Monday, January 31, 2011

Day 412

All the weather reports say a big storm is headed our way. By tomorrow morning it is supposed to be thirty degrees colder with snow or freezing rain. With this in mind, I ran a bunch of little errands today and filled up my tank with gas. Nobody knows how to drive on ice here in Dallas and the smallest amount of the slippery stuff on the roads can bring the city to a standstill. Anything I can do today means one less reason to get out on the roads tomorrow.

I think I'm ready for whatever nature brings our way. There's just one little fly in the ointment. The furnace isn't working again. I called my furnace repair guys and they said they wouldn't be able to come out until tomorrow morning. That's fine. Wouldn't you know that when I got home from running all my errands this afternoon, there was a note on the door saying that the furnace folks had come by around 4:30 PM anyway. I can never seem to get coordinated with repair people. If I stay home and wait all day, inevitably nobody shows up. If I leave for even ten minutes to go to the post office, that's when they'll always show up.

One of my new clients has written me a check before I even got them set up in my accounting system. I love clients like this. Maybe this will be a good year after all. When I was at the DFW Pet Business Owners meeting yesterday, one of the more successful business owners told me that the secret to her success was contacting at least ten new prospects every day. I probably don't contact ten new people in a year. Maybe I'll try for eleven this year.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Sunday, January 30, 2011

Day 411

We all did a little networking today. The dogs caught up on things with a few of their Dalmatian pals at the dog park, while I did my own networking a few hours later at the first meeting of the DFW Pet Business Owners group. Dot and Dash probably got a lot more accomplished than I did, but even though I didn't pick up any new business, it was still interesting to learn what other small business owners are thinking about these days. I guess I qualify as a pet business, since I photograph dogs and design websites for veterinarians. Most of the other business owners were trainers, pet sitters, groomers and pet store owners. Their problems weren't all that different than mine however. How do you get new clients? How do you keep existing clients happy? How do you avoid wasting the limited amount of money you have set aside for marketing? We are all asking the same questions.

I guess it was inevitable. I'm starting to get Facebook friend requests from dogs. These aren't people that happen to have a dog, they are actual dogs with their own Facebook page. What the hell. Dogs are man's best friend after all. I'm certainly not going to turn down any dog that wants to be my friend. I am a bit surprised by the sheer number of dogs with Facebook pages though. It makes me wonder about those statistics you hear on the news that there are now over half a billion people on Facebook. What if a million of those people are actually dogs? I suspect that there are quite a few cats with their own Facebook page too.

I'm going to have to start watching my bank balance a bit more carefully. I discovered that I was overdrawn today. Oops. It's pretty easy for this to happen when so many bills are directly debited from your account every month. My largest bill each month is for health insurance. This bill always gets debited from my account at the very end of the month and if I'm not careful, it can suck the entire account dry. I liked things better when I wrote a check for everything and could choose who to pay first. My health insurance provider never gave me this choice however. They made it clear from the very beginning that they wanted to be paid first. So what happens when you get overdrawn? At my bank they charge the overage to your credit card and tack on a big transfer fee. This seems a bit like robbing Peter to pay Paul, but I guess the bank likes it this way. If I had remembered, I could have just transfered the money from some other accounts I have at the same bank. That would have been too easy though and the bank wouldn't have made any money. They probably hope I forget my balance every month.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Saturday, January 29, 2011

Day 410

It's hard to believe that people are still shoveling snow in some parts of the country. I could have sworn it was the first day of Spring here in Dallas. The sky was blue. The temperature was 70 degrees. There were sailboats on the water and kites in the air. I saw lots of picnickers as I walked the dogs this afternoon and almost everyone was wearing shorts.

We took advantage of the nice weather and went up to get to know the three new Dalmatian Rescue dogs a little better. Blossom was sick and had to go to the vet, but Emmie and Chloe were eager for a walk. Since several dogs went to their new homes this week, there aren't a whole lot of Dalmatians to look after this month.

When the weather is nice here, the first thing people do is get in their cars and drive. Several roads seemed near gridlock as I tried to navigate the traffic jams to do my regular Saturday errands. I don't know whether traffic has gotten worse, or if I've just grown less tolerant. Now that I do more and more of my shopping online, I just don't seem to have the patience to deal with the inevitable construction delays and races to claim the last space in a busy parking lot. It's much easier to wait for the FedEx man to deliver what you need to the front door.

