Day 1123

I got a flu shot today. I'm not a big fan of flu shots and seldom get them. I think the reason I got one this year was that I didn't want people saying "I told you so" if I actually came down with the flu. Everybody I know has already gotten their shot and they keep asking me if I've had mine yet. I figured it was just easier to get the shot than explain my theory that the whole flu panic this year had been created by a 24-hour news cycle that continually needs something to scare us with. Remember the bird flu? Whatever happened with that one? Wasn't the bird flu supposed to wipe out civilization as we know it? I think you have to take all media scares with a grain of salt. I can bore you with pictures of pancakes, but the cable news channels can't get away with this kind of behavior. They're determined to scare us into watching more often.

If you want to avoid the flu, I've got a tip for you. Just stay away from little children. Little kids are always sick. Pretty soon their parents get sick. Then their teachers at school get sick and finally I get sick. As long as I avoid kids, I stay pretty healthy. I guess this advice doesn't work if you actually have kids though.

I discovered why my Lombard laptop can't connect to the Internet.  The short answer: it's too old. The slightly longer answer: First generation WiFi networks used WEP encryption which was supported by the Apple Airport card. Modern WiFi networks now use sophisticated WPA encryption, which although it is much more secure, isn't recognized at all by older computers like the Lombard. I guess I could just plug the old laptop straight into the U-verse hub using an Ethernet cable, but what's the point.

I got an e-mail today telling me that I was as "Class Member" in a class action suit against Facebook for improperly using people's identities for their own purposes. I wonder if everyone on the planet is a "Class Member" in this lawsuit? I just always assumed that invading people's privacy was what Facebook was all about anyway. Personally, I don't think this lawsuit will go anywhere. I'm sure that when we all signed up for Facebook in the first place, there was some very tiny legal type somewhere that said by signing up for the service, we gave Facebook the right to do whatever it damn well pleased for all eternity.

For future reference. If all I've got to show you is a picture of pancakes, chances are it was a very boring day.

Pepper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1122

I got the Apple Lombard back today. It worked perfectly. Well, actually it didn't work perfectly. I couldn't connect to the Internet anymore. Unbeknownst to me, during the years that the Lombard sat unused in my closet, WiFi standards had changed and the built-in Airport WiFi card didn't work anymore. This was kind of ironic, since it was this computer that practically invented built-in WiFi. I don't even think you could even buy a laptop with built-in WiFi before the Lombard.

I don't want to keep kicking a dead horse, but this is just one more example of how little respect that old electronics get in today's world. Old computers get about the same amount of respect as soured milk or stale bread. It doesn't seem fair to me. Vintage guitars and amplifiers are revered by musicians. Vintage mechanical watches are often worth much more than their contemporary counterparts. Even old vinyl record albums have their fans. When I tell people that I still have a working Osborne-1, all I get are glassy stares. Nobody even cares.

I got a call from a friend today that I hadn't seen in a while.  When I rhetorically asked him what had been happening in his life since we last talked, he told me that he'd had a heart attack, was unable to work for almost a year, sold his house, and was now on permanent disability. Whoa! I wasn't expecting that. This guy was very athletic and I always thought he was healthy as a horse. Apparently, so did he until the heart attack hit him. I think that our health is much more fragile than most of us would like to admit. It was also disconcerting to realize that, unlike my friend, I didn't even have long term disability insurance. I'm not even sure it matters if you're a writer though. Insurance companies are getting pretty tough. Most of them tend to think that if Stephen Hawking can still write, then other writer's disabilities must be trivial.

The weather was much nicer today, and so was my mood. The roof is clear and dry again. The buckets are gone in the living room and the house looks more or less normal if you don't look up at the ceiling. Even the dogs stayed clean today. The only fly in the ointment was my visit to the muffler shop. I was going to get the rattling catalytic converter replaced, but when the technician pounded on both converters with a little hammer and told me he thought it was the left hand converter that had gone bad, it gave me pause. For months I've been driving around thinking that the right hand catalytic converter was the bad one. I'll have to think about this one.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1121

Days like this you simply endure. The rain started late last night and never stopped. It's still raining. Regular readers will not be surprised to learn that the roof did leak again. The leak wasn't that bad this time, but it was enough to make a mess. The dogs were true to form too. They insisted on going out, and then as soon as they realized what the weather was like, they wanted to come back inside again. We all got soaked on our walks, because even though Dot and Dash hate the rain, they still insist on pooping at their regular place, over a mile away. While we were walking, I noticed that the lake was getting pretty wet too. One of the piers was almost completely under water.

