Day 3618

I stopped and talked with a guy who owned a Sprinter van while I was on my walk this morning. I've seen this guy in the park before and was curious how he liked his truck. After hearing tales about expensive Mercedes repairs and difficulties in driving around town, I had second thoughts about ever getting one of these things. He said he couldn't make u-turns because of the wide turning radius and couldn't use a lot of city parking areas because the truck was too tall to fit under the height restriction gates. A lot of these gates are pretty low. I had trouble getting the Defender under them. There were a lot of other little problems I never anticipated as well. So much for the idea of using a big van as a daily driver. The guy said he loves his truck for camping trips but drives his wife's Subaru whenever he can. I guess I'll put this idea on the back burner for a while.

Before taking my walk, I took some mail to the post office and stopped at the grocery store to get a Cadence Kitchen flash frozen meal for dinner. I thought I would pick the meal with the lowest salt content and ended up getting prime rib with mushrooms and onions. It was definitely milder than the spicy selections I usually choose. I guess if I was really worried about sodium, I would skip these easy to prepare meals and just cook something from scratch. Somehow, I don't think that's going to happen.

Don't let today's picture confuse you. I took it yesterday. Today the weather was overcast and dreary. I kept expecting it to rain, but luckily it never did. I think my roof repairs will be OK. It's weird that the weather makes such a huge difference in my attitude. Yesterday I was feeling good. Today was pretty dismal and it was all because of the weather. I'm hearing thunder now as well. Thunder is never a good sign.

I was wrong about photo backdrops. It turns out that there are still lots of different types of backdrops available. I was just looking in the wrong places. The technology is different now. Instead of hand painted muslin backdrops, there are lots of photo realistic designs that are printed on fabric that is wrinkle free and easily washable. These new designs are more expensive than the backdrops I used to buy, but if you can wash them they might actually save money in the long run. It's interesting that even in a weird little category like this, everything changes.

Will I ever become comfortable with change? Probably not. I could live comfortably in a world with typewriters instead of computers, carburetors instead of fuel injection, film instead of SD Cards, and wall phones instead of cell phones. I'm old school. I use my high speed fiber optic network to watch Perry Mason movies.

I am glad that someone invented the Vitamix blender and the Keurig coffee maker though. My breakfast wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable tomorrow without these handy gadgets.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2501

Another loose dog came after Dash today. I managed to stop the dog before any damage was done, but the incident made me mad. It's amazing how often this happens. It's almost always a young person who isn't paying attention that causes the problem. They're doing yoga in the park, or listening to music with earbuds in their ears while their dog is roaming around nearby looking for something more interesting to do. Luckily this large Lab was dragging his leash behind him and I managed to grab the leash before the dog could get to Dash. Dash was terrified though. He's been attacked before and hasn't forgotten. Loose dogs are a pet peeve of mine. Take your dog to a dogpark if you want to let them off leash. Don't let them loose in an area where there are signs all over the place saying "All dogs must be leashed."

The last presidential debate is taking place right now. I have a live stream of the debate running in a window on my browser. I'll listen for about thirty seconds at a time and then I feel compelled to turn the sound off for a while. I just can't stand listening to these guys. I still don't understand how two of the most unlikable candidates in modern history could have been nominated and think the country deserves a do-over. If either of these folks gets elected, the gridlock we're experiencing in Washington DC just gets worse. Would it really be that hard to find someone the country actually likes? I can't think of a name at the moment, but there's got to be someone.

I never cared much about politics when I was younger. I can recall telling someone when I was in my twenties that I wouldn't mind having a king as long as I was part of the aristocracy. This was flippant, of course, but I just didn't think that voting even mattered. I think I finally registered to vote because my mother kept bugging me mercilessly about becoming a responsible citizen. I became a voter, but always was a bit skeptical about the whole process of arriving at a consensus. I've seen homeowner's associations and condo boards do nothing but bicker for years at a time. I played a very minor role in city government at one point and saw nothing but bickering. I think things might be a little better if lawyers weren't allowed to become politicians, but maybe that wouldn't help either.

