Day 4285

Today was busy. I finished writing my article about the Inspiration 4 mission for SpaceFlight Magazine and started editing the hundreds of pictures I took to illustrate the article. When Janet proofread my story, she said I should say some nice things about Hayley. Seems fair enough. Hayley will definitely be the one people remember. I found a dozen or so pictures that would look good in a magazine and sent everything off to London. I haven't heard anything from my editor yet, but there's a big time zone difference.

I rescheduled my appointment with the digestive specialists who removed the gallstones from my bile duct. They want to do another endoscopy to examine a problem they found with my esophagus. Evidently I have Barrett’s Esophagus which is caused by long term acid reflux. I suspect they will want me to change my diet. I think I eat very healthy meals, but everything I like tends to cause heartburn. I'm willing to make some changes, but I definitely don't want to become a vegetarian.

I weighed myself for the first time since I was hospitalized and I've lost nearly ten pounds. I must have been sicker than I thought. This weight loss was a huge surprise, since I certainly don't look or feel any lighter. Actually, this puts me right at the target weight I've been trying to reach for a long time. Now I've just got to put some muscle on these bones. Muscle atrophy is a real problem as you grow older.  It's easy to lose muscle mass, but hard to build it back.

I took my first six mile walk in quite a while this morning. I did fine, but my pace was pretty slow. The temperatures are getting cooler, so I think I'll be able to get back to my old self fairly soon. Sometimes I get sick of walking every morning and writing every evening. I still think you've got to keep your body and mind active. I don't understand people who find exercise exhilarating. I'd still rather take a nice long nap.

I finally got my bags unpacked, did a load of dirty laundry, and put my suitcase away. I think it's OK to lift things again, but I still don't feel like mowing the lawn. Travel never used to be this tiring. I really like my trips to the observatory and the space center, but I'm usually worn out when I return. Oh, well. Getting old isn't a picnic, but I'm still a lot healthier than my Mom and Dad were at this age.

Hard to believe that the week is over and it's time to make a grocery list again. This week just flew by. I have no real plans for the weekend. Usually it's just grocery shopping on Saturday and Dawn's Sunday outing the next day. Maybe I'll do something interesting, but I wouldn't count on it.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2597

It feels strange now to have a busy work day. A client called while I was having breakfast this morning and wanted some help getting things working properly on his new web server. I listened to what he needed and told him it was a piece of cake to take care of his requests. Of course when I turned my computer on a little while later, I quickly discovered that making the changes wasn't a piece of cake after all. It never is. I called technical support, sat on hold for a long time, and asked why my quick fix wasn't working. The tech support guy was very patient and answered all my questions. Of course, I didn't ask all the right questions, so I had to call him back again about an hour later. Everything is fixed now. At least I think it is. If I ever need to make these type of changes again, I'll be able to say "it's a piece of cake" honestly.

The weather was beautiful today. For the first time in ages the sky was completely clear for most of the day. I should have gotten up early and looked for Mercury on the Eastern horizon before sunrise, but I was too tired. I'm staying up later now, mostly so I can get Dot to pee outside one last time before going to bed. We can usually make it through the night this way, but it necessitates a long week of going to bed late and getting up early. If it's still clear out when I go to bed tonight, I'll make more of an effort to look for Mercury tomorrow morning. There should be a thin sliver of a waning crescent moon to help guide me to the right spot.

I've been seeing a lot of kestrels lately on our morning walks. It used to be rare to spot one of these small falcons, but they're everywhere now. These birds are lazy hunters and often perch at the top of trees, looking for mice and insects in the fields below. I have a strange relationship with birds. I enjoy watching them while I walk the dogs, but I hate them when they poop on my car. Birds of prey like the kestrel have little interest in hanging around my yard and making a nuisance of themselves. It's the bluejays and the mockingbirds that are the problem.

