Day 1652

Another rainy day. I don't think I would mind the rain so much if the dogs were better sports about it. They not only hate the rain, they are fearful of it. It's not a good combination. I tried to time their morning walk between showers and was mostly successful. Dot is very practical on these rainy day walks. She does her business quickly and is immediately ready to turn around and go home. Dash, on the other hand, is oblivious to an approaching storm until he actually gets wet. Then he freaks out and wants to run all the way home, which of course Dot can't do anymore. I'm always happy when I get the two of them back home in one piece without getting drenched.

I got another jury summons today. I wish they'd just leave me alone. It's a huge waste of time to spend the day sitting in the jury pool. I never get picked to sit on a jury panel anyway. I've been doing this for years and years and lawyers for both sides don't seem to think I would be beneficial to their case. Almost inevitably, I am dismissed about 3 PM to go home without serving on a jury at all. Maybe I can postpone this summons one more time, but I have a feeling that I may have used up my allotted excuses.

There were more animal rescue websites to update this morning. I still think these websites are important, but I'm beginning to wonder if anyone reads them. Increasingly, adoptions and rescue communications are being handled through Facebook. Facebook just works better, because that's where the people are. Facebook has proved more effective for fundraising, for showcasing adoptable animals, and for raising awareness about important issues. I'm pretty sure that the only time people visit the rescue websites is when there's a link to them on Facebook.

Sadly, I could say exactly the same thing about this blog. I think there are only three people left in the entire world who actually leave comments on the blog itself. The rest see my posts only when they are syndicated to Facebook. In retrospect, I think blogging was most popular before social media existed. I remember lively discussions on all sorts of blogs that are largely silent now. Back in the day, even my business website got lots of comments and feedback. That would be unheard of now. Most businesses can't even get their customers to leave a short review on Yelp. Clicking on the "Like" button is all you're going to get these days. I'm as bad as the rest of you. All I do is click on the "Like" button, although I do wish sometimes there was a "Dislike" button as well.

I just looked at the weather report and it is supposed to rain for the rest of the week. Maybe this would be a good time to get to know those "hundreds of channels" I supposedly now have access to on my Roku streaming stick.

Rio is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1650

I don't know why I even bothered to water the lawn yesterday. It rained most of the day today. I don't think I'll ever learn how to predict the weather here in Texas. At any rate, the grass will be fine for a while. Since Dash still refuses to poop in the yard, he got wet on his morning walk. Dot was smarter and quickly did her business in the back yard, so she got to stay home where it was dry.

Hoping that the rain would be over soon, I turned on the computer and updated my animal rescue websites after breakfast. I usually do this during the week, but I certainly didn't have anything better to do this morning. It was still raining after I finished, so I reluctantly took the car out in the rain and did my Sunday errands anyway.

It was a good day to go to the gym. I had time to kill and calories to burn. I guess I was the only one who saw the gym as a refuge from the rain. There were only four other people in the entire cavernous building. I shot five baskets in a row from the free throw line today. This wouldn't be a big deal for many people, but I don't think I've done this before. Shooting baskets is interesting to me. It's all hand/eye coordination. You'd think that after a while it would become easy to replicate your actions and every shot from the free throw line would go in the basket. It doesn't seem to work that way though.

I still haven't watched anything using the Roku Streaming Stick I installed on the TV a few weeks ago. I don't watch very much using Hulu Plus either. I think I just get these things because I like to have options. I don't trust the cable companies, but my viewing needs are really pretty simple. I like to watch things I've already seen. I watch British comedies on PBS over and over again. I watch old Perry Mason and Twilight Zone episodes over and over again. And I watch all the science fiction shows like Torchwood and Dr. Who on the BBC.  I didn't watch anythng at all tonight. I just took a nap with the dogs.

We're already starting to get junk mail with ads for Fourth of July sales. Is is that time of year already?  I can't believe how fast this year has gone by. It doesn't seem like much has happened, but actually it's been a pretty eventful year. Dash has survived his arduous cancer treatments and appears to be a healthy dog again. I am finally free of the Hepatitis C virus. I have applied for social security. And Janet and I are finally starting to think about retirement. I still take things one day at a time, but the days are zooming by pretty darn fast.

Kirby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1636

I hooked up the Roku streaming stick to the TV this morning. It worked. I was curious how this little gizmo could offer so many channels for free and it didn't take me long to find out. The first free channel I added was PBS. When I tried to use the channel, I got a message saying that I had to provide my e-mail address before the channel could be activated. So, that's how it works! Now, the never ending pledge drives on PBS will wind up in my e-mail Inbox as well. Sure enough, the next time I checked my e-mail, there was already a message from PBS asking for a donation. I'm sure the other free channels work the same way. Before they can be activated, you probably have to agree to let advertisers send you e-mail spam. Personally, this is not a big deal to me. I already get such a monumental amount of spam every day that I won't even notice a little more.

