Day 3829

Living in the shadow of the coronavirus for most of 2020 doesn't really fill you with confidence about anything. Why don't we know anything definitive about this thing? At first it was nothing to worry about. Then it was something that only affected the old and sick. Now practically every story I read is about how the virus struck down a young, healthy marathon runner who works out and never gets sick. There is no consistency anywhere. Masks are worthless. Masks are vital. Nobody knows how to wear a mask properly. Pick a topic and you will find a conflicting opinion.

Retail stores are opening up, but you can't try on clothes. What is the point of this? Restaurants are opening again only to close a few days later when the chef or a waiter turns up sick. At least five newly opened restaurants in Dallas have already had to close again. Airlines and hotels send me tempting offers almost every day, but where would you go these days? If a destination isn't a virus hotspot it it probably the site of rioting and looting. I wonder how long this can go on without everyone going insane?

It would be nice if you could trust what you read and hear. The media aren't doing us any favors. As far as I can tell, the scientists don't have any answers yet. The politicians keep trying to spin whatever the scientists say and use it to their own advantage. You certainly can't believe what your friends and neighbors say. Most of them get all their information from Facebook memes.

This whole situation certainly hasn't turned out the way I expected. I never thought that the United States would end up with the highest death rate. I guess I thought that there was be lots of devastation but that it would all be very far away in countries I couldn't pronounce properly. I certainly thought we would know more about how the virus works by now. We know nothing. Nobody seems to be developing herd immunity and everybody keeps arguing about mitigation strategies. Now that civil unrest has taken center stage, we don't even hear from Dr. Fauci anymore. It's easy to imagine Dr. Evil sitting in his favorite chair petting Mr. Bigglesworth while orchestrating this entire mess.

I feel like all my plans have been put on hold. Even if I do manage to get press clearance for the upcoming Mars 2020 launch, I'm not sure it would be wise to go to Florida. Florida is a mess right now. Texas isn't looking so good either. Janet and I keep thinking of taking a car trip, but neither of us can think of a place to go. We aren't fans of camping and who would want to go to a city right now. I don't think I would ever go on a cruise again. I"m looking forward to the day when McDonald Observatory opens up but I doubt that it will be happening soon. The place is so remote that the staff can't afford for anyone to get sick. The last thing they probably want right now is visitors from big cities.

I guess this leaves me with walking. I continue to walk. The weather was nice today. We're all getting used to getting up early to avoid the heat and Dawn really enjoys these morning outings. My afternoon walk is not as fun, but I do it anyway. Even when nothing happens, I can end the day with 20,000 steps.

Rugby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3387

I should have learned by now that there is little to be gained by looking up symptoms and side effects on the Internet. Dash got a Covenia shot this morning to help with his infected mouth. I wasn't familiar with Covenia, so I did a little research on Google. Unbeknownst to me, there is a raging controversy about this drug. Some people say it has killed their dog or cat. On the other side of the coin, many veterinarians say that the drug is safe, effective and that complications are very rare. All drugs can have complications but the problem with an injectable antibiotic like Covenia is that once it is in the body, you can't get it out again.

I trust our veterinarian and Dash seems to be tolerating the drug well. Nevertheless, it makes you nervous when you listen to sad YouTube videos from people who are convinced that Covenia killed their pet. In fairness, I've read some terrible things about meds that I take myself. You ultimately have to make your own judgement about just about everything. Another person's experience is not necessarily yours. Often Internet accounts can be very distorted. If someone has had a bad experience you will almost always hear about it. Good experiences tend to be considered normal and are often not reported at all.

I'm hoping that the Covenia injection will help clear up the infection. If this doesn't work we can always try the Clindamycin. I have a feeling that no antibiotic will completely cure Dash's peridontal disease. When the antibiotic wears off, the plaque on his teeth, especially under the gum line, will just cause the infection to reappear.

When I got my monthly statement from the dealer who is selling my train collection, it appears like several trains have been sold twice. I hope this isn't the case, since I'd hate to return the March payments I've received. I'm hoping that this is just a data entry error. Honesty is still the best policy. I told my friend about the mixup and we'll see if he wants the money back. You can't keep selling the same thing over and over again.

