Day 2662

Around midnight last night I was awakened by the sound of tornado sirens. I went outside and the first thing I saw was the moon. The sky was clear and there was no wind at all. I checked the weather radar on my iPad and there weren't even any clouds in the vicinity. WTF? The sirens finally stopped and I went back to bed. It seemed weird that the city was testing the warning system at midnight, but life is full of weird things these days. About five minutes later the sirens resumed again. This didn't seem like a test.

I turned on the television and there was nothing about the warning sirens at all. As I flipped through the local channels, it quickly became obvious that everything was on autopilot. Most of the stations were just replaying programs they had already run earlier in the day. I turned on the radio and discovered that local radio doesn't even even exist anymore. Everything was just a syndicated satellite feed. By this time I had been listening to the sirens for about an hour and still didn't have a clue what was going on. Local news was non-existent.

I had never heard the tornado sirens go on this long, so I was very curious about what was happening. Were we being nuked? Had the zombie apocalypse begun? I just didn't know. It finally dawned on me to turn on the computer and look at Facebook. Bingo. Facebook was a beehive of activity. Apparently all my Facebook friends are night owls and everybody was talking about the sirens.

There were lots of theories. Had a disgruntled employee set off the sirens set off the sirens as his final revenge after being fired? Had the Russians hacked into the City of Dallas servers? One jokester said that North Korea had launched a nuke in the direction of Dallas and at least ten people seemed to believe him. Finally I found a post from the city's Emergency Management Department saying that there had been a major system malfunction and that everyone should quit calling 911. Ironically, I heard the next morning on the news that the warning system actually had been hacked. Maybe it was the Russians after all.

All this strange activity got me thinking. The world has definitely changed. If this had happened ten or fifteen years ago, you could have turned on the television and listened to a local reporter explain the situation as it was happening. Now, we all get our news on Facebook. The trouble with Facebook is that most of the news is wrong. Even a small local incident that wouldn't even be known outside of Dallas generated a fair share of fake news.

Even though the sirens were loud and blared for over two hours, I was the only one who woke up. Janet and both dogs slept through the whole thing. I hope there's never a real emergency in the middle of the night, because it's going to be hell getting everybody up.

Dot seemed stronger today and was much more active. I was sleepier today for obvious reasons. The produce guy at the grocery store told me that there would be a new shipment of blueberries tomorrow. I didn't believe him. All in all it was a pretty normal Saturday. It just got off to a strange start.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2006

Something caught my eye when I was reading about Dot's condition last night. It said that older dogs like Dot have a lot of difficulty squatting, and tended to defecate while they were moving. This morning, instead of waiting and waiting in the yard for her to do her business, I immediacy took her on a little walk down the alley as soon as I got out of bed. Worked like a charm. Dot pooped normally after only walking about fifty feet. We then returned home, I finished getting dressed, we had our meds, ate breakfast and everything was fine. No accidents for the rest of the day. It's weird how such a little detail could make such a big difference. For years I'd always let the dogs out in the yard when I first got up and then we took a walk later. That doesn't work anymore. Dot needs to be moving to poop and apparently it doesn't matter to her if she's moving down the road or moving around the house, waiting for us to get ready. She'll still have accidents, but I think this little change in routine will help.

Since it was supposed to rain today, I did all my Saturday errands early. I should do this all the time. People get up later on the weekends and it's so much easier to do your shopping before the rest of the world is out and about. I had an easy time finding parking places, didn't have to wait in lines to check out, and as an added bonus, didn't have to wash my car because I got caught in the rain. Don't ask me why I'm so OCD that I have to wash my car every time it rains, but that's just the way it is.

I was surprised to turn on the TV this morning and discover that a nutcase who recently bought an armored car on eBay was trying to attack the downtown police station with pipe bombs and an assault rifle. I know people who live right across the street from this police station. I don't know if I was more surprised that something like this could happen in a trendy urban neighborhood full of cool restaurants and loft residences, or that someone could actually purchase an armored car on eBay. Is there anywhere left that is immune from all this social chaos? Sadly, I don't think so.

It did rain today. It rained a lot. Luckily, I was able to time things so that the dogs got walked and I was able to take care of all my Saturday errands during the dry periods. During the rainy periods, I went to the office and wrote some new articles while the dogs stayed nearby under my desk. I've started turning the pump on as soon as the rain starts now to slow down the rate that standing water accumulates. The reason this works now when it didn't before is that I've finally managed to find the low point on the roof. That's exactly where I place the pump. I've also built a little guard to keep leaves and debris from immediately clogging the pump's impeller. Maybe if a buy a second pump for the lower carport roof and do the same thing, I won't actually have to crawl up there much at all.

I still can't figure out why U-verse wasn't working last night. One TV was fine and the other kept saying that it wasn't getting a signal. Since the TV in the kitchen worked perfectly, I knew the signal was there. I rebooted the router, tried several different HDMI cables and nothing worked. Usually, I'm pretty good at analyzing and fixing things, but I totally struck out last night. This morning everything worked fine. I don't have a clue what changed while I was sleeping.

It looks like we are going to have a wet summer. Not only are we getting more rain tomorrow, it is supposed to rain every single day next week. The yard looks great, but enough is enough.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1751

It was interesting to see how the Ebola news developed today. First you would hear local chatter on Twitter. There are so many people who either work or have friends in health care that news travels quickly. Shortly after rumors start flying on Twitter, local talk radio shows are filled with callers talking about the same thing. A few hours later, the same stories start to appear on prominent local, and even national, media blogs. TV news crews seem to pick up the story very late in the game, and finally, at the end of the entire process, a public official eventually issues a statement. There were Tweets about where the Ebola victim lived, what airline he flew to Dallas on, and where the children he exposed went to school several hours before the same news appeared on the local television stations.

With all the talk about how Ebola is transmitted, there's been a lot of local interest in the safety of the sewage system. Surely the guy pooped after he arrived in town. Where is that poop now? They say the virus can live a long time under moist conditions. At any rate,  I wouldn't want to be a worker at the local sewage treatment plant. I don't think I'd want to be a plumber either. One of the most persistent questions I hear is "If there is nothing to worry about, why are all you guys wearing HazMat suits?" I wonder about this myself.

Other than the occasional worry that Dallas will be where the zombie apocalypse begins, it was a fairly normal day. I spent the day doing the usual mix of website revisions and writing assignments. Some of the website work I did today involved redoing what did yesterday. That's pretty normal too. If I didn't redo a lot of things, I would have very little to do.

When we went to dog training class tonight, the sodium vapor lights that illuminate the field at night unexpectedly went out. Without these lights, it is really dark. I'm surprised that the dogs did as well as they did under these conditions. I could still see Dash pretty well, since he is basically white with a few black spots. The owners of the Labs weren't so lucky. Their dogs just seemed to disappear in the darkness.

I thought my fire ant bites would be gone by now, but they seem to have gotten worse. After doing a little reading, I discovered that this was normal. When the hard red welts caused by the bites start to blister, they can itch intensely. I'm in the itchy stage right now. They say that this can last for up to a week. It helps to keep things in perspective though. An ant bite is no big deal when there's an Ebola outbreak a few miles down the road.

Tori is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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