Day 4118

The stores were crowded today. Passover is almost over so I guess most people were buying for Easter meals. Some stores are discounting masks and toilet paper now. There doesn't seem to be a shortage of anything. Those stickers on the floor that tell people to stay six feet apart are largely ignored these days. It basically just seemed like a normal shopping day.

While I was out this morning I stopped at an abandoned Fry's store that was selling fixtures and equipment. There were some great bargains for anyone starting a business that required lots of bins and out of date computers. The store's PC's and printers were all on sale for $50 each. I don't know who would buy these things though. They were all old and showed lots of wear. I bought nothing.

When we walked Dawn today, she took the new route that she discovered yesterday again. We have no idea why this route seems more appealing now. As we made out way through the neighborhood, we kept noticing that there was an unusual amount of remodeling and landscaping projects going on. Everyone appears to be fixing up their houses and yards. Maybe some people are hurting from the pandemic, but I'm not seeing it. The real estate market is booming. The stock market is booming. A lot of people seem to be doing better than they ever were.

Janet was gone for most of the afternoon, so Dawn and I spent some quality time together. I stayed outside with her for quite a while, but inside she still won't leave the bedroom. When I fixed her dinner, she wouldn't even come out and eat it until Janet returned. It's been a year now, so she should have adjusted to anything that needs adjusting. Maybe I'm missing something, but it just doesn't look like it's going to happen.

I'm still spending a little time each day familiarizing myself with the new star tracker and camera. I oscillate between genuine interest and befuddlement. Sometimes I look at this stuff and wonder why I even bought it. The night sky is interesting, but if I had a choice I'd probably opt for a good night's sleep. If I ever really got serious about backyard astronomy, I'd probably have to start writing the blog during the day. By the time I finish each night's post, I'm done for the day. On most nights I'm way too tired to spend another three hours staring up at the sky.

Today I was almost too tired to take my long walk. I definitely didn't set any records this afternoon. My foot hurt for most of the walk and my right knee still feels stiff. I saw the mean little duck that chased away all the larger ducks while I was walking. I haven't seen her in over a month and was wondering if she was still around. Today she was peacefully eating with a bunch of Coots. Most of the White Pelicans have flown away, but there are still a few stragglers. I thought they would all leave together, but there are still about half a dozen left.

I tried running my laptop off of an external drive this afternoon in hopes that I could get it to run the software I'll need for the astrophotography workshop in May. The laptop ran way too slow to be useful unfortunately. Sadly, I'll probably end up attending the workshop with the wrong cameras and computer, just like I did last time. I'm not about to convert to a PC just for a few evenings under a dark sky.

I'm already looking forward to Easter dinner. Such a simple life I lead. I mostly just think about food and wonder why Dawn doesn't like me.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3385 - April Fool's Day

I went to Fry's to get some printer ink today. This used to be the place everybody went for anything related to technology. The store is a ghost town now. The aisles look like they haven't been restocked in months and there are usually only one or two people manning 45 empty check out registers. Most of the printer ink was gone. The few ink cartridges that remained seemed like they'd been sitting on the shelf for five years. Of course they didn't have the ink I was looking for. I really wonder how this store manages to stay open. It looks like I'll have to start buying all my ink online.

I had a lengthy work related conversation this afternoon. It's been a while. A former client and I were trying to figure out something we'd done five years ago. Google was finding html documents that we both thought had been erased long ago. Where were these files located and how could we get rid of them? We finally figured out how something had slipped through the cracks and were able to find the files on a server I thought wasn't even being used anymore. Hopefully, we erased the files correctly this time.

Dash is getting really picky about food again. This has happened before, but I thought we'd put this problem behind us since Dash has been eating well for quite a while now. It's been really hard to give him his meds this week and we've had to look for alternatives to his regular meals. He'll eat a little bit of this and a little bit of that, but you can tell he just isn't interested in food. Today he only ate about half of what he should be eating. This isn't good. Dash was losing weight even when he was eating well. I'm really hoping this is temporary. Maybe he just has an upset stomach. We've got a vet appointment scheduled for Wednesday. Maybe the vet can give us some suggestions.