I'm glad we don't have to take Dash to the vet very often. It has become a nightmare transporting him in the car these days. We always take an emergency clean up kit with us now. Amazingly, Dash didn't poop in the car this morning. He waited a few minutes and then pooped inside the vet's office. We managed to get a few nails clipped while we were there, but after his exam and the shot it was clear that Dash wanted to go home.

I sent invoices to my few remaining clients today and wrote a letter to my sister. It's weird that going to the post office is such an important ritual to me. Nobody else I know goes to the post office at all. Nobody else writes a daily blog either. To each his own I guess.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2972

Why can't you purchase individual TV channels? Janet and I only regularly watch five or six channels, but for years have been forced to buy an expensive cable package with hundreds of unnecessary channels just to get the ones we like. Cutting the cord sounds appealing, but it's turning out to be just as difficult to find our favorite channels on popular streaming packages. You'd think Hulu Live, Sling TV, or Direct TV Now would include PBS in their lineup. PBS is almost as basic as local news. Nope. Even the most expensive packages don't offer PBS. Nobody offers MeTV either. I like this weird little channel because it has all the old Perry Mason and Twilight Zone shows I watch while I fall asleep. Very few people offer NASA TV. This just seems like a public access channel like CSPAN. I though you had to offer public access channels. Maybe I'm stuck with paying too much for cable. It was a slow day and I had a lot of time for comparison shopping. I couldn't find anything I liked.

I'm still trying to figure out why my WiFi connection crashes occasionally. A quick Google search revealed that lots of other people were having the same problem. So many people were complaining about connectivity issues between AT&T and Apple computers that you'd think one of these companies would have come up with a solution. Nope. Neither of these corporate giants would even acknowledge there was a problem.

Here's where things get difficult. If you want to learn how to fix your car, your refrigerator, or your broadband router on the Internet, you've got to sort through dozens, or even hundreds, of wacko solutions offered by ordinary folks and hope that one of them doesn't make things even worse. You'd think people would agree on how to fix something, but they never do.

Fake news isn't limited to politics. It's everywhere. Most diet plans you read about online are fake news. So are restaurant reviews, miracle cures for cancer, and stories about the best food for your dog. When did people become so confident about information that is at best just an opinion? I try to avoid telling people how to fix things. At least I realize that my opinions are probably no better than all the others out there. So far, I don't have the nerve to reconfigure my router based on something I heard on the Internet.

Hey, I did manage to get my refrigerator running again from watching a YouTube video. I've learned a lot about fixing old watches online too. The problem is that I never actually become an expert by watching a YouTube video. Most things I fix end up breaking again. I read a lot about routers today and I still don't really understand how they work. Why can't AT&T or Apple give me reliable, trouble free WiFI? I shouldn't have to do their work for them.

Maybe I should limit myself to simple things. I'm pretty good at doing laundry and finding dog poop in the yard. My morning smoothies are better than anything you'd find at Smoothie King. I make a mean omelet when I'm in the mood too. Maybe this is enough.

At least Dash had a good day. He ate well, took two nice walks, and only got me up once last night. So far, we haven't has any shivering episodes. I was the only one shivering today. It is still very cold.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2524 - Veteran's Day

I convinced the guys at the hipster restaurant to make me something that wasn't on the menu this morning. This was a small but significant success. If you can't find your world, you've just got to create it. I doubt that I could ever convince the owners to start using real china and silverware, but they probably wouldn't mind if I started bringing my own plate. I like this place. The food is simple, but delicious. The customers aren't irritating. And the coffee is strong. I'm definitely not a hipster myself, but I feel comfortable here.

It's nice to get away now and then. The isolation of my daily life and the dogs changing needs are slowly driving me crazy. Dalmatians are active, energetic dogs. Dot and Dash used to be much calmer when I was able to walk them five or six miles a day. Dot can barely make it around the block now, and Dash is so timid that he doesn't like to walk at all without Dot at his side. Now, Dash stands next to the refrigerator and barks incessantly at the treats we keep hidden on the top. Dot drinks water when she's stressed, but her muscles don't work well anymore, so she takes tiny, tiny little sips. I can stand holding her up at her water bowl for ten of fifteen minutes at a time. I hate to pull her away because I don't want her to get dehydrated. I sure wish she could drink faster though. Everything I do these days is an exercise in patience.

