Day 2428

I knew it was going to happen eventually. I was checking on the dogs while I was at the gym, and I saw Dot pooping in her bed right on the camera. She was still lying down on her bed, but lifted her head and looked around, as is she was trying to decide whether to go back to sleep or eat the evidence. I was twenty minutes away, but when she put her head back down, I thought I might have time to go home and clean things up before she woke up again. I cut my workout short and hurried home, but I was too late. By the time I arrived, she was wide awake and had eaten everything. I hate when this happens, because it throws off her digestion for the next day or so. What can you do though? Dot is completely unpredictable and I can't spend my entire life watching her sleep and waiting for her to poop.

Since I didn't feel like vacuuming, I went back to the gym and finished my workout as soon as Janet returned home. I spent a long time shooting baskets at the free throw line, wondering why almost nothing in life is completely predictable. You'd think I could sink every basket by now, but I still miss as often as I connect. The ball is the same. The distance to the hoop is the same. And the act of shooting the ball has been repeated so many times that you'd think that hitting the basket would be burned into my muscle memory by now. It's all kind of random though. Sometimes I'll hit three in a row and then spend the next five minutes watching the ball bounce off the rim. If something this simple isn't predictible, I wonder if anything is.

Two short workouts are actually more tiring than one long one. Maybe I should just quit looking at the pet cam while I'm at the gym. If something bad ever happened, I'm too far away to be of much help anyway. I guess I always just want to see the dogs sleeping peacefully. Seeing them sleep gives me some peace of mind and I don't feel so guilty about leaving them.

The atomic clocks are all back in sync again. I still don't know what was going on yesterday, but the problem seemed to resolve itself overnight. I suspect that one of the clocks failed to receive the radio signal from Fort Collins for a few days. I'll probably never know the answer to this mystery, but I will quit thinking about it fairly quickly. I'm sure that something new will go wrong tomorrow that will momentarily capture my attention.

When Janet and I was taking the dogs on their evening walk around the block, a loose dog appeared out of nowhere and came racing straight for Dash. I fell trying to protect Dash and cut my knees. Luckily, the dog's owners were nearby and they quickly retrieved their dog before any damage could be done. The owners apologized while we explained that Dash was terrified by this sort of situation because he'd been attacked by another dog when he was young. We didn't have to explain about Dot. It was obvious that she was very, very old and couldn't defend herself whatsoever. This particular dog was more friendly than aggressive, but I still don't understand why people let their dog off leash. It's just irresponsible to let your dog run loose in a city like Dallas. We were walking down one of the roads that lead into the park. The loose dog could easily have been run over by a car. If you're sitting out in your front yard drinking wine and watching the sunset, please keep your dog on a leash. Things can escalate quickly with dogs and it's almost impossible to keep from getting bitten if a dog really wants to bite you.

I was going to get my new vehicle registration sticker this afternoon, but I forgot that you have to have the safety inspection done first. For years these two events were independent of each other, but now they have to be done in the right order. Why is it that every time the government tries to make something simpler, they just end up making it more complicated? Making an appointment for a safety inspection is already on my to-do list.

Lou is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1997

It's always something. When Dash and I were returning from our walk this evening, one of the neighbor's dogs came charging through an open gate and started attacking Dash. Sadly, this has happened before. The neighbor always apologizes profusely and sometimes offers to pay for any damages. I can't seem to get them to lock their gate though. This time they said their yard guy must have left the gate open. As the large Shepard mix tried to grab Dash around the neck, I tried to command it to sit and stay while grabbing it firmly around the collar and pulling the dog away from Dash. I held both dogs at arm's length to keep them apart while walking slowly up the hill toward my house. Luckily, I didn't get bitten myself. I get so frustrated by people who can't control their dogs. I see unleashed dogs in the park every week and do my best to avoid them. People may think their dog is friendly, but you never know. I've worked in animal rescue for long enough to understand that dogs can be very unpredictable. In the right circumstances, any dog can bite you. I've been bitten numerous times.

Dot seemed tired at her physical therapy session today. We had to run the treadmill slower and her muscles seemed tight during her acupuncture therapy. The vet said we should curtail her exercise walks for a couple of days and let her rest. It's hard to keep the right balance of exercise and rest. She needs to keep moving to keep her leg muscles from atrophying, but she's an old dog and you don't want to push her too hard. I had Dot tested for exposure to Lyme Disease too while we were at the vet. We still haven't decided whether Dash should start taking doxycycline though. Since this is the drug of last resort for many very serious problems, you definitely don't want your dog to build up a resistance to this antibiotic. Dash shows no symptoms of Lyme Disease whatsoever, so it might be wise to save the doxycycline in case he needs it for something even more serious later. We'll see. We're going to do a few more tests to see if yesterday's results might have been a false positive.

The ice maker on our refrigerator broke recently and I am so frustrated with the high cost of appliance repair that I was determined to see if I could fix things myself. I found a website that sells appliance parts directly to the consumer and also features very detailed YouTube videos showing exactly how to make the necessary repairs. I looked at the video for fixing the ice maker on my refrigerator and quickly realized that this was something I could do. I ordered the part and ended up paying less than a third of what it would have cost to have a repairman come out. I should have done the same thing when the washer and dryer broke earlier this year. The wax motor door latch assembly for the washer only cost $79 on this website and it came with explicit instructions for how to remove and replace the faulty latch assembly. I paid a repairman over $350 to replace exactly the same latch assembly. I won't be doing that again.

