Day 182

I had lunch today with Jim Hradecky. Jim hired me at Bozell & Jacobs to work on the American Airlines account. We later worked together at Stern Monroe. That was a long time ago. Neither of those ad agencies even exist anymore. I haven't seen Jim in years, but LinkedIn brought us together again. I don't know if LinkedIn actually helps anyone with their business, but it certainly is good for finding old friends.

It was enjoyable catching up on things over lunch at Ziziki’s. Jim told me funny stories about making commercials with Jimmy Dean, the recently deceased singer and sausage king. I told Jim stories about having dinner with Rudy Vallee and Jim's old boss Stan Richards. Most of our stories were about things that happened a long time ago. Nothing very interesting has happened in advertising in recent years.

When I got back from lunch, there was a call on the answering machine saying that my computer had been repaired and that I needed to come pick it up. Oddly, I've gotten used to using my older spare computer and don't really feel like going back to the newer one again. I've still got to go pay for the repair though. Then I'll have to decide what to do with the computer. The older G-4 Mirror Door that I'm using now works perfectly with the older software I prefer to use. I just wonder how long I can avoid the inevitable day when everything in my entire office is officially obsolete.

The blog is almost six months old. I enjoy writing everyday more than I thought I would, but I'm already getting tired of clicking on Entrecard widgets. Dropping takes way too much time when there's work to finish and deadlines to meet. I wonder if some people just hire their kids to do their dropping for them. Maybe that's how kid's earn their allowance these days. 

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 181

It seemed like I spent the entire day paying bills. Paying bills used to be simple. There was the electric bill, the gas bill and the water bill. Now, these basic necessities have been replaced by the necessity of staying in touch with the rest of the world. There are a multitude of phone bills: regular land line phone bills, cell phone bills, data line bills, cable company bills, even bills from companies that connect one form of communication to another. The electric bill used to be my biggest recurring expense in the Summer. Now, all the various telephone and Internet bills make electricity seem like a bargain. The ironic thing is that I don't even talk on the phone much. I still think having a functioning air conditioner is far more important than having a functioning phone.

I went to another one of those free lunch seminars today. This one was about event planning software. This software would actually be quite useful to the Dalmatian Rescue group, since we organize an annual charity golf tournament, along with several other events throughout the year to raise money for the dogs. Even though the speaker made a point of mentioning that there was special pricing available for non-profit groups, the cost was still way too high for most animal rescue organizations. Maybe the SPCA could afford something like this, but it's way out of our league for the Dalmatians. The lunch was good though, so the time I spent wasn't a total loss.

I'm beginning to wonder if the money I'm spending on Google AdWords is a total loss though. I've been running my campaign for several months now, and as far as I can tell, it hasn't resulted in any new business at all. Apparently, a few more people now realize that Sealander & Company is really an ad agency instead of a resource to find information about dogs, but that's about it. I've never run Yellow Page ads for my company, but people I know who do use the Yellow Pages say an Adwords campaign is a lot more affordable. Probably so. I do know that an Adwords campaign is more expensive than sending out postcards ever once in a while, which is all I ever used to do. I'll probably continue the campaign for a while, but it would be nice to see some tangible results.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 180

Unleashed was really crowded this afternoon. I'm sure a lot of people were there because it was the last day the park was open for business. It's ironic. If all these people had brought their dogs to the park during our mild Spring weather, the place could probably have stayed open a lot longer. Everyone we talked to seemed genuinely sad that this was the last day they could bring their dogs to play. Lots of people had ideas about how the park could have stayed in business, but hindsight is always 20/20. I'm sure the owners did everything they possibly could to keep the place open. To me it was just a case of monumental bad luck. If the country's very first indoor dog park hadn't opened for business at the start of the biggest economic downturn in the past thirty years, I'm sure it would be business as usual tomorrow morning. When we left for the last time, I noticed that some of the staff had tears in their eyes. This was a dream for a lot of people, and now it's gone.

It seems to get a little hotter every day. We're started taking water with us when we walk the rescue Dalmatians on Sunday morning because it's getting too hot for the dogs. We don't walk them as long as we do in cooler weather, but they still enjoy sitting in the shade under a tree with us. I wonder how people lived here at all before there was air conditioning. When I took Dash for his weekly bath at Vhea's Laundromutt today he was completely dry by the time we got home again. This is the time of year when it would be nice to have a swimming pool in the back yard. Unfortunately, during the Fall and Winter it wouldn't be nearly as nice, because the pool would be completely full of leaves from our three large Oak and Elm trees.

