Day 3750

The world is starting to look like a Steven King novel. For the first time in years I was able to back out of the driveway during the afternoon rush hour without any worries about traffic. The streets were empty. I took some bills and a letter to my sister to the post office today and there were giant sheets of clear plastic hanging from the ceiling separating the postal employees from the customers. I saw no need to add to the madness and quickly dropped my mail in a letter box and left. I stopped by the bank on the way home and discovered that the lobby was closed but a drive thru window was still open. There were lots of cars at the drive thru, but I was already here, so I waited in line with everybody else. I guess a line of cars is social distancing. All the neighborhood stores and restaurants were closed and parking lots were empty. The lack of activity make me feel uneasy. In one empty parking lot there were two crazy people wandering around aimlessly and yelling loudly at nobody. Was this how The Stand started? I was glad to get back to my own house.

The park was almost empty this morning. Blocking the entrances has made a huge difference. I still saw my neighbors walking their dogs, along with a few cyclists and joggers, but that was it. It was almost like the old days before the city passed a big bond issue and decided to make the park a recreation destination. I enjoyed the solitude but I'm sure this is temporary. Someday the crowds will be back.

I don't know how she did it, but Janet managed to catch a urine sample from Dawn this morning. I haven't had any luck at all. Hopefully, Dawn doesn't have urate crystals or bladder stones. It is a common problem with Dalmatians and you often have to change their diet. Dawn really likes what we are feeding her now so I'd hate to have to switch to a different type of food.

Operating my computer from an external drive is going surprisingly well. The only problem is that the computer is painfully slow. If my company was still busy, fixing the damaged drive would be priority one. A slow computer doesn't seem to matter as much anymore. I'm equally slow. Just about the only thing I use the computer for anymore is writing the blog and storing Dalmatian pictures. I have a feeling that if I deleted all my old client files, I wouldn't even need a huge hard drive anymore.

When you hear on the news that 200,000 people in the United States could die from the virus, it makes you wonder whether you should leave the house at all. I guess you could have your groceries delivered, but who is actually delivering them? So few people are being tested that almost anyone could be a carrier. I still think long daily walks are healthy for both the body and the mind, but what do I know? What if the virus can be aerosolized and is floating around in the air? What if masks actually do work, but are still unavailable? Janet may be sewing masks instead of dog bandannas for next years Dalmatian Rescue gold tournament.

I'm starting to forget what day it is. They all seem the same.

Amy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3748

I spent a long time trying to salvage files today and reassemble them on an external hard drive so I can continue staring at a computer as I always do. I'm amazed at how prolific I've been over the years. There were hundreds of client folders filled with tens of thousands of work related files. There were even more pictures. Pictures and videos are what fills up a 4 terabyte hard drive. I was amazed to discover that I've taken over 50,000 Dalmatian pictures. Admittedly, some of the pictures are of other breeds. Dalmatian Rescue has been doing Santa Paw Christmas pictures for many years and I add thousands of Santa Photos to the folder every year. That still leaves a lot of Dalmatians though. Sometimes dogs aren't very cooperative. Occasionally I've had to take a 100 pictures to find one good enough to put on the website. There were thousands of pictures of Dot and Dash. It was kind of sad to see them fly by year after year on my screen as I was copying them to the new hard drive. I lead a solitary life, but you can't say I haven't been busy. I guess you can add over ten years of blog posts to everything else.

I guess the effort was worth it today. I've now got a working, bootable external drive that closely resembles what I had on the desktop computer. To get everything to fit on a much small drive, I threw away mountains of huge WeTransfer, Dropbox, and Zip files that clients sent me over the years. I almost always got way more input than I needed for writing jobs. I don't know why I saved all of my completed projects. Maybe it was just for nostalgia's sake. I actually liked working.

I'm starting to see tons of people posting on the Internet about how to cope with the coronavirus. It's tempting to add my own opinions, but few people would listen. As someone who chose social distancing as a lifestyle many years ago, I don't really have much to say about building a virtual community. I never even heard of Zoom until all this started. I'm not craving a hug either. Couldn't you all just learn to love isolation? It's actually very peaceful. Especially if you turn off the television and put away your phone.