I thought I might have time to clear the water off the roof during a brief lull in the storm, but before I was even halfway finished, the rain started again in earnest and erased all my hard work. Some of you have wondered why I don't just go out and get a new roof. Well, it's not as easy as you think. The house is fifty years old and has settled in several places. As a result, water on the roof puddles into ponds, instead of draining off the edge like it is supposed to. It is not enough to simply put on a new roof. All the plywood decking under the roof must be leveled and replaced with a new decking that has a slight pitch so the water will drain properly. This is called an "engineered" roof and it is quite expensive. I've learned that roofers don't want to do carpentry work. I've also learned that general contractors, who could help find the proper carpenters, don't want to hire good roofers in the first place, so they can keep more money for themselves. Worst of all, the few commercial roofers who are experienced at covering large flat spaces don't even want to give me a bid. I don't have a large flat space. I have a very small flat space and they don't think it is worth their time.

In between drying off wet dogs and positioning buckets over dripping spots in the ceiling, I wrote watch articles. This didn't seem very glamorous either. I keep thinking that real watch writers get invited to polo matches in Argentina and fly around the world going to watch conventions. I can't imagine that the other watch writers spend most of their time cleaning mud off of two Dalmatians.

The Macintosh repair guy called today and told me he could fix my Lombard laptop. He seemed real excited about the old Lombard and called it a collectors item. This wasn't all that surprising to me. Just about everything I have is a collectors item to somebody. I have very good taste. I'm just not very practical. So here I sit, listening to water drip into plastic buckets as I tell a technician to go ahead and fix an aging laptop that I will probably never even use.

Mack is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1119

I feel cheated. Remember when I told you that I had discovered some new HD channels on my TV? Well, they're all gone. It's turns out that this was just an evil holiday promotional ploy by AT&T to suck people like me into paying even more for their monthly bundle. It wasn't that I failed to notice the HD channels earlier. They just weren't there. These new channels appeared briefly during the holidays as free programming, but today it was back to normal. All I got was an onscreen message saying "You have not subscribed to this channel. Please press OK to upgrade to our premium service." I should have known. You never get something for nothing at AT&T, Comcast, or Time Warner.

I took my old Apple Lombard laptop up to the Apple repair center in Plano today. Yeah, I know I should have just thrown the old laptop away, but I feel compelled to bring this thing back to life. Although I have a much faster and more capable laptop now, the old Lombard was always the real workhorse of my business. This computer traveled the world with me and was always there for my biggest and best assignments. It's almost laughable now that I depended on this computer and it's tiny 6 GB hard drive for almost everything. My phone is more capable now and has a much larger memory. Even the thumbnail sized SD cards my camera uses hold much more information than this computer. I'm a loyal person, not a practical person. I'm bringing the Lombard back to life just for old times sake.

We're in uncharted territory with Dash now. Since the vet has run out of ideas, we have been left to our own devices on the best way to control his nightly vomiting. Pills certainly aren't the answer. I hate to over medicate a dog, especially for long periods of time. Janet said she sleeps better when she has a snack before bedtime. We tried giving Dash a snack before bedtime last night, and he slept soundly all night. I guess we'll try the same thing again tonight.

The big liver specialty clinic called today to set up an appointment. When I called them back to confirm my visit, it was a bit disconcerting to hear their call center message. "Press 1 if you are a cancer patient," it said. "Press 2 if you are a transplant recipient," the message continued. When it got to "Press 3 if you are on the transplant waiting list," I didn't want to hear any more. Hopefully, my own appointment is just a precautionary visit.  I feel fine.

Misty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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