Day 3531

I got off to a slow start this morning. I was planning to go to the gym early, but that didn't happen. All my little errands took twice as long as I'd planned. I was lucky that I made it out of the house before noon. Before I even finished my routine this morning, I knew it wasn't going to be a 20,000 step day.

Maybe I was tired because I'm still not sleeping well. I think we need a new mattress. Janet and I both need a very firm mattress and after years of big dogs hopping on the bed, ours has seen better days. Maybe there's another reason why I'm waking up too early, but this is the best I can come up with.

I found out today that one of our friends dogs has cancer. It's sad that so many dogs have to deal with this. It's rare for a dog to reach old age these days without being treated for some form of cancer. Spot, Gretta, Dot, and Dash all had different forms of cancer. It's terrible when the lab results come back and you find out the the growth that was removed by the surgeons a few weeks ago is malignant. You feel helpless. The only silver lining is that treatment options are so much better than they used to be. Spot, Dot and Dash all survived their treatment and went on to lead normal lives. Gretta was the only one that didn't make it.

I've decided that I'm a terrible travel planner. Every day I think of something else I've forgotten. When I went to Florida to view the Falcon Heavy launch I forgot a lot of things. When we go to the observatory, I'm sure I'll forget a lot of things too. I usually remember to bring the right computers, cables, and cameras, but I often forget to bring enough clothes. If I were rich, I'd travel with no luggage whatsoever and just buy what I need when I got there.

I'm trying to decide whether to see if I can interview astronomers at the observatory, or just let my article be a personal recollection of the evening. These are two different types of articles. It's hard to say what the magazine would be looking for. I'm inclined to just tell a personal story. The magazine had probably interviewed hundreds of astronomers over the years. It's unlikely that they've encountered someone like me. I'm likely to submit an article that has more about wild pigs than telescopes.

I didn't get my 20,000 steps today. I did manage to accumulate 17,000 steps with only a single walk. I guess that's good enough. I was tempted to go out after dinner and take a second walk, but it was already getting dark. I don't think I'll be doing much walking after dark in Dallas. All it takes is a couple of days of listening to the local news and it's easy to become convinced that doing anything after dark isn't such a good idea.

We'll see if I can get a good night's sleep this evening. I'm tired and I didn't take any naps today. Maybe that will help.

Pinkey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1693

I got up even earlier than usual this morning so I could walk Dash before taking Dot to the cancer center for her first re-check since the surgery. The doctors were really pleased with Dot's progress, but offered no easy solution to our current problems with incontinence and muscle weakness. It's going to take time for Dot's kidneys to start concentrating urine normally again and we should expect the weakness in her rear legs to gradually improve when she resumes her physical therapy. The good news is that Dot is recovering remarkable well from the surgery itself. After leaving Dot at the cancer center for for the day to get some additional tests, we got a green light to resume water therapy and we don't need to return for another recheck until early October.

I'm delighted at how well Dot is doing, but sure wish we could resolve her incontinence problems a little faster. I'm beyond tired now. Last night was exhausting. We had another major accident in the bed. It wasn't Dot's fault. We didn't waterproof the bed properly and forgot to take up her water bowl after 10 PM. After changing all the sheets in the middle of the night, I just gave up and slept on the floor with the dogs for the rest of the night. I'm thinking that it might be easier to just continue sleeping on the floor until Dot's condition improves. Sleeping on two dog beds pushed together isn't great, but it sure beats pulling all the bedding off the bed in the middle of the night while I'm still half asleep. So far, the mattress hasn't gotten wet, but it's only a matter of time if we let Dot continue sleeping on the bed at night.

I'm so compulsive that I kept waking up and throwing another load of laundry in the washer every hour or so for the rest of the night. The dogs were surprisingly good through all this. Dash curled up on one of the dog beds with me, while Dot lay by my side on a pile of blankets. It was a lot easier to get her out to pee this way, since we were already halfway to the back door. By morning I had all the laundry done and there were no further bed wetting incidents. I'm still not sure where I'll sleep tonight, but the floor is looking better and better.

While Dot was at the cancer center getting tested this morning, I had a chance to get out of the house and run a few necessary errands. I'm going to try to make an appointment to resume some gentle water therapy later this week. When Dot gets a little stronger and can dependably get up and down again, I'll feel a lot better about leaving her alone with Dash for a few hours.

