Day 3543

There was something new on the menu when I went to breakfast this morning. I ordered the Braised Short Rib Benedict basically because anything new on a hot Friday morning is a plus. The odd meaty concoction tasted more like a pot roast than ribs and the creamy sauce definitely wasn't Hollandaise. Hey, I'm easy to please when all I've got ahead of me is a long walk in the park.

I picked up something for dinner on the way home and got ready to walk. It's a little harder to leave the house now with a huge tree blocking the path to the back gate. This weather is really getting old. I'm encountering fewer joggers now and even the cyclists are starting to have second thoughts about a ride through the park. If the prairie grass gets much drier it's going to be a fire hazard. The city doesn't usually mow the areas designated as Native Prairie, but occasionally the risk of a grass fire becomes too great. I wouldn't be surprised to see mowers soon.

Doing all my walking at once definitely saves some time. It also saves me the trouble of taking two showers. After I cooled down for a bit and had a piece of cheese for lunch, I decided to finish my article. I'm pleased to say the first draft is done. I'll do some editing and check for typos over the weekend before sending it to the magazine on Monday. It's admittedly a long shot sending an article to an astronomy magazine about a rainy day at an observatory where I saw nothing. Nothing ventured, nothing gained I say. I made the trip and it definitely was an interesting experience. Maybe others will be interested as well.

I'm still used to being paid well to write very short advertisements. Often a day's work wouldn't even fill up a single sheet of paper. Writing much longer pieces where the prospect of any form of payment is often non-existent seems strange. Luckily, I'm retired and don't have anything better to do. I think this would be a stressful way of making a living if you depended on the income.

Janet wants to clean out the greenhouse so we can get the repairs started. Seems like a good idea. It also seems like a lot of work. The building is filled with materials for projects that never got off the ground. There are old bags of fertilizer, half empty bottles of weed killer, a bunch of rusty garden tools, a tiller that never worked in our rock hard soil, several lawn mowers that broke years ago, and lots of unidentified stuff. I should probably keep the live traps that have caught everything from rats to raccoons. We have a lot of critters in our yard.

Tomorrow, we need to transport some of the new Dalmatians from the vet back to the boarding kennel. There are several dogs, so there will be other people helping as well. The dogs have had a rough life so far and have spent most of their time outdoors. The challenge now is to help socialize them and make sure they are healthy. I'm confident that the second phase of their life will be a lot better than the first.

April is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3241

I can't believe it. I was going to apply to attend a Space X launch, but I missed the deadline because I apparently can't tell the difference between midnight and noon. The application said that the deadline was 12:00 PM today. I thought I'd have plenty of time to fill out the form this evening. Oops. 12:00 PM is noon. 12:00 AM is midnight. I should have known better, but shouldn't 12:00 PM be one hour after 11:00 PM?

Dash's paw is still bleeding after walks. I don't know what to do. The sock between his paw and the boot should protect him from any abrasions, but it doesn't seem to work. This is a thick, good quality sock too. I think it's better than the socks I wear. This is the problem with taking blood thinners. The smallest thing can cause you to bleed. I've got to figure something out because it is important to keep Dash moving. If he becomes sedentary, he will lose his remaining mobility very quickly. Luckily, Dash seemed to have a little more energy today. He was willing to walk on his own and Janet didn't need to provide him with a target to follow. I really wonder how well Dash can see. He still responds to movement, but I often think that all he sees are blurs and shadows. We had a good walk this morning, even though Dash lost his way several times. We made it home minutes before it started raining again.

I wish this rain would quit. It's depressing. I keep thinking that the roof leak will reappear and taking care of Dash becomes much more difficult. I wasn't able to go over to the storage warehouse at all today because there isn't much point to moving things in the rain. It always seems cold and damp in the house when it rains, even though the temperature on the thermostat remains the same. I hope that the skies clear by tomorrow. I've got to meet the movers at the storage warehouse tomorrow morning.

I was supposed to receive my first payment from one of the auction houses today. Nothing. I finally called the auction house to see what was going on and they told me that their buyer hadn't paid them yet. "Don't worry," they said. This is why I hate selling things. It always turns into a hassle. The worst part of owning my own business was always getting paid by clients. It looks like downsizing isn't going to be easy either. So far, one of my vintage guitars has already been returned because the buyer decided he wanted something different. Since the guitar was on layaway, the store allowed him to apply his payment to a different guitar. Several of my model trains have been returned for similar reasons. Eventually, things get sold and payments are received but I sure wish the whole process wasn't such a hassle.

I'm glad this week is almost over. I'm tired of the rain. I'm tired of moving stuff from one storage warehouse to another. I'm tired of cleaning up poop in the middle of the night. Mostly, I'm just physically tired. I wish I was 30 again. 30 is a lot better than 70.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2093

I was happy to see a long overdue check arrive in today's mail. Now I can finish paying my August bills. Of course it is September already, so the whole process will begin all over again soon. Vet appointments. Trips to the pharmacy. Writing checks and taking them to the post office. Sometimes entire months go by this way. It wasn't always like this. For many years the only things that mattered were having a cool job and a cool car. I didn't even bother to balance my checkbook. Karma took care of that. I'm mature and responsible now, but there are times when I think maturity is overrated.

I called the Apple Store and tried to find out what the procedure was for getting the battery replaced in my laptop. Apple service sucks. After spending forever talking to an automated computer that insisted it understood complete sentences, I finally ended up talking to a real person who knew nothing. She told me that I would have to come to the store and talk to a technician. "That's why I'm calling you now, " I told her. "I was hoping to talk to a technician on the phone, so I won't have to make two trips to the store." When I asked her if the store even had the battery I needed in stock, she told me she wasn't allowed to discuss the store's inventory over the phone. I finally gave up in disgust and called a third-party repair service that I always use when I'm frustrated with Apple. They told me to bring the laptop in tomorrow morning and they'd have me ready to go in thirty minutes. The price for this speedy service was exactly the same as the Apple Store price.