I found an nice little app that allows me to open and edit Microsoft Word and Excel files from my iPad. Now, I'll be able to do real work from just about anywhere. I have this fantasy that doing my work while drinking Lattes at Starbucks would be pleasant, but it probably wouldn't be. I grind my own beans every morning and think my coffee tastes much better than Starbucks anyway. Actually, it's way too much trouble to drive somewhere just so I could do the same thing I do right here. I guess I'll just stay home with two dogs under my desk and use the iPad as a wireless mouse for my big computer.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 179

The dogs have already decided it's too hot outside. I'd have to agree with them. For the next three months I need to hope that I won't be caught up in a major traffic jam, because my aging Defender 90 will overheat. I need to remember to make the trip to the grocery store last on my list of Saturday errands, so the produce won't spoil sitting in the car. I need to remember to water the grass frequently, because we don't have an automatic sprinkler system. I'm not a big fan of Summer. I'm not a big fan of Winter either, but every Summer I can't wait for the cooler weather to return.

This afternoon, our Wednesday dog training class had their annual Summer party. Like a lot of other people who show their dogs, enter agility competitions, or work with rescue groups, we have let dogs become the center of our social life. Just about everything we do with other people seems to involve dogs these days. I like dog people. They are straightforward and unpretentious compared to the artists and musicians I used to hang out with. Dog have a way of bringing out the best in people. Even though I ate way too much at the party and Dot didn't want to participate in the party games, we all had a good time. Dash seems to be the social butterfly of the family. He wanted to say hello to all the other dogs and had a good time getting in a kiddie pool full of water and playing the "bobbing for biscuits" game.  He didn't win unfortunately, because the Labs and water dogs were much faster at snagging the required ten dog biscuits floating in the water. Dot got hot quickly and just wanted to go home.

I've noticed that bag worms have gotten into our Wax Myrtle trees again. We get them every year, but this season they seem worse than normal. I know you are supposed to use an insecticide like Talstar to control the worms, but I just cut the affected branches off instead. I hate to use insecticide around the dogs and usually the trees need trimming anyway. Even though I'd rather just sit inside tomorrow with the AC cranked up and download new apps for my iPod, I know I'd better deal with these worms instead. The trees are depending on me.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 178

One of my customers asked me to come down to their offices and take new employee pictures today. I don't do this nearly as often as I used to. Companies just aren't hiring as many people anymore. It seems like for every new employee I add to the websites I manage, I delete three other people who lost their jobs as a result of the poor economy. I listen to the pundits on television talk about how the economy is finally starting to rebound. Maybe so, but from my vantage point, it certainly doesn't look that way.

I wonder how long things can go on this way? For the past month or so it's been hard to turn on the television without hearing an endless barrage of bad news. The country is drowning in debt. The Gulf of Mexico is drowning in oil. Unemployment is high. Confidence in the government is low. And sales of Prozac are going through the roof. Maybe the Mayans were right. It doesn't seem all that implausible that the world will end in 2012.

I think the dismal state of the world is one of the reasons I focus so much of my energy on stray dogs. I can't stop oil spills. I can't make Wall Street honest again. I can't even choose where my tax dollars go. One thing I can do is help find a dog a home. Somehow this seems more worthwhile than all the empty rhetoric I hear coming out of the mouths of politicians. Personally, I'm getting tired of hearing all these people talk a good game while accomplishing nothing. Isn't it about time to stop talking and actually start doing something?

