Day 2564 - Winter Solstice

Today was the shortest day of the year, but it sure seemed long to me. I've just about given up hope of ever getting anything but the bare necessities done. I wonder sometimes when I ever had time to run a busy and successful company. I have to remember that the dogs were young and healthy then. Back in the day, I even had time to play in a rock band, compose and record songs in a home studio, and spend weekends building a fashion photography portfolio that would end up launching me on a whole new career. In those days I had no dogs at all. When I'm feeling sorry for myself, I sometimes miss the freedom I once had, but I wouldn't trade my life with Dalmatians for anything. Dot and Dash are my best friends. My purpose in life is to keep them as safe and healthy as I can. They don't know it, but their purpose in life has been to save me. Let's just say that life was kind of shallow before I was introduced to the joys and sorrows of sharing life with a dog.

The days will start getting longer now, but I don't think I'll notice anything for a while. If I remember correctly, sunsets will continue getting shorter for a while and daylight will slowly increase with an earlier sunrise. The only thing I like about the short days is that it's easy to capture some nice sunset shots. Dash hates walking in the dark though, so he's not happy. I have to walk Dot first, so she'll be tired and sleep when it's time to walk Dash. If I reverse the order of things, Dot tends to get anxious and there's a good chance she'll poop all over the place. I feel bad that Dash gets short changed sometimes, but what are you going to do? We're all doing the best we can.

I paid my property taxes today. I think that's the last big bill of the year, so I guess I survived 2016. I hate that expenses keep going up, while my income keeps going down. It kind of takes a lot of the fun out of getting old. My only hope for 2017 is that the stock market rally will continue. Events can easily change things, but there's a good chance that the rally could continue. I think lower tax rates and fewer regulations will help businesses of almost any size.

I think the bird that poops on my car every Winter has returned with several friends. There is more bird poop on the car in the mornings now than there ever was before. These birds don't seem to be frightened of my rubber snake either. There's not much you can do about pooping birds. You can't catch them. In the city, you can't shoot them. I don't think you can reason with them either. I'd build these guys a nice birdhouse if they'd just leave my car alone.

I may have to write my blog in the mornings while Janet is away for the holidays. Evenings are Dot's active time and she hates being left alone. Sometimes Janet sits next to her on the floor and watches movies on her iPad. Other times she walks her up and down the hall while I'm writing. Janet had to work real late tonight and it was kind of a preview of what's to come. Dot didn't like me being in another room and writing at all. We'll figure out a solution. There's always a solution.

At least it was warmer today. We didn't have to bother with all the cumbersome dog coats.

Willow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2228

I just solved a problem that has had me stumped for the past three hours. It feels good. I inherited a Wordpress site from another developer who used a lot of strange and unfamiliar widgets to create much of the site's functionality. When I opened the dashboard this afternoon to make a few changes, I discovered that the latest version of WordPress no longer supports the third party widgets. The site was broken. I was totally screwed, because the functions the obsolete widgets added were not included with the theme the original developer used. This is one reason I hate WordPress. The themes only seem easy because they hide all the code away. They can be really hard to fix when something breaks. I needed to figure out an alternate way to duplicate the functions without starting over from scratch. After hours of research on Google and WordPress forums and quite a few unsuccessful experiments, I finally came up with something that worked without destroying the original theme. I still hate WordPress though. I need to convince this client to start over and do a proper responsive website.

The website debacle was just one facet of a rather nasty day. The weather was horrible. It started out cold and damp and kept getting colder throughout the day. It started raining hard just before I had to leave the house for Dot's physical therapy appointment. I was a bit apprehensive, since Dash is just as scared of storms as Dot. He usually sleeps on the bed when I'm gone, but I left the door open to my office because he often hides under my desk when it storms. That's where I found him when I returned. I felt bad, but it's pretty essential that Dot's gets her acupuncture and water therapy.

Dot actually did pretty well today, considering how damp and cold it was. Her vet spent some extra time working on her shoulder muscles during her acupuncture session in an attempt to relieve some of the tension. I think it worked, because Dot was very relaxed on the way home. I wasn't very relaxed because the rain was getting worse and the roads were a mess. I had to drive through a construction zone and the car ended up getting muddier than I've seen it in months. At least the rain washed off the bird poop. The evil bird has started pooping on the right hand side of the car where it is unprotected by rubber snakes. I guess I'll have to go to the Dollar Store and buy some more snakes.

