Day 3459

Travel is stressful. NASA finally confirmed a launch date for the Falcon Heavy, so I started looking for a hotel. Literally as I was looking online, I started seeing hotels disappear from the availability list. In less than four hours half of the hotels were already gone. I guess everybody else attending the launch was looking at the same time I was. I'm not good making quick decisions and hotel prices can be confusing. The price you see online is usually meaningless because most hotels change their prices everyday based on demand and availability. I picked a few places that looked nice and called the front desk, even though the website showed no availability. I ended up getting one of the last two rooms available at a nice hotel very near the space center. I felt like the clock was ticking the entire time I was making the reservations. The whole experience confirmed my opinion that it is always better to talk with a real person. You can make changes and compromises when you are talking to a real person. Websites aren't flexible at all.

I went back to the hotel with the good French Toast for breakfast this morning. Breakfast was delicious as always, but my appetite keeps shrinking. I could barely finish my meal. Even though I'm a creature of habit, I need to eat less. During the power outage Janet and I just has some fresh fruit for breakfast that didn't need to be refrigerated. A small bowl of peaches, strawberries, and blueberries was just about perfect. Maybe I need to make this my regular morning meal. Even my smoothie is starting to seem too complicated now.

I'm so glad the weather was cooler during our power outage. It's starting to warm up again and we would have been miserable without power with temperatures in the nineties. We were really lucky that temperatures were in the seventies while we had no electricity. Although life is getting back to normal in Dallas, I'm still hearing the sound of chain saws everywhere. The storm must be a bonanza for tree services and lawn care companies. I had no idea there were so many tree trimming services in Dallas. They're everywhere in our neighborhood. So far, the city's Park and Recreation Department seems to be doing the best job of tree removal. City workers were out in force in the park today, sawing up downed trees with chain saws and hauling away the debris in large trucks.

I wrote a letter to my sister asking if she'd like us to stop and visit when we return from Florida. It might be difficult to coordinate a visit with someone who only communicates through the U.S. mail, but we'll see what happens. I mentioned in my letter that a visit might be easier if she started using her phone.

I guess the week starts on Monday, but it always seems to start on Friday for me. Friday's have seemed like Saturday to me for years. I guess that an empty trash can and breakfast at a nearby restaurant signals a new start. It certainly seemed like Saturday today. I almost started to run my regular weekend errands, but then I finally remembered. I hope my memory doesn't become even worse in the years ahead. I forgot to wear my hat again on my morning walk. I guess a sunburned head will eventually jog my memory.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3108

Just heard that a million gallons of raw sewage is headed toward our lake. Evidently a construction crew ruptured a sewer line in a suburb North of here and the sewage flowed into a creek that feeds the lake. Life in the city I guess. We never let our dogs swim in the lake anyway because of an abundance of snakes and the ongoing threat of Leptospirosis. Lots of people do let their dogs swim in the lake though. Maybe when they start seeing dead fish, they'll know something is wrong.

It's going to be a long, hot Summer. The temperature routinely gets above one hundred degrees during the day now. It's still cool enough for Dash if we begin our morning walk at sunrise. Later in the day it gets pretty dicy. Even though Dash still wants to walk in the evening, it isn't safe to go very far. We barely made it to the end of the block this evening.

I'm going to miss watching The Expanse after breakfast on Thursdays. Season Three is over now. I watched the season finale today and although a few major issues were resolved, I was still left wondering what was going to happen next. Since we'll probably have to wait at least a year or two before the series reappears on Amazon Prime, I may have to start reading the James S.A. Corey books. The story The Expanse is based on is an eight book series. The TV show has only made it as far as book three. There's a long way to go before this saga is complete.

I barely got started on the new website project and the client already wants to go in a different direction. It's not even worth the trouble to get upset. Few people are interested in my ideas anymore and I'm not interest in arguing. I'll see if I can figure out how to do what these guys want. If not, it's no great loss. I'm more or less retired anyway.

I keep wondering what is happening with my train collection and whether my artwork has made it safely to New York yet. Why am I still thinking about these things? I'll never see this stuff again. I need to move on and start thinking about the next things I need to part with. I'm nostalgic by nature. Looking back isn't always good though. Instead of focusing on old memories, it would probably be better to start making new ones.

It's been a long week, but at least it's Friday tomorrow. Maybe we'll see another Scissor Tailed Flycatcher on our walk. These birds are always interesting to watch. Maybe the electrician will show up and fix the light in the back yard. Maybe I'll be inspired to find an interesting place to eat in the morning. Hey, Dash's poop still looks normal. That's encouraging. When a dog's poop is more encouraging than the evening news, you know we live in a world that has gone wrong.

Rascal is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2538

It didn't seem like Friday today. It was almost midnight last night before I remembered to take the trash out to the curb. This morning Janet had to remind me that I usually go out to breakfast on Fridays. Basically, my brain was mush after eating that big Thanksgiving meal. I wasn't hungry, but I did end up going out for breakfast. It's relaxing just to get away for a while.

