Day 1983

It's been a long day. It was raining again when we woke up this morning, so I had to wait until later in the day to walk the dogs. As usual, they refused to go outside and do their business while it was still raining. They acted agitated and upset until I got the bananas out, and then they both completely forgot that they wanted a walk. The rain was already diminishing by the time I finished breakfast, so I only had to wait an additional thirty minutes before the morning showers stopped and I could take Dot and Dash to the park.

When I finally got the dogs taken care of, I turned on the computer and discovered that the Internet was down. Actually, the entire U-verse service was down, because the land line phones and televisions weren't working either. I tried re-booting the router several times and when that didn't work, I called tech support. After spending forever in automated call center hell, I finally got to talk with a real person. AT&T couldn't get things working from The Philippines, or Malaysia, or wherever their call center is these days, so a technician is going to come out tomorrow. I hate it when the network goes down. Usually the problem turns out to be a defective router and when they replace it, I have to reconfigure every WiFi device in the house so all the devices can join the network again using the new router's password. Even the thermostat and several of my cameras are on WiFi now. It's going to be a lot of trouble to reconnect everything.

Luckily, I have access to an alternate WiFi network, so I could still get my work done today. Having U-verse down definitely slowed me down though. Just calling tech support took forever. In today's world, having a network outage is just about as bad as a power outage. This is why I always have a backup network. You can't really be a web developer without access to the Internet.

Dot did great today during her physical therapy session, but she hated riding to the vet in the loaner car. It's too small and the rear seats don't fold completely flat like they do in my car. I had to pull over to the side of the road several times to reposition Dot, because the slight incline of the folded rear seatback made her slide backwards and get stuck every time I went up a hill. I would never buy a small car. Large dogs and small cars just aren't a good mix. The old Defender 90 was the perfect vehicle for hauling dogs around in. The entire back of the car was completely flat and there was tons of headroom. Dot and Dash enjoyed riding around in that car. Too bad I couldn't keep it running forever.

I had been planning to do some additional work on my mobile friendly test site today, but several real jobs got in the way. I was surprised that I got as much done as I did, since I was uploading files using the much slower backup WiFi hotspot. Where there's a will, there's a way, I guess. I'm just glad it's Friday tomorrow. A week of relentless rain, car problems, dental problems, and a bad case of cabin fever have taken their toll on me. I'm looking forward to the long Memorial Day weekend, even though I have no plans whatsoever.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1369

I'm getting closer to buying a new car. I went back to the dealership this afternoon and got real prices on three different alternatives. It's been a while since I've done this, but one thing hasn't changed over the years. The actual drive-away price is quite a bit higher than the price you initially anticipate. By the time the dealer adds tax, title and license charges and an extended warranty, the sticker prices is suddenly thousands of dollars higher. If you're foolish enough to ask for something extra, like a towing package or a roof rack, all bets are off. I still think the time is right to trade the Defender while it still runs and the trade in value is high. I may need to rethink my original plan, however. I might not have the money to get the car I really want.

I don't know why I'm surprised. Given a choice, I'll always choose the most expensive, extravagant thing in the room. If wishes were horses, I'd be shooting all my videos using a Red Epic and stills with a Hasselblad H5D. Should I throw caution to the wind and get what I really want? Or should I be practical? This should be an easy decision, but it's not. On one hand, I could save my money for something more important in the future. On the other hand, if the money sits in the investment account too long, it will eventually find its way to another worthless stock that drops like a stone. At least a car could provide some temporary enjoyment.

Dogs don't seem to have these dilemmas.  Janet and I went up to photograph a new Dalmatian today, and the only thing this friendly girl seemed concerned about was where her next dog treat was coming from. I'm not sure if I got any good pictures. It was a hot day and the more pictures we took, the longer the dog's tongue seemed to get. I told her that she'd look much prettier with her mouth closed, but she didn't seem to agree.

It doesn't look like I can avoid mowing the grass much longer. This is the time of year when I try to convince myself that I'm mowing the grass for the last time this season. It usually keeps right on growing though. Sometimes I'm still mowing the grass in December.

Tomorrow, the dogs get their weekly trip to the dog park. There isn't much grass left at the dog park in September, but the dogs don't seem to care. They'd rather dig holes in the dirt anyway.

Nicholas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1368

I wish that UPS could get their Customer Centers on the same page as their website. For the third time this year, I drove over to Mesquite to pick something up at the UPS Will Call desk when the website told me it was ready, only to discover that the package hadn't even arrived yet. The woman at the Will Call desk told me that the website was never right and that I should wait at least four hours after the website said the package was ready before driving over to pick it up. Oh, well. So much for the wonders of modern technology.

Breakfast was quite tasty this morning. My resolve to maintain my strict diet is slipping a bit. I've noticed that meat and cheese are creeping back into my omelets. It's not that the veggie omelets were all that bad. A little sausage just make a meal more satisfying. I know I should be resolute, but I tend to rationalize things. I tell myself that I've earned this sausage, since I'm working out now at the gym. This is probably a poor excuse for my backsliding behavior, since I'm not working out that much.

Even though it was Friday the 13th, nothing bad happened today. I eventually got my package, even though I had to make two trips to the UPS Customer Center. I got caught up on the week's website and writing assignments. I even had time to drive up to the Land Rover dealer later in the afternoon and do a little window shopping for new cars.

