Day 3457

Life is good. We finally got power restored early this afternoon. Most of the traffic lights are functioning again and people have stopped driving like maniacs. The gas company even fixed a gas leak in the neighborhood that nobody even knew existed. There's nothing like a four day power outage to make you appreciate the little things. Janet and I actually did pretty well without electricity, but there are so many things we take for granted.

Before the power was restored today, I took a walk through the neighborhood to see how everybody else fared. I was amazed at the devastation. We lost a tree, but it didn't wreck our house. Some people had serious roof damage. A few people still had trees on top of their cars. I was sad to see that Erykah Badu's Porsche had been demolished. It was one of the prettiest cars in the neighborhood. The sound of chain saws was everywhere. Almost everyone had a big pile of logs and tree limbs in their front yard. It's going to take months for the city to clear all the debris away. Who knows. Maybe the city won't need to clean up all that much. I've already started seeing people scavenging the log piles for Winter firewood. One guy I talked to today said he had a wood burning stove and he was specifically looking for pecan logs because he liked the smell when they burned. I think this guy might have hit the jackpot. The park is full of old growth pecan trees and these trees seemed particularly vulnerable to being uprooted by the high winds. Mesquite trees seemed to survive pretty well but a lot of pecan trees bit the dust. Our two large Oak trees survived the storm intact. It was our Elm tree that got toppled.

It took a while to reset the clocks, put all the food in the ice chests back in the refrigerator again, and reconnect everything on the network. During the outage I kept wishing I had a larger generator. As soon as the power returned the urge for a huge generator quickly faded. Big generators are heavy, noisy, expensive, and I've really got no place to keep one. My little generator actually did just fine. We just had to learn to do stuff one thing at a time. You could use the hair dryer and brew coffee. You just couldn't use two high wattage gizmos at the same time. I discovered that everything ran smoother if I plugged the big UPS backup battery I use for the computers into the generator and then plugged all the other things into the back up battery. This seemed to filter out the power spikes that gave the generator problems. Starting an electric motor takes a lot more power than keeping the same motor running. I could always tell when the compressor kicked in on the little refrigerator. That was the only thing that temporarily overloaded the generator.

I was shocked that I actually have some website work to do tomorrow. One of my few remaining clients wants to update his site. I'm usually very responsive, but I told him he'd have to wait until the power returned. Tomorrow would have been a busy day even without the website work, but I'm always happy to have the work. There's still tons of laundry to do. I need to get new tires for the car before the trip to Kennedy Space Center. It's been a while since we've seen the rescue Dalmatians too. No problem. It will all get done now that we have electricity again.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3371

I hate it when I fail to notice that there are no more refills available on a prescription. You call in the refill and the pharmacist tells you that you'll need to get your doctor to renew the prescription. You call the doctor and he's always out of the office or busy with something else. Little things like these can eat up your entire day. I eventually got Dash's Plavix prescription renewed before he took his last pill, but I really need to remember to look at these pill bottles more carefully.

I finally got around to getting my faulty power supply fixed today. I'm methodical to a fault, so I keep doing the same things over and over again. The last time I needed to get these batteries replaced, they cost $60. That was two years ago. Today the same batteries cost $100. It's irritating how the price of ordinary things keeps going up and up. Sure, big screen TV's are cheaper than they used to be, but most things aren't. It would cost quite a bit more to replace my car with the same model I'm currently driving. Airfares are higher. Movies cost more. It would even cost more to replace my Apple Watch and Apple isn't known for raising prices.

Dash was super slow today. I couldn't tell whether he was having trouble walking, or if he just wanted to spend extra time smelling things. This should have been a good day for him, since the weather was perfect. Eventually we made it home this morning and then Dash was equally slow eating his breakfast. Every time I started my own breakfast, Dash would come out to his bowl and just stare at it. I finally realized that he wanted me to hand feed him. After Dash finished eating and pooping on the floor, he took a nap. I felt like taking a nap too, but I had my own breakfast to finish.

I spent a few hours this afternoon getting my taxes organized. I think I found everything my accountant needs, but I'll take another look tomorrow. Why do old people even need to pay taxes? You should be exempt after you reach the age of 70, just like you are exempt from jury duty. I still don't think it's fair that I'm forced to take a distribution from my IRA account now. I'd just as soon leave the money untouched until I really need it. These distributions are classified as ordinary income too. That sucks.

With any luck I can finish my tax preparation tomorrow and get that chore out of the way. Then I'll turn my attention to more important matters, like buying more rocks for the potholes in the driveway. I'm glad I never called the plumber to come out and search for a sewer leak. The puddle in the back yard has dried up. I'll probably never know what caused the puddle. Who knows. I might have just left a hose on for a week.