On the way home, the low tire light came on in my car, so I took it up to the Land Rover dealer to see if I'd picked up another nail. It turned out that my right rear tire was a little low for no reason at all. They pumped it up with nitrogen and I was on my way. While I was at the dealership, I noticed that they sell Jaguars now. I guess it makes sense since both cars are manufactured in the same factory. Jaguars and Land Rovers share the same engines and use a lot of the same parts.

My inbox was filled with Black Friday announcements today. There must have been hundreds of them. When did huge sales on the day after Thanksgiving get to be a thing? It probably happened when people decided to put up Christmas trees on the day after Thanksgiving. There were lots of tempting bargains, but I only bought a new iPhone case at a ridiculously low price.

I went to the storage warehouse this afternoon to retrieve the photography gear I'll need for the Santa Paws pet picture events that start next week. I don't go to the storage warehouse much anymore, so I had trouble even remembering my passcode. Once I got inside, I had even more trouble finding all the items I'll need next week. My storage space used to be neat and tidy. Everything was inventoried and easy to find. Now, the place is a disaster. After a decade of filling the place with obsolete and unused gear, I don't even know what's here anymore. I used to think this was just temporary storage until I could retrieve everything and take it to a huge studio loft space where I could put the gear to good use again. Now I know the truth. The storage warehouse will probably never be emptied out and will eventually wind up being fought over by bargain hunters on that Storage Wars show on cable TV.

I'm dreading next month's photo events. I wish I looked forward to things instead of trying to avoid them, but that's just the way it is. I know I'll do a good job. It's just so tiring. I'm thinking of looking for a wrist brace. It's murder holding a heavy camera all day with carpal tunnel syndrome.The knees aren't doing too well these days either. I'll need to set up the Norman strobe lights and test them next week. I don't want any surprise failures. It's amazing that this all stuff works, since my equipment is as old and cranky as I am.

I'm beginning to think that I should have waited until after the holidays to discontinue my heartburn medication. I feel like I ate ten pizzas after yesterday's Thanksgiving dinner. I forget why I tend to have acid reflux problems in the first place, but right now, bone density problems seems like the lesser of two evils.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2130

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, I thought I might have to take Dot to the emergency vet. Today, she was trying to top her personal best on the treadmill. Dot was strong enough today that we even did a few interval sprints. When we speed up the treadmill, she is still going very, very slow, but it's a big deal whenever we see progress. If you're curious what water therapy is like, there's a video of today's therapy session on my Facebook profile page.

The vet checked Dot's heart and abdomen and couldn't find any obvious reason for yesterday's frantic panting and grass eating incident. I got a check list of things to look for if this happens again. Dot's frantic panting is mild compared to the vestibular seizures she's had several times in the past, but it is still alarming. The vet said that if her temperature is normal, her gums are pink, and her abdomen isn't tight or painful, I ought to be OK. I still worry though, because this frantic panting was our first indication that she had abdominal cancer last year.

Work is picking up again. I completed two small website projects and got a new writing job toward the end of the day. I don't think things will ever be as busy as they were three or four years ago, but it is encouraging that people haven't completely forgotten about me. Sometimes I get asked why I don't write a novel or start some ambitions personal project. The truth is that I just don't have the energy. I still need some work coming through the door to pay bills and keep my brain from turning to jelly, but I don't want a lot of work. Caring for the dogs takes an enormous amount of time. I still think one project a day is just about right. No meetings either! Not only is there no time for meetings these days, I no longer have any inclination to go to them.

I was just getting used to Fall when Summer returned. For the past week it has been unusually hot. It's been in the high 90's almost every day this week. This is pretty warm for mid-October. Luckily, it is still pretty cool outside when we take our pre-dawn walks with the dogs. This means that we occasionally wake up with the furnace heating the house and then eat dinner with the air conditioner running. At least the rainy season hasn't started yet. Sometime around Halloween we usually start getting lots of rain.

One of my doctors told me that it is time for new blood work. Why? I'm getting tired of this continuous monitoring. There was a certain urgency when I had Hepatitis C, but now that I'm reasonably healthy again, I'm rapidly losing interest. I'll get the blood tests done next week sometime. I just don't feel like fasting tomorrow. If there were a few more health apps on my Apple Watch I might not need to go to the doctor at all. I'm just waiting for the day when someone comes out with a watch that contains a miniature blood testing module that will prick your wrist several times a day and analyze a minute amount of blood. If they designed the thing right, you probably wouldn't even feel it. Real time blood analysis, just like the real time heart rate monitors they have now would be pretty cool.

I'm ready for Friday. I've taken this week's trash out to the curb. The dogs have been fed and walked. All the accidents in the house have been cleaned up. It's time to recharge my phone, watch an episode of Perry Mason, and go to bed.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1996

I finished my fourth mobile friendly website today. The site is up and running and the client likes it. I feel proficient enough doing these things now that I'm almost ready to try converting some of my more difficult designs. I've actually enjoyed learning this new skill, but if I'm true to form, as soon as I get really good at something, I lose interest. We'll see what happens. I doubt if there's going to be a stampede of people wanting me to build mobile sites for them.

