Day 3552

I'll have to admit that I'm impressed. Our road is already open again. The highway department was supposed to take three days to demolish the bridge, but they finished what they needed to do in just a single day. Half of the bridge is still there so cars can keep crossing while they start building the new bridge. When the first half of the new bridge is finished, they'll tear down the remaining portion of the old bridge. I wasn't expecting this much coordination. Maybe this project won't be as bad as I thought.

Whenever I go to the gym early, I think I should do this all the time. There's more time for other things when I get my workout finished by mid-morning. My workout hasn't changed, but I've noticed that my heart rate is lower than it was a few years ago. My body seems to be getting used to the routine. This probably means that I should step things up a bit. I do seem to be getting stronger. The first day I extended my morning walk to five miles I thought I was going to die, but now this distance seems more or less normal.

Maybe I'll start wanting to exercise harder and walk longer. I hope not though. I like being healthy, but I'm not really cut out to be a gym rat. Believe it or not, I still need time to do other things. Today I needed to figure out why my phone could connect to the WiFi router, but my computer couldn't. The computer could still connect to the T-Mobile hotspot, but couldn't find the U-Verse WiFi. There was nothing wrong with U-Verse though, because everything else in the house was working fine. I spent way too much time trying to get to the bottom of this mystery. In the end, I solved the problem the same way I solve most electronic problems. I turned everything off and then on again.

I ended up watching the first segment of the new Ken Burns documentary about Country Music tonight. I always think I'm just going to watch a few minutes of a Ken Burns film, but I inevitably get sucked in and end up watching every minute of the entire lengthy series. I'm not sure how long this new documentary is, but I'm positive it will last for several days. They all do. His film about the Civil War was 11 hours long. His subsequent film about World War II was even longer. These documentaries are so well done though that you don't mind the length. After a while, you realize that it is essential to the complicated story he is trying to tell. I was never that interested in history while I was in school. These documentaries are fascinating though. I've learned a lot. I think we could all benefit from learning more about our past.

It's hard to believe that we're already halfway through September. It still seems like August to me. Pretty soon it will be time for the State Fair again. Even sooner than the fair will be the Dalmatian Rescue Golf Tournament. I haven't gone to this tournament for quite a while because I was always busy tending to sick dogs. Dot and Dash don't need me anymore, so I'll be back taking pictures of the golfers again this year.

Janet and I will be back up at the Dalmatian Rescue kennel tomorrow. Sock needs to go back to the vet for his skin condition and the rest of the dogs just need some play time.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3167

It's always something. Dash got stung by a bee today. We were taking our morning walk when all of the sudden he yelped and immediately began limping. I suspected an insect bite, but it could have also been a sprain. When old dogs rear legs begin to go, it puts a lot of extra strain on their front legs. Either way, this was not good. Let me tell you, it was not easy getting a dog back home with only one good leg.

I was hoping that when we finally got Dash home, he would relax so I could examine him better. Unfortunately, this is not Dash's style. He tends to panic when things go wrong. He was agitated and we noticed that the leg was starting to swell so we loaded him in the car and headed for the emergency clinic. On the way, Dash finally started to calm down. By the time we arrived, he was semi-normal again.

The admittance nurse said that Dash wasn't having an allergic reaction and didn't appear to have sprained anything. He wasn't limping anymore either. Faced with a choice of waiting in the lobby for several hours until we could see a vet and then getting a $75 bill for a few Benadryl tablets, we decided to just turn around and go home. Dash has been stung by bees before. He completely freaks out for about thirty minutes and by the time a vet is able to look at him, he is all better.

I gave Dash some Benadryl when he returned home and he quickly went to sleep. By the time he woke up, he was back to his old self. Notice that I didn't say "back to normal." Dash will never be back to normal. We all ate our breakfast late enough to be called brunch and then resumed our regular Sunday routine. I kind of suspected a bee sting the moment it happened, but it's better to be safe than sorry. If Dash had seriously injured his front leg, it would all be over.

I think I'm going to have to stop using the arm bicycle at the gym. My wrist started hurting again and this appeared to be the cause. It makes sense. Twenty minutes on the arm bicycle can put a lot of strain on your wrists. Too bad. I like this machine. It's a great upper body workout and seems to be better than the treadmill for elevating your heart rate.

Elevating your heart rate during exercise can be good for cardiovascular fitness. At other times, it's not so good. I noticed on my Fitbit that my heart rate went way up right after Dash got stung by the bee. This was stress. I wasn't sure how I was going to get him home again. I wasn't sure what had happened either. Luckily, everything ended well today, but it definitely wasn't a relaxing day.

I'm sure the bees have moved by now, but I'm a superstitious person and I won't want to take the same route on our walk tomorrow. This might be problematic, because Dash is set in his ways and always wants to take the same route. I wish the city would hurry up and mow the field behind our house. The grass in the park is getting high again and it's hard to tell what Dash and I are walking through.

I guess I'll have to wear the brace on my wrist again tonight. I should have known better than to use the arm bike. It's pretty clear that Dash and I are both set in our ways. We'll try not to injure ourselves tomorrow.

Cammy s today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

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