Day 2956

Dash looked so sleepy last night that I didn't bother to wake him up to go pee before I went to bed. Big mistake. He woke me up three times during the night needing to go outside. Since it started raining during the night, I had to clean him off each time so he wouldn't get the bed muddy when we went back to sleep. Dash is no quicker doing his business in the rain than when it is dry. It was a long night, but at least he didn't throw up.

I was tired this morning, but as soon as we started our morning walk I wished we'd gotten up earlier. There was a heavy fog that was lifting rapidly. I took a few pictures as we walked, realizing that the fog was probably much more dramatic an hour earlier while I was still asleep. I love walking through fog. I guess this is the way I like to see the world.

By the time we returned home, the sky was already clearing. I had missed my chance to photograph ghostly sailboats again. I would have preferred to miss my chance to run Saturday errands, but no such luck. Saturday has always been a day to run errands.

I needed to pick up some bulbs for the sconce lamps in the living room. These are the only lamps in the house that still use incandescent bulbs. For several years I have been watching the price of these halogen bulbs gradually increasing as the price of LED bulbs continued to decrease. LED bulbs used to be super expensive and now they are quite reasonable. Today for the first time, the the price of the incandescent bulbs was actually higher than the LED bulbs. Sign of the times, I guess. In a few years, I probably won't even be able to find these bulbs at all.

It's hard to believe tax season is already here again. I'm already starting to receive tax documents in the mail. I have to be careful not to throw these things away. Most of them look exactly like junk mail. I almost threw some documents away this morning. They need to stamp "important tax document" on every envelope for people like me. I get so much junk mail that I don't even open most of it anymore. The chances are pretty high that I occasionally throw away something important.

I wish there was something interesting to watch on TV while I was doing chores around the house. The cable news stations just talk about politics. The local news just talks about overnight crime. I can't stand daytime talk shows like Ellen or Steve Harvey. I'd like a channel that just showed TED talks. They have something like this on the radio. Why not on TV?

It's alarming how little interests me these days. I guess the flame is still flickering though. I can't wait to watch the Falcon Heavy launch on February 6. I'd love to see this thing in person, but watching on my computer will have to do. There is something really appealing about sending a red Tesla Roadster to Mars. If the weather is clear next Wednesday I'll get up early to watch the lunar eclipse. The whole thing won't be visible in Dallas, but I should be able to see something before the moon sets around sunrise. Maybe there are other interesting things in February as well. Right now, I'd settle for another foggy day.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2887

I'm afraid I'm going to have to retrieve Dot's rugs from the storage room soon. Dash is starting to slip and slide on the bricks. If he would slow down and start acting like the mature dog he is, I'm sure he could navigate the bricks for another couple of years. That's not Dash though. He still likes to counter surf. He'll still race to the kitchen when he hears food being prepared. Since he already has a partially torn cruciate ligament, I'm afraid he's going to ruin his knee joint every time he slips. I've thought about just leaving his rubber boots on all the time, but there's a downside to that as well. I just wish Dash would realize he's getting older and start taking care of himself a little better.

I'm trying to take care of myself better. That's why I switched doctors and continue going to the gym every Sunday. It's no fun growing old, but what are the alternatives? While I was driving to the gym today I listened to a TED talk about recent advances in gene editing. Precise gene editing could bring back the Wooly Mammoth from extinction, eliminate mosquitos in malaria prone areas, and allow parent to choose the hair color, intelligence, and resistance to disease of their babies. What could possibly go wrong? This all sounds like science fiction, but apparently scientists around the world are already using something called CRISPR-Cas9 technology to modify plants and animals at the DNA level. There's a lot of debate about the ethics of messing around with human DNA, but I'm sure there was debate about the ethics of atom bombs before we exploded the first one too. Humans tend to use the things they invent. We just can't resist.

Maybe in the future, people like me won't have to worry about diabetes and arthritic joints. We'll use gene editing to create a race of disease free, almost super human people. Of course, there's an even greater chance that we'll inadvertently create thousands of 100 foot long fire breathing dragons who will eat us while we sleep.

I had a good workout today, but that apparently wasn't enough. Against my better judgement, I actually moved the furniture while I vacuumed this afternoon. I don't do this very often because it is too depressing. It's unbelievable how much dust can accumulate under a chair that hasn't been moved for a year. We also took the heavy comforter off the bed and took it to a laundromat for cleaning. If you let your dog sleep on the bed with you, you quickly realize that white isn't the best color for a bed spread. I liked out old brown comforter better. It might not have been the prettiest thing in the world, but it hid all the damage the dogs caused admirably.