If there was a political party that advocated giving the earth back to the dolphins and the whales, I think I'd be for them. Humans have become an invasive species, just like kudzu vines. We can't agree about anything. We eat all the fish out of the oceans. We cut down the rain forests for firewood. If we continue at this rate, we'll be extinct in 30,000 years. I hear a lot of politicians talk about climate change, but none of them even mention controlling the world's population as a solution. There are too many of us already and globalization is only making matters worse.

I don't think I'm going to change things. Somebody is going to get elected. Hopefully, I will continue to get my social security check and be able to live out the rest of my life without the rancor I am witnessing becoming even worse. I don't think the apocalypse is just around the corner, but I do think today's millennials are going to have a tough time turning this ship around. I wish them luck.

Diva is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2285

The Palladia appears to be working. When Dot had her Ultrasound scan this afternoon, there was no evidence that her cancer was continuing to grow. Everything appears to be stable. This was good news, although it does mean that she will need to continue her chemotherapy. We'll take things one month at a time, scanning her abdomen every thirty days to evaluate the status of the mass in her liver. Dot's oncologist seemed encouraged by today's results and told me that often the tumor starts to shrink after about three months of treatment. If Dot's mobility doesn't continue to deteriorate, I think we're OK. We can always discontinue the Palladia if it is making it harder for her to walk.

I went back to my original breakfast restaurant this morning. It was disappointing to see how much the new restaurant across the street has hurt their business. This morning, there were a lot of empty tables and it looked like they had to lay off some kitchen staff.  The food was still excellent, but you could see a look of resignation of everybody's faces. Things have changed.

It looked like the construction crews, cyclists, and moms who didn't have time to fix breakfast for their kids were still regular customers, but that the hipsters had all abandoned the place en masse. This confirmed something that I have long thought about hipsters. They are conformists at heart. If one hipster does something, they all have to do it.  Maybe this explains the proliferation of man buns, messenger bags, and Amish style beards. At any rate, the local hipster community has decided that the restaurant across the street is the place to be.

I got a call from the guy who has been hosting all my websites since the mid 1990's. He wanted to give me a heads up that he was planning on selling his business soon so he and his wife could travel more. The guy is 72 and I've been amazed that he's run a successful web hosting company for as long as he has. It's not an easy business. Almost every day someone is trying to hack into your servers and cause as much chaos as they can. I wished my friend well, but I was sad to hear the news of his retirement. It was the end of an era. I will probably have to move my websites somewhere else. There are plenty of places to choose from, but I really enjoyed having a friend I could talk to personally when things went haywire, instead of calling a tech support number and talking to somebody in India.

The decline of my favorite restaurant and the upcoming demise of my hosting company seem like different aspects of an ongoing trend. The march of time is gradually making my world irrelevant. Stores I have done business with for decades disappear overnight. Software I depend on is no longer supported. Clients retire or in some cases even die. I am forced to change or adapt just to survive. I don't like this. The world seemed as it should be from the day I graduated from college until the mid 1990's. Those were good times. Now, I can barely recognize where I am.

I'm always nervous that Google will abruptly decide to abandon Blogger someday. That would be just my luck. I'd wake up ready to continue my journey to Day 5000 and discover that my blog and all the other Blogger blogs had simply disappeared. It could happen. So much has changed already that further changes like this seem almost inevitable.

Nick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1360

I spent the afternoon in a MRI machine again. Today's scan seemed to take longer than usual, but maybe I'm just not as patient as I used to be. I like the technician who does my scans. He used to be a race car driver, but switched to medical technology after he got married to provide a more stable life for his family. The only vestige of his racing life that still remains is the best selection of car magazines ever in the MRI changing room. The only thing I dislike about these scans is that I have to fully extend my hands behind my head before they slide me into the narrow metal imaging tube. Yikes! With my dislocated shoulder, I think waterboarding would be a less traumatic torture than spending an hour with my arms extended this way.

