Day 1121

Days like this you simply endure. The rain started late last night and never stopped. It's still raining. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that the roof did leak again. The leak wasn't that bad this time, but it was enough to make a mess. The dogs were true to form too. They insisted on going out, and then as soon as they realized what the weather was like, they wanted to come back inside again. We all got soaked on our walks, because even though Dot and Dash hate the rain, they still insist on pooping at their regular place, over a mile away. While we were walking, I noticed that the lake was getting pretty wet too. One of the piers was almost completely under water.

I thought I might have time to clear the water off the roof during a brief lull in the storm, but before I was even halfway finished, the rain started again in earnest and erased all my hard work. Some of you have wondered why I don't just go out and get a new roof. Well, it's not as easy as you think. The house is fifty years old and has settled in several places. As a result, water on the roof puddles into ponds, instead of draining off the edge like it is supposed to. It is not enough to simply put on a new roof. All the plywood decking under the roof must be leveled and replaced with a new decking that has a slight pitch so the water will drain properly. This is called an "engineered" roof and it is quite expensive. I've learned that roofers don't want to do carpentry work. I've also learned that general contractors, who could help find the proper carpenters, don't want to hire good roofers in the first place, so they can keep more money for themselves. Worst of all, the few commercial roofers who are experienced at covering large flat spaces don't even want to give me a bid. I don't have a large flat space. I have a very small flat space and they don't think it is worth their time.

In between drying off wet dogs and positioning buckets over dripping spots in the ceiling, I wrote watch articles. This didn't seem very glamorous either. I keep thinking that real watch writers get invited to polo matches in Argentina and fly around the world going to watch conventions. I can't imagine that the other watch writers spend most of their time cleaning mud off of two Dalmatians.

The Macintosh repair guy called today and told me he could fix my Lombard laptop. He seemed real excited about the old Lombard and called it a collectors item. This wasn't all that surprising to me. Just about everything I have is a collectors item to somebody. I have very good taste. I'm just not very practical. So here I sit, listening to water drip into plastic buckets as I tell a technician to go ahead and fix an aging laptop that I will probably never even use.

Mack is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day