Day 3325

I think we're well on our way to becoming a surveillance society. Companies know so much about us already, but they still want to know more. I called my insurance agent today to ask about a low mileage discount. I hardly drive at all anymore, so I thought if these things exist, maybe I could lower my bill. The reason I wanted to lower my bill was that I'd just received it and of course, it was higher than it was before. "Sure, we can lower your bill," the agent told me. "Let me send you a small tracker you can install in your car and then all you have to do is download our Safe Driver app on your phone." "How big a discount will I get," I asked. "We can't tell you right away," the agent said. "After we've been able to analyze your driving habits for about six months, we'll revise your premium." "So what you're telling me is that my premium could actually go up after six months," I said. The agent was silent.

My insurance company is becoming just like the phone company, the cable company, Facebook, and everybody else. These companies want to learn your habits, get all your data, and then sell it to third parties who will bombard you with targeted advertising and telemarketing calls. I would have preferred to give the agent two service reports from the Land Rover dealer spaced one year apart that would validate the actual mileage I drove in a year. Apparently, that wasn't an option.

I guess I'm on the wrong side of history. After dealing with the insurance agent, I called another company who wanted me to start paying them electronically. I didn't want to do this. After a long conversation where I explained to them that it was still perfectly legal to pay with a check, they finally relented and let me keep things as the are. I'm sure in about six months I'll get another letter saying that as a "courtesy" my account has been converted to electronic payments.

I've definitely reached the "get off my lawn" stage of life. These companies are just going to have to deal with me for another twenty years. I still like paper. I write letters. I save receipts. And I see no point in talking with Siri or Alexa. As far as I'm concerned the world was a better place when phones were dumb and people were smart. In case you've forgotten, we went to the moon fifty years ago. Have we really advanced that much since then? I don't really thing having my insurance company tracking my trips to the post office and the pharmacy is going to make the world a better place.

Doesn't it seem odd that our society has become obsessed with efficiency and yet nothing actually works. Maybe we should all slow down for a while. We might discover that inefficiency is actually better. Personally, I have lost all interest in speed. Whenever I see someone in a hurry it reminds me of the treadmill at the gym. Sure, you're moving but you're not actually going anywhere.

Today, I made the bed, walked Dash, cleaned up poop several times, fixed a dog boot, did a load of laundry, and took the trash out to the curb. I probably accomplished just as much as all the self-important movers and shakers I saw on TV while I was drinking my morning smoothie.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2380 - Summer Solstice

It certainly seemed like the longest day of the year. Time usually passes quickly when there is lots to do. It drags on forever on days like this. Today was a typical Monday on steroids. It seemed like all I did today was clean up after the dogs. Today started and ended with the smell of poop. It was so hot that it was difficult to get Dot to go outside. Dash, on the other hand, went outside a lot. He ate something bad yesterday and had diarrhea. Between the two dogs it seemed like I spent the entire day on cleanup duty.

Technically, today is the first day of Summer. I guess our rainy season is over. It was oppressively hot and the air was filled with the constant drone of cicadas mixed with the sound of lawn mowers and leaf blowers. It felt muggy, even thought the sky was clear. I'm not really surprised that Dot made no effort to go outside. I didn't feel like going outside either. It's kind of discouraging that it's going to be this way until late October.

Cleaning up dog poop isn't very stimulating, so in an effort to alleviate my boredom I drove over to a client's office to answer a question that could have easily have been answered in e-mail. Sending an e-mail doesn't do much good if nobody reads it, so I've discovered that it's much easier to visit certain clients in person. It only took a few minutes to get the problem resolved. It would have taken me a lot longer to type up my answer and hit send.

The wildflower season is slowly drawing to a close. The early Spring flowers are already looking dry and withered and I'm seeing fewer and fewer new ones each week. There are still a few surprises though. I couldn't identify the odd little purple bloom I saw today. It kind of looks like Bee Balm, but it is much too small and there was only the single blossom, buried under blades of grass. I'll eventually figure out what this small oddity is. It gives me something to do on days like this.