I didn't do my homework on Wordpress this weekend. Oh, well. There's still time. It's hard to get excited about Wordpress. I guess it's convenient if you like to work in teams, but it doesn't do much for me. I can think of so many more elegant ways to design a website. When you're used to sitting down and writing your own code, it just seems cumbersome to use someone else's template.

I see my neighbors beginning to pile up bags of leaves, old kitchen chairs, and discarded children's toys on the curb. This much mean it's time for bulky trash pickup again. I'll need to look tomorrow and see if there's anything I need to throw away. I'm supposed to receive a package next week. I think the package is lost since no tracking number was provided by the shipper. The shipper says everything is fine. We'll see who's right by the end of the week. We're going out to eat for Thanksgiving again this year. This should be a relaxing occasion, so I'm going to try my best not to worry about Dash. There's no need to worry. He's just going to be sleeping on the bed like he always does in the afternoon. I wish I wasn't always waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2470

I was thinking about freedom and discipline while I was at the gym today. I've always hated rules and regulations, but I'm certainly not much of a free spirit. I think of myself as a highly disciplined person with a poorly defined sense of purpose. If I start something, I finish it. Period. Don't ask me why I started though. This apparent contradiction certainly sums up my trips to the gym. I'm no slouch and work out strenuously, but I have no goals. I'm not sure if I've achieved anything at all. Maybe I just go to the gym so I can listen to TED talks in the car while I'm driving there.

I hate vacuuming, but I vacuum the house with a vengeance almost every Sunday. That's discipline. Moving the dog beds around, cleaning all the rugs, and then cleaning the brick floors under them takes a lot of time. There is always an enormous amount of dirt and dog hair in the Dyson canister when I'm finished, but the house doesn't look any cleaner. How could I keep removing all this dirt and there's still more? It seems to violate some fundamental law of physics. At some point you'd think all the dirt would finally be gone. I feel the same way about the dehumidifier. Gallons of water are removed from the house every day, and yet the moisture in the air never really disappears.

The combination of a roof that turns into a lake every time it rains, bills that keep arriving whether you spend any money or not, industrious spiders that obscure the living room windows with new webs every evening, squirrels and possums that work tirelessly to destroy the lawn, dust and dirt that seems to have acquired a life of its own, and a dog that poops in the house every time I decide to take a shower, all require discipline just to stay on top of things. I don't feel like I've got the freedom to ignore these intrusions. You've just got to keep going to keep the chaos at bay.

So, am I having fun at the gym? I really don't know. I don't hate going, but I don't love going either.  It's just 63 minutes out of my day. I'm starting to feel the same way about going out for breakfast or even writing this blog. I don't question any of these things, but have forgotten what it was that made any of this seem like a good idea. Occasionally, someone asks me what I'm passionate about. I just give them a blank stare. It's discipline, not passion that keeps me going.

None of this is a bad thing. I'm actually a relatively happy person. Maybe it's just me, but I think a lot of people would be better off if they substituted discipline for passion. Just finishing what you started can be it's own reward.

Tomorrow, I'll start the day by making the bed. I'll concoct a delicious smoothie from strawberries, blueberries, peaches, bananas, eggs, oatmeal, and ice cream. The dogs will get walked. If there's a writing assignment, I'll do it quickly and efficiently. If no work comes my way, maybe I'll wash the car. That's probably enough for a Monday. If something surprising happens, you'll be the first to know.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2344

I was listening to the TED Radio Hour on the way to the gym this afternoon and the topic was Abraham Maslow and his Hierarchy of Needs. The theory is that there is a hierarchy of human needs and that the most basic needs must be satisfied before you can move up the pyramid to the next level. I forget who was talking on the TED stage, but he caught my attention when he said that the foundation of all human needs was a need for sleep, illustrating his premise with all sorts of bad things that happen to people who don't get enough sleep. Next up the list was a basic need for safety and security. When these needs were satisfied, the next level included a need to belong and share a sense of community. This was as far as I got before I arrived at the gym, but the talk was a little unsettling. If the foundation of a satisfied life was getting enough sleep, feeling secure, and having a sense of belonging to something larger than myself, I was screwed. I never get enough sleep, so maybe the illusive self-actualization at the top of the pyramid isn't in the cards for me.

