Day 975

I'm sure a lot of you have heard about the outbreak of West Nile Virus in Dallas. The mayor has declared a state of emergency and the city is beginning aerial spraying of the entire city this evening. I got two phone messages from the city telling me to stay inside after dark tonight. There is a lot of controversy about the spraying program, but personally, I have no problem with it. When you compare the downsides of the Pyrethenoid insecticides they'll be using with the downsides of having the disease, I think I'll go with the insecticides.

I'm not sure it matters anyway. I've been bitten by mosquitoes several hundred times this summer and nothing has happened. Either I've gotten lucky or I've got an immunity to the virus. Truthfully, I'm more worried about the dogs. They get bitten by mosquitoes a lot more than I do. Mosquitoes are just a fact of life down South. No matter how much mosquito repellant you spray on yourself, you're still going to get mosquito bites.

I think people forget how common spraying for mosquitoes used to be. I grew up in Arkansas and during the Summer the spray trucks would come down our street at least once a month. A lot of times people didn't even bother to go inside when the trucks came by. They would just continue barbecuing, or sitting on the porch, or whatever they were doing as the cloud rolled past and dissipated in the evening air. It's kind of amazing to realize how many people survived and continued living perfectly normal lives after breathing in insecticides every Summer and driving around without seatbelts smoking cigarettes.

I wish I'd start getting some money in the mail. I've been billing things out at a fairly normal rate, but the checks are arriving slower and slower these days. It wasn't that long ago that just about everyone paid within 30 days. Now the average is somewhere between 45 and 60 days. Sign of the times, I guess. I still have to pay my own bills on time though. That's what I did this afternoon. I paid the electric bill, the water bill, various phone bills, and my car insurance. The depressing thing is that most of these bills will arrive again next month, whether any money arrives in the mail or not.

At least it's Friday tomorrow. I've still got enough money to buy myself a little bacon for breakfast. I've still got about 20 minutes left today to let the dogs outside to pee before the mosquito spraying planes begin their flyby. I'm hoping that the spray kills some roaches and spiders too. We have entirely too many bugs this Summer.

Pogo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 974

Do you ever get those e-mails asking you to write a review after you've bought something online? I get them all the time. Today, I was kind of bored, so I looked through my inbox for some of the review requests. I wrote about five quick reviews and then is dawned on me. Hey, this is exactly what I do for a living. The reviews were like little ads. There was a headline and a short paragraph of body copy saying nice things about the product. And I was writing these things for free. No wonder it's harder to get copywriting jobs these days. Manufacturers and retailers have discovered that people will do their marketing for free. All they have to do is offer some sort of contest or incentive and they've got thousands of people writing for them. The company I wrote the reviews for today said that if you submitted a review, your name would be entered in a drawing and you could win up to $1000. How likely is that? Jeez, I've bought stuff from these guys for years and never once heard anything about anyone winning a prize.

The weather is so weird in Texas. There was a big storm last night. Some parts of town got huge amounts of rain and their power went out.  Other parts of town got no rain at all. We were somewhere in between. We got rain, but not enough to upset the dogs. I must be getting better about patching too, because there were no water leaks in the morning. I was actually kind of amazed. There seemed to be no downside to this particular downpour at all.

Since it was a slow day, I made French Toast and sausages for breakfast. I must be easy to please. French Toast, sausages, and a couple of hours of Dr. Who in the morning and I'm a happy camper. The dogs were in a good mood today as well. The rain cooled things down, so dog class was actually pleasant for a change. The days are getting shorter though. By the time class was over, it was already dark.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 973

Klout has been monkeying around with its algorithm again. My score went from 48 to 64 overnight. I can't put much credence in this newly elevated score however. I remember the last time Klout changed their algorithm, my score dropped from 60 to 30 overnight. You just wonder if anybody takes this seriously anymore. This company has reinvented itself so many times in the past two years that it makes your head spin. My Klout "style" has gone from Feeder, to Networker, to Specialist, to Broadcaster. I haven't changed a thing. I pretty much still ignore everything except for the blog. Even though the company is silly, I will admit to liking the Klout perks. Klout perks are custom made for a solitary person like me who measures the success of his day by what comes in the mail.