The ease of repairing things yourself got me thinking about my own business. I've been losing business for years to template based website solutions that let people quickly and very inexpensively design their own websites with no coding required. I can't really blame people who would rather pay $25 for a template than give me several thousand dollars to create a custom site for them. I'd probably do the same thing myself. The problem is that nobody wants to be poor. Appliance repairmen, watchmakers, website designers, and car mechanics keep charging more and more in hopes of maintaining their lifestyle in a changing economy. Eventually everyone puts themselves out of business because they are too expensive. It's hard to even find a good appliance repairman anymore. In five more years they might all be gone. It's hard to compete with cheap parts on the Internet.

Dot goes for her Ultrasound scan tomorrow morning. These type of high-tech services aren't going to go out of business soon. You can't just go out and get your own MRI machine. Even my vet friends are feeling the squeeze though. They purchase all this expensive diagnostic equipment for their practice and then their customers still want to get all their pet's meds on discount Internet websites like 1800PetMeds. The age of the big retail markup is over. Janet buys all her clothes on the Internet now and I haven't been to a camera store in years. And people wonder why there are no jobs. It's kind of ironic that all these people are clamoring for a higher minimum wage now. They are just going to be replaced by robot kiosks anyway.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1406

There are occasional benefits to dumping everything in the storage warehouse instead of just throwing it away like a normal person. While I was taking some things to the storage room today, I noticed some dusty old coats hanging in one corner. Among the coats was my favorite leather motorcycle jacket. This jacket was fairly snug even when I used to wear it in the 1970's. I haven't been able to get into the thing in decades. On a whim, I tried the jacket on again, and lo and behold, it fit. I know I've lost a lot of weight, but I didn't think that jacket would ever fit again. I dusted the coat off, put it on and continued my errands feeling younger than I have in years.

Although there were no new assignments today, there was still plenty to do. I have a long wish list from website clients that I'm still not sure how to fulfill. Whenever I have some extra time, I do a little research and see what I can learn to make these mostly odd wishes come true. I used to think I knew everything about the web, but increasingly I'm feeling like a stranger in a strange land. A lot has changed since 1995. I try to keep up, but I think I'm probably still a few years behind.

Dash saw a loose dog in the park this morning and panicked. Ever since he was attacked by another dog in the park several years ago, he gets extremely nervous whenever he sees a large dog off leash.  He has good reason to be afraid, since the other dog almost killed him during the attack. I feel terrible when I see how fearful Dash has become, but there isn't much I can do. I can't keep the dogs cooped up in the house all the time and Dallas is full of idiots who think it's perfectly fine to let their dogs off leash, even though there are sign ever 100 yards saying that it is illegal to do so. I just try to stay very aware of what's happening up in front of us and change direction if I see a loose dog.

I tried to make a doctor's appointment today and kept getting a message that said "due to unusually high call volumes, your wait will be longer than normal." I guess never is a lot longer than normal. They never did pick up the phone. I suspect that there never were high call volumes in the first place. It's a lot more likely that the receptionist just didn't show up for work this morning.

That bad thing is that other than driving across town to resolve the problem in person, I'll probably have to repeat this exercise in futility tomorrow. I still need to make the appointment. I did manage to get my toll tag account changed to my new license plate number though. Now, all I got to do is remember what this new number is. It took me years to remember the number on the old Defender plates.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1352

I went to a business networking breakfast this morning. About once a year this networking group invites me to join them as a prospective member. Even though I'm not a morning person, I always go to these meetings, because breakfast at The Park Cities Club, where the meetings take place, is fabulous. Once I arrive, the group quickly realizes how unbusinesslike I am, and I don't hear from them again for months at a time. This has been going on for years. After a while, they forget and invite me to join them again.

Although I am very good at what I do, I am definitely out of my league with this bunch. Almost everybody in the group is a CEO, CFO, or COO of a major company. I guess I'm a CEO too, but my only employee is a dog. The guy sitting on my right at breakfast told me that while he was staying at his vacation home in Hawaii during the financial crisis in 2008, he noticed how far real estate values had plummeted and stared buying up distressed beach properties. His definition of a distressed property was anything under $500,000.

I'm still a bit baffled at why this group would be interested in me as a prospective member, but I could definitely learn a lot by joining. I've never seen a more motivated bunch of people in my life. Most of these guys have already made several thousand dollars before I even get out of bed in the morning. I don't know if I made a better impression than I did at previous network breakfasts, but I may actually become a member this time. They're interested in having me create a website for them.

Dot did well during her acupuncture session today, but she couldn't go in the water therapy tank because the vet said she had the beginnings of a staph infection on her skin. Evidently only blemish free dogs can go in the tank. Dot is supposed to get a bath twice a week with a special medicated shampoo until her skin clear up. This ought to be interesting. A bath once a month is once too often for Dot. She hates getting a bath.

The neighbor's dog got loose today and attacked Dot and Dash while we were walking. I knew this would happen eventually. The dog is very dog aggressive and goes nuts whenever we pass by the neighbor's fence. The dog bit Dash and was trying to go after Dot when the neighbors arrived and got the dog under control again. Luckily, no damage was done. Dash got nipped in the but, but the bite didn't break the skin and Dash was back to normal as soon as the bad neighbor dog was taken back inside.

I found some vector art on the Internet and did the print job I screwed up yesterday all over again. When I was looking for good stock images, I thought I'd apply to join one of the stock sites as a contributing photographer. I'd forgotten what a pain it was to become a contributor to a stock agency. I had to submit ten high resolution images and add lots of meta-tags and technical information to each image before I could even submit it for review. I did this once before with another stock photo agency and only made pennies from the sale of the images once they finally accepted me. Ironically, I think it will be much easier to become a member of an elite business networking group full of high powered CEO's, than to have my photos accepted by a stock agency that will pay me pennies per image at best. That's life though. I've learned over the years to leave no stone unturned. We'll see what happens in both cases.

Mandy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day