Day 4310

I spent the day trying to stay ahead of the rain which still hasn't arrived. They say it's supposed to rain later this evening. I don't know why I put so much faith in weather forecasts because they are seldom right. At least getting an early start allowed me to get some things done today. I wasn't really trying to get things done, but I had so much time on my hands that boredom set in and I actually did some vacuuming and house cleaning.

I'm not going to be able to wear shorts much longer. It was a little chilly on our morning walks. Dawn reverted to her short one mile loop and I took my regular long walk high after I finished breakfast. There was a light mist in the air, but I didn't really get wet. This was a far cry from the hundred degree walks I was taking earlier this summer. It's pleasant to walk without getting hot and sweaty, but my feet are starting to hurt again. Probably my special running shoes are starting to wear out and it's time to break in a new pair. I keep thinking that I just got these shoes but the soles tell another story. I've put a lot of miles on these puppies.

Tuesday is cleaning day at our house. Personally, I don't mind a little dust. It's easy to convince myself that dust protects things. Janet sees things differently. I'm sure she'd rather I'd just get out of the way, but I'd already taken my walk and I thought it was going to rain. I did the vacuuming today. I'm no better at vacuuming than anybody else but I am better at cleaning the vacuum cleaner. I don't know why we got a Dyson. Our old vacuum was so much easier to use. All the dust just went in a bag that you threw away when it got full. The Dyson has no bag and you practically have to take the thing apart to get it clean. I have to take the canister outside and use the leaf blower to get the leftover dust out of the canister after I have emptied it. You shouldn't have to use a leaf blower to clean your vacuum. This is typical of me. I'm more worried about dust in the vacuum cleaner than dust in the house.

I got a letter from Medicare today detailing the charges for my hospital visit. Some things were more expensive than I thought they'd be and other things were less. I was a little surprised that the anesthesiologist seem to make more money than the surgeon. A lot of labs test seemed relatively cheap. Medical billing is a complete mystery to me. The initial charges are always quite high. Medicare seems to pay surprisingly little. Always at the end of the day the whole thing just goes away. Maybe my supplemental insurance picks up the rest. Maybe all these numbers are just imaginary. Hospitals seem to know how it all works. Most patients don't.

I wish dogs had health insurance. The only time I get a true picture of what things actually cost is when one of our dogs has become seriously ill. Our dogs have had MRI's, CAT scans, ultrasound imaging, neurosurgery, radiation therapy, chemotherapy, and much more, all using the same machinery and medications that humans use. It can get expensive.

There is a crew behind the house tearing up the alley again. They are destroying the work they did just a few weeks ago. These guys dig a big hole with a backhoe, no pipes of leaks seem to be uncovered, then they fill the hole in again. Today they ripped out the concrete they poured  earlier, dug an even bigger hole, and then filled it in with new concrete. They seem to make a lot of phone calls to their supervisor. I may be wrong, but I don't think these guys know what they are doing. Luckily we don't use this alley for anything. Our neighbors who use it as a driveway are probably pretty mad.

The weather app on my phone says we will have all day rain tomorrow. I don't know whether to believe this or not.

Kuuipo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2837

We have time to experiment on weekends. We walked Dash before we tried to feed him this morning to see if it would improve his appetite. It didn't seem to make a whole lot of difference. He is eating a little more consistently now. He'll eat the Castor & Pollux stew in the morning, but still wants to take his morning pills with banana bread. After 11 AM he'll usually eat other brands of wet food, including the Hills ID he is supposed to be eating. By evening he'll sometimes even eat dry food. It's complicated feeding him, but I do think Dash is getting enough nutrition now.

The knee brace we ordered came in this morning's mail, so we gave that a try on our evening walk. I think we must have attached it wrong, because it didn't seem to stay in place very well. The rubber booties we've started using to protect Dash's paws seem to stay on a lot better in dry weather. It's also a lot easier to find them again when they slip off when Janet and I are walking together. I'm still worried about Dash getting a cut. The vet said that the blood will still clot when using Plavix, but it will take longer. A nurse told me this morning to apply compression to the wound for five minutes and use an ice pack. I'm not sure how practical that is with a frantic dog. Hopefully, we'll all be careful and Dash won't get cut.

Today was filled with routine weekend errands. I filled a prescription, got gas for the car, went to the bank, and picked up the things we buy in bulk from Sam's Club. Premium gas seems to be in short supply again. I had to go to three gas stations before I found one that had premium. Peaches and strawberries must be going out of season because I've noticed that they've been getting more expensive for the past several weeks. I always forget something when I'm out shopping. Today I forgot laundry detergent and peppercorns.

