Day 2487

Today was busier than I expected. As usual, it took forever to take care of my morning chores and get the dogs situated, but when I eventually got around to turning on the computer, there was lots of work waiting for me. I saw that I now had the information I needed for a long overdue website update, as well as a request for a new article. When I started working on the website, I saw a notice that there was a software update that would allow my responsive, mobile ready websites to load up to ten times faster. The good news was that all my clients would love for their websites to load faster. The bad news was that I now had to learn something new. Oh, well. Progress marches on, I guess. When I finished my update, the site actually did load faster. It certainly wasn't ten times faster, but maybe the modest speed increase was worth forcing my tired brain to remember even more complex code that I can barely understand.

Most of the articles I write are for products that I would never use myself. It can be challenging to make overpriced junk seem like something everyone needs to have, but I do the best I can. I've done this for years and years and I'm pretty good at it. Maybe this is why I'm somewhat amused when politicians call each other liars. Of course they're liars. Our whole society is based on lying. How long would you last at work if you told your boss or supervisor what you really thought? Do you actually believe everything you hear on the news these days? I didn't think so. So, maybe I embellished things a little when I wrote my article. No real harm was done. Hey, maybe somebody really loves this product. I can say nice things about almost anything. I'll leave the disparaging comments to those folks who write restaurant reviews on Yelp.

Dot is really getting weaker. I don't know what to do. She desperately needs daily exercise to keep her leg muscles from atrophying further, but she's not strong enough now to walk as far as she used to. It's a vicious circle. A lack of exercise makes her weaker, which forces us to decrease her exercise even further. In theory, the underwater treadmill can still help Dot, but she needs to be relaxed for the therapy to do any good. Riding in the car causes a lot of stress for Dot, so it negates most of the benefits of the therapy. We hesitate to extend her short walk around the block, since it's clear that this is about all she can handle. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

Dash has his own problems too, but they are completely overshadowed by Dot's deteriorating condition. It's hard to remain upbeat when your dogs are fading away in front of your eyes and your business is fading away at an equally alarming rate.  Everything, including my own health, appears to be headed downhill. I imagine that the blog was more fun to read when it was more about beginnings than about endings. That's not the way life is, unfortunately. We all reach the end of the line eventually. For now, the challenge is finding beauty in a life of diminished expectations. I complain a lot, but I actually am extremely grateful for each additional day we are given. Dot is still here. Dash is still here. Janet and I are still here. Tonight we'll get some sleep and tomorrow we'll start over again.

Lightning is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1952

Jeez. Just as Dot is starting to walk again, Dash developed a limp. I noticed that something was wrong on his morning walk. Dozens of things can cause a dog to limp, so I was hoping that he just stepped on a thorn or something. The limp got worse as the day progressed unfortunately, so I began to get worried. I checked to see if he'd torn a cruciate. I felt his spine to see if there were any sensitive areas. I massaged his leg to see if anything made him flinch. Everything seemed normal. I always worry about dogs developing hip dysplasia as they get older. Dalmatians frequently tear cruciate ligaments as they grow older as well. I was expecting the worst, and then while he was sleeping, I noticed that Dash had cut one of his paw pads on the leg he was favoring. A cut or torn paw pad is not something to be taken lightly, but I was very relieved when I saw this cut. I'm almost certain that this is what was causing him to limp. Like many male dogs, Dash scratches the ground with his rear paws after peeing. He does this quite vigorously and he must have encountered a sharp rock or piece of glass. We'll find out how to fix the cut paw tomorrow when Dash has his annual exam. For the time being, I'm having him wear one of Dot's traction socks to keep the cut clean.

I made a breakthrough today in my ongoing effort to understand responsive web design. I've been using my own company site as the guinea pig to test out new ideas. It's been a slow process. I'll break part of the site and have to undo everything so the site works again before I try another idea. If I didn't take these slow painstaking steps, my errors would start to compound and pretty soon it would be impossible to get the site back to it's original state. I must be learning something, because I was finally able to put up a landing page that didn't look like shit. After several hours of tweaks and refinements, I actually got the page to function. By the end of the day, I had a site that passed Google's "mobile friendly" tester.  I've still got a long way to go before I'm ready to do this for clients, but "mobile friendly" is not a word I fear anymore. I can do this.

