Day 2594

I had a major website revision to complete today, but I kept the television on for most of the day to watch the inauguration. Kudos to anyone with the stamina to endure a day like this. Trump, Pence, and their entire entourage were up at dawn, standing for most of the day, and apparently still going strong, because I hear coverage of the presidential balls on the bedroom TV as I write this. A two hour meeting can wear me out. This is one of many reasons I could never be a politician.

I have been opposed to globalization long before Donald Trump arrived on the scene, so I found his inaugural message of a return to nationalism strangely comforting. I've always thought that we as a country should mind our own business and let other countries mind theirs. The Vietnam War was a mistake. Both Gulf Wars were a huge mistake. Virtually every attempt at nation building we've embarked on as a country has been a mistake. Maybe now, we will finally learn to get our priorities straight.

Income inequality is a direct result of globalism. It may be efficient to have the entire world eating Kentucky Fried Chicken and drinking a latte from Starbucks, but this kind of efficiency puts more and more wealth in the hands of fewer and fewer people. Globalism turns every conflict into a potential world war. It really doesn't have to be this way. I like the Internet model better. Instead of a single giant server, the Internet consists of tens of thousands of independent nodes. It is virtually indestructible, because if one server goes down, the information is just rerouted and the net continues to function normally. The animal kingdom is the same way. There is a reason why there aren't elephants or penguins on every continent. With the notable exception of humans, each species on this planet is very localized and thrives where it is best adapted to the existing conditions. Nature has been trying to teach us that small and independent is better for centuries. Why do we still insist on a homogenized world where we all think alike? Maybe it's just because giant international companies want to sell everybody the same thing.

Just a few observations about the inauguration. Burning cars is not going to win people over to your cause. Hey, it's OK if you think Donald Trump is a sign of the apocalypse, but if you really want to marginalize your efforts and become the next Green Party, just keep doing what you're doing. Oh, and all you fashionistas; Melania looked fabulous. I don't think we need to worry about politically correct designers deserting her. Ralph Lauren did a spectacular job of evoking the ghost of Jacqueline Kennedy.

I ordered the wrong thing for breakfast this morning. It happens sometimes. I often don't know what I'm hungry for until I actually start eating. If I wasn't so tired, I could create some sort of metaphor that linked breakfast choices to desire and expectations. It probably isn't that complicated though. I just shouldn't have ordered pancakes today.

If the weather continues to be nice this weekend, I'm going to wash the car and remove all the remaining leaves from the roof. The evil bird that shits on my car has been busy this week. It's time to show that bird who's boss.

April is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2349

Sometimes I hate the Internet. For several days I've been having trouble connecting to some of my clients websites. My Internet Service Provider says the problem is being caused by the hosting company and the hosting company says the problem is being caused by my ISP. Neither side will admit that they are the reason I can't connect to at least a dozen websites, including my own. I suspect that my ISP is blocking several servers, but they won't admit blocking anyone, despite the fact that it appears to be common knowledge on Google.

I get tired of messing with the problem and switch to my alternate Internet Service Provider. Now, all the missing websites reappear, but within minutes I get an e-mail saying that an unauthorized person is trying to access my Google account. I change my password twice, but can't seem to shake the mystery person trying to login from Denver. I start to think I've got a virus and run all kinds of searches for Malware on my computer. I turn up an odd invisible cache file in my Firefox browser and delete it. The problem seems to go away and then I am mysteriously able to reconnect to everything using my primary ISP. I finally track down the IP address of the unauthorized computer in Denver and begin to suspect that it is my own account. Now, I'm really confused. It appears that AT&T blocks my web server occasionally and T-Mobile connects me to the Internet in Denver instead of Dallas for some unexplained reason. I'll never remember my new passwords. My best guess now is that I wasted hours and hours trying to track down an intruder who was actually me.

I'm starting to get some of my most complicated website update assignments on Friday afternoon. It's been this way for the past month or two. This means that I have to work during the weekends, even though I often have nothing to do during the week. I got started on one of these updates this afternoon, but didn't even come close to getting it finished. Guess what I'll be doing tomorrow. Hey, the client is always right, but it sure would have been nice if I could have done these updates last Tuesday.