I got a letter from my supplemental insurance plan saying that they were planning to discontinue several benefits that I've grown to like. I bet this is going to continue happening as long as I'm alive. Healthcare is such a mess that I can't imagine that it will ever get better. I just hope that it gets worse slowly. One of the few benefits of being older is that I don't have to worry about a lifetime of lousy care. The insurance system worked pretty well when I was younger and Medicare works reasonably well now. I just hope the program stays solvent for the next twenty years.

Now the the reality of Dash's medical condition has set in, I think we're going to be OK. We don't have a lot of options, but we still have a wonderful dog. We'll take things one day at a time. We'll monitor his condition the best we can. And we'll do our best to keep Dash's life enjoyable and fun as long as we can. If we're lucky with the Plavix, his condition may even improve.

If I want my own condition to improve, I really need to start going to the gym more often. I'm going to try to go tomorrow. I've got to finish my article tomorrow as well.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2668

Dot wouldn't settle down this morning, so I skipped going out to breakfast. I don't know what has changed, but she is more active now after we return from our morning walk. It's a good thing I stayed home, because she needed to go outside to pee twice while I was sitting in the kitchen eating my frozen toaster waffle. I walked her around half a dozen times before she finally settled down around 10 AM.

While I was waiting for Dot to go back to sleep, there was a knock on the door. The roofers had arrived. I wasn't expecting the roofers at all today. Truthfully, I wasn't even expecting them this month, so it was somewhat of a happy accident that I decided to stay home this morning. I went up on the roof with the crew to show them where the damaged areas were. There was still water on the roof, but the guys said they would blow it away with a leaf blower before they made their repairs. I would have picked a sunny day to come out, but beggars can't be choosers. I was glad they were here.

The repairs only took a couple of hours and then the roofers were gone again. I was a little worried that it would rain this afternoon before the patched areas had completely dried, but the skies cleared and the temperature got warmer as the day progressed. I think the patches will have plenty of time to cure properly and maybe I won't have to worry about leaks again for the rest of the Summer.

Dash has started throwing up again. This has happened periodically for years. I take him to the vet and they can never find anything wrong. They either tell me to give him a Pepcid, or if he vomits more than once they prescribe some Cerenia. Usually this takes care of the problem. I used to think that Dash had just eaten something bad in the park, but this has been going on so long that I now suspect that there is something else involved. Intermittent problems like this are very hard to diagnose. I'll talk to Dash's oncologist the next time we go in for a check up, but I think he just suggested taking a Pepcid too.

Since Dot has switched her nap time to the afternoon, I waited until she was asleep to go to the store and pick up something for dinner. On my way to Central Market I stopped by my doctor's office to ask why I was no longer receiving reminders to come in for lab work. I used to get lab work done every three months, but the nurse I talked to today told me that Medicare will now only cover once set of labs per year. Did I really ever need the extra blood tests when the doctor was able to bill them out? I'll never really know. Maybe once a year is enough, but I'd have a blood test every week if I could. Frequent tests allow you to chart the results and see if a change in diet or meds is making a difference. Once a year isn't really enough. An annual test will warn you if something really alarming is happening, but it doesn't let you monitor subtle changes. The neighborhood health food store used to offer low cost blood tests several times a year. The tests only cost $25 and I would always take advantage of them. It was really disappointing when one of the guys administering these tests unexpectedly died of a heart attack and the testing service was discontinued. The fact that these $25 tests went to the same lab as the $400 tests my own doctor gave me told me everything I needed to know about the health care system. As soon as insurance gets involved, things suddenly get very expensive.





The dogs are both quiet now. Nobody is pooping or throwing up. I hope it stays that way. Whenever Dot and Dash are having problems at the same time, I realize that one high maintenance dog is really all I can handle. I'm glad the roofers finally made good on their promise. That's one more thing I can cross off my list. Now, I just need to get the landscapers to come out and take care of the back yard.

Flash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1632

I got a letter in the mail from the local social security office today reminding me that I was approaching full retirement age and suggesting that I apply for social security benefits online. Applying online is safer, faster, and easier the letter said. I would have appreciated this friendly reminder a lot more if it weren't for the fact that I'd already applied for social security online well over a month ago. Apparently a month is not long enough to get on their radar yet. Lord knows how long this process actually takes, or when they will discover that I have applied already. Hopefully the process is not as long or confusing as applying for medicare. For the first six months after I began receiving medicare, they rejected all the claims my doctors sent them, telling them that medicare was not my primary insurance.

