Day 2525

I stopped by a popular animal rescue event today. There was a big crowd and the weather was perfect. I used to work with this group a lot. Someone else does the marketing and promotions now. He does a good job. I saw a lot of new faces and a few familiar ones. It was nice to see that the group has prospered over the years. As I said hello to old friends, I kind of missed being involved. It was my choice though. There are other priorities now.

Maybe it wasn't a good idea to withdraw from almost everything. There's also the possibility that taking care of an old, sick dog has been the best thing that ever happened to me. Seeing Dot survive and even thrive long past her expected expiration date has certainly been its own reward. I'm working on becoming more patient and understanding. Everything seems to happen in slow motion now. The dogs control the flow of the day and how long I feel comfortable being away. The visit to the rescue event, grocery shopping, and filling the car with gas took a little over two hours. That was about right.

It was really cold this morning when I walked Dash. I've stopped wearing shorts on these morning walks and I'm going to have to start wearing a warmer jacket soon. I'm looking forward to cooler weather. I've got waterproof boots, several warm jackets, and some leggings for really cold days. The dogs love cold weather, so it should be easier to get them to walk. It costs less to run the furnace than the air conditioner too, so maybe our electric bill will go down a bit. I'm not going to get too enthusiastic though. Cold weather is fine. Snow, not so much. I'm not looking forward to snow at all.

I wonder if Obamacare is really going to get repealed? It would be easy enough to roll things back to the way it was before, but then a lot of people would lose their coverage and there would be a big outcry. Health insurance has always been confusing and a lot of the current narrative is just untrue. There have always been ways to get insured if you have a pre-existing condition. High risk pools were set up in most states for exactly this purpose. When I started my company, I was able to find good, reasonably priced health insurance. Then, five years later, my insurer pulled out of the Texas market because they thought they weren't making enough money. I had to start all over again and look for new insurance. I was older and it was much harder the second time around. To make matters worse, my doctor had discovered that I had Hepatitis C, which was considered a very expensive pre-existing condition at the time. This made it much harder to find new insurance. I was advised to join the Texas high risk pool, but I really wanted something better. I finally ended up leasing myself from an employee leasing company and then was able to get on the employee leasing company's group plan. As a leased employee, I paid myself minimum wage and was able to get pretty good insurance in return. The whole thing was an accounting nightmare, but it worked. The weird thing is that I thought I was paying a small fortune for this opportunity to join a group plan, but it was actually much less than most people are paying for Obamacare today. Good insurance has always been available, even to self employed people like me with pre-existing conditions. You just had to pay for it. It was only when the government decided to insure everybody, whether they could pay or not, that things began to get weird. Somebody had to pay, and in many cases, it turned out to be you.

I hope this nice weather continues tomorrow. The roof is dry, I don't have to empty the dehumidifier bucket very often, and the air conditioner isn't running constantly. In my world, it doesn't get much better than this.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1507

The bad news is that I apparently did dislocate my right shoulder on Tuesday. The good news is that I probably won't need surgery. After spending the better part of the day reading old magazines in two different waiting rooms, I finally received some pain pills and a cortisone shot directly in my shoulder joint. I'm already starting to feel a little better, but I can't walk the dogs for two weeks. When I go to the gym, I need to forgo the upper body exercises for a while as well.

Last night was terrible. I didn't sleep a wink. I finally got so tired of the dogs bumping into my arm on the bed, that I pushed two of their dogs beds together in the living room and slept there. Well, I tried to sleep anyway. It was painful on my back, on my side, and on my stomach. There was just no escape from the painful shoulder. Janet walked the dogs and drove me to the doctor this morning, but it put her way behind at work. We're going to have to find a dog walker for a short time while I heal.

I got a call this afternoon saying that I had been approved to begin my Hepatitis-C treatment. It looks like I will begin taking the newly approved medicine next week. It is absolutely astounding how expensive these little miracle pills are. You could purchase a very nice new car for what it costs to take the new 12-week Solvadi and ribavirin regime. Luckily my insurance will pick up most of the tab. It's hard to believe that a few little pills could ever cost so much, but I guess the pharmaceutical company is trying to recover the enormous cost of developing these pills.