I went back to the gym this afternoon. I think Sunday is my favorite day to workout. The place is never crowded on Sundays and since Janet is usually home, I don't have to worry about leaving the dogs alone for long periods of time. I can easily see myself going to the gym more often in the future. It's not a bad way to kill time and my doctors have told me that exercise is just as important as my diet.

It's probably good to get out of the house on Sundays anyway. When I'm home I tend to find myself doing things like cleaning toilets and knocking down wasp nests. I did both of those things today, along with adding those 56 new dogs and cats to the animal rescue website. As you can probably guess, it was hot and muggy outside today. It rained a little bit in the morning but it all turned to steam by afternoon. No mowing the grass today. I even dealt with the wasp nests under the eaves from the inside by opening windows and knocking them down with a stick.

I'm still having a hard time keeping Dash's tail from bleeding. As soon as the cut area at the tip of the tail starts to heal, he shakes or wags really hard, typically banging the tail against a wall which starts the bleeding all over again. My vet says that bandaging the tail isn't a really good idea, since it could cut off circulation. Janet found a couple of tail protecting devices on the Internet, but they seemed way too complicated. I couldn't leave anything on his tail while I was gone anyway, because he might chew it off and eat it. There's always the cone of shame, but Dot and Dash absolutely hate wearing the cone. I'll save that as a last resort.

Who knows what I'll be doing this week. It's still a mystery to me. I'm typically crazy busy at the first of the year. Things always slow down a bit during the Summer and than I get busy again in the Fall. That's the way it's been for as long as I can remember. I used to spend my Summers worrying that the Defender 90 would overheat in traffic and leave me stranded. Sometimes it did. Hopefully the new car will eliminate that concern for at least a year or two. I've got a birthday coming up pretty soon, but at my age birthdays aren't as exciting as they used to be. Wouldn't it be nice if after a certain age, you just started getting younger again. I'm already tired of getting older.

Lacey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1635

Today was for the dogs. They both got a nice walk early this morning while the temperature was cooler and there was still a breeze. Later in the day, we took them to a party. Every Summer, our Wednesday training class has a big party with games for the dogs and barbecue for the people. The fried chicken and ribs were especially good today, since out meal was catered by Babe's. Any local will tell you that Babe's Chicken Dinner House has the best fried chicken anywhere. Their ribs are pretty good too.

Dot used to love the running events, but she doesn't run very fast or very far anymore. She enjoyed sitting quietly in the grass while we fed her little pieces of chicken as the other dogs ran. Dash is the social butterfly in the family, so we really go to this party for him. He loves seeing all the other dogs and excels at his favorite event: bobbing for bones. The object of this game is to see which dog is fastest at retrieving, and of course eating, six large dog biscuits that are sitting in the middle of a plastic kiddie pool filled with water. Dash got all the biscuits in 23 seconds this year, which was good enough for a ribbon. After all he's been through with the cancer treatments this Spring, it was nice to see him acting like a normal dog and having fun again

The barbecue and fried chicken I ate this afternoon was the first time I've had a big lunch for well over a year. The food was great, and even though I didn't eat that much, I was full for the rest of the day. I didn't feel like eating dinner tonight at all. I had a small salad and that was plenty. I don't think I'll ever go back to eating three meals a day anymore. It's too much food.

I got a Roku streaming stick for the TV today. It was pretty cheap, so I thought I'd give it a try. I'm getting so sick of paying huge cable bills for 100's of channels I don't even like that I'm wondering if there a way to pull the plug on cable altogether. I already have Hulu, but it would be nice to have access to other things using WiFi as well. If I discontinued cable entirely, I would lose my land line phone too, but as far as I'm concerned, that would be no great loss. Absolutely nobody calls us on the land line phone anymore. We still get plenty of robocalls and telemarketers though. If there's a local election on the horizon, the robocalls are relentless. Since I work at home, I get really sick of telemarketers. It seems weird to actually pay someone for the privilege of getting calls you don't want in the first place. That's what the world has come to. The post office delivers junk mail. The phone company delivers telemarketers. And the cable company delivers hundreds of worthless channels that you will never even watch.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. If I'm smart, I'll get an early start on the week's website work. I received 56 new dogs and cats to add to an animal rescue site this afternoon. That's a lot of work in Photoshop and Dreamweaver. I'm a realist though. 56 new HTML pages still beats mowing the grass.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day