When I was finally able to find a real person with enough knowledge to sort things out, I discovered that since medicare had not received a formal notice from my "employer" that I had retired, they just assumed that I was still working and was covered by group insurance. I told them that I was self employed and didn't have an employer. I was my own employer. This seemed to be a strange concept to grasp for bureaucrats who had spent their entire lives having a boss and working for someone else. They didn't seem to understand that being self employed and unemployed were two different things entirely. Eventually, the medicare problems were worked out and I suppose eventually I will start receiving social security checks as well. You just can't have very high expectations when the government is involved.

I found time to go to the gym today and it felt good to get back on a regular workout schedule again. I was surprised at how crowded the gym was on a Wednesday afternoon. I suppose the weather had something to do with it. The temperatures are already in the 90's in the afternoons. It's been very humid this week too. I think the cool Spring days where people would rather stay outside are over.

I saw my first wasp nest of the season tucked away under the eaves of the house. This means that for the rest of the Summer, I will be constantly trying to knock these things down before they grow too large and become a danger. If you leave these nests alone, they grow to huge proportions and become a home for hundreds of wasps. The mosquitoes seem bad this year too. At least the dead possum in the neighbor's yard is gone. I don't know what happened to it, but I certainly didn't touch it.

I'm having trouble deciding whether the dogs enjoy going back to training class on Wednesday evenings. Dot is too old and tired to do many of the activities she used to excel at and Dash just wants to play with the other dogs. Although neither dog appears to enjoy the "training" aspect of the class anymore, they both still enjoy getting out of the house and doing something different. Dot sits out the difficult exercises now and Dash seems to have forgotten how to sit, but I guess we'll keep going.

Tomorrow is Dot's acupuncture and physical therapy day. I moved her appointment from Wednesday to Thursday because I thought physical therapy plus training class might be too much for her. She might have been just fine though, since she spent most of tonight's class sitting under a tree.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1573

The weather forecast was right. It rained all day today. There were a couple of short windows of opportunity were I was able to take the dogs outside to do their business, but basically we didn't leave the house today. A cold front must have passed through last night, because it was about 20 degrees colder than it was yesterday. It would have been a good day to light a fire in the fireplace, if we had a fireplace. It might have been a good day to watch a movie on TV as well, if there was anything I felt like watching. We get hundreds of cable channels, but there are only three or four of them that I actually watch. Half the channels in Dallas are in Spanish anyway. On the movie channels, the same Disney movies, Lifetime chickflix, Apocalyptic action movies, and the perennial You've Got Mail and Forest Gump seem to play over and over again.

This was especially irritating today when I paid my latest cable bill and noticed that it had gone up by 30%. What a waste of money. I should probably drop cable entirely and just stick with Netflix and Hulu. I wish you could buy cable channels à la carte. I watch three or four channels and Janet watches three or four more. A plan that included only ten channels would probably be quite reasonable. 

The cable companies still seem quite reasonable compared to the government however. As I've grown older, I'd had to sign up for several government websites. I tried to visit several of these websites today. Each site has their own peculiar password protocols, so you can't use a common, easy-to-remember password to access all of them. What's worse, each site forces you to change your password every six months. It's ridiculous. Once you do manage to login successfully, you usually discover that all your information is wrong anyway. As I slowly learn to navigate the byzantine complexities of the Medicare system, I realize that this is probably what Obamacare will be like for everybody in the near future. I don't think my parents ever really realized that they lived in the best of times. I think I grew up at the tail end of those days of limitless opportunities. The dream may not be over, but it certainly has tarnished a bit.

On one of our short walks between the recurring thunderstorms we passed a small pale blue egg. It must have fallen out of a nearby tree during a burst of wind. The little bird inside isn't going to make it. It was very cold and wet outside today and incubating eggs need to stay warm to hatch. This unlucky egg was already stone cold. This brief encounter reminded me that nature isn't always kind. Nature still probably has a better batting average in this regard than humans do however.

Dash gets his tenth radiation treatment tomorrow. We will pass the halfway mark this week. Dash has been an inspiration through all this. Even though this has been a very rough couple of months for  him with major surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, he still greets each day full of energy and enthusiasm. In many ways he actually seems happier now than when we started this journey. He gets lots of attention and maybe that's all a dog really wants. Dot is equally amazing. She can barely walk on some days, but she still soldiers on as if she's indestrudtible. If I had Dot's determination and Dash's optimism I would be unstoppable.