I didn't do well with my writing assignments today. It's hard to type with one hand. It's actually a lot easier to drive with one hand, although shifting can still be a little tricky. I drove to my second doctor's appointment myself and somehow made it home again in one piece. Hopefully, I will at least partially regain the use of my other hand by tomorrow. I have a big photo assignment on Saturday and I'm a little worried that I won't be able to pick up my five pound DLSR. A lot could change by Saturday though. I'm optimistic at this point.

You learn a lot about the healthcare system when you spend your day sitting in waiting rooms. Today, I learned that medicine is way too expensive, waiting rooms are way too crowded, and doctors are almost universally stressed and overworked. I asked my doctor this morning how Obamacare was working out for him.  He said it was total chaos at his clinic. He told me that nobody has a clue about what to charge patients, or even whether the patients are actually insured. The only person I know personally who is a fan of Obamacare happens to own an insurance company. If insurance executives actually like the plan, this tells me all I need to know. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall when all those big insurance executives got together with the president. You know they walked away from that meeting with some kind of sweet deal.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1504

What happened to yesterday's balmy seventy degree weather? Today it was closer to thirty degrees with a thirty mile per hour wind. Brr! I'm sure the global warming crowd has a convoluted explanation for these strange extremes, but I've never seen anything like it. When you go from Winter to Summer to Winter again, all in the span of two days, something is messed up.

I picked up some prescriptions today and noticed that the price had gone down again. Apparently the time I had to spend in the dreaded donut hole penalty box was mercifully short. I asked my pharmacist if he knew what was going on, and of course he didn't. The entire healthcare system has become a mysterious black hole that sucks in questions and never regurgitates answers. I have a feeling that Obabacare is just Medicare under another name. If that's the case, lord help all of us.

I had lots of writing work to do today, but still found time to drive downtown for my third blood test in less than a week. Usually, I don't even feel the needle during these tests, but this time I walked away with a sore arm. Maybe I've just been poked too many times in too few days, or maybe the nurse just wasn't paying attention today. Either way, I think I've had enough blood tests to last me for a while. My next test is scheduled for March.

I decided to run the malware checking software I got recently on my large five terabyte backup drive. That was probably a mistake. Almost two days later, the initial scan of the drive still isn't complete. There is a message in the progress bar that says 72 million files have been scanned. That can't possibly be right. Even with the thousands of small invisible Unix files that the Apple operating system installs, how could I have 72 million files on my computer? Even with the separate partition for Linux software that I haven't used in years, this number still seems way, way too high.  It wouldn't surprise me a bit if some of these mystery files were secretly installed by Google or the NSA.  Since a lot of files on any computer are normally invisible these days so you won't erase part of the operating system by mistake, it makes you wonder if anybody really knows what is on their machine.

Apple stock took a huge plunge in after hours trading after a bad earnings report. Every time Apple stock gets down around $500 a share, I wonder if I should buy some again? I used to own Apple and did quite well with it back when Steve Jobs was alive. Now, I'm beginning to wonder if the moment has passed. My latest iPhone is basically the same as my first iPhone. Just about everybody's laptops are basically the same. Lets face it, when your grandparents start to adopt a technology, it's probably time to move on. Maybe 3D printing is the next big thing. I've invested in a few 3D printing companies, but I really have no idea what's around the next bend. I'm afraid if I really could see the future, it would scare the hell out of me.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1479

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday, it was almost seventy degrees outside. Today it was below freezing with a fierce wind that made the temperature feel much lower. At least we didn't have snow like a lot of folks in the East. I put two sweaters on each of the dogs this morning, but they didn't act like they needed them. I always think Dalmatians are going to freeze in cold weather, since they are short haired dogs. Dot and Dash seem to relish the cold however. They were certainly perky on their walks today.