I don't know if there is a hierarchy of dog needs, but Dot and Dash must be doing pretty well. Both of them get an enormous amount of sleep and must feel pretty secure since we take care of all their needs. Maybe this is why Dot still seems happy despite her many disabilities. On any given day, the dogs do seem happier than I am. They also seem to have a unique ability to live in the moment. I don't think that living in the moment was listed on Abraham Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs. but it does seem pretty important.

We are nearing the peak of the wildflower season now. Almost every day when I take Dash on his longer "boy's walk," I see something new. Today I noticed that the Purple Leatherflowers have returned. This is a type of Clematis that looks like a small purple bell. I've always enjoyed seeing these flowers, but they don't last very long. It's too bad that Dot can't take these longer walks anymore. They are almost always the best part of my day.

Going to the gym will never be the best part of my day, but the experience is strangely satisfying for a guy that hates to exercise. When I'm on the treadmill, I gradually increase the angle of the machine, so that the end of my one mile walk, there is a neat little ascending ramp graphic displayed in LED lights on the treadmill's dashboard. I always turn the crank on the hand bicycle forward for one minute and then backwards for one minute until I've finished a mile on this machine too. It usually takes exactly twenty minutes. I try to shoot five baskets in a row from the free throw line on the basketball court. I've almost never done this, but sometimes I get pretty close. I never shoot until I hear a dull thud from dribbling the ball on a small dead spot on the floor. This invisible spot marks the perfect distance for me. All the machines have similar rituals. You get the idea. I like repetition and am a bit superstitious.

I did no vacuuming or yard work today. There's plenty of time for that during the week now. I did make some small website updates and added a third camera to the list that can now be controlled by a tablet or smart phone. There's actually a reason for adding WiFi capability to these cameras. At some point, I want to place a camera on a tripod in a corner of the yard near the bird bath were small animals congregate, so I can take pictures of them without scaring them away.

I have a meeting with my financial adviser tomorrow. I'm going to try to listen with an open mind, but I'm not a happy camper. Even in today's volatile and unpredictable market, I should be doing a lot better.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2273

I'm not sure that going to the gym made much of a difference. You can't get in shape with once a month workouts. Today's visit was more of a symbolic gesture. Maybe it was my way of saying "don't count me out yet." I did all my routines faithfully, elevated my heart rate, and worked up a sweat, but I'm still going to have to do this three times a week to make any real difference.

All I could think about today was the weather forecast. There are supposed to be thunderstorms every day next week. I really hope this isn't true. The combination of rain on the roof, mud in the yard, and dealing with a storm phobic crippled dog will test my sanity. It takes forever to get Dot to pee in the yard on a good day. In stormy weather, it's hopeless.

It's getting warm enough to call the landscapers to come back and replace the grass, ground cover, and bedding plants that died during the winter. We do this every year. Apparently neither Janet or I have anything remotely resembling a green thumb. This year, the yard looks even worse than usual because months of walking behind Dot and holding up her rear legs while she smells things and looks for a place to pee has killed a a significant percentage of the Asian Jasmine and Liriope. This happened once before when an earlier Dalmatian grew old and required assistance. It took at least three years for the ground cover to recover and start looking decent again. Apparently, dogs, cats, possums, and raccoons can walk through ground cover with impunity, but when people start tramping through the stuff, it dies.

I always listen to Ted Talks on the radio while I'm driving to and from the gym. The Ted Radio Hour on Sunday afternoon is probably the best thing on PBS. Today's subject was laughter and after listening for about five minutes, I turned the show off. I just couldn't relate to it. This is probably not a good sign. I can't recall that I've ever turned off a Ted Talk before. If the subject was sadness, the vastness of the universe, or preparing for the day the robots take over, I probably would have been fascinated.

The house smelled good today. Janet was preparing pulled pork in the slow cooker and the pork roast she was cooking gave the house the aroma of a nice barbecue joint. Pork has always been my favorite meat, but I am very conflicted about it now. I love bacon, ribs, and center cut pork chops, but every time I see a picture of a cute little pig on Facebook, I feel vaguely guilty. Damn you Facebook. All you do is destroy my faith in humanity with an endless stream of mindless memes, political rants, and cute pictures of piglets.

