Day 564

I'm starting to lust for gear again. Sometimes this gets a little expensive, but typically my ongoing desire for stuff has positive aspects as well. There is always a period when I am struggling to understand and learn how to use my new gear when I'm interested, engaged and at my most creative. I'll wake up in the morning with some new insight as to how the gear works and off I'll go, editing, recording and snapping pictures like there's no tomorrow. Songs get written, movies get made and entire gallery shows get mounted and framed. Eventually I master the new machine and begin to lose interest in it. The exciting new gear just becomes another boring tool that I work with to make a living. Eventually, it either breaks or becomes obsolete.

I love new things, but nothing stays new all that long. I see this commercial on TV almost every morning where some guy tells us that he loves making birdhouses and is taking care of his heart so he can continue to make birdhouses for the rest of his life. Is this guy nuts? I could never make birdhouses for the rest of my life. If I ever made a birdhouse, I'd probably spend four months making one perfect little home and then never make another one again. When I was finished, I'd probably realize that I didn't even like birds.

So what gear has caught my fancy this time? Those little GoPro cameras are pretty cool. These indestructible little bricks can be attached anywhere. You could attach one to your front bumper and film the trials and tribulations of rush hour traffic. You could pin one to a dog sweater and film your dog's walk from the dog's point of view. People who are into extreme sports love these things. Here's nothing extreme about my life at all, but I still might get a GoPro. There's a time lapse setting where you could compress an hour dog walk into two minutes of screen time. I could mount one to the bow of my kayak and film ducks and pelicans. I haven't taken the boat out in several years. Communing with nature doesn't interest me. Exercise doesn't interest me either. Making a movie however...now, that's another matter entirely.

I saw another ambulance down in the park this afternoon when I was taking the dogs on their evening walk. People are dropping like flies in this heat. I see fire department EMT crews responding to something in the park almost every week now. A couple of years ago in July, the dogs and I walked right past a guy sitting on a park bench looking out at the water. The guy didn't say anything to us, but that was pretty normal. When we were walking back home again, I noticed an EMT crew and several policemen surrounding the bench. The guy had dropped dead while he was just sitting there on the bench. I don't think I need any more reasons to stay inside and look for a good movie on TV.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 563

Yep. It's definitely July. When I turn the sprinklers on, the ground is dry and cracked an hour later. Even with the air conditioner running all day, it's hard to get the temperature inside down to a comfortable 75 degrees. The dogs like to go outside after lunch to lie in the sun, but they come back in with their tongues hanging out five minutes later. I feel like I'm doing twice as much laundry because my shirts are soaking wet after ten minutes out in the muggy heat. This madness will continue through September.

I've lived in Seattle, Washington, Moscow, Idaho, and Aspen, Colorado. All these places were quite pleasant in the Summer. I still think it was just bad luck that I almost accidentally happened to be residing in Dallas when I realized I was simply too tired of moving from one part of the country to another to ever do it again. I still think that Janet and I will move somewhere really nice when we eventually retire, but doesn't everyone think that? My parents talked about moving somewhere nice, but never got any further than an assisted living community 50 miles down the road.

I'm looking forward to the Fourth of July weekend. There's something reassuring about this old fashioned, unabashedly patriotic holiday. Fourth of July makes me think of I Love Lucy on TV, cooking hot dogs on a stick over an open fire, and wandering around as a kid in peaceful neighborhoods where nobody locked their doors. Things are different now. I've got an iPad now and a computer more powerful than the ones that took us to the moon, but I think life was better when I just had a little plastic transistor radio that let me listen to WLS in Chicago.

Hope you guys have a great weekend. I'm in the mood for burgers.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 562

I had lunch today with Tom, the keyboard player for my old band The Fabulous Has Beens. Tom is on the far left in the picture and I'm the guy playing bass in the pink shirt. It was fun catching up on things while we were eating unhealthy fried foods at the Flying Fish. Like the rest of the band, Tom and I hadn't seen each other in years and had recently reunited on Facebook. Time had certainly taken it's toll on both of us. In some ways, it was hard to believe we both used to be rockers. In other ways, nothing had changed at all. Tom is a health insurance specialist now. I took this as a golden opportunity to complain about my own health insurance woes, but Tom told me I was a lot better off than I thought I was. "A lot of people working at good companies have worse plans than yours," he told me. Tom wanted me to join him at a breakfast business networking group he was a member of sometime next month. This would probably be a good idea for me. I don't get out much. Right now, the only networking I do is saying Happy Birthday to people on Facebook.

