Day 4549

I don't know what it is about beeping noises. When I removed the old battery fron the uninterrupted power supply in the bedroom this morning so I could take it to the battery store, the unit made a single high pitched beep. That was enough to freak Dawn out and she left the room for her dog bed in the kitchen. It was at least two hours before she would come back to the bedroom again. Dawn doesn't like anything out of the ordinary. Hey, I don't either, but this is ridiculous.

The battery store is located in an industrial area and the roads are filled with large trucks. It was a traffic jam of eighteen wheelers and it was only 10AM. This explains your inflation problem right here. Everything moves by truck these days and diesel fuel is insanely expensive. I'm old enough to remember when areas like this were all served by trains. Just about every warehouse had it's own rail spur where boxcars could unload. This system worked well for many, many years. We took long road trip summer vacations when I was a kid and I never remember seeing large trucks on the highways. There weren't as many cars either. Sometimes we traveled by train. Even our small town was served by a daily passenger train. I miss train travel and empty roads. At least I got to experience these things. Younger people probably don't have a clue what I'm talking about.

I'm glad the new battery I bought worked. Hopefully, there won't be any more annoying beeping noises for quite a while. There is no need for Dawn to be on high alert all the time. Last night a small stick landed on the roof and woke Dawn up. It seemed like hours before she would go back to sleep again. I probably wouldn't have noticed except that I was having trouble sleeping as well. I fell asleep watching television after I finished my blog post last night and when I woke up again it was almost 2 AM. When I got up to brush my teeth and take my evening meds, I had trouble getting back to sleep again. 

I got gas on the way home from the battery store. I was only down a quarter of a tank, but I wanted to see how much I'd save by buying gas at Sam's Club. I saved five dollars, but the gas was still pretty expensive. Since my car gets terrible gas mileage in the city, gas is actually ridiculously expensive. I calculated that two trips to the gym, a short trip to pick up Chinese take out, and our visit to the Dalmatian kennel yesterday cost me $35 in gas. My conclusion: $5 gas when you are getting 14.5 miles per gallon isn't good.

Since there was a nice breeze when we took Dawn on her sunrise walk, I decided to walk in the park today instead of going to the gym. I probably didn't want to spend $6 on gas just to go to the gym either. It wasn't hot on my walk, but it was extremely humid. I didn't feel like walking my full six mile route, but I did get enough steps to satisfy my need for consistency. I've met my fitness goals for over 200 days now. I wonder how long I can go? Usually the only things that force me to start over are an extremely long road trip that leaves little time to walk or an illness. It doesn't really seem like it's been 200 days since I was hospitalized for gallbladder surgery, but I think that was the last time I was unable to get at least 10,000 steps in a day.

I'm glad the new dishwasher is coming soon. I think the water leak is getting worse. Still haven't caught the rat either. Janet said that Dawn did really well at training class tonight though. I'm glad Dawn enjoys her training class. Maybe it makes up for the annoying beeps she heard this morning.

Lacey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4296

Today's service appointment was a mess. After making the service appointment over a month ago to ensure that I'd get a loaner car and then calling yesterday evening just to make sure that a loaner car would be waiting for me this morning, it get to the dealership this morning and you guessed it: no car.

I had to take an Uber home, but that wasn't nearly as frustrating as discovering that prices had nearly doubled for a major scheduled service. Everything I had done today was something I'd had dealt with before and it was unbelievable how much prices have gone up. I've driven a Land Rover since 1995 but maybe it's time to just get a cheap American car and say to hell with it all.

I'm not sure when I'll get my car back, but it probably won't be when it was promised. I don't know why I'm bothered about all this since I don't drive much anyway. I guess I'm just sick of the rising cost of everything. 

I got up early this morning to arrive for my service appointment on time. I shouldn't have bothered. Absolutely nothing happened with the car until around noon. It turned out that they wouldn't start the repairs until I approved each line item in an online service form. I ended up declining a lot of things because I knew I could get them done at just about any garage in town for a fraction of the price. I finally did get a loaner car just before the dealership closed this evening. This is pretty much an admission that the repairs will take longer than they initially claimed.

The temperature wasn't hot today but it was extremely humid. Sadly, my morning walk wasn't that pleasant today. When I looked at the forecast, it was pretty clear that rain was on the way. We need the rain, but I never did get up on the roof to clear away falling leaves and pecan shells. I usually check the pumps if a rainy spell is expected. I haven't done that either. Hopefully everything still works. I'm really not in the mood to deal with a roof leak again.

I got an e-mail today advertising a new Olympus photo contest. I knew I had some very good photos in the categories they were looking for so I thought about entering.  After I found the photos I was looking for in my files, I read the entry form again and discovered that the photos had to be taken with an Olympus camera. Never mind. It appears that most of my good photos were taken with a different brand of camera. It's hard to cheat these days because the make and model of the camera is always listed in the photo's Metadata.

The next thing on my agenda is an appointment with the digestive specialists who removed the stones from my bile duct. They apparently discovered that I have Barrett's esophagus when they were inserting their scope into my intestines. I'm not sure what they want to do next, since I've already read the lab reports saying that the cells they removed to test turned out to be normal. I bet they want to do another endoscopy to confirm their earlier results. Since these guys are also who my doctor recommended to do my next colonoscopy I wonder If I could get them to do both procedures at the same time. It would save me a second trip to the hospital and I'd only have to be anesthetized once. Makes sense to me anyway.

Hopefully, there are no surprises from the dealership tomorrow. I've already resigned myself to a big bill. I just don't want it to get any larger. It looks like it is going to start raining soon. Let's hope there are no roof leaks tonight. I've already had a bad day. There's no need to make things worse.

Spanky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day