After seeing Apollo 11, I've discovered that there were other documentaries about the Apollo program. I started watching one called For All Mankind that was made in 1989 using some of the same NASA footage. Again, the things that really caught my attention were the details. The astronauts shaved in space using a Gillette razor and shaving cream. They brought bread with them and made sandwiches. They took a Sony walkman along for the ride with cassettes of their favorite music. Did I forget this stuff, or was I never even aware of it?

I forget a lot these days. Hopefully I won't forget to finish my taxes. I need to remember not to let my prescription expire either. Dash is resting with Janet now. I hope he gets a good night's sleep so he has lots of energy tomorrow for his walks. This nice weather won't last forever. We need to make the most of it.

Nick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3368

Breakfast almost turned into lunch today. Dash stumbled a lot on his morning walk. He peed in the house twice. He wouldn't eat his breakfast. And then he kept trying to get on the bed as I was trying to leave. We can't leave Dash unattended on the bed anymore. He has trouble getting up on his own and there's a risk that he will fall off and hurt himself. It made Dash mad to go to his safe place. I knew he was tired, so I stayed with him until he calmed down and went to sleep. I don't blame Dash for being frustrated. I'm sure he just wants to be a young dog again. Don't we all.

Needless to say, I was a little late in getting started today. Why was the restaurant full at this time of day? I was amazed that so many people were eating breakfast at 11 AM. This was a work day too. I'm amazed at a lot these days. So much has changed in the world and most of the changes make no sense to me. I was curious why all these people were eating so late. They couldn't all have a sick dog at home. As usual, I was probably the only one out of sync. As I was leaving, I noticed that I was the only person in the entire place that was eating alone.

There were more bills to pay today. It seems like there were always bills to pay. I guess I could set up auto-pay so I wouldn't have to keep making constant trips to the post office but I'm afraid that I could easily lose track of things. When I'm paying bills manually, at least I'm aware when companies raise their prices and start charging me more. Everybody follows the same formula. They offer an attractive introductory rate to get your business and hope you forget that the offer is temporary. As soon as the introductory period runs out, rates jump dramatically.

Although it was cold this morning, the day turned out nicely. By the time we took our afternoon walk, the weather was beautiful. I'm starting to see early wildflowers, but it's hard to photograph them while I'm walking Dash. He stumbled even more on his afternoon walk than he did this morning. I did a good job of keeping him from falling, but it can be difficult walking a dog with two leashes. I feel like a puppeteer sometimes. There is a leash at the neck and another at his tail. I keep each leash taunt while still allowing Dash to walk as naturally as he can. When I feel him start to stumble, I pull up on the appropriate leash to keep him upright. The special Help 'Em Up Harness make this all possible. Walking is a team effort now, but it's worth it. If you have a dog with mobility problems, it makes a huge difference if you can find a way to let them move around normally.

Google+ is going away very soon. I get daily messages urging me to back up my data before everything disappears. I wonder why I still post every day if everything is going away. It's kind of sad. Google+ was the only social network I actually liked. I never really understood Twitter. Hashtags and 140 character messages were never my cup of tea. My Facebook timeline is mostly just a bunch of dog pictures. There's nothing wrong with dog pictures, but I actually learned lots of new stuff reading Google+ in the early days. All I'm learning now is that Google is terrible at keeping promises.

One of my back up UPS boxes has a bad battery again. This is an older Uninterrupted Power Supply and I think I've already replaced the batteries before. I'll drop it off at the repair shop tomorrow when I go grocery shopping. I feel sorry for people who have bought an electric car. They haven't owned these cars long enough to realize how evil batteries can be. They always go bad and usually at the worst possible time. I think I'd much rather replace a fuel pump or a head gasket than to replace all the batteries in a Tesla. I really wish everything just worked perfectly forever, but that's not going to happen.

Carmine is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1753

Today was all about damage control. Yesterday's storm was a lot worse than most people thought. Over 250,000 people are still without power in the Dallas area. I'm one of them. The power came back very briefly about 2 AM this morning and then about two minutes later it went out again with a bang as a transformer in the alley exploded. As I was walking the dogs this morning, I heard at least six other transformers exploding in the distance. Evidently, the power company is having trouble because there are many more downed trees and telephone poles than they expected. If they attempt to restore the power before they find all the downed lines, the circuit shorts out and a transformer explodes. Actually, I think we're losing ground. When I went to breakfast this morning, most of the traffic lights were working. When I went out again later this afternoon to recharge my UPS backup battery at Janet's office, all the lights were out again. I have yet to see any power company trucks in our neighborhood. To tell you the truth, I haven't seen any power company trucks, period. I don't know where they all are.