I think I set a new speed record for website design today. Well, it was a record for me anyway. I designed and launched an entire new website for one of my clients in a single day. Granted, it's not the most complex or fancy site in the world, but it works and actually looks pretty nice. It's kind of ironic. I got the site up so fast that the DNS still hasn't had time to finish moving from it's initial parking place at GoDaddy to the new servers at the hosting company. The site is finished, but nobody can see it yet, mostly because it generally takes a while for the DNS to propagate after you point it to a new location. I've tried to explain DNS propagation to my clients before but I don't think I've succeeded. I'm sure they think I just haven't finished the site yet.

It's hard to believe that the year is already half over. I certainly haven 't accomplished anything spectacular during the first half of the year. I guess there's still six months left to set the world on fire. Hey, I've got 200 blog followers now and 3,000 Twitter followers. That should count for something. Maybe I'm actually managing to make a boring life seem interesting. On that note, I'll go take out the garbage. It's Thursday night and that means it's time to haul the trash out to the street again. How time flies.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 561

I didn't get the bed made until 6 PM this evening. It was really that busy today. The entire day was a blur of writing assignments, off-site meetings, web design projects and household chores. A trip to the vet with Dash was squeezed in there somewhere too. I like to stay busy, but there are limits to what I can do. It would be nice to have a little more time. If all the overnight panic projects simply became "next week would be fine" projects, everything would run a lot more smoothly.

I'm glad I didn't run out and buy Final Cut X the day it was released. I've started reading the reviews and apparently everyone hates it. I haven't seen so many people universally reject an Apple product since the old Apple Cube computer, which unfortunately I did happen to buy. I guess I'll continue to do my editing on an older version of Final Cut Pro and save my money to buy Avid Media Composer.

It was so hot at dog training class this evening that everything, including the dogs, seemed to be moving in slow motion. When people called their dogs, a lot of them appeared not to hear. The dogs just continued to lie in the grass with looks on their faces that clearly indicated they'd rather be inside, sitting near an air conditioning vent.

Dash's painting arrived in the mail today and it looked even better than the JPEG picture we'd seen earlier. The new picture joined Dot's painting and lots of porcelain Dalmatian figurines on a display cabinet in the living room. There is so much Dalmatian stuff on this cabinet now that it almost looks like one of those Buddhist home altars for people who have decided to worship dogs instead.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 560

Dash always gets his antigen shot on Tuesday. Today, the vet and I spent so much time talking about all of Dash's other ailments that we forgot to give him the shot. Dash and I were walking out to the car to go home when I finally remembered what we were here for. Back inside we went, and yes, we did finally get the shot. Dash has to fast tonight, because tomorrow morning, he goes back to the vet again for blood work. The vet thinks there may be a problem with his pancreas and he needs a special blood test to determine if this is the cause of his recurring vomiting and diarrhea.

The boys in the family seem to have all the medical problems. Between us, Dash and I definitely spend a lot of time at the doctor. Janet and Dot never seem to get sick. The girls just have dental problems. True to form, Dot needs to have her teeth looked at again in July.

Some friends of ours are taking a car trip with their two dogs to see the American West. We get periodic pictures showing the dogs visiting Indian cliff dwellings in Colorado, the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, and dipping their paws in the Puget Sound near Seattle. I used to live out West and these pictures bring back good memories. So far, I've been to every place I've seen in the e-mail pictures. It makes me wonder why I ever moved to Dallas. If you asked me where a nice place to live might be, my answer would far more likely be a place like Flathead Lake, Montana than Dallas, Texas. Texas was were the jobs were though. That's why I moved here. Evidently, Texas is still where the jobs are. I saw a statistic on television the other day that said that over 30% of all the new jobs created in the United States last year were created in Texas. That's pretty amazing. There are 50 states and Texas has one third of all the new jobs? What are the other states doing wrong?

I hope Dash sleeps better tonight. Last night he kept waking me up in the middle of the night frantically scratching at the back door to go out. At least he didn't poop on the bed or carpet though. I'm still trying to get the smell of yesterday's mishaps out of the house.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 559

Another doctor's appointment today. This time I had to go for a follow up exam with the doctor who did the surgery on me back in December. Everything was fine. The surgery was apparently a total success. Now I only have to see this particular doctor once a year. I have two more of these follow up exams with other doctors later in the Summer. Then, there's the follow up on my investments with my financial adviser and the follow up on my aging car at the Land Rover dealer.

