Day 2790

I finally went back up on the roof today. What a mess. In addition to the usual two inches of standing water, there were twigs and small branches everywhere. The neighbor's pecan tree is starting to drop nuts as well. As soon as I got things cleaned up, I called the roofer again. There are at least half a dozen new places where the elastomer coating has deteriorated or torn. I am so tired of water problems. Over the years, the vast majority of problems we've had with the house have been water related. There have been roof leaks, underground plumbing leaks, shower pan leaks, dishwasher leaks, and toilet leaks. Water leaks are inevitably followed by mold and mildew. I'm sick of it all. I wish there was a way to buy a house that came with a 100 year guarantee against any form of water damage.

I was finally able to contact the watchmaker who has had three of my watches for almost five years now. I told him that I had given up on him and that I would come by and pick up the broken timepieces. He immediately apologized for the lengthy delay and said that if I could give him one more month, he would have all three repaired. I have actually heard this before, but what have I got to lose. I can't even remember what these watches look like anymore. I'll call him again at the end of the summer.

It was still raining this morning when we woke up and although Dash had slept like a baby during last night's rain, he immediately became frightened when he heard a distant thunderclap. This complicated our morning routine, because Dash won't eat when he is scared. I like Dash to eat his breakfast before I start fixing mine, because as soon as he sees me fixing something, he immediately loses interest in what is in his bowl. I fooled him this morning. I got out a bunch of pots and pans as if I was fixing my own breakfast and then fixed his instead. He eagerly ate his meal, took his morning pills, and then wanted to go on a walk. I ended up eating pretty late this morning, but at least I got Dash walked before it started raining again.

The shower stall still leaks a little, but I think I made a huge improvement. The problem is that if there is any leak whatsoever, my repairs will ultimately fail. Moisture will gradually seep under the ceramic tiles again and cause the silicon caulk to come loose. I don't even care if the repair lasts forever. If the musty smell starts to go away and I don't have to mop up small puddles after I take a shower, I'm happy. When the repair disintegrates, I'll just fix things again.

I've just about resolved all my computer upgrade problems, but I still can't print on DVD's. I don't know why this bothers me so much. I haven't had a need to  make a label for a CD or DVD in almost a year. Nobody even uses DVD's anymore. Losing this capability still frustrates me. I have a printer that lets you print directly on blank discs and I used to use it a lot. Upgrading to Sierra has made this printer obsolete.

I'm helping Janet find a new iPad. It's surprising how hard it is to just go to a store and buy one of these things. Most stores, including the Apple Store, want you to buy online and then they'll ship it directly to you later. Depending on the configuration you choose, delivery can take from three days to over three weeks. It's a shame that stores don't carry much inventory anymore. Shopping was so much easier when you could go to a store and know that they'd have everything you needed right in the store.

I'm pretty confident that I have everything I need at home tomorrow. Dash has plenty of food. There's still a good supply of fresh fruit for my smoothie. There are enough leftovers from tonight's dinner to feed me tomorrow. I'm good. If I get really bored, there's always Netflix.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2364

I took Janet to the airport this morning. The road to DFW has been perpetually under construction since the day I moved to Dallas. I don't think they'll ever finish it. They keep making the road wider and wider, but it never seems to be wide enough. I drove carefully today. I'm always worried that I'll get in a wreck and the dogs will starve to death before anyone notices I'm gone. Taking care of the dogs has always been a team effort and it still makes me nervous to operate without a backup.

I promised Janet I wouldn't go up on the roof while she was gone. It would definitely be bad news if I broke my neck and nobody noticed. There are still plenty of things that could go wrong, but I think we'll do OK. All the dogs meds have been neatly organized in little packets with the date and time to give them marked on the front. The refrigerator is well stocked and the dog walker is coming tomorrow morning to help with Dot's morning walk. Dot and Dash are so set in their ways that they always act a bit restless the first few days that Janet is gone. They're dogs though, and as soon as they settle in to a new routine, everything is fine.

Unfortunately, we haven't reached that transition point yet. Whenever they hear a noise, they run to the front door to see if anyone is there. Well, Dot doesn't run anywhere, but she whines for me to lift her up and take her to the front door. If I get the dogs settled in one room, five minutes later they want to be in another.  Their routine has been broken and they're not happy campers at the moment. I try to be accomodating, but there's only so much I can do. Things are going to be different for a while.

I don't know why the dogs are so upset. Things aren't actually very different at all. Our life is always pretty much the same. I went to the grocery store today, like I always do on Saturdays. Dash got a long afternoon walk and they both got their dinner right on time. Maybe they want the television on. As soon as they both settle down and go to sleep, I'll have to wake them up again to give them their evening meds. Then we'll go through this all over again.

