Day 4719

Most of the leaks have stopped, but there's one stubborn one still dripping away in the office. The cadence of drips is much slower now. Maybe things will be back to normal by morning. When everything dries out I will need to bleach away the brown stains in the ceiling and start pretending the house is fine again. I still can't find a good carpenter and my list of potential roofing companies leaves a lot to be desired. A new house sounds appealing, but we already live in the best part of town to have a dog and Dallas real estate is still way too expensive. For better or worse, this is home until we get carted away to assisted living.

I still feel full from our big Thanksgiving meal. It would have been a good day for a long nap, but I got up and went through my regular routine instead. We took Dawn on her sunrise walk, I ate my breakfast of shredded wheat and fruit, and checked my messages before going on my long walk. It wasn't raining today, but it didn't feel dry either. There was a light mist in the air for most of the day. It kind of felt like walking through fog.

I was very slow today. I didn't feel unusually tired, but my walk seemed to take forever. There must be better way to use my time. My doctor did explain why my Fitbit continues to say that my fitness level is low, even though I spend an inordinate amount of time walking and staying active. Evidently one of the medications I take slows down my heart rate, so I never achieve the elevated levels Fitbit is looking for. This made me feel a little better. I think I'm in pretty good shape and couldn't figure out why the Fitbit wasn't agreeing with me.

I picked up a prescription at the pharmacy this afternoon. I'm still getting better rates using GoodRx than my Medicare Part-D plan provides. The prescription drug plan isn't cheap, so I keep wondering what I'm paying for. The pharmacist answered that question today. She said that they were getting bought by another company that didn't honor GoodRx prices. "You'd better keep that Part-D plan," she said.

It's Black Friday today. Everyone in the world wants me to buy something. My inbox was filled with special deals for everything from astronomy gear to wool socks. Some of the deals were tempting, but I really didn't need anything. I didn't buy anything either. I guess this is progress. A few years ago I would have almost certainly bought something I really didn't need just to get the Black Friday price.

It's time to make a grocery list again. Unlike most people we don't have a lot of Thanksgiving leftovers in the fridge. I need to remember to pick up the camera gear I will need for our upcoming Santa Paws photo shoots while I'm out tomorrow. The two day event will be here before you know it. I guess it's time to put up a Christmas tree too. Where did this year go?

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3360

Dash got a good report today. His blood pressure is normal. His liver enzyme levels have improved. Actually, his entire CBC blood panel looked pretty good. Best of all, there was still no sign of a blood clot in his heart. There isn't a lot we can do about the neurological damage that is causing the incontinence and weakness in his rear legs, but Dash is still doing better than anyone thought possible this time last year.

I got up early this morning to give Dash a walk before we went to the vet. I wanted to give him every opportunity to do his business before putting him in the car. It was a wasted effort. Dash still pooped in the car. Then he had a panic attack before we reached our destination and I had to stop the car and let him out for a while. I thought he might have needed to pee, but he just didn't want to be in the car. Needless to say, I'm pleased that the vet said he doesn't need another echocardiogram until May.

As soon as we got home, Dash peed in the house. The vet said that there were pills he could give him that might help with the incontinence, but he was reluctant to prescribe them because they would raise Dash's blood pressure. When you're taking blood thinners, you definitely don't want high blood pressure. The good news is that we're learning to deal with the incontinence. There wasn't even a big mess when Dash pooped in the car this morning because we were well prepared.

I was just starting a very late breakfast when the roofer knocked on the door. I went up on the roof with him to show him around. As I listened to the solution he proposed, I became disappointed. I have heard this story before. There are several ways to get the roof to drain properly, but apparently there is no way to bring the house back to the condition it was in when it was constructed in 1953. "Roofers can't do what you want," the guy told me today. "You're going to need carpenters, framers, and a whole lot of money," he said. After explaining that I essentially wanted to rebuild the house,  the roofer tried to sell me on the merits of an engineered roof. I've gotten bids on engineered roofs before. They are very expensive and when all is said and done they are still just a layer of tapered foam placed on top of the existing decking. There's got to be a better way to add a small slope to a flat roof. Couldn't roofers remove the plywood decking, place some shims underneath to create the necessary 1/4" per foot slope, and then replace the decking? It seems like tapered foam panels placed on top on an uneven roof would still be uneven. What do I know though. I'm no roofer. I'm just a guy who has lived under a flat roof for over forty years. Yes, my previous house also had a flat roof.

I made my reservations to go to the Johnson Space Center and then I looked at the long range weather forecast. There are supposed to be thunderstorms on my departure date. It's always something, isn't it.    I don't like driving in thunderstorms but flying in thunderstorms is even worse. Been there, done that. There is a ray of hope though. Long range forecasts in Texas are next to worthless. Who knows what the weather will be really like. It could just as easily be clear and sunny.

