Day 4774

Sometimes I wonder whether taking business online has solved anything. I spent a huge amount of time this morning paying bills, renewing credit card information, updating passwords, and making appointments. I remember the days where you just could call someone on the phone and they would answer immediately and resolve your problem. I also liked working on a big desk where you could spread lots of paper all over the place and look at everything at once. Screen real estate is awkward for me when I am doing my accounting. I have a large screen on my desktop computer, but it is almost impossible to keep all the windows I need open at the same time. Lets face it. I have become a Luddite, just like my sister. I'm not sure I want to go all the way back to the 1950's, but the 60's and 70's would be fine.

Since I have received several reminders to renew my driver's license, I went on the DPS website this morning to make an appointment. When did appointments start being required? I've been renewing by mail for quite a while, but this year I have to renew in person. When I used to renew my license in person I would just go down to the nearest renewal office a few days before my birthday and get a new license on the spot. When I went to the website this morning, the earliest appointment they had was late in May. Jeez. No wonder everyone was urging me to renew now. This is just one more example of a world that is slowly crumbling to dust. Almost nothing works smoothly anymore.

My editor as SpaceFlight likes my article and pictures and says it will run in the March issue. He wants me to go down to Johnson Space Center in April and cover the Mars CHAPEA experiment. CHAPEA is a long, awkward acronym standing for Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog, whatever that means. NASA is building a full scale 3D printed Mars surface habitat to simulate what astronauts might experience on a long duration mission. They are giving the press a tour of this habitat sometime in April, and I'm invited if I can stand going to Houston again. I can't remember a single time that I've had a good experience on a trip to Houston. It's one of my least favorite cities. I think I'd much rather go back to McDonald Observatory in April.

I wrote my monthly letter to my sister today and took it to the post office. Sending letters through the mail is definitely old school, but it makes sense to me. The time lag involved in sending a letter slows things down to a reasonable pace. My e-mail correspondence is getting ridiculous. Everyone expects a reply the same day. Those folks who insist on texting are even worse. You are expected to reply to text messages immediately.

When all my unpleasant computer business was finished, I took a long walk in the park. It was a little chilly when we walked Dawn early this morning, but by this afternoon it had warmed up quite a bit and was quite pleasant outside. I had an enjoyable walk and managed to complete another 20,000 step day. Almost every day I have plans to go to the gym because I really need to work on my upper body strength. When the time comes, it is always easier to just take a walk. I probably should just start doing some work with free weights here at home. Actually, I see a few five pound weights sitting over in the corner of the office. I guess that would be a good place to start.

It's been a busy week full of small problems. Sunday's Falcon Heavy launch seems like ancient history now. It's funny. Whenever I'm traveling I'd usually rather be home. When I actually am at home though, I'd always rather be traveling. 

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2803

Everyone in Dallas knows someone in Houston. I've been mesmerized by the news coverage today. The flooding seems biblical. It just doesn't seem possible that we are talking about feet of rain instead of inches of rain. I saw a picture of the Houston airport today. It was a lake. Freeways are under so much water that even the overhear directional signs are buried. I've been to Houston many times and I can't even comprehend this scale of devastation.

Dallas is 400 miles away and even we are getting rain from this storm. The rain here is gentle and in many cases needed, but the fact that the outer bands of rain reach this far shows you just how big this weather system is. I've heard that they're opening a huge center for hurricane evacuees here in Dallas tomorrow. Similar centers will probably be opening all over the state. The problem is that I don't think many people can evacuate yet. The roads in and out of the area are flooded.

I didn't do much today. Dash got his walks in between rain showers. It was so messy outside that I didn't feel like going to the gym. When I took a shower this morning, I noticed a small leak. I still haven't been able to completely seal the shower floor. I used to be much better at this sort of thing. I'm losing my touch.

Today would have been a good day to take a camera down to the shoreline and photograph water birds, but I'd let my camera batteries run down and by the time I got them charged again the light was fading. It's probably just as well that I stayed inside. If I took my camera down to the lake, I almost certainly would have gotten caught in one of today's many intermittent rain showers.