I wish I had my old mail carrier back. I used to have a fabulous mail carrier, but the post office changed her route and gave our neighborhood to someone else. I am not impressed. I've been waiting for a signature required package and it was supposed to arrive today. I don't like signature required packages because they always arrive when I'm taking a shower or am out in the back yard with the dogs. Today's mail carriers don't try very hard to find you. They leave a form telling you to go pick up your package at the post office. I left a note for the mail carrier saying she should call my cell phone if I didn't answer the door and to be sure to knock, because the doorbell isn't very loud. I needn't have bothered. While I was updating websites this morning, I saw the mail carrier out the office window just throw the package on the ground below the mailbox. She didn't even bother to get a signature. Little things like this drive me nuts.

Dot had one of her best days in a long time. She was strong and confident around the house and when we took our daily walk she didn't want to turn around. It probably helped that the weather was nice and cool today, but it wasn't just the weather. Dot is feeling better these days. Janet and I walked both dogs together this evening since Dash needed to take a short walk because of his inured paw. Dash walked slower than normal because of the sock he was wearing on his rear leg and Dot seemed visably pleased that she could keep up with him. She was even walking faster than Dash at several points. There was this look in her eye that clearly said "I'm back."

Wilson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1951

A few miles down the road, what is being billed as the world's largest award show concert is taking place right now. I would have enjoyed being in the audience at tonight's Academy of Country Music Awards if it weren't for the fact that I hate crowds, avoid freeway traffic at all costs, and am convinced that everything that takes place at Texas Stadium is hugely overpriced. The show looks pretty good on television though. Every time I see something like this, it reminds me that country has become the new mainstream rock and roll. There isn't a lot of difference between many of the groups that performed tonight and old school rockers like The Eagles, The Byrds, and Bon Jovi. That's OK by me. I always liked The Eagles, The Byrds, and Bon Jovi.

Instead of going to a live concert with 60,000 of my neighbors, I went up on the roof for the second day in a row and removed the water from last night's thunderstorm. Hopefully, today's efforts will last a bit longer than my futile effort yesterday. I hate doing this over and over, but I don't know of any alternative. Water is heavy and if I don't remove it quickly, the excessive weight will cause the roof to sag even more. Maybe I'll start going back to the gym when the rainy season is over. For now, this is all the exercise I need.

In case you're wondering, Dot and Dash were really quite good during yesterday's power outage and severe thunderstorms. They stayed quietly with me in the office during the entire event and didn't panic at all. It's a shame that they only listen to me when they're scared, but at least they listen sometimes. The power was only out for two hours, but when measured in dog years, it probably seemed longer.

I started creating a little test site this afternoon to see if I understand responsive web design. I didn't get very far. There's a lot of code involved to get a website to automatically resize and change its layout for tablets and smartphones. It would help if I understood Cascading Style Sheets better. I understand the basics and use CSS to set fonts, background colors and other simple tasks, but that's about it. This is much more complex. Even automation tools like Webflow and Macaw that are supposed to make the coding process easier are pretty complex. I feel like the last guy riding a horse when everybody else began driving automobiles.

I shouldn't complain though. I doubt that I'm going to be flooded with new web design jobs, even if I do learn to make them responsive. I'm doing this mostly for my own benefit. I'll practice a bit more with the fancy code tomorrow, but most of my day will be spent making updates to a very traditional website I created about ten years ago. Hey, it still works. That's more than I can say for myself these days.