Dot had her weekly acupuncture session today, but will return to her regular Wednesday schedule next week. Hopefully, I'll return to my regular schedule as well. This mid-week holiday season has left me totally confused. Most of the time, I don't know what day it is.

All in all, it was a pretty boring day. I got some writing work done, went to the bank, and attended to Dot on her spa day. That was about it. The day was so boring that I found myself wondering about trivial things. Janet got a different brand of oatmeal at the store last week and it said on the box that the cooking time was twice as long as my regular oatmeal. I set the timer for the recommended time, and stirred the mixture like I normally do. I was surprised to discover that this new oatmeal took exactly the same amount of time to cook as the regular "quick" oatmeal I normally eat. I'd never timed this meal before. Why bother? It's so simple that Dash could prepare it. I guess I never realized I was cooking my "three minute" oatmeal for eight minutes. I just keep the pot on the stove until the coffee is ready.

There's a little bird that's driving me crazy by pooping on my car every single day. It's an evil bird. I can see it doing its business through my office window, but I can't make it stop. I don't know why people keep birds as pets. They are filthy creatures. Even if you love birds, it makes little sense to keep one in a cage. When you clip a bird's wings, you are basically crippling it so it can no longer do the one thing that makes birds unique: fly. If I were a bird, I would despise the person who kept me in their living room in a cage. Oddly, the people I know who have birds, also seem to inevitably have a cat. The cat is always trying to get the bird.

I continue to find it amusing that friends of mine who thought ObamaCare was a wonderful idea are now shocked to discover they have policies with ridiculously high deductibles that cost even more than they were paying before. I used to tell these people that if the government can't make the post office work, it certainly couldn't make the healthcare system work. I think I'm going to have the last laugh on this one.

I know that I've already had my weekly poached egg and pulled pork combo, but maybe if I go back to my breakfast restaurant again tomorrow, it will get me back on schedule again. It certainly doesn't seem like tomorrow is Friday. I did remember to take the trash out tonight though. I wrote myself a note.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1460

I think we're finished with pet photos for another year. The four Santa Paws events were a resounding success, and hopefully our efforts will help Dalmatian Rescue find homes for some deserving dogs in the year ahead. We've been doing these fundraising events for so long now that we've watched some dogs grow from their first photos as wild little puppies, to become mature adult dogs, and finally to return again as sedate senior dogs with grey muzzles. All these dogs are incredibly important to their owners and yet they don't live nearly as long as they should. I've always wished that dogs lived as long as we do. Seven to fourteen years isn't enough time.

I found out today that one of my doctors is still billing everything to my old insurance company. As if things aren't screwed up enough already. I've updated my records three times with the correct information, but nothing seems to change. Lord help these guys when they get hit with all the new ObamaCare regulations. My situation is simple. If they can't manage to keep my information current in the computer, a lot of their patients are totally screwed.

I thought the weather would be nice today, but the temperature is still hovering around freezing. I need at least one nice day to get all the leaves and water off the roof before the next round of bad weather hits. Maybe tomorrow. "Maybe tomorrow" seems to be my response to just about everything these days. The closer is gets to Christmas, the more errands there are to run. I don't think I'm ever going to get caught up at this point. If I remember to pay the property taxes, I forget to go to the dentist. If I remember to pick up the dry cleaning, I forget to take my evening meds. On and on it goes. About the only thing I remember consistently are the dogs vet appointments.

I'm taking some pictures for a friend of Janet's tomorrow. This shouldn't take long, so maybe I'll find time to make it back to the gym again. I haven't been all week and it's starting to show. I'm sure that all my storm related activities must have burned of a few calories, but it's not the same. Hey, a good workout, a clean car, and the missing UPS package back on my doorstep and I'll be back in business again.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1430

I wonder what my day would look like if I just did what the dogs wanted? We wouldn't get up until 10 AM. Our walks would slow down to a snail's pace, so there would be plenty of time to examine and smell every single bush along the way. When we eventually arrived home, we would spend the rest of the day eating. Truthfully, this simple canine hedonism sounds much better than the way I actually spend my day. Although my own temperament is very much like a lazy Dalmatian, I spend my days like one of those caged Hamsters continually on the run inside one of those spinning exercise wheels.