I got a call from Dash's vet today. His test results have come back and one of the tests indicates that he's been exposed to Lyme Disease. This particular test gives false positives frequently, so the vet said there was no reason to get alarmed yet. She is going to contact Dash's oncologist to see whether he thought Dash should begin treatment even though he shows no symptoms yet. Evidently the veterinary community is not in agreement on whether a dog that is not showing symptoms of Lyme Disease should start taking doxycycline immediately. Some say yes, others say no. Ordinarily, I'd want to go ahead with antibiotics, just to be safe, but Dash has had a lot of Clavamox recently to treat his infected paw. You don't want to overdo antibiotics. One thing is certain. There are a ton of ticks in the park, so Dash could have easily been exposed.

It looks like our nice, mild weather isn't going to last very long. Even though yesterday was unusually cool for June, the temperature shot into the 90's today. That's Texas weather for you. It's always bouncing back and forth between extremes. It was kind of funny in a way that two days ago I was fixing the furnace so I could warm the house up a bit and today the air conditioner was running all day. At least the water bill was low this month. I hardly ran the sprinklers at all in May. I need to remember to get the roofers to come out again now that things have dried out. The patches they made earlier this Spring held up well during the May rains, but some additional areas of the original elastomeric coating have starting to bubble up. It is going to be a long, slow process to get a roof that I can completely depend on.

I've got a new business meeting on Friday with a potential website client. The project is for a small non-profit charity that doesn't have much of a budget. I promised one of my neighbors, who is involved with the charity, that I'd do the site, but otherwise I wouldn't be all that interested. I'll look on the bright side though. The simple site will be easy to design and it will give me another chance to polish my responsive design skills. Some of you will wonder why I never seem to be excited about work. Others of you who have been in advertising as long as I have will understand completely.

Since Dot and Dash have different vets now, I always have a chance to get a second opinion. I'll ask Dot's vet if she is at risk for Lyme Disease too when she goes for physical therapy tomorrow afternoon. Who knows. Maybe even Janet and I are at risk. Humans get Lyme Disease too. I had always thought that Lyme Disease was primarily a problem for people on the East Coast. I also thought that only deer ticks transmitted the disease. The disease is starting to creep into Texas though, so maybe I'm wrong on both counts. I'd never know if I had Lyme Disease anyway, since the most common symptoms are fatigue, muscle aches, and joint pain. This is the way I feel all the time.

Friday can't come soon enough this week. I'm tempted to go out for breakfast tomorrow morning and just pretend it's Friday. It's been a long week.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1949

I woke up with an uneasy feeling about today and as the day progressed, it turned out that there were good reasons for my apprehension. Service was unusually slow at breakfast this morning because they were trying to work in a new employee and I just barely got home in time so Janet could leave for work. I hate feeling rushed before eight AM. Later, someone from my insurance company called and said they needed to to photograph my house again. Why? This would be the third time they have done this. I called my agent and he didn't have a clue why the company was requesting these pictures. It can't be good. They probably want to charge more for insuring flat roof houses or something. If this were true, it would be totally unfair. I'm probably the only one in the neighborhood who hasn't gotten a new roof as a result of storm damage. Sadly, leaks don't count as storm damage.

These minor problems were nothing compared to my growing apprehension about my future as a web designer. For over a year, I've been hearing that the static sites I typically create will all be gone in a few years. Over 30% of people primarily use their phones to view websites now. To reach this growing audience, it is becoming mandatory to create responsive websites that automatically resize themselves to fit any platform they are viewed on. It is no longer enough to re-direct iPhone traffic to a much smaller vertical site. There are so many different platforms and such a multitude of potential sizes that making a separate static site for all of them would be impossible. What you need now is smart code that makes your site look equally good whether it is viewed on a phone, a tablet, a laptop, a desktop, or something that isn't even invented yet. This is responsive design and I don't know how to code it yet. To me, it's kind of like going from addition and subtraction to calculus in a single step. I've been reading tutorials for a month now, and it still seems Greek to me.

I got a call from the cancer center today saying it was time for Dot's six month recheck and another ultrasound scan.They didn't even know about her spinal surgery and the long journey to teach her to walk again. When I explained Dot's current condition to the doctors, we all agreed that it would be best to postpone the exam for a while. Dot is making great progress, but she's not ready to be a drop-off patient yet. Dot sailed through her last exam with flying colors, but I'm a bit apprehensive about going through all this again. If the cancer ever returned, I don't know what I'd do. The poor girl has been through enough.

I know I've mentioned that nothing happens on Fridays, but today was surprisingly busy. I finished two articles, did some laundry and household chores, and spent quite a while researching responsive web design. If I don't learn how to create these adaptive, mobile friendly sites soon, I'll probably be out of business within a year. I'm pretty good at dealing with today's increasingly interactive world, but I really miss print. Creating a 4-color magazine ad was fun. Creating a website that looks just as good on a phone as it does on a 30" monitor, not so much.

