Day 3570

We went to the State Fair today. I haven't been to the fair in years, but it hasn't changed much. The main difference I noticed was that everything was much more expensive. We did a lot of the same things we used to do. We visited the auto show building and looked at new cars. We went to the building where they usually have pig races and watched the Amazing Trick Dogs. The dogs were basically well trained agility dogs and it was fun to watch them catch frisbees, jump over hurdles, and run through an agility course. I wasn't very interested in sitting in a vibrating chair or eating a deep fried pickle, but a talented dog can always make me smile.

One of the weirdest things we saw today was a booth called Shrink Yourself. These people would make a full body scan of an individual or even a small group and then turn it into an amazingly realistic small doll that was 3-D printed. The whole process was fairly expensive and it took three weeks to get the finished doll, but people were lining up to be scanned.

As we were walking around today we found ourselves walking on a brick walkway paved with memorial bricks. This immediately brought back memories. We used to take Spot, our first Dalmatian, to Fair Park every Sunday. After he died we bought him a brick with his name on it to be placed on this walkway because Fair Park was one of his favorite places to walk. We spent a long time this afternoon trying to find Spot's brick and eventually found it. I had forgotten that we had also bought a brick for ourselves to be placed on either side of Spot. There we were thirty years later, John, Spot, and Janet, memorialized on some old bricks right in the middle of the State Fair.

Instead of having fried food on a stick, we had dinner at the Old Mill. This restaurant, located on the fairgrounds, has been around as long as I can remember. This place was built as a flour mill for the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition and hasn't changed much since. The menu is exactly the same as it was when we used to bring Spot here to share fried chicken with us at an outdoor table on Sunday afternoons. Some of the old waiters seemed to be the same as well. The place that used to give Spot a free burger every year still exists at the fairground too, but none of the people we knew are still around. I imagine that many of them have died. It's been a long time.

I heard from Sky and Telescope today. They rejected my article. I was disappointed, but this was actually the most positive rejection letter I've ever received. The editor told me that everyone at the magazine loved my article. They thought the article was interesting, well written, and encouraged me to submit to the magazine again. The magazine would have loved to publish the article if I had actually seen anything through one of the telescopes. This is understandable. Sky and Telescope is an astronomy magazine, not a travel magazine. The editor liked my writing style and encouraged me to pitch other articles to the magazine in the future. I got the impression that they would like me to become a contributor. I just can't write about rainy nights at an observatory. What I need now is a plan to guarantee clear skies the next time I visit the Davis Mountains.

I walked over 25,000 steps today. This is a new Fitbit record. I'm a little tired, but I enjoyed our time at the fair. It was nice to rekindle some old memories of Spot. Sometimes it feels like my life has always been about Dalmatians. It probably always will be.

Hobbs is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3569

I used to go for years without seeing the dentist. Now, I never miss an appointment. Every six months a dental hygienist cleans my teeth and once a year I get new x-rays and the dentist gives me an exam. I've always had good teeth, but it's not worth tempting fate anymore. Life is full of problems as it is. I don't need to add dental work to the list.

There were no problems today. The dentist thinks I'm doing a good job of taking care of my teeth. I use a Sonicare toothbrush and a Waterpik everyday and do my best to avoid sugar. The only thing that needed attention today was the retainer I wear at night. I broke it in half about a year ago and have just been wearing each half at night. The dentist said this was fine, but I think my teeth are shifting a bit. Getting a new retainer was more reasonable than I thought, so I'm going to go ahead and have them make me a new one.

There was no time for a morning walk today. As soon as I finished breakfast it was time to go to the dentist. This didn't mean I skipped the walk. It just meant I was outside during the hottest part of the day. Jeez. When are we going to get some Fall weather? It was really hot this afternoon. Temperature really does make a difference. These walks are much easier when it's cooler.

I can't figure out what is going on with the security light in the back yard. This weekend the light stayed on all night. Yesterday it didn't work at all. Now it's back on again. I've had this problem before and every time the light eventually seemed to fix itself. I'm hoping that it will start to work normally again. The light itself is inexpensive, but I always have to call an electrician when there is a problem. In theory I could easily install a new light myself, but it is located very near our power line and I'm clumsy at times. I don't want to get myself electrocuted. I'm trying to convince myself that it's easier to look at the stars at night when the yard is dark, but I like a little light coming in through the windows at night. Somehow it is easier to sleep when the security light is working.