I'm not sure if I'll go out for breakfast tomorrow. Right now I'm feeling really tired. Sleeping till noon sounds a lot better than French Toast or Shrimp Grits. Sleeping late is probably just wishful thinking though. If the weather is even halfway nice, Dash is going to want his morning walk.

Connor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3350

Is it just me, or have simple things become more difficult in recent years? My ambitions are modest and my expectations are low, but it is becoming harder and harder to get caught up on things. Life has become a game of Whack-a-mole, where new problems continue to arise faster than you can deal with the ones you already have.

Nothing went wrong today. This is just an observation. I used to feel on top of things and was almost always ahead of schedule. Now I'm not. I don't think I've slowed down all that much. I just think the world has changed.

When I woke up this morning, I noticed that one of Dash's nails was bleeding a bit at the base of the nail. Not good. Has the nail become loosened as a result of Dash continually dragging his feet when he walks? Who knows. Now I've got to figure out how to protect the nail so it doesn't become even looser and fall out. If Dash lost a nail again, it would be very difficult to stop the bleeding. I was half asleep when I had these thoughts. When I woke up fully, Dash already had his boots on and was ready to walk. Janet is a morning person and sometimes has Dash ready to go before I even get out of bed. You've got to seize the moment with Dash. There is a window of opportunity where he is eager to walk. If you miss it, he just sleeps for the rest of the day.

We had a nice walk this morning. The skies are still clear and although it was cold at sunrise, things warmed up quickly. On days like these, it's hard to believe that my roof was leaking a few days ago. So far, the roofer who made the repairs recently hasn't returned my call and another roofer who was going to give me an estimate for replacing the roof hasn't had time to put together a bid. I called an architect friend to get some suggestions. He said it was imperative that a flat roof have at least a 1/4" per foot slope to ensure that the water would drain after a rain. This might be easy to achieve with new construction. Not so much with a fifty year old house. I've had the usual settling you get with old houses. Without some elaborate structural modifications, I'm stuck with standing water.

The Redbud and Dogwood trees in the neighborhood are already starting to bloom. It seems a little early, but maybe not. In less than a week it will be March. I've started seeing a few grape hyacinths and crow poison flowers in the park. They say the wildflower season will be good this year. I hope so. Walking through wildflowers is a lot more pleasant than walking through mud.

I wrote a letter to my luddite sister and paid a few more bills this afternoon. I think I'm caught up on February bills now, but it won't be long before the March bills start arriving. It never ends. I didn't used to think about recurring bills when I was working and had a good income. Now these bills seem like a huge nuisance. How are you supposed to live on a fixed income if the prices of all the things you use everyday keep going up?

I need to remember that tomorrow is Tuesday. Tuesdays have been so uneventful lately that I tend to forget them and think it is already Wednesday. Truthfully, it doesn't matter what day it is. It's still just a game of Whack-a-mole.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3043

Today was a bit discouraging. The stock market plummeted again. Why are people getting upset about rising interest rates? I've been wanting interest rates to go up for a long time. When interest rates are high, you can earn a decent rate of return on very safe investments and don't have to worry about insane fluctuations in the market. Back in the day, high interest rates were always my friend.

Flat roofs have never been my friend. This is the second home I've owned with a flat roof, and it's driving me crazy. I went up on the roof today to sweep away leaves and discovered standing water instead. When I cleared away the water, I discovered four more tears in the elastomer coating. Two of these tears were in areas I had fixed last Summer. I really need a brand new roof. The current roof never performed as promised and it's been hell trying to get the roofer to fix the problem. The special coating that seals everything was supposed to last for a minimum of ten years. We're not even close.

I couldn't figure out why my laptop was so slow after I upgraded the system to Sierra. Today I read that whenever you update an Apple operating system, performance become very sluggish until the Spotlight app has finished indexing the entire hard drive. This process can take hours. I wish Apple told you these things. I left the laptop running all day and sure enough by the end of the day it was running much faster. I never even use the Spotlight app. I certainly had no idea it could cause so much trouble.

I spoke too soon about my fitness band repair. It's already starting to fall apart again. I got out a loupe and looked closely at the repair and it looks like I didn't clean the surface well enough. I needed to remove all traces of my previous attempts to glue the band together before applying the Sil-Poxy adhesive. It looks like there was still a little bit of Shoe-Goo on the band. It's fun to fix things when the repairs work. Failures just become irritating after a while.