I've been experimenting with my new WiFi scale and have discovered that your weight and body composition change throughout the day. It's surprising how much a normal meal weighs. I guess you should always weigh yourself before you eat a big meal. I also lose about a pound after I go to the gym. Does sweat actually weigh that much, or do the calories you burn directly translate into weight loss? Hey, I'm a curious person and I have to amuse myself somehow. Somebody needs to invent a scale that automatically deducts the weight of the clothes you are wearing to give you a true weight. For a scale that can measure bone mass and pulse wave velocity, it would seem like this would be a piece of cake. All you'd have to do is weight yourself with clothes and then again without and have the scale store the difference in memory. Nobody makes a scale like this that I know of. When I go to the doctor, I'm always about ten pounds heavier because I'm wearing boots and my pockets are full of cell phones and keys. It always irritates me when the doctor says I've gained weight and I'm just wearing heavier clothes than I was on my last visit.

I've got more website updates to make tomorrow. I think I prefer writing jobs, but beggars can't be choosers. It this point, I'll take any work I can get. Truthfully, I won't take any work I can get. I guess this is just a convenient way of saying that I'm still interested in keeping my business alive. I really couldn't do a whole lot of work anyway. Dot has become such a high maintenance girl that I only have about three uninterrupted hours each day. I'm really glad the dogs were healthy when my business was booming. There was a time when it wasn't uncommon to work eighteen hours a day.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1406

There are occasional benefits to dumping everything in the storage warehouse instead of just throwing it away like a normal person. While I was taking some things to the storage room today, I noticed some dusty old coats hanging in one corner. Among the coats was my favorite leather motorcycle jacket. This jacket was fairly snug even when I used to wear it in the 1970's. I haven't been able to get into the thing in decades. On a whim, I tried the jacket on again, and lo and behold, it fit. I know I've lost a lot of weight, but I didn't think that jacket would ever fit again. I dusted the coat off, put it on and continued my errands feeling younger than I have in years.

Although there were no new assignments today, there was still plenty to do. I have a long wish list from website clients that I'm still not sure how to fulfill. Whenever I have some extra time, I do a little research and see what I can learn to make these mostly odd wishes come true. I used to think I knew everything about the web, but increasingly I'm feeling like a stranger in a strange land. A lot has changed since 1995. I try to keep up, but I think I'm probably still a few years behind.

Dash saw a loose dog in the park this morning and panicked. Ever since he was attacked by another dog in the park several years ago, he gets extremely nervous whenever he sees a large dog off leash.  He has good reason to be afraid, since the other dog almost killed him during the attack. I feel terrible when I see how fearful Dash has become, but there isn't much I can do. I can't keep the dogs cooped up in the house all the time and Dallas is full of idiots who think it's perfectly fine to let their dogs off leash, even though there are sign ever 100 yards saying that it is illegal to do so. I just try to stay very aware of what's happening up in front of us and change direction if I see a loose dog.

I tried to make a doctor's appointment today and kept getting a message that said "due to unusually high call volumes, your wait will be longer than normal." I guess never is a lot longer than normal. They never did pick up the phone. I suspect that there never were high call volumes in the first place. It's a lot more likely that the receptionist just didn't show up for work this morning.

That bad thing is that other than driving across town to resolve the problem in person, I'll probably have to repeat this exercise in futility tomorrow. I still need to make the appointment. I did manage to get my toll tag account changed to my new license plate number though. Now, all I got to do is remember what this new number is. It took me years to remember the number on the old Defender plates.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1379

I thought I'd catch up on my bookkeeping today. I was sure that this little task would only take about thirty minutes, but it took hours. Oops! I had mistakenly entered a few items incorrectly in Quickbooks this month and I couldn't remember what they were. Eventually, I discovered my mistakes and got everything to balance again, but the whole process was a lot harder than it should have been. I sure hope that this isn't how Alzheimer's begins.