It would have been Dot's birthday today. We don't know if she was actually born on this day, since she was a rescue, but we adopted her on September 27, 2004. I remember the day she came home with us well, but it seems like such a long time ago now. We have had many dogs and some of the memories are starting to muddle together in my head. Dot's memories haven't faded yet. I still can't believe she's not here with me. I wonder if that amazing dog ever knew how important she was in my life.

It's probably going to be a while before I can use the can of elastomer coating material the roofers left on my porch. It looks like we'll be getting intermittent rain every day until Harvey completely dissipates. It's hard to believe that they're forecasting even more rain for the Houston area. How much more rain can that city take?

Janet has decided that she feels well enough to start driving again. She ran a short errand as a test this afternoon and will drive herself to the doctor tomorrow. I'm glad her recovery seems to be going so smoothly. I hope the surgeon approves of the way we've been changing bandages. I have a feeling that we're using twice as much gauze and tape as a proper nurse would, but we're doing the best we can. It hasn't been a great summer. I think 'doing the best we can" might sum things up for quite a few people this year.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 864

Jeez, I lost two blog followers today. Is my life really that unexciting? Hang in there guys. Something interesting will happen sooner or later. I don't think today is the day, however. Virtually nothing happened today. Even my diversionary restaurant breakfast seemed dull this morning.

At least I'm making progress with the storage warehouse. There is a lot more stuff in the new space now than remains in the old space. One or two more visits and I'll have everything moved. Once everything is organized, I should have a lot of extra room available and I can start clearing out some of the clutter in my office. I really need new carpets in the office, but there has always been so much gear and clutter on the floors that it would take forever to get ready for the carpet installers. Maybe I'll have new carpets by the end of the year.

I got an e-mail to take something off one of my websites this morning. As soon as I took it off, I got another e-mail telling me put the removed item back again. The confusion was all over the word may. When I got a message saying the picture may come down, I took it down. I was thinking that may meant the same thing as can. What the client really meant was that it may come down at some point in the future. She was thinking that may meant the same thing as might. Language can be confusing.

I've been hoping that I'd get asked to provide blogging coverage again at the big oil and gas conference in Houston next week. I did this last year and it was one of the better jobs I had all year. It doesn't look very auspicious this year however. The conference starts in three days and I still haven't received any response from my client. I think it's a pretty safe bet that the answer is no this year.

It's still up in the air whether the new grass gets installed this weekend. I went out and bought a gasoline container and the two cycle oil for the tiller, but I haven't tried to start it yet. If the tiller starts tomorrow morning, I'll prepare the soil and go buy some St. Augustine sod so we can get started. I wish the sod wasn't so heavy. That's all I remember from last year. The squares of sod were a lot heavier than I though. It was a lot of work carrying a full carload of sod from the driveway to the back yard. Oh, the tires on my garden cart are flat too. Time to find the air compressor again.

Bowser is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 728

I made a quick trip to Houston today. I'm still amazed that I can fly to Houston in less time than it takes me to drive from my house to some Dallas suburbs. The first thing on my Houston agenda was interviewing an oil and gas executive for a magazine article I'm currently writing. I used to take copious notes when conducting these types of interviews. Now I just make a video record of the entire interview. It's much easier this way. After completing my interview with the oil and gas guy, I met with the marketing director of another company who ended up interviewing me for some potential writing jobs. All in all, it was a very productive day. I got a lot done, made some new contacts and was back in Dallas in plenty of time to give Dot and Dash their evening walk.

Not surprisingly, when I got home, the phone machine was full of messages from clients who needed something immediately. It never fails. If I'm here and readily available, nobody ever calls. If I'm gone, everybody needs something. I was going to start writing the article about the guy I interviewed today, but it looks like I'll spend tomorrow catching up on today's website requests instead.

