anymore, at least one of them would still love the dog and want to keep it. This must not be the case however, because Dalmatian Rescue has picked up at least six dogs that were dumped at an animal shelter when their owners got divorced.

When I was filling out the paperwork to get Molly transfered to the Dalmatian Rescue program, I saw two different couples bring their dogs in to surrender them to shelter.  When the animal control officer at the front desk asked the people why they were surrendering their dogs, both people said they had moved to an apartment building that wouldn't allow dogs. I heard the animal control officer say "Why don't you just move somewhere else," to one of the couples, but they didn't respond. People amaze me. I've heard some people actually tell animal control that they were "donating" their dog to the city when they surrendered it. It's as if they want to walk away from the shelter believing that they have done some sort of good deed, instead of facing the reality that their dog will probably be euthanized in less than a week. Molly is safe though. She's already at our vet getting a full health checkup. As soon as she's healthy and has had all her shots, we'll make sure she finds a good home.

I'm looking forward to having a three day weekend. For the past month or so, I've felt it was almost impossible to get caught up on everything. I don't know if I'm getting slower, or if life is just getting more complicated, but my "to do" list is pretty long these days. Every time I get ready to tackle some long overdue project around the house, some new work crisis hits the fan and I'm back to square one again. Today was a little different. Most of my clients left early for the Memorial Day weekend and it was Molly who put me behind. I enjoyed getting her out of harms way though. She's a sweet dog and I'm sure she'll get adopted soon.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 163

When I was out of the office today I made a telephone call from my iPad and it actually worked. I'm delighted. Now I have the cell phone I've always wanted: big, bulky and totally impractical. Janet thinks I'm nuts to waste time trying to use a bulky tablet computer as a phone, but it works for me. I can use Skype to call for free when I'm in Wi-Fi range and use Whistle over 3G everywhere else.

I remembered a bunch of important files that I forgot to back up yesterday, so I continued my backup efforts for another day. I'm sure when the next big computer crash occurs, the files that I really need will still be the ones that I forgot to back up. That's always what happens. I used to back up everything, but now it's simply too much trouble. When a single photo image can be 100 megabytes or larger and the source material for a typical corporate video ends up filling up an entire terabyte hard drive, you learn to be selective about what you back up. I don't bother to back up video files at all. It's much easier to just save all the original video tape and redigitize it if necessary.

I wish the city would decide when they were going to pick up the trash on our street. First, they cut back our twice a week service to a single day. Then, just when everybody was getting used to the trash truck coming on Friday afternoons, they decide to come at 6 AM on Friday morning instead. Practically everyone on the entire street missed the trash pickup last week. They wouldn't come back either. I'm ready for them this week. I took my trash out to the curb this evening. I noticed that a lot of my neighbors did the same thing. It's going to be a bonanza for the raccoons and possums in the neighborhood tonight.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 162

Not a great day. When I went to fix my morning coffee, I noticed that a new piece of artwork in the kitchen had fallen off the wall and broken. I sorted through assorted canisters, glassware and spice bottles on the counter top where the small mixed-media sculpture had fallen, but I couldn't find the missing pieces. I did find a big cockroach hiding under the microwave, but that definitely wasn't what I was looking for. After breakfast, I turned on the office computer to start working and nothing happened. I think the power supply has finally burned out. Nothing I tried would bring the beast back to life. When I went to the storage warehouse to drag home a spare computer for the third time in less than a month, I noticed that there was a big nail in my rear tire. The tire was holding air, so I'll deal with that problem another day.

I have really got to become more disciplined about backing up everything to an external drive on a daily basis. It's becoming a huge hassle to take hard drives and memory out of one computer and put them in another, just so I can continue working. Unfortunately, not working just isn't an option. I had a meeting with one of my veterinarian clients around noon, but when I got up to the clinic, I discovered that the doc had been called away to perform an emergency surgery. I had to wait quite a while, so I had time to finally try out my new iPad. This seemed like a good time to answer today's e-mail. The 3G Internet connection on the iPad worked like a charm. Lots of spam was coming into my inbox, just like my other computers. I typed my messages on the touch screen keyboard and hit send. Nothing happened. After a while a message box appeared that said "SMPT Server Not Responding." Oops. I guess I didn't configure the e-mail client correctly. I can never remember the port numbers for the POP and SMTP servers, so I just gave up and read magazines in the lobby until the doc was ready to see me.