I'm still eating leftover sandwiches from the golf tournament for dinner. If I'd thought to take a few more, I wouldn't have to go to the store at all this week. I ate the last sandwich tonight, but I doubt that I'll be very hungry tomorrow anyway. We're planning on going to the fair on Thursday. There's so much junk food at the fair that you seldom want to eat when you get home. You can get virtually anything deep fried on on a stick at the fair. I know it's not good for you but that's why the fair is only once a year. Whatever I eat tomorrow, there's a virtual certainty that it will give me heartburn.

I recharged my laptop batteries and applied a security patch this afternoon. With all the power outages we have around here, you never know when I'm going to need this thing. I used to ignore the security updates but you can't really do that anymore. Apple is no longer immune from hackers and malware. My laptop seems very slow, but that's probably just because it's old. I hate to retire this thing. It's the last laptop Apple made that came with a CD/DVD drive and full size USB ports. There's a slot for camera cards too. New laptops don't have any of this stuff.

Last year at this time, Dash was having seizures and I was getting nervous about an upcoming art auction in New York. That all seems so long time ago now. The only thing that hasn't changed are the telemarketing calls. We're still getting a ton of telemarketing calls.

Bailey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3564

Nothing appealed to me this morning, so I just had a bowl of cold cereal at home. This was actually a good thing because it allowed me to get an early start on today's walk. I should walk earlier every day but it's hard to get organized. The temperature was only in the seventies and there was a hint of Fall in the air. A few of the trees are already starting to turn yellow. There was a nice breeze this morning and the walk was quite pleasant until the sun got higher in the sky. By the time I finished my five miles, I was still hot and sweaty, but it feels like the worst of Summer is over. Pretty soon we'll have our two weeks of nice weather for the year.

This afternoon I wrote some letters and took them to the post office. It's getting harder for me to do chores around the house, but it's always easy to write. I can see a time where all I do is walk and write. Walking is exercise for the body and writing is exercise for the mind. All in all, I think I'm doing pretty well.

This Sunday is the annual Dalmatian Rescue Golf Tournament. Since I will be taking photos at this event, I started checking out my cameras today. Step one is choosing which camera to take. Lately, I always opt for the lighter cameras. These cameras seem to get heavier every year. I need to make sure all the batteries are fully charged. Since I don't use my cameras much anymore, the batteries are usually completely dead. They take a lot longer to charge than you'd think when they are fully discharged. Sometimes I find a battery that has died and I need to replace it. Hard to believe that I used to use these cameras almost every day. The last time I used the one I'm charging now was last Christmas when I was taking Santa Paws pictures for Dalmatian Rescue. Mostly I just use my phone to take pictures now.

While I was charging batteries this afternoon, I thought it would be a good time to defragment my hard drives. This takes a long time as well with a 4 terabyte drive. I'm not even sure you need to defragment hard drives anymore. You don't hear much about it these days. Old habits die hard though and periodically I go through the lengthy process of defragmenting all the drives. I never notice any performance differences when I'm finished, but at least I'm trying to keep things from getting scrambled.

Janet wants to go to the fair this year. It's been years since we've been to the fair. I'm not sure a lot has changed. The fair has always been about fried food, farm animals, and Fall weather. One thing that has changed is that we can go for free now. There is a Senior Citizen's Day every Thursday. Many years ago we used to take our first Dalmatian to Fair Park a few weeks before the fair started when everybody was setting things up. One of the vendors really liked Spot and they would always give him a hamburger when we visited their booth. This became a ritual and Spot would look forward to this visit every year. I remember writing a story about this once called Dog Day at the Fair.

I still find myself fantasizing about going back to McDonald Observatory, which probably means I'll be making the trip sooner rather than later. It take me so long to plan things though that sooner could be next year. I wish there was a better way to predict the weather. I'd hate to travel all that way just to arrive on another rainy day.