My primary contact at one of my clients has left to take a new job. I wonder what this means for me. Sometimes the new guys are pleased to find someone already in place who knows the ropes. Other times, they want to bring in their own suppliers and you get unceremoniously dumped. This one could go either way. I'll just have to wait and see.

While I'm waiting, I can occupy myself by re-learning how how to use a piece of gear I need for an upcoming job. I haven't used this gadget in over a year and I don't think I even remember how to turn it on. Remind me to never buy anything that comes with a 100 page instruction manual again. As my ability to handle complexity slowly diminishes, I find that I am using my iPhone for just about everything. Hey, the pictures are pretty good. The sound is pretty good. It even takes movies. Most people couldn't tell which pictures came from the iPhone and which came from the Nikon anyway.

I was amused to notice that one of the checks I deposited today was dated July 10th. Nice try guys. As if that was actually going to convince me that the check wasn't two months late. Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day. Will I still have Klout tomorrow? Will my memory for technical details return? Will I manage to finish anything at all? I guess I'll just have to wait and see.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 972

So far this month I've had four different clients tell me that I'll get paid a bit late this month because the boss left for vacation with a bunch of unsigned checks on his desk. This happens every August. Sometimes, I go on vacation myself, because everyone else is already gone. August is always the month with the highest electric and water bills and the least amount of money coming in. At least there's September. September's usually pretty good.

I finally reached the payout threshold on Google Adwords again. It took a while. Hey, if I could live on $100 a year, I'd be all set. Maybe you guys are getting rich, but so far, I haven't discovered the secret to making money online. I saw an article the other day that said "most people don't like to buy things on the Internet, they like to join things instead." So true. Almost every day I get one of those "join my cause" messages on Facebook. I never dreamed there were so many causes out there. Nobody is buying my Instagram pictures yet, but they sure are re-pinning them on Pinterest. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I'm the same way. Things are much more interesting when they're free.

I got a request this morning to put a picture of an award that one of my clients had won on their website. Of course, the client failed to attach the picture of the award to their e-mail. A few years ago I would have wasted half the day sending e-mails back and forth trying to get them to send me the right picture. Today, I just spent ten minutes making something that looked like the award in Photoshop and stuck it on the site. I'm tired of making mountains out of molehills. Hey, I specialize in molehills. I can make a nice looking molehill with no input whatsoever.

Dash's bath didn't last long. I caught him out in the backyard this afternoon digging a big hole which he subsequently took a nap in. Our new grass was supposed to prevent all this, but it's August and the grass is already dying.

Emma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 971

I keep hearing that the Post Office is going broke. I don't understand why. Judging from the ridiculous amount of junk they send me, I'd think these guys would be rolling in money. Today I tried to wade through the big stack of "don't need to open now" mail that's been growing on the kitchen table for the past month. I'd just as soon never open this mail, but occasionally I forget a bill or something important, so it does need to be checked. Today I just threw away a seemingly endless stack of letters urging me to join a cause, vote for somebody, switch to a different electric company, get a new credit card, lose weight, or sign up for a pre-paid funeral plan.

I don't know why most companies even bother printing this stuff. If it doesn't contain a coupon, it's just going to get tossed.  I save coupons from Bed Bath and Beyond, Guitar Center, Lowes, and several other places. I throw the invitations to join AARP away.

Another neighborhood restaurant has bit the dust. It was sad to see a For Sale sign on my favorite local barbecue joint today. If the refrigerator was empty before shopping day, I would always just run down to Raymonds BBQ and pick up one of their three meat dinners. It probably wasn't the best barbecue in the state of Texas, but it was simple, honest food and it was dirt cheap. I would always get way more food than I could eat and never spend more than ten dollars. One by one, all my favorite little local businesses are disappearing. Anyone who thinks the economy is improving just isn't looking in the right places. You just can't have a strong, vibrant economy without small business, and from my small little corner of the world, small business is still having a tough time.

When we went to the dog park today, I watched two Shelties run straight toward the biggest mud puddle in the park and lie down in it. Their owner just shrugged his shoulders and smiled, as if to say this sort of thing happened everyday. This would have been the day for Dot and Dash to get muddy, because they were headed straight to Vhea's LaundroMutt for a bath on the way home. I don't know why the dogs hate a bath so much. They look better. They smell better. For the first three or four days, they're actually pleasant to have on the bed at night.

