Day 1763

The rainy season must have started. We had another overnight downpour that ended around daybreak. With the rain came much cooler temperatures. I don't think it got much above sixty degrees all day. I thought the dogs would like the cooler weather, but they didn't like the wind that came with it. The wind blew relentlessly from the West all day. The lights flickered a bit during strong gusts and the Internet connection went dead for a short amount of time, but we never lost power.

Seeing the trees swaying in the back yard provided the incentive I needed to finally read the instruction manual that came with the generator. There were so many things I needed to do before I could actually fire the generator up that I decided to postpone the inaugural run until the weather got warmer. I knew I had to add oil, but I didn't realize that I needed to unscrew and remove the entire left side of the unit to get access to the oil filler tube. I knew I needed to add a special enzyme to the gas to remove the ethanol, but I didn't realize that it was also important for the generator to be grounded before using it. Now I'll have to go back to Home Depot and buy a copper rod and some electrical wire so I can properly ground the unit. In many ways this all seems like more trouble than it's worth, since the small generator will only power a few things at a time anyway. In many ways I'd just as soon get inside a warm sleeping bag with the dogs and just wait till the power came back on.

Since it kept getting colder and colder throughout the day, I finally broke down and turned the furnace on. Amazingly, it started on the first try and the house was warm again in less than an hour. I'm always a little apprehensive the first time I start the furnace for the Winter. Half the time it refuses to start and I have to make a call to the HVAC guys to come out an make a service call. Hopefully, the success I had today is a good omen for the Winter. I'm tired of fixing things and it would be nice to have a warm and trouble free house this year.

Today would have been a good day to get caught up on work, but since I was already caught up, I watched one of the Dr. Who episodes I had recorded on the DVR instead. Kill the Moon was a strange show, based on the idea that the moon was actually a giant egg that was about to hatch. This premise wasn't even remotely believable and I continue to be disappointed in the new season. The production values are fantastic, but the scripts are terrible and Clara and the doctor don't seem like very good companions. Maybe I should give up on this show and start watching The Walking Dead like everyone else.

Dash goes back to the cancer center tomorrow for a chest x-ray and follow-up exam. He has one of these follow-up exams about every three months now and I keep hoping that at some point, his oncologist will declare him officially cured. I bet they'll want to continue the chemotherapy a while longer though. That's just the way doctors are.

Firedogs are our Dalmatians of the Day

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