James VanDyke

I just got a new video camera and who better to test it out on than the dog. So, here is TigerMan showing off the vast majority of his known tricks.

Walking our dog twice a day gives us plenty of time to look around our local streets. Lately we’ve started collecting what we call speed bumps. They are the little plastic pieces glued to the concrete that seperate lanes. We later learned through the marvels of the Internet that these bumps are officially called “Bott’s Dots” after their California inventor. Now before you accuse us of causing wrecks we have developed strict rules regarding our collection practices. First, we only pick up bumps that have already been knocked out of position and are now just littering the road. However a good kick maybe nessecary to ensure that a bump is still stuck to the road. Second, you can only pick up one bump per walk. It is allowable to swap a better bump for an less favorable. It becomes important to remember where you dropped the swapped dot though in order to pick it up on the next walk.

Even in Texas it’s getting to be Christmas time so I thought I’d pass along some holiday greetings in the form of the Christmas card we sent out this year. Merry Christmas to you.

James, Erin and Tigerman pose for the camera

Tigerman with a Santa hat on

Tomorrow is Take Your Dog to Work Day. Our office is tentatively scheduled to participate, so after lunch time TigerMan will join Addy and Luke at our office.

A full report to follow, until then visit the TYDTWD website.

Part of this week I worked from home because the air conditioning was out at work. Along the way I learned a few important things.

• Keep a to do list so you don’t get distracted
• Having animals around makes for a better work environment
• Check your meeting calendar before deciding to work from home for the day
• Test your webcam/voice chat solution before your actual meeting

Erin and my favorite art festival was this weekend. The Main Street Art Festivial in Fort Worth is one of the highlights of our cultural year. This year we brought home our first real piece of art work, a print by Daniel Ng. Sunrise Tuscany (giclee print 4 of 450) is now hanging in our living room.

On our first trip to the Arts Festival in 2005 we saw an actual painting by David Oleski that we really liked, but it was $400. We hadn’t really concidered buying art for our apartment yet, so we figured surely we’ll be able to find something we liked that was cheaper. We were wrong.

In the three years since we haven’t bought any art to hang on the walls because nothing was quite right and  Mr. Oleski’s paintings are selling for much more now than they were the day we first saw them.

So, we’re very happy now to be able to finely display a fine art work in our fine home. Fine.

We’re having our bathroom remodeled. It was in need of some work so the contractor has ripped everything out down to the studs in the walls. The plan is to end up with a bigger shower (that doesn’t leak) and new tile on the floor and in the shower.

Tags: house

After being trapped at La Guardia for most of the day Friday I finally got on a flight headed for Dallas. I spent the night at home and then drove my car down to Austin. It was a long 24 hours in New York but it’s over now.

I’m sitting at La Guardia waiting for my plane to leave. I’m supposed to be in Austin for the SXSW Interactive Festival. Yesterday, the second winter storm in a week hit Dallas. My 8:15am flight out of NYC was cancelled and I haven’t been able to hit the standby jackpot. I paid $7.95 for internet access, normally something I wouldn’t do, which considering the situation has be well worth it.

Update: My flight was delayed… now leaving at 5:00 p.m.

It snowed in Dallas tonight and TigerMan enjoyed playing in the snow.