Dash wouldn't take an afternoon walk today. Even Janet couldn't convince him to walk when she got home from work. This was frustrating too, because I enjoy walking. I finally decided to just take an evening walk by myself. I don't know why Dash doesn't like walking in the afternoon anymore. It's getting harder and harder to get him out the door. I don't think he was tired today because he spent most of the afternoon napping. Maybe we're down to one walk a day now.

I read an article today that said retirement can be especially difficult for people who are used to being valued for their ideas. According to the article, when you become older and are no longer part of the work force, nobody really cares what you think. You're just another geezer collecting social security. Although I didn't agree with everything, a lot of the article rang true. The transition from being a problem solver to being irrelevant can be a tough one. I think the people who just want to travel and play golf have an easier time of things.

Jeez. I wish I hadn't spent so much time on the roof today. I just learned that it is supposed to rain tomorrow. So it goes.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2912

I'm done with the roof for a while. I applied the last of the elastomer coating this morning. I've applied twelve gallons of the stuff so far. I'm guessing that it would take about thirty gallons to cover the entire roof. I've sure I'll end up buying more of the stuff at some point, but now isn't the time. You're not supposed to apply the coating in cold weather and the stuff is very expensive. Whatever I've done so far is going to have to survive until Spring.

If I knew what I know now, I would never have selected this type of roof. It was designed for commercial and warehouse buildings. Old houses in an area filled with large trees are much different. My house has settled over the years and the roof is no longer completely level. Whenever it rains, the low spots fill with standing water. In the Fall, Oak leaves from the backyard trees fall into this water and stain it a dark brown. I'm convinced that the tannin in the leaves causes some sort of chemical reaction that causes the elastomer material to break down and eventually disintegrate. There was a reason that the house originally had a tar and gravel roof. The old tar and gravel performed much better than the new high tech roof solutions people recommend now. Unfortunately, very few people know how to do a tar and gravel roof anymore. They might not even be allowed these days. The tar might be a fire or environmental hazard and the gravel that covers the tar and provides extra insulation adds a lot of extra weight to the top of the house. Tar and gravel roofs, like asbestos, have fallen out of favor.

Although I managed to patch a few more marginal areas on the roof without ruining my clothes, that was about all I accomplished today. I did a little research on my next website project, but I'm not ready to commit to a design. This new project makes me nervous because I think the client is expecting too much. Websites can make it easier for customers to find you or learn about your products, but they can never fix a flawed business plan.

Dash has had several good days in a row. This often lulls me into thinking that he's cured. I know that the vertigo and nausea associated with vestibular disease will return at some point, but for the moment everything is normal again. Dash has a good appetite and isn't as picky about his food. He seems to enjoy taking walks again. This is all good. I have no idea what is happening with the blood clots inside his heart, but at least he's breathing normally at night again. I'm sure that the partial tear in his cruciate hasn't completely healed, but the knee brace seems to help. There are so many things to worry about with Dash that it's no surprise that one of my favorite things is to just take a nap with him and forget about all the medical issues for a while.

I did see some meteors last night. I didn't have the patience to sit out in the cold for long enough to see many, but the meteors I did observe were quite bright. They were also quite fast. If I blinked, I might have missed them. They always say to observe meteor showers you should find a place where the sky is very dark and there are no street lights or passing cars. Then you should let your eyes adjust to the darkness for twenty or thirty minutes before you begin observing. Like that's ever going to happen. If I sat out in the park for thirty minutes at night, I'd probably be eaten by coyotes. I usually run out in the back yard for five minutes and if I don't see anything, I give up.

I've take the trash out to the curb and give Dash his evening pills. Usually Janet gives Dash his meds, but she's at an office Christmas party tonight. My little office doesn't have parties, but I did have an extra cookie for dessert tonight.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1194

I picked up the Defender at the Land Rover dealer this morning and paid another large repair bill. It's discouraging to own a car this old. You begin to realize that a motor vehicle consists of hundreds and hundreds of separate components, each with a very finite lifespan. Nothing on the car will last forever, and unless I've replaced a part already, there a good chance that it will break in the near future. I always want the repair folks to tell me that I'm good to go for another 10,000 miles, but they never will. They know as well as I do that no matter what they just fixed, something else could break before I even get the car home again. You can avoid all these problems of course, by trading your car in the minute the extended warranty runs out. I didn't do that and I'm beginning to regret it.

It was another gray, rainy day. I managed to get the dogs walked during a few brief dry spells, but for the most part, it was just wet and drizzly. After a mandatory trip up to the roof to sweep the water off, I drove up to the the Dalmatian Rescue kennels to photograph one of our new dogs for the website. This guy's name was Rascal and he was exceptionally affectionate and friendly. I couldn't imagine why someone would have dumped this happy boy. He seemed like the perfect family pet.

