Day 2048

On hot July days it's a miracle if I can come up with anything to tell you at all. There's certainly not much going on today. There is little incentive to go out in this heat. We mostly just hunker down, hoping that the air conditioner stays cools and the cars don't break down. Neither of us like to drive in the Summer. Janet has been getting nails in her tires recently and even though I have a reliable car now, I have too many memories of sitting on the side of the road in 100 degree weather, waiting for a tow truck to come haul the Defender back to the dealership. I'm always worried that the car is going to break down when I'm taking on of the dogs to the vet.

Luckily, the dogs didn't need to go anywhere today. I only got out of the house briefly to get more Palladia pills for Dot at the cancer center and pick up Keurig pods and blueberries at Sam's Club. I should have picked up a sprinkler at Home Depot, because the sprinkler in the front yard broke while I was watering the lawn this morning. Sprinklers, especially the unreliable oscillating kind, never seem to last more than a year.

When I was walking Dash this afternoon, I saw a small plane circling the lake towing a banner asking someone to marry them. I wonder if the girl even saw the proposal? Who would just happen to be outside looking up at the sky on a hot 100 degree July afternoon? I certainly didn't see many people out on the lake today. Most people had the good sense to stay inside. We didn't stay out long either. As soon as Dash did his business, we headed straight back to the air conditioned house. I bet that girl would have preferred a nice candlelit dinner instead of an airplane towing a big red banner.

I rarely watch TV, but when I do feel like watching, there never seems to be anything I'm interested in. How long do I need to wait before there's a new season of Dr. Who? Top Gear seems to have disappeared from the airwaves entirely after Jeremy Clarkson got fired from the show. At the very least there ought to be an old episode of Firefly that I haven't already seen. This afternoon I would have settled for a channel that played Faulty Towers over and over again. Since I have little interest in reality TV, real estate and home improvement shows, or news about the middle east, I just turned off the television and took a nap with the dogs.

Dot and Dash must have been bored too, because they weren't content with napping. As soon as I got comfortable, they both started barking and wanted to do something. I got Dot hooked up in her harness and took the dogs outside several times. As soon as they got out in the back yard they remembered how hot it was and wanted to come in again. We did this over and over until it was time for their dinner.

Maybe tomorrow will be more interesting. If it's not too hot, we'll take Dash to the small dog park again. He seemed more comfortable with the little dogs last week. I'll probably go to the gym in the afternoon. If I've got to work up a sweat, I'd rather do it indoors than mowing the lawn in 100 degree weather.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1076

The dogs got an unexpected treat today. The weather was so nice that they got to visit two dog parks in a single day. After visiting the first park, it just didn't seem right to go home just yet. Dot and Dash seemed to agree, so we paid a visit to a second dog park about five miles further North. With double the number of trees to pee on and an abundance of friendly dogs to sniff, a good time was had by all. Although we don't get New England style Fall colors here in Texas, we did see quite a bit of red and orange today. This is undoubtedly my favorite time of year.

Of course, all good things must come to an end. When we returned from our dog park expedition, I mowed the grass and raked leaves. Raking leaves is just as much a part of the Fall experience as photographing them.

My old answering machine hasn't been recording any messages lately. I've reluctantly come to the conclusion that messaging technology has changed and my ancient machine is obsolete. Today seemed as good a day as any to retire the ancient machine and set up the voice-mail account that came with my U-verse service. When I finally got the U-verse voice-mail working, I was amazed at how many options I had. I could selectively prioritize and block calls. I could forward them anywhere I wanted. Best of all, I could even keep those annoying anonymous telemarketing calls from coming through at all. I could even program things so the voice-mail messages showed up on my television screen. Pretty fancy for a guy who never gets calls in the first place. If I was smart, I would have done what many of my friends have done and dropped the land line entirely. Old habits die hard though. For the time being, I'll keep the land line around just to keep the telemarketers happy.

I finished watching the Firefly series on DVD today. The show was actually pretty good. I'm surprised that I completely missed the series when it was on the air ten years ago. I've heard that after the short lived 14 episode series ended, Joss Whedon made a feature length movie called Serenity in hopes of getting the series extended. It didn't happen. I'll have to look for a copy of this movie now. I want to see what happens next.

I have an appointment for my annual physical exam tomorrow afternoon. I dread these exams, because nothing good seems to come of them. Usually something suspicious but largely inconclusive is discovered and I have to go thorough even more tests to determine what is really going on. What is the point of all these tests? I can tell you what is going on right now. I'm getting older.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1072

Wouldn't you know. Just when I had accepted the fact that November was going to be slow, the office fills with work again. Go figure. I am never really in control of these things and often feel like a twig tossed around in a strong current.

I didn't let the new assignments change my plans however. That wouldn't be right. When I went to the mall for my haircut today, I was surprised at how crowded the stores were. I think most of Dallas jumped the gun on Black Friday. It seemed like the entire town skipped work today and was out shopping. It still kind of baffles me why so many people do their Christmas shopping so early. I'm more of a Christmas Eve shopper myself. Although it took forever to find a parking place and I wish I had picked a different day, I did get a good haircut, so all is well.