I used to consistantly get bad news from the doctors, while my broker would typically bring good news. Now everything is upside down. The doctors are actually encouraging, saying that my new healthy lifestyle is starting to show results, while my finances continue to deteriorate. My car, of course, has already deteriorated, but it still gets me where I need to go.

One place I need to go tomorrow is the vet. Dash has diarrhea again. He's been to the vet three times with this problem already this year. We're eliminated a number of serious diseases as the cause, but I still don't think anyone really had a clue what is causing this. It happens about every two or three weeks, lasts a day or two, and then he's right back to normal again. I really hope the vet can come up with a solution. I'm really getting tired of Dash pooping under my desk.

I paid all my June bills today. It's weird. Money comes in the door. Money goes out the door. And nothing really changes. There always seems to be enough to pay the bills on time, but I never really get ahead of the game. Maybe in this dismal economy, that's as good as it's going to get. I really need to invent something that I can sell for $19.95 on the cable TV channels and tell people that if they order right now, I'll send them not one, but two useless gizmos for the same price... with separate shipping and handling, of course.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 558

On Sundays I try to attack the big pile of unopened mail and useless paper that still clutters my office. Once again, I managed to fill one of those big black plastic trash bags without the room looking any tidier at all. I really need to look at my mail more often. When the mail arrives each day, I quickly scan for bills and checks and then leave the rest unopened for months at a time. The only thing I hate worse than getting mountains of junk mail each month is receiving important mail in envelopes that look exactly like there's junk inside. Every month or so, I need to look through all the junk, just to make sure there's not a past due bill tucked in between all the advertising messages.

I sort the paper into different piles. There's stuff I don't understand, but save anyway because maybe I will understand it sometime on the future. Most of this paper is from my financial advisor. There are bank and brokerage statements that I put in a big ring binder. There are lots of expired coupons that go straight in the trash. There are handwritten notes that I make when I am on the phone with clients. Most of these make no sense to me within a week after I write them, so they go in the trash too. I always find a few surprising things that I wish I'd noticed earlier. Today I found two new credit cards that I still needed to activate and a letter from a bank saying that an account had gone dormant because I hadn't used it in a year and a half. There was also a galley proof of my Who's Who in America bio that I should have approved months ago and a discount offer from Facebook offering me from $25 to $500 if I would try running a Facebook ad for my company.

When I gave up on the pile of useless paper, I tried printing some old poster files on my new printer. Last week I told one of my clients that I would reprint some of their old posters that I produced five years ago. I thought this would be easy, but of course it isn't easy at all. I found the old files in Quark Express easy enough, but when I clicked the print button, a dialog box appeared that said media assets were missing and that I needed to relink them. Damn. Since I switched from my old computer with four hard drives to this new computer with a single humongous drive, all my photo and font files are in a different location. After manually re-linking a few files, I realized that I didn't even have some of the old photos anymore. Maybe I won't be able to reprint these old posters after all.

After last weeks rains, the grass needed mowing again. When I was mowing the front yard, I noticed that the leak in the water main had been fixed. I had been meaning to call the city about this leak for months, but it wasn't a high priority, especially since the leak was on the city side of the meter. I was wondering how the city even knew about this leak, but then Janet told me that the meter reader had probably turned in a report after he opened the lid to the water main and noticed that the meter was buried under a foot of water. At any rate, the grass is easier to mow now without the big patch of wet grass on the downhill side of the water main.

We're going to the dog park earlier on Sunday's now to try and beat the heat. This morning, there was a light breeze and it was actually pleasant outside. The dogs seemed to enjoy the cooler weather too. They both wanted to stay a lot longer than they did last week.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 557

When I was fixing my morning coffee today, my burr grinder broke. I'm totally hooked on coffee made from freshly ground beans, so I immediately try to fix the thing. I find the hidden screws , take the coffee grinder apart and find an electric motor that smells like burned insulation. I used to fix small appliances like this all the time. It's not that hard. You just take the motor out, go to a local store that sells small motors and find another one that looks the same. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way anymore. There aren't any little stores left that sell stove parts and small motors anymore. Even if there were, I wouldn't know how to describe the motor in my coffee grinder anyway. It was obviously made in China and was not designed to last twenty years like my very first coffee grinder. I threw the coffee grinder away like I was meant to do and drove down to the nearest Bed, Bath and Beyond to buy another one. This time I picked a German brand, in hope that it would be more reliable. I'm not expecting much though. I'm sure the only thing German about this grinder was the name on the box. Everything is made in China now.