Oh, well. At least it's Friday. To celebrate the end of a long week, we took the dogs out to dinner again at Cafe Lago. Dot and Dash were amazingly well behaved. I think they understand the concept of going out to dinner now. It's a simple concept: be nice and you get to eat good food. Both dogs sat quietly beside us while we ate and didn't bark or try to steal the other diners food. I was impressed. Gaby recently added a special new meatloaf dish to the dog menu and both dogs loved it. There was a nice breeze on the patio and the Navy Bean soup I ordered was delicious this evening. Not a bad way to end the week. As the sun set and the air grew cooler, it was easy to imagine that the world wasn't in such bad shape after all.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 177

The first thing on this morning's list was getting Wendy to the vet. When I picked her up at the K-9 University kennel, she was coughing pretty bad. She tested positive for heartworms when we initially picked her up from animal control, so her cough could be from Bordetella, from the heartworms or both. At any rate, we can't begin the heartworm treatment until she's healthier. I don't think people realize sometimes how much effort goes into making sure these dogs are healthy before we put them up for adoption.

By the time I made the forty mile round trip between the boarding kennel and the vet, there wasn't enough time to have my normal breakfast of pancakes and sausages, so I just ate a bowl of cereal and took my own dogs on their morning walk. I didn't want to expose Dot and Dash to Bordetella, so I threw my clothes in the laundry and got dressed for a second time before we did anything. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a watch out of my pocket and it went through the wash along with my clothes.

I did manage to make it to the Avid Media Composer seminar and was glad I went. A lot of folks like me use Final Cut Pro for editing because it is less than half as expensive as Avid. Avid is still the Cadillac of the digital video editing world though. Over 90% of all feature films are edited on an Avid these days. I'll certainly buy one when that elusive "big job" finally comes my way. It's nice to dream though. It was also nice to chow down on some fabulous MOOYAH burgers while listening to the sales pitch for the Media Composer 5 launch. The MOOYAH team came out and grilled the hamburgers on the spot for us. Delicious! I asked them to add some bacon to mine. That's about as close to living dangerously as I can get these days.

There were lots of website updates to make today, but that's just because it's Thursday. There are always website updates on Thursday. I sure wish I didn't throw my watch in the washing machine. It was bound to happen some day though. It looks like the first thing on tomorrow's list will be a trip to the watch repairman.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 176

I wonder what it means when you can't even tell the difference between being totally isolated and totally connected. I seldom talk to anyone anymore, but it is not uncommon to get e-mails from clients in three different continents in a single day. I think the bank teller recognizes me when I go in to make a deposit. I say hello to the FedEx guy when I have to sign for a package. I occasionally talk to the mailman. That's about it. One of my best clients hasn't seen me face-to-face in almost three years. The Internet has changed everything. People don't even call to invite you places anymore. I get these Evites in my inbox instead. I got two today; both with an offer of free lunch if I would listen to their pitch for expensive software solutions.

I think I might accept the Evite for the Avid Media Composer seminar tomorrow. I know an offer of free lunch will bring some of my video editor buddies out into the light of day for a short while and it would be great to see them again. I could ask these guys to lunch myself, but they would all say they are too busy. Production company people have a keen nose for free stuff though, so I know a lot of them will be at this event. At any rate, it beats talking to the dogs while I eat a tuna sandwich and watch CNBC on the  TV in the kitchen.

My guest appearance on The Horror Movie Show went live today. I thought the podcast would be a total disaster, since my Skype connection was terrible for the recording session. The show turned out pretty good though. You'd never know there were serious technical problems. My Skype connection went dead about every two minutes, but with a few exceptions, the finished show makes it appear that I was there the entire time. Cudos to HorrorGuy for a great editing job.

I need to figure out how to make Skype sound better, especially since it seems to be a great way to talk for free on my iPad. I have a feeling that if I enabled port forwarding on my network router, Skype's performance would improve dramatically. I've managed to lose the instruction manual for the router though, and I'm a bit reluctant to just dive right in and experiment. With my luck, I'd probably port forward the wrong thing and be offline for the rest of the week.

Wendy has come down with kennel cough, so I'm going to have to get up early tomorrow and take her back to the vet where she can stay in an isolation kennel until she gets better. K-9 University takes Bordetella seriously and I need to get Wendy moved as soon as possible. It's going to be a busy day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 175

I'm having a hard time figuring out what to feed Dash. He has tendency to form crystals and stones in his urine, so I can't feed him a high protein diet. He also has a weak heart, so I can't feed him the low protein diet that vets often recommend for dogs with urate stones. Most of the foods that are "right in the middle" contain too much grain and give him gas. I don't know what to do. I had to take Dash to the vet today because he has an eye infection and the vet and I had the "what to feed Dash" discussion again. This time we decided to substitute eggs for meat or fish as a source of protein. I'm certainly willing to give it a try. Eggs are easy to digest and are a good source of protein. Dogs love eggs too. Maybe this will be the solution he needs. Dot is healthy as a horse and can eat just about anything, but we still haven't found the magic mix of ingredients for Dash.