Dot and Dash got invited on a play date tomorrow. Isn't that what you do with kids? I guess Dot and Dash aren't all that different from kids, except you don't have to put them through college.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Friday, January 28, 2011

Day 409

If I only wrote about important things, this would have been a good day to skip. Absolutely nothing of any consequence happened. I was busy all day, but by suppertime I was beginning to wonder if I had done anything at all. I went over to Culwell & Son, my favorite clothing store, to see if I could find something at their big end of season sale and left with nothing, feeling that I had a lot more clothes than I needed already. I went to get some groceries at Central Market out of habit, even though the refrigerator was still filled with stuff I got the last time I was at Central Market. I installed the new 100 foot roll of paper in my printer and unclogged the lines, even though I had absolutely nothing to print.

I did manage to get the trash out to the street on time. That was probably my big accomplishment for the day. On the way to the grocery store, I stopped by one of my clients for a short meeting. They've been wanting to install a camera system in their outdoor doggie daycare area, so customers could watch their dogs playing during the day on company website. The project never really got off the ground because of the expense involved in bringing streaming video outdoors. I suggested just giving an iPhone to the pet care attendants who keep an eye on the dogs during the day and let them upload pictures and movies to Facebook. The more I think about it, this is a great idea. It's cheap. It's live. And it's even better than a webcam, since you've got a real person selecting what's interesting during the day.

I need to do a practice run of my new wireless photo system this weekend. In theory this arrangement will be great for events like our upcoming Valentine's Day event at The Shops at Willow Bend. Instead of taking a memory card back to the printing team after every photo session, I'll be able to transmit pictures directly from the camera to the computer by WiFi, as I am shooting. We'll even be able to broadcast the pictures I'm taking to large flat panel screens in the store in real time. That's what the system is supposed to do anyway. We may find out that it doesn't even work. I'm curious whether the WiFi memory card is fast enough to transmit the large image files as I'm taking them without slowing down the entire process. If I'm taking 30 pictures a minute and the card can only transfer one picture a minute, it's just not going to work. Practice makes perfect though, so it's time to get started.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Thursday, January 27, 2011

Day 408

I went to the seminar today about using mobile devices as broadcast production tools and was totally blown away by the array of products that are already available and being used by filmmakers. I started making documentary films using a 16mm camera and a Nagra sound recorder. I'm used to dealing with changing technology in the film industry, but it's still hard to get used to the total transformation that has taken place in the past few years. Today's seminar was mostly about how to turn your iPhone or iPad into a professional teleprompter or electronic slate. These two pieces of equipment used to be so expensive that you almost had to rent them for a production instead of buying them for yourself. There are still lots of companies that make a business of supplying teleprompter services for production crews because it's less expensive to outsource these services.

That's about to change. Now, anyone can download a few inexpensive apps from the Apple iTunes store and instantly turn their iPad into a professional teleprompter or time code slate that has the same features as dedicated equipment costing up to four thousand dollars. Equipment costs and even the cost of raw film stock used to prevent a lot of low budget film projects from getting off the ground. Not anymore. Slowly but surely, equipment costs are becoming negligable. These days, if you've got a great idea, you can make a great film. Understandably, all this is getting me excited about making films again.

I made good, steady progress on my website projects today. By this time next week I may actually be done with one of them. The dogs made even greater progress however. They learned how to go to a cocktail party today. Our friend Vhea was having a happy hour for her business after work and invited people to bring their pets. We thought bringing Dot and Dash to this event would either be a good way to socialize them or an even better way to get us kicked out of the place. There were quite a few dogs at the "Yappy Hour" open house and after some initial barking and counter surfing, our dogs became quite the party animals. I was proud of both of them. We let them off leash and they mixed well with the other dogs. Dash did try to steal some cake balls off a food tray, but that was understandable. The cake balls were quite good and I had a few myself. I think it is important to socialize your dogs. They actually adapt very quickly to new situations and are more flexible than most people I know. I need to remember how well the dogs did tonight. We all need to get out more.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Day 407

I drove up to The Shops at Willow Bend with the promotional materials for our upcoming Valentine's Day pet photo event at the Foxy Paws store. I'll have to admit that I like high-end shopping malls. I like the way they smell. I like the smartly dressed people wandering around. I like the whole Disneyfication of everyday life that you always see in places like this. If a Walmart in a marginal neighborhood is real life, I definitely prefer this pretty illusion instead.

On the way home I stopped by my printing supply store and picked up another 100 foot roll of proofing paper. This means that I have printed over a thousand feet of various things since I got the printer. That's a lot of printing. I'd hate to even think how much ink I've bought over the years. I've always told people that Epson could still make a tidy profit if they gave these large printers away. They are basically just machines to sell very expensive ink.

Dash apparently forgot that he won a ribbon last week at training class. Tonight he couldn't focus on anything. He barked at the other dogs, kept moving when he was supposed to stay still and refused to lie down at all. Dash knows all the commands perfectly. He's just a moody guy who marches to the beat of his own drummer. That's what I think anyway. Everyone else thinks that I'm just not a very good dog handler.