Paxton is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1542

What a difference a day makes. Against all odds, it was actually a very nice day. I figured out how to do something I didn't think I could do for a web client. Jawbone wrote me and said they were sending me a new UP fitness band to replace my defective one. I had a visit with my hepatology team and they has some very encouraging news. For the first time in ten years my blood chemistry was completely normal. They will have to do much more extensive testing to determine if the Hepatitis-C virus is actually gone, but normal liver enzyme levels is definitely a sign that the treatment I'm receiving is working.

Although anyone who saw me walking the dogs today probably thought I was nuts, I think I have solved the problem of Dash escaping from his harness. I just use his normal collar as a backup and walk him with two leashes. The harness still carries his weight and the leash around his neck is slack most of the time, so it wouldn't irritate his incision. I tried several Rube Goldberg contraptions I made out of old harnesses, but none of them worked well. The problems was always the same. If he pulled one harness off, he pulled everything off. Two separate leashes seems like a more secure solution. It is a bit more difficult walking two dogs with three leashes, but I'm getting the hang of it. Hopefully, Dash will have healed sufficiently to start walking him normally again soon.

I think may have resolved my Medicare problems too. At least the billing lady didn't give me a dirty look when I went to the doctor today. I like days when nothing goes wrong. I don't need anything spectacular to keep me happy. An absense of problems is usually enough. Did I mention that it was warmer today as well. That usually helps.

Things are calm enough now that I may resume going out to breakfast on Fridays again. I've missed that little break in my day. It may be a while before we start going to the dog park again and I'm still too busy to go to the gym on a regular basis, but things are finally starting to move in the right direction. Even the stock market was up today. For the moment, life is good.

Anne is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1541

Today was a nightmare. Dash managed to wriggle out of his harness during our morning walk and escape. I've been afraid this might happen ever since we started using the harness. This guy is a harness Houdini. He can get out of virtually any harness on the market in a matter of seconds if he really wants to. He just moves backwards very quickly, ducks his head and the whole thing comes off over the top of his head. His shoulders are so narrow and his front legs are so close together that the harness quickly falls to his feet and he's out.

I was terrified, because Dash wasn't even wearing a collar because of his neck incision. He has a tendency to run away too. Dash immediately ran about ten feet from me and stopped. I put Dot in a sit-stay and told her to not to move while I cautiously approached Dash. With no collar and no harness, there was little to grab hold of. Dash is not a very obedient dog, but he is very empathetic. I think he knew I was frightened, and became frightened too. When I cautiously reached out and held him tightly to my body, he was shaking like a leaf. I literally begged him to stay still while I tried to get the harness back on. Getting the harness attached can be difficult even at home and it was much harder in an open field. Dash panics at just about anything and I was continually afraid that he was going to bolt and run away. Eventually, I had him secure again and we all headed immediately home.

Through the whole ordeal, the ever-obedient Dot didn't move an inch. I think Dot may have saved the day. The always insecure Dash has become very dependent on Dot and I think he didn't want to leave her behind, with or without a leash. If I was alone with him, it might have been a different story. He probably would have thought it would be great fun to run as far and fast as he could. I know one thing for sure. I'm never going to trust that harness again. This was the highly recommended "inescapable" harness too. I still haven't come up with a good "Plan-B" for tomorrow.

When I got the dogs safely back home again, I ate a bowl of oatmeal and set about dealing with the day's other problems. I got on the phone and tried to resolve a vexing Medicare issue. Then I tried to get my jury duty summons postponed until sometime this Summer. Since both of these things involved dealing with government bureaucrats, it was a very unsatisfying experience. I still don't know whether anything actually got resolved.

Dot panicked and started to swim again during our water therapy session this afternoon. I don't know what causes this, because 80% of the time, she's just fine. My theory is that occasionally, the technicians add too much water to the tank and Dot starts to float. She's got a good set of lungs. I imagine she would float quite easily. At any rate, maybe my theory is correct. When I asked if they could drain three inches of water from the tank, everything was fine again.

I did some work today, but it was all a blur. Dash totally stressed me out. The two dogs provide the only real sense of purpose I have left. I try my best to protect them, and don't know what I would do without them. Luckily, everything ended well this morning. I didn't panic. And neither did Dot or Dash.

