Day 2824

There are pumpkins everywhere. It isn't even October yet. I've even seen Christmas lights in a few stores. Couldn't we just give it a rest? I'm sure that some of these early pumpkins will rot before Halloween even arrives. I used to dutifully get pumpkins every year to decorate the front porch. They would often sit there until February when I would eventually notice that they had turned into a pile of mush.

I don't buy pumpkins anymore. We don't cook a big turkey on Thanksgiving either. There is still a tree at Christmas, but it is a very small simple tree. I think I have finally mastered downsizing the holidays. Now, if I could just figure out how to downsize everything else.

I'm going to miss those pictures of Saturn from Cassini. I wonder what the team in charge of this mission is going to do now? They spent more than a decade working together to learn about the planet and now their spacecraft is gone. I wonder if I'll see other missions on this kind of a grand scale in my lifetime? People still thought big when Cassini-Huygens was conceived in 1988. More than 5000 people worked on the project during it's lifetime. The 22 foot tall spacecraft weighed over 12,000 pounds and traveled almost 5 billion miles to take hundreds of thousands of pictures and discover 6 new moons. I wish were still doing things like this. We still could if we weren't tearing ourselves apart with hatred and bickering.

Maybe this is why I'm not all that excited about the iPhone X. We've gone from discovering the universe to discovering new ways to take a selfie. Who am I to criticize though. The folks in silicon valley who are discovering new ways to communicate with emojis are still doing more than I am. All I did today was go to the gym and use the wet/dry vacuum to suck more water from under the shower tiles.

I was looking for some alternate dog walking shoes while my boots are at the shoe repair shop. In a dusty corner of my closet, I found a pair of my Dad's boots I used to wear when it snowed. I forgot I even had these boots because it hasn't snowed much lately. What was amazing is that even though these boots were over fifty years old, they were still in better condition than most brand new shoes today. My Dad wore these shoes trapping animals in Alaska. I've worn them off and on for decades and they still look like they could last a lifetime. I know I sound like a broken record talking about shoddy, disposable products, but it's true. Nothing is built to last anymore.

I think I spotted the tip of a new nail starting to grow where Dash ripped his dewclaw out. He still doesn't want me near the area, so I try to clean the wound with saline solution while he is asleep. I'll be glad when his dewclaw has grown back. Dash is not a good patient. I still have to have him wear the cone whenever I'm not watching him closely.

My allergies didn't seem so bad today. I still used a lot of Kleenex and Visine, but it wasn't like yesterday. It's weird how the amount of pollen in the air can vary so much from day to day. I'm going to have to start checking the pollen count every morning.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2656

I need to come up with a new plan for getting Dot outside when she wakes up in the morning. She just can't make it to the back door anymore. For the past three days I've had to wash a bunch of rugs that she peed on while making her exit. It's a mess. If I take up the rugs, the floor is too slippery and Dot will fall. She's too heavy to carry. And it's impracticable to have her sleep in the living room. Incontinence is a bitch. I've placed Dot's bed so I can see it while I'm working. I've learned that if she lifts her head and looks at me, she needs to pee. I stop what I'm doing and take her outside immediately. This usually works during the day. Nights are a problem though because she sleeps much longer than the two hours she can reliably hold her bladder. I really don't know if there's a solution to this, but it's wearing me out.

My project for the day was cleaning a bathroom faucet that seemed to have mold inside it. You'd think running water would keep the faucet clean, but apparently not. I needed to clean this thing because it was a bit disconcerting to turn on the faucet to brush my teeth and see little black flecks come out. At any rate, I took the faucet apart and soaked the parts in bleach. The faucet and the water coming out of it seem clean now, but I'm sure this is just a temporary fix. Everything I do these days is a temporary solution.

Since I was successful at cleaning the faucet, I decided to watch a YouTube video and learn how to replace the hard drive on my desktop computer. This used to be super easy on the old tower Macintosh computers, but things have changed. Even the screws that hold things together on my 27" iMac are different. To exchange the hard drive on my current computer, I'd first need to buy a set of special Torx screwdrivers and a big suction cup to get the glass off the front. Once the the components were exposed, I would risk ruining the fragile LED screen if I accidentally touched it. To make matters worse, there was a special heat sensor that only came with Apple OEM drives, so replacing the drive with a high capacity third party drive wasn't going to be easy. I learned that somebody made a replacement for the Apple heat sensor, but it was uncertain if this part was even available anymore. Basically, it took me longer to watch the video than it used to take me to replace all the drives in my old silver door Mac.

It is fundamentally discouraging to realize that I can no longer fix most of the things I use every day. I feel like a stranger in a strange land. For most of my adult life I have modified and upgraded all manner of things on my own. Modern manufacturing techniques make it virtually impossible to change components or make simple repairs. We live in a disposable society now. If something breaks, you're not supposed to fix it. You're supposed to have insurance, or Applecare in my case, and use your policy to exchange your damaged gizmo for a new model.

The adjustments we've made to Dot's pain medications have made her more alert and active, but they haven't made her any stronger. This means that I'm spending even more of my time moving Dot around when she gets restless. Dot is heavy. After a day of holding up her rear legs, my shoulder is begging for mercy. Caring for an injured dog with carpal tunnel in your wrists and a dislocated shoulder is not something I'd recommend.