By the end of the day, I had managed to back up all my critical files on DVD disks and was limping along using an old obsolete Mac to finish my webmaster duties. I wish I was more of a pro-active person. I'm really good at reacting to a crisis, but I never plan ahead well enough to avoid the problems in the first place. I remember when I was younger and living in Seattle, I had a car with a dead battery. Instead of running out and getting a new battery right away like I should have, I parked on hills for almost a month and let the car roll forward for a bit to start it. This ridiculous plan actually worked, since there were steep hills both where I lived and where I worked. I never even considered what would happen if I had to drive somewhere where it was flat.

I guess I'm a bit like Dash. He's eating grass again today. I'm sure he never considered that eating grass is going to give him a bellyache about six hours from now, just like it always does.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 161

If today was a battle between the high-tech and low-tech forces in my life, low-tech definitely won. I had to return the Bluetooth headset I got the other day because I couldn't figure out how to pair it with my iPad. I tried and tried, but it just wouldn't work. I should have known better than to buy anything without an Apple logo on it and expect it to work with an Apple product. I've been down this road before. At any rate, after a quick Google search, I discovered that nobody could get their Bluetooth headsets to work with their iPads. Even though the iPad has built-in Bluetooth capabilities, it apparently doesn't work with 99% of the Bluetooth devices out there. It will work fine with a cordless Apple keyboard, but that's about it. I guess Apple really doesn't want you to use the thing as a telephone.

So, how did low-tech win so easily today?  I needed to buy some sandals, because it's starting to get way too hot outside to continue wearing my Red Wing work boots for walking the dogs. I went down to DSW Shoe Warehouse and tried on a pair I liked. They fit. I bought them. And that's all there was to it. Now, why can't technology be a bit more like buying shoes?

My German clients liked the initial draft of my petrochemical story, except they want me to make it twice as long. Yikes! Does this mean I'm going to have to double my limited knowledge of oil refineries? I certainly hope not. I think it does mean that I'm going to have to do a few more telephone interviews with people in foreign countries though.

There was no sign of the gas company repair crew in the back alley today. I sure hope they fixed the gas leak yesterday. Maybe I ought to wait a while before doing any outdoor barbecuing.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 160

I finally got my tax refund in the mail. Unfortunately, half of the money has already disappeared to pay my accountant for figuring out how much I was going to get back from the IRS in the first place. The other half? Well, it's gone too. I already spent it before I realized how much my accountant was going to charge me this year.

When I let the dogs out after lunch to dig holes in the yard and chase squirrels, I noticed several men wearing hard hats and doing something with a strange looking test instrument behind the house. Although the gizmo they were using looked straight out of Ghostbusters, I didn't think they were looking for ghosts. When I inquired about what they were doing, one of the men told me in a combination of English and Spanish that they were trying to find the source of a gas leak. "Is much gas leaking," I asked.  "Oh, quite a bit," said the other man.  Nice!  It's a good thing I wasn't going outside for a smoke or something.

I actually got quite a bit done today, despite a total lack of motivation. One of the hardest things about running your own business is that you don't have a boss to continually tell you what to do every day. Life seemed so much easier when I was an ad agency copywriter. I would just go into the office in the morning, pour myself a mug of coffee, eat a few donuts and then wait for the creative director to give me an assignment. Now, with nobody to tell me to keep working, it's easy to get sidetracked. There are temptations everywhere. When I was eating breakfast this morning, I noticed that there was an all-day Torchwood marathon on the BBC channel.  Although I would have liked to have grabbed a huge bag of Cheetos and watched TV all day, I didn't. I continued to work on my petrochemical article instead. You realize very quickly when you are running a small business that if you don't keep working, people don't keep paying you.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 159

Dot and Dash went to their second birthday party in less than a week. This time, the party was for Tom, our obedience class instructor, who invited everyone in the class to bring their dogs. As you might expect, when you combine lots of large dogs with backyard burgers, there were more than a few burgers snatched off people's plates by the dogs. The dogs were actually remarkably well behaved, considering the amount of food nearby. Tom was convinced it was because he had trained them so well, but more likely the dogs knew that if they stayed quiet, their owners would slip them hot dogs and chips to eat under the table.