Ellis is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 970

I'm trying to eat more fruit. I've acquired a taste for mangoes lately and thought I'd buy a few while I was at the grocery store. Instead of doing the sensible thing and buying whole mangoes, I got a box of mangoes that had already been sliced. "How do you tell if these are any good," a guy next to me asked. "These look good," I said. "They're all nice and yellow." Shows what I know about picking fruit. When I got the mangoes home, they were as hard as raw carrots. I guess they weren't ripe yet, because they sure didn't taste like the exotic looking peaches I thought I was buying. This is the problem with buying fruit. I can never tell when fruits and vegetables are ripe. It's much easier to buy cheese, or frozen pizza, or chocolate.  Janet will probably come home with a nice ripe mango and ask me why I bought these.

I didn't get nearly as much done as I thought I would today. I get easily sidetracked by trivial things and this morning when I turned on the computer, I noticed that the favicon on my website was gone. Favicons are those little 16x16 pixel square images you see on the menu bar when you bookmark a website in a browser. It doesn't even matter whether your website has a favicon or not, but I was determined to figure out where mine went. I looked at the HTML code. I tried uploading a new favicon icon to the server. I looked on Google for alternate ways to code the favicon script. Nothing worked. I finally decided that my ISP must have just turned off favicon support on the Apache web server. I put my little favicon icon on a different server that I had access to and referenced the URL back to my landing page. Everything works now. Time spent on this worthless endeavor: three hours.

I also opened up a Pinterest account and began pinning all my Instagram pictures. I never really liked Pinterest before, but when I discovered how easy it was to take the pictures that are for sale in my InstaCanvas Gallery and pin them on a Pinterest board, I was all in. I've got so many apps connected to other apps now that I never know what's going to turn up on Facebook or Twitter. I still write the blog by hand each and every evening, but everything else you see online is more or less automated.

I think the dogs are going to get a bath tomorrow. They've gotten themselves so dirty that they feel sticky when you pet them. Dash is the dirtiest. I have a feeling that a few of his spots are just dirt and are going to wash off when he gets his bath tomorrow. We'll go to the dog park first. Giving dog a bath before you take them to a dog park would be pointless.

Hannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 969

Yay! My InstaCanvas Gallery is open now. Please go and take a look when you've got a minute. Practically every Instagram picture I've ever taken is up on the site. I don't know if I'll ever make a dime from this venture, but I certainly like the idea. Instead of selling high resolution JPEG files to other professional graphic designers, this place is selling reasonably priced mounted canvas prints that anyone could use to brighten up a kitchen or bedroom wall. If it's pretty and bright, it just might sell! It was brilliant of these guys to print the Instagram photos on canvas too, because canvas isn't a very high resolution medium anyway. It's perfect for low quality Instagram prints that originate from a cell phone. I really like the fact that you can sell any image you want. There's no nitpicking evaluation team over in Sweden or Canada continually rejecting your images because they are out of focus or contain too many artifacts. Hey, I may order some of these canvas prints myself, which is probably exactly what the Instacanvas people want me to do.

I thought I might have found a new breakfast restaurant this morning, but as I was walking toward the front door, I saw a little hand written sign that said No credit cards accepted. Cash or personal check only. Oops. I turned around and got back in my car. I haven't carried any cash with me for years. I have a feeling that I won't even carry credit cards soon enough. I'll probably be among the first people to start using those new apps where you just wave your phone at the cash register to pay for something. I just don't understand people who carry big wads of cash around in their wallet. It's inconvenient. It attracts the wrong kind of attention. And if you're like me, you eventually wind up losing it. Credit cards are much tidier. I have a complete record of everything I spend and there is only one bill to pay every month. My theory is that a lot of those people with wads of cash in their wallets don't like paying taxes. At tax time they just say "What cash?" and claim that it never even existed.

At any rate, I ended up going back to one of my regular neighborhood restaurants. Sitting several tables away from me was an older gentleman wearing a crisp white dress shirt, starched blue jeans with precisely ironed creases and a highly polished pair of cowboy boots. He looked quite distinguished in his own way. If the customers in that restaurant wanted to tell me something, I'd certainly listen to this gentleman first. Most of the other men were wearing ball caps, running shoes, and rumpled looking golf shirts. I certainly wasn't exhibiting any sartorial splendor myself, but maybe I ought to try a little harder. I still don't venture far beyond my Steve Jobs look, wearing a black t-shirt and jeans everywhere except weddings and funerals.