After I took that one watch to the watch repairman last week, I've been noticing that many other watches are running slow, are hard to wind, or have simply stopped running. What was I thinking when I thought it would be fun to collect watches? If I'd given the matter any thought at all, I would have realized that my compulsion to repair things and the inevitable nature of mechanical things to break would soon be at odds with each other. It has become impossible to keep all these old watches running, and even if I had the time and money to keep fixing them, it would just be another quixotic gesture.

I vacuumed and cleaned the house today, so this virtually guarantees that Dot will poop in the house tonight. I've tried again and again to get her to do her business outside this afternoon, but she isn't ready yet. Such is life.

Anne is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2021

Sunday's are often the busiest days of the week. The dogs get longer walks because there are fewer work constraints. The lawn gets mowed, because what better is there to do after breakfast than mow the lawn. Sometimes the house gets cleaned, but not today. I was pleased the Dot had more energy today. She always walks better when Dash is with her. Since Dash was so good about walking slow for Dot's benefit, we took him to a nearby dog park as a special treat later in the morning. You can tell that Dash is getting older too. He used to race around the dog park with wild abandon. Now, he just walks slowly from tree to tree, smelling things and looking for new places to pee. He still enjoys being off leash though. I'd take him to the dog park more often if people were more responsible. There's always someone who brings an aggressive dog. Today we saw one dog get in a fight with several others. The dogs that got attacked didn't appear to be injured, but the whole episode was totally unnecessary.

Mowing the grass with a non-self propelled mower definitely burns up a lot of calories. I think I'm just about the only person in the neighborhood who still mows their own grass anymore. Most of the other neighbors have a lawn care service. I still do a lot of things that other people have given up on. I'm kind of a throwback to an earlier era, except when it comes to technology. I may still mow my own grass, vacuum my own floors, and fix my own refrigerator, but I'm not shy about adopting the latest technology if it will do the job better. This year I have become a huge fan of Keurig coffee makers, Dyson vacuum cleaners, and even though I collect vintage mechanical watches, I'm going to add the Apple Watch to my list of really useful technical innovations.

I watched the Space X Dragon 9 launch on NASA TV right after breakfast and was shocked to see the rocket explode two minutes into its flight. Space X has had a remarkable success record, so this was very unexpected. This is a major setback, since this same rocket is scheduled to start carrying people to the space station in a little over a year. The astronauts on the station must be getting nervous. This is the second supply rocket failure in a row and the third in less than a year. In a way, I'm glad I didn't go to this launch. I'd much rather cheer on a success than witness a failure.

There are some pilings in the lake that Double-crested Cormorants and Gulls like to roost on in the Winter. I've probably photographed these pilings hundreds of times. They look completely different in the morning than they do in the afternoon. On foggy days they look spectacular. Sometimes each pole has a bird sitting on top, and other days, like today. they are all empty. I find these pilings strangely beautiful, but the city wants to demolish them. Some neighbors love these things and others think they're an eyesore. There's no accounting for taste I guess.

I listened to a Ted Talk on the way to the gym where the speaker was talking about how technology is fundamentally changing what it means to be human. The guy's point was that people are slowly becoming more comfortable interacting with their phones and robots than they are with other people. I guess this is true, but from my perspective it's not necessarily a bad thing. I'll always use the automated checkout kiosk in a store instead of going to a cashier. It's quicker, easier, and you don't have to talk with anyone. I would probably never use a personal trainer at the gym, but I felt strangely motivated today when my watch told me that I only had a few minutes to go before I'd burned 300 calories.

Patch is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1839

When I was cleaning the bird droppings off the car this morning, I inadvertently rammed my head into the edge of an open car door. I was on my way to the gym, but I had to wait about twenty minutes until the bleeding quit. The last thing I wanted to do was answer a bunch of questions from total strangers about why there was a big bandage on my forehead. Luckily, my blood clots quickly. I fed the dogs a couple of extra dog treats while I was waiting and then I was on my way.

The TED talk on the car radio today was about memory. Evidently most of us are very selective about our memories and forget the vast majority of what happens to us each day. I probably forget more than most of you. The guy on the TED stage was explaining how we can train our memories to remember much more, but I'm not sure I'd want to do that. I'm convinced that my lack of memory has been responsible for much of my success in life. I reinvent the wheel continually, since I have very few formulas stored away. I am able to do routine things over and over again without getting bored, because it all seems new to me. I'm convinced that thinking of new and original solutions to everyday problems keeps the brain a lot more agile than simply pulling a tried and true solution out of your memory bank. Advertising would have driven me insane decades ago if I remembered every ad I ever did.