Yes, it was another busy day. I had writing assignments to finish. I had to go back to the storage warehouse to get the photo equipment I forgot the other day. There were bills to pay, groceries to buy, and a DVD full of pictures and videos to burn for a client's Facebook page. I managed to make it to the gym again as well.

At least I'm not in the insurance business. Those guys must be tearing their hair out tonight. After the government forced them to spend three years radically changing their entire business model, the president gets on TV today and essentially says "Never mind, Just kidding. You can all go back to the way it was before if you want." Something tells me that it isn't going to be easy to go back to the way it was before. The horse is already out of the barn on this one.

We saw a fantastic sunset on our evening walk tonight. A couple of years ago I could have taken along a high resolution SLR and gotten some equally fantastic images. Not anymore. Taking a large camera with me is close to impossible these days. Dot has gotten frail and Dash has completely forgotten how to heal at my side. Keeping Dash from knocking Dot over as he roots around trying to find fresh horse poop along the trail is a two hand job. Having two dog that would dutifully heal at my side is just a distant memory now. The dogs enjoy their walks as much as the ever did. It just seems a lot harder to keep them moving in a straight line.

If I had the time and the money, I'd probably go out to breakfast every morning. I'm surprised at how much I look forward to my Friday morning breakfast outings. I don't understand all the people who bring their laptops along with them when they go out to eat. I see these folks all the time. To me, the whole point of my Friday breakfast is to get away from the computer for a while. That's exactly what I'll be doing tomorrow morning.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1428

While the rest of the city prepared for tonight's expected freeze by bringing in their ferns and potted plants, I just brought in the 24-volt battery from my electric lawn mower. For the past two years I have failed to do this and the expensive battery froze and had to be replaced. This year will be different. Starting today, the battery joins all the other clutter on my office floor and I'll probably trip over it ten times before Spring.

There just isn't enough time in the day anymore. I had a simple agenda today.  All I needed to do was walk the dogs, write a single article, get my November invoices in the mail, go to the gym, and pick up something for dinner at the grocery store. I methodically went from one task to the next and by the time I was finished, the sun had already set and I had to give the dogs their evening walk in the dark. I'm not a real fan of standard time. Things would work out better for me if we had daylight saving time all year long. Hey, I'm not a morning person. I don't care if it's light in the morning, but I definitely need that extra hour of daylight at the back end of the day.

The problem with simple lists is that they're usually only simple because you forgot something. What I forgot to mention in the agenda above was that Tuesday is also Dash's day to go to the vet. Going to the vet is pretty much the same as going to the doctor. It eats up a lot of time. You spend a lot of time waiting in the lobby and a very short time visiting with the doctor. Dash is never well behaved while he is waiting. There is a large parrot in the lobby that he is obsessed with. I don't know whether Dash wants to play with the parrot or eat it, but I can't seem to convince him that the parrot will bite him if he gets too close to the cage.

I worry too much. While I was at the gym, I noticed Dash doing something strange on the nanny cam.  I almost cut my workout short to drive home and see what was happening, but then I noticed that Dash had gone back to sleep again. Staying at the gym didn't alleviate all my worries though. I'm always afraid that one of the old people who go to this gym are going to hit my car. These people are the worst drivers I've even seen. You've really got to be careful when you leave the parking lot. 

Tomorrow, an insurance broker is going to explain Obamacare at our Wednesday morning breakfast meeting by showing us an old episode from The Twilight Zone. That ought to be interesting.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1393

I barely left the house today. Don't worry, the dogs still got their morning and evening walks, but that was about it. The rest of the day I spent staring at the computer. It's no surprise that carpel tunnel has taken its toll on my wrists. My main exercise today was pushing the mouse around on my desk.

