Day 2024

My unfocused Monday is rapidly turning into an unfocused week. I thought I'd get started on a new website project today, but ran into a major snag almost immediately. Instead of just using text for navigation buttons, I've always liked to use images instead. Having a photo that turns into a negative of the same photo when you roll your mouse over the link always looked kind of cool to me. This simple image swap behavior was always easy to do using Dreamweaver and Fireworks, but I still haven't figured out an effective way to accomplish the same thing using a responsive design framework like Webflow or Macaw. Basically, I wasted a lot of time experimenting with things that didn't work very well, and finally ended up erasing everything and starting over toward the end of the day. These trial and error exercises are usually how I learn things, but there are times when I think there's got to be an easier way.

I've created a monster by feeding the dogs a banana while I eat my breakfast. This worked well for a few days, but now both dogs start barking if I don't feed them a slice of banana every ten or fifteen seconds. Instead of training them to stay quiet and let me eat in peace, they've trained me to feed them the banana at regular intervals. Breakfast has become like a conditioned response experiment run amok. Dot and Dash have become Pavlov and I have become the dog. Now, they're starting to expect something at dinner too. I'm not sure how this is going to end.

I made a repeat trip to the park after sunset this evening to look for Venus and Jupiter and this time I was successful. The two planets weren't quite as close together as they would have been last night, but still it was a sight worth seeing. After walking about half a mile to find a good vantage point, I discovered on the way home that I could see the planetary conjunction just as well from my own backyard. This would actually be a good time to walk the dogs if it weren't so dark. The air cools down surprisingly quickly after the sun sets.

The Apple Health App has been sitting unused on my phone ever since I upgraded to IOS 8. I never really knew what it was for until I started wearing the Apple Watch. Now, I'm learning all sorts of interesting things. One thing I was completely unaware of is that my heart rate is higher than it should be when I'm sleeping. I supposed this has something to do with taking time release Niacin every night before I go to bed. Sometimes when I wake up at night the Niacin flushing drives me nuts. It probably also raises my heart rate. Since I'm taking another pill to slow down my heart rate, something is all wrong here. One more thing to ask my doctor about. I tried to do a little research on Google, but that is seldom a good idea. You can look up virtually any health condition on Google and find ten different plausible answers. If you keep reading long enough, you will inevitably conclude that you are going to die.

Sometimes ideas come to me in my sleep. I hope I discover a solution for my website dilemma while I'm sleeping. I certainly wasted enough time on this today. I guess I could just abandon using rollover images as navigation buttons, but I'm stubborn. I bet I'll find the answer I'm looking for tomorrow. I'll have to find the answer in the morning, because Thursdays are really Dot's day. I hope she does well at her physical therapy session. She seemed kind of shaky today. I'm hoping a good night's sleep will be good for all of us.

Bentley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1987

I'm running out of ways to describe a rainy day. Rain has become the new normal. Once again it was raining when we woke up and the dogs had to wait for their morning walk. We ate breakfast while waiting for the skies to clear and kept checking the weather radar until we found our opportunity. The ground is so saturated with water that everything is soft and spongy. Dot and Dash normally like to smell things in the grass, but even they prefer walking on the roads lately. It's amazing how green and lush the park looks this Spring. All the neighbors lawns look great and Spring flowers are blooming everywhere. I imagine that water bills all over the city will be lower this month.I haven't seen anyone using their sprinkler system all month. I was amused listening to an interview with a local car wash owner on TV this morning. He said that business was way down and that only ten people had washed their car today. I kept wondering how even ten people could think it would be a good idea to take their car to a carwash on a day like this.

I'm easily amused on a rainy day, so I spent the afternoon trying out all the attachments on the new Dyson vacuum cleaner. I had already vacuumed the office yesterday and was astounded to pick up just as much dust as I did yesterday in the supposedly clean office when I vacuumed the shelves and hard to reach corners with the special attachments. The shelves above eye level were exceptionally dusty, but luckily the clever Dyson people made a special tool to clean areas about your head that you can't see. The best thing about the Dyson is that it is relatively quiet and it doesn't scare the dogs. Our old Hoover always sent them into a panic, but they both just ignored me while I was cleaning today.

I keep thinking of ways to improve the mobile sites I'm building, so I went back and fixed some mistakes I'd made earlier in the week. I'm definitely a late bloomer when it comes to responsive design, but I'm starting to get enthusiastic about the possibilities it presents. As I continue to become more familiar with CSS and structured HTML, I doubt that I'll ever build a static site in Dreamweaver again.

I've started wearing a plastic Essix retainer at night that one of my dentists created for me just before I had my wisdom tooth removed. Since some of my upper teeth are unopposed by lower teeth anymore, this retainer is supposed to keep the upper teeth from continuing to grow downward. I thought only rodents had teeth that continued to grow, but apparently ours do as well if they are not held in check by another tooth directly above or below. I thought I'd hate the retainer, but it is strangely comforting. It fits perfectly and is not unpleasant to wear at all. Putting it on, taking it off, and cleaning it, will add one more element to an already lengthy  set of morning rituals.

The rain finally stopped around 6:30 PM. There was just enough time to give Dot and Dash their evening walks and take a quick photo of a surprisingly beautiful sunset. There will be more rain tomorrow, but we're getting used to it.

Ranger s today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1363

It was time to give Dot another medicated bath today. She was so good about taking her bath this time that I wondered if I had the right dog. Dot has never been fond of water and giving her a bath is usually an ordeal. Today, the whole process was a breeze. Maybe she just likes this new dog bathing place better. I'll have to admit that the new place is quieter and the water is much warmer. Who knows. Maybe that's all it takes to change a dog's mind.

The dog park was almost empty today. It's still unnaturally hot for mid-September and most people probably had the good sense to stay indoors. We didn't stay at the park long. We only go on hot days like this to give Dash a chance to be off leash for a little while. These opportunities to race around unhindered are one of his favorite things.

Since tomorrow looks like it's going to be a busy day, I used my afternoon to catch up on bookkeeping and pay some bills. Although paying bills has never been my idea of fun, it certainly beat my other alternative: mowing the grass. I'll save mowing the grass for a cooler day. I did water the yard though. It was so hot and dry that the plants seemed to be crying out for water.

I reluctantly laid the groundwork for becoming a Wordpress developer this afternoon. Since Wordpress is a server-side application, I needed to install a web server and a database management system on my computer before I could begin. I downloaded the Apache server software and MySQL for the database. Now, I'm ready to install Wordpress itself, but I'll save that for another day. I guess it's time for me to embrace dynamic websites. I've avoided them for years. I still prefer nice looking, simple static sites built using easy to understand HTML code, but time marches on. Clients are dragging me kicking and screaming into the brave new world of dynamic, database driven sites. Oh, well. I'll just have to grit my teeth and get with the program. I've already had to retire my beloved Nikon F-2 film cameras and my next car probably won't have a manual transmission either.

Dot is really slowing down. She still insists on taking her daily walks and enjoys going to the dog park, but when she gets home again, she immediately goes to her bed and sleeps for hours. She looks so tired when she is sleeping. I hope I can continue to strike the right balance between letting her enjoy the things she loves and keeping her from overexerting herself. I think the best way to age gracefully is not to be aware you are aging at all. I'm pretty sure I can create an easygoing and enjoyable environment for Dot as she enters her senior years. I'm just not sure how to do the same thing for myself.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day