Day 3094

I turned on the TV twice today. Once to watch latest episode of The Expanse and later to listen to the results of the IG Report. The Expanse was much more enjoyable. Predictably, everybody used the IG Report to vindicate what they already believed. The supposedly "objective" report seemed to prove nothing. One side said it proved that the FBI was out to get their man, while the other side said it proved that the FBI cost their candidate the election. Nothing will change. I think that we are so hopelessly divided that we'll never see a consensus again. It's like we are right in the middle of a weird, bloodless civil war.

Of course everyone is fighting in The Expanse as well. This is supposed to be 250 years in the future, so maybe humans will never learn to get along. At least there are space ships in The Expanse. Spaceships make everything better. So many science fiction shows like The Expanse explore what happens when humans make contact with extraterrestrials. I wonder if we ever will? I kind of like the theory that nobody has contacted us yet because when civilizations reach a certain level of sophistication, they blow themselves up, destroy their planets, and become extinct. When you look at what's happening with our world, it certainly makes sense.

I got a call from someone who was trying to move their domain registration from Network Solutions to somewhere else. They couldn't remember their Network Solutions password, so they couldn't access their dashboard to initiate the move. I said I'd help, but much to my chagrin, I couldn't remember my own Network Solutions password either. I wish everyone still used the passwords they had in 1995. Everything was so much easier then. Nobody can remember all their passwords anymore. They'll write them down on a sticky note and forget everything a few months later. I had a special application that saved all my passwords in an encrypted form, but after a system upgrade rendered the application inoperable, I lost everything. I routinely ask for a password reset every time I visit certain sites.

Dash pooped in the house again this morning. He was trying to go outside, but he was so quiet about heading for the door that I didn't hear him even though I was nearby. I smelled what was going on before I saw it. I don't know why Dash is on the verge of incontinence, because in many ways he seems to be getting better. He's eating well now and seems to enjoy walking again. The most alarming thing now is that he often wakes up coughing during the night. The cough goes away after he's been awake for a while, but this shouldn't be happening. The cough probably has something to do with his ongoing heart problems, mostly because everything seems to be connected to his heart problems.

I found some Shoe Goo today but I ran out of time and never got around to fixing Dash's boots. Maybe Tomorrow. I was going to make an appointment for a haircut tomorrow, but I never got around to that either. Jeez. What did I actually do today? Maybe those two TV shows were it.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2351

If you ever want to take the pulse of today's millennials, just go to an REI sale. I stopped by the store's self named "biggest sale of the year" on my way to the gym this afternoon and was greeted by the biggest collection of 20 to 30 somethings I'd ever seen. They were all stuffing their Honda CRV's and Subaru Foresters full of bargain tents, hammocks, bicycles, yoga mats, and Fitbit trackers. All I wanted was a pair of shorts, but there was no express lane. It took me forever to check out.

When I arrived at the gym a few miles down the road, the contrast couldn't have been more striking. There were no hordes of young people at all.  All I saw were a half dozen balding old men who had traded their Subaru Foresters for a Porsche Panamera decades ago. Maybe this explains why there are so few young people at my gym. From the looks of things at the REI store, all the millennials are doing something outside.

I got an e-mail today saying that my recent transaction with Network Solutions had failed to go through. What transaction? I haven't purchased anything from Network Solutions in years. I did some checking and discovered they has reset the preferences on my profile so that all the domains I had registered with them would auto-renew by default. I know for a fact that I had set all these domains to not auto renew because I wasn't interested in keeping some of them anymore. How could they just reset the preference file to auto-renew everything without even asking me? Luckily, the credit card I had listed with them had expired quite a while ago, so the sale didn't go through. I think I'm going to move the domain registration somewhere else. I don't appreciate sneaky tricks like this.

I had big plans to catch up on household chores I've been avoiding, but the small things at the top of my list took so long that I never got around to the larger things near the bottom. I did manage to get a few things accomplished. I cleaned some boots that had gotten muddy a few days ago. I lubricated a sticking sliding glass door and got it so it would open again. I swept leaves off the front porch, and of course I cleaned up Dot's latest accidents. I know there's lots of water on the roof, but the new forecast says it is supposed to rain every day next week. It's not worth the trouble to mess with the roof until things dry out a bit.

I'm worried about Dot. She's sleeping longer. She doesn't have as much energy as she did a few months ago. And her incontinence is getting worse. I still can't decide whether to resume her physical therapy sessions this coming Wednesday. The decision may end up being made for me. My car is still in the shop and the loaner car I'm driving is too small for me to transport Dot comfortably. Dot is due for another exam at the cancer center later in the week. Maybe we'll be able to find out what's going on while we are there. I hope the tumor in her liver isn't growing larger. If the cancer is progressing rapidly, there isn't much we can do.

There is a big bowl of fresh peaches and bananas for my morning smoothies. I've washed and dried all the dog blankets. I'm temporarily caught up on all my website revisions. I guess I'm ready to start another week.