Rory is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1526

Another stressful day. We've known for some time that Dash has a lipoma in his neck. These fatty tumors are very common in dogs and most of them are benign. When I took Dash for his antigen shot today, his vet thought that the lipoma had grown a bit and wanted to run some tests to make sure it wasn't malignant. She aspirated cells from several sections of the tumor and sent them off to a pathologist for analysis. We should know the results before the end of the week. If the growth is a normal fatty lipoma we don't need to do anything. If the cells are abnormal or malignant, more tests and even surgery may be required.

I certainly hope the growth isn't cancer. We have had two dogs that have had cancer. Spot, our first Dalmatian, remained cancer free after some serious surgery that removed six inches of his intestines. Gretta wasn't so lucky. She died two days after a surgeon tried to remove a cancerous lobe from her liver. She didn't even make it home from the surgery center. Hopefully, the growth in Dash's throat is benign. It is in a difficult place, right next to his carotid artery. It would take a very skilled surgeon to successfully remove it.

If any of you have had to switch to Obamacare, you have my sympathies. I'm on Medicare now, and even though the government has had decades to work out all the kinks, Medicare is still a huge mess. I'm almost certain that Obamacare will be worse, since it's brand new. I found out today that even though I enrolled in Medicare over six months ago, none of my claims have been processed. Apparently Medicare still thinks my "employer" is paying for my health insurance, not realizing of course that I have been my own employer for over twenty years. The group insurance plan I discontinued last June when I enrolled in Medicare is still listed as my primary health insurance and Medicare is listed as secondary insurance on Medicare's own website. After calling three different numbers and sitting on hold for almost an hour, I finally ended up talking to someone who understood my problem. They have an entire department dedicated to resolving these type of problems because they are so commonplace. I think it's called the Coordination of Benefits Department. The lady I talked to was very nice and told me that she had updated my records to indicate that Medicare was now my primary insurance. She never told me how the group plan I discontinued over six months ago had gotten into the system however. Evidently mistakes like these are quite common when you are self-employed. When I asked if there was anything else I needed to do, the lady casually mentioned that I needed to have all my doctors submit their claims again. "But you already have all their information," I said. "Can't you just reprocess it?" No can do, the lady told me. The doctors will have to start over and resubmit all their claims. They'll have to wait ten days before they do this too. That's how long it takes for the government databases to be updated with the new information they entered today.

A can light in the bathroom ceiling burned out this morning. I got a ladder and looked at the fixture, but couldn't find anything wrong. I hate to call an electrician because they will charge me $300 or more to do something simple that I could do myself.  I hate to do this job myself either. If I remember correctly, the last time I tried to fix something up on the ceiling was when I managed to get my neck out of joint and had to go to physical therapy for three months. Whatever happened to the fixture also managed to ruin one of my fancy new LED light bulbs. These LED bulbs are supposed to be indestructible and last forever. Apparently not.

Maybe tomorrow will be better. I can't think of many good things that happened today at all.

Bailey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1322

I have a working garbage disposal again. Based on what electricians typically charge, I will probably get a $200 bill for installing a simple $2 Single Pole Single Throw Toggle Switch that I happened to have on hand anyway. I suspected that the on/off switch might be the problem and bought another one last week. I should have just done the work myself. I'm a bit reluctant to get involved with electricity anymore though. After several dubious self-repair attempts where I nearly electrocuted myself, I now think it's best to leave these things to a qualified electrician. Live wires, running water, and stainless steel counter tops aren't necessarily a good combination.

I'm frequently faced with situations like this. I basically know what needs to be done, but don't have the tools or experience to do the job properly. I learned the hard way when I used to do a lot of my own auto repairs that there is nothing more irritating than getting an engine disassembled and not being able to get it back together again. Faced with the choice of doing something inexpensively myself or paying someone else to take responsibility for the whole mess, I'll usually opt to pay someone else. I'm convinced that there is good karma involved in paying someone too much to do something simple. I'm sure many of my website clients feel like they're paying me too much to do something simple. Maybe hiring an electrician to install a simple switch is just my way to pay it forward. I'd like to think so anyway.

I finally found a company in England that said it could send me the elusive engine part I need for the Defender 90. I copied down all the information about the part, drove over to the Land Rover dealer and told them to order it. Seems like they could have found this part themselves, but I'm not complaining. Maybe I'll have a reliable car again by the end of the Summer.

One good thing happened today. I stopped by my primary care physician to schedule my next round of blood tests and casually mentioned that I'm on Medicare now.  They didn't drop me! Yay! I've heard so many horror stories about doctors who refuse to deal with Medicare, even when someone has been a patient for years, that I'm a bit nervous to tell my doctors that my insurance has changed. My insurance agent told me that since I got the best available supplemental insurance policy, my medical coverage would be even better than I had before. Not true! So far, my old group plan appears to have been much better.