I couldn't find my regular coffee this week, so I bought another brand that seemed similar. It tasted fine, but there is more caffeine than I like. My head has been buzzing today. I've also got heartburn from eating leftover pizza. None of this stuff used to bother me. It sucks getting old. I'm sure Dash would agree. Probably something similar is going on with his stomach. I wish he could tell me what is bothering him. If I knew, I'm almost certain it wouldn't be that hard to find something he would eat.

I've got a dental appointment tomorrow. In theory this is just a routine cleaning, but you never know when you go to the dentist. I guess I'll take the broken Essix retainer with me. I'm hoping they'll tell me that I don't need to wear this thing anymore, but probably they'll want me to come in next week so they can make new impressions.

The first bid to replace the roof came in today. A little higher than I expected. A lot higher actually. I think I bought my first house for less than these guys want to put on a new engineered roof. I wish I could fix the roof by buying a few cans of that Liquid Rubber in a Can that you see advertised on TV. Unfortunately nothing is ever that easy. Maybe the remaining bids will be more reasonable.

The roof can wait. All I want now is a good night's sleep. Are you listening Dash? I need you to cooperate.

Haley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2727

I thought today might be a good day to renew my passport. It wasn't. Things have certainly changed a lot since the last time I renewed a passport. I was thinking that I would be in and out in ten minutes, but the line extended outside the building. Entire families appeared to be applying for passports. I quickly turned around and went home. If I joined that line, I would have been at the passport office for the rest of the day. I dread going back to that building, but it doesn't appear that I can renew online. You can renew a passport by mail, but I tried that once years ago and after weeks of waiting, they told me that the photo I sent wasn't the official size and they rejected my application. I'm not doing that again. It's weird that you can't renew online like you can with a driver's license, but I gave up trying to understand the government years ago. Sometime this Summer I'll have a day with absolutely nothing to do and I'll go see if the line is any shorter.

The trip to the passport office wasn't the only thing that didn't go smoothly today. Dash is reluctant to walk again. I finally convinced him to take a short walk this morning, but I couldn't get him to leave the yard this afternoon. I wish I knew what was going on in his head. Our walks in the park used to be his favorite part of the day.

It was time to send my June invoices out today, but when I turned on the envelope printer, it was out of ink. This printer is old, so a lot of places don't carry the ink anymore. Unfortunately, I can never figure out how to print envelopes properly on the other printers. I thought I was going to make my second wasted trip of the day, but amazingly, Fry's had the ink I needed. The fact that nobody shops at Fry's anymore probably worked in my favor. The boxes of ink were dusty and had probably sat on the shelf for years.

I was planning to take Dash to the vet tomorrow for his triglyceride test, but I couldn't find anyone to confirm whether he's waited long enough since his previous test. I know they told me at the time, but I forgot. I'll try to call the vet tomorrow and schedule something for Wednesday. Dash hates the fasting tests that force him to delay his breakfast. He doesn't even know that he dodged a bullet today.

I wonder when life is going to start feeling normal again. It still feels pretty empty. After three years of making Dot's special needs my only priority, a lot of stuff just doesn't seem to matter anymore. I suppose things will change, but I don't know when. For the time being, I'll just keep checking necessary chores off my list. It keeps me busy.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2208 - New Year's Day

I woke up around 5 AM to the sound of Dot trying to throw up. Why does this always happen on a holiday? I remember we had a similar problem on Thanksgiving. We took her outside and she immediately tried to eat leaves. This would have only made things worse , so we brought Dot inside again and let her lick an ice cube until she calmed down a bit. I don't know when we discovered that licking an ice cube often causes the urge to throw up to subside, but it sometimes works. Maybe she just had a dry throat. The next time I took her outside, she pooped instead of trying to eat leaves again. We got lucky. We all went back to bed for another hour or so and then fixed the dogs breakfast and had our first walk of 2016.