I think the Defender 90 repairs might finally be finished. There was a voice-mail from Land Rover this morning asking me to call them. When I did return the call, all I got was their voice-mail. Since Land Rover is even slower about answering voice-mail messages than they are about repairing cars, I'll probably have to drive up to the dealership tomorrow and see what's going on. I was hoping to be able to keep the loaner car until the weather turned cooler, but it doesn't look like that is going to happen. This has been the warmest September I can remember. At this rate, it's not going to be cool outside until Thanksgiving. Hopefully, they really fixed the Defender this time. I've still got to take Dot downtown every Wednesday for her physical therapy sessions.

A cool stove-top short-order griddle I ordered came in the mail today. This thing is perfect for quickly cooking up a delicious breakfast of eggs, bacon, hash browns and other things I can no longer eat. I'm sure it will make a nice veggie omelet too, so the nifty new utensil definitely won't go to waste. It's weird. The less I am able to eat, the more I am interested in food. This probably won't end well. One day I will use up an entire loaf of Panera Bread making French Toast which I will then drench with half a bottle of pure maple syrup. So far, I'm hanging in there with my oatmeal and kale, but I don't know how long this can last.

It looks like I'm finally going to have to learn to use Wordpress. I've got two clients who want to add things to their websites that can only be accomplished using Wordpress. I've tried to convince them that Dreamweaver is the only development tool in the universe, but they aren't buying it anymore. I don't know what has happened to me. I used to love learning new things, and now I dread the process. The pace of change has simply become too disruptive. I used to get a lot of use out of my skills before they became obsolete. Now, the obsolescence occurs before I even finish reading the instruction manual. Oh, well. Time stops for no one. Not even me.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1246

I'm fond of rituals. Every morning, I get up and make the bed with military precision. I switch out the backup hard drive on my computer with an identical second drive, so I always have two copies of all my files. I grind some locally roasted Monsooned Malabar coffee beans and make myself a fresh pot of coffee. Then I walk the dogs. I've been following these same morning rituals for so long now that I don't even question them. Probably the only real change I've made in quite a few years is substituting a bowl of oatmeal and fresh fruit for my over-easy eggs, toast, and sausages.

I think the dogs like my steady hand at the helm. They know I'm always going to get them fresh water every morning, fix their breakfast, and take them on a nice long walk. I think like a dog.

Occasionally, I wish that my rituals wouldn't take so long, so I'd have time for something new. It seldom works out that way though, since work is a big part of the ritual. After I eat my breakfast and take a shower, I start to write. Writing always eats up a big chunk of the day and then there are the perpetual website revisions that pay the bills. When something new and different does occur, I seldom rejoice, because it always throws me off schedule.

Tonight, there was a wrap-up party for a big charity event I participated in. During the entire party, I kept thinking that the dogs needed to go outside and pee and I needed to get started writing today's blog entry. Even though it was a very nice party, I couldn't wait to get home again. My entire life is choreographed this way, right down to brushing my teeth at night and falling to sleep watching an old black and white episode of Perry Mason. If I was a child, some might think I was mildly autistic. Luckily, I'm older and can get away with simply being classified as eccentric.

I finally got around to selecting a roofing company today. I went with the company my architect friend recommended and they said they could get started next week. It will be nice to be able to take cleaning up after water leaks off my list of regular rituals. I hope I picked the right company. You can never be entirely sure with roofers. Even my friend made his recommendation with a caveat. "Hey, these guys have always done a good job for me," he said. "But they still might put on a terrible roof on your house." We'll see how it goes. All I know is that I've got to do something.

Dot has her weekly acupuncture session tomorrow. Dash had his antigen shot today. I'm starting to feel like a soccer Mom for Dalmatians.

Lady is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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