It's raining now. To beat the rain, I had to leave Dot alone again while I took Dash on a quick evening walk to do his business before the thunder and lightning arrived. I could hear Dot barking when we left, but she was just fine when we returned. I remembered to take her harness off this time as well. We're definitely making progress. I have a feeling that Dot will be doing back-flips and handstands before I even begin to understand responsive design.

Bella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1715

Today is National Dog Day. I was curious how this holiday originated and quickly discovered that creating your own "national day" has become somewhat of a cottage industry. Creating recognized national days has become a hobby for some and a calling for others. It is remarkably easy to create your own special day. You or I could do it if we had the inclination. The woman who created National Dog Day in 2004 has also created National Cat Day, National Living Room Day, and National Farm Animals Day. Although there are only 365 days in a year, there are already over 13,000 officially recognized national days. This all seems kind of weird to me. Here I had been thinking that National Dog Day was a real holiday and it is just a totally made up event created by a woman who likes holidays.

My own important dog day is tomorrow. It is Dot's birthday. Our best guess is that she will be 14 years old tomorrow. I say this because we've been telling people she was 13 all this year. It's hard to know exactly how old a rescue dog is. When we initially adopted Dot, we thought she was about three years old. Our vet thought that this was a good guess. She was fully grown at the time and her teeth looked like those of an adult dog. We may be wrong. Dot could be older or younger than we think she is. August 27 is not the day Dot was born. It was the day we adopted her. It is still a very special day. Especially this year. When Dot had a 105 degree fever a few months ago and was clinging to life in the ICU, we didn't know if she would make it to her next birthday. The fact that both of our dogs survived cancer this year and are now healthy and happy again makes this a very good year. We will definitely celebrate tomorrow.

I spent more time taking Dot to her physical therapy session today than I did working. It's time consuming being a dog's rehab nurse. Dot did great on the underwater treadmill and walked a full twenty minutes. She is strong enough now that I've started walking both dogs together again. We had an enjoyable pre-dawn walk this morning and another not so enjoyable, but very necessary, walk in the afternoon heat. Dot really got her exercise today.

We used to bake the dogs a special three layer cake on their birthdays. At some point in the past, I even took a cake decorating class and became quite adept at decorating fancy dog cakes. Neither of us has the energy for that sort of thing anymore. I don't think we've baked a dog cake in over three years. These days, we either go buy a cake or do nothing at all. In truth, the dogs would rather have a nice juicy piece of chicken than a cake anyway. We'll conjure up some sort of a celebration.

I wish it were Friday tomorrow. I actually wish every day were Friday. I could make that happen easy enough by just going out to eat for breakfast every morning and picking up something tasty for dinner at Whole Foods or Central Market. This seems all wrong though. Once a week is a treat. Every day would be an indulgence. We can't have that. Indulgence has always been my personal road to ruin.

Cammy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1710

I've been asking my veterinarian friends how they treat incontinence in dogs and almost every one of them has given me a different answer. Some prefer to use estrogen products like Incurin. Others would rather use Proin, which is actually a type of decongestant called Phenylpropanolamine. There are herbal remedies, surgical solutions, specific exercise regimes, grain free diets, and a host of other alternatives that may or may not be effective. It's frustrating that nobody seems to agree on the cause of Dot's incontinence or the best way to treat it. For now, I just try convince myself that she's getting a little better, one day at a time.

Dot is certainly improving physically. We had a nice walk this morning and she was able to go almost twenty minutes on the underwater treadmill today. I was real pleased with her progress until I got home and read another article that said too much exercise could actually cause incontinence in some dogs. I feel like I'm dealing with an information overload. There are way too many things that might be causing problems and no simple solution.

There were quite a few website problems to deal with today. One client thought she had malware on her site. Another sent me a bio to upload that was so long it could have been a short novel. Everyone is worried about getting a bad review on Yelp. Increasingly, I am being asked to do things that have nothing to do with design. I try to roll with the punches and adapt to changing times, but this certainly isn't what I started out doing.

I'm getting to where I hate to even turn on the TV these days. The news is a continual barrage of riots, Ebola virus scares, terrorism atrocities, forest fires, floods, and unbridled stupidity. No wonder so many people are poorly informed. You just don't want to know about a lot of this stuff. It's too depressing. My solution is to watch a lot of old Top Gear and Dr. Who re-runs on BBC. Other people prefer Netflix or Candy Crush Saga. Anything is probably better than the sobering reality that we are all on the verge of complete chaos.