I'm beginning to wonder if my activity tracker just randomly makes up sleep data. There is no discernible pattern to my sleep. Some days there is no deep sleep at all. Other days there is no REM or dream sleep. It's a mystery. You'd think that I'd get the most deep sleep when I was really tired, but this is not the case. Every night is different, even though I almost always go to bed at exactly the same time. I definitely don't have insomnia. Although Dot wakes me up during the night, I seem to go back to sleep almost instantly. I don't know where I'm going to get the extra two hours of sleep I need though. If you go to bed at midnight and get up at six, there is no way you are going to get eight hours of sleep.

Tomorrow is Tuesday. Tonight I keep hearing the lyrics to Once in a Lifetime playing endless in my head. Same as it ever was. Same as it ever was...

Alamo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2214

I couldn't figure out why it was so dark when we got up this morning. As soon as I went outside, I knew the answer. The world was enveloped in a heavy fog. I love foggy mornings, but the dogs were a bit confused when they couldn't see ten feet ahead of them. The fog lifted quickly, but it was pretty while it lasted. As soon as we finished walking Dot and Dash, I took a camera down to the lake and tried to capture some pictures of the sailboats. If I had arrived twenty minutes earlier, I would have gotten some great photos, but the fog was already dissipating. Story of my life. It's hard to combine nature photography with walking dogs. I took a few pictures anyway and headed back up the hill to fix my breakfast.

Dot was very slow this morning on her walk, so it surprised me that she did so well at her physical therapy session. She was able to stay on the underwater treadmill for the full eighteen minutes and we were able to include a couple of intervals where she was walking at a higher speed. There's no way to predict how Dot is going to react anymore. Every day is a new day. Some days she is strong and full of energy and other days she hardly leaves her bed. I've come to realize that she can poop at any time with very little warning. She still seems happy though and that's all that counts.

My missing UPS package arrived today. According to the UPS website, it was never missing at all. They just added an extra day to the delivery schedule and said it was still on time. I guess that's one way to handle things. There never was any explanation about how a package could arrive both yesterday and today, but at least it wasn't broken. If I were busier and didn't have OCD, I'd never notice that the FedEx and UPS websites aren't always accurate. I probably wouldn't even track my packages at all. I'm convinced that people who spend too much time tracking things don't have enough on their plate. I track everything, but when I'm busy I can go for days without checking my UP fitness band or Apple Watch. When I'm not busy, I check these things all the time.

I don't know what's happening with my joints. I've had problems with my shoulder for ages and occasionally my knee goes out as well. Lately, I've started having problems with my right hip. I'm kneeling and standing all the time. I kneel down to get Dot's harness on and then stand up to walk her. I kneel down to make our low platform bed in the morning. I sit on the floor with Dot during her acupuncture sessions. It's disconcerting when you find yourself in a low crouching position and can't get up. I've said it before and I'll say it again. Getting old sucks. The last thing I need at this point is to be up on the roof and have my hip joint lock up on me. With all my aches and pains, I've still reluctant to have surgery though. There's a place for surgery, but I think it should be a last resort.

It's been impossible to get Dot to poop at night this week. Her internal schedule has changed. We'll take her outside and walk her around forever before we go to bed, but apparent she isn't ready to go yet. She seems to prefer doing her business at 3 AM now. In her bed. I've never slept soundly, but lately I'm sleeping even less than usual. I saw on TV yesterday that researchers now think that lack of sleep might cause Alzheimer's. I'm doomed. On the other hand, they say that writing every day is good for cognition. Sleep less, write more. That's my motto. Maybe everything will balance out in the end.

Vegas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2070

Sundays are simple. One glance at my fitness tracker will tell you everything you need to know about Sunday. I don't do a lot of thinking on Sundays, but I do keep moving. 19,000 steps so far today. The dogs got several walks. Dash went to the dog park. I went to the gym. The house got thoroughly vacuumed. And I still had time for a nap. I definitely needed the nap, because I only got about 4 and a half hours of sleep last night.