After I got the pictures I needed, I completed my grocery shopping and errands. The entire time I was on the road, I kept expecting the Defender to die again. I just don't have faith in the car anymore. The engine still seems to run a little rough, but maybe it's just my imagination. I talked to my mechanic while I was at the dealership and he said everything checked out perfectly. Oh, well. We'll see how long it stays on the road this time.

I wonder what happened to my roofing bids. I contacted two different roofing companies before I contacted the landscaper. Now, the landscaping is completely finished and the roofing companies still haven't even given me a bid. Typical! Things like this always seems to happen to me with roofers. These two guys came highly recommended too. I think roofers prefer to deal with insurance jobs where they can overcharge and get away with it. Probably nobody really wants to do a flat roof, because even the roofers know that flat roofs are worthless.

The odds of going to the dog park tomorrow are looking pretty slim. It rained a lot in our part of town, but our rain was nothing compared to the downpours that drenched Far North Dallas today. I wouldn't be surprised if the entire dog park was under water.

Ariel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1175

I got the indestructible TakTik Extreme iPhone case I ordered a while back in the mail today. It should come as no surprise that my Jawbone activity tracking wristlet won't fit in the earphone jack slot, so I can't sync it to the phone anymore. Why is this so common these days. Nobody even seems to care about compatibility. I've got a whole shoebox full of weird little adapters designed to hook incompatible devices together again after the manufacturers failed to standardize their connections. Now, I've got to find yet another adapter that will let me use this new case, or I'll have to send it back.

The inability of manufacturers to standardize electronic connections is just one tiny example of a world where virtually nothing is compatible anymore.  Congress and the president aren't compatible. Workers and their employers aren't compatible. There are literally hundreds of different sizes of watch batteries, when one would have done just fine if the manufacturers could have ever reached an agreement on battery sizes.

I finally got around to calling for bids on replacing my roof. I'm hoping that the two roofers I'm getting estimates from will at least agree on what type of roof I need. There are so many alternatives, and all of them have their supporters and detractors. Asphalt, coal tar, sprayed on foam, EPDM synthetic rubber membrane, PVC membrane, modified bitumen? I have no idea which is best, because there are so many conflicting opinions. Once again, it would be nice if people could agree on things.

The bugs are returning again. I thought I put out enough poison to take care of the problem for at lest a year, but apparently not. I applied more poison and bait in areas that are not accessible to the dogs, but I'm not sure that this will solve the problem. These bugs are smart. I think they'll just move to other parts of the house that are accessible to the dogs.

I got a notice that I'll have to sign for a FedEx package tomorrow. This will be another wasted day. It is totally impossible to predict when the FedEx guy will show up. I can sit waiting for nine hours and then leave for five minutes to run to the post office. That five minute interval will inevitably be when the guy shows up for the signature.

Orion is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1120

I got my January invoices in the mail today. I also got Dash's anal glands cleaned at the vet. Both events held about the same degree of excitement. There's something about an all day rain that just takes the wind out of my sails. When I went to the pharmacy to pick up my prescriptions, I saw a wet pencil lying in the road and it seemed to sum up my day.

The dogs seem to think that I have the ability to stop the rain, the same way I can open and close doors for them and make food appear when they're hungry. Every time I would let them outside today, they would give me this "make it stop" look. I wish I could make the rain stop. I could certainly have used the hours I spent cleaning mud off the dogs, off my shoes, and off the floor for something better.

Rain always makes me nervous about water leaks. No leaks today, but I could hear the dreaded dripping sound at any moment. I joined Angie's List recently in hopes of finding a good roofer. So far, Angie's List has been a huge disappointment. The minute I joined, I started getting tons of junk e-mails for all sorts of household services. What's that all about? I thought the whole point of Angie's List was to avoid advertising hype. Apparently not. The list, and its companion universe of post cards, e-mail blasts, magazines and coupons are jam packed with ads. You don't really see many negative reviews on the list either. I think people are wary about saying negative things online now in the wake of all these lawsuits resulting from a bad review on Yelp.

At any rate, I'm still not sure that a roofer who truly understands residential flat roofs even exists. There are plenty of companies who know how to put a quality flat roof on factories, warehouses, gymnasiums, and other large expanses of real estate. These companies aren't interested in residential roofs though. They're too small, and it isn't cost effective for them to mess with them.

So far, giving Dash a snack at night seems to be working. He hasn't thrown up for three days in a row and the only difference is that he now gets a rice cake just before bed.

Jordan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day