I'm glad that this week is about over. I've had enough of disastrous stock market losses, cold weather, difficult assignments, and lack of sleep. There's water on the roof again, but it's too cold to deal with it yet. The shower drain is backing up and the refrigerator is just about empty. It's almost time to start thinking about doing my taxes again too. Hey, the skies are supposed to clear off tomorrow. Maybe a good breakfast, some strong coffee, and a little sunshine are all I need to jump start my mood and get my Mojo working again.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2183

We're making progress. Our broadband service was finally restored today and the humidity in the house is down to 38%. When the technician called to tell me that everything had been fixed, I asked him what the problem was. "We found four separate faults in the fiber line to your house," he told me. "That sounds pretty major," I said. "Was service out for the entire neighborhood?" "No, it was just you," the guy said. It figures. Our house just seems to attract problems.

I stretched the soiled photo backdrop out on a long clothesline this morning and sprayed it with the Nature's Miracle enzyme. It was a nice day, so it didn't take long for the muslin cloth to air out and dry. I think it looks and smells much better, but Dot and Dash beg to differ. They are still real interested in the cloth backdrop when I take them outside. I'll see what Janet thinks. You can't dry clean or wash these hand painted backdrops, because all the paint will come off. I'll clean the backdrop again tomorrow and hopefully by next Saturday it will just be another large, somewhat dirty piece of canvas. I'm hoping for the best. The last thing you want is the smell of pee when you're shooting a long sequence of pet pictures. If one dog has marked the canvas, all the other dogs will want to pee on top of the same spot to claim it. That's just the way dogs are.

Even though our U-Verse service is working again, I'm still tempted to switch to Time Warner. I checked prices today and their top of the line bundle is about 40% less than what we are currently paying right for U-Verse. Cable providers are tricky though. They are masters of bait and switch tactics. You sign up for something and then you notice a few months later that you are paying quite a bit more. None of the cable providers include taxes in their pricing either. It's amazing how many weird and often expensive local and state taxes they can get away with adding to your bill. No wonder so many people are just watching Netflix and Hulu on the Internet. So far, the Internet has managed to escape most of the ridiculous taxes the utilities and telecom providers tack on to your bill.

The evil bird that poops on my car has returned to spend another Winter taunting me. I know it's the same bird every year. I wonder how long birds live? I think that parrots can live 50 years or more, but what about Blue Jays and Cardinals? This bird always poops on my car and never on Janet's. It drives me nuts. I've tried everything to scare the bird away, but nothing seems to work. I really thought rubber snakes would do the trick, but this bird has no fear of snakes. It even pooped on one of the rubber snakes yesterday.

I thought I might be able to see Comet Catalina this morning, since it is currently located very near the Moon and Venus in the pre-dawn sky. It turns out that the comet was fainter than expected though, and I wasn't able to find it with binoculars. I'll try again tomorrow morning, but I suspect that the glare from cars and streetlights will pretty well mask the faint sixth magnitude object.

Work continues to be slow this month. Maybe this is the new normal. I certainly hope not.

Humphrey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1840

I never realized that there were so many devilishly inventive ways to make my arm hurt. Every time I go for physical therapy, I get introduced to several new stretching exercises designed to increase the range of motion in my right shoulder. I'm definitely making progress, but it's going to take a long time at this rate. I wonder what I did to make this shoulder so unstable? There was never any definitive injury that caused the shoulder instability. It just gradually got worse and worse. I still think the dogs caused most of the problems. They both like to walk on my right side and whenever they try to chase after rabbits or lunge at a pile of fresh horse poop, my right arm always had to absorb the shock. Since I'm left handed, this abuse to my right arm never really bothered me. "At least the important left arm is safe," I thought. I wish I'd been a little more protective of both arms over the years, but it's a little late now.