Tom is a marathon runner and he invited some of his running and cycling buddies to the party as well. The dog people and the type-a running people were a distinctly different crowd. The runners seemed uncomfortable with all the dogs milling about and would shoo them away if they came near their plates. One high-strung woman jogger would periodically shriek, "that dog's about to pee on your lawn chair." Most of the dog people could care less if a dog peed on a chair. At one point or another, dogs have peed on just about everything we own. I can tell you from personal experience that it's not a big deal if a dog pees on a lawn chair. The runners seemed to think otherwise however and as the afternoon progressed, the joggers and the dog people slowly migrated to opposite sides of Tom's yard. Despite all the type-a joggers, it was a very enjoyable afternoon. The weather as perfect. The burgers were great. And nobody got bit.

This morning, Ann and Janet were away at a rescue event in Grapevine, Texas, so I walked the K-9 University dogs with another volunteer. This guy was real good at clicker training and within thirty minutes he had our resident wild child Lance sitting and healing like a show dog. I was impressed. On the way home, I stopped by Fry's Electronics and got a Bluetooth headset. I'm determined to turn my iPad into a telephone. I don't know why I'm wasting time with this though. I don't even like to talk on the telephone.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 158

I usually try to do something useful around the house on Saturday. Sometimes, I actually improve things and other times I just make a mess. Today I finally hung a large picture that had been leaning against the wall in my office for over six months. I must have left the picture leaning against the wall too long, because when I hung it in the living room, I noticed that the wood frame had become warped and developed a pronounced bow in the middle. I hung it up anyway. With the picture hung, I tried to use bleach to get rid of some rust stains in the ceiling that were caused when water was leaking through the roof this Winter. I should never be allowed to handle bleach. I did a good job of getting rid of the stains in the ceiling, but I also spilled bleach on the pair on jeans I was wearing and ruined them.

When I was walking the dogs this evening a woman stopped me on the bike trail and asked if I knew the name of this part of the park. At first it seemed like an odd question, but then she explained that her car had been broken into while she as jogging and she was trying to get the police to come out and investigate. She said they needed an exact location to respond to her call. It wasn't long ago that you could have just told the police that you were over by the bicycle bridge on the North end of the park and they would know exactly where to come. Then somebody at city hall got the bright idea of putting hundreds of small round signs in the park, each printed with a unique number that corresponded to the sign's GPS coordinates. Now, the police won't answer any calls in the park unless you give them the location number that's painted on one of these signs. I guess if you get mugged in-between a sign, you're just out of luck. At any rate, I pointed out several of the ubiquitous round 911 signs to the woman and told her she could take her pick. Another example of our tax dollars at work. We used to have actual park police who patrolled the park all the time. Now we've got a lot of round signs.

I've been thinking about adding an RSS feed to my business website. Technorati and some of those other website ranking authorities seem to take you a lot more seriously if you have a feed and feed subscribers. It certainly wouldn't be hard to add a feed. It's basically just a little text document on the web server. Every time I get ready to create the XML code though, a little voice in my head says "Hmm, if someone actually subscribed to Sealander & Company, what would they get?" I don't know. If you subscribe to this blog, you get a new post every day. I seldom change anything on the website though, so I have no idea what I'd be actually be sending in the feed. Probably nothing. Maybe I need to learn a little more about feeds.

The dogs seemed tired all day. I don't think they are quite the party animals they think they are. A little birthday celebration, a plate of fresh chicken, and they've both got to sleep it off the next day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 157 - Dash's Birthday

While I was waiting for the Brazilian petrochemical folks to call me on Skype this morning, I got a call from HorrorGuy, who wanted me to be a guest on an upcoming Horror Movie Show podcast in June. This illustrates the value of leaving blog comments. I had left several comments about science fiction films on The Horror Movie Show blog and evidently they now think I'm a movie expert. In truth, I'm not an expert about movies or anything else. I'm just an ad guy, who like most other ad guys, is a fairly good bullshitter. I'm certainly not a Skype expert either, so I was a bit worried that I'd push the wrong button and end up having HorrorGuy and the Brazialian petrochemical executives on the same call. I'm sure most oil and gas folks have plenty of horror stories of their own, but I doubt that they'd want them broadcast to the world on a podcast. The Brazialians never called though, because they couldn't get Skype to work on their end. I eventually ended up just calling them on a regular telephone later.

