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

Watch of the Day

Day 1117

There was a new Dalmatian to photograph today. We haven't had many Dalmatians available for adoption recently, so it was fun to go meet Vegas, the new girl. With her friendly, happy temperament, she should find a home quickly.

I didn't sleep very well last night. Dash woke everyone up around 4 AM, wanting to go outside to eat grass and throw up again. When he doesn't throw up, I think the antihistamines are working.  When he does throw up, I think they are doing nothing. Who knows. Dash has certainly been to the vet enough times about his condition, but nobody has arrived at any conclusion. Apart from this odd behavior, he seems perfectly healthy. At any rate, as soon as Dash threw up, he went right back to sleep, while I stayed wide awake. 

I tried, with little success, to get some old USB webcams to work with my newer computers this afternoon. It's frustrating trying to get old peripherals to work with new computers.The equipment is usually perfectly good. It's just been abandoned. Very few manufacturers continue writing new drivers for their old printers, scanners, and webcams. It's much more profitable for them to simply sell you a brand new piece of equipment. The only reason I keep this old stuff is that I still have the old computers as well. As long as you pair old stuff together, everything works fine. It's only when you try to pair the old with the new that the problems start.

I'm still kind of fascinated by the new HD channels I've discovered on our TV. HD images look great. Of course, old shows like The Twilight Zone and Seinfeld look exactly the same on HD. If they weren't shot in high definition in the first place, they're not going to look any sharper twenty years later. Sports and live rock concerts look fabulous though. I suppose that a lot of movies look fabulous in high definition too, but I seldom have time to watch movies anyway.

Maybe I'll go to bed early and make up for the sleep I lost last night. One can only hope that Dash will decide to sleep soundly tonight. The weather is warming up a bit, so maybe tomorrow will be nice. A good night's sleep, a late breakfast, and an early trip to the dog park sounds like a plan to me.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1116

I put away the Christmas decorations for another year. If this year zips along as quickly as the previous one, I'll be getting them out again before you know it. I don't know why time seems to pass so quickly now. I get much less done than I used to, but all the available hours remain filled while the time races along at an alarming rate.

The usual Austin indie bands didn't accompany my breakfast at the cool restaurant this morning. Instead, I listened to the same Beatles tunes I heard in the elevator when I went to the doctor on Wednesday. Overheard conversations were a bit different too. Two girls with purple streaked hair at the next table were talking about how to get into the best sororities at SMU. Although the attire was different, I could have heard this same conversation thirty years ago. Sometimes I wonder if anything changes at all.

I accidentally discovered that there were channels on the U-verse TV above 1000 last night. Most of these new channels were in high definition too. I don't know why I never discovered all these additional channels before. I guess I never went channel surfing above 300. The ironic thing is that for over a year, I've been thinking I was watching HD TV and I actually wasn't. Shows what I know.  Maybe I'll eventually get the hang of the television, telephones, and Internet all coming through the same IP pipe. I'm still trying to figure out what happened to our caller ID. It was there two weeks ago and now it's gone. I have a feeling that the dogs turned it off somehow. Their waging tails hit the set-top box every morning when they are trying to get us out of bed. They could have easily changed one of the settings.

I might have finally figured out why Dash is throwing up. In today's pile of junk mail was a inconspicuous little post card with tiny type on one side. The card was from the water department and the tiny type said that the city's water treatment plant had failed to meet quality standards during the month of December. Jeez! You'd think something like this would have made the evening news. Nope. This tiny little post card was the first I'd heard that our tap water might be polluted. You'd think with all the tax money we give the city, they could at least give us clean water in return. Oh, well. Janet and I have been drinking bottled water for years. Maybe we'll have to start pouring the Ozarka bottle into the dogs bowls as well.

Hunter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day