Rosco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1590

I woke up exhausted this morning. Dash got up in the middle of the night and seemed convinced that it was morning. He wanted his breakfast. He wanted a walk. He wanted everybody else to be completely miserable until he got what he wanted. He was acting so weird that I started wondering if the cancer center folks might have accidentally pointed the radiation machine at his brain instead of his surgery scar on Monday. Usually, in situations like these, I can bribe the dogs with a treat, but Dash was already fasting for today's radiation treatment, so he couldn't eat anything. Janet took him outside twice. I took him outside twice. We traded places in the bed, but nothing seemed to work. Eventually, he wore himself out and went back to bed. Dot was the only one who got a good night's sleep. Her hearing is so bad now, that she slept through the entire commotion.

I got an e-mail from Network Solutions today asking me to confirm all my personal information. The letter said that if I didn't comply, my domains would be deactivated. This letter seemed like a textbook example of a phishing scam, so I didn't reply to the e-mail. I called Network Solutions technical support instead and after waiting on hold for fifteen minutes, talked to a friendly technician who informed me "Yes, the letter I received was genuine." "I bet you've received a lot of calls like mine this morning," I told the lady. "Yes, we  have." she said. "Why on earth would you format a letter to your customers so it would appear exactly like a phishing scam," I asked? The tech support lady didn't have an answer to this obvious questions, and blamed everything on ICANN instead. I made a mental note to move the rest of my domains to GoDaddy.

I think I solved the second of my three vexing website problems today. Only one more to go. I don't feel much joy as I continue to wade through this labyrinth of broken code and unrealistic expectations though. Times have changed and all I'm really doing is bailing water out of a leaky boat. Some people spend so much of their lives online these days that they start to think of their website as a member of the family. To me, a website today is not that different from what a Yellow Pages ad was to people in the 1950's. The difference is that back then, people wouldn't compulsively stare at the phone book all day.

It's getting harder and harder for me to eat oatmeal for breakfast every day. I made myself a sausage omelet this morning instead. The Kale salads in the evening aren't as tasty as they used to be either. The dilemma I'm facing is that I now know exactly what to do keep diabetes at bay, avoid a heart attack, and ensure that my liver stays healthy. There is no question that a good diet is the unequivocal secret to staying healthy. Just about anybody could lose weight, lower their blood sugar, and clear their clogged arteries just by eliminating all packaged and processed foods from their diet. No sugar, no salt, and no alcohol is a perfect recipe for no fun though. I have a lot of willpower, so I imagine I'll stick with this healthy way of eating, even though I'd rather subsist on cheeseburgers, pizza, and beer. Where's the fun going to come from though? In my younger years, most of my fun came from indulgent, self-destructive behavior. I'm not sure I've been passionate about anything healthy in my life.

Wyatt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1560

Do you guys hate passwords as much as I do? When is someone going to figure out how to use the little cameras built into our computers to do a retinal scan and be done with passwords? I can never remember my passwords any more. There are so many of them these days. You can't use the time honored practice of using the same password for everything anymore either. Everyone had their own conventions and standards. Some want a minimum of six characters. Others demand ten characters. More and more sites are demanding a combination of upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special symbols. This wouldn't be so bad if everyone could agree on what a special symbol was. If I decide to use an underscore, the next person will demand an ampersand instead. It's driving me crazy.

I mention this only because one of my clients was asked to change the IP address where all their domains were pointed. We had to log into the Network Solutions control panel to move the DNS and neither of us could remember our passwords or User ID. We couldn't even remember who's account we were using. The client requested a password reset on his account and somehow Network Solutions ended up resetting my account instead. Every time I deal with Network Solutions, I vow to move the rest of my domains to GoDaddy. Making any kind of a change that involves Network Solutions usually takes up half my day.

Dash is so good about going to the cancer center for his radiation treatments. They love him up at the center and always tell me what a sweet dog he is. Dash is a social dog. I think he likes going for radiation treatments because he gets to play with other dogs while he waits for his turn with the radiation machine. That says something about how bored he must be spending the day with me. If getting treated for cancer is preferable to sitting under a writer's desk, that tells me that the writer's life might be way too boring. In fairness, Dash used to play with Dot a lot. Now Dot is getting too old and doesn't like to play much. No wonder Dash likes to go to the dog park so much.

The weather is getting a lot warmer, but it still seems pretty weird to me. When I take the dogs out early in the morning, there is still frost on the plants. By the time I take them out in the evening again it is 80 degrees. Where else but Texas would you use your furnace in the morning and your air conditioner in the afternoon?

Mondays provide a continual reminder that I'm working mostly to pay the bills these days. Very little of what I do is fun anymore. It used to be fun, but times have changed radically. Creative work has become so commoditized and marginalized that very few folks like me get to pretend they're the Wizard of Oz anymore. Instead, I feel a lot like Sisyphus, endlessly pushing that giant boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll back down again. Every time I take Dash to the cancer center, I remember why I keep pushing that rock up the hill. Work may be mindless, but it's not pointless. It pays the bills.

Chelsey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day