It takes forever to vacuum the house with all the little throw rugs we have to keep Dot from slipping. The Dyson is too powerful for these flimsy rugs and it keeps wanting to suck them up. I'm constantly having to turn off the vacuum cleaner and pull the edge of these rugs out of the rotating brush. In a way these small rugs are good though. If Dot inadvertently poops on a rug, we can just take it outside and hose it off. If things are particularly messy, we can just throw the rug away. Life would be a lot more difficult, and probably smellier, with wall-to-wall carpet.

You learn a lot of little things when you track yourself at the gym. I was somewhat surprised to discover that twenty minutes on the hand bicycle burn up far more energy than twenty minutes on the treadmill. I use the hand bicycle because it was part of my exercise routine when I went to physical therapy for my shoulder. I only did five minutes on the bike back then, but I figured that if five was good, twenty would be even better. Hardly anybody every uses this machine except feeble old heart patients. This is apparently not a cool machine for younger people to use. I like it though. Using your arms to peddle strenuously for twenty minutes or more is a pretty good upper body workout.

There's a section in the meat department at Central Market that features a huge assortment of marinated meats. There are all sorts of interesting regional flavors and you don't have to go to the time and trouble of marinating the meat yourself. I've grown fond of these pre-marinated cuts of meat, partially because I'm lazy and partially because I don't think I could ever do a better job of preparing the meat myself. Tonight, we had a marinated pork roast for dinner and it was delicious. I'm starting to feel guilty about eating pork though. There are lots of animal advocates on my Facebook feed who constantly post cute pictures of little piglets or upsetting messages about the cruel ways commercial pork producers treat their pigs. I love bacon but this is starting to upset me. I wonder if you can find free range pork, somewhat like free range chickens and beef?  I'll never be a vegan, but maybe I'd feel better about eating a pig that at least had an opportunity to live a life outside of a small cage.

I don't feel guilty about drinking my breakfast smoothies.  There are two raw eggs for protein, but mostly the ingredients consist of fresh fruit, with some rolled oats and ice cream thrown in for flavor. Janet bought the Vitamix to make fancy soups, but mostly it just gets used to make my breakfast now. I don't know what I'd do without the Vitamix and my Keurig brewer. They have both become my breakfast best friends.

Tomorrow, I'll need to see where I can get a new registration sticker for my car. I think you can still get these things at Kroger and Tom Thumb stores. I hope so anyway. Going to the grocery store for the sticker definitely beats standing in a long line at the courthouse. Dot has her annual exam this week and her birthday is next week. She goes to the vet so often that an annual exam almost seems redundant, but I guess it is still something you need to do. Inspections and exams are how I measure time these days. The car gets safety inspected and another year has passed. A trip to the urologist and another year has passed. A real estate tax notice arrives in the mail and another year has passed. Way too many years have passed this way. I wish there was a way to slow down time.

Pogo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2020

I kind of hate to admit it, but I love to track things. I track the weather. I use fitness bands to track my steps. I use apps on my phone to track where I go in the car. Probably this blog is just a way to track how I feel over a long period of time. At any rate, now that I've learned how to use an Apple Watch, I've discovered that there are whole new worlds of things I can track. The device keeps a continuous record of your heart rate and the calories you burn and sends them to the Health app on your phone. If you are so inclined, you can add WiFi scales, blood pressure cuffs, and lord knows what else so you can track even more. I'm not interested in the day-to-day, but the long term trends are fascinating. The number of miles I walk each day has been in a slow, steady decline for almost three years. My weight peaked about twelve years ago and has been very gradually declining ever since. I'm almost back to my college weight now and I don't really know why.

