Day 1595

Every time I see the devastation that tornadoes can create, I am grateful that Dallas has been spared. We live in an area where tornadoes are common. There have been many occasions where I have sat huddled with the dogs in a small hallway listening to the sirens wailing outside. So far we have been lucky. I don't think a tornado has actually touched down inside the city limits of Dallas since I moved here many years ago. Sometimes I wonder were you could live where tornadoes, hurricanes, forest fires, flash floods, and giant sinkholes weren't a danger. Unfortunately, the only places that come to mind have extremely cold winters. At any rate, my heart goes out to the people of Mayflower, Arkansas. They certainly didn't deserve what hit them last night.

Dash's oncologist didn't seem nearly as worried about the nasty red spot on his neck as I was this weekend. Evidently, this oozing sore, which the doctors euphemistically call "sunburn" is an almost inevitable side effect of the radiation. Over time, radiation breaks down normal tissue and makes wounds much harder to heal. As a result, humans and animals often have problems with moist dermatitis and even open sores during the latter stages of radiation therapy. Dash's nurse told me not to worry and said that the damaged tissue should heal within two weeks after the radiation therapy is finished. Luckily, Dash only has three more sessions to go. There isn't much we can do at this point. We are just supposed to keep the affected area as clean and dry as we can.

Work was busy today. I carefully followed a developer's instructions on how to add a new function to one of my client's websites. The instructions were quite detailed and I followed them exactly, but the site crashed anyway. Oops. This just proves that even detailed instructions with lots of notes aren't always right. I spent the next hour undoing the damage and returning the site to the way it was before. Hopefully, nobody noticed. I have a meeting with my client tomorrow, and I'll need to tell her that this new feature might not be a good idea.

The weather has been perfect for the past several days. I wish I knew of a place that had this kind of weather all year long. Seattle had nice mild weather when I lived there, but it rained all the time. California coastal cities are all delightful, but there's been a terrible drouth recently and of course there are all those forest fires. Arizona is too hot and Montana is too cold. I guess my favorite climate is indoors.

My teeth are telling me that it's time to see the dentist. My hair is telling me that it's way past time for a haircut. My car needs an oil change. It's been hard to deal with even simple tasks like these with the dogs complicated schedules. I'm hoping that I'll have more time when the radiation portion of Dash's cancer treatment concludes next week. Chemotherapy will continue much longer, but I can give the chemo pills myself at home.

My Baidu stock dropped 7% today, just because the Chinese government won't let them stream The Big Bang Theory, The Good Wife, NCIS, and The Practice anymore. Why should this even matter? And why do the Chinese want to watch these shows anyway? Personally, I don't need any of them, but apparently the market thinks otherwise. Market volatility. Cancer conundrums. Website mysteries. The world has definitely become too complicated for me to understand.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1588

I realized this morning that I've got an appointment for the dogs at the vet every single day this week. Today Dash had his fifteenth radiation treatment. Tomorrow he gets his annual physical and vaccinations. Wednesday it's more radiation therapy. Thursday Dot gets her weekly acupuncture and water therapy. Friday we finish things out with Dash's next to last radiation treatment. It's a good thing that I've got a flexible schedule.

I was expecting terrible weather today, but most of the bad storms went to the North of us. We still got a little thunder and lightning, but now that Dot's hearing isn't so good, the storms don't tend to bother her as much. The loud severe weather alerts that take over the TV from time to time during storm season bother Dot more these days than the thunder itself. I guess we're in the middle of tornado season, but it hasn't been so bad this year. Like I've said many times, you can never figure out Texas weather.

One by one, my laundry list of website problems is starting to get resolved. Today, the recalcitrant forms on one site finally started working again. Maybe one of the dozens of calls I made to technical support eventually resonated with someone. Hopefully, I can now check this problem off my list and move on to other things. Maybe this problem got solved first because it was basically a coding issue. Broken code is always easier to fix than finding the answer to vexing questions like "why isn't my site popular?"

I've been watching this show about FAME Studios and Muscle Shoals, Alabama on PBS this evening. I'd forgotten how many amazing songs had been recorded there. The show seemed like the sound track to my life. Everything from Percy Sledge's When a Man Loves a Woman, to the Rolling Stones Brown Sugar, and Paul Simon's Kodachrome were recorded at FAME Studios. Lynyrd Skynyr's Sweet Home Alabama was actually about Muscle Shoals. I only mention all this because this particular music is one of the few things that still manages to break through my somewhat stony indifference. I loved playing these songs when I was a bass player in an obscure rock band. When I wrote jingles for commercials, I would occasionally daydream about quitting my job as an advertising copywriter and moving to Nashville. It never happened though.

I guess everything works out as it should though. I've got no complaints. I understand Dalmatians better than most men and take some damn nice pictures of local wildflowers. All that being said, I still might dust off the guitar tomorrow and play a few tunes to make the day go faster.

Joe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1252

I've been watching the news coverage of the devastating tornado that hit Moore, Oklahoma this afternoon. Unbelievable! This was the very same town that got hit by the worst tornado on record in 1999. Tornado's are commonplace here in Texas, but it's hard to even imagine destruction on this scale. My heart goes out to the people of Moore. It's going to be a long, long time before the city returns to normal.

Earlier in the day, I was wondering why the roofers seemed in such a hurry to get an exposed section of the roof covered. They must have known that bad weather was on the way. It hasn't rained in Dallas yet, but there are thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow. In retrospect, it might not have been very wise to put on a new roof during what is traditionally known as Tornado Season in Texas. There is no good time to do this sort of thing in Texas, unfortunately. No matter what time of year it happens to be, there is always some sort of bad weather lurking just around the corner.

After the roofing crew left for the day, I went up on the roof to look at what they'd been doing. I think buyer's remorse is already starting to set in. When they were describing to me what the finished roof would look like, I was imagining the top layer of epoxy would be so smooth and shiny that I could see my reflection in it. Admittedly, the roof is not finished yet, but the top layer has already been applied to one section. It doesn't look smooth and shiny at all. It looks a lot more like white cake frosting applied with a butter knife. If the roof repels water, I guess I shouldn't complain. I am a bit disappointed though. I was expecting pretty. Maybe the roofers still have some magic up their sleeves, but so far the new roof is a long way from being considered pretty.

I think people must have spent the weekend thinking up new things for me to do. I was really busy today. Monday's aren't usually like this. I divided my time between solving website problems and writing articles. By the end of the day, I'd managed to get quite a bit done. Hopefully, things will be a lot slower tomorrow because Dot has her regular weekly acupuncture appointment. With a 45 minute drive to the vet, an hour with the needles, and a forty five minute drive back home again, acupuncture eats up quite a bit of time.

I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that it doesn't rain tomorrow. The roofers assure me that the leaking sections of the roof have already been replaced. I'm not so sure. The roof definitely isn't finished yet. Couldn't the rain just wait a few weeks and let me do this right?

Harley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day