Usually this last week of the year is completely dead, but I've been getting a surprising number of new assignments. I was kept busy today with an assortment of writing and website jobs. There are a couple of stretching exercises I can do while I'm sitting at my desk. While this is convenient, it is also irritating. Much of what I do isn't much fun anyway. Working with a very sore shoulder just makes the task at hand worse. I would like to be able to lift both hands over my head again, so I guess I'll continue.

I noticed an oddly shaped piece of white plastic in the greenhouse yesterday and was just about to throw it away when I realized that it might be a good way to foil the pooping bird. The plastic sheet was about the length of my car's front door window and had a convenient angle along one side, allowing it to rest just below the window while providing a very unstable platform for the bird. I positioned the plastic sheet against the window after I got back from physical therapy and it seemed to work. The bird didn't want to land on the unstable plastic and there was no more bird poop for the rest of the day. It would be weird if this Rube Goldberg device worked while my very realistic rubber snake did absolutely nothing.

Usually at this time of year, I'm buying equipment for the studio so I can expense it on my taxes. I doubt that I'll buy anything at all this year. There seems little point in buying more video equipment when it seems doubtful that I'll ever get another large scale production job. Everyone has a GoPro now and thinks they're Stanley Kubrick. It's kind of ironic that I'll probably end my career exactly the same way I started it: as a writer. Writing never seems to become obsolete. All you need is a pencil and a few ideas. In a world where nobody reads and writing is becoming a lost art, I can still fill a page. It makes me wonder why I got sidetracked by video production and web design in the first place.

Dot has her last session with the underwater treadmill for the year tomorrow. It's been quite a year! Dot's determination and resilience has been an inspiration. I hope we both can continue to get healthier in the year ahead.

Allie 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 1838

It was cold when we walked the dogs this morning, but as it turned out, this was as warm as it was going to get. As the day progressed it continued to get colder and colder. Now, it looks like it might freeze tonight. Of course tomorrow, the temperature will be back up in the fifties again. I'll never be able to get used to Texas weather.

When I was out shopping this afternoon, I saw several neighborhood Christmas tree lots packing up their tents and disposing of their unsold trees. A Christmas tree lot the day after Christmas is a sad sight. I wonder what these guys do the rest of the year?

The stores had huge sales on wrapping paper and Christmas ornaments today. I know people that always buy their wrapping paper this way. I don't think that far ahead. I just look for what's lying around the house on Christmas Eve. When I was getting groceries, I saw a crowd flocking to one particular aisle. I pushed my buggy toward the melee to see what all the commotion was about and discovered that all the Christmas candy and sweets were half price. I don't eat many sweets myself but got caught up in the moment and ended up buying a box of half price Godiva chocolates.

I seem to have reached some sort of plateau with the stretching exercises that are supposed to help my shoulder. I was making real progress for the first few days, but now I seem to have hit a brick wall. Maybe, this is as far as my bad shoulder is going to move. It's not that the joint is increasing painful to move, it just won't move at all beyond a certain point. I can lie on a flat surface and extend my left shoulder all the way behind my head with a full 180 degrees of motion. The right shoulder will only extend about twenty degrees past a vertical position. Today, I kept thinking that this is as good as it's going to get, but I'm sure that my physical therapist will think otherwise. We'll see how far she can pull and stretch my sore arm on Monday.

I was worried that the dogs would be too cold today and started to bundle them up in their Winter sweaters. Now that the dogs are both wearing their red Ruffwear harnesses on walks, it's kind of a challenge to add sweaters and coats. These Web Master harnesses are kind of like a coat themselves. Do you put the sweater under or over the harness? I eventually gave up, which is probably what the dogs wanted anyway. They like the cold a lot more than I do. I continue to be amazed at how briskly Dot walks along on these cold mornings.

The rubber snake didn't work. I think all I did was make the bird mad. It not only pooped on the car, it even pooped on the rubber snake. I'll try a different color rubber snake tomorrow, but I definitely think this irritating bird is winning the battle at this point.

I don't really feel like going to the gym tomorrow, but I probably should anyway. I told my physical therapist that I try to go to the gym at least twice a week. Jeez, I'm still having trouble making it even once a week. I think these guys can tell when you're not doing your homework.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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