The Nike running shoes I wear to the gym are wearing out, so I thought I'd pick up a new pair while I was out and about today. Good lord! How do you rationally select a pair of running shoes these days? There are literally thousands of styles, colors and prices to choose from. Each model seems purpose built for something or other, but without trying on dozens and dozens of shoes, I didn't have a clue which I would like best. I didn't like the new featherweight styles that looked like they'd fall apart in three weeks. I didn't like all the neon colors or high-top basketball styles either. I finally found something that looked more or less like my old shoes and bought a pair. I probably need to start looking for some new dog walking boots too. My sturdy waterproof Redwing boots aren't waterproof anymore. They just don't make shoes like they used to.

It's hard to believe that it will be 2015 in just a few days. It seems like yesterday when Janet and I opened a bottle of champagne to welcome a new millennium on December 31, 1999. Everyone was worried about the Y2K bug and the year 2000 sounded very futuristic. Oddly, not much has changed in fifteen years.

I've got an early morning physical therapy session scheduled for tomorrow. It seems all wrong to have physical therapy before breakfast, but it can't be helped. This is just a weird holiday scheduling anomaly. Pretty soon it will be 2015 and everything will be back to normal.

Lou is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1811

I had forgotten how much I hate to assemble Ikea furniture. This stuff is extremely well designed, using extremely shoddy materials. I think the cabinet I built for Janet today was made from compressed cardboard boxes. You learn quickly when assembling Ikea products to follow the instructions exactly. If you put even a single screw in the wrong hole, you can quickly ruin your entire project. Don't lose any of the tiny parts either. Ikea never gives you any extra screws, bolts, or fasteners.

I am always surprised when I open one of those big, flat Ikea boxes and discover that there are twice as many parts as I was expecting. I admire Ikea's desire to make a single instruction manual that the entire world can use, but sometimes a few words might be helpful. Today's thirty page instruction book made it seem like I was assembling a nuclear submarine. I took my time and counted all the parts before I started. By taking things slow and never trying to skip ahead in the instruction book, I was eventually able to assemble the entire multi-drawer cabinet without swearing or putting an important component together upside down. Personally, I would rather buy my furniture already assembled at Design Within Reach, but you certainly can't beat Ikea's prices.

When I finished building furniture, I went to the gym. The TED Talk on the car radio today was about pushing yourself to extremes. A young man described descending 8,000 feet under the earth to explore the world's deepest cave. Then a woman described how she decided to row solo across the Atlantic Ocean after she became bored with her desk job. My own body felt like it had been pushed to extremes just by sitting cross legged on the brick floor for three hours while building my little Ikea cabinet. I think I needed a proper workout just to get my creaky knee joints working again. I used to be fairly handy with tools, but carpal tunnel in my wrists, a dislocated shoulder, and worn out knees can certainly cramp your style.

It's almost time to put the Christmas tree up again. It's unbelievable how quickly time goes by these days. Wasn't it just Christmas a few months ago? Now it's time to do the Santa Paws pet photos again. I hope I'm up to the challenge. At least there aren't many Christmas presents to buy anymore. Even with a small Christmas list, I still manage to postpone my shopping till the last possible minute. There are so many things to do this month. I need to remember to get my photo equipment out of the storage warehouse tomorrow. I was going to do this today, but I spent too much time building the Ikea furniture.

Next week is my dreaded trip to the dentist. I'm hoping that something good happens next week as well.

Belle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1804

When I was driving to the gym today I listened to a TED Talk about a guy who had taken a vow of silence for seventeen years. He was explaining how he wanted to see if he could go an entire day without talking. The day then became a week, and the week became a year. Every year on his birthday he decided to keeping going one more year. The talk was mostly about how staying silent all those years had fundamentally changed his outlook on life. Yup. I imagine this would change a few things.

TED Talks are like this a lot. Somebody starts doing something simple and relatively innocuous and just keeps going until it turns into an amazing revelation. I wonder what I would talk about if I were ever asked to get up on the TED stage?  I've become an excellent observer over the years, but my observations haven't really gelled into anything significant. Maybe I just need to keep looking.