I tend to take the long view on everything. That's why I like geology and astronomy so much. These fields study processes that take millions and even billions of years to complete. I keep hearing so much about global warming and destroying the planet. Do humans really think they can destroy the planet? The planet has been doing fine for billions of years. Humans are just a tiny blip in the grand scheme of things. Dinosaurs were around much longer than we've been here. What if plagues, ice ages, and the occasional asteroid strike are just nature's way of hitting the reset button. The coronavirus has only been around for a couple of months and already skies are starting to clear in many parts of the world. Life is slowing down. People are discovering that they don't have to spend hours each day on crowded freeways driving to work. Maybe we don't need all the things we compulsively buy. Maybe globalism wasn't such a great idea after. What if this was nature's plan all along? If we didn't have the wisdom and willpower to slow down on our own, she'd do it for us.

I hope the city doesn't shut down the parks. For the most part, all the walkers and cyclists have been acting vary responsibly and keeping their distance. If the city does close the parks, it won't be because of these people who love the outdoors. It will be because of the other people who are staying inside and complaining to the city on their phones about walkers and cyclists. Hey, don't try to shame me about social distancing. I'm the king of social distancing. I'm not going to get anywhere near you inside people. You're all batshit crazy.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3747

Finally, something has taken my attention away from the coronavirus. My main computer crashed late last night. What a giant pain. I'm having an almost impossible time salvaging 4 terabytes worth of data. Often you can restore a corrupted hard drive with special utility software, but this time I'm out of luck. The large hard drive is mechanically damaged and none of my disc utility software can save it. The computer won't boot up at all. It gets about halfway through the process and shuts off. To make matters even worse, all the Apple Stores in the country are closed right now. Who knows when stores will open again. Even smaller computer repair shops in Dallas are closed indefinitely.

I was finally able to copy some of the files on my damaged hard drive using an an emergency external start up disc. It's hard to copy 4 terabytes  of files though when you don't have another 4 terabyte drive. I think I managed to salvage my financial records and most of my photos and business files. A lot is lost forever though. I've still got my laptop, but it is only meant for travel and has a very small hard drive. I've lost most of my e-mail messages and a lot of my contacts. I shouldn't have any problems writing the blog, since I can post from both my laptop and my iPad. I imagine I could post from my phone as well, if the tiny virtual keyboard didn't drive me insane.

I was able to find fresh fruit at the grocery store. Actually, I was able to find just about everything on my list. The stores have done a pretty good job of restocking things, although there is still no toilet paper. There weren't a lot of people in the store when I went shopping this morning. I guess everyone has finally filled their homes with enough food and paper products to last until the next ice age. Not touching things is next to impossible. I wore some disposable latex gloves to get gas this morning because I've been reading that gas pumps are virus hotspots. I had to take the gloves off in the store though. The iPhone app I use to avoid the checkout line wouldn't work with the gloves on. When I finished shopping I completely forgot about the gloves and pushed my buggy out to the car with my bare hands. Lord knows how many times I've touched my face today.

I've seen a lot of couples where one person is wearing a mask and the other isn't. I see this in the park as well. Usually it is the wife that is wearing the mask. Nobody is sneezing though. I haven't heard anyone sneeze all week. This is a terrible time to have seasonal allergies. I'm always afraid I'm going to have to sneeze and I'll be thrown out of the store. So far, so good though. I haven't sneezed in public yet.

I finally know someone personally who has the virus. That didn't take long. This was a guy I met at a NASA event last year. He thinks he became infected at a business meeting a few weeks ago when he inadvertently shook the hand of a potential client who had flown in from out of town. The guy's wife has the virus too. Both are young and fairly healthy.

The park was full of people today. Everyone was keeping their distance, but it was clear that people were getting cabin fever. You can only stay inside for so long. It was a nice day and what else can you do when all the stores are closed? I hope things never get bad enough to require restricting outdoor movement. Some countries won't even let you walk your dog now. The people I see outdoors are doing the right thing. They are keeping their distance, while getting some much needed exercise.

Tomorrow, I'll return to salvaging as many files as I can before the damaged hard drive becomes completely inaccessible. I found a replacement drive on Amazon, but I don't know if I can install it myself. Fixing things on older Apple towers was easy. The new iMac models are much more difficult. Everything on my computer is crammed in a small space behind the 27" screen and is almost impossible to access or remove. Some parts are even glued together so you can't remove them. The last time I replaced a hard drive I had the folks at Experimac do the work. They've gone out of business though. All stores I like eventually go out of business.

So far, Janet and I are feeling fine. Hope that all of you are as well.

Doc is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day