Day 2576

I woke up about 5 AM to an impressive display of thunder and lightning. The wind was blowing fiercely and I was a little worried that a tree might fall on the roof. Luckily, both dogs were still asleep. I closed some doors and hung a few blankets to block Dot's view of the lightning flashes and then went back to bed. We almost survived the storm unscathed, but eventually a loud thunderclap woke Dash and he made sure that Dot was awake too. Sometimes Dot will calm down if I lie down next to her and cover her with a blanket. I wasn't looking forward to sleeping next to Dot, since this is the time of day she often poops in her bed. Comforting Dot seemed to work and in ten minutes we all went back to sleep. When I woke up again, I wasn't sitting in a pile of poop, the sun was out, the storm had passed and everybody was fine.

After a brisk morning walk where I watched the tail end of the storm system move swiftly toward the horizon, I took the Christmas tree down. With no Christmas tree in the living room, it seemed pretty obvious that 2017 was officially here. While I was packing things away, I noticed that there was a small crack in the corner of a large seven foot square picture window. The crack could have occurred yesterday or six months ago. That's how observant I am. Sooner or later I'm going to have to replace this window and it's going to be expensive. I've replaced some of the glass windows before and I've found that glaziers typically insist on replacing large plate glass windows with tempered glass. Tempered glass is great stuff, but it's more than twice as expensive as regular glass. I guess 2017 will be a series of endless bills, just like 2016.

At least Dot and Dash aren't inclined to jump through glass windows. We had a Dalmatian named Petey who jumped through one of our living room windows trying to catch a squirrel on the back porch, He almost bled to death before I could rush him to the vet. That's why I already have quite a few tempered glass windows in the house. The window with the crack probably would have been replaced years ago if it weren't part of a large sliding glass door. I'm hoping I don't have to replace the entire door to fix this window.

I get another chance to find Neptune tonight. The sky is mostly clear and the moon will pass directly in front of the planet around 11 PM. I already looked through binoculars and couldn't find the illusive planet. It's pretty dim. I'll give it another try later this evening. Maybe I can find a place to observe with no streetlights nearby. Finding celestial objects inside the city limits is next to hopeless. The light pollution is pretty severe.

I made an appointment to take Dot to the vet tomorrow. We used to check Dot's vital signs every time we went for our physical therapy session, but Dot is difficult to transport now and we haven't gone downtown for physical therapy for quite a while. Tomorrow's appointment is with Dash's vet, which is much closer to home. In addition to checking her heart and blood pressure, we need to clip her nails. It's amazing how quickly a dog's nails grow if they don't walk very much.

I still haven't made any New Years resolutions. I probably never will. I did wake up firmly resolved to make it through the day. I wasn't going to let a thunderstorm or a little dog poop get in my way. If I can do this every single day, I'll probably make it through 2017 just fine.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2395

Independence Day ended as it began, with a horrendous thunderstorm that lasted for the rest of the night. I didn't get much sleep. Dot got so upset that I thought she was going to have a stroke. Dash was pretty upset too. This was some of the most intense thunder and lightening I've ever seen. The storm went on for hours and this morning I heard that some parts of town had gotten up to four inches of rain.

The U-Verse TV didn't work when we woke up this morning. Rebooting the receiver didn't fix things. Rebooting the router didn't help either. Nothing worked. Oddly, the U-Verse land line phone and the WiFi network were just fine. I called technical support and they said they needed to do some tests. After they tried to reboot the router remotely, everything went dead. Somehow they fried the entire gateway. The tech support guy claimed that last night's storm had damaged the router, but I think they ruined it themselves. Luckily, I had a spare router that AT&T sent me last month. I had been reluctant to install it because I knew I would have to re-pair every single wireless device on the network.

Since the router I'd been using was toast, I really had no choice. I spent the rest of the day configuring the gateway and then painstakingly reattaching all the devices on the network. Some devices were easy to reattach, but others were insanely difficult. A wireless office is convenient when it's working, but it can drive you crazy when something goes wrong. If I had it all to do over again, I'd just hook everything up with Ethernet cables.

After I finally got everything working again, I heard something on the weather report saying that there were more thunderstorms in the forecast for tonight. That's all I need. After spending all day getting my network running again, I certainly don't want to fry my new router tonight. I don't want to deal with two storm phobic dogs either. If the storm is bad enough, I really worry about Dot and Dash. When they go into panic mode, it feels like I'm only inches away from a medical emergency. Hopefully, things will be a bit calmer tonight. I really need some sleep.

I did manage to update some websites today, but I don't remember much about the assignments. All I remember is struggling to get the wireless thermostat working again and cleaning up dog poop. When I watched the Juno orbit insertion maneuver last night on NASA TV, I couldn't help feeling a bit envious of the folks I was watching at the Jet Propulsion Lab. I felt the same way when I watched the New Horizons spacecraft rendezvous with Pluto and as I held my breath watching Spirit, Opportunity, and Curiosity make successful landings on Mars. Ad people often think they are doing something important, but it's all just smoke and mirrors. These scientists at JPL actually are doing something important.

I don't expect to get a lot done tomorrow. It's Dot's physical therapy day and each week these sessions seem to take longer and longer. There are things I'd rather do, but the therapy is important. Maybe the weather will be nice tomorrow. Maybe Dot's won't poop in my car. A little good news tomorrow could go a long way.

Isabella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1991

We got a horrendous amount of rain last night. You probably saw it on the morning news. Eight inches of rain in just a few hours is definitely newsworthy. There was severe flooding in many parts of town, including some areas not far from where we live. We are nearing all time record rainfall levels now. This is uncharted territory. The rain seems to be the main topic of conversation with everyone I see. Every time we have a storm like we did last night, I'm really glad that we live on top of a hill. It's a modest, very gentle hill, but it does put us at least 50 feet above the nearest water. Last night's storms knocked out our power again, but the outage didn't last long. By the time I calmed the dogs down and called in the outage report on my cell phone, the power had already been restored.