It was still really cold outside. If it wasn't so important for Dot to keep moving her rear legs, I think we'd just skip the walks on days like this. When we returned, Janet went to the store to get some orange juice to make Mimosas with the leftover New Years champagne while I cooked French Toast for breakfast. It was a nice way to start the year, expecially since Dot wasn't as sick as it first appeared.

After breakfast I installed the new version of Media Composer I downloaded yesterday. The first thing I saw when I opened the application was a large error message telling me that my computer didn't have enough memory to run the software. WTF? My computer has lots of memory. I work with huge files in Photoshop all the time and had no problem running the previous version of Media Composer. Apparently all the trouble I went through yesterday to update this software was for nothing. It wasn't going to work. I sure wish I'd known this before I bought the new version.

I enjoy a challenge though, so I was determined to make this work. After a little research on Google, I realized that Avid really wanted me to be running their software on one of those sleek new black Macintosh towers that look like some sort of a space age wastebasket. My own computer was way too old and slow. Hey, not so fast. A little more research revealed that my aging Mac might still be able to run the new software if I maxed out the memory. It was worth a try. So, where do you find computer memory on New Years Day? Oddly, Fry's was still open today.

I got in the car and drove to Fry's. I bought two 4 GB DDR3 SDRAM memory modules and then went on Google again to figure out how to open up my computer. Against all odds, I had the right kind of tiny screwdriver to open the case, installed the memory modules properly, and everything worked. The next time I tried to open Media Composer, it worked. This new version sure looks a lot like the old version, but there must be something to make it worth all the trouble I went through to install it.

New Years used to be a day where everybody watched the Rose Bowl Parade in the morning and then spent the rest of the day watching four different bowl games on TV. First there was the Sugar Bowl. Then came the Cotton Bowl. The big one was the Rose Bowl in California, followed by the Orange Bowl in the evening in Florida. Now, most of these bowl games are named after a corporate sponsor and aren't even played on New Years Day. The Cotton Bowl Classic isn't played in the Cotton Bowl anymore. There is still a game with this name, but it is played in the Dallas Cowboys stadium on New Years Eve. I have no idea who won.

Today didn't even seem like a holiday, but it wasn't a bad way to start the year. Dot gave us a scare this morning, but she's OK now. My computer gave me another scare, but I still managed to show it show it who's boss. We made it through the first day of 2016. Now, there's only 364 days to go.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1837

I got Janet one of those Jawbone activity trackers as a stocking stuffer gift, but unfortunately I forgot that she has a small instead of a medium size wrist. I took the little UP band back this morning to exchange it for a smaller size and was lucky to find one in exactly the same color. When I went to the exchange desk, they gave me a credit, but told me that the band would cost $25 more than I paid a day and a half ago. WTF? "This is exactly the same thing as the medium size band," I said. At first they tried to tell me that the smaller sizes cost more, but I reminded them that the entire end aisle display with every size and color was the same price. "Well, that was a special Christmas price," the clerk said. "It's after Christmas now." "That would be fine if I bought this today, but I bought it Christmas Eve," I said. "All I want is the same thing in a smaller size." When it became apparent that I wasn't in the mood to pay $25 more for something I had already purchased, a manager intervened and told me that he would adjust the price so I could make a direct exchange. As I was leaving, the manager told me somewhat sternly that prices in this store could change on a dime and that I should never expect the price to stay the same overnight. What a strange experience. All over town stores were having after Christmas sales and this store chose to raise it's prices instead.

When I went out for breakfast this morning it seemed like Christmas never even happened. Most of the customers were staring at their phones and eating breakfast in a hurry, just like they usually do. As I ordered my meal, the thought occurred to me that if I was still doing gallery shows, I would probably make huge prints of the almost identical Instagram pictures I've been taking of these meals and people would wonder what the miniscule differences in each picture meant. Of course, the pictures mean absolutely nothing unless you see them as evidence of OCD behavior.

