Day 4989

I wonder why this seems like the hottest summer ever? I think there have been several years when it has been worse, but I can't remember exactly when. I know there was a time when the water level in the lake was even lower. When I would walk along the shoreline I would see vast expanses of dried mud extending out at least 100 yards. This isn't the first year that the grass in the front yard has died either. There have been many years when the park department has mowed down the native prairie grasslands to prevent fires. There have been other years where there have been giant cracks in the soil as well. This still seems like the hottest summer ever though. I guess my memory is selective. We just tend to remember the good years and forget the bad.

There are very few people walking in the park these days. It's too hot. On our sunrise walk this morning we hardly saw anyone. It seems weird to have the temperature approaching 90 degrees at sunrise, but that's the way it is. We still had an enjoyable walk this morning. Everything is relative I guess. 85 degrees is still a lot nicer than 105 degrees.

After breakfast this morning I took a letter to the post office and went to pick up a prescription. The message on the pharmacy line said the prescription would be ready at 11 AM, but when I went to pick it up they told me that the pills were out of stock and it would be several days before they had them again. "But your phone message said," I began. The pharmacist just shrugged and told me to come back later.

The same people seems to be doing the same things at the gym every day. Of course I'm no different. I do the same things every day as well. When I begin my three mile walk around the indoor track I'm always bored and think that I'll go straight home as soon as I'm finished. After I've walked two miles my opinion seems to change and I think I might as well shoot a few baskets. After I complete my ten free throws I think I might as well lift a few weights now that I'm already here. It's always the same. I wonder if I'll ever feel like doing anything different?

I've been trying to go to the gym later because I can't think of anything I feel like doing in the afternoon. I've been an avid reader for most of my life but I don't even feel like reading anymore. I'm not sure what I did this afternoon, but the time went quickly. Pretty soon it was time to fix Dawn's dinner and then eat my own. I'm watering the lawn now, but it's probably a hopeless endeavor. Nature usually wins these battles.

I keep toying with the idea of going offline entirely when I finish the blog. I'm not working now and it gets harder and harder to find any benefit in social media. Maybe my Luddite sister is right. I spent many, many years without the Internet and I did just fine. It's weird that we have all grown so dependent on having instant access to everything. I used to correspond with lots of people and was always getting letters in the mail. I used to go read magazines in the public library when I was bored. Of course most of those magazines are out of business now. I drove a manual transmission car and found my way around town without GPS. Oh, well. I guess you can't turn back time although I'd certainly like to.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3848

I've discovered some curious things about Facebook that reveal equally curious things about me. When I created the Some Assembly Required group, I just assumed that my daily posts would always appear in chronological order. Nope. If someone comments on an older post, Facebook automatically changes the order of the posts so the post with the most recent comments appears first. It messes up the timeline.

I can manually change the order back so that the most recent post appears first, but Facebook seems determined to prioritize activity rather than chronological order. I have to keep changing "New Activity" back to "Recent Posts" almost every day. It drives me nuts. There is also often a suggested list of other Facebook groups that might interest members. Why is this here? I'm always deleting these groups because I'm not interested in them at all, but Facebook just keeps suggesting something else.

At first I thought I was really clever by creating a version of the blog that was just a series of JPEG images. Facebook loves pictures and appears to hate links. I'm still mad that Facebook arbitrarily erased years and years of blog posts because their AI robots decided that the daily links back to my Blogger address were spam. I wish more people would just read the real blog on Blogger. The type is crisp and much easier to read. You can click on each day's main picture and enlarge it. And you can click on each Dog of the Day to go to a more detailed story about the dog on the Dalmatian Rescue website. The Facebook blog is just a daily JPEG image of the real blog. Apparently when you give people a choice between good and easy, they will always pick easy. At any rate, the blog really does exist independent of Facebook. I don't even like Facebook. Hey, if you ever feel like reading the real blog, just go to https://john-sealander.blogspot.com and bookmark the address. It's easy.

I guess Facebook has come to represent many of the things I dislike about modern life. If I click on a story about the new Ford Bronco, I instantly get an endless stream of updates on my timeline about four wheel drive vehicles. There must be a connection between Facebook and Google, because if you Google anything, you will automatically start receiving information about that subject on Facebook. I love all the dog pictures, but I hate seeing people I actually know trying to shame people who don't share their beliefs. I've grown tired of all the "If you blah, blah, blah, just delete me now" posts as well. Who cares.

I've spend a significant chunk of my life designing websites and writing for online clients. It seems totally natural for me to turn on the computer every morning and spend hours in front of the screen. This is how I made my living for many years. I'm finally starting to realize that there is no need to do this anymore. I'm retired. I think a worthy goal would be to find something satisfying to do for long periods of time that doesn't require a computer or even interactions with other people. My dad never used a computer and seemed happy making little wood carvings of animals after he retired. I do like technology though and am fairly lazy. It's a dilemma.

The weather was much cooler this morning and there was no threat of rain. We were able to walk five miles with Dawn with no problems at all. I wish these daily walks took longer so I wouldn't have to think of how to spend the rest of my day. It's a shame that my little niche of following rocket launches has been taken away by the coronavirus. That was working pretty well.

Delaney is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day