On the plane this morning, I noticed that when the flight attendant told everyone to turn off their electronic devices, several people near me completely ignored her and kept right on playing whatever game had captured their attention. I have a feeling there are lots of potential Alec Baldwins out there. If I was on American Airlines, this kind of insurrection would have caused a big commotion and the flight would have been delayed. On Southwest Airlines, nothing happened at all. The plane just continued down the runway and took off with a boatload of people still playing games on their iPhones back in the cabin. The plane arrived safely, just like you'd expect, giving me one more reason to like Southwest more than other airlines. I wish we could just put an end to all these silly rules. I don't think someone reading a book on their Kindle is going to hurt the plane. And don't even get me started about taking your shoes off every time you go to the airport. I was behind an old man in the security line today who had so much trouble getting his shoes back on again that he probably missed his plane.

Tomorrow I won't even need to wear any shoes. I'll just be sitting here, working at the computer with a warm dog under my desk.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 716

Yay! I got the Christmas tree up today. I'm a notorious last minute shopper, so this is probably the last holiday item on my list until Christmas Eve. Since I don't work at an office anymore, there are no longer mandatory Christmas parties to attend. No Christmas cards to mail either. I gave up doing that several years ago. About the only thing left are the two remaining Santa Paws photo events we're doing for Dalmatian Rescue. I'll be shooting Santa photos this coming Saturday and then the following Saturday as well. After that, it's just a last minute trip to the mall for gifts.

It looks like I will be going to Houston next week to interview an oil company executive for an article I'm writing for one of my clients. I fully expect the schedule to change three or four times before the interview actually takes place. Somehow, I'm never a very high priority for these types of executives. The assignment is a good one though. I'll probably end up shooting video for a company iPad app while I'm there as well.

An important UPS delivery was supposed to arrive today. It's still not here. I hate dealing with UPS and FedEx during the holidays. Somehow the drivers and the tracking websites are never in sync when things get really busy. Last year, there were several packages that the website said had been delivered that just never arrived. Eventually, I discovered that the driver had given the packages to my neighbor instead of putting a note on my door, and then never bothered to tell anyone. FYI for delivery guys: never give anything to my neighbors. There's a good chance I'll never see it again.

The watch article marathon continues. I've been trying to write three articles a day, so I can meet my quota before the end of the year. I think the jury is still out on whether I'm going to burn out on watches before I complete this assignment. I've already stopped wearing a watch on many days. Jeez, who cares what time it is? The only time I care about these days is bedtime.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 502

Well, I've only been here a few hours and I can already tell I've made a few miscalculations. I certainly didn't need to lug a big suitcase full of nice clothes down here. When I went to the orientation meeting at the Magnolia Hotel this afternoon, we were all handed blue logo polo shirts and told to wear black pants. Ironically, this is almost exactly the same way I dress for Dalmatian Rescue casino parties. I could have just worn my roulette dealer outfit and I'd blend right in.

Luckily, my handy 4G hotspot works just fine here in Houston. The only problem is that nobody knows where I am supposed to actually send the files when I'm finished with them. One of the client's marketing people said they'd find me the address of an FTP server to upload my movies to tomorrow. I hope they do. Otherwise I'm just all dressed up with no place to go.

Some of the clients invited me to go to a Brazilian restaurant with them this evening. I went back to my hotel room and ordered room service instead. I knew that was the only way I'd even have a ghost of a chance of reading through tons of PDF files containing the weeks speaker presentations before tomorrow morning. Oh, and I have to get this blog finished too. I can't forget that.

I wish I was staying in the posh downtown boutique hotel where my clients were staying. It's not that I dislike the rundown old Crown Plaza across from Reliant Center, it's just that if I were staying in the same place as everybody else, it would save me a ton of cab money. At this rate, I'm going to run out of the money that I allotted for cab fare by Tuesday.

As soon as I finish this, I'm going to put together a short little practice video to see how long it takes to upload. This definitely won't be a work of art. There isn't much to look at in this room anyway. There's a laptop on a little desk, an iPhone recharging, some room service plates and glasses, some clothes I probably won't even end up wearing and an air conditioner I can't figure out how to turn off.

I need to remember to put in a wake up call for 6 AM. I need to be at Reliant Center by 7:30 AM. It's going to be a long day.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day