At least it's Friday tomorrow. I'm going to have a delicious breakfast and get a haircut. I'm hoping that Dot is going to make it through the night without peeing on something. Surely something good will happen tomorrow. When I was walking the dogs this morning I noticed the meadows were filled with little white Rain Lilies that just appeared out of nowhere. That's kind of how life is. You get a bad thunderstorm that scares the dogs and then a few days later there are all these pretty Rain Lilies.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1704

The day passed surprisingly quickly, considering how little I actually got accomplished. I had a pleasant pre-dawn walk with the dogs. When the sun came up, I had an equally pleasant breakfast at my favorite restaurant. Maybe I'm just imagining things, but Dot's incontinence seems to be improving a bit. We almost made it till 4 AM this morning before she had to go outside. There were no accidents during the day either. I don't tempt fate though. I still take Dot outside every two or three hours.

It's amazing how quickly the temperature rises once the sun comes up. We start the day in the low 70's and end it in the high 90's. There's an equally big difference between inside and outside temperatures. I'm usually too cold inside and too hot outside. The dogs seem to feel the same way, so we spend the day going outside to warm up and then back inside to cool down again.

My two errands for the day both involved staying in compliance with the law. I got new city tags for Dot so she's legal for another year. I usually get the tags when she has her annual exam, but we had to postpone the exam and accompanying shots because of her recent surgery. Hopefully, the new tags should put an end to the late notices I've been getting from the city. Next on the list was getting a new registration sticker for my car. The government isn't good at many things, but they're ruthlessly efficient at making sure your dogs and cars are registered.

The dogs are going to get a bath this weekend. Dot has peed on herself far too often and Dash is just dirty. At this time of year, some of the native grass in the park becomes covered with a sticky substance that inevitably gets on the dogs as we walk along the trails. Maybe these plants regenerate by using dogs to spread their seeds far and wide. It sure is a mess though. After very walk, I have to clean all this sticky stuff off their legs and paws before we go inside.

Another thing that happens at this time of year is that the possums return to the yard and start digging big holes in the grass. I don't know what they're looking for, but they sure make a mess. It's hard enough keeping the grass growing in the August heat, but this week's assault by hungry possums has just about decimated the St. Augustine grass in the back yard.  I try to keep the lawn watered, but sometimes I think that the soft, damp ground just makes it easier for the possums to dig.

It would be nice to sleep in late tomorrow morning, but I doubt that we'll get the opportunity. Once I get up to let Dot out at 3 or 4 in the morning, it's hard to get back to sleep again. We're making progress though. We've gone from 2 AM to 3 AM and now 4 AM. Pretty soon we might just make it through the night.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1627

The day started out well. We had a nice walk this morning and there were even patches of blue sky, instead of the predicted rain. I had a fabulous breakfast at my favorite restaurant, got groceries for the weekend, and then returned home to begin the day's work. I made surprisingly good progress on several writing assignment and even thought I might have time to go to the gym this afternoon. Then I hit the save button in my open Microsoft Word document and nothing happened. I kept getting a message saying that I didn't have the right permissions to save anything to my own hard drive.

This has happened before. For a computer system that is supposed to be as effortless and trouble free as a Mac, permissions problems are surprisingly frequent. It's a lot harder to repair a drive or a volume than it used to be too. Life was so much easier when you could just slap the appropriate CD in a slot and repair your drive locally. Now you have to re-boot your computer holding the option key down and select a special online disk repair utility. When you re-boot this way, the computer doesn't recognize any of your stored passwords, so I had to search all over the office for my WiFi password before I could even access the handy fix-it tools hidden away in the cloud. It took me forever to find this unnecessarily long and extremely easy to forget password, but eventually I was able to get online, find the repair utility and repair my hard drive. I never did figure out why my disk permissions had gone bad in the first place, but I wouldn't be surprised if Google or Amazon had something to do with it. According to my Little Snitch application,  these two snoopy companies are constantly trying to access my data. By the time I finally managed to repair and save my hastily written Microsoft Word file, it was pointless to go to the gym. It was almost time to feed the dogs again.

I'm seeing a lot more bunnies and baby ducks this Spring. I suspect this means that the neighborhood coyote pack has moved on to greener pastures. One year the coyotes had their den in a dense grove of trees near our house and they decimated the small animal population in the park. I would see duck and bunny carcasses almost every morning. Sometimes the pack would wake me up in the middle of the night when they were making a kill. It was kind of spooky. I like that the owls and hawks feed on the ubiquitous mice and rats in the park, but I would just as soon see the coyotes go elsewhere. If the new neighborhood cat knew about the coyotes, it would definitely want to be an indoor cat.

It seems like it should be a holiday weekend since is so near the end of the month, but I guess that was last weekend. I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. I could always clean the house, pull weeds, or stock up on toilet paper at Sam's Club, but I hope I find something more exciting to do.

Ollie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1577

We still don't know whether Dash will be getting radiation therapy tomorrow. The cancer center said they're still working on the machine this evening and will call us between 6AM and 7AM tomorrow morning to let us know whether to bring Dash in for treatment. There must be a serious problem with the machine, since they've been working on it for almost three days now. Hopefully, everything will be fixed tomorrow. I worry that a big gap in treatments might compromise the effectiveness of the therapy.