Another thing I need to do is go to the dentist. I know I've been saying this for months now, but things have reached a tipping point of sorts. I think an old crown has gone bad. The suspect tooth has become very sensitive to cold and I've noticed that I've started chewing on one side of my mouth to avoid the pain. I bet I need a root canal on that tooth. My whole mouth is a house of cards. I'm sure as soon as I get into a dentist's office they're going to want to pull all my wisdom teeth. I've been avoiding this for years, but the wisdom teeth slowly keep pushing my other teeth out of place. I really need to put aside my fear of dentists and make an appointment tomorrow.

After I made a special point of buying new winter gloves and some special cold weather leggings a few weeks ago, the temperature has gotten warm again. The frigid polar vortex temperatures only lasted a day or two and now its back in the 70's again. I wore shorts and a t-shirt when I walked the dogs this afternoon. This is actually pretty typical Texas weather. You never know what to expect. There's a fierce wind outside now that threatens to blow apart my repairs to the greenhouse. We'll see what further surprises tomorrow brings.

It's hard to show restraint at this time of year. The grocery stores are filled with an abundance of absolutely scrumptious looking food and all the other stores are overflowing with all manner of intriguing but largely unnecessary gadgets. I almost came home with a pecan pie, a big wedge of imported cheesed, and a red Pebble smart watch today. Luckily I am finally getting a bit better at showing restraint. All I actually bought were some vegetables and a box of Swiffer dust pads.

It's going to be a short week. I doubt that I'll be able to get a dental appointment, or even a haircut before Thanksgiving. We do have our Thanksgiving dinner reservations though. It's all a matter of priorities

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1776

When I arrived at the gym this afternoon, there was a big sign at the reception desk that said "Pool Closed Until Further Notice." My paranoid mind immediately made the assumption that this must have something to do with Ebola. In all likelihood, the pool had just developed a leak. It doesn't matter anyway, since I never use the pool. Swimming might actually be better for my shoulder than what I'm doing now, but it's too much trouble to get a locker and change. The place was pretty empty this afternoon, but that didn't mean anything at all. The gym is always empty on Sunday afternoons.

On my way home I listened to a Ted Talk on the radio where a geneticist talked about human evolution. It was fascinating. I was surprised to learn that although Homo sapiens have been around for several hundred thousand years, modern day humans are only about 60,000 years old. That's pretty young, considering how long crocodiles have been around. According to this geneticist, the human race almost went extinct when the ice age coincided with the eruption of a huge supervolcano in Indonesia about 70,000 years ago. The explosion dimmed the sun for six years, disrupted seasonal rains and almost killed off the human race. With fewer than 2000 people left on the planet, evolution kicked into high gear, forcing humans to either adapt or die. The remaining humans left their home in Africa, searching for a more hospitable climate. They invented language as we know it today. They developed agriculture and other ways to improve their survival odds, and spread across the world in less than 10,000 years. All this information was just the prelude to the main event, however. The guys main point was that he thinks that evolution has kicked into high gear again and in less than 500 years we will change into a completely different species. We are being asked to process more information in a single day now than we used to process in a year. Our current brains can't handle the load and they are trying to adapt, just like the first humans were forced to adapt to a cataclysmic change in climate. Some of the science in this Ted Talk went over my head, but it caught my attention when the explosion of autism in children and many other modern day disorders were explained as explorations on a DNA level as the evolutionary process tries to arrive at whatever comes next. Of course none of this may be true, but it is still fascinating. Your great, great grandchildren might not even be human. I've always thought that people who worry about the glaciers melting are thinking way too small. The earth is 4 billion years old. If we're really only 60,000 years old, I'm sure the earth has a way to deal with us. Maybe we won't destroy the planet after all. Maybe the planet will change us.

I think I'll go vote tomorrow. I'm not sure where the early voting place is, but it should be easy to find. I've become a fan of early voting in recent years. It's so much more convenient that waiting in line on election day. The early voting locations all seem to have the latest touch screen voting machines too. When I vote at my local precinct on election day, I get a paper ballot where I have to mark a lot of little circles with a #2 pencil. The type on the ballot is very small and when I forget my reading glasses, I don't know what is going on.

We've finally come up with costumes for the Halloween party at our dog training class this Wednesday. Janet is sewing them together now. No, the costumes aren't for us. They are for the dogs.