I'm still hoping to get my roof patched before we have another rainy day here. At the rate I'm going, I might make it back to the observatory first.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3223

Surprisingly, nothing went wrong today. Dash slept through the night for the second day in a row. There were no accidents and when I took Dash outside when I woke up, he pooped and peed like any normal dog. We took a nice walk while Janet was fixing breakfast and enjoyed a brisk Fall morning.

I think this was the last day for the State Fair of Texas. It appeared to be the last day for the little circus in the park as well. There was a performance today, but there was also a large truck getting ready to pack everything up and travel to their next destination. The little circus has been here almost a month and during that time they've only had three clear days. Hopefully they'll have better luck in California.

I don't know why I keep stopping at REI on the way to the gym. There is nothing that interests me anymore. It's disappointing. For years this has been the place where I've found sturdy shoes and durable pants for walking Dash. The place is full of clever solar powered gizmos, binoculars, satellite phones, freeze dried gourmet food, and other gear that satisfy my prepper fantasies. I just walk away without buying anything now. The store is still full of cool things. I guess I just have everything I need.

I still can't figure out how my gym can stay in business when there are so few customers. For over a month the place has been virtually empty on Sunday. Maybe it is crowded at other times of the week. I'd never know. I wasn't shooting very well on the basketball court today. This is a mystery as well. Some days I do really well and other days I suck. You'd think there'd be more consistency. I'm really a very consistent person.

I was going to vacuum this afternoon, but I got sidetracked repairing Dash's protective boots. He drags his feet so much when he walks that the boots get destroyed pretty quickly. It would be impossible to walk without these things. They do a good job of protecting his feet. They just don't last long enough. I've used almost three tubes of Shoe Goo trying to keep these boots operational. We've got four pairs that we rotate, but I probably need a few more. Too bad these little shoes are so expensive. I've spent less on my own shoes.

I think I'll go look for a new storage warehouse tomorrow. If I can find a better price, this might be the incentive I need to actually start throwing things away. There's nothing like being forced to move something to make you realize that you don't really need it. Where do I throw stuff away though. The storage warehouse won't let me use their dumpster anymore. Actually nobody will let you use their dumpster these days. Most businesses keep them locked up behind chain link fences now. The city ought to have a lot of big communal dumpsters strategically located throughout the city but I think they spent all their money building bike paths.

I hope that Dash has turned over a new leaf and continues sleeping normally for a while. When Dash sleeps normally, I sleep normally. It was such a weird sensation to wake up rested this morning. I need more days like this.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1400

The rainy season has officially started. It is often this way in late October. It will rain for days at a time. This is typically not good for The State Fair of Texas, which occupies this rainy time slot. I remember going to a Rolling Stones concert at the Cotton Bowl late in October and it poured throughout the entire concert. I thought that Keith Richards was going to get electrocuted playing out in the rain, but the weather didn't seem to faze the band. They were all much younger then, of course.

Dot and Dash hate the rain. It messes with their doggy instincts. If they were practical dogs, they would just go out in the back yard and poop quickly on rainy days. Nope. They can't do this. They have to go on their regular walk, where they get wet and muddy. Light rain makes them mad and heavy rain sends them into a panic. You just can't win on rainy days.

Everything got dirty today. The dogs got dirty, The car got dirty. The floors got dirty. I felt like I spent half the day doing laundry and drying the dogs off. I did manage to get some articles written and got caught up on correspondence, but personally, I would have much rather just taken a long nap. I know there is a ton of standing water up on the roof, but I'm not even going to bother to go up there until I see the sun again.

When I took Dash to the vet for his antigen shot today, he took an unhealthy interest in some guinea pigs that were up for adoption in the lobby. I don't know whether he thought the guinea pigs were small cats or large squirrels, but he definitely though they were meant to be chased and barked at. Sometimes Dash can be embarrassing.

It would be nice if I woke up to a crisp and clear Fall morning tomorrow, but I'm expecting more rain. Although driving in the rain is one of my least favorite things, there are lots of places to go tomorrow. I'll start the day with a tasty omelet at the Wednesday business breakfast meeting. Then I've got to demonstrate a website prototype, and take Dot downtown for her acupuncture session. I have a feeling I'll be wishing I could take a long nap tomorrow as well.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day