As I was driving home from breakfast, I noticed on the odometer that I'd only driven 15 miles this week. Jeez, I walked the dogs more than 15 miles this week. It wasn't that long ago that I was driving up to 500 miles a week. There just isn't a need anymore. I remember reading an article recently that said auto sales to young adults were down almost 20% this year because young people increasingly prefer their iPhones, 4G connections, and other high-tech gadgets to cars. Maybe something similar is starting to happen with the rest of the population as well. There just isn't much need to actually go anywhere these days. FedEx and UPS deliver what I need to the frond door. All my business is conducted over the Internet. It's a lot more convenient to talk with people I know on Facebook than to actually drive somewhere to meet them. You wonder where all this is going to lead. I certainly never thought I'd lead an active, busy life while only driving 15 miles a week.

J-Lo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 968

I got a couple of checks in the mail today that were part of a class action settlement that I didn't even know I was a part of. Apparently I was swindled by Merrill Lynch more than twenty years ago on a mutual fund transaction. We're not talking big money here, but the settlement was better than the typical discount coupon "good for a free dessert" that you usually get after these class action lawsuits. I'm convinced that class action suits were invented by lawyers to benefit other lawyers. The class, or injured party in these cases rarely gets a dime.

Now that I think of it, this is the second time I've received money as a result of a class action suit against Merrill Lynch. Is it any wonder that people don't trust Wall Street anymore? The whole thing happened so long ago that I don't even remember buying the stock that was involved in this big brouhaha. Truthfully, I've made so many poor investment decisions over the years, that the performance of this poor manipulated stock was probably no worse than many of the honestly purchased dogs in my portfolio.

It was probably good that the greedy lawyers send me a little surprise moolah this month. My company certainly didn't bill out a huge amount in August. Every month when I take my humble stack of invoices to the post office, I simultaneously marvel that my small business is still relevant after all these years, while wondering how much longer I can continue on the small amount I currently bring in. I'm also wondering now if the good years would have been even better if Merrill Lynch wasn't quietly skimming money off the top.  I think I have the last laugh though. I'm still around, and Merrill Lynch isn't.

I'm wondering whether it's going to take 20 votes or 2000 to get my Instagram Gallery up and running. If any of you saw my pleas on Twitter or Facebook yesterday, I hope you voted for me. I actually think this might be a good thing. I've taken a ton of flower pictures that would look pretty darn good printed on canvas in someone's apartment. I also like the idea of an Instagram stock photo agency. I've been plagued with rejections from traditional stock photo agencies for years because they said the files I sent them contained "artifacts." Whatever! The images look good to me and they actually print out pretty well too. I think it would be a godsend to actually have a stock photo agency that was looking for poor quality photos. Nobody's Instagram pictures are all that good technically, because they all come from cell phones. This new Instagram Gallery might be exactly what I need. Finally, I wouldn't have to compete with someone's $25,000 Hasselblad.

I'm trying to think of someplace different to go for breakfast tomorrow. I think I've totally exhausted the menus of my four regular breakfast haunts. It's time for something new. Not necessarily better, mind you, just new.

Nautica is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 967

Do you know what you get after an August rain in Texas? You get steam. After an unexpected downpour this morning, I climbed up on the roof to remove the water and was greeted by clouds of steam rising from the rapidly evaporating water. I guess I should thank the sun for helping me get the water off the roof, because it wasn't all that long before the roof was completely dry again. Although I usually dread rain, today's shower was welcome. The grass and shrubs in the yard got some much needed attention. The areas on the roof that I patched last month appeared to hold and there were no discernible leaks. Since the rain came without the usual thunder and lightning, Dot and Dash weren't even all that upset. Although today's shower was welcome relief, it's going to take more than a single day of rain to turn things green again. It's still very hot and dry.