Marley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1945

I spent quite a while today getting re-acquainted with Pro Tools. I used to use this software frequently and knew it well. Not anymore. It's been several years since I've had a need to create or edit audio files. There was a time when I was always thinking about music. I wrote songs, played in a band, and knew my way around a recording studio pretty well. Once upon a time, I even took an audio engineering course and learned to run a 48-track SSL console. I've still got a lot of audio gear to remind me of those days, but I've forgotten virtually everything. Use it or lose it, as they say.

Maybe if I was more familiar with Pro Tools. I might start writing songs again, I thought to myself this morning. It's possible. I suspect it's the other way around though. If I started writing songs again, I might have a need to use Pro Tools. I still hate to forget things though, so I played around for hours with the software and was somewhat amazed at all it could do. Without an active project to throw myself into, what I rediscovered today will probably stay in my brain for about a month. Then I'll have to re-learn it all over again if I ever have the need.

It's hard to believe that I used to be able to program simple games in FORTH, create and render three-dimensional objects using Maya, and do architectural drawings using AutoCad. I had working versions of all these programs running on my Mac at some point, but it eventually became pointless to dabble with these complex applications. Unless you did computer animation for a living, you never really understood Maya. Unless you were an architect or engineer, there was little reason to master the complexities of AutoCad. Even veteran programmers didn't know what to make of FORTH, but to this day it is the only programming language that ever made sense to me. I suspect that the odd language appealed to me because the variables and basic operators were defined as words. A programming language based on creating things using words seemed magic to me at the time.  I even went to FORTH user groups for a while.

I get nostalgic when I try to re-learn something. I spent the entire afternoon playing with a little two track audio file, re-learning how to route compressors, equalizers, and other effects processors through the send and return buss. I was going to try working with a MIDI synthesizer, but then I remembered that all the synthesizers were in the storage warehouse. Since I have forgotten even more about playing the piano than about playing the guitar, I doubt that those synthesizers would have done me much good anyway.

I am curious about almost everything, but since I had no desire to become a full-time computer animation expert, multi-track recording engineer, or even a practicing architect, many of the skills I learned over the years just withered away. It was just too difficult to keep learning a lot of complex things you never used. I always returned to writing because there was no software involved. In a pinch, a yellow pad of paper and a #2 pencil will do just fine.

I'll probably be writing something for someone tomorrow. With all that has died on the vine over the years, I guess I should be glad that there is still one thing I do that people seem to need.

Valli is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1360

I spent the afternoon in a MRI machine again. Today's scan seemed to take longer than usual, but maybe I'm just not as patient as I used to be. I like the technician who does my scans. He used to be a race car driver, but switched to medical technology after he got married to provide a more stable life for his family. The only vestige of his racing life that still remains is the best selection of car magazines ever in the MRI changing room. The only thing I dislike about these scans is that I have to fully extend my hands behind my head before they slide me into the narrow metal imaging tube. Yikes! With my dislocated shoulder, I think waterboarding would be a less traumatic torture than spending an hour with my arms extended this way.

I think the Defender 90 repairs might finally be finished. There was a voice-mail from Land Rover this morning asking me to call them. When I did return the call, all I got was their voice-mail. Since Land Rover is even slower about answering voice-mail messages than they are about repairing cars, I'll probably have to drive up to the dealership tomorrow and see what's going on. I was hoping to be able to keep the loaner car until the weather turned cooler, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. This has been the warmest September I can remember. At this rate, it's not going to be cool outside until Thanksgiving. Hopefully, they really fixed the Defender this time. I've still got to take Dot downtown every Wednesday for her physical therapy sessions.

A cool stove-top short-order griddle I ordered came in the mail today. This thing is perfect for quickly cooking up a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns and other things I can no longer eat. I'm sure it will make a nice veggie omelet too, so the nifty new utensil definitely won't go to waste. It's weird. The less I am able to eat, the more I am interested in food. This probably won't end well. One day I will use up an entire loaf of Panera Bread making French Toast which I will then drench with half a bottle of pure maple syrup. So far, I'm hanging in there with my oatmeal and kale, but I don't know how long this can last.