There was certainly plenty to track today. I kept moving all day long. Dot was tired and needed a rest, so I let Dash walk as long as he wanted. We walked about three miles and were gone over an hour. A little later I burned 150 calories getting the water off the roof. It felt like I should have burned a lot more, but there wasn't a setting on my fitness app for pushing a broom. I set the thing for a brisk walk instead. I have a feeling that I should have used the setting for the elliptical machine, or something more strenuous. All these fitness things on my phone seem to be very goal oriented. They set goals for you and then when you reach the goal, they set a new goal to push you a little harder. The first thing I do when I install one of these apps and turn all the goal reminders off. I'm a curious person and am interested in everything, but I'm not very goal oriented. I certainly don't need my phone telling me to work harder.

Dash doesn't understand the concept of sleeping in on weekends. For the past several weeks he has started getting out of bed about 6:30 AM and barking at the foot of the bed until he wakes everyone else up. Dot would be content to sleep a bit longer on her own, but when Dash starts barking, she always joins in. At this point it is useless to try to sleep any longer. The only good thing about these canine alarm clocks is it forces us to get up and walk the dogs while it is still cool outside. It warms up so fast once the sun is up, that even an hour delay in getting the dogs out can make a huge difference in how hot they get. Since we had a long walk this morning, it literally felt ten degrees warmer by the time we got home.

I'll probably need to mow the grass again tomorrow. The yard has never looked this green so late in the year. I'm surprised at how fast the grass is growing, since some years it doesn't grow at all in the Summer. I wonder how many calories that mowing the grass will burn? There's not a setting for mowing the grass on the fitness app either. When are these people going to learn that there are more ways to exercise than going to the gym and spending thirty minutes on the Stairmaster?

Space X is going to launch another Dragon 9 rocket tomorrow. I had an opportunity to go to Florida and view the launch with the NASA folks again, but the trip was too expensive and I didn't want to leave Dot anyway. Oh, well. For the time being, life has become too complicated for these kinds of trips. I guess I'll just watch the launch on my computer.

Rascal is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1149

I got a haircut today. Instead of talking about upcoming vacation plans, like I usually do with my stylist, we ended up talking about funeral planning. Betty's father is sick and evidently she is in charge of making the arrangements when the time comes. I was surprised at how much actually I knew about the subject, since it isn't often a topic of conversation. It certainly isn't something you talk about in a hair salon very often. It's been a long time since I've had to make funeral arrangements, but I guess its something you never forget.

When my haircut was finished, I stopped by the Apple store on the way out of the mall and got one of those little wristlets that tracks all your activities during the day. I'm not all that interested in counting calories, but this thing is supposed to be able to tell you how long it takes you to go to sleep and then tracks your light and deep sleep cycles during the night, as well as identifies any waking moments. I don't feel like I get that much sleep, since the dogs are always waking me up. It will be interesting to see if I get any deep sleep at all. I'm afraid the little wristlet will embarrass me and tell me that I'm asleep during the day. It would be an easy mistake for a gizmo to make. I don't move around much when I write.

I think the dogs thought we were taking them on another road trip when we went to training class tonight. They both seemed real disappointed when we arrived at the field where all the dogs were. Dot didn't even want to get out of the car. When we started the exercises, the dogs seemed distracted. Dot would come to other owners voices by mistake and Dash was so fidgety that he would hardly stay still at all. Eventually, they settled down and did everything right, but I don't think they were really into being trained this evening.

I'm a bit surprised at how easy it's been so far to modify my diet. I haven't been seriously tempted by anything yet. I guess this makes sense in an odd sort of way. I'm totally a creature of habit. I'm in the process now of substituting good habits for bad ones, but they are still just habits. Once the new habits become familiar and turn into rituals, it should be easy to maintain them. Habits are a lot different than cravings. Cravings are fueled by desire. Habits, on the other hand, are fueled by laziness. I don't have a whole lot of desire, but I have an abundance of laziness. For once, laziness might actually work to my advantage. Bye bye bacon. Oatmeal, here I come.

Landry is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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