I did get to go to the gym today. I figured that I needed some kind of reward for dealing with Dot and the electricians. Dot absolutely hates to have visitors over to the house. The only people allowed are Janet, Dash and me. Once again, she got so agitated this morning that she pooped all over the hallway while she was barking. Somehow Dash even managed to get in the line of fire. When the electricians left, I found poop on him too.

Tink 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 1203

Did anything happen today? I don't think so. The combination of a slow Monday and April Fool's Day made me a bit skeptical of everything I saw on the Internet or heard on TV.  Pranking seems the thing to do these days. Google+ was full of plausible misinformation. I'm not a big fan of practical jokes, but kept thinking it would be funny if everything on Wikipedia and The Onion were actually true today. Who knows. Maybe Kim Jong Un's belicose treats to annihilate the world are just an elaborate April Fool's Joke. I'm a fairly literal person and I find it increasingly difficult to separate fact from fiction. Are the president and congress just pranking us, or is the world really this screwed up? Maybe Kris Kristofferson said it best, when he wrote. "He's a walkin' contradiction, partly truth and partly fiction," Every day is April Fool's to me.

After bragging to the vet during her acupuncture session about how quickly Dot seemed to be recovering, she appeared to have a rough time just an hour later on her evening walk. I guess that just goes to show that you've got to take almost everything one day at a time. Dot is an old dog. I can't let myself forget that.

I wrote some articles today for clients who are still on vacation until Wednesday or Thursday. I don't know what the rush was. I guess I just like to keep busy. I don't like to keep too busy though. Even though I still need some more rocks to complete the back yard, I haven't made a return visit to the rock store yet. Moving all those rocks around last week was hard work. Writing articles is much easier. I'll write another article tomorrow and save the rocks for later.

Janet and I have started receiving an avalanche of mail and telephone calls, all telling us that it's time to start thinking about Medicare. Hey, why don't you wait a while guys. I feel old enough already. I had no idea that Medicare was such a profitable business. Dozens of companies are spending big money sending out fancy four-color brochures and hiring telemarketing companies to solicit my business. I don't know about Medicare, but I do know about marketing. If there wasn't a big profit in all this, these companies wouldn't be trying nearly as hard to get my business. 

Haley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1156

The specter of medicare on the horizon is already starting to bother me. I've finally got a group of doctors that I like along with some pretty decent health insurance. I'd hate to lose all this when the government takes over. Since nobody seems to know anything specific about medicare except the people who are already using it, I thought I'd do a little research. I discovered that medicare advantage plans and supplemental insurance are completely different. I also learned that you don't need both. I learned that part-d prescription drug coverage is really just another form of supplemental insurance. Most importantly, I learned that insurance companies and health care providers make a ton of money from selling medicare advantage programs and aggressively try to sign you up for their particular plan when you begin to approach the magic age of 65. It all comes down to money. Are you all that surprised?

I'm really hoping that my latest blood test results will vindicate my new somewhat austere diet. Although I'm slowly acquiring a taste for fruits and vegetables, I do miss bacon, french toast and cheeseburgers. When I asked my nutritionist why my new diet wasn't more popular if it could actually reverse diabetes, prevent heart attacks, and improve liver health, he told me that there wasn't any money in a good diet. The pharmaceutical industry is a billion dollar empire with tentacles everywhere. Selling pills is big business. Eating broccoli isn't. Maybe it is really that simple. Look at the ads you see on TV. It seems like 80% of them are selling pharmaceutical products. When you go to the doctor, there are often more drug company reps sitting in the bobby than patients. The pharmaceutical lobby in Washington DC is probably even more powerful than the gun lobby. Everyone wants you to take a pill because pills are wildly profitable. Again it all comes down to money.

Maybe the medical industry's fixation with money wouldn't be so irritating if I made more of the green stuff myself. I consider my company successful because I've managed to stay in business for over twenty years during a period of time where many businesses like mine have failed. I've never been wildly profitable though. I work hard for my money and profits are somewhat self-limiting. I have never been able to take advantage of economies of scale, since it is only me doing all the work. I'm very reluctant to hire people and grow, because that's exactly why several friends of mine failed. Growing too fast can be much worse than not growing at all.

Maybe I should resign myself to walking the dogs and making just enough to pay the bills. I wrote two articles today. That ought to pay the electric bill.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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