Dot pooped in the house again. I thought she was asleep and was surprised to see her standing by my desk. Thinking she might need to go outside, I got up and we went to the back door. It didn't take long to notice the little trail of poop leading to the door. She did need to go outside. About five minutes before she walked into my office. I wish Dot had a way of warning me. If she would just bark or scratch the floor when she needed to go, I'd come running.

Dash still likes his new food. Now, we need to find out whether this diet is a short or long term solution. Dash has a sensitive stomach and is prone to get crystals in his urine, so it took us a long time to find a brand that was nutritious, made in America, and didn't cause him to gain weight or form crystals. He seemed to love his food for several years, but maybe he's like me. I can eat the same thing for months at a time and then one morning I'll wake up and never want to see it again. I hope I don't sour on my fruit smoothies anytime soon. They are delicious and very easy to make. One day I'll wake up and they'll seem disgusting though. It always happens eventually.

I"ll probably go ahead and get the laptop battery replaced tomorrow. It would be nice to have a computer that didn't instantly die on me the next time the power goes out. I need to get a haircut soon, but that will probably have to wait. Thursday is reserved for Dot's physical therapy and Friday she has another Ultrasound scan at the cancer center. It's going to be a busy week.

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1053

I was delighted to receive a payment from one of my European clients today. Then, about two hours later, I was dismayed to receive a letter from the medical testing lab saying my liver enzymes were way too high again. It went back and forth like this all day. I was pleased when the FedEx man knocked on the door and handed me the new lens I've been waiting for. On the other hand, I was disgusted to see the price of gold drop $40 an ounce in a single day.

I've noticed something new in Blogger. It says "Your blog is now eligible for Google Affiliate Ads." What's that all about? There's also a new little dialog box with a picture of a camera, a bicycle, a blender, and a running shoe. Evidently if I blog about one of these things, I might make a little money. I don't want to blog about any of these things. Knowing Google, it would be a very little amount of money too. I've been running Adsense ads for ages and have never even made enough to pay my phone bill. I think I'll just ignore these Affiliate Ads.

I had to turn the air conditioner back on today. We are only a few degrees away from an all time record high for November 2. It was almost ninety degrees outside this afternoon. Pretty weird, especially when a lot of the country is already getting snow. I'm happy enough to see the warm weather continue. The office isn't insulated very well, and it tend to get chilly when the weather turns cold.

I hope you folks in New York and New Jersey get your power back on soon. The longest I've ever had to go without electricity was five days. I think it's already been five days for some folks in the Northeast. The things I remember most about our big power outage was that food goes bad in the refrigerator very quickly and there really isn't much to do in the evenings without any electricity.

I didn't get to go out for my Friday morning breakfast today. I had to stay and wait for the FedEx delivery guy instead. My package required a signature and I wasn't about to let the driver take the package to my neighbor's house in my absence. Both my neighbors are like a black hole for misplaced mail. If something gets delivered to their houses by mistake, it can be weeks before I see it again. So, I waited, and waited, and waited. Sometimes there really isn't much to do even with electricity.

Delilah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 507

Well, it's back to the real world. When I climbed up on the roof this morning to remove the standing water that had accumulated while I was gone, I was immediately stung multiple times on the face by a swarm of bees that was hovering over a nearby puddle of water. Welcome home, I guess. We had all sorts of problems with bees last year, and it looks like they're back again. These were particularly tenacious bees and they wouldn't leave me alone until I was off the roof and back inside again. I'm going to have to find a way to get rid of these critters for good. If they'll sting me, they'll probably sting the dogs as well. Since the dogs are much smaller, a lot of bee stings could really be dangerous for them.

I little later when I went out to water the lawn, I picked up the sprinkler to move it somewhere else and found a snake coiled underneath. I like animals but I'm definitely not fond of insects and snakes. Texas has an abundance of both and I really wish they'd all just move to Oklahoma or something.

I still have no idea how I'm going to get paid for my week in Houston. I made a few inquiries this morning and ended up with this sinking feeling that I'm not going to get a check for quite a while. The Germans seem to think that their Houston office is supposed to pay me using the booth contractor's credit card, but when I called the Houston office, they told me to send my invoice to Germany. This has happened to me before, so I'm really not all that surprised. Often, long after I have finished a job, someone will tell me that I'm not even on the approved vendor list. I always get paid eventually, but it takes so long that I'm never sure what I'm actually going to get. Sometimes the project is bid in Euros and by the time I get paid, the value of the dollar has changed. Occasionally this works to my benefit, but other times it doesn't. I really need to build in an extra 10% into my bid price to cover the aggravation.

I did manage to get unpacked today. I took a bunch of dirty clothes to the dry cleaner. I put the cameras and electronics away. I was just about to call the video camera manufacturer and demand a replacement camera because I kept having problems with monitoring audio while I was in Houston. I tested the camera one more time however, and discovered that the problem was with me, not the camera. All the control buttons on this tiny camera are extremely close together, kind of like they are on a Blackberry. It's way too small for me. Evidently, when I hit the record button, I would also sometimes hit the audio monitor button and turn off the sound to my headphones. I didn't realize this at the time unfortunately. Luckily, all the recordings came out fine. Everything was being recorded correctly. I just wasn't hearing it while I was filming.

Janet decided to clean my office while I was gone. Now I can't find anything. She says this is for my own good and that we can't live in this kind of mess any longer. When someone says something is for your own good, it usually isn't.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day