Today was Dash's birthday, and to celebrate, we took both dogs to Cafe Lago for dinner. Gabi, who owns Cafe Lago is a friend and runs one of the most pet friendly restaurants I've ever seen. There is even a special dog menu with specially prepared chicken and egg dishes that are both tasty and healthy for pets. We'd never taken the dogs to a restaurant before, so we were a bit worried that they'd steal food off someone's plate or cause a big commotion and get us thrown out of the place. They were very well behaved though, and seemed to know that this evening was something special just for them. The only mishap was that Dot snatched some of birthday boy's chicken before he got a chance to eat it.  The dogs enjoyed their evening out so much that we'll definitely have to take them back to the restaurant again. I enjoyed my meal as well. The restaurant is basically a place to go for Tapas,  but there's a Cuban pork sandwich on the menu that is absolutely fabulous.

Today was unusually busy for a Friday. Some of my website clients were behind on their updates this week, so I ended up making the changes today instead of Thursday like I usually do. My telephone interview with the petrochemical executives went quite well when I was finally able to place the call. I think I have enough information now to put together a decent article for my German client. One thing that really struck me while we were talking today was that the Brazilians are genuinely proud of their energy industry. These folks, unlike many Americans these days, think that drilling for oil is a great thing and they want to find and refine as much of the stuff as they possibly can. It was refreshing to listen to people who were proud of their country and its growing economic strength. Many Americans seem almost embarrassed to talk about our strength anymore and want to apologize instead. This is why the future probably belongs to the Chinese and the Brazilians. These countries are the way we used to be. I remember being very proud when John Kennedy promised the world that we were going to the moon in ten years. We actually did it too. Now all our presidents can promise are extended unemployment benefits. America seems to have lost its mojo and that's sad to me.

We may never go back to the moon again in my lifetime, but I am proud to have two fabulous Dalmatians. Happy Birthday Dash!

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 156

Last month, after one of our Dalmatian Rescue pet picture events, the manager at Unleashed told me that if I brought down some of my photos, they would display them in the lobby and distribute some of my marketing post cards as well. I finally got the pictures printed and framed today. I need to be a little quicker to take advantage of opportunities like this, but other things keep getting in the way. At any rate, when I took the large framed photos to the dog park this afternoon, they still remembered their offer and said they'd hang the pictures tomorrow. One more thing I can check off my endless "to do" list. Hey, It can't hurt to be seen. Maybe I'll even get some business.

I don't know how my interview with the petrochemical executive in Brazil is going to go tomorrow. I got an e-mail from the guy's secretary telling me to call at 3PM, since I was two hours ahead of them in Rio and her boss wanted to do the interview at 1 PM. When I looked at a map, it appeared that Dallas was actually 3 hours behind Rio and I should be calling at 10 AM instead. Maybe Brazil doesn't have daylight saving time though and Dallas is only 2 hours behind. I have no idea when to call these people. Maybe they should just call me.

Yesterday's stock market woes only seemed to grow worse today. Everyone is worried about whether the Germans are going to bail out Greece and whether the Euro is going to fall even further. I used to do a lot of work in Germany. The Germans I worked with never liked the Euro in the first place and would have much rather kept their beloved Deutsche Mark instead. I can't imagine that these Germans are very happy about bailing out the Greeks. Oddly, when I first got the assignment to write this petrochemical article several months ago, I agreed to be paid in Euros. The value of the Euro had dropped like a stone ever since.

What an odd life I have. One day I'm dealing with multi-national corporations and foreign currencies. The next day I'm taking pictures of someone's dog.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 155

I'm just about ready to throw in the towel and give up on the stock market entirely. My broker called me today and said I needed to sell Joy Global and Citicorp because they had both dropped below their two hundred day moving averages. Jeez, it was less than a month ago that this very same broker convinced me that these stocks were undervalued and would be a good long-term buy. In all fairness, I can't blame the guy for not being able to predict the future. Nobody else is doing a very good job either. I think the markets aren't behaving rationally anymore because the entire world isn't behaving rationally anymore. It's frustrating to say the least. I find it increasingly difficult to make any money these days. Owing rental property sucks. The stock market is a volatile minefield. Customers are tightening their belts and cutting back on their advertising budgets. What's a boy to do? Oh, I know. I'll just put some Google AdSense ads on my websites. That will solve everything.