When I went to refill Dash's thyroid medication, they told me that he needs another blood test before the prescription can be renewed. I thought we just did this, but when I looked at my records it turned out that the last test was to check on the effectiveness of his phenobarbital. Now we've got to do the same thing for his Levothyroxine. Fasting Dash for these tests is a major hassle, because this is a dog that lives to eat. Ironically, I'm having exactly the same problems with my own medications. I recently had to make an appointment for more tests before my own doctor would renew my prescriptions. Most of these pills I've been taking for decades and the dosage has never changed. I don't know why my doctor couldn't just write me a prescription that would last forever.

I have never seen so many opinionated people on my Facebook feed. People who normally just post pictures of cute cats are determined to convince their friends that Trump is either going to be great, or that he represents the end of the world as we know it. I see an almost equal number of opinions from either side of the fence. Nobody is really going to change anybody's mind. Most people are just preaching to the choir because of the way Facebook filters your feed. You just see what Facebook thinks you want to see. I don't think this is a good thing. The personalization made possible by technology just creates little echo chambers where friends can reinforce their preconceptions. I don't see much of a desire to actually understand the other side. 

My trash got picked up again today. This makes four weeks in a row. Maybe the government is listening to me after all. Hey, the sky was blue this morning. I had a good breakfast and Dot's condition seems stable for the moment. On this Veteran's Day, I don't think the world is going to end at all.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2170

It is tempting to join the political debate on Facebook. With a presidential election looming and WWIII on the horizon, my timeline is filled with wildly contradictory opinions every single day. How did I get so many friends who can't seem to agree on anything? My desire to clarify things by telling my Facebook friends the "truth" is tempered by the realization that my own opinions are probably just as misguided as theirs. Why join the fray? It's pointless. If Facebook is a proxy for how the world actually works, we are truly fucked.

Without getting into details, I tend to take the long view on things. When Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter were popular memes, only one image spoke to me. It was an icy cold photo of the Andromeda Galaxy with the caption No Lives Matter. Whenever people talk about climate change, I keep thinking that it is pretty arrogant to assume that humans can actually destroy the planet. The planet has been here for billions of years. We've only been here a few thousand. We can certainly destroy ourselves. We're getting closer and closer to doing this every day. The planet will survive however. Earth will clean up the toxic gasses and the radiation on its own time schedule and maybe a wiser, less argumentative species will evolve the next time around. People don't like taking the long view however. They're more concerned about what is going to happen tomorrow. That's why I tend to keep my mouth shut.

Today was a good day for saying nothing. It's a short week and most of my clients are on holiday time already. Even the ubiquitous telemarketers seem to have disappeared this week. I went about my business, making sure the dogs had a nice morning walk and taking an inordinate amount of time to make the perfect fruit smoothie. I've almost sealed the leak in the shower stall, although a small amount of water still seems to end up on the bathroom floor. I've narrowed down the search for the ideal portable dehumidifier to two models, but can't decide which one is best. Neither of these machines is available in Dallas and all I've got to go on are people's comments on the Internet. I'd say my chances of believing the wrong person are about 50/50.

Since today was even slower than yesterday, I took the opportunity to catch up on Dr. Who. This time I watched the show while the dogs were napping and managed to see the entire episode without interruptions. I don't know what to think about Face the Raven. Personally I think Clara deserved a better send off. She might not have been the best companion ever, but she was a good and loyal one. She should have been sent to a parallel universe like Rose or just had her memory wiped like Donna Noble. Although I'm not a fan of the direction that Steven Moffat is taking the show, I'll have to admit that Peter Capaldi is a good actor. There is an intensity about him that Matt Smith never had.

I'm so habitual that's it's going to be harder than you might think to remember that Dot's physical therapy day is tomorrow instead of Thursday. Her appointment is early in the morning too. I'll have to start getting her ready right after breakfast. It's supposed to rain on Thanksgiving but I hope the forecast is wrong. I'd like to enjoy a nice relaxing dinner at our third choice restaurant without worrying about whether the dogs were having a panic attack during a thunderstorm.

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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