I took several short cat naps during the day, but I feel like I could easily sleep for 12 hours straight if I was given the opportunity. The house is a mess, but I'm still getting my work done and Dot continues to get better with each passing day. I didn't really realize that the baby steps we're taking included cleaning up pee every night, but I'm trying to take it all in stride. Here's hoping that everything is peaceful, calm and completely uneventful tomorrow.

Pebbles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 691

Most of the clocks in the house have been dutifully set back an hour, but I certainly don't feel like I've gained an hour today. Since we slept in a bit later than usual this morning, our extra hour was gone before we even got up. The time might have changed, but nothing else did. After breakfast, we took the Dot and Dash up to Wagging Tail Dog Park and on the way home we stopped by Vhea's LaundroMutt and gave them a bath. We don't give the dogs a bath every Sunday; just when we realize that they've started smelling like dogs again.

I mowed the grass for what is hopefully the last time this season. The yard will soon be covered with leaves and the lawn mower will be returned to the greenhouse again, where it generally serves as a Winter home for wayward rats.

In between chores, I started reading the owner's manual for the new AG-AF100 camera. Jeez, this thing is complicated. It supports both NTSC and PAL. You can shoot in 60i, 24p, 50i, 30p, plus a few other formats I'd never even heard of. There are so many options that the instruction manuel is an inch thick. All I basically learned today was how to set the day/date clock.

I got an e-mail from Design Within Reach this weekend, telling me that they were putting all their Sonno mattresses and bedding on sale. 15% off on everything! You'd think they could have told us this when we bought our mattress a few weeks ago. All they would have to have said was "hey, just wait a few weeks and you'll save some money." Few salespeople will do that though. They're all afraid that you'll change your mind and not buy anything.

The dogs certainly haven't changed their mind about the neighbor's cat. The cat jumped out right in front of us on the way home from our evening walk today and Dot and Dash just about pulled my arms out of their sockets trying to get at it. I'm pretty sure that these dogs are the source of all my shoulder and neck problems. You can't really blame them though. They're just acting like normal dogs.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 667

It was a nice day. I got up early to meet the Design Within Reach truck. For some reason, they decided to deliver our new mattress at 8 AM this morning. The mattress arrived compressed in a huge tube. The delivery guys said I was supposed to unseal the tube and the mattress would uncoil and spring back to its original shape. I wasn't sure if this expansion process was gradual or an explosion, so I decided not to open the package until later.

The dogs and I ate breakfast, had a nice walk in the cool Fall weather and then returned to face the large box in the living room with a rolled up king sized mattress inside. I took the tube out of the cardboard box and placed it on top of the existing mattress. This way, if things didn't go as planned when the compressed foam expanded, there wouldn't be other things in the way that could get broken. Sure enough, when I broke the seal on the heavy vinyl tube, the rolled up mattress slowly began to uncoil and return to its original shape. The delivery guys told me that the mattress could take up to 8 hours to fully expand, but it looked pretty normal after just twenty minutes.

I didn't get a single call from clients today, which gave me the time I needed to finally finish updating the animal rescue site I've been working on all week. I added 42 new pages to the site, uploaded everything to the server and then went to Bed Bath and Beyond to look for a mattress pad for the new mattress. Why do mattress pads cost over $100 these days? Probably for the same reasons fry pans and chef knives cost over $100. Whenever I buy something cheap at Bed Bath and Beyond, there are tons of those blue 20% off coupons around the house. Today, when I needed a coupon, I couldn't find any. Oh, well.

Tomorrow is my last physical therapy session. My neck is still a little sore, but the therapy has made a huge difference. I'm really glad I took this route, rather than just trying to mask things with pain pills. If I have the discipline to continue all the exercises they have designed for me, I should be in a lot better shape six months from now.

Puppies are today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 665

Before breakfast this morning, I took my car up to the Land Rover dealer for it's 105,000 mile service. While I waited for them to get my loaner car ready, I watched all the glittery people drop off their $80,000 Range Rovers. My Defender 90 is almost always the oldest and most humble car at the dealership, but it's still cool. Everyone loves the Defender. This is the quintessential man's car. It is simple, practical and yet still manages to seem just a little exotic. People still stop me in the street and offer to buy the car for more than I paid for it new.