I'm planning on going to a seminar tomorrow to learn more about using iPads and iPhones as professional broadcast production tools. I already know of several apps that allow you to use the iPad as an electronic slate or a teleprompter. I'm sure there are many more. The iPad has turned out to be one of the most useful tools I've ever bought for my business and I'm eager to learn new ways to use it.

The Dow almost closed above 12,000 today. Maybe tomorrow. It would sure be nice if I could count on my stocks again. It would be nice if I could count on anything.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Tuesday, January 25, 2011

Day 406

It was a good day. It's nice to start a new year with new projects that I'm able to work on using brand new tools. I worked on prototyping one of the new websites I'm currently designing and got approval from my client to proceed to the next step. This is always an important step, because it means the job is real now. I've got two new websites in the works and I go back and forth between the pair to keep from getting in a design rut. I'm starting to enjoy the new features I'm finding in Dreamweaver CS-5 and wondering why I waited so l waited so long to upgrade. The application still works basically the same as my trusty old Dreamweaver MX, but there are lots of little refinements that help to speed things up. I have a feeling I'm going to find the same sorts of improvements in Photoshop and Illustrator.

Paypal and ConnectionPoint, the developers of the FundRazr, have decided to use our recent Dalmatian Rescue FundRazr campaign as a case study for how to raise money through social networks. Evidently, Dalmatian Rescue's recent Facebook fundraising effort was a big success and the developers want to do a feature story about us. I think that's fabulous. Paypal is known all around the world. and if even a small percentage of Paypal users learn something about Dalmatian Rescue, it will be a huge plus for our group.

I was so enthusiastic about work today that I'm starting to think about new equipment again. Last year's computer purchases have certainly helped the company and I'm thinking that it might be time to bite the bullet and upgrade my video production capabilities as well. When I heard that Panasonic's new AG-AF100 camera uses the same SDXC memory cards and Olympus lenses as my still cameras, I began to get excited. Lenses are the most expensive part of pro video cameras and I already have the lenses. If I got this camera, I could finally abandon video tape and tape machines forever. It's still hard for me to contemplate walking away from the Beta-SP studio it took me so long to build, but nobody wants it anymore. If I don't upgrade to modern HD equipment soon, I'll probably never get another video production job again.

Somehow, I managed to erase all my sent messages on my old computer today. I meant to just move the folder, but foolishly clicked on "rebuild" instead. Oops. Now, I guess it is a good thing that I've got my e-mail scattered all over the place. I really only lost about a third of my sent messages, because the other two thirds are sitting on other computers. And why am I even worrying about my sent messages anyway. They are the replies I've already answered. It would have been a lot worse if I'd erased my in-box instead.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Monday, January 24, 2011

Day 405

When we reached the halfway point on our morning walk and turned around to come home, I was surprised to see a huge fire burning off to the north of us. We'd been walking for over a half an hour and I hadn't even noticed. Thinking back, I do remember hearing sirens and even helicopters overhead, but I never gave it a thought. I hear sirens everyday on our walks. It's just part of living in a city. It was strange that I never turned around or looked backwards though. The fire was pretty obvious when I was facing the right direction.

After we got home and I finished my breakfast, I launched the Time Tech website for my watchmaker client. It seemed to take an exceptionally long time to finish this rather simple site, but then everything about watches takes a long time. I've taken some watches in for repairs and not gotten them back again until a year later. Watchmaking is a slow, meticulous craft. The skill is rapidly becoming a lost art in an age where everybody expects everything overnight. I'm seldom in a hurry though, so it doesn't bother me to spend six or eight months having a watch repaired. A year is nothing. I've had one of my cars sitting in my mechanic's garage for over five years now.

Dash had an upset stomach and threw up in the middle of the night again. I wake up immediately at the sound of puking, but Janet and Dot always sleep soundly through these episodes. I cleaned up the mess and in the morning, Dash and I were the only ones who knew what had happened. I envy sound sleepers. I've been a light sleeper as long as I can remember. I do have vivid dreams though.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Day 404

This is the time of year when you can start to tell if people have a little too much on their plates. One sure sign is that they still have all their Christmas lights up on their house. There are still a few houses in the neighborhood that remain lit up in the evenings like it was Christmas Eve and this afternoon I saw a car driving down our street that still had one of those little Christmas wreaths attached to the front grill. It is comforting for me to see these things, because at least I know there's somebody in the neighborhood more disorganized than I am.