I went back to the hipster restaurant this morning. I'm really just floundering around now. My well oiled Friday breakfast ritual appears to have crashed and burned. I have lots of place to eat, but I no longer have a special place that knows me so well that they start cooking my meal the moment I walk in the door. That's what I liked best before everything changed. I could just walk in, sit at my favorite table and didn't even have to talk. The staff just knew what I wanted.

My car was supposed to be ready this afternoon, but the dealership called and told me that it wouldn't be ready until sometime next week. I shouldn't have been surprised, since delays like this used to be commonplace. I had one speedy repair a few months ago and thought that everything had changed. Silly me. Nothing really changes. My broker wants to talk. I suspect this means that he didn't like the letter I sent. I'm kind of dreading this talk because I know he'll still try to convince me that the stocks he likes are a good investment. Maybe they are and maybe they aren't. I'm just getting sick of the stock market in general.

I can't really tell if Dot is getting stronger or not.  She appears to have more energy now, but we're only walking her half as much as we were a few weeks ago. Change can be deceiving if it happens slowly enough. Do I set the bar lower with Dot, or do I gradually try to increase her activity again? Do I change brokers or try harder to understand his strategy? Did I get hacked today, or am I just brain dead? Sometimes it's hard to know these things.

Harley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2291

I basically spent the entire day setting up new e-mail accounts and migrating websites from one server to another. The good news is that about 80% of what I moved still works perfectly. The bad news is that the remaining 20% doesn't. I hope I never have to change web hosting companies again. My website is like a house that has been remodeled too many times. When I was troubleshooting this morning, I discovered code that hadn't been updated since the mid 1990's. A lot of clever things I did back then are completely obsolete and aren't even supported anymore. Instead of redesigning the site, I simply abandoned pages when they quit working and moved on. There are tons of orphaned pages on this site that I should have never moved to the new server, but since I couldn't remember why there were there in the first place, it was easier to move everything. I'll sort it all out later.

I got a call from a woman this morning who was interested in having me build a website for her business. She had started a gluten free baking company and wanted to sell her bread online. Unfortunately, she had no bread for me. The was the third referral I've received this year from someone who basically wanted a website for nothing. It's discouraging. I explained that there were a lot of drag and drop templates available that would let her inexpensively build her own website, but that it took a long time to design a good custom site and I was doing this for a living. Maybe she doesn't even need a website. I've seen people who've done pretty well using nothing but a free Facebook business page.

The Internet has changed so much that I'm wondering why I'm even bothering moving everything to a new server. One of the sites I moved today was for a greeting card company I started many years ago. The cards were beautiful, but the company never went anywhere. I initially thought that the greeting cards could be used to raise money for Dalmatian Rescue, but the company didn't even generate enough revenue to pay for the cards I had printed. There may still be a box of greeting cards hidden away in the storage warehouse somewhere, but the website is about all that remains of the company. The last inquiry I received about greeting cards was five years ago.

It rained a lot last night, but luckily the worst of the storm passed North of us. I saw on the news this morning that there was lots of hail and wind damage in some of the nearby suburbs. I always worry about hail storms at this time of year. They can pop up out of nowhere and do a lot of damage. Janet's car was practically destroyed during a sudden hailstorm a few years ago. Even without the hail, the weather has been weird this week. In theory it is Spring now, but I'm still wearing my winter coat on our morning walks. It's way too cold for March, but at least it isn't raining every day like it was last year.

I still can't decide where to have breakfast tomorrow. Having too many choices confuses me. When I first started eating out on Friday mornings, I'd try a different restaurant each week. This wasn't really satisfying, since some of the restaurants were terrible. It may be time to try this again though. I realized last week that I don't have a favorite anymore.

Chelsey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2180

Our U-Verse service has gone out again. Whenever I deal with cable company customer service representatives I understand road rage a little better. It is infuriating to pay so much for a service that is so unreliable. Whenever U-Verse goes down I'm tempted to go back to Time Warner Cable. Then I remember that their service was even worse. The last time I had reliable internet service was in the Internet dark ages when I had a dedicated DSL line pulled to the house. The old DSL line was faster and more reliable than the fancy WiFi network I have now. Everything was connected by Ethernet and I rarely had an outage. The phone company doesn't even offer DSL lines anymore. Times have changed.