When I went home again to walk the dogs, they were confused by the LR2 loaner car in the driveway. They thought Janet was back home again because the cars looked the same. They were obviously good at recognizing shapes, but not so good at noticing that there was only one car in the driveway. After our walk, I tried to postpone the day a little longer with a big breakfast of eggs and sausages, but eventually I had to get to work.

With all the work on my desk these days, I should be making a ton of money. Unfortunately this is not the case. I need to raise my prices across the board, but many of my clients would leave if I charged more for anything. I wish they would ban all these commercials coming from Intuit and others that promise professional looking websites for only $9.95 a month. This devaluation of design is ruining my business. Truthfully, many of my clients have tried these template sites and then came to me after they discovered that their competitors often had exactly the same design. Unfortunately, even after they realize the value of custom work, they still don't want to pay very much. Writing still pays well if the final result is actually printed on paper. If it just winds up on the web however, all bets are off. Nobody wants to pay much for something that's on the web.

Dash had another antigen shot today. I need to get my invoices out tomorrow. I used to send invoices on the first of every month, but gradually invoicing had slipped a bit, just like everything else. I'll be lucky if I get the billing out by the middle of the month if everything continues to stay this busy. I'm even having trouble finding time to do the exercises that are part of my physical therapy. I'll be the first to admit that I don't work at a fast and furious pace, but there should still be a lot more left over time. Every second of my day seems to be allocated already.

Design Within Reach says the new mattress should arrive at the house tomorrow. They don't have a tracking number however, and don't seem to know where the mattress is now. I think it's a pretty safe bet that nothing is going to arrive tomorrow.

Katy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 655

We went to the Lake Highlands Octoberfest this afternoon. This event is put on by the Lake Highlands Exchange Club to raise money for the scholarships it provides to the local high school. This year's event took place at the never completed Lake Highlands Town Center. The Town Center is a beautiful development that was supposed to revitalize the entire neighborhood. Unfortunately, the project ran into financial problems during the big financial meltdown of 2008 and was never completed. There is a beautifully landscaped urban park, nice streets and plenty of parking, but no buildings whatsoever. It's a good place to have a neighborhood fundraiser though. I had a grilled bratwurst and a Weizen beer and enjoyed the Sunny Fall afternoon.

We also ordered our new mattress at the Design Within Reach store. Janet liked the same firm mattress I did, so hopefully we'll be getting a little more restful sleep in a few weeks. We didn't ask the dogs which mattress they'd like best. They'll sleep anywhere. Usually right on top of us.

I'm still trying to get caught up on one of the animal rescue websites I manage. After months with no updates whatsoever, these guys decide to send me a ton of new animals they want on their site all at once. There must be twenty-five or thirty new animals and each one needs a page of it's own. It's going to take me four or five days to get everything updated.

I think the physical therapy is actually working. Even after one session I found it was easier to get out of bed this morning and the pain in my neck didn't seem as bad when I walked the dogs this afternoon either. I'll cross my fingers and hope that after a few weeks of these sessions, I'll be able to get back to a normal schedule again.

Tori is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 650

Just an ordinary Monday. I paid some bills. I called some clients. I went and bought some frames for a photo commission I got recently. Since I've been getting e-mails almost every day saying the special Avid Media Composer cross promotion for Final Cut Pro users was almost over, I went over to Videotex and picked up a copy of Media Composer. While I was there I got some other video stuff as well, in hopes that my video production business will improve. Probably most importantly, I also made an appointment for physical therapy on my neck. Yesterday at the golf tournament, I talked to several people who had neck and back problems. This wasn't too encouraging, since it appears that all neck injuries take a long time to recover from.

I think it's time to start looking for a new mattress. Like most things in my life, this seemingly easy task is going to be a giant pain. We have one of those low platform beds that you can't use a regular mattress and box spring set with. There are a few companies who make good quality king size mattresses for this type of bed, but they are never stocked by your typical Mattress Universe store. Usually you have to go to a store like Design Within Reach and special order something from Italy or something. All I know is that it will cost way more than any sensible person would want to pay for a mattress and won't arrive until months after my neck has finally healed.

Someone asked me today if I'd be interested in writing reviews of childern's books. Wow. That would be a stretch. I've never had children. I don't really understand children. And can't remember ever reading a children's book. Now, if you asked me to write reviews about German watches, fast cars or DSLR cameras...that I could do.

Suki is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day