Day 1750

Good grief. Flu season is here. The State Fair of Texas just started. And a guy with the Ebola virus was admitted to Presbyterian Hospital after wandering around town for a week. What could possibly go wrong? I guess it was inevitable that Ebola would make it's way to America, but did it have to come to Dallas first? This is a little too close to home. Presbyterian Hospital is only four or five miles from my house. The gym that I go to is actually owned by the Presbyterian healthcare network.

I listened to the press conference held this afternoon by the CDC. The only thing I could think of was that every single post-apocalyptic end-of-the-world movie I've ever seen starts with some government bureaucrat standing in front of a microphone telling people that there's "nothing to worry about." Every time I hear that this disease can't be transmitted through the air, I think of all the other things that couldn't possibly happen, like Fukushima and Chernobyl.

I'm sure for the next week of so, everyone who gets a fever in Dallas will think they've come down with Ebola. It doesn't help that officials are very close-lipped about the whole situation. They won't reveal the airline the guy flew here on. They won't reveal who his family is, or where he was seen in town before he arrived at the hospital feeling sick. Why do they let people from West Africa continue to fly here? This is an uncontrolled pandemic that has already claimed over 3,000 lives in a short amount of time. It is insane to keep pretending that "there is nothing to worry about."

I awoke this morning to the sound of a dog trying to throw up in the bed next to my head. I've heard this sound before, so I immediately picked Dot up and quickly took her outside where she proceeded to throw up on the back porch. It's probably nothing, but when a dog is recovering from cancer you always worry that the cancer may have returned. Both dogs have sensitive stomachs and are prone to eat crap in the park. It's not a good combination. I've been keeping an eye on Dot today and she seems completely normal. All dogs throw up from time to time and hopefully this was just a fluke.

I completed my troublesome website project today and wrote two new articles. I consider this a good day. It would have been an even better day if the stock market hadn't taken a tumble. It's depressing to toil away at the computer to earn a few hundred dollars when you're simultaneously losing thousands in the market.

The yard is rapidly becoming covered with dry, yellowed elm leaves that the dogs and I inevitably track inside. The elm tree loses its leaves first, and then the oaks and pecan trees quickly follow. Fall has definitely arrived.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day