I was going to try to get to bed earlier and get some additional sleep, but I'm not off to a good start. Despite the best of intentions, I ate dinner when I always do and couldn't get started writing the blog until the dogs settled down and went to sleep. By the time I reconfigure the dogs beds in their  nighttime mode, give the dogs their pills, brush my teeth and empty and clean the dehumidifier, it will be close to midnight. An hour after I go to sleep, Dot will poop in her bed and I'll be up again.

I hope that Dot and Dash cooperate with the dog walker tomorrow. Life will be so much easier if we can get their regular morning and evening walks out of the way without a giant hassle. I tried to take Dot on a short walk by myself this evening and that didn't go all that well. She really has very little interest in walking unless Dash is walking in front of her. The dogs don't know it yet, but they're going to be getting a banana tomorrow. We usually have a big breakfast, with bacon, eggs, biscuits, and fresh fruit on Sunday mornings. I think I'm going to revert to my weekday banana and strawberry smoothie tomorrow, which means sharing a banana with the dogs. Anything to make life a little easier.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2356

It was raining so hard this morning that I quickly abandoned my plans to go out for breakfast. It just wasn't worth it. The dogs are always restless when it rains and even more restless when they can't go on their morning walk. They will stand at the back door and just look at you like they expect you to stop the rain. It took about five tries before Dash would venture outside and pee. Dot ended up pooping inside the house while I was fixing my breakfast. Once I got the mess cleaned up, breakfast really wasn't bad.

I made some delicious French Toast with a leftover loaf of bread I found in the refrigerator and cooked a few fresh sausage patties to go along with it. Add some dark roast coffee and real maple syrup and this meal easily held its own with any of my recent restaurant outings. Since there were no bananas today, the dogs even let me eat in relative peace. They go nuts when there's a banana around.

I talked with Dot's oncologist after breakfast and rescheduled her appointment for next week. There actually was an ultrasound technician available today, but not the one the oncologist wanted. There is a specific technician that the oncologist wanted to use who is familiar with Dot's case. Evidently Dot's tumors are located in an area that is difficult to scan and the technician who was sick today was the only one who knows exactly where to look. I was happy to reschedule, because transporting Dot in the car on a wet stormy day is even more difficult than on a normal day.

I got an e-mail from AT&T this morning warning me that there would be a non-returned equipment charge if I didn't hurry up and install the new router they sent me and return the old one to them. Jeez. It's only been one day since the UPS guy delivered the package. Truthfully, I'm reluctant to install the new router, since everything has been working perfectly since the package arrived. This is the first time in a month that I've had no problems and so far I've made no changes at all. I still think the tech support guys fixed something after my irate calls and just didn't tell me. I'd like to just put the new router in the storage warehouse and keep it in case I need it in the future, but apparently AT&T frowns on this. If everything is still working properly in the morning, I think I'm going to call and ask if I can return the package they sent unopened. I'm very superstitious about setting up and configuring a completely new home and office network at this point. Maybe I should just leave things alone.

The city didn't pick up my garbage again. My can was the only one on the entire street this morning that wasn't emptied. This has happened too many times. I don't think the garbage men are purposely trying to harass me, but something is definitely wrong. I'm starting to think that the lid on my can doesn't open properly when the automated truck picks it up. Things worked much better when real people emptied the cans. The robot automated truck picks up the cans, but I don't think it can sense if it has actually emptied them.

I think I've finally found someone to help me walk Dot while Janet is on vacation next month. It's been a lot harder to find a reputable dog walker to come over every morning than I thought it would be, but things are looking up. The dog walker is going to come over and meet Dot next week and I think we'll be able to work something out. I've been walking Dot and Dash for over a decade and never dreamed that a simple walk would become so difficult. It's important to keep Dot moving though, so I'll do what I've got to do.

We've got a three day weekend ahead. We've also got lots more rain ahead as well. It remains to be seen whether we'll have a relaxing holiday.

Libby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2032

Dot did well during her physical therapy session today. We talked about what was causing her to limp and came to no firm conclusions. The vet agreed that the limp could be caused by a wide variety of things, including an underlying neurological problem, too much exercise, or the Palladia pills she's taking. I'm going to ask Dot's oncologist if it would be OK to discontinue the pills for a month after her next ultrasound scan. If there are no adverse effects from postponing the chemotherapy for a while, at least we could determine if this was the cause of her lameness. For the time being, we will decrease the distance she walks slightly, while still having her climb small hills each morning to strengthen her leg muscles.

