Day 3014

Near the top of my to-do list today was a trip to the store to get more dog treats for Dash. You don't ever want to run out of dog treats in this house. Since Dash is a picky eater, there is a particular brand of treats he likes. Of course you can't find this brand at the neighborhood pet store. I drive further to find things for Dash than I do for myself.

While I was out, I returned to the plumbing supply store. Surprisingly, they actually did have some of the parts I was looking for. I bought some of the easy to replace parts, but the water control assembly, which was the main thing I was trying to replace didn't look quite the same. The parts guy said to bring the old fill valve in and it would be easy to tell whether the two parts were the same. My idea was just to buy the part now in case it was unavailable in the future. I didn't actually have the nerve to try to remove the old part yet. It has frozen in place and there's a good chance I could break something trying to remove it. The guy who was helping me couldn't figure out why I wanted to buy the part if I wasn't going to use it. "If this part doesn't fit, you're going to have to buy a new toilet anyway," he told me. The guy had a point. "Just leave the part here until you really think you need it," He said. "Nobody else is going to buy this thing."

I decided to leave well enough alone. It would be nice to have all new parts, but the toilet is actually working now. There's a good chance I could break it again if I keep monkeying around. I should have thanked the parts guy. He saved me $75.

It was a pleasant surprise to see the stock market go up almost 700 points today. We're still down for the month, but they say this was the third largest gain in history. These wild market swings make me nervous. There was no fundamental reason for last weeks huge loss and no reason for today's big gain. I'm going to have to learn to live with this volatility though. I think it's here to stay. Computerized trading platforms make it possible to buy and sell huge quantities of stock in a fraction of a second. Humans like me are just along for the ride.

It was kind of hot this afternoon, so I wasn't entirely surprised that Dash refused to take his afternoon walk. I dutifully suited him up anyway, just in case. I still think that Dash needs a little more exercise, but like they say, you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink.

Since we had a mild Winter, I'm already starting to see a lot of bugs. A lot of these bugs seem to find their way inside. When I'm out in the back yard it looks like an invading army is preparing to strike. There are cockroaches in the trees, ants crawling on the bricks, and crane flies hovering around the back door. The spiders haven't returned yet, but it won't be long. I hate the crane flies because every time I let Dash out, a few of them fly in the house. It's going to be an uphill battle to keep these critters outside this Summer.

I shouldn't complain about Spring, because Summer is so much worse. It was actually a beautiful day today. It's too bad that Dash thought it was too hot.

Bubba is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day