Nobody got much sleep last night. The thunder was loud enough to wake Dot, and the lightning was bright enough to send both dogs into a storm induced panic. I got a blanket and slept on the floor with Dot for a while in an effort too calm her down. When my bad shoulder started to hurt, Janet traded places with me. By the time her back started to hurt, the worst of the storm was over. When we all woke up this morning, the storm had turned into a gentle shower. The dogs got their morning walk right on schedule and then I went out for breakfast like I usually do on Friday mornings.

It's a good thing I was headed South towards the restaurant, because Northbound traffic was gridlocked in front of our house. I suspect that a major intersections a few miles down the road was still underwater. Most of the small creeks that feed the lake behind our house are outside their banks and low lying areas are flooded. Since I wasn't headed downtown to go to work, I didn't have a problem. I left the roads with bridges and underpasses to other people had a nice breakfast in the neighborhood instead. By the time I finished my meal, a lot of the high water seemed to have subsided. With things returning to normal, I went to Central Market to get groceries for the weekend, and then headed home to finish this week's work.

Today was busy. I cleared the water off the roof again, updated a few more websites, and finished writing another article. That was more than enough for one day. I'm getting used to all the new rituals imposed by wet, stormy weather and aging dogs, but it is a bit tiring. Everything is peaceful now, although another wave of thunderstorms is scheduled to arrive sometime after midnight. Lets hope that tonight's rain isn't accompanied by thunder and lightning like it was last night. We all could use some sleep.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1141

I don't know how I used to survive without weather radar apps on my phone and tablets. I totally depend on these things now. Even on days like today when the rain never seems to stop, I manage to find little pockets of calm when I can walk the dogs.

I used to live in fear of being struck by lightning when I found myself miles from home with two panic stricken Dalmatians in the middle of a sudden thunderstorm. This doesn't happen anymore. I carefully plot wind direction and speed using the radar apps and take the dogs outside during lulls between the passing squalls. I tell Dot and Dash that we don't have much time. They know they only have eight minutes to pee, poop and finish their business before we have to be home again. So far this new plan works fabulously. The dogs storm instincts are much better than mine anyway. They only panic if they think I don't know what's coming and am leading them into danger. Today, although everything got soaked; we didn't.

There's not much to do on a rainy day. Since I don't like to drive in the rain, I'm usually just stuck inside with the dogs, waiting for things to clear up. Luckily, I had plenty of writing and website work to keep me busy today. One of the charities I work with has a new volunteer who is full of energy and new ideas. This is great for the charity, but I'm not sure how great it will be for me. My workload has already increased. Things were easier when my contacts were just as tired and overworked as I am. I seldom get behind if I'm working with someone who is in even worse shape than I am.

I'm having lunch tomorrow with a friend who had a heart attack recently. Hopefully, he can give me some tips that can help me avoid the same fate. When friends and I used to have lunch, the talk usually centered around fast cars, music, and weird things our clients did. Now the conversation always seems to be about who has had the scariest near death experience. Talking about health problems has its benefits though. I usually think I'm falling apart until I listen to other people's trials and tribulations. Then I realize that things aren't so bad after all.

The weather radar on my phone says that the storms are almost over. That's good!  Maybe I'll get a decent amount of sleep tonight.

Spirit is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 943

We almost got struck by lightning today. The lightning strike was so bright that it seemed like studio strobes going off directly overhead. The thunderclap came just milliseconds later. I would think that the lightning strike was less than a 1000 yards away, since the sound of the thunder arrived so quickly. The thunderclap was so loud that it set off car alarms on a nearby street. It goes without saying that the dogs totally panicked. I had a hard time controlling them as we tried to get back to the house before the real downpour started. This storm just came out of nowhere. Luckily, we returned home safely about two minutes before the skies opened up and the rain began in earnest. I usually look at the weather radar on my iPad if I'm going out in questionable weather, but the radar wouldn't have helped me in this case. The storm didn't blow in from the West or the North; it just materialized directly overhead. When I looked at a time lapse view of the weather radar later, it appeared that the storm didn't even exist when we started our walk. The storm cell just suddenly formed right over the lake in less than five minutes. That's Texas weather for you. It's always full of surprises.

The storm apparently wasn't through with us when we got home. About ten minutes after the rain started, our power went out. Three hours later, the power is still out. I'm making today's post using my laptop and a portable 4G hotspot.  Reporting a power outage is frustrating now because everything is automated. It is impossible to talk to a real person. After you answer enough automated questions using your cellphone keypad, you eventually get an ETA for when the lines will be repaired, but you can never find out what is actually wrong. According to the phone message, it will be another three hours before power is restored. I'm sure the laptop battery will be dead before then.

As you can see, Dot and Dash got a bath today. It definitely wasn't a very auspicious day to give the dogs a bath, but how were we to know? They both got soaked all over again when we made our retreat from the park and tried to get home before the next lightning strike. At least the weather was nice when we went to the dog park earlier this morning.

It's so quiet in the house when the power is out. Usually, there is always the hum of the air conditioner, which is frequently augmented by the sounds of the dishwasher, the washing machine, or the dryer. Even the main computer makes a lot of noise. Now the house is silent. All I hear are a million cicadas outside. I have a feeling the the television won't work when the power is eventually restored. That's what happened the last time the power went out.  The U-verse box lost all it's programming and we ended up having to call AT&T to get everything working again.

Oh well, tomorrow's another day. I wouldn't be surprised if it's dry as a bone again by noon.

Gypsy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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