I saw this new website called Instacanvas this morning that claimed it could take all your Instagram pictures and turn them into large frameable canvases that you could sell online. Cool! Since passive income is the holy grail of most bloggers, I immediately requested to join this site. They couldn't have made it more complicated to set up a gallery if they tried. First, you had to send a message to your Facebook friends and ask them to request to see your gallery of photos.  Then you had to do the same thing on Twitter. Finally, you had to take a photo of their invitation to join and upload it to Instagram. Phew! Suddenly this whole thing wasn't nearly as interesting. Something this complicated will probably never work. I'm still hoping to set up a gallery on this site though. I take a ton of Instagram pictures and I never expected that any of them would earn me a dime of income. If it turns out that a few people actually want to buy prints of these pictures, that would be great.

This morning's rain cooled things down by at least fifteen degrees, so I was hoping that dog training class would be pleasant tonight. No such luck. The temperature was cooler, but there was absolutely no wind and the air was so humid and muggy you could cut it with a knife. Once again, the dogs thought we were crazy for taking them out of a nice air conditioned house for something like this.

I'm still fascinated by the new pictures coming from the Curiosity rover. Did you see the picture of Curiosity floating to the surface of Mars at the end of its parachute that was taken by another satalite orbiting the planet? Amazing! They say that if this picture was snapped even one second later, it wouldn't have captured anything. I used to love astronomy when I was in high school. I never was good at physics and math though. That's probably why I ended up in advertising. You don't have to be good at math to excel in advertising. Truthfully, you don't really have to be good at anything.

Lilly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 966

I read an article in the current issue of Advertising Age saying that digital media creatives got paid less than half what their traditional creative brethren were used to making. Having played on both sides of this fence, I can attest to the fact that this article speaks the truth. This doesn't bode well for future graphic designers, writers, and photographers. Occasionally, I still wonder where the glamorous world of Mad Men went, but I think I know.

Back when I was a kid, I was usually the odd duck in school. Being totally self absorbed wasn't just unusual, it was strongly frowned upon. This has all changed. After several generations of teachers telling their pupils that they all were special and that everyone was creative, people began to believe this was true. "It's all about me" went from being a lonely cry of defiance to becoming the mantra of an entire generation. Suddenly anyone who had ever designed their own online Christmas card began to think of themselves as graphic designers and people like me weren't nearly as unique as they used to be.

It's all supply and demand. When everybody wants to do something cool and fun, those jobs  aren't going to be worth as much. I remember years ago having a conversation in a bar with a group of photographer friends. Everyone was complaining about the intense competition and wondering how we were going to make any money. A more practical friend joined the conversation and said we all should go buy a big garbage truck and start hauling hazardous waste. "You'll be rich in less than a year," he said. "Because nobody wants to do jobs like that."  So true!

Occasionally, I still work on fun things, but like the Ad Age article said, the money isn't what it used to be. I wouldn't encourage a kid to get into advertising these days. I wouldn't even encourage them to invent video games or become a social media expert. I think the only salvation is to learn to do something that is really hard. Learn math. Discover the next Higgs boson. Do something that most of your friends aren't even capable of doing. I'm sure that many of you noticed that guy with the purple mohawk in the control room during the Curiosity landing. That guy was the mission flight director. I'm sure that NASA or JPL could have cared less if this guy wore a mohawk. They probably wouldn't have cared if he came to work naked, because he was really good at what he did.

So, what did I do today after all this lofty talk? Well, I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot. I took out the garbage. I wrote a few things that will be billed at today's pitifully low rates. That was about it.

Lou is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 965

I was disappointed to see so many disparaging comments about the Curiosity lander on the Internet this morning. Where was the universal applause that followed the moon landing in 1969? Sure, there were a ton of positive comments about Curiosity, but they came with an undercurrent of disapproval. Some said the NASA money should have been used to feed the hungry. Others said that the imagination and technical wizardry of NASA scientists was misplaced and should have been used to turn the Sahara, the Gobi, and Antarctica into gardens instead.

You've got to be kidding! What would be the point of turning the Sahara and Antarctica into gardens? If you turned the entire planet into a wonderful place for humans to live and breed, that's exactly what they would do. Why is it that overpopulation is the one problem that most humanists just don't want to deal with? There are way too many people already. Personally, I applaud the audacity of the Curiosity team at JPL. I think the most appropriate role of the best and brightest among us has always been to test the limits of what is possible. What a waste it would be to use the best and brightest to simply level the playing field for the rest of us. Yay Higgs boson. Boo endless debates about universal healthcare. Ultimately, there is more benefit in a few reaching Mars than in millions sitting in front of televisions, watching future episodes of "The Real Housewives of Antarctica."