Machines always seem to be the problem. On a much smaller scale, I've been having weird problems with my iPhone lately. I'll start to take a picture and the phone will abruptly shut down like the battery was dead. When I go to recharge the battery, I  typically discover that it still has a 50% charge. I went on a couple of Apple forums and discovered that this was actually a common problem for people who have upgraded to IOS 7. Apparently it is some sort of firmware problem where the battery controller gets scrambled ant doesn't know whether the battery is charged or not. I wish Apple would concentrate on developing a better battery, rather than making an even thinner case or a larger screen. I don't particularly care about the size of the phone. I just want it to work reliably.

One of my clients has been having problems with their online forms ever since the hosting company made a server change. The hosting company called me today and told me they had resolved the problem. I tried out one of the forms and quickly discovered that it still didn't work. This is the problem in dealing with technical support. Just saying that a problem is fixed, doesn't necessarily mean that it is actually fixed. It doesn't matter if the problem is a software glitch, a billing discrepancy, or a password that doesn't work, it usually takes at least five tries before you eventually get it right.

Despite all the problems, I managed to get quite a bit of work done today. I efficiently wrote and submitted three new articles. Then I wasted a ton of time inefficiently struggling to resolve a variety of technical issues over the phone with technical support people in India. I have a hard enough time understanding these people and and even harder time finding a satisfactory solution to my problems.

I was kind of disappointed to learn that Stephen Colbert will replace David Letterman. I was hoping that Craig Ferguson would get the job. Ferguson's lazy, largly unscripted brand of humor doesn't appeal to everyone, but he's become my go-to guy when I can't get to sleep at night. The guy does the same thing over and over again with minor variations, but it still seems funny to me. Maybe I'm just jealous that Ferguson gets paid for not really giving a shit about what he does. I wish I could get paid for not giving a shit.

Who knows what will happen tomorrow.  Either Dash will return to his radiation treatments, or the entire treatment schedule will slip even further behind. I sympathize with the folks at the cancer center. Their fancy radiation machine is much, much more expensive than my balky large format printer, but I'm sure their frustration is the same when the machine refuses to work for some inexplicable reason.

Apollo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1563

Dash got himself in a snit today when he discovered that it was Dot who was going to the vet instead of him. He's been getting all the attention lately, so I think he just assumed that all car rides are automatically reserved for him now. Dot needs attention too, so we resumed our acupuncture and water therapy sessions for the first time in several weeks. Dot did very well in the tank today and seemed quite relaxed during her acupuncture session as well. I think she enjoyed having a day out by herself.

My accountant called today and said that the good news was that I was getting a tax refund this year, but the bad news was that I wouldn't be getting much. Taxes used to upset me and I would fret about them endlessly. I don't even care anymore. I trust my accountant and I don't really want to think about taxes anymore. If I need to write a check, I write a check. If I get money back, it is quickly gone anyway. Either way, it's not going to change my life much.

I wish I hadn't told the HVAC guy to come over tomorrow, because now I won't be able to go out for my regular Friday breakfast. I guess I forgot it was Friday tomorrow. Dash will be away getting another radiation treatment in the morning, but this will probably make Dot bark at the HVAC guy even more. She gets real serious about protecting the house when she knows she's on her own. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep the peace and convince Dot to settle down. She's way too old to work herself into a frenzy over a repairman in the house.

I finally convinced one of my writing clients to let me choose my own subject matter. I wrote my first self-generated article today and hope they like it. I realize that I won't always be able to choose what I write about, but it will be nice when I can. I really prefer working this way.

The bird decoys on the cars are working. I haven't cleaned bird poop off either car for over three days now. Of course there's always a chance that the warm weather has just caused the troublesome bird to move elsewhere. I'd prefer to think it was my brilliant idea that stopped the bird from making a big mess on the car every morning.

This week went very quickly, but the time can't go quickly enough for me these days. I'll be so glad when Dash's cancer treatments and my own Hepatitis C treatments are a thing of the past.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1529

It was an absolutely normal Friday. Normal is good. There was no dog crisis. There was no impossible deadline crisis. There was no crisis at all. The dogs are enjoying the Springlike weather. We had a great walk this morning and my shoulder has finally gotten strong enough to try walking both dogs together again. Maybe I just got lucky today when I walked Dot and Dash together for the first time in weeks, but my shoulder gave me no problems. Knock on wood.

I had time for an enjoyable breakfast at my favorite restaurant and picked up some tasty food for the weekend at Central Market afterwards. Since I got started early this morning, there was still plenty of time to finish all my assignments.

I was finally able to get my tree trimmer to commit to a date for cleaning up the broken tree limbs from  last December's ice storm. I don't know why this has taken so long, but everything seems to take a long time these days. There is quite a bit of damage and I'm sure the tree guy will try to convince me to saw down the entire tree. I don't want to do that. The large old Oak has been around for over 100 years and I think it's got a few years left.