I finally finished editing all the images for my client's multi-media project. We've got enough pictures now for a nice slide show or a short Ken Burns style movie. If they want a slide show, I'm going to try to convince them to get one of those little Chromecast streaming sticks and just link it to pictures in a Google album. I've tried this and it's a super easy way to make a quick, professional looking slide show. When you select the Chromecast stick as the input source on your TV, the Google photo album you select will end up being the default screen saver. I used to spend days creating lobby presentations for clients and the first time I tried using Chromecast, I had a great looking presentation up and running in less than five minutes. I never thought it would happen, but I'm I'm finally willing to admit that I don't really need a DVD drive anymore. Netflix, Chromecast, Apple Music, and a host of other cloud based solutions are just so much better.

I traded my Apple Watch for the larger model. Why? Who knows. Truthfully, probably the only reason I exchanged the watch was because I could. I was perfectly happy with the smaller watch, but I like this slightly larger version too. Really, they're both pretty much the same. Hey, it gave me something to do after I brought Dot home this afternoon, it didn't cost very much to upgrade, and now I've got a bigger watch. I'll have to figure out something else to occupy my time tomorrow.

The reason it's been a slow week is that my writing assignments have dwindled to almost nothing. I finally discovered why today. The person who sends me most of the writing assignments is on jury duty. She must have gotten selected for a trial because she's been out of the office for quite a while. At any rate, when I resume cranking out articles, I'm be just as busy as I ever was. I actually ought to be grateful for the opportunity to take a breather. It's been nice not having much to do for a while.

This week has gone really quickly. I'm looking forward to going out for breakfast tomorrow. It will be nice to eat in peace without two barking dogs on either side of me. I created a monster when I started feeding Dot and Dash a banana while I ate my breakfast. Now, if the don't get their banana, they bark and howl until I peel and slice one up for them. Are these dogs spoiled? Of course they are. I've got to figure out another way to deal with this breakfast commotion though. Dot is gaining weight again. With her weak rear lags, we've got to be especially careful about her weight. She really doesn't need to be eating bananas and extra kibble after she's finished her regular breakfast. I've thought about solving the problem by just going out for breakfast every morning, but then I'd be the one gaining weight.

Greta is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2024

My unfocused Monday is rapidly turning into an unfocused week. I thought I'd get started on a new website project today, but ran into a major snag almost immediately. Instead of just using text for navigation buttons, I've always liked to use images instead. Having a photo that turns into a negative of the same photo when you roll your mouse over the link always looked kind of cool to me. This simple image swap behavior was always easy to do using Dreamweaver and Fireworks, but I still haven't figured out an effective way to accomplish the same thing using a responsive design framework like Webflow or Macaw. Basically, I wasted a lot of time experimenting with things that didn't work very well, and finally ended up erasing everything and starting over toward the end of the day. These trial and error exercises are usually how I learn things, but there are times when I think there's got to be an easier way.

I've created a monster by feeding the dogs a banana while I eat my breakfast. This worked well for a few days, but now both dogs start barking if I don't feed them a slice of banana every ten or fifteen seconds. Instead of training them to stay quiet and let me eat in peace, they've trained me to feed them the banana at regular intervals. Breakfast has become like a conditioned response experiment run amok. Dot and Dash have become Pavlov and I have become the dog. Now, they're starting to expect something at dinner too. I'm not sure how this is going to end.

I made a repeat trip to the park after sunset this evening to look for Venus and Jupiter and this time I was successful. The two planets weren't quite as close together as they would have been last night, but still it was a sight worth seeing. After walking about half a mile to find a good vantage point, I discovered on the way home that I could see the planetary conjunction just as well from my own backyard. This would actually be a good time to walk the dogs if it weren't so dark. The air cools down surprisingly quickly after the sun sets.

The Apple Health App has been sitting unused on my phone ever since I upgraded to IOS 8. I never really knew what it was for until I started wearing the Apple Watch. Now, I'm learning all sorts of interesting things. One thing I was completely unaware of is that my heart rate is higher than it should be when I'm sleeping. I supposed this has something to do with taking time release Niacin every night before I go to bed. Sometimes when I wake up at night the Niacin flushing drives me nuts. It probably also raises my heart rate. Since I'm taking another pill to slow down my heart rate, something is all wrong here. One more thing to ask my doctor about. I tried to do a little research on Google, but that is seldom a good idea. You can look up virtually any health condition on Google and find ten different plausible answers. If you keep reading long enough, you will inevitably conclude that you are going to die.

Sometimes ideas come to me in my sleep. I hope I discover a solution for my website dilemma while I'm sleeping. I certainly wasted enough time on this today. I guess I could just abandon using rollover images as navigation buttons, but I'm stubborn. I bet I'll find the answer I'm looking for tomorrow. I'll have to find the answer in the morning, because Thursdays are really Dot's day. I hope she does well at her physical therapy session. She seemed kind of shaky today. I'm hoping a good night's sleep will be good for all of us.

Bentley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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