This is the beauty of dogs. They aren't judgmental. They don't nitpick about website designs. They don't take an amazing technical achievement and try to turn it into political fodder. I like the simplicity of eating, sleeping, and doing the best you can at whatever happens to capture your fancy. By and large, I don't care what other people do with their time and their money. I am human though, so occasionally I get up on a soapbox like everyone else. I'll admit that I do like technology and admire people with big dreams. If there was a starship headed outbound, I'd want to be on it. So, three cheers for the Curiosity team and their amazing achievement. If you have to raise my taxes to pay for more ambitious spaceships in the future, go right ahead. If you want to raise my taxes for anything else though, just forget about it.

Margo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 964

I'm looking forward to watching live coverage of the Curiosity rover landing attempt later this evening. This landing seems incredibly difficult compared to the bouncing beach ball landings of Spirit and Opportunity in 2004. Even though I have a short attention span, I was utterly fascinated by these two earlier rovers and would visit the JPL website just about every evening for at least three months to look at the new pictures that had been transmitted to earth. I cheered the unstoppable Opportunity on as it made its epic journey toward the Victoria Crater. I rooted for the intrepid little Spirit as it slowly climbed through the Columbia Hills. When I was in college, I was convinced that there'd be humans on Mars by now. I never dreamed we'd channel all our creative energy into making smart phones instead. At any rate, even though the space program has slowed to a crawl, I still welcome any sort of forward progress. If the Curiosity makes a successful landing later this evening, maybe we'll still make it to Mars in my lifetime.

It was so hot today that I didn't even attempt my normal Sunday to-do list. The dogs got their walks and a little off leash time at the dog park, but that was about it. The yard chores will just have to wait until a cooler day. Since I couldn't find anything good to watch on TV this afternoon, I was forced to do a little website work. This was probably a good thing, because I finally finished the loathsome online form revisions I've been avoiding for weeks. Forms have always been problematic for me because I'm not very good with tedious details. All you have to do is mistype one little thing in an online form and it won't work properly. Hopefully the seven new forms I created today will work perfectly when the client tests them on Monday.

I was eating dessert tonight when something came on TV saying that sugar was increasingly being linked to many forms of cancer. Damn! I've known for years that sugar isn't good for you, but this show made it seem worse than tobacco. According to the doctors being interviewed, you just shouldn't consume any sugar at all. This probably wasn't the best show to be watching while eating chocolate gelato and peach pie. So far, alcohol, salt, sugar, white flour and of course my beloved bacon are all to be avoided. What's next?  Personally, I miss the days when everybody smoked cigarettes and nobody wore seatbelts.

I don't really know what's on the docket for tomorrow. Maybe I'll just wait and see which of the squeaky wheels squeaks the loudest.

Morgan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 963

The heat is relentless. Since today was one of my two official weekly "watering days," I turned on the sprinklers before breakfast this morning. I gave the yard a good soak, but within a few hours it was bone dry again. It's going to be an uphill battle keeping the remaining vegetation  alive for the rest of the Summer. Lack of rain isn't the only problem the yard is facing either. Yesterday, I noticed a huge flock of small birds descend on the back yard and begin carefully pecking at something. At first I though the birds were eating bugs, but then I noticed that they were eating seeds. They were eating all the Rye grass seed I had sowed just one day earlier! No wonder I'm having trouble filling in the dead spots in the St. Augustine grass. The birds are eating all the seeds before they even have a chance to sprout.  Why couldn't the birds have gone after all the spiders in the yard? We have enough spiders to feed a small army of hungry birds.

When I was grocery shopping today, I couldn't resist picking up a 12-pack of Shiner beer. Yeah, I know. I can't drink any more. Although it was tempting, I didn't crack open a cold one when I got home. I just put the beer away for a special occasion. The times when I'm in a genuinely celebratory mood are so few and far between that I figure the occasional alcohol purchase couldn't possibly hurt my health. With the way things have been going lately, that little cache of beer should last me till Christmas.