It looks like I'm finally going to have to learn to use Wordpress. I've got two clients who want to add things to their websites that can only be accomplished using Wordpress. I've tried to convince them that Dreamweaver is the only development tool in the universe, but they aren't buying it anymore. I don't know what has happened to me. I used to love learning new things, and now I dread the process. The pace of change has simply become too disruptive. I used to get a lot of use out of my skills before they became obsolete. Now, the obsolescence occurs before I even finish reading the instruction manual. Oh, well. Time stops for no one. Not even me.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 695

I was watching one of those Lynda.com training CD's today to brush up on software I use in my work. Even though I tried to stay focused, I kept falling asleep. The training CD was well produced and very professional. The problem was that the subject matter was totally boring. This is stuff I do all the time. Let's face it. A lot of what I do is boring. I just needed to watch the CD, so I could learn how to do the boring stuff faster and hopefully, a lot more productively. The instructions that came with the CD said it would only take me half a day to watch all the course material. Wrong! I think it's going to take me about three weeks. My head is so filled with useless technical information already, that I'm going to have to take this new information in small chunks so it won't explode.

There's the new camera I've got to master as well. This little learning exercise is a bit easier, since the new camera is just a better version of equipment I'm already familiar with. I practice taking little movies of the dogs in the back yard after lunch. I not quite ready for prime time yet, but it shouldn't take that long. Sometimes this continual learning process gets tiring. It's absolutely essential though. If I didn't try to stay ahead of the curve and discover new and better ways of doing things, I wouldn't even have a business today.

One of the rescue groups I work with is having a big fund-raising event this Sunday. We had our final run through meeting tonight and the whole thing seemed quite complicated. I was glad that my task on Sunday was taking video of the event and not setting up tents or running the silent auction.

We're still having beautiful sunsets just about every evening. I hope you're enjoying them as much as I am.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 564

I'm starting to lust for gear again. Sometimes this gets a little expensive, but typically my ongoing desire for stuff has positive aspects as well. There is always a period when I am struggling to understand and learn how to use my new gear when I'm interested, engaged and at my most creative. I'll wake up in the morning with some new insight as to how the gear works and off I'll go, editing, recording and snapping pictures like there's no tomorrow. Songs get written, movies get made and entire gallery shows get mounted and framed. Eventually I master the new machine and begin to lose interest in it. The exciting new gear just becomes another boring tool that I work with to make a living. Eventually, it either breaks or becomes obsolete.

I love new things, but nothing stays new all that long. I see this commercial on TV almost every morning where some guy tells us that he loves making birdhouses and is taking care of his heart so he can continue to make birdhouses for the rest of his life. Is this guy nuts? I could never make birdhouses for the rest of my life. If I ever made a birdhouse, I'd probably spend four months making one perfect little home and then never make another one again. When I was finished, I'd probably realize that I didn't even like birds.

So what gear has caught my fancy this time? Those little GoPro cameras are pretty cool. These indestructible little bricks can be attached anywhere. You could attach one to your front bumper and film the trials and tribulations of rush hour traffic. You could pin one to a dog sweater and film your dog's walk from the dog's point of view. People who are into extreme sports love these things. Here's nothing extreme about my life at all, but I still might get a GoPro. There's a time lapse setting where you could compress an hour dog walk into two minutes of screen time. I could mount one to the bow of my kayak and film ducks and pelicans. I haven't taken the boat out in several years. Communing with nature doesn't interest me. Exercise doesn't interest me either. Making a movie however...now, that's another matter entirely.

I saw another ambulance down in the park this afternoon when I was taking the dogs on their evening walk. People are dropping like flies in this heat. I see fire department EMT crews responding to something in the park almost every week now. A couple of years ago in July, the dogs and I walked right past a guy sitting on a park bench looking out at the water. The guy didn't say anything to us, but that was pretty normal. When we were walking back home again, I noticed an EMT crew and several policemen surrounding the bench. The guy had dropped dead while he was just sitting there on the bench. I don't think I need any more reasons to stay inside and look for a good movie on TV.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day