Day 1780

I had to go down to the UPS depot to pick up a package this morning and was amazed at how quiet and efficient the place seemed. The last time I was here, it was total chaos. "Wow, this is a lot different than Christmas," I told the clerk behind the counter. "Oh, we got rid of our bad boss," he responded. "Everything is fine now." Sounds about right to me. It doesn't matter what you do for a living. Having a bad boss can make a shambles of everything.

Evidently the manager wanted to get a performance bonus for keeping costs under control and refused to hire extra help during the busy holiday season. The resulting poor service caused such a customer backlash that the company fired the manager instead of giving her a bonus. I remember that I was one of the customers who complained about poor service last Winter. It's nice to know that every once in a while, companies actually listen to their customers.

Dot had a great day at her physical therapy session. I still can't figure out why she is strong and energetic on some days and weak and tired at other times. Our days are remarkable consistent. She eats the same food, sleeps the same amount of time, and walks the same trails day after day. You'd think the therapy sessions would be the same as well. Maybe she's just in a better mood on certain days. That's definitely the case with me. When I'm in a good mood, I can get twice as much done.

I was surprised when we got rained on during our afternoon walk. October has been so dry that I've almost forgotten about rain. It was cloudy when we left on our walk, but I didn't even bother to check the weather radar. It just didn't seem like a rainy day. Although we all got soaked, there was no thunder and lightening, so the dogs didn't panic. I dried everybody off with large bath towels when we got home and then everything was back to normal.

Dot's vets and nurses were just as surprised as me that tomorrow is Halloween. Where has this year gone? I can't remember a year where the time has zipped by so fast. If I remember anything at all about this year, it will be all the doctor's appointments and medical emergencies. I started my Hepatitis C treatment in January, Dash was diagnosed with cancer in February, and then Dot got sick and was diagnosed with cancer in July. Now that the year is winding to a close, I am very thankful that each of these stories had a happy ending.

I've already taken the trash out to the curb for Friday morning pick-up and am looking forward to having a delicious breakfast at my favorite restaurant. Friday's are almost always good days.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 930

I didn't think much would be happening this week, and I was right. There were no phone calls today. With the exception of the usual spam, there were no e-mail messages either. It was a very quiet day. 

Days like this are dangerous, because I get bored and inevitably buy something online. Sure enough, about ten-thirty this morning I found myself wandering over to the Sweetwater site and looking at gear. I didn't want to spend much money. I just wanted to kill time. After wasting way too much time daydreaming, I ordered a nifty little interface that lets me use my iPad as a guitar amp.

With no deadlines to meet, I got started on my new website project. It turns out that the goal of distilling a complex site into something simple is a bit harder than I thought. There are literally hundreds and hundreds of pages on the existing site, and they all have been online forever. Since the old site does very well in Google search, I really hate to scrap it. I decided that I will just leave the old site on the server for Google to find while building a parallel new site on the same server. In the end, only the index page will be overwritten. This means I can never build a new page with the same name as one of the old pages. If there is a page called staff.html, the new page that replaces it has to be called employees.html, or something that won't overwrite the old page. Eventually, when all the newly designed pages get popular with the search engines, I can scrap the old pages. This all sounds like a good plan to me, but somewhere along the way, my client will probably throw me a curve ball that will render the whole strategy useless.

I'm such a predictable person. If you could see what I fixed for breakfast, you'd know how my entire day was going to go. When I eat cold cereal with a little fruit on top, I'd usually just rather go back to bed. If I fix eggs and sausages, it's going to be a productive but largely uninteresting day. If I fix French Toast, I probably woke up with a glimmer of an idea and may even appear to be inspired. Days when I eat out are the best of all, but this is only because it's Friday. If French Toast inspires me, you may ask why I just don't eat the stuff every day. I guess the short answer is that my favorite French Toast, sprinkled with powdered sugar and drenched in real maple syrup is the equivalent of a giant neon sign that says "Welcome Diabetes."

I fundamentally don't understand all the earnest looking cyclists who whiz by me every morning while I'm walking the dogs. I don't understand people who can't wait to get back to the gym. Yeah, I've heard all about endorphins and all that. I still prefer butter. Did you guess that I had cold cereal for breakfast this morning?

Bud is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day