I can't act too superior about all this though. I still have a small pile of Christmas gifts sitting on a chair in the living room right next to where the Christmas tree was about a month ago. I'll get these things put away soon enough though. I am making progress. Today I took one of those items off the chair, got my woodworking tools out of the garage and turned it into something that could actually be used. The item in question was a pretty wood chopping block designed to fit over your sink with a built-in colander. The only problem was that this chopping block was designed to fit over today's huge sinks, instead of the smaller mid-century modern sink in our kitchen. After a little work with a miter saw and a belt sander, I had the thing looking exactly the same, except smaller. Now it fits perfectly! I enjoy woodworking, but since I don't have a proper shop or even a good place to store my tools, I seldom tackle any major projects. It takes me longer to find my tools these days than it does to do the work.

It didn't take Dash long to find a friend at the dog park today. Most of the time he is kind of tentative when another dog approaches him and they quickly move on to a friendlier pooch. Today he found a dog who wouldn't give up on him though. After about five minutes of racing around with his tail between his legs, Dash realized that the other dog just wanted to have fun and he started playing in earnest. This was his best day at the dog park ever. He wasn't just running around today. He was jumping, barking and rolling in the dirt, just like a normal dog.

Today's pretty Dalmatian of the Day is Chloe, one of the three new girls we picked up recently. She isn't quite healthy enough to adopt yet, but she will be soon. I don't think it will take this one long to find a home. She's a wonderful dog.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Saturday, January 22, 2011

Day 403

It was pretty busy for a Saturday. This morning, Janet and I went and photographed the three new Dalmatians that entered the rescue program recently. All three were very shy. We picked up Chloe, the largest of the three, at the vet before taking her to join Emmie and Blossom at the kennel. When photographing shy dogs, I generally just sit on the floor in a room with them and wait until they feel comfortable enough to come closer and investigate. It takes a while, but the dogs usually relax and often end up sitting in my lap. I got some good pictures, but haven't had time to download them all yet. I'm sure you'll see them soon enough.

After we said goodbye to Chloe, Emmie and Blossom, I spent the rest of the day grocery shopping, running errands and doing laundry. While I was working around the house, I decided to try out the new Apple app store and downloaded Aperture on the new office computer. The price was about half of what it would have been at a retail store. I noticed that the app store had a lot more to choose from than it did last week too. The place seems to be growing by leaps and bounds. This is definitely the way I'm going to buy software in the future.

This evening we went to LH Live. This annual battle of the bands is a benefit for the Lake Highlands Exchange Club and we've been going for several years now. Nothing really changes. The bands are the same. The food is the same. And the people attending are the same. It's still fun to go though. This year, I discovered that Gary, an old friend from my ad agency days, was a member of the Pit Pops. I guess that Gary has always been a member of the Pit Pops, but I just didn't notice before. Whenever I listen to one of these aging garage bands, it makes me wish that my own band, The Fabulous Has-Beens was still together. It's great fun to play in a band, although these days I wonder where I ever found the time. I guess life was different then. Back when I was playing bass with the Has-Beens, I was still getting a salary at an ad agency and hadn't discovered Dalmatian Rescue yet. My little company and the dogs take up practically all my time these days. When there's any time left over, it's usually spent on this blog.

Hopefully, it will be a little warmer tomorrow. It's been several weeks since Dot and Dash have been to the Wagging Tail dog park and they're starting to get cabin fever. They still get their daily walks of course, but that's not the same as being able to run free and play with other dogs. Maybe we'll go to the dog park again tomorrow. The mud has probably dried out by now.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Friday, January 21, 2011

Day 402

I had a new business meeting today. I think everything went well, but I won't really know for sure until I show them a prototype website design sometime next week. All my website clients are different, but they all share one thing in common. Whenever I ask them to show me an example of a website they like and admire, they inevitably take me to some wildly extravagant corporate site that probably took two years to build and had a budget in excess of $100,000. Everyone seems to think that I should be able to duplicate these high-end sites for a few hundred dollars and have everything up and running in less than a week. Today, the example sites I was shown were for Audi and for a major university. Budgets may have declined for retail storefront websites, but expectations are as high as they ever were.

I've been trying to put one of those little favicon icons on my business website today. No matter how much I monkey around with the code, the icon just won't display properly in my browser. For some reason, someone else's favicon shows up, even though my icon file is sitting right where it should be on the web server. It's kind of embarrassing. I've put these things on other people's sites, but I can't seem to get one working on my own. This is why I can never seem to get caught up on everything these days. Trivial little projects like this can eat up hours and hours of time. I'll figure it out though. By this time next week, there will be a favicon on my site. Hopefully it won't be the same strange little cartoon duck I saw up there today.