So, how am I posting this if I don't have Internet service? I have a backup connection with another phone company. You have to have a back up for everything these days, especially if you're a website developer. It's frustrating to be at the mercy of the phone company. Nothing is dependable anymore. U-Verse won't even come out to look at the problem until Monday. They told me that they had no technicians available. Really? I saw a U-Verse technician in the ally behind my neighbor's house about thirty minutes after I got off the phone with customer service. I told him that my service was out too, and asked if he'd check my line while he was in the neighborhood. He must have done absolutely nothing, because the line is still dead.

The only productive thing I did today was get a haircut. The mall is already packed with Christmas shoppers. I had trouble finding a parking place. Every time I get a haircut, I look at the clippings on the floor and am amazed at how white my hair has become. My hair used to be curly and now it is perfectly straight. What's that all about? The stylist was complaining about having bags under her eyes. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "That's nothing. Look at me. I look like a racoon." Basically, every aspect of growing old sucks. Especially looking in the mirror.

On the way back to the car, I stopped in the Apple store. I really like the new larger iPad Pro. This thing has a great screen and could easily serve as a laptop substitute if it was paired with a wireless keyboard. It would also make a great little teleprompter for video shoots. Unfortunately, I can't afford one of these seductive gadgets at the moment. I can't even afford the WiFi scale that also caught my eye.

It's weird not having a TV. There's almost always a TV on in some part of the house, even if nobody is watching it. The house seems unnaturally quiet. If I listen carefully, I can hear the dehumidifier running in the living room, but that's about it. As you've probably guessed, the dogs have gone to sleep already.

I'm still dreading tomorrows photo shoot. Nobody scheduled a break for lunch, so we're booked solid from early morning until mid-afternoon. I'm tired already. I've got all the batteries charged. I've packed up the equipment in various nylon bags and I'm ready to go. I'm thinking that this is the last year I'm going to do this, but that was what I thought last year as well.

Today's Dalmatian of the Day passed away yesterday. He was always one of my favorites. RIP Camp!

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1983

It's been a long day. It was raining again when we woke up this morning, so I had to wait until later in the day to walk the dogs. As usual, they refused to go outside and do their business while it was still raining. They acted agitated and upset until I got the bananas out, and then they both completely forgot that they wanted a walk. The rain was already diminishing by the time I finished breakfast, so I only had to wait an additional thirty minutes before the morning showers stopped and I could take Dot and Dash to the park.

When I finally got the dogs taken care of, I turned on the computer and discovered that the Internet was down. Actually, the entire U-verse service was down, because the land line phones and televisions weren't working either. I tried re-booting the router several times and when that didn't work, I called tech support. After spending forever in automated call center hell, I finally got to talk with a real person. AT&T couldn't get things working from The Philippines, or Malaysia, or wherever their call center is these days, so a technician is going to come out tomorrow. I hate it when the network goes down. Usually the problem turns out to be a defective router and when they replace it, I have to reconfigure every WiFi device in the house so all the devices can join the network again using the new router's password. Even the thermostat and several of my cameras are on WiFi now. It's going to be a lot of trouble to reconnect everything.

Luckily, I have access to an alternate WiFi network, so I could still get my work done today. Having U-verse down definitely slowed me down though. Just calling tech support took forever. In today's world, having a network outage is just about as bad as a power outage. This is why I always have a backup network. You can't really be a web developer without access to the Internet.

Dot did great today during her physical therapy session, but she hated riding to the vet in the loaner car. It's too small and the rear seats don't fold completely flat like they do in my car. I had to pull over to the side of the road several times to reposition Dot, because the slight incline of the folded rear seatback made her slide backwards and get stuck every time I went up a hill. I would never buy a small car. Large dogs and small cars just aren't a good mix. The old Defender 90 was the perfect vehicle for hauling dogs around in. The entire back of the car was completely flat and there was tons of headroom. Dot and Dash enjoyed riding around in that car. Too bad I couldn't keep it running forever.