It's been a really slow week. I think all my clients are on vacation. It was so slow this afternoon that I joined the dogs on the bad and watched the Dr. Who Christmas Special that I had recorded on the DVR yesterday. Despite an almost impossibly convoluted plot, this ended up being one of the most entertaining of these annual Christmas Specials I've seen in years. The Steven Moffat script was an unabashed fairy tale about dreams buried within dreams. It was also the first completely modern interpretation of the Santa Claus story I think I've ever seen. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a lazy afternoon.

Janet picked up a couple of rubber snakes for me at the Dollar Store. A couple of months ago a friend told me that birds were afraid of snakes and that I should try something like this and see whether it would convince the bird who continually poops on my car to move on to somebody else's car. I placed one of the rubber snakes on my driver's side mirror this evening. We'll see what the bird thinks tomorrow morning.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1698

Today was busy. My big task was replacing some door locks. I've been postponing this for over a year, because the door hardware is old and non-standard. I was afraid if I broke the old locks while removing the rusty screws and the new locks didn't fit, I'd be stuck with buying an entirely new door. I worked slowly and methodically, managing to remove all the rusty parts without breaking anything. Luckily, I measured everything correctly and the new locks fit like a glove.

Dot did pretty well today. There were relatively few accidents around the house and she had a great walk in the park this morning. We're still not going very far, but Dot enjoys walking along the shoreline. We took things slow and easy, giving Dot a chance to smell everything along the way. She may not be strong, but she definitely is happy. Janet found some waterproof material at a fabric store and we're going to try to make our own custom sized pee pads for Dot to sleep on. It seems like an easy enough task. We should be able to sew some absorbent cotton material to the waterproof backing and have something at least as good as the crib liners we've been using. The crib liners just aren't big enough and when Dot does her circling dance to lie down, she always seems to end up making a mess of the checkerboard of small pads I've laid out for her. No matter where I place the pads, she always winds up with her butt in a crack between two of the pads. One giant waterproof pad would be much better.

I needed to get some ink for a very old printer, so I thought I'd try to find it at Fry's, instead of ordering it online. Fry's isn't very popular anymore and a lot of their merchandise seems to sit on the shelves for years. I've found discontinued computer supplies there before, and sure enough, I found the ink I was looking for today. The large store was virtually empty. Half the fluorescent lighting in the ceiling was turned off to cut costs, and it felt like the air conditioning was turned off as well. It was kind of sad. Five years ago, this store would have been packed on a Saturday afternoon. Now, I guess everyone prefers to buy their electronic toys online. Slowly but surely, Amazon.com is destroying brick and mortar retail. I do most of my shopping online as well, but I'd hate to see the brick and mortar stores disappear. I guess I need to be more loyal about supporting the ones that are still around.

I'll probably go to the gym tomorrow. I need to go more than once a week, but I've had my hands full lately. I bet I burn up as much energy waterproofing the bed every night as I would on the treadmill anyway. Maybe I'll try to get a head start on next week's website work as well. It's too hot to spend much time outside. We had another triple digit day today. We were lucky to have a mild June and July. That's all over now, unfortunately. It looks like August is going to be a furnace.

Nautica is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1392

This is the only time of the year when we don't need either the furnace or the air conditioner. For a few weeks, a rare condition exists where you can actually open the windows. I've learned to enjoy the nice weather while it lasts, because it certainly doesn't last long. Sometime later this month, I'll wake up freezing cold, turn on the furnace again, and discover that it is broken. Fixing the furnace is a Fall ritual at our house. It's hard to imagine the arrival of Winter without the furnace repairman arriving first.

I finally made it to the gym today. I'd like to go  more often and haven't yet figured out how others manage to go everyday. I was surprised at how full the place was today. With today's near perfect weather, I would have thought everyone would have been outside.