There is no rational reason why I'm so loyal to Land Rovers. These cars are in the shop more often than they're on the road. I probably like them for the same reasons I like Olympus cameras and Dalmatians. Some things just feel right. If I do get a new car, I don't think I'll have a problem finding something I like. The difficulty will be finding a decent Land Rover that I can actually afford. At least I will get a good trade-in on the Defender. These cars are still so desirable that somebody came up to me in the Land Rover parking lot today and tried to buy my Defender while I was walking in to talk to a sales guy.

In my younger years, I would have just kept the Defender and gone ahead and bought an additional new car. I've learned the hard way however, that having a bunch of cars is a giant nuisance. At one point, I owned three cars. I could never find a place to park them all at night and the insurance payments were ridiculous. I've finally gotten over my Gemini penchant for having multiple copies of everything. One car is plenty. Astute readers will probably remember that I still actually have two cars, if you count the non-running Citroën Maserati, but I haven't seen the SM in nine years. It ceased being a viable second car years ago and now is just a pleasant memory.

It's finally starting to get a little cooler. The dogs are starting to enjoy their morning walks again. It's still going to be a while before jacket weather arrives, but I think the worst of our Texas summer is about over.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1367

Is anyone else having trouble with passwords? For years everything was fine, but I've noticed lately that websites and applications have stepped up their game. My old familiar passwords aren't acceptable anymore. I am being admonished to create more complex passwords that contain upper case letters, lower case letters, numbers, and special symbols. For me, this is a recipe for disaster. I can never remember these types of passwords. To make matters worse, you are now only given three tries to get the password right before you are locked out. I joined a site that required a complex password a few days ago and forgot it less than 24 hours later. It's all very frustrating. Especially since many sites won't let you use your old password again after you've requested a password re-set.

Our perennial hole digging armadillo has returned. It seems like this critter returns every year about this time to destroy what is left of our back yard grass. There were big holes in the turf this morning and a rustling sound along the fence as the critter ran away from the approaching dogs.  I really don't know how to get rid of these things. They come in the night while we're asleep, and then disappear again the next morning after digging a bunch of ugly holes.

I was real tempted to start looking at new cars today, but work got in the way and I didn't have time. I'm sure I'll succumb to temptation sooner or later, but it's just as well that I kept my nose to the grindstone and didn't go car shopping today. The kind of cars I like are very expensive. I need to pick up a few more clients before I feel comfortable buying a car.

I got a surprise call from an old client this morning, asking me if I'd take them back on a temporary basis. Sure! Why not? What have I got to lose anyway? Evidently, my replacement hasn't worked out all that well. Maybe if I do well on my "temporary" assignments, I can bring these guys back into the fold again. It's certainly happened before. People fire me because they think I'm too expensive and then when they've been paying someone else for a year or two, they finally come to the realization that I was actually quite a bargain.

I'm slowly, but surely learning how Wordpress works. Today I figured out how to add a collaborative calendar to a Wordpress site. Tomorrow, I"m going to explore how to add transaction capabilities. The good thing about an open source application like Wordpress is that just about anything you could imagine adding to a website has already been done before. All you really have to do is look for the tutorials and YouTube videos that explain how to add the functionality you want. I'm still not a big fan of dynamic, server-side websites, but I'll be the first to admit that I'm learning some useful things that will be put to good use in the near future.

I made it to the gym late in the day, but that's probably it for the week. Tomorrow's another busy work day and the small amount of free time I do have will be spent having a delicious breakfast at my favorite restaurant.  In my world, Eggs Benedict trumps time on the treadmill any day of the week.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1353

I'm not a very observant person. Janet asked me this morning why I'd been washing my hair with conditioner all week. I wondered why the shampoo in the new bottle I bought last week was kind of hard to rinse off, but I never really questioned it. The bottle was the same color and shape as the last bottle of shampoo. I guess I never read the label when I threw it in the grocery cart. I wonder how long it would have been before I noticed the discrepancy myself. Sadly, I probably would have used the entire bottle without noticing that I wasn't really using shampoo on my hair at all.

I'd like to think I'm a keen observer of the world around me, but the truth be known, I'm generally oblivious to most things. Probably the main reason I take nice pictures it that I'm surrounded by beautiful things and eventually I notice them.

I'm starting to notice that some machines are a lot more popular than others at the gym. I wonder if this is because certain machines give you a better workout, or because they are just more pleasant to use. I tend not to use the popular machines because I don't like waiting for them to become free. It has occurred to me that my workouts might not be doing me any good at all. I really need to take some sort of orientation class and learn what these machines are actually designed to do. One thing that has surprised me is that I actually enjoy shooting baskets. I never enjoyed playing basketball, or even watching the game, but it is oddly rewarding to sink several baskets in a row.

When I stopped at the grocery store on the way home from the gym, I took a good look at the cars in the parking lot. Even if money were no object, I have a hard time getting excited by any of these cars. I might like the Honda Element if they made one twice as big. I might like a Ford Transit Van if you could get one with a big V-8 engine, fat sporty tires, and a luxury interior with a Sat-Nav system. Where are the newer versions of my Defender? Surely, somebody must make a short wheelbase truck with a big engine, two seats, and a large, completely flat space in back where I can put a full size dog crate. Extra points if the body is made of aluminum and the engine has a manual transmission.

This week went surprisingly fast, considering that not very much happened. Work has been unusually slow this August. If things don't pick up soon, it's going to look pretty bleak when I send out my September invoices. You can never predict the future though. In my line of work, things can go from dead quiet to totally stressful almost overnight.

Duke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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