I have a new theory about how Dash injured his leg yesterday. I watched him closely on our morning walk to see if there was still any sign of a limp. The thing that struck me was how hard Dash scratches the ground after he lifts his leg and pees. A lot of male dogs scratch the ground with their rear legs. Dash does this ritual with all four legs. Dot and I have to make sure we're out of the way, or we'll get sprayed with dirt and grass. Sometimes he hits a hard patch of ground and one of his legs gets momentarily stuck. Watching him in action this morning, it seemed like he could have easily strained or sprained a muscle yesterday. Just a theory anyway.

My phone is starting to ask me to update to IOS 7. I don't really want to upgrade, since I'm perfectly happy with IOS 6. I'm probably out of luck though. I noticed this morning that IOS 7 had already downloaded itself through the cloud to my phone and is just waiting for me to install it. Sooner or later, I'll click on the wrong thing by mistake and IOS 7 will start installing itself whether I like it or not. That's kind of the way Apple is these days. You get accustomed to doing things Apple's way, or else.

The members of this business networking group I've started going to on Wednesday mornings encourage you to wear "Business attire" to meetings. For me, that would be a bathrobe, but to fit in, I've started digging my old suits and dress slacks out of the closet. Since I've lost so much weight this year, almost none of these clothes fit anymore. They're all too big. After a lifetime of seeing my clothes gradually become too small, I never anticipated something like this happening. I guess I could take some of the nicer clothes to the tailor and get them altered, but I'm not sure if there would be any point to this. As soon as I got the suits taken in, I'd start gaining weight again.

Scout is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1304

Dot's weather predicting nose told her that there was rain in the vicinity today and she made sure that I was properly warned. It never did rain in our neighborhood, but that didn't stop Dot from barking. The girl is loud. I feel like I've been sitting in the front row at a rock concert. Although I'm never a big fan of rain, I'll admit that we could have used a little moisture. It's been hot and dry for several weeks now and the plants in the back yard are starting to droop and wither.

I finally got around to sanding last week's Sheetrock repairs. The ceiling looks pretty smooth now, so I might just skip the subsequent steps and paint it now. The older I become, the less of a perfectionist I am

Dash's Allopurinol finally arrived this morning, so I made a trip to the vet to pick it up. Since I was already out and about, I drove over to Culwell & Son afterwards and picked out a new pair of Hiltl jeans for myself. I've lost enough weight recently that most of my existing pants are starting to look a little baggy. I'm not getting rid of the old pants though. I have a feeling that my waistline could easily revert to its old dimensions the next time I'm invited to a good barbecue.

One of the things on today's to-do list was fixing one of Janet's watches. A few years ago, I convinced myself that I'd make a good watch repairman and bought some watchmaking tools. It didn't take long to discover that I wasn't cut out to be a watch repairman. I'm just too clumsy. Watch parts are extremely tiny and delicate. All it takes is a random sneeze to scatter tiny screws everywhere. I pretty much limit myself to replacing batteries now. Even something as simple as changing batteries has its perils though. Once you take the back off a watch, all sorts of small things can fall out and disappear forever.

I've found that writing about watches is a lot easier than repairing them, so that's what I did today. I used to write a whole lot about the oil and gas industry and very little about luxury items. Now, its the other way around. As long as the writing jobs keep coming, I don't really care what I write about. I need to do something and I think I proved today that I'm not really cut out for tape and bed work or watch repair.

I feel like today went well. Everything on the to-do list got done. The lawn has been watered. Even the trash has been taken out to the curb for tomorrow's weekly garbage pickup. It's time to start daydreaming about what to have for breakfast tomorrow. I'm in an adventurous mood. Maybe I'll even look for a new restaurant.

