Day 4132

We watched Prince Phillip's funeral while we were eating breakfast this morning. It felt like the end of an era. Phillip was the last of my Dad's generation. He was one of the very last World War II vets. He certainly was among the last to place any value on dignity and tradition. It was nice to see a nation that still reveres its history and traditions rather than try to tear them down and erase them. The monarchy may be a relic of a bygone era, but so am I. God save the Queen.

Phillip certainly had good taste in cars. This is the first and probably last time I will ever see a Land Rover Defender used as a hearse. They say Phillip chose the Defender because it was practical and unassuming. Of course he had the vehicle custom made to his own specifications and it was probably much more expensive than any ordinary hearse. Royal prerogative I guess. I was amused that at one point during a solemn and silent part of the ceremony all I could hear was the noisy motor of the Defender. I miss my old Defender and I miss the bygone era it represents. What comes next is anybody's guess, but I suspect that it is going to be a dystopian horror show.

It took me several stores to find my favorite beer while I was grocery shopping this morning. I've gotten hooked on small batch craft beers, but unfortunately some of them don't stay on the shelves with any regularity. I hope they are still brewing this beer. I went for years with having any alcohol at all when I had Hepatitis-C, but now having a single beer with dinner each night has become one of my daily pleasures. 

My back is still giving me problems. Janet has had back problems for years and tells me that I have to be patient and continue doing stretching exercises. It's hell getting old. You are supposed to lift things using your knees instead of bending over and lifting with your back. Easier said than done for a person with bad knees. One of my knees is so bad that I can't put much weight on it at all. There is definitely not a spring in my step anymore. If you see an old man shuffling slowly through the park, it is probably me.

I'm not going to let a few aches and pains stop me from walking. I've noticed that the walks don't actually make anything worse, so I'm assuming that staying active is helpful. There are dozens of commercials on TV for products that eliminate the aches and pains of aging. Many of them seem to have terrible side effects. I manage my blood pressure and control my cholesterol and A1C, but that's where the pills stop. If your joints are wearing out, there is going to be some discomfort. I'd rather live with it than get a knee or hip replacement. Eating healthy food and staying active still seems like a good plan to me.

I went and got Chinese take out for dinner again tonight. Why are there so many cars on the road at 6PM? Every time I go out it seems like rush hour. I suspect that this is only going to get worse. I've never seen so many out of state plates on cars. People are moving here in droves from failing cities in other parts of the country. I hate to see all the congestion, but it's still better to live in a successful, vibrant city than in a failing, crumbling one. 

Bella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3075

I just received a notice that NetworkedBlogs is shutting down. Sad. One by one, all the familiar faces I have long associated with blogging are disappearing. Entrecard is gone. Adgitize is gone. I'm not sure if BlogCatalog still works. I haven't seen anything new there in years. I'm going to miss NetworkedBlogs. This is the tool I've always used to syndicate the blog to Facebook and Twitter. Maybe there are other blog syndication services out there, but there probably aren't many. Blogging just isn't popular anymore.

I'm glad I got to be a part of blogging's short lived golden years. It certainly didn't last very long. When was the last time you spent hours blog hopping? Yup. I can't remember that far back either. If you're reading today, you're probably just looking at a link on Facebook. At some point you begin to wonder if there is any point writing if nobody's reading anymore. It is becoming an increasingly quixotic quest.

It would be hard to quit writing. It's a lot like walking Dash. Our walks are painfully slow now, but they have become part of the fabric of life. Whenever we fail to walk I am filled with a sense of foreboding. The day is supposed to start with a walk and end with a blog post. That's just the way it is.

We had a nice walk this morning. I was somewhat surprised to see a single mutant flower in a field full of Mexican Hats. These upright prairie coneflowers are sombrero-shaped with drooping petals and a tall central cone. How did this explosion of petals even happen? This flower looked like it came straight from Chernobyl.

I had planned on having the trees trimmed this morning, but the tree guy called and said he'd had a couple of emergencies and he needed to postpone our appointment. It's just as well that we called this off. It rained last night and the trees were still wet. I imagine that this would have made the branches heavier and more difficult to cut. At least the trees didn't fall on my roof last night. Evidently, the storm was far worse in Far North Dallas.

Now that it's warm enough to keep the air conditioner running, doing the wash has become more difficult. Both the washer and the condensation from the air conditioner drain into the same floor drain  in the utility room. The drain needs to be plugged when the washer is running and open when the air conditioner is running. It gets complicated when both things are happening at the same time. I forgot to open the drain today and the utility room got flooded. If it's not one thing, it's another.

I wish my lone trip to the gym every Sunday was enough to build muscle mass and shed a little weight. I have a feeling that it's just a symbolic gesture. It's going to take a lot more than an hour at the gym to change anything. I'll still go tomorrow. Hey, there's nothing wrong with symbolic gestures.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2236

When I was having breakfast this morning, I noticed at least five different men having breakfast with their kids. This got me thinking that I almost always see more men having breakfast with their kids than women having breakfast with their kids at this restaurant. I don't think social roles have changed that much. It's more likely that the men are just unemployed. The women tend to come in earlier. They are dressed nicer, often in a hurry, and typically just order coffee and a muffin to go. The men linger. I could be wrong. Maybe these men aren't unemployed. They could all just be web designers like me.

It appears that something has changed on my auto insurance policy and that I'm not covered anymore when I drive someone else's car. When I called my agent to find out what is going on, he said not to worry, explaining that just the language in the policy had changed. When I read him the paragraph in question, he paused for a minute and told me that maybe I didn't have coverage after all. He said he'd research the situation and get back to me. This is the modern world. Nobody has a clue what is going on. Someone makes a decision somewhere, but by the time it filters down to the people who are supposed to implement it on a local level, it gets lost in translation. Corporate bureaucracies. Government bureaucracies. They are all the same. Confusing car insurance policies are just the tip of the iceberg. Health care is where it really starts to get messy.

Everyone, including me, is perplexed by the road repairs currently going on in the neighborhood. The old road was full of potholes and needed to be replaced, but instead of just putting in a new road, the construction crews are cutting out damaged sections of the old road with jackhammers and concrete saws and pouring small little sections of concrete all over the place. The road looks like a patchwork quilt. This must be the preferred method of road repair these days because I've seen this technique used all over the city. It is very labor intensive, disrupts traffic for weeks at a time, and looks like shit when the work is finally finished. I keep thinking that it would be easier, and perhaps even less expensive, to start over and just put in an entirely new road.

The road repairs didn't deter the garbage truck this morning and my trash got picked up again. This was great, but it makes the odd Wednesday trash pickup even more of a mystery. I didn't actually see a garbage truck on Wednesday. Maybe someone just stole my trash. Nah. That would be too weird. If somebody actually did steal Wednesday's trash, all they got was a bunch of dog poop.

The very last Land Rover Defender rolled off the assembly line in Solihull, England today. After 67 years, there will be no more. In an unrelated note, Paul Kantner, one of the founding members of Jefferson Airplane died today, continuing the demise of rock icons that defined my youth. We are approaching the end of an era. Most of the original Mercury and Apollo astronauts have already died. All my college professors have died. It's frightening now many rock legends have died this month alone. I find it interesting that the first Land Rover Defender was assembled at the Solihull factory in 1948, the same year I was born. Nothing lasts forever I guess. I'm going to look on the bright side though. As long as Keith Richards is still around, I think I'm fine. When the Stones go, I'm going to start to worry.

Spirit is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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