We're usually too busy to take the dogs to Unleashed during the week, but we took them this evening because this is the last week the park will be open. The place already looks like a ghost town. The fixtures are being sold now and the place seems much emptier than it was even a week ago. I hope all the staff can find new jobs. The park employed over 30 people at one point and now there are less than half that many remaining. It's sad. As the final days approach, Dash is finally learning how to interact with other dogs and he had a great time running and playing tonight.

It was a slow work day, so it was a good time to get my monthly invoices in the mail. It was also apparently a good time to learn something new. I've been using Dreamweaver to design websites for many years and never realized until today that there was an easy way to create text rollovers on the fly without the need for CSS style sheets. The handy shortcut was readily available from the main menu, but I never even noticed it before. I guess I could have read the instruction manual, but as you probably already know, guys never read the instruction manual.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 174

I went to Elliott's today to look for an obscure brand of concealed hinge to repair the doors on some built-in cabinets in the house. Home Depot and Lowes are fine for light bulbs, paint and garden tools, but if you're looking for something odd, Elliott's Hardware is still the only place in town where you even have a chance of finding it. I took one of the old hinges with me and started looking through the bins for something similar. At first I couldn't find anything, but then I noticed a hinge that looked almost identical. My original hinge had a brand name engraved on one side and said "made in Italy." The new hinge was exactly the same size, but had no markings whatsoever. I looked again and saw some very tiny letters that said "made in China." I know the Chinese make almost everything now, but why would they copy this strange Italian hinge that almost nobody uses anymore?  Probably everything in the hardware store is made in China now. I'm glad that somebody copied the hinge however. If I had to depend on the Italians to keep this obscure design alive, I probably would have been out of luck.

When I got back to the office, I got a call from the computer repair shop. They said the computer I brought in last week needed a new power supply. I suspected that this was the problem. What I didn't expect was the price they quoted me for the repair. When I asked why the price was so high, the technician said that the power supply cost $400. I've burned out several power supplies before and never paid more than $250 for a replacement. When I mentioned this to the tech, he said the lower price was for a refurbished power supply and that he only recommended using a brand new one. I distinctly remember the last time I had a bad power supply, the technician told me that on a computer this old, virtually all the repair parts were refurbished anyway.  It's hard to tell who's telling you the truth these days. Many times the lies sound a lot more plausible than the truth. I'll probably never know the true story on this one. Repair people have you over a barrel. If you want your machine back, you usually end up paying whatever they're asking.

I got an e-mail from a friend today apologizing for not answering a message that I'd sent him. He actually did reply though....over six months ago. I was pleased to receive this misplaced apology. It's nice to know that I'm not the only one with a terrible memory.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 173

It felt like a wake when we took the dogs down to Unleashed this afternoon. All the regulars were extremely sad that the park was going out of business next week. We'd gotten to know a lot of these people and some had become good friends. We live close to the park, but many people drove forty or fifty miles every single week, just so their dogs could play here. Everyone wondered what they were going to do when the park was gone. Although it had been in business just a little over a year, the park had become an important part of all our lives. I wonder how many other small businesses are being destroyed by this economy. Many successful businesses are seasonal in nature and have always depended on bridge loans or a line of credit to get through their slow season. The banks aren't lending anymore though. If you want a loan these days you have to go through the government, and the government is mired in red tape. I think Unleashed simply ran out of time.

My own business has been hurt by the economy too. Luckily, what I do is not seasonal in nature. I'm glad I don't have to depend on a line of credit to get through slow periods. Life is stressful enough already. Something has to be done though. If you want to buy a house these days, you just about have to get an FHA loan from the government.  Banks don't want to lend you the money anymore. Small businesses are even in worse shape than individuals. Nobody wants to lend them money.

