Day 4985

Dawn woke us up early this morning with a rasping cough. We think she has kennel cough, although we have no idea how she caught it. Other than her weekly training class she's not around other dogs. We canceled her dental appointment and will be taking her in Sunday for another exam. The cough could be something else and we definitely don't want to put her under anesthesia for a dental cleaning until we can figure out what is going on.

Since we got up so early, we ended up taking our sunrise walk in the dark. It was the first time we'd gotten out the flashlights and lighted dog collar since last Winter. Even though it was still dark it was already hot. The temperature was in the mid 80's and there wasn't any breeze. We didn't need the sun to tell us that today was going to be a hot one.

When I was fixing breakfast I discovered that the Keurig coffeemaker was broken. How did this happen? It was working fine yesterday. Breakfast without coffee wasn't an auspicious way to start the day, but what could I do. At least I had orange juice. Later in the day I did a Google search and figured out how to fix the coffeemaker, but it didn't help me much at breakfast. 

The thermostat had a message that it was time to change the furnace filter, so I did that after breakfast. I also cleaned the toilets and swept some more spiderwebs off the office windows. I didn't want to go to the gym too early because it's always full early in the mornings. A friend asked if I could make some minor revisions to a website I'd done years ago. Sure. Why not. I think I can still remember how to do these things. I wasn't even sure I could open the site since I built it so long ago, but I managed to find a web development program on the computer that still worked. I'll make the revisions this weekend.

I decided not to apply to attend the Silent Barker Space Force military launch. I was pretty sure I'd be accepted for this ULA launch, but I have a feeling that I'll only be able to afford one more trip to Florida this year and I didn't want to squander the trip on this launch. There will be better things later in the Fall. It's also been very stormy in Titusville lately. I've already made too many launch trips where bad weather spoiled everything.

It got up to 110 degrees today. I thing we set another record high. There is no end in sight either. The weather app on my phone shows sunny skies and triple digit temperatures for the next ten days. Will we ever get any rain? There is a hurricane starting to develop out in the Caribbean and I'm kind of hoping that it will move through the Gulf and eventually bring some rain to Texas. There's only a 40% chance that this storm will even develop though. It may amount to nothing. 

My gym has always been freezing cold, but even the massive air conditioning units can't keep up with this heat. I noticed that the gym felt warmer yesterday and today the temperature crept up a little higher. It's still reasonably cool inside, but I don't think I need to wear a long sleeved shirt anymore. Maybe it's the heat thats slowing me down. I was still slow on the indoor track today. 

Dawn was happy that it was grocery day again. When I do my own grocery shopping tomorrow it will be a non event though. There is a big event tomorrow however. It's Janet's birthday.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2464

A client wanted some advice about where to host his website. He gave me a price for 32 years and asked me if it was a good deal. I've been doing this for a long time, but I'd never heard of anyone wanting to renew a hosting agreement for 32 years at a time. I did the math and converted the price to a more normal 3 or 5 year contract. OK. The price was in the ball park. Later in the day the client said he'd made a typo and the price was actually just for 3 years. Oops. That changes everything. The price suddenly seemed insanely high. You've got to watch those typos.

This error on the client's part must have been an omen, because my own day was filled with a host of little errors and few of them worked out in my favor. After cleaning a poop soiled rug that took an inordinately long time to dry, I put it down on the floor again and within five minutes Dot pooped on the same rug all over again.

I went up on the roof to mark the bad spots for the roofers and discovered a lot of brand new areas where the elastometric coating was peeling away. The roof had deteriorated further over the weekend. Some of the new damage was on patches that had been applied less than a month ago. This is not good. I really need an entirely new roof, but it is going to be very difficult to convince the roofer that the roof is fundamentally defective.

I finally got around to opening the package of printer ink I'd ordered recently and discovered that the company had sent me the wrong ink. Now, instead of just installing the cartridges in the printer, I will need to return the ink and have my supplier reship the correct cartridges. The supplier apologized and said they ship me replacement cartridges today, but this was one more instance where something that should have been easy turned into something difficult.

When I went to the pharmacy to pick up a prescription, one of my refills was on back order, so I'll need to go back again tomorrow. This wasn't a big deal, but it made me tired. I don't like taking these pills in the first place. Somebody ought to make the whole process easier. It seems like I'm always asking doctors to renew prescriptions or returning to the pharmacy to pick up something that the automatic refill process said was ready. I just need to resign myself to the fact that nothing is going to work flawlessly ever again. The world is broken.

Dash woke me up coughing last night and Janet and I were both worried that he had kennel cough. Dot is so fragile now that the last thing we need is for her to get sick. I made a mental not to call the vet, but this morning everything seemed fine. Dash hasn't coughed all day. I don't know what was going on last night, but my theory is that he ate a frog when he went out to pee last night. Our yard has been full of frogs and toads lately and the dogs are very curious about them.

I have a lot of little chores on my to-do list for tomorrow. I hope at least a few of them go smoothly.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 993 - Labor Day

So, what did I do on Labor Day? I worked.The sad thing was that I didn't have to work. I just couldn't think of anything fun that I wanted to do. On the plus side of things, I did manage to finish a charity website the I've been postponing for months. I'm getting closer and closer to getting caught up on everything.

Dot continues to get better. I'm thinking now that she actually did have kennel cough, but since the treatment for kennel cough is exactly the same as she is currently receiving, I don't think it matters what the vet actually called her condition. I think that kennel cough can turn into acute bronchitis, which in rare cases can turn into pneumonia. At her worst, she was probably somewhere between kennel cough and bronchitis. The meds are working though and she is definitely improving.

I'm about to give up on AT&T U-verse. When it works, it's great. The only problem is that it doesn't work properly very often. I've already had tech support out to the house three times. Next week will be service visit number four. The problem is always the same. I lose the broadband signal for the TV, phones and Internet. The router automatically reboots and the signal returns. About five minutes later, the whole process begins again. I've even lost phone service while I was talking to tech support. The technicians have certainly been nice enough. So far, they've replaced the router, added special line filters, and done some repairs to the wiring at the switch. The problem always returns. One particularly honest repairman told me "You know, your distance from the switch puts you right at the limit for this type of connection." I think that is the problem, even if AT&T won't officially admit it. I was too far away for DSL, and I'm probably still too far away for U-verse. Maybe U-verse just is DSL with a new name.

AT&T wasn't the only technology problem today. I'm having some problems with my hard drive. I have an invalid directory item count and I can't get my normally faithful Apple Disk Utility to fix things. Sometime when I wasn't looking, Apple in it's infinite wisdom moved the disk repair utilities to the Cloud. Now, you're supposed to be able to boot your computers from Apple's remote servers and let them fix things. There's only one problem. It doesn't work. I can't even access whatever is in the cloud. I hate the cloud.

Oh, well. Tomorrow is another day. Unfortunately, it's just a regular work day. I shouldn't have squandered my vacation working on websites. There will be plenty of time for that later. I think Dot appreciated me being her nurse this weekend though. I'm a pretty good dog nurse.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day