It was still dark when I took the trash out to the street for pickup this morning. Sometimes I wish I was more of a morning person. The sky was absolutely beautiful. Venus was exceptionally bright and I could see Saturn as well. Did I go get a telescope and do a little predawn observing? Nope. I was cold. I went back inside and got a cup of coffee instead. I've missed a ton of fabulous sunrise pictures over the years because I was still under the covers. That's just the way it is though. I never was a morning person and never will be.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Thursday, January 20, 2011

Day 401

The colder the weather, the geekier I become. Anything to stay inside where it's warm, I guess. Today I looked for lost e-mail. Now that I've got half a dozen devices that can access the Internet, something as simple as checking my e-mail is turning into a real mess. I still use an old fashioned POP mail server and I'm beginning to realize why a lot of people are saying that the newer IMAP protocol is a much more practical solution for the way we live today. Every time I check my mail, it is downloaded to a different device and by the end of the day my messages are as hard to find as the reading glasses I'm constantly losing. Is the message I'm looking for on the iPhone, the iPad, the new computer, or the old computer? Who knows. It sure isn't on the server any more, since the messages are erased as soon as they are downloaded. Maybe I need to ask my ISP if I can switch over to IMAP mail.

Did I mention it was cold today? I put the dogs warmest coats on for their walks, but they still didn't want to go outside. The problem wasn't really the temperature, it was the wind. When you combine freezing temperatures with a thirty mile an hour wind, even your warmest clothes start to feel like an old T-shirt. When I went up to sweep last night's rain off the roof, I discovered I was too late. The standing water had already turned to ice. It will make a nice little ice rink for the possums and squirrels who wander around on the roof at night.

I have my first new business meeting of the year tomorrow. I really need to have a new business meeting every single week this year. Things are so expensive now that I'm really starting to feel poor. My health insurance premiums have gone up over 20% seemingly overnight. Gas is back up over three dollars a gallon. Worst of all, my new Snow Leopard operating system is forcing me to buy my business software all over again. None of my existing software seems to run on Snow Leopard. It's almost as bad as converting a record collection from vinyl to CD and then realizing you still have to turn the whole mess into MP3 files.

I think the dogs have the right idea. While I fret about technology, they just curl up under warm blankets and sleep until it's time to eat again.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Day 400

It doesn't seem like a year since I got my last safety inspection sticker. It's that time again though. Getting a safety inspection for your car ought to be a piece of cake, but somehow it never ends up that way for me. Half the time when I take my car to a garage, they say they aren't able to inspect it at all because it is a full-time four wheel drive vehicle. The rest of the time the garage says the Defender isn't a full-time four wheel drive vehicle and they try to put it on the dynamometer. This was what happened today. I had to race back into the no customers allowed area and tell the mechanic to stop before he ruined either the car or his garage. It was hard to explain to this mechanic that you simply can't put a full-time four wheel drive vehicle into two wheel drive for the test. I was about to tell the guy to forget the whole thing so I could go somewherer else when the owner of the garage came back and straightened things out.

I got a check in the mail for $100 today and paid a bill for $4000. This pretty much sums up my life lately. It's hard to get ahead this way. Hey, Dash had a good day though. He won another ribbon at obedience class tonight. It was only third place this time, but I'm not complaining. Maybe Dash is back on top of his game again. He's won a total of eight ribbons now. We'll forget the fact that the last one was six or eight months ago.

I hope I'm better organized tomorrow than I was today. I've still got a huge amount of website work to complete before the weekend. Again, I'm not complaining. It's nice to have the work.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Day 399

The sun finally came out today. I had a couple of meetings out of the office and you could tell that the sunshine had a positive effect on everybody. I don't know how Northerners deal with month after month of dreary weather. All it takes is a week down here and everybody is in a grumpy mood.

I don't know if it was the sunshine or just good luck, but I managed to get a lot accomplished before the sun went down. This morning, there was a successful initial planning meeting for a new website I'm going to be designing for a cat only veterinary hospital. This afternoon, I added a final group of pictures to a website I've been working on for months and I'm just about ready to call the whole thing completed. I even got a request to bid on a brand new project directly as a result of Facebook. Social media continues to amaze me. I had my business website up for several years before I could attribute any work whatsoever to having a persence on the Internet. I've only been on Facebook for a month and it's already having an impact on my business. Things have definitely changed. I think attention spans are shorter these days, but if you can learn to operate in that little window called "now," there are some real opportunities.

When I took the dogs on their evening walk, I was surprised to discover that most of the leaves in the park were gone. I could have sworn that there were tons of leaves on the ground yesterday, but today some of the meadows we walk through looked like a golf course. The whole thing is a bit of a mystery to me. I know there wasn't a big storm last night that blew the leaves away. The only thing I can think of is that the city used some of their stimulus money to buy a giant leaf vacuum for the parks department. If that's what happened, I sure wish they'd come over to my house and suck all the leaves off my lawn. As it stands now, I've got a lot of raking to do before Spring.