We brought a new dog up to the K-9 University kennels this week. She was abandoned by her owners after she had a litter of 18 mixed-breed puppies. Luckily, both the mom and the pups are safe. We rescued Wendy, the mom, and another rescue group that has good luck placing puppies took all 18 of the pups after they were weaned. I took pictures of Wendy today, so we could get her up on the Dalmatian Rescue website. She's today's Dalmatian of the Day as well. I am continually amazed at how many dogs are abandoned by their owners. This is Day 173 on the blog and I haven't repeated a dog of the day yet. That's a lot of dogs. Keep in mind that this is just a single rescue group, operating in a single town, trying to help a single breed of dogs. When you realize that the same thing is happening to all breeds of dogs in hundreds of cities all over the country, the total number of abandoned animals is simply staggering. Wendy will get a home though. I think that's all you can do these days. Concentrate on the little things and just hope you are making a difference.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 172

Not only did the telephone company repairman show up today, but he actually managed to fix the kitchen phone. I was amazed. The last repairman said that the line couldn't be fixed and that I needed to make a separate appointment to get a new extension line installed. This guy was a little smarter. He confirmed that the line had indeed broken inside the wall somewhere. Then he said "Hey, I see four wires inside this line and the telephone only needs two of them. Let's see if we can get a dial tone using the other two wires." This plan worked like a charm. No holes drilled in the sheetrock. No unsightly cables stapled to the baseboards. Why it has taken three months and countless calls to AT&T to get to this point, I'll never know.

Coincidently, today was also the day I recorded the Skype interview for The Horror Movie Show podcast.  Skype usually works fine for me, but today it was crashing and dropping calls every few minutes. It was embarrassing that I was clearly the weak link in the podcast. The shows two co-hosts sounded loud and clear, while I sounded like I was calling in from the dark side of the moon. I never could get Skype to behave on my computer, but eventually finished the podcast sitting right next to the cable modem and talking into a small Belkin Wi-Fi phone. It would have been so much simpler to just do the interview from the now working wall phone in the kitchen, but the show's host said we needed to use Skype. At one point during our conversation they asked me why I called my blog "Some Assembly Required" and at precisely that point the phone went dead. When the connection was re-established, I answered "because things like this happen to me every day of my life." "Nothing is easy," I said. "There is always some assembly required."

Actually, a lot of things did go right today, even if my entire Skype interview ends up on the cutting room floor. I finally fixed the little broken sculpture and hung it back up on the wall. I also nailed a 4x8 sheet of plywood back in place on the carport that had come loose and was getting dangerously close to falling on the roof of my car. I even got the little door in the dishwasher to flip up again and dispense soap like it should. This was probably just a fluke though. I'd be amazed if it works again tomorrow.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 171

We got a notice today that Unleashed will be closing its doors for good on June 13. I had a feeling that times were tough, since there aren't nearly as many employees at the park as there were in the beginning. The restaurant closed several months ago and even the pet store in the facility is being discontinued. It's sad. I love this place. Dot and Dash look forward to going there every week, and the park has really helped Dash lose his fear of other dogs. I was hoping that the management could hang on until the hot Summer temperatures brought more people back to the park again. Sadly, the money they needed just wasn't there. Unleashed wasn't the first business to be brought down by this terrible economy we're experiencing, and it won't be the last. It was one of my favorite places though, and the dogs and I will miss it.

It's just about inevitable that if I really like something, the concept just won't work in Dallas. My favorite furniture store, Palazzetti, couldn't make it here in Dallas. There was even a Citroën dealer in town when I first moved here, but I knew that wasn't going to last, since people couldn't even pronounce the name of the car. Over and over again, my favorite restaurants, camera stores, furniture stores and art galleries have all gone out of business. I should probably hire myself out as a new business consultant. If I like the idea, it's almost a certainly that it will fail in Dallas. Oddly, relatively few businesses fail in Dallas.  Hooters and Church's Chicken will probably be here forever.

Unleashed wasn't the only thing that failed today. My main computer finally gave up the ghost. This time, instead of trying to resurrect another relic from the storage warehouse, I took the computer up to mactracks and asked them to fix it. If I'd gone ahead and done this a month ago when I first started having problems, I could have saved myself a lot of time and trouble. The other repair on the books for today was a total waste of time. The AT&T repairman didn't even show up. This is the third time in a row that AT&T has scheduled a repair call and then failed to show up. The new 4G iPhone is looking better and better.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

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