My liver doctor called this morning and told me that the initial test results looked good and that I should continue taking the pills. Jeez, I wouldn't think stopping was even an option. When I first received the medication, I read right on the bottle of the expensive pills that if you didn't complete the entire twelve week treatment regime, the virus would just become more resistant. We definitely don't want that.

Dash acted so normal today that it's hard to imagine that he still might be very, very sick. I'm dreading the appointment with the oncologist on Monday morning. His assessment of the situation could snap me back to reality very quickly. For now, we'll concentrate on having a nice weekend. The weather still looks good, so he'll get a trip to his favorite dog park. Unfortunately, he'll also get a bath. If Dash has to have surgery, he might not be able to have a bath for a long time. Janet says we might as well make sure he's clean now.

I learned something new about LED light bulbs today. Unbeknownst to me, most of the electrical energy supplied to an LED bulb is converted to heat rather than light. I guess this explains why most of these bulbs have large metal heat sink fins around the circumference of the bulb. At any rate, even though these high-tech bulbs use far less energy than a normal incandescent bulb, they must dissipate lot more heat than an equivalent incandescent. So, where does all this heat go? Well, it often goes straight to the thermal protection switch inside the fixture and ruins it. This is basically why the can light in my bathroom has started blinking on and off and why a similar fixture in my office burned out a few months ago. So the "last forever" LED lights don't last forever after all. And they burn up your fixtures in the process. Is all this advanced technology even necessary? I was perfectly happy with my land line phone, cassette tapes, and an IBM Selectric typewriter.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1480

My biological clock finally seems to have reset itself. It's a Friday and is actually feels like a Friday. The guys at my favorite restaurant know me so well now that I don't have to say a word when I arrive for my Friday breakfast. The barista has my coffee waiting for me and my order is on it's way to the kitchen before I even arrive at the register to pay for it. Consistency can be boring, but it does have its benefits. I like consistency.

My liver doctor called today and told me that the newly FDA approved medication for Hepatitis C is available now and they want to get my treatment started this month. Finally! I've been waiting several years to hear this news. The new treatment is supposedly much more effective than the traditional Interferon and Ribavirin combo, with far fewer serious side effects. I've really been trying to avoid the Interferon and Ribavirin treatment because it is horrendously expensive, makes you feel like you've got the flu for a year, and can cause serious problems with anemia. I was also never wild about injecting myself with the Interferon. Hopefully, this new medication is a pill.

I made it back to the gym this afternoon, but I didn't have time to complete my entire workout. Several tight deadlines really chopped up my day. I'm having increasing difficulty completing all my assignments. Either the work I'm getting now is more difficult, or I'm getting slower. Maybe it's a little bit of both, but I certainly don't have much free time anymore. Free time is good. If I had more free time, I'd probably be a lot more interesting person.

It's getting to be an effort to maintain my healthy diet. When I started eating healthy six or eight months ago, I scoffed at people who didn't have the willpower to maintain their diets. Dieting is easy, I thought. I did really well for a long time, but now I'm starting to have a little more sympathy for friends who find it difficult to diet. My enemy is boredom. I was eating all the right foods, but now I'm bored with them. I'm tired of Kale, and those evil twins, sugar and wheat are tempting me again. I'd love to have French Toast for breakfast tomorrow, but I won't. I think I can keep fighting the good fight, but it does leave me wondering why the fun things in life are almost universally bad for you.

Janet tells me that there are some new rescue Dalmatians to photograph, so maybe we'll do that in the morning. It might be a good day to go to the dog park too, especially since it is supposed to get up to 65 degrees tomorrow, before dipping below freezing again on Sunday. Did I mention I like consistency?  This inconsistent weather is driving me crazy.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1473

When I saw some aggressive dogs ahead on our morning walk, I quickly changed direction and picked an alternate route. This was fortunate for the dogs, but not so good for me. The new trail was filled with fresh horse poop, which Dash devoured at every opportunity, and lots of mud. I cleaned the mud off the dogs paws when I returned home, but I really wished I could have cleaned Dash inside and out. I don't know how Dash acquired his taste for horse poop, but it's fairly disgusting.

With the morning walk out of the way, I was off to my favorite restaurant for my perennial Friday favorite: two poached eggs served over a bed of pulled pork, peppers, and hash browned potatoes. Yes, it was another completely normal Friday.

After a leisurely breakfast, I picked up some groceries for the weekend, filled the car with gas, and settled down to another day of writing and website work. I often wonder why I stay so busy while doing stuff that really doesn't matter. I guess it must matter to somebody. I'm not exactly setting the world on fire here, but I am paying the bills. When I look at my Google+ stream, I'm humbled by all the people I see doing truly remarkable things. Of course, all I have to do is look at Facebook to realize that I'm actually still doing pretty well.