Yesterday's U-verse repair seems to be working. The broadband signal hasn't gone down once since the technician installed the new gateway. Now, the only problem I have with AT&T is that they keep taking away my favorite channels and replacing them with programming that I wouldn't watch if you paid me. We've lost three or four channels already and just a few days ago, we lost another. When I tuned in today to watch one of my favorite shows, I was greeted by another Spanish language channel instead of the program I wanted to watch. Jeez, how many Spanish language channels do you need AT&T?  I would think 25 of these ridiculous channels would be enough. Maybe I just don't fit the demographic profile of the customer that U-verse is looking for. Oh, well. We could always switch back to Time Warner Cable I guess. It would certainly be easy enough. The cable guys didn't even bother to take down their wires when we switched services.

Tomorrow is dog park day. The grass up at the dog park is still nice and green. It's nice and green because the city doesn't think it needs to follow the same watering rules it imposes on everyone else. The dog park looks like it gets watered every day.

Pebbles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 962

The U-verse repairman came out to the house today. We've been having problems with losing the broadband signal lately. The phones, the TV, and the Internet would go dead at random times during the day and then return after about five minutes when the modem went through an automatic re-boot cycle. This wouldn't have been a big deal if it happened once a month, but it was happening up to ten times a day. At any rate, this was like any other repair day. The dogs barked like crazy while the repair technician tried to isolate the problem. The dogs were so loud that I eventually asked the repairman if he minded if I let them out of the office, so they could see who was in the house. The guy said he had big dogs himself and didn't mind.  Dot calmed down as soon as she had a chance to smell the repair technician, but Dash though I'd brought him a  playmate. Dash was totally friendly, but I eventually had to pen him up again, because he wouldn't leave the repairman alone.

Eventually, the technician completed his inspection and said that I needed a different type of 2Wire gateway, because the house was too far from the AT&T switch for the original modem to function reliably. When I asked why the previous technician installed a faulty modem in the first place, I didn't really get a good answer. I got the impression though that the original modem was probably the only thing that the previous technician had in the truck at the time.  When today's technician left, he said that my network was running 40% faster than it was when he arrived. Maybe so. It certainly doesn't seem all that fast right now however. Hopefully, this repair will last longer than the last one, which failed in less than a month.

I felt like I had stomach flu all day. Janet said it was probably because I ate rotten food in the refrigerator again. How was I to know?  I guess crab meat spread on top of a portobello mushroom cap won't stay fresh for a week in the frig.  The leftovers certainly didn't smell bad, but I'll be the first to admit that my sense of smell isn't so good. My lack of a good olfactory system does come in handy at times. Especially when the dogs fart in bed at night.

I'm glad the weekend is here. I live for the weekends these days. It's not that anything all that exciting happens on weekends, but it is nice to get a brief reprieve from the world of arbitrary deadlines and dumb questions. I got the weekend started with some tasty pancakes and a three rashers of bacon this morning. Unfortunately, stomach was less than impressed. I think it was still trying to deal with the bad crab I fed it yesterday.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 961

Someone asked me recently what I did for a living and I told them that I basically say "blah, blah, blah," using fancier words. I'm sorry that I don't have a more exalted opinion of marketing, but does it really even matter? I don't think so. I'm good at blathering though, so I'll probably continue to make a decent living.

I continually hear people say that the secret to happiness is to follow your dreams. If I took these people literally, I'd never get out of bed. Hey, I have great dreams. It's just dealing with being awake that's the problem. I continue to forge ahead though. My role models are the Energizer Bunny and George Mallory. When George was asked why he wanted to climb Mount Everest, he famously replied "because it is there." Life is like that. It is simply there.

The weather report said it was going to be 110 today. The temperature actually only got up to 106, so I guess we got lucky. It's hard to believe at this point, but last Summer was even hotter than this. I think we set an all time record high at this time last year.  I can always tell that temperatures are reaching extremes when I see tractors mowing down the native prairie grasses in the park. Emotions run high about the small patches of native prairie that still remain in Texas, so the city is very reluctant to mow. When it's this hot and dry however, the danger of brush fires are high, so the grass has to go. We saw the mowers today. Oddly I also saw several egrets following closely behind the tractors. It's amazing how adaptable animals are. I think these egrets had discovered that when the prairie grass was disturbed by the mowers, bugs and other food were much easier to catch.

I picked up a nifty little carbon fiber tripod today for my upcoming job in Las Vegas. The whole thing weighs less than two pounds and folds down to just 13.4 inches. It still holds my heavy camera steady though. Amazing!  I just love technology. I also love bacon, so I'm trying to decide where to go to breakfast tomorrow.