The dogs don't worry about finances, but they do worry about the heat. I've never seen a Dalmatian that liked Texas Summers. Now that the weather is starting to get warmer, I've noticed that Dot and Dash are walking a bit slower. Our morning walk usually takes about 45 minutes when the three of us are walking briskly. Today, it took almost an hour. By June I'll probably have to carry the dogs home. Neither of them know how to pace themselves. They race out the door tugging and pulling until they get hot and then they just stop. On a hot day it's hell getting them back home again after they both decide they've had enough at the halfway point. I try to tell them that I've got ads to finish and websites to design so I can continue to pay their vet bills, but they just look for a cool patch of grass to lie down in and refuse to budge.

Luckily, it cooled down this evening and the weather was perfect for obedience class. All the dogs in class did well this evening. The days are getting longer too, so that we aren't finishing class in the dark any more. It wasn't a bad way to end the day. Hey, when you've got two dogs who'll sit, stay and come when they're called, how can you keep worrying about the stock market.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 154

Once again I got the dreaded "Service Required - 0001001B" message when I turned on the printer this morning. This message basically means that the print head needs to be replaced, which is definitely not a do it yourself job on the Epson 4000. So far, I've been able to make this message go away by turning the printer on and off again a bunch of times. The "Service Required" message is appearing more frequently now though, and I'm afraid the printer is on it's last legs. I used to be able to justify the cost of a large format printer for the business, since some of my retail clients would use me to make their window display posters. Now, they can buy big prints on the Internet for less than I pay for ink and paper. I haven't had a client ask for a large print in several years, but the printer still makes beautiful posters for Dalmatian Rescue events when it's working.

If my clients weren't buying cheap stock photography on the Internet and even cheaper web design templates on the Internet, I could afford to upgrade my failing equipment at regular intervals. With budgets continuing to shrink, I'm forced to nurse and baby my old machines until that once in a blue moon "big job" comes along. I don't think I ever realized how easy I had it ten years ago. Times have definitely changed. Now I feel like a small mom and pop business after a big Walmart moves into town.

Whenever I'm defeated by technology, I go do something simple instead. I mow the grass. After I mowed the grass in the front yard this afternoon, I realized that one of the reasons the grass still wasn't growing well in the back yard was because I still hadn't raked all the winter leaves away. So I raked and mowed and then got the leaf blower out and blew the remaining leaves into the alley behind the house. The yard looks much better now. I didn't used to have to do anything about the leaves, because the wind eventually blew them all away. Now that all the neighbors are all building these tall wood privacy fences, the leaves seem to stay trapped in the yard forever.

Dash must have eaten something rotten again. He keeps scratching at the back door and when I let him out, all he does is eat grass. It's going to be a long night.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 153

It was finally dry enough today for me to go up on the roof with a caulking gun full of Henry Patching Cement and try to put an end to the nagging roof leaks. I've done this several times and I still have no idea what I'm doing. I've hired other people to patch the roof too, but they didn't know what they were doing either. Since water can seep through the tiniest crack or opening, you basically just spread the black tar-like sealer anywhere that you even remotely think might be the source of the leak. Unless a meteor falls on your roof or something, you're never going to actually see a hole in the roof. I found a couple of seams in the asphalt roofing material that looked like they might have gotten brittle and cracked, so I spread a big glop of the Henry Patching Cement around and hoped for the best. I also spread the stuff around all the areas where I remembered the roof had leaked before. When I was finished, I think I had as much of the messy cement on me as I had spread on the roof. It's supposed to rain this week, so we'll soon see if my efforts did any good.

When I turned the computer on this morning, I noticed that the clock had reset itself to 1969. Whenever this happens, it often means that the lithium PRAM battery on the motherboard has gone dead. I just replaced this battery last week however, so that probably isn't the problem. I like to think I know a lot about computers, but whenever I try to fix things myself, I usually just end up making matters worse. Truthfully, I probably don't know any more about fixing computers than I do about fixing roof leaks. Maybe I'll just leave the computer on instead of turning it off at night, since the problem only appears when I boot up the computer in the morning. Some people say that the hard drives will last longer if you never turn the computer off anyway. One thing is certain though. Whatever I do will end up being the wrong thing. I have a feeling that everything will be fine until then next time I'm two hours away from an important deadline. That's when the computer will choose to die.