It's getting harder and harder to walk Dot and Dash together. Dot likes a sedate walk on level ground where she doesn't have to worry about falling or stumbling. Dash loves to race up hills, chase rabbits, and be as disruptive as he possible can. There's nothing wrong with either type of behavior. It's just hard for an old dog and a young dog to agree on things. It's my job to find a middle ground that will keep both of these dogs happy. I figure if I can do this, I can do almost anything.

With Janet away, I'm having a very difficult time telling one day from another. Her very predictable rituals always gave me a clue about what was going to happen next. The dogs don't care what day it is. To them, and increasingly to me, the weekdays and the weekends are all the same. I've got to be careful here, or I could easily end up working straight through the weekend and accidentally squander my two days of rest. My work is so amorphous that I sometime have difficulties telling the difference between work and leisure as well. Am I working all the time, or never working at all? I guess it all depends on your point of view.

I was thinking about going to see Gravity tomorrow in 3-D at a local iMax theater. The nearest iMax theater seems a bit too far away though, so I'll probably just wait until Gravity comes out on DVD in February. I'm not in much of a hurry about anything these days.

Humphrey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1466

I think I could spend the rest of my life just getting my ducks in a row. Now that I know I'm losing the aircraft hanger where my Citroën SM has been safely ensconced for the past decade, I'm scrambling around trying to figure out what to do next. Can I find parts? Can I find a mechanic? Can I find a buyer? One way or another, I've got to get the car running reliably again. Nobody in their right mind would ever buy a non-running Citroën SM. When you open the hood on this thing, you quickly realize that only the French could come up with something so mind-numbingly complex. The transmission is in front of the engine. There are inboard disk brakes, and you have to take off the right front wheel just to change the battery. The steering, brakes and suspension system all operate from a central hydraulic system. If there is a leak, the car sinks to about an inch above the ground and you can't even turn the steering wheel. After sitting ten years in storage, I'm almost certain that the hydraulic system has a leak.

Breakfast was definitely the high point of this day. I love having two poached eggs, served over a bed of spicy pulled pork, peppers, and hash browned potatoes. I linger over three cups of coffee while I eat this delicious Friday morning treat and then I start my day. For one reason or another, everything moved at a snail's pace today. Articles took longer to write. The grocery store was crowded. And the dogs weren't very interested in walking. I blame this all on the weather. After two balmy days this week where the temperature reached 70 degrees, it is turning cold again. A cold front blew through town around mid-afternoon and I'm afraid Winter has returned. Bad weather slows me down enormously. I don't like inclement weather at all. If I could find somewhere where the skies were always blue and the temperature was always 70 degrees, I bet my productivity would double.

While the rest of the world has probably finished their Christmas shopping by now, I haven't even started mine. It just doesn't seem like Christmas is just a few days away. We've got the tree up and a pretty wreath in the hallway, but some days I just forget they are there. It could just as easily be August or February. Maybe I'll get in the spirit of things this weekend. I certainly hope so, since I'm definitely running out of time.

I hope it warms up enough to take the dogs to the dog park on Sunday as well. With the ice storm and a busy holiday work schedule, Dot and Dash haven't had a dog park outing in almost a month. I can tell that Dash really misses these opportunities to be off-leash and mingle with other dogs. Even though he got to spend the night in a fancy hotel and join us on one of our Santa Paws photo events last week, it's not the same as going to a dog park. To heck with a White Christmas, I just want a warm Sunday.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1410

It was a good day. Nothing went wrong that I can recall, and that is rare for me. After I finished giving the dogs their morning walk, I went to the doctor to get a new round of blood work done. Hopefully, this test will be billed to the right insurance company.

Since I wasn't in the right part of town to eat at one of my regular Friday restaurants, I tried someplace new. I had a very tasty breakfast scrambler at a place that looked straight out of the 1950's. The menu was simple and hearty. I received a hand written bill scribbled on one of those little green and white pads that almost all restaurants used thirty years ago. I think the place only accepted cash, but I may go back. The food was good.

The best part of the day was the weather. So far, we have had a near perfect Fall. Temperatures have been in the mid-60's. Skies have been clear and blue. The humidity has been low. And best of all, the usual October rains haven't materialized yet. I can't complain and would love to see this beautiful weather continue through Thanksgiving.

I'm getting quite a few new LinkedIn connections, considering that I've totally ignored the place since the dawn of social media. My LinkedIn connections seem to fall in three distinct categories: former co-workers who connect as a courtesy to acknowledge that we are both still alive, sales professionals who would connect with an octopus or jar of peanut butter if it helped their rankings, and delusional Europeans who somehow think my company is bigger and more important than it actually is.

Dot was strong and full of energy today. I guess I will just have to accept that she has good days and bad days now. I'm grateful for the good days. Dot and Dash were happy campers and seemed to be enjoying the exceptional weather. For my part, I managed to get caught up with all my work assignments and will start the weekend with a clean slate. It would have been nice if I'd gotten a big check in the mail this afternoon, but at least I've gotten most of my October bills paid. I know I'm not the world's most appreciative parson, but at least for now, life is good.

Patch is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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