When I was walking the dogs this afternoon in the park, I kept seeing all these shuttle buses driving back and forth every five minutes along one of the main access roads. Each of the large, diesel buses was completely empty. This got me curious, so after our walk was finished, I took the dogs back to the house and went back to the park to follow the buses to wherever they were going. It was a big city sponsored party. I think the park is having a big anniversary or something today. The party had everything. There were food vendors, beer trucks, a big tent with bands playing. The only thing missing were people. Now, I knew why all the buses I saw were all empty. There was no reason to take a shuttle bus in the first place. The parking lot in front of the stately 1930's WPA designed building where the party was being held was half empty. Most of the cars that were there probably belonged to the vendors. If the vendors left, there would be nobody attending the party. Another example of government at work. I'm sure this whole thing started with good intentions, but someone chould have done a little research and seen whether anyone was even interested in attending an anniversary party for the park.

I went and took pictures of Bentley, the new Dalmatian at the kennel this afternoon. The poor dog has heartworms and a bad skin condition from being infested with fleas. We've already started his treatment and by the end of July, he should be looking and feeling a lot better. He might even have a home by then. Bentley is a really nice dig. Maybe coffee grinders have become throw-away items, but I'll continue doing the best I can to make sure that dogs don't become throw away items as well.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 556

I finally got around to looking at the animal pictures I took yesterday. Some of them turned out pretty nice. Usually, when you do something like this, you'll get about one good picture out of every twenty you shoot. The animals are constantly moving and the costumes don't tend to stay on very long. In this case, Apple, the cat, didn't particularly like her Carmen Miranda hat. The little Chihuahua was up for anything though. He looked quite dashing in his new outfit and actually seemed to enjoy wearing it.

Like most animal photos I do, this one will end up as a poster that will ultimately be used to market a future animal rescue event. I keep thinking that pictures like these would make nice greeting cards too, but maybe not. I've still got a lot of unsold greeting cards sitting in the storage warehouse that were left over from the last time I thought greeting cards were a good idea.

So far my new printer hasn't clogged once. This is probably just because it is still new, but I'm hoping that this new reliability is the result of a design improvement and that the infernal thing will never clog. Making large prints is a whole lot easier when you don't have to spend an entire afternoon trying to coax a single good print out of the printer.

A new Dalmatian joined the others today up at the Dalmatian Rescue kennels. Janet and I will go visit the dog tomorrow, so I can take pictures and get him up on the website. The rescue group has done such a good job of finding homes for our dogs this year that there are usually only a few up at the kennel at any given time. This is so much better than the days when we were trying to find homes for 25 dogs at a time. Now, the rescue organizations that really have problems are to ones who are trying to find homes for those cute little toy breeds that will fit in your purse. That's what people want these days. Unfortunately, that's also what these same people take to the animal shelter six months later. The same thing happened with Dalmatians when the Disney 101 Dalmatians movies were popular. I'm glad those days are over.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 555

Now, Dash has been immortalized in oil as well. I think Carolyn Finnell has done a fabulous job of capturing each dog's personality. I really like these paintings. When I was younger, I had original prints by Frank Stella and Ellsworth Kelly hanging on my walls. These days, I just have pictures of dogs. Its probably better this way.

Oddly, a few people here and there are starting to collect my own pictures of dogs. I think I'm developing a knack for photographing animals in costumes. Today I had a photo shoot where my models were a cat wearing a Carmen Miranda fruit hat and a Chihuahua wearing a flamingo dancer's costume, complete with a tasseled Cordoban hat. The secret to these types of photos is speed. Believe me, a cat will not wear a Carmen Miranda hat for very long. I got some good images, but I really haven't had time to go through them yet. Maybe I'll show you some tomorrow.