I had been planning to do some additional work on my mobile friendly test site today, but several real jobs got in the way. I was surprised that I got as much done as I did, since I was uploading files using the much slower backup WiFi hotspot. Where there's a will, there's a way, I guess. I'm just glad it's Friday tomorrow. A week of relentless rain, car problems, dental problems, and a bad case of cabin fever have taken their toll on me. I'm looking forward to the long Memorial Day weekend, even though I have no plans whatsoever.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1633

I learned how to brush Dot's teeth correctly today. How could I have been doing it wrong for all these years? Every Dalmatian we have ever had has hated having their teeth brushed. They either immediately eat all the toothpaste off the brush, run away, or grab the entire brush and start chewing on it. Today, I was amazed to see Dot sit calmly in the exam room and let the vet slowly and carefully brush each of her teeth. I've been told for years about how important it is to brush your dog's teeth after you have them cleaned at the vet. I usually try for a month or so, and then just give up. Maybe this time it will be different. If I can learn to duplicate what my vet showed me today, brushing Dot and Dash's teeth should be a piece of cake.

I wasn't very busy today. I should have gone and had lunch with someone like I used to do in the old days. The problem is that I don't eat lunch anymore. Even the thought of eating something at lunch time turns my stomach. I don't know exactly when this happened, but I haven't enjoyed lunch for quite a while now. A big breakfast and a light dinner seem to be plenty for me now. The odd thing is that I don't even miss catching up with former co-workers anymore. What's there to talk about anyway? I'm not really interested in everybody's grandchildren, I haven't been to Barcelona or Paris lately, and I'm not planning on remodeling my house. I probably have more in common with the millennials living in their parent's basement than I do with people my own age.

Many of my local clients seem frustrated that their websites aren't bringing them the customers they expected. I don't know what to tell them. When everybody is on the Internet, nobody is special. Websites have become a commodity. Maybe you get lucky and do something amazing and your site starts trending. A few days later everyone has forgotten about you again. There's just too much out there. The internet has become a "pay to play" environment, just like modern television and print. Old fashioned SEO strategies are largely irrelevant these days. If you're a retailer and want to get noticed, you buy advertising on Yelp or Angie's List. That's just the way it is.

I can't believe that Pope Francis is telling people that having dogs and cats instead of children is all wrong. I was a big fan of this new Pope until I heard this. He says that people who choose animals over kids will spend their old age bitter and lonely without the companionship of their children to comfort them. Maybe this is true for some people, but it hasn't been my experience. I know several senior citizens who openly prefer the companionship of a loyal dog or cat to dealing with squabbling siblings fighting over who gets what in the will. I just wish that our pets lived longer. I'm always sad when an old person's dog dies and leaves them alone. Despite what the Pope says, a good dog is about the best companion you could possibly wish for.

Scooby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 962

The U-verse repairman came out to the house today. We've been having problems with losing the broadband signal lately. The phones, the TV, and the Internet would go dead at random times during the day and then return after about five minutes when the modem went through an automatic re-boot cycle. This wouldn't have been a big deal if it happened once a month, but it was happening up to ten times a day. At any rate, this was like any other repair day. The dogs barked like crazy while the repair technician tried to isolate the problem. The dogs were so loud that I eventually asked the repairman if he minded if I let them out of the office, so they could see who was in the house. The guy said he had big dogs himself and didn't mind.  Dot calmed down as soon as she had a chance to smell the repair technician, but Dash though I'd brought him a  playmate. Dash was totally friendly, but I eventually had to pen him up again, because he wouldn't leave the repairman alone.

Eventually, the technician completed his inspection and said that I needed a different type of 2Wire gateway, because the house was too far from the AT&T switch for the original modem to function reliably. When I asked why the previous technician installed a faulty modem in the first place, I didn't really get a good answer. I got the impression though that the original modem was probably the only thing that the previous technician had in the truck at the time.  When today's technician left, he said that my network was running 40% faster than it was when he arrived. Maybe so. It certainly doesn't seem all that fast right now however. Hopefully, this repair will last longer than the last one, which failed in less than a month.

I felt like I had stomach flu all day. Janet said it was probably because I ate rotten food in the refrigerator again. How was I to know?  I guess crab meat spread on top of a portobello mushroom cap won't stay fresh for a week in the frig.  The leftovers certainly didn't smell bad, but I'll be the first to admit that my sense of smell isn't so good. My lack of a good olfactory system does come in handy at times. Especially when the dogs fart in bed at night.