With limited computer resources and a very dark house, I spent as much time as I could outside. Ironically, the weather was beautiful today. You'll never believe what happened just 24 hours ago. I cleaned up broken branches in the yard and then I went up on the roof where there were many more tree limbs. It was raining so hard yesterday that I didn't even hear most of these branches fall. All I heard was the wind. I was surprised at how many good sized tree limbs were up on the roof. I don't think any damage was done, but it sure was a mess to clean up. Without the help of my trusty electric sump pump to clear the water away, it took hours to remove all the standing water and debris.

You really can't get much done without electricity these days. It seemed like the whole city was just milling around waiting for something to happen. I've never seen my breakfast restaurant so crowded before. It was hard to find a parking place and even harder to find a table. Since the power was out in our entire neighborhood, I think everybody just decided to get out of their house and have a good breakfast.

My backup battery will recharge the laptop once and the phone two times before it goes dead. This give me time to write the blog and answer a few e-mails, but that's about it. The biggest problem with the backup battery is that it takes almost eight hours to fully recharge. My laptop doesn't seem to hold a charge very well any more and neither does the little 4-G hotspot I use for WiFi. Did I ever mention to you how much I hate batteries?

I heard on the news today that the CDC has narrowed yesterday's list of 100 people down to 50 that were thought to have "shared bodily fluids" with the Ebola victim. This amazes me. This guy managed to touch more people in two days than I do in a year. The HazMat team finally came today to sanitize the guys house. Better late than never, I guess.

It's probably better late than never when it comes to getting our power restored as well. Regular readers might remember that it took over four days to get our power turned back on the last time this happened. We ended up having to stay in a hotel for a few days. At least it's not freezing cold this time. Last Winter's big ice storm still seems worse than this, even though I think more trees and telephone poles were uprooted this time.

I'll have to learn to write faster, because my laptop battery is already getting low again. Given what I've seen today, it will be a miracle if our power comes back on tonight. There's a good chance we'll be sitting in the dark until next Monday.

Hobbs is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1453

Things are bad in Dallas. Our power has been out over 30 hours and we still don't have any reliable information about when it will be restored. Yesterday was miserable. As the temperature got colder and colder, we watched everything slowly shut down. After the power went out, the land line phones were the first to go. An hour after the phones died, the WiFi went out. Next, the back up battery for the security system went dead. The UPS power supply for the main office computers had enough juice to recharge the laptop and iPhones twice, and then it went dead as well.

By mid afternoon, all electrical devices in the house were completely dead and the house was silent. We put all the food in the refrigerator outside on the porch, because it was much colder there. When we let the dogs out in the back yard to poop, a large branch fell from one of the Oak trees and almost hit Dash. We were very lucky that the falling tree branch missed him by three feet. The limb was heavy enough that it might have killed him. The dogs only go out on a leash now, so we know exactly where they are at all times.

There wasn't much to do after dark. We didn't even know what was going on. The TV was out, and we couldn't even find much information on a battery radio. There is so much satellite programming now on radio that very few stations even provide their own local news any more. We piled all the dog blankets on the bed and turned in for the night right after a dinner of very cold ham and cheese sandwiches from our outdoor fridge. By morning, it was dangerously cold in the house. It was 20 degrees outside and probably around 34 degrees inside. 

Since Janet's downtown office still has power, we packed the dogs and the electronic gear into the car and and headed for someplace where we could all warm up again. We really should have stayed at a hotel last night, but I never dreamed that it would take over two days to get the power restored in sub-freezing weather. Usually I hear the chain saws from the repair crews clearing away fallen trees within hours of an outage. This time, there has been no activity whatsoever.

One of my neighbors went to Northern Tool in his 4-wheel drive truck yesterday and bought a $1000 generator to power a small TV and his wife's hairdryer. Another neighbor got out all his camping sleeping bags and the family slept in sleeping bags. Since we didn't have either sleeping bags or a generator, we were very cold last night.

All is well now though. Both of our cars started this morning and Janet's office is toasty warm. Dot and Dash are sleeping on blankets under Janet's desk. We counted three downed power lines on the way to Janet's office.  I have yet to see a repair truck in our neighborhood and all bets are off for full power restoration. You know things are bad when the city canceled tomorrow's Dallas Marathon. Runners seem to love adverse conditions and the marathon is a big deal to the city. I don't think it has ever been canceled before.

Hopefully power will be restored this weekend. When things get back to normal, I'll need to find someone to clear away the fallen trees on the roof and in our yard. I have a feeling that Dallas tree trimmers are already booked solid through next March.

Wilson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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