Day 659

When I went to physical therapy today, they put me on a machine that looked suspiciously like a medieval rack. I felt like I was in a Monty Python movie. My head was in some kind of restraint that was attached to a chain which tugged on my neck at periodic intervals. Although the whole thing sounds horrible, the machine was actually pretty gentle and actually seemed to help with the neck pain. The physical therapy guy seemed worried that I might panic and gave me a kill button to push if I felt I needed to stop the machine. He said some people felt uncomfortable being left in a room with a machine tugging on their head. I told the physical therapist that I'd be fine and that there was a good chance I'd be asleep when he got back. I found the whole process kind of relaxing.

I actually wished I could have stayed at the physical therapy place longer, because work was anything but relaxing. Every project I worked on today seemed either totally meaningless, redundant and unnecessary, or just plain wacko. I'm sure that most of you have had these type of days yourselves. Usually, the higher up the food chain the request originates, the wackier it is. I much prefer working with people down in the trenches. At least they are realistic about what can be accomplished in a day.

We're back to having dog training class in the dark again. The sun had already set by the time we arrived this evening. It's going to be this way until Spring. There are some lights in the park, but it's pretty dim. Dash doesn't like the dark either. He always seems much more reasonable when we have daylight classes in the Summer.

Google+ was filled with tributes to Steve Jobs this evening. I never got to know the guy like a lot of the silicon valley types, but he changed my life in some very fundamentally ways. I bought one of the very first Macintosh computers in 1984. I've had at least one Mac on my desk ever since. Before the Macintosh, I used to write things on a yellow pad and have a secretary type them up. Life was relaxed and often fun. Now my phone has a more powerful processor inside than the Apollo rockets that went to the moon. The Mac on my desktop is more powerful than early defense department supercomputers. Instead of assistants, I've got software that will do anything. Computers have enabled almost all of us to accomplish things that would have been impossible even ten years ago. They haven't made life any easier though. My own life is busier and more stressful than it's ever been. On days like today, I feel like a serf in a science fiction version of the middle ages.

Lightning is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day