Day 1942

When I went to breakfast this morning, there was a group of older men sitting at the next table. Judging from their shirts and caps, they were all mechanics at a nearby neighborhood garage. Nobody in this group was looking at a cell phone. They didn't even seem to have phones. The men just talked and laughed and told jokes. Everybody used to be this way. Now, these guys seemed like the last practitioners of the art of conversation. I looked around and everyone else in the restaurant was texting or checking their Facebook feed. It's kind of sad that this is what the world has become. I don't think there's any turning back though. We have forgotten how to have a decent conversation.

When I was walking Dash this morning, we met Janet and Dot on the way home. Dot was walking up a small hill and doing great. She's so much happier now that she's starting to get her life back. These short walks are tiring for Dot, but you can tell that she enjoys them. The exercise is making a difference. The atrophy in her rear legs was so severe right after her surgery that her legs just seemed like skin and bones. Now she's starting to get some muscle back. I can already feel the difference.

I was unusually busy today. Usually Friday's are slow, but not today. In addition to my dog wrangling duties, I finished writing several new articles and managed to get my April invoices ready to mail. I've been hearing that Google is going to start penalizing websites that aren't mobile friendly later this month, so I did a little research to see how hard it would be to convert some of my older legacy sites. My own company website is probably one of the worst offenders. I haven't changed it much since the mid-1990's. As it turns out, older table-based static sites like these are some of the hardest to make mobile friendly. I never should of made my sites look like multi-column magazines. One of the reasons why single column sites and sites without navigation buttons are all the rage now is that they are so much easier to re-size.

It's hard to believe that the Apple Watch sold out in just a few hours on the very first pre-order day. It's just as well. I can't afford one now anyway. I bet a lot of companies wish they had Apple's mojo. You come out with an overpriced product with a battery that doesn't even last 24 hours and you still manage to sell more watches in a single day than Android does in a year. Maybe by the time I get one of these gadgets, Apple will have figured out how to improve the battery life.

I don't know what I want to do this weekend. Sleep would be nice. I haven't been getting much sleep lately. My UP band log says that I average 5 to 6 hours a night. Much of that is light sleep too. Since I occasionally fall asleep writing this blog, 5 hours clearly isn't enough. Light sleep is probably why I have all these weird dreams about losing things too. Who cares about a goal of 12,000 steps a day? I think my goal should be 8 hours of sleep every night.

Apollo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1010

I must be a glutton for punishment. Even after being stuck in customer service hell with an AT&T call center agent this afternoon, I still think I'm going to go get a new iPhone tomorrow. Yeah, I've heard all the arguments on Google+ that the Android is better, but the Samsung Galaxy phones are simply too big for me. It's like putting a small tablet in your pocket. Definitely not for me. I've used Apple products since the original 1984 512K Fat Mac and see little reason to switch horses this late in the game.

Maybe I can get that new Siri personal assistant thing to be my friend. I really don't have many questions to ask, but if I could set the phone to just let me ramble on and have Siri interject with an occasional "I agree completely" or "You're a genius" it would make my day.

That's the problem with the dogs. Even though they're both as friendly as can be, neither of them think I'm any smarter than they are. I'm convinced that they think I'm just another dog. Although Dot and Dash may be right about my abilities, it would still be nice to have someone look up to you. If I get than new phone, I'll have to work on getting Siri to think I'm a genius.

I might as well throw my rototiller away. The armadillo that visits our yard every night is doing a much better job of tilling the soil than I ever did. I can't believe how destructive this little creature is. After less than a week of hunting for grubs, the armadillo has totally destroyed what was left of the backyard grass. I don't even know how the animal is getting in and out of the yard. The yard is completely fenced with no gaps large enough for an armadillo to crawl through. I don't think he's still in the yard during the day though, or the dogs would have found him by now.

Hey, at least it's Friday tomorrow. Maybe I'll get a brand new phone. Maybe I'll just get a big stack of pancakes with a side of bacon. Either way, the day will probably be more interesting than it was today.

Rosie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day