Day 923

I wish I were more of a morning person. Summer has arrived with a vengeance and the only decent time to be out and about is right after sunrise. I try to get the dogs out on their morning walk by 7:30 AM, but since the sun rises more than an hour earlier these days, I'm really not doing all that well. The temperature rises amazingly quickly. If it's 85 degrees at sunrise, it will be 105 degrees by lunch. The trouble is that the dogs aren't early risers either. By the time we all drag ourselves out of bed, it's usually already too late.

No matter what the temperature is, mornings are delightful compared to afternoons. Afternoons are beastly. Dot is getting older now, and she can't take the heat. In the afternoon, we usually just walk until both dogs have done their business and then beat a hasty retreat to the air conditioned confines of the house.

Now that I've had time to get used to the quirks and peculiarities of U-verse service, I've come to the conclusion that it's really no better than cable. The picture freezes on the TV periodically. I'll lose my connection to the Internet for short periods almost every day. Occasionally, even the phones go out.  Usually, these outages are brief and service returns while I'm still  sitting on hold, waiting to talk to tech support. Nevertheless, the whole situation is irritating. Cable and U-verse certainly cost enough to warrant good service. Maybe the only solution is to switch back and forth between cable and U-verse once a year to keep them from taking me for granted.

My broker called the other day and suggested that I buy Microsoft. Microsoft? Keep in mind that this was the same guy who convinced me to sell Apple just before it went up another 200 points. I told the broker that selling Apple and buying Microsoft just seemed all wrong and I wasn't having any part of it. I've been somewhat gratified to see Microsoft continue to slide in the days following this errant recommendation, but I'm a bit irritated by this as well.  Just like with Time Warner Cable and U-verse, it would be nice to get a little more for my money. At the prices most financial advisors charge, they should be right 90% of the time, instead of just 65% of the time.

I called Land Rover today to see if my repairs are finished yet. Nope. They're still working on the Defender. While I was talking to my service representative, I remembered that I had forgotten to tell him about the problems I was having shifting from first to second gear. I asked him if repairing or replacing the gear synchronizers in the transmission was expensive. What do you think? Of course it is.

Oh, and I got a guitar today.  More on that later.

Shiner is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day