Sophia is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1282 - My Birthday

How did this ever happen? I've got a Medicare card in my wallet. I'm 65. My advancing age is somewhat confusing, since, at least in in my own mind, I'm still 19. Let's face it. A career in advertising and the absence of children in my life is not conducive to maturity. In many ways, I'm the boy who never grew up. I find myself in a weird sort of Twilight Zone. I have little in common with contemporaries who now share pictures of the grandchildren their own grown children have bestowed on them. I have even less in common with the current crop of young folks. They weren't even born when the seminal events of my life took place. Neil Armstrong's famous words, Ken Kesey's acid tests, and Jimi Hendrix's remarkable performance at Woodstock are all ancient history to them. They look at these things they way I look at Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.

I'm certainly not crying in my beer about the situation though.  Oh, wait!  I can't drink beer anymore. My resolve to give up alcohol and change my diet has actually managed to turn back the clock in an odd sort of way. I feel much better than I did this time last year. I've lost twenty pounds. I have a lot more energy. And according to my doctors, my overall health has improved by just about any objective standard. There's even a much better treatment for hepatitis-c on the horizon, so maybe I can put eventually that behind me as well

I wish Dot wasn't so excitable. She got herself so worked up while the landscaping guys were here this morning sawing up the downed tree limb with their chain saws, that she tore a dewclaw. The vet got Dot patched up during her acupuncture appointment a few hours later, but she's got to learn to calm down. This wasn't the first nail she has torn or ripped out.

Like most birthdays in recent memory, this was just another work day. I completed a big update to an animal rescue website and wrote an article about watches. I didn't have to go up on the roof, because it was quite nice today. The dogs enjoyed their walks and so did I.

After dog training class this evening, Janet and I has a birthday celebration, complete with some delicious Sprinkles cupcakes. The dogs got little dog cupcakes as well. Yeah, I know. Cupcakes have sugar in them. I did forgo the alcohol though. I think I'm all set for another year.

Inky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1271

It was a typical Saturday. I went to the doctor's office to straighten out a fouled up prescription. I watered the big patch of yellowed grass in the front yard that the roofers killed, in hopes that it would come back to life. I put clean sheets on the bed, vacuumed the house, and unclogged the large format printer. I tried to re-attach some of the plywood that had come loose under the carport when water poured though the unfinished and largely unprotected roof a few weeks ago. The roofers should have done this themselves, but they didn't. The dogs got a walk too, but they didn't want to go far. It was pretty warm today.

Before getting started on my weekend chores, I finished up an article that I knew would be due Monday. Next week is going to be busy enough anyway, so I might as well try to get ahead of the game.

There are so many bills this month, it's driving me crazy. Homeowner's insurance is due on the house. There a big car repair bill. And of course there's the roof. Month after month, small checks from clients arrive in the mail and much larger checks are written to pay the relentless onslaught of bills. My investments are supposed to make up the difference, but that hasn't been working out so well lately. It's frustrating to say the least. I don't understand all these economists on TV saying that we are in a non-inflationary environment when the price of gas, food, utility bills, and just about everything else seems to have doubled. When the phone bill is twice what is used to be, that's inflation to me.

I bought some new jeans when I was running errands this afternoon. As my waistline keeps shrinking, my old pants are starting to feel too large. If simply losing weight was my goal, I'd think I've just about reached it. I suspect getting healthy isn't quite so simple, however. I'm beginning to wonder if I might have lost too much weight. Since periodic blood tests are the only way to tell if I'm headed in the right direction, it's really hard to tell on a day-to-day basis. It probably can't hurt to lose twenty pounds though. I'm not sure my liver appreciates the slimmer, trimmer me, but maybe it will help keep diabetes at bay.

I couldn't figure out why the dogs were both barking so wildly until I looked out the living room window and saw the cat they were looking at in the back yard. I'd never seen this cat before, but it was obviously stalking something. I told the dogs to be nice to the cat, because it was helping us get rid of rats. I don't think Dot and Dash were listening, because they kept right on barking.

Our neighbors are having a party. There's one of those gourmet food trucks parked in their driveway. You can tell the kids are getting older when a food truck replaces the ubiquitous birthday bounce house. I'm curious what the food truck is serving, but not curious enough to become a party crasher.

Lacey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day