I always stop by the Apple store after getting a haircut and I'll have to admit that I was more impressed with the new mini iPad than I thought I'd be. It's little enough to easily fit in a camera bag and still large enough to view pictures at a decent size. Even though I could think of four or five reasons why the little gizmo would be useful to me, I didn't buy one. I've bought way too much I don't need already.

While watching my Firefly DVD this week, I noticed that Vern Gillum had directed one of the episodes. The name sounded familiar. After scratching my head a bit, I remembered that I had worked with him several times back in my ad agency days. The guy used to shoot commercials. Although I remember visiting the offices of Vern Gillum and Friends in Los Angeles quite clearly, I can't remember the commercials we did together whatsoever. It's kind of sad. Slowly that whole era is slipping away. Last year I stumbled across my old print portfolio in the storage warehouse.  Flipping though the book and looking at page after page of ads from the 1980's, I kept thinking "Damn, that guy was good." It didn't even seem like my work though. I've grown so much more cautious in recent years.

I wonder if Dash thinks the same thing sometimes. Three or four years ago he won lots of ribbons at training class. Not anymore. Now, he just barks and acts irritated. Sometimes he won't even do basic things like sit and stay anymore. Can we make a comeback? I know we're both smart enough. It's just a matter of desire.

Ranger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1065

When I woke up this morning, I felt like I was going to explode. I take Simcor and one of the side effects of this drug is that it dilates the tiny capillaries near the surface of your skin, resulting in severe flushing. Usually this happens while you are asleep, because you are supposed to take the big blue pill just before you go to bed. Unfortunately, depending on what you eat for dinner, it can occasionally take a lot longer than expected for the medication to enter your bloodstream. I must have eaten something that really slowed down the process yesterday because my blood vessels didn't begin to dilate until I got up this morning. Yikes! My skin was red as a beet and I felt like I'd stumbled into a cactus patch. The discomfort only lasted a few hours, but it did remind me that some of my meds are pretty powerful.

I finished my website assignments earlier than expected today, so I decided to watch the first episode of the Firefly series. I only had time to watch the initial Serenity episode, but it was enough to make me a fan of Joss Whedon. I doubt that I'll start going to Comic-Con conventions or become a fanboy, but I'll be the first to admit that this short lived Sci-Fi Western is special and unique.

The weather is still brisk and cool, but it was warm enough for the dogs to lie out in the sun after lunch. They like that. While Dot and Dash lounged, I swept leaves off the porch and cleaned spiderwebs off the windows. I don't know what makes our house so attractive for bugs, but it seems to be a popular destination for them. As the weather grows cooler, they are renewing their efforts to come inside for the Winter. Since I refuse to use anything that could be toxic to the dogs to control the pests, it is always an uphill battle to have a bug free house. There are good things and bad things about living next to a park that is a nature preserve. One of the bad things is facing a continual invasion of bugs. At least the rats are gone. An influx of feral cats in the neighborhood has pretty well taken care of the rats. What the cats don't eat, the coyotes do.

The pretty sunsets have returned for another year. Just about every day this week we have encountered a spectacular sunset on our evening walks. The sunsets are just in time too. I had just about run out of wildflowers to photograph. I'll try to have something new for you tomorrow. It would be nice to have something new for me as well.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1063

One of my assignments today was writing about a contest where the prize was a flight on one of those planes that lets you experience weightlessness for a few minutes while the aircraft follows a parabolic flight path that temporarily negates the effects of gravity. This seemed like a cool and somewhat original contest prize. I almost thought of entering the contest myself until I started remembering my own flying experiences.

Years ago, I was one of the lead writers on the Cessna account. The aircraft manufacturer thought it would be nice if their creative team were pilots, so the agency told us they would pay for flight training. I sailed through ground school with flying colors. It was only when I stepped into the cockpit of the little Cessna 152 training aircraft that I realized there might be a problem. I had severe motion sickness. Every time I banked the little plane into a turn, I threw up all over the instrument panel. I literally could only fly the plane in a straight line. I thought of trying some strong anti-nausea medications but my instructor said it wasn't wise to fly an airplane on drugs. I finally gave up my quest to fly when I overheard one of the flight instructors tell another instructor "You take him up today. I cleaned up the plane last time."

Since that time, I have preferred flights of fancy. Over the years, I've tended to spend my idle time watching science fiction TV series. I've progressed from Babylon 5, to Farscape, Lexx, and finally Dr. Who. Somewhere along the line, I completely forgot about Firefly. I happened to catch a few episodes on a tenth anniversary retrospective of the short lived series this weekend. Pretty darn good show. While I was running errands this afternoon, I popped over to Fry's and got a DVD containing the entire 14 episode series. If November is as dead as it usually is, I'll have something to watch now on the dull days.

Actually last November I was extremely busy, so you never know what is going to happen. I'm always ready and willing to work. I'm just not that interested in marketing myself. Instead of making cold calls, I'd really prefer that people would become fascinated with the blog and decide to hire me on that basis. What the hell, it happened once. Maybe it will happen again.

It's getting dark on our evening walks again. This is the time of year that I start to worry we'll come face-to-face with a pack of coyotes in the park. I don't think Dot and Dash have learned their coyote etiquette yet. Coyote etiquette dictates that you steer well clear of the critters and by all means don't start barking at them.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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