A friend of mine bought a warehouse recently and wanted me to go take a look at it this afternoon. When I hear the word warehouse these days, I automatically think of my own small storage space. This place was something else entirely. I had no idea how large 15,000 square feet really was until I went inside the building. The building was huge and it was filled to the ceiling with the remnants of old estate sales. Every once in a while I watch this show called American Pickers on the History Channel. These two guys go driving around the country in a van and search through old barns and stuff for hidden treasures. I told my friend that she should contact the show's producers immediately. This building would be a gold mine for Frank and Mike to explore on a future episode of the show.

Time to take the trash out to the street again. This week went by really quickly. Weird that taking the trash out has become my reference point for the passage of time. I guess you've got to have something to focus on.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 554

I went down to the Appraisal Review Board offices today for an informal hearing about the value of my rental property. I'd heard that opting for an informal hearing was much easier than waiting for your formal hearing. Year's ago, I went through a formal hearing and it seemed just like going to court. There were three judges, a lot of procedure, and a long wait in line for your turn. This informal process was much easier. I was in and out in ten minutes. I just told the appraiser that the person living next door to my property got a much better deal than I did and that all I wanted was the same tax rate as everyone else in the neighborhood. The appraiser looked up my neighbor's tax rates on a computer and gave me a 7.5% reduction in my property taxes on the spot. I was happy with this. My property value has gone down a lot more than 7.5% in the last five years, but I realize that the city has to get their money from somewhere. They're not going to turn loose of tax revenue easily. Hey, at least I saved a little money.

Lots of questions from customers today. Sometimes I spend so much of my time answering e-mails, that I don't have any time left to actually do anything. I remember when I was in college, I had a Summer job in an auto assembly plant. My job was to place the bottom part of a bucket seat in the body of a Camero as it came down the assembly line. I did the same thing over and over again. There were no questions and no ambiguity. I kind of miss those days. Today, my work is riddled with ambiguity. There isn't any true right or wrong in anything that I do. It's just my opinion versus someone else's opinion. Everyone has an opinion these days too. It can wear you out.

Now that I've finally got FInal Cut Studio up and running in the office, Apple comes out with a brand new version of the editing software that is supposed to replace it. Not only is the new Final Cut X much less expensive than the original Final Cut Pro, it is supposed to be better as well. Apple does this to me all the time. I go out and spend my hard earned money on one of their products and six months later, they declare that product to be obsolete. On a more positive note, the price of Apple stock has finally dipped below where I sold it a few months ago. My decision to sell doesn't look quite so stupid anymore.

I don't know why we even have training class in the Summer. The dogs in the class are all hot and the only command they like is the long down, where they just lay down in the grass for five minutes at a time. All the other commands, they show little interest in.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 553

Although today was the longest day of the year, it actually went by pretty quickly. I spent most of the day writing press releases and trying to figure out how to create a forum that would do all the things one of my clients requested. For the life of me, I don't know why any company would want a forum on their website. It seems like an open invitation for disgruntled employees to say nasty things and for competitors to try to steal your business. People still like forums though. I actually participate in a few forums myself, but I certainly wouldn't really want to moderate one. I guess the interactivity is a plus for certain kinds of business, but life was a lot easier back in the days when you could get away with putting a few fake testimonials up on your site and be done with customer opinions.

It's not hard to tell that Summer is here to stay. When I went up on the roof this morning to sweep away the water from last night's heavy rains, I could see little puddles of water literally evaporating right in front of my eyes. The heat does make the job of sweeping away rain water a bit easier, but I have to be careful not to step in puddles of melted tar. There are also lots of ants up on the roof in the Summer. As I was hooking up the sump pump this morning, a ton of little ants came crawling out of the hose.

I have a hearing scheduled later this week with the Appraisal Review Board. I am appealing the property tax valuation of my rental property. I'm thinking that my appeal will probably be granted this year, especially since all my neighbors got their own property taxes lowered last year. By the time I thought about making an appeal last year, the deadline had already passed. The same thing happened the year before. This year, I am determined to get at least the same rate as my next door neighbors already have. It's funny. When property values are going up, the city never hesitates to raise your property taxes immediately. When real estate values are going down, however, they do absolutely nothing. Real estate values have been going down in Dallas for three years in a row and the city has never lowered my property tax.

I got an e-mail saying that Dash's painting was finished and could be shipped to us as soon as the oil paint dries. I can't wait to see it.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 552

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

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 551 - My Birthday

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 550

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

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

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 549

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

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 548

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 547

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

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 546

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

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

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 545

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

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

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

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

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day