Pearl is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1622

On my way to the gym on Sunday, I often listen to the TED Radio Hour in the car. The show starts at 2 PM, and by coincidence, that's usually when I leave for the gym. TED talks are one of the few things I continually find interesting. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, and Design, but these wide ranging talks can be about virtually anything. I always learn something. I wish there was a station that ran these talks non-stop, because they are a lot more interesting than listing to Hip Hop, old 80's rock, or ads from mattress stores. Today's talk was about fear and I listened to a fascinating conversation with astronaut Chris Hadfield as he explained what it was like to be strapped to the top of a rocket when the odds were about 1 in 35 that it would explode.

The odds were much better that I'd have a good workout today. I'm getting stronger now. I'm sure that having a fully functioning liver again helps. If I can manage to find the time to get back to my goal of three good workouts a week, I imagine I'll really start seeing some progress. Something is always better than nothing though, so for the moment, I'm trying to make the most of my once a week schedule.

I wrote my monthly essay for my writers group this afternoon. Why this afternoon? Well, the deadline was today. Like I've said many times, I'm very deadline oriented. Without a deadline, I'd probably do nothing. I'm skeptical of people who tell me that they are motivated by simply loving what they are doing. That isn't enough for me. I need a deadline, combined with the fear of public humiliation, to find the motivation I need.

The neighbor's new cat returned to our yard this morning. It's a shame that Dot has such a strong prey drive, since the little cat is very friendly. I think it has decided that it would rather live with us than with the people next door who adopted it. I've got to figure out how to convince the neighbors to keep their new cat indoors. If this is going to be an outdoor cat that is attracted to our yard, Dot will eventually hurt the cat, or hurt herself. She is much too old and frail to be chasing cats.

We had burgers and home made potato salad for dinner. It seemed like a perfect meal for a three-day weekend. I'll be the first to admit that I've led a fairly sheltered life. Like many baby boomers, I spent my life living between major wars and never served in the armed services. The period between the Vietnam War and the post-9/11 wars in Iraq and Afghanistan was probably the longest period of extended peace in our country's history. It's easy for people like me to forget what this Memorial Day holiday really means. My parents both served proudly in World War II. They had something most of my own generation lacks. Patriotism wasn't just a word to them, it was a way of life. In honor of their service and of the service of the thousands who continued to fight and die after them, I hope that we can all agree to start treating our veterans better. It is simply unbelievable to me that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay receive better medical care than many of our own veterans. Maybe this Memorial Day holiday, we can finally decide as a country that the time has come to do much, much better.

Ranger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1433

I'll never figure out Texas weather. Less than a week ago the temperature was below freezing.  Today it was 90 degrees. I was so confused that I got out the lawn mower and mowed the grass again. It was actually a beautiful day, but it still seems awfully warm for late November. Some years we've has snow before this. We even turned on the air conditioner today. I didn't think I'd be doing that again until late next Spring.

The dogs certainly liked the warm weather. They were excited to see some of their friends from training class at the dog park today. They weren't so excited about their new harnesses, unfortunately. Somebody needs to invent a safety harness that actually works in the car. Dot and Dash either manage to wriggle out of their harnesses before we even get out of the driveway, or get stuck in them and force us to pull over to the side of the road to free them from a seat belt that has retracted and pinned them to the back of the car seat. Dot got stuck today. Dash is usually the one to wriggle out of his harness.

I was listening to one of those Ted Talks on NPR while I was driving to the gym this afternoon. The guy on the radio said the secret to happiness was in having low expectations. This thought startled me and on reflection seemed a bit profound. Most of the happy people I've met in my life had very low expectations. Conversely, the perfectionists and super achievers I've known generally weren't happy at all. The premise of this Ted Talk was that we have too many choices today. If we only have two or three choices, we just pick something and move on. When we have thirty choices, we agonize over making the right decision and are never happy with the result. With thirty choices, you just know that you could have picked something better. I'd never thought of things this way before, but it makes sense. Maybe I just have too many choices in my life.

Amazingly, everything got done today. The dogs got their visit to the dog park, all the shopping errands were completed, I even found time to hang the muslin Christmas photo backdrop out in the sun and spray it with Outright to get rid of the smell of dog pee. The nice looking front yard was a bonus. I wasn't even planning to mow the grass.

Puppies are our Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day