I'm glad the weekend is here. I live for the weekends these days. It's not that anything all that exciting happens on weekends, but it is nice to get a brief reprieve from the world of arbitrary deadlines and dumb questions. I got the weekend started with some tasty pancakes and a three rashers of bacon this morning. Unfortunately, stomach was less than impressed. I think it was still trying to deal with the bad crab I fed it yesterday.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 958

I burned some PDF files to a CD and drove them over to a client this morning. It was easier to drive across town than it would have been to explain yet again how to use YouSendIt or Unzip large files. Sometimes I worry that I could lose all my clients at the drop of a hat. None of them are very tech savvy, and most don't seem to have any use for the Internet at all. One client still prints out their website so they can read it on paper. You might think that dealing with Luddites would be stressful, but I find the old ways reassuring. Truthfully, it's still a lot easier to send a fax than it is to communicate using GoToMeeting or Evernote.

It appears like I'll never be able to completely relax when walking the dogs. There is always some sort of danger on the horizon. Last week I noticed that a guy with two aggressive dogs had moved into one of the rent houses down the street. The house where the guy lives has a very rickety back fence. I know that the previous renters who lived in this house have had their dogs escape through this fence. When I see the aggressive dogs racing around in the back yard, I have this sinking feeling that this isn't going to end well.

I just don't have a whole lot of faith in my fellow man anymore. Some of the nicest people I know are completely incompetent. On the other side of the coin, many of the most competent people are complete jerks. Where is the balance? It seems like there should be more people who are brilliant, completely practical, and nice all at the same time.

The new website I launched yesterday seems to be getting good reviews. This is a huge relief to me, because I don't think that all the king's horses and all the king's men could put the old site back together again. When I was going through the process of updating the site, I frequently became baffled by the code I wrote in 1995. What was I thinking? A lot of this code doesn't even make sense to me anymore. Of course, the Internet was different then. Most of my clients were using Windows 95 and Flash hadn't even been invented yet. Those were the days. I don't think I would even hear about PHP, API's and all the other complexities that bedevil me today until quite a few years later.

Penny is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 827

Most of today was occupied by getting U-verse installed. It was such a long, involved process that I boarded the dogs for the day. Dot would never have tolerated strangers moving things around in every room of the house. Since we were replacing all the phones, the televisions and the entire office network, I was expecting the worst. So far, the results have been largely favorable. The television works and we have a lot more channels than we had before. The Internet is quite a bit faster than it was before. The phones have built-in voice mail, so I don't need the answering machine anymore. I like a lot of the little things the best. When someone calls, the caller ID number shows up on your television screen. You can record an entire season of your favorite show just by clicking on a single button. The DVR automatically records each episode and then you can watch them whenever you want. So far, so good. It will probably take me months to learn all the available features but the main thing is that we are getting more services than cable for less money each month. As long as this complicated fiber optic system doesn't crash on us, I'm a happy camper.

I can't say that the dogs were all that happy today. Apparently, they both hate day boarding. When I picked Dot and Dash up after the U-verse installation was complete, Dot was panting like she'd been left out in the sun all day and Dash was making strange warbling bird noises. They were both very happy to return home again. Oddly, after all the boarding agitation, they were both very good at training class tonight. Dash had one of his best nights in months. We was even able to do some of his exercises off-leash. OK, I forgot to bring the long leash, but he did much better than I expected without it. Maybe I don't even need the long leash anymore. That would be great. If I could actually get to the point where I could trust this dog to come when he's called, it would be a miracle.

Now that the big household electronics upgrade is behind me, all I have to worry about are the washing machine repair and a potentially expensive trip to the Land Rover dealer. The mystery noise under the hood is getting louder, so I'd better take the car in soon.

The weather was beautiful all day. I'm sure the U-verse installation went a lot smoother than it would have if the technicians were trying to hook up new phone lines in a thunderstorm. I hope the nice weather continues. It should! After all, it's officially Spring now. Summer will be here before you know it, and that means I'd better turn my attention towards getting the rental property leased or sold.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day