I didn't have time to take pictures of the three new Dalmatians today. Maybe tomorrow.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Monday, January 17, 2011

Day 398 - MLK Day

Today seemed like a good time to catch up on things. I got the promotional poster designed and printed for our upcoming Valentine's Day photo event. I finally got pictures of the new building added to one of my client's websites. I balanced my checkbook. I even sorted through the growing stack of junk mail, looking for misplaced bills.

I didn't find any bills, but I did find a jury duty summons. I must have gone downtown and sat in the jury pool room a dozen times, but I've never been put on a panel. Occasionally, I get as far as voir dire, but mostly I just sit and read magazines in the big jury pool room until I'm dismissed around 2 PM. I've often wondered why the lawyers don't seem to want me on their juries. I suspect that it's because I always list my occupation as writer. I've known a couple of journalists who seldom get empaneled on juries either. Probably if I listed my occupation as blogger, I would never get on a jury. I bet the last thing the lawyers want on their juries is a blabbermouth blogger.

The dogs have been tracking mud in the house for the past week, but the ground is getting so wet now that I'm starting to track mud in the house myself. When I took the trash out this morning, the ground felt mushy with the the consistency of peanut butter. What a mess. I wish the house had one of those "mud rooms" you see in newer homes. As it stands now, the whole house is kind of a mud room.

I had to resist the temptation to buy a bunch of software on the new app store. This thing could be dangerous. Especially on rainy days like today. The app store is just sitting there in my dock, inviting me to buy something everytime I turn on the computer. It shouldn't be so easy to buy things. At least if you have to get in the car and drive to a crowded shopping mall, it makes you think twice about whether you really need anything that bad. This app store is kind of like seeing a piece of cake every time you open the refrigerator. It's going to be hard to resist.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Sunday, January 16, 2011

Day 397

I've finally gotten enough things installed correctly on the new computer that I'm starting to tell people "I love my new computer" instead of "I hate my new computer." I've successfully transfered just about all of my image files, so I can start doing design work again. Dreamweaver can communicate with all my clients websites. My accounting system is functional. I'm just about ready to put the old computer back in the box and haul it off to the storage warehouse. Most of the things my friends told me about Snow Leopard are true. It definitely loads faster and appears to be relatively trouble free. I love the new built-in app store. I've grown so fond of the iPhone app store that it seems like a fabulous idea to have the same thing available for my computer. I may never buy software in a shrink wrap box again.

We've got three new Dalmatians entering the rescue program this week. One is coming from Longview, one from Waco, and the third is here in town. All three new dogs are females, which is a good thing, since currently we only have males available. I need to get these new dogs photographed early next week so we can get them up on the website and find them homes. We haven't had this few dogs available to adopt for a long time. That's actually a good thing too, since it means we did a pretty good job of finding them homes last year.

This is the third or fourth day in a row that I've woken up to the sound of rain on the roof. The rain eventually stopped, but it was cold and dreary all day. The dogs knew it was the day they usually go to the dog park, but of course the park was closed again due to bad weather. They were completely disgusted by all the house cleaning going on and kept standing by the front door, waiting to go somewhere in the car. As soon as the floors were clean, we took them on a walk, so they could track mud in the house again.

I joined an association of local pet business owners this week. I never really think of my company as a pet related business, but I guess it is. I design websites for veterinarians. I photograph dogs and cats. I sit on the boards of rescue organizations. I'll probably fit right in with the groomers, dog biscuit bakers and day care providers who are the other members of this group. I still do some writing for the oil and gas industry too. Just enough so I can join their organizations as well.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Day 396

I came up with a ridiculously easy solution to my image transfer woes. I simply went to Fry's and bought a brand new external hard drive and backed up all my files again. It wasn't that my files were too huge to transfer, it was that my hard drives were too old to play nice with my new computer. I didn't realize just how unfriendly this new computer was to anything made before the days of Snow Leopard, but that was the problem. When I plugged the new external drive into the computer, all my image and movie files transferred flawlessly in just a few hours. It would have taken me months to transfer these files using the old hard drives.

I guess this means that my "state-of-the-art" disk arrays are ready to join the SyQuest drives, Zip drives, SCSI drives, and other forgotten technology that has been consigned to a dusty shelf in my storage warehouse. It's a shame all this stuff becomes obsolete so quickly. You barely have time to get it all paid for before it's time to move on too something newer and better.