We're supposed to have severe weather tomorrow morning. I brought all the rugs that were drying outdoors back inside and took the trash out to the curb. Luckily, the rugs appear to be dry. I guess I'm prepared for the rain, but I'll miss going out to breakfast tomorrow. I'm all out of bananas and fresh fruit, so hopefully there are still some toaster waffles in the freezer.

Ariel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2654

The bugs are going to be terrible this Summer. I've already been bitten by mosquitoes and chiggers and its only March. I'm a magnet for bug bites while guiding Dot slowly through the back yard while waiting for her to pee. Long pants and socks provide more protection, but it sure gets hot in the Summer. So far, I've found fire ants in the front yard, little sweet ants in the bathrooms, crane flies lining up to get in the back door when I leave it open for Dot, and lots of mosquitoes every time it rains. I haven't seen any cockroaches yet, but they can't be far behind. Dot and Dash are both on a flea and tick preventative, but I found a tick on Dash's face just yesterday. The battle against bugs is relentless in Texas.

The back door is really going to be a problem this Summer. I have to open the door ahead of time before I attempt to take Dot out to pee. If I can't keep her moving swiftly from her bed to the door, she pees immediately. This morning, I stopped just for a second to open the door and she peed all over a large rug next to the door. Jeez, I just washed this rug yesterday. It's a mess. I kept a fly swatter nearby while I was eating breakfast this morning to kill the crane flies that had wandered inside while I had Dot out in the back yard.

Today was surprisingly busy. I had several websites to update, including one that required me to brush up on some tricky code designed to automatically resize the site for mobile devices. It's a shame that I learned to create mobile-ready websites just as my business was starting to wind down. Mobile sites are complex and I don't do enough of them to keep my skills in tip top shape. Every time I get a request to modify a mobile site, I inevitably have to relearn something.

I have no idea what made Dot throw up yesterday. She seemed fine today. Surprisingly, she seemed to have more energy as well, even though the weather was still quite warm. We only walk Dot at sunrise and sunset now. It seems to help. This new schedule has messed up my own eating habits though. I now have to eat my dinner very early.

My accountant wants me to pay online now. I called and asked if I could just write him a check like I have for the past twenty five years and he told me that their office was trying to go paperless. Jeez, could it really be that hard to take a check to the bank? I'm having the same problem with everybody. When AT&T lost my check recently, they tried to get me to switch to online payments too. I get a notice in all my utility bills urging me to go paperless. Paper checks are apparently a thing of the past.

I was an innovator and somewhat of a trend setter for most of my career. Now, I've become a Luddite. I can't stop change from happening, but I sure can complain about it. I liked cars a lot better before they became computers on wheels. I liked it when software was packaged in fancy boxes with detailed printed manuals. I liked shoes better when you could take them to a shoe repairman and have them resoled forever. I liked electronics with soldered components instead of integrated circuits. Everything is ruthlessly efficient and disposable now. It's hard to fix anything. Paper checks may mean nothing to you, but they represent a better world to me.

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow. I decided to go early in the morning, in hopes that Dot would stay asleep while I was gone. It's hard to predict what Dot is going to do though and the dentist doesn't make house calls. Hopefully, I won't have any cavities and Dot won't make a huge mess while I'm gone.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 828

I had a meeting with my watchmaker client today. He was telling me how it's getting harder and harder for small repair shops like his to stay in business, mostly because the large watch manufacturers won't sell him parts anymore. They want repairs to come back to the factory and are slowly shutting out independent watch repairmen. I find this sad. I also find that it's just part of a much larger picture. More and more manufacturers have discovered what Apple is doing and would like to try doing the same thing themselves. Hey, if people will pay a lot of money for an iPad with no serviceable parts, maybe they'll do the same thing for an expensive watch or pair of shoes. We have become a disposable society and it's getting harder and harder to get anything fixed. I like buying quality things that can be fixed forever, but I'm in the minority here.

On the way back from my client meeting, I stopped by the Land Rover dealer to see if they could identify my new noise. Clay, my service guy identified it right away. "You need a new catalytic converter," he said. Damn! I thought I fixed the catalytic converter last year, but apparently the car has two of them. One thing I learned when I replaced the first catalytic converter was that it wasn't a good idea to have Land Rover do the job. The cost of a genuine Land Rover catalytic converter: $2500. The cost of a generic catalytic converter at the local muffler shop: $300. I'm going back to the muffler shop again.

It must have rained last night because the roof was full of water again. I didn't even hear the rain, but apparently a gentle rain can leave just as much standing water as a big storm. I'm really getting sick of getting all the water off the roof every time it rains, but the cost of a quality "engineered" roof that drains properly will make a Land Rover catalytic converter seem cheap. All I can tell you is to never buy a house with a flat roof. Those flat roofed mid-century modern homes with their sleek flowing lines sure look nice, but they will make your life miserable. Actually, if I had it all to do over again, I would just rent. Now that everybody is discovering that real estate is no better as an investment than anything else, houses don't look quite so glamorous. Owning a home is a lot of trouble. It would be a lot easier to just act like my tenants and "let the landlord take care of it."

I just finished doing a huge load of laundry with towels and clothes and everything all mixed together. The washer worked perfectly. Whenever Janet does a properly sized load of color sorted clothes, the washer doesn't work. Needless to say this isn't making her very happy. Oh well, the washing machine repairman comes on Monday.

Brooke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day