I need to start getting more sleep. I seem to walk around perpetually tired these days. When I woke up this morning, I didn't want to get out of bed at all. I could have easily slept another two hours, but the dogs had other ideas. Their little internal clocks are so finely tuned that I probably don't even need the watches I wear or the clock on my computer. If I'm even five minutes late in fixing their breakfast, they both start barking and pestering me until I get back on schedule again. Of course, once they've been fed and had their walk, they go straight back to sleep again. Now, that's the kind of life I'd like to lead.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 152

In a day filled with walking dogs, washing dogs and taking dogs to the dog park, I eventually found a little time to open up the iPad box I got yesterday and see what was inside. The first thing I discovered was that Apple doesn't believe in instruction manuals anymore. The only instructions inside the box were printed on a small postcard sized piece of paper that basically just said "charge up the battery, plug the USB cable into your other computer, and see what happens." The whole setup routine takes place online.

Once I understood what was going on, I thought it would be a piece of cake to transfer all the information I needed from my other computer to the iPad. The tablet works just like an iPod, and syncs your information using the iTunes application. There was only one problem. Instead of just upgrading my system like a normal Apple user, I keep the old system drive and add new hard drives each time a new system is introdced. The main computer I use for work has four different hard drives that can boot five different Mac operating systems. The oldest of these drives contains most of my contact information, but it wouldn't sync up with the iPad at all because older version of iTunes on the drive wasn't compatible. The newest hard drive, containing the latest version of iTunes, worked just fine, but there was no contact information on the disk to sync. A bit ironic. Apple now offers this fancy "MobileMe" service that allows you to easily sync all your computers, iPods, iPhones and iPads remotely from anywhere in the world. Unfortunately, they never bothered to come up with a convenient way to sync different hard drives inside the same computer. I finally got all the contact and calendar information I wanted loaded in the iPad, but it sure wasn't as easy as just touching the sync button.

Two loose dogs came running after Dot and Dash while I was taking them on their evening walk today. There are signs all over the park saying "All dogs must be on a leash at all times" but people continue to ignore them. Luckily, these two dogs ware small and appeared to be friendly. This isn't always the case unfortunately. About a year and a half ago, Dash and I were attacked and badly bitten by a loose Pit Bull mix in our neighborhood. After that incident, I always worry when I see a loose dog in the park. Walking dogs in a city is kind of like driving a car in the city. No matter how careful you are, you still have to deal with all the other idiots who aren't careful at all.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 151

When I checked my e-mail this morning, there was a message that said "Congratulations, your iPad is here." You'd think my initial reaction would have been one of elation. Not really. My first thought was "Damn, I've got to go to NorthPark on a Saturday." Dallas shopping malls are a zoo on the weekends and I try to avoid them whenever possible. I like to shop when everybody else is at work and work when everybody else is shopping. Northpark is a peaceful, quiet place at 10:30 on a Tuesday morning, but on Saturday afternoon, it's a battle zone. I had to go fight the crowds though. If I didn't hurry down to the Apple store and claim my iPad within 24 hours, I knew that Apple was going to give it to whoever was next in line.

After circling the parking lot for fifteen minutes trying to find a parking place before the piranha shoppers rammed my car while racing to squeeze their huge SUV's into the rare available parking slot, I finally got my iPad. Then it was off to the grocery store to get food for the week and over to the storage warehouse to move some of the clutter in my office to a place where I wouldn't trip over it anymore. When these chores and a load of laundry were done, I went down to Unleashed to help with today's pet adoption event. There was a great crowd, but it didn't look like a lot of dogs were getting adopted. Most of the people who stopped at the Dalmatian Rescue booth were from one of the other rescue groups attending the event. Actually, it seemed like everyone in the building was from some animal rescue group. Nick didn't get adopted today, but at least he had a great time playing in the dog park.

I'm glad Dr. Who got moved to a later time slot on the BBC channel. Now, at least I've got an outside chance of getting caught up on Saturday chores before relaxing to watch my favorite show. I'm starting to get used to Matt Smith as the new doctor. I didn't think anyone could top David Tennant, but I'm already starting to forget him. And how do I like my new iPad? Don't know yet. I've been so busy today that I haven't even had time to take it out of the box.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day