Scout is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 960

There are few things more frustrating than dealing with a bureaucracy. Case in point. I've been getting letters from the city for several months now, saying that Dash wasn't registered and threatening me with a big fine. Each time I get one of these letters, I call animal control and tell them that Dash is indeed properly registered and read them his current tag number. Usually, I just leave a voice mail message because it's hard to get through to city employees. Today I got lucky and ended up talking to a real animal control officer. I read her the identification number on the registration tag on Dash's collar and she said she would look it up and call me back. About twenty minutes later I got a call informing me that the tag Dash was wearing really belonged to Dot. I told the lady that this was impossible, since the dogs get their city tags at their annual exam and Dot hadn't even had her exam for 2012. The woman insisted that the tag belonged to Dot and that I needed to get another tag for Dash. I told her to call my vet and they would straighten things out. After a while I got another call from animal control. "Everything has been straightened out," the lady said. "Just put Dash's tag on Dot's collar and we'll send you another tag for Dash." "Can't you just change your records to show that the tag you currently have listed as Dot's really belongs to Dash?" "No, we can't do that," said the lady. "Dot is already registered." This conversation could have gone on all day. I just couldn't seem to get through to animal control that Dot hadn't even had her 2012 annual exam yet and couldn't possibly be registered. Oh, and the city says that Dot has already had her rabies shot too. Nope. That's not true either. The bottom line is that the city is happy now, even though things are hopelessly confused.  At least I won't get hit with a $2000 fine.

I wish our yard attracted nice little critters like hummingbirds. This year, all it seems to be attracting are wasps and spiders. There are so many spiderwebs on the hedge at the back of our yard that it looks like one of those white flocked Christmas trees. Hopefully, these spiders serve some useful purpose, because there seems to be more of them every year. Luckily the bees haven't returned this year, but we sure have plenty of wasps. There are wasp nests everywhere. I tried to spray some of these nests today without getting bitten and somehow ended up getting bug spray on my tongue. Yuk!  I went inside and immediately rinsed my mouth out. I don't think I've been poisoned or anything, but it definitely wasn't a good taste.

It was so hot at dog training class this evening that all the dogs seemed to be doing their exercises in slow motion. Everyone brought plenty of water for their dog, but the dogs weren't interested in working. Who could blame them. Unlike people, dogs are sensible creatures. I know that Dot and Dash would much rather have stayed home this evening with their noses in front of an air conditioner vent.

Snoopy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 959

Mercifully, the robo-calls and insanely negative TV ads have stopped. I don't know which of the many candidates calling the other guy a liar won today's election, but I'm sure I'll find out soon enough. Maybe we'll get a brief respite before the onslaught of political advertising begins all over again. By the time November arrives, I'll probably be wishing we had a monarchy.

I finally got the company who told me that I owed them $672 a few days ago to admit they'd made a mistake. They had the audacity to tell me that they'd only received my check a few days ago. I might have bought this lame argument if there wasn't a canceled check showing that they received and cashed my payment over a month ago. These guys ought to run for public office. They've certainly got the lying part down.

Apparently, the document that I hand delivered yesterday isn't finished yet. Even though I used the exact pictures the client specified, they told me that they didn't think the photos would look this way in the finished brochure. We've got to try some new pictures now. Why is it so hard to look at the components that go into something and visualize the finished result? I can do this. A lot of people can't though. Sometimes, I think I spend half my time doing layouts that will never see the light of day, just so people will have something tangible to circle and draw lines through with their felt tip markers. It always seems to be much easier to edit something than to fill a blank page.

Did I tell you I got the job to cover the big Women's Wear Daily fashion event in Las Vegas next month? This ought to be a fun project. I'm already starting to make arrangement for interviews and location photography. Since most of my work is done staring at the same computer I use to write the blog, it's nice to get out occasionally. Who knows. Maybe the Singapore job will come through as well.

The dogs and I certainly aren't getting out quite as much as we did earlier this Spring. It is relentlessly hot outside now. Dot and Dash can't take the heat and neither can I. Our walks are shorter now, but we still make an effort. I'm ready for Fall. Believe it or not, I'm even ready for rain.

Shelby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day