Not that it matters, but I did get quite a bit done. Three more websites are up to date again, an article is on its way to be published, and a new print ad is looking pretty good in Quark Express. Sometimes I think I ought to teach my clients to update their own websites, but that would be shooting myself in the foot. I'm fully aware that my client's don't hire me for my wisdom. They hire me because I'm willing to do tiresome, mindless things that they don't feel like doing.

Although I've never liked the randomness of Texas weather, I find the changing of the seasons comforting. As Fall continues its approach, I see familiar signs that I know I've seen before. The leaves on certain trees are starting to turn yellow and orange. The Coots have returned to the lake and the Cormorants aren't far behind. As the days grow shorter, the dogs and I cast long shadows on our morning and evening walks. I'm certainly no Henry David Thoreau, but I've documented these seasonal transformations so thoroughly over the years, that I can tell you exactly what is going to happen next, just by looking at the photos I took in previous years. Maybe the ice is melting and the oceans are rising in other parts of the world, but nothing is changing here. Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter are as regular as clockwork.

I am baffled by all the bickering in Congress. Sometimes I don't think anyone understands the healthcare industry at all. First of all, there is nothing new about Obamacare. Most states have had high risk pools for people with pre-existing conditions for decades. I should know, because I have some serious pre-existing conditions myself. It's not that people with pre-existing conditions can't get insurance, they just don't want to pay for it. Anyone with a pre-existing condition could always get health insurance the same way I did. For over a decade my company has leased my own services through an employee leasing company, just so I could get on the employee leasing company's group health insurance plan. This was always an expensive solution, but the insurance was quite good.

I have a feeling that I made the transition to the world of Medicare at precisely the right time. I noticed recently that the employee leasing company I was affiliated with has quietly dropped the gold plan I was using and is now advising customers to use one of the new private health care exchanges instead. The irony of this whole healthcare mess is that the people who hate the Affordable Care Act the most will probably benefit from it by being able to drop their company insurance programs entirely. On the other hand, the people who love the Affordable Care Act now, will probably hate it several years from now when they discover how much they will actually have to pay.

Noting is as it seems. I discovered that a long time ago.

Madison is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1386

Today didn't get of to a good start. I got up late. The dogs were exceptionally slow on their morning walk. Even though I rushed through my normally tranquil breakfast, I felt like the day was half over before I began to immerse myself in a long list of projects with immediate deadlines. It might have been brain fog, but the articles on my plate today seemed more difficult than usual. Then there was that troublesome Wordpress site I'm developing. Even though I'm learning more and more about Wordpress with each passing day, it is still a thorn in my side. Today, I learned that my favorite Javascript applets don't work in Wordpress. I haven't really mastered the art of editing Wordpress themes in Dreamweaver either. I guess you're just supposed to buy a theme and leave it alone.

I got so tangled up with work problems today that I almost forgot about Dash's vet appointment. Luckily the vet was flexible and I was able to re-schedule his regular 2 PM appointment for 3:30 PM. Sometimes I feel like a full-time dog nanny. Dot has her own vet appointment tomorrow.  Taking care of the dogs takes a lot of time, but it's still the only thing that seems genuinely important. Everything else is basically BS.

Are you guys as tired of Congress as I am? This whole attempt to shut down the government to protest Obamacare is absurd. Hey guys, just leave things alone. If Obamacare works and people end up liking it, so be it. If Obamacare doesn't work and people end up hating it, it's not going to last very long. I've been in business long enough to realize that sometimes things just sink under their own weight. You don't even have to try to sink them.

Tomorrow looks like it will live up to its reputation as the busiest day of the week. I've got my 7 AM business networking breakfast to attend. Dot has her afternoon water therapy appointment. And it looks like I've got at least two new articles to finish. Hopefully, I won't even think about Wordpress tomorrow. At least the weather is nice. October is typically the prettiest month of the year here in Texas and if today is any indication, the month is getting off to a great start.

Tori is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day