I've got to make an effort to stay currant though. I've got no choice. My client's expectations keep rising. It's just my luck that just when the designers and graphic artists are finally starting to turn sour on Flash, veterinarians are beginning to discover it. I've noticed that my veterinary clients are increasingly starting to ask for those flashy, animated web things that you can only do with Flash. I may even have to take a couple of Flash development classes this year or risk losing business.

I did remember to fast this morning before my cholesterol screening. I thought there were going to be a ton of senior citizens ahead of me in line when I went to the health food store, but there wasn't a line at all. I guess the cold weather kept them all indoors. After I got my blood work done, I stopped by my veterinarian to drop off a few things. When I left the vet a few minutes later, I noticed a huge wreck with several ambulances at a nearby stoplight when my car had been just a few minutes before. If the blood tests had taken a few minutes longer, it would have been my car that got demolished by the idiot who ran the red light at fifty miles an hour. I was lucky today. I hope my luck continues.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Friday, January 14, 2011

Day 395

Ever since I decided to embrace social media, I've noticed that I have a a lot more messages to answer. I guess that's the nature of social media. It's social. People want to have lunch. They ask me to join things. There are questions that need to be answered. These are all good things, but they do take time. Today, I didn't even finish answering my e-mail until after lunch. By the time I got caught up with my regular daily website updates, it was almost time for supper.

At least it isn't as cold as it was last week. The dogs didn't need their coats when I walked them this morning and I was able to get my work done without spending the day wearing a big bulky sweater. The days are starting to get longer again too. As the sun set on our evening walk, I started to wonder about all the things I've been hearing on the news about astrological signs being out of date. Jeez, my whole identity is based on being a Gemini. I don't know if I could live with being a Taurus, but that's apparently what some people think I am now.

The dogs don't dwell on such things. I think all Dash has been thinking about lately is how to snatch my breakfast again. Ever since he ate my entire breakfast a few days ago while I was outside talking with the guy from the power company, he's been hovering around the table every morning, looking for an opportune moment to grab everything again.

The local health food store called today and said they were doing cholestrol screenings again this weekend. I think I'll go. I've had so much blood work done recently that I probably don't need any more tests, but I'm hooked on the health food store's low prices. I still don't see how they can offer tests for $25 that Labcorp charges my doctor $400 for. Somewhere hidden in the difference between these two prices is the solution to the whole health care mess.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Thursday, January 13, 2011

Day 394

Today was full of good intentions. I called clients that I haven't talked to in a while. I continued my marathon effort to get all my photo files moved over to the new computer. I thought I was going to get some other stuff done as well, but I found out late in the day that we needed to get the Dalmatian Rescue Valentine's Day poster finished right away. D Magazine is apparently going to feature the photo event on their website and we need to get them a picture ASAP. I initially thought that photographing Dot wearing heart shaped glasses would look sweet, but the glasses we found were too big for her head and the picture just didn't look right. Plan B involved a goofy little headband that had two hearts on springs standing up like antennas. The picture is cute, but I still wish the heart shaped glasses would have worked.

I finally figured out how to get my company linked to my employment history on my Facebook page. For several months now, whenever you clicked on Sealander & Company on my profile it would take you to a weird, totally blank community page that I couldn't edit or delete. I had written Facebook about this several times but they never answered. I finally found some user forum on the Internet where other small business owners were having the same problem. Apparently none of these people had gotten an answer from Facebook either. Luckily, there was an answer, although it wasn't the one I expected. To fix the profile, you needed to download a third party add-on application for Firefox that let you view the code for the link that Facebook had established and then you could edit the link so it would point to the proper location. Seems like it would be a lot easier if Facebook just had a few customer service representatives like everybody else.

I'm beginning to understand why it has been such a problems to transfer all my image files. It took me ten years to get all these pictures into the computer. I guess it is a bit unreasonable to expect that I could get them back out again in just a day or two.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Day 393

We opened a new bag of food for the dogs this morning and were amazed to discover that it was full of worms and little black bugs. It was all fairly disgusting, so Janet cooked Dot and Dash some eggs instead and I took the bag back to the pet store. The pet store people initially seemed a bit sceptical that their premium, all natural dog food could be full of worms, but while I was talking to them, a worm crawled out of the bag and started slithering across the counter. The girl at the register screamed and the manager immediately offered to give me a new bag.

Now, I don't know what to do. It's so hard to find a diet for your pet that you can really trust. There are just about as many opinions about what dogs should eat as there are dogs. This particular brand was helping Dash's coat return to normal. It seemed nutritious without a lot of excess calories, but I really don't like the idea of opening a bag and having worms and bugs crawl out. Some of my friends say a raw diet is the answer, but I'm not sure about that either.