Since work was slow today, I used the opportunity to run some errands. I took some letters to the post office, picked up a prescription at the pharmacy, and got some new shoelaces for my dog walking boots. On the way back home, I stopped by Fry's to pick up more ink for Janet's printer. I've never seen the place so empty before. Many of the shelves were virtually bare and only four of the store's over fifty check-out registers were actually open. The place looked like a ghost town. I bet on-line retailers are killing this place. I used to buy a ton of electronic gear at Fry's myself, but it's easier and cheaper to buy online these days. Shipping is usually free, there is no sales tax, and everything is delivered right to your door.

I may have to get another nanny cam. When I set up the camera to monitor Dash while I'm away, I can't see Dot. If I point the camera at Dot, I can't see Dash. Apparently the dogs don't want to have anything to do with each other while I'm gone. Dash seems to favor the bedroom and Dot usually stays in the office. This is curious to me, since the dogs usually sleep right together while I'm in the house with them. Have I ever told you that Dalmatians are moody? They act just like people sometimes.

All my work assignments came in toward the end of the day. I may not have had much to do today, but it looks like tomorrow will be very busy. Almost everyone wants some sort of change to their website and I wouldn't be surprised if there was a new article to write as well. Wednesday is always a lost cause, so it looks like I won't be able to get back to the gym until Thursday.

Hershey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 699

I went up to the Fry's store in Plano today to pick up one of the last available Panasonic SDXC Memory Cards in the area. I guess a lot of stores are discontinuing these cards because nobody wants to pay this much for the extra speed they offer. At any rate, when I went to look up the location of the store on the Internet, there were five comments below the location map that all essentially said "Don't even bother to go to this store because they have the worst service in the universe." I went anyway, because they were the store that still had the memory cards. Sure enough, the service was just as terrible as everybody said. I went at 2 PM when there were very few people in the store and it still took me over 45 minutes to purchase the memory card. Then, when I got home I discovered I had actually bought a used store demo, instead of a new card.

I got all the footage I shot yesterday logged and burned to several DVD's for the editor on the project. I offered to edit the video myself, but I'm kind of glad that nobody took me up on my offer. With all the Dalmatian Rescue Santa Paws photo shoots I've got scheduled for the rest of the year, I really don't need anything else on my plate.

My watch client is starting to sell watches on Shop NBC, which is a lot like QVC. They asked if I'd be interested in being a guest presenter on the show. Sure, I'd be interested, but I don't know if I'd be all that good for sales. I ought to recommend Janet as a presenter. She can sell anything.

The dogs are getting fairly relentless about their evening walk. I was trying to get a press release finished this afternoon when Dot and Dash decided that they'd rather take a walk instead. The both started barking and slapping me with their paws. It wasn't long before I abandoned the press release and got their leashes. I still got the job out on time though after we got back.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 593

I needed to take Janet to the airport a lot earlier than we anticipated because the online reservation system wouldn't assign her a seat. This has happened to me as well, and it is always frustrating. You have to arrive early and wait and wait until they finally release your seat at the last possible moment. I always think I have been reclassified as a stand-by passenger and won't get a seat at all. Actually, I've gotten so used to printing out a boarding pass online and going straight to the gate that anything else seems unacceptable.

The rest of the day was pretty uneventful. I rewrote a watch article that needed revision. I drove over to Fry's Electronics and wandered aimlessly around the camera section for a while. I went to Lowes and picked up a timer for the sprinklers. The dogs didn't want to go outside at all, but I took them on their evening walk anyway. I learned a long time ago that a walk in the heat is a lot more desirable than having the dogs wake you up in the middle of the night so you can take them outside to do their business.

I wonder if Google+ would be any good as a blogging platform? You can write as much as you want. It's easy to comment. It's friendly with pictures and video. Sure sounds like a blog to me. The whole experience is much more bloglike than Facebook, since only your own posts appear on your profile page. So many different things can appear on your Facebook wall that it doesn't even feel like your own page after a while. I'm going to stick with the blog, but it sure would be easy to just start blogging on Google+. Personally, I hope that this is the last new social network I encounter for quite a while. Checking in on Facebook, Twitter and Google+ everyday is all the activity I need. Please don't invent any more of these things.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day