Day 3027

Dash seems to be feeling much better. He's eager to eat again and took two nice walks. I'm not surprised that he's eager to eat. Each time he has had a serious vestibular episode, we have to up the ante to get him to eat anything. After his last seizures, he refused to touch any of the many varieties of dog food we had on hand. In desperation, we boiled a chicken breast and tried feeding him that. He ate the chicken, but now he insists on having the chicken for breakfast every morning. I don't know what we've got left the next time this happens. He's probably going to want Eggs Benedict for breakfast.

When I went to the gym this morning I noticed that the workout app on my watch had changed. Now, instead of a simple heart rate and calorie counter, they had a separate routine for every machine in the  gym. Interval training, running, and even basketball were covered as well. I guess instead of just logging your time at the gym, you're supposed to log each activity and then arrive at a grand total when you're finished. This is probably more accurate, but it sure seems like a lot of trouble. Were people actually asking for this? Maybe. I suspect that some app developer just thought it would be cool and never considered how much of a nuisance this would be to use if you were actually exercising.

I went to the REI store to use my 20% off coupon and discovered that I no longer wear the same size pants. For years I have worn a 32x32 but now this size seems too long. Have I shrunk? It's certainly possible, although I'd hope that I'm still a bit too young for a shrinking stature. Clothing and shoe sizes are somewhat meaningless these days, so I'm not going to worry about turning into my Dad quite yet. The shorter inseam still seems strange though. Is it me or the pants?

I'm thinking about getting a new MIDI keyboard controller so I don't have to reboot the computer every time I want to practice the piano. I looked in the Sweetwater catalog and was surprised at how inexpensive these things have become. Full fledged synthesizers are still pretty pricy, but you can get a decent keyboard controller you hook up to your computer for under $100. The only problem is where to put the thing. There's a coat rack full of Winter coats where the old keyboard used to be. I always wanted to live in a huge loft where I would have room for everything. That's never going to happen though. Urban environments freak me out. My dream house lives on 40 acres of land without a neighbor in sight.

While I was driving to the gym, I listened to a program on the radio about how Adobe was developing advanced software for dialog replacement in movies that will let you just type in the new words you wanted the actor to say and the dialog will immediately be updated in the actor's real voice without recording anything new. This process was described as Photoshop for words. I'm sure production studios will love this. So will purveyors of fake news. Somewhere in Seattle a lab is developing something even more advanced for video. You will be able to take a video clip of anybody and make the face convincingly say completely different words. The lines between fantasy and reality are becoming hopelessly blurred. Can you imagine what the evening news will look like twenty years from now? Maybe these revelations seemed startling to me because I've worked in film and video for so long. I think it's time to stop tinkering around with reality. One day we'll look back and realize we've gone too far.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1982

I've been telling people that I've got a huge hole in my jaw where my wisdom tooth used to be. No one believes me. They think I'm a whiner. Well, the dentist believed me. "That's a mighty deep socket you've got there," he said. He was surprised that it had been a month since I had the tooth extracted and said said the socket usually starts filling in by now. I asked him how long it would be before my extraction site would fully heal and he said it could be as long as six to nine months. Great. I'm going to have to keep doing salt water and antiseptic rinses after every meal for the rest of the year.

The dentist can't even begin to repair the adjacent tooth for another six weeks. He said that filling this particular tooth would be very difficult because of the location of the cavity, and he wanted the empty wisdom tooth socket to heal some more before he even attempted to fill the tooth next to it. He also said I need a new crown on the tooth next to the one that needs to be filled. Basically, the last three teeth on the lower right side of my jaw are toast.

I just got finished paying for the oral surgery and now it looks like fixing the next two teeth is going to cost even more. Yikes. I don't know why crowns are so expensive. The last time I had a crown it cost me $500. Now it costs two or three times as much for a dentist to create these pricy little porcelain caps. Growing older sucks. It was much more fun to spend my money on cameras and guitars than on medical bills and prescription drugs.

I'm taking what I've learned playing around with my responsive test site and using this somewhat fuzzy knowledge to built my first mobile site for a client. CSS classes and structured HTML are finally starting to make a little sense. It's kind of sad that I'm probably not be able to use Dreamweaver and Fireworks in the future. Adobe has basically abandoned these stand-alone products anyway. The Dreamweaver software I use isn't even updated anymore. If you want the latest and greatest Adobe innovations you have to get a subscription to their Creative Cloud products. The software I'm using to build responsive websites is all cloud based as well.

Dot seems a bit stronger today. I don't know shy she has good days and bad days, because life is very consistent around here. I don't know why I have good days and bad days either. I hope Dot does well at her physical therapy session tomorrow. I've got lots of questions for the vet. I don't know how hard I should push her. She really needs the exercise to build muscle, but she's very old too. Since Dot is extremely food motivated, she's starting to gain weight again as well. Extra weight makes it even harder for her to stand under her own power. Without treats, it's hard to get dogs with limited mobility to do anything though.

Tonight is the very last David Letterman show. I saw the show live once when I was in New York, but I wouldn't be surprised if I slept through tonight's finale.

Harley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1239

Today was a succession of small errands. I went to the post office. I went to the pharmacy. I went to Janet's dentist several times to drop her off and pick her up again later. In between these errands, I added a bunch of new adoptable animals to a rescue website and turned a bunch of navel oranges into juice. There was something strange about these oranges because it was very difficult to get the skin off so I could put them in the juicer. Most oranges are easy to peel, but the rind on these seemed welded to the fruit inside. It took me forever to get them all peeled.

I was real disappointed about Adobe's announcement that in the future, all Creative Suite products will be available by subscription only. I use Photoshop, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver all the time. I'd hate to have to pay for these products by the month, just like I do for U-verse TV. I have always disliked renting things, but in a culture where people increasingly rent or lease their homes, their furniture, and their cars, I guess renting your software doesn't seem so strange. Renting isn't for me though. I'll keep using my old version of Photoshop for a long time before I'll start renting it for $49 a month.

I think I'm going to use the roofer my architect friend recommended. I probably won't know if this was the right decision until about five years from now, when I see whether the roof is still keeping the water out. We'll see how it goes. Most of the people I know hate to make recommendations. Can you blame them? I don't like to make recommendations either, because things go wrong so often. Nevertheless, I'm going with the guy the architect suggested. I still think I'd trust an architect more than Angie's List.

I'm supposed to write an article tomorrow as if I just returned from Switzerland. The cheapskate clients didn't actually want to send me to Switzerland, so they just sent me a few quotes from a guy who'd been there. Ah, the excitement of the writing life. You get to travel to anywhere Wikipedia will take you.

Tomorrow, Dot goes to see the acupuncturist again.Too bad I can't get the vet to stick a few needles in me while I'm there. I was skeptical about the treatments at first, but I've become a believer. The acupuncture therapy really seems to have done Dot some good.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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