I had lunch with a friend for the second day in a row. For a solitary person like me, this constitutes a full social calendar. I'll probably eat lunch with the dogs for the rest of the month, but it was nice to catch up on things. The last time my friend Alan and I got together, he predicted that within a year I would have a Facebook page and a cell phone out of simple necessity. I didn't believe him then, but he was right. Alan was a little surprised that I had adapted to life in the fast lane so quickly, but what choice did I have? There's just no point in doing something new unless you are going to do it well.

FedEx finally delivered the software I need to complete the migration of my business over to the new computer. I'm ready to go now, although I still can't decide the best way to move all my video and image files. The files transfers seem to be the most painless and trouble-free when I burn the images to a DVD and transfer them that way. The only problem is that if I moved all the files this way, I would have to burn a hundred and fifty 4.7 GB DVD's. Maybe I don't need all these files anymore.

It didn't get above freezing today. I put two coats on each of the dogs when I walked them this morning, but they still didn't want to go outside. I wasn't that wild about going outside either.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Day 392

Although the day ended well, it certainly didn't get off to an auspicious start. I woke up with a clever new plan to transfer my huge image files over to my new computer. I'll spare you the geeky details, but I'd just started the file transfer process and was fixing breakfast when a guy from the power company unexpectedly shut off the power to the house. Of course, the computer, the external disc array with all the pictures, and everything else that was turned on in the house immediately died.

When I ran outside to find out what was going on, Dash immediately took advantage of the situation and ate my breakfast. I should have put the food on top of the refrigerator or in the microwave oven like I usually do, but I was in a hurry to catch the electric company guy before he disappeared. It turns out they were installing new electric meters with built-in WiFi so they wouldn't need meter readers anymore. The new meter automatically transmits how much electricity you are using back to the electric company in real time. This is exactly why the whole jobs situation isn't going to be resolved any time soon. It doesn't matter who controls the house or the senate. The reality of the situation is that companies not only don't want to hire new employees, they're actually bending over backwards to get rid of the ones they already have. These days just about everybody would much rather have a machine do the job than a person who expects health care and a 401K.

After the dogs quit barking and the house returned to normal, I went to have lunch with my friend Harry. Harry is the only person I know who has had a book on the New York Times best seller list. It's still a bit of a mystery to me how my friend made the transition from advertising copywriter to best selling parenting author, but I'm definitely impressed with his success. Harry now has eleven books in print. We used to talk about local advertising gossip when we got together. It's probably a sign of the times that today we traded iPhone apps and speculated about how to use Twitter to promote our businesses. A few years ago neither of us even knew what social media was. Now it's pretty clear that's it's going to shape our future.

My luddite historian sister thinks that things like e-mail and Facebook are tools of the devil and still expects me to send her hand-written letters. I think she's out of touch. Like it or not, Facebook has become the new neighborhood. I know lots of people who haven't even bothered to get to know their flesh and blood neighbors, but they couldn't imagine not checking their Facebook status every morning. It's a brave new world out there. I guess you either embrace it or get left behind.

Dalmatian of the Day

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Monday, January 10, 2011

Day 391

It was really cold outside today. Whenever it is really cold outside, it is also really cold inside. The large expanses of floor-to-ceiling single glazed windows in the house let heat excape almost as fast as the furnace can pump it out. I don't know what they were thinking in 1955 when the house was built, but it is clear that energy efficiency wasn't a big issue. I think that natural gas was so cheap back then that they just cranked the furnace up to 80 on cold days and let it run continuously. The original furnace was still in place when I first bought the house and I remember the air coming out of the vents was a lot hotter than it is today. Growing up, I remember really hot air coming out of my parent's furnace vents too. My modern, energy-efficient furnace is a wimp compared to those old furnaces.

Luckily, I have plenty of sweaters. I spent the day bundled in sweaters while the dogs napped on the bed under their own blankets. It certainly wasn't a day of giant accomplishments, but I did get my January invoices in the mail and got a couple of webcams back online for one of my clients. I'm trying to figure out the best way to transfer my photo files over to the new computer. Clearly, using the office WiFi network isn't a good solution. I tried to copy a single photo folder over the network to see how long the process was going to take and was astonished to see a little dialog box appear when the transfer started saying that all the files would be copied in approximately 48 hours. This is just one folder too. There are probably about three dozen folders of digital images to copy. Maybe I did pick the worst case scenario though. This particular folder was labeled "Dalmatians."

I already miss the short holiday workweeks we've been having. Somehow a four day week is always much nicer than the regular Monday thru Friday grind. I'd better get used to it though. None of my clients are going to be shutting down their offices again for a long, long time.

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