Day 4365

We've got a new TV. Well, we don't actually have a new TV in our house yet, but we do have a receipt saying that we purchased one. Stores are weird now. Very few stores keep a lot of inventory in stock anymore. There may be something on display, but if you actually want to buy it, it usually has to come from a warehouse somewhere. There are still advantages to buying from a store however. A very nice and knowledgable salesman answered all my extensive list of questions about both the old and new TV. Our old Sony had a lot more inputs than the new models on sale today. Manufacturers have realized that there is no longer a need for a lot of inputs, since everybody is just streaming content. Things that are plugged in to our current TV like a Roku stick and Chromecast are obsolete now. All that stuff is just build into the TV these days. I also learned that the problem with our current TV is probably that several of the several of the backlighting LEDs have gone bad. These LEDs can be replaced, but that might not even be the problem. I've dealt with electronic repairs before. Smaller new TVs are so cheap now that often they cost more to repair then than to replace.

At any rate, a new TV is headed to the store where we will pick it up later. There is no point in having it delivered because porch pirates have ruined home delivery. This new TV won't need a set top box to get cable. You also can use a single remote to control everything. That was the feature that sold Janet on this model. You can also watch things on your iPad and transfer the picture to the larger screen if you want. Somehow I don't think all the fancy features will be as easy to use as the salesman described, but we'll see. I never learned how to use all the features on the old TV that we got almost fifteen years ago.

The salesman said he wasn't on commission and that he'd really appreciate it if we'd fill out a survey the store would be sending us. I told him that I knew all about these surveys. All large companies seem to have them now. Apparently promotions and salary seem to be tied directly to survey results. Just like at the Land Rover dealer and even at the hospital, employees seem almost desperate to get good survey results. This doesn't seem fair to me. The old way of working on commission and having a supervisor right in the store evaluate your performance seemed to provide more opportunities for retail workers. I used to know several people who worked in retail on commission that made very good incomes. Basically, I'm just glad that I'm retired now. The work world isn't what it used to be. 

We didn't visit the Dalmatians at the kennel today. Evidently the place is still busy with holiday boarding and we would just be in the way. There has been a change in management and hopefully we will still be welcome in the future. Janet and I enjoy playing with the rescue dogs. I think the dogs enjoy seeing us as well.

It was much colder today. I think the temperature will be even colder tomorrow. I'm not fond of these drastic changes. It will be 75 degrees one day and then 35 degrees the next. It's hard to know what to wear.  Sometimes the temperature will change ten degrees just on my long walk. Dawn seems to enjoy the colder weather more than I do. She had a good time smelling things on her sunrise walk. I dressed warmly so I was fine, but it sure was windy today. I shouldn't complain about the weather when the sky is blue. There is much worse coming in the months ahead. Actually, according to what I've been reading, Texas has better weather than most of the rest of the country. We've had cooler summers and warmer winters than prior years. I hope the warmer winter prediction is true for this year as well.

We've got mosquitos inside the house now. I can't seem to catch them but they're doing a pretty good job of biting me. How can there be mosquitos in December? These things were supposed to go away when summer was over. Hopefully I will find something better to do than chasing bugs tomorrow. Whatever happens, I know a long walk will be involved.

Ellis is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 496

More rain today. This weather is wearing me out. The days have become a blur of sweeping water off the roof, providing TLC for two storm phobic dogs, and worrying about whether the electricity will go out before I finish my next website deadline. I've banged my head so many times on a large low hanging Oak branch while I'm up on the roof that I don't think it will ever heal. The dogs seem OK now, but are so many dog blankets under my desk so they'll have a comfortable place to hide from the storms that I'm having trouble finding room for my feet.

Life goes on though. I talked to my contacts in Houston this morning and we basically decided that it would be wise to have a Plan B and perhaps even a Plan C. I'll get those videos shot and uploaded even if I have to do it from my hotel room. The good news is that I now know how to upload good looking 1080 HD video to YouTube. It took me a while to realize that the convenient little YouTube upload button Apple provides in it's Quicktime Player software wasn't getting me anywhere. It appears to upload the video, but just about when the process is finished, the dreaded spinning beachball appears along with a message that says "your upload is still being processed." That message would probably stay on your screen to the end of time if you let it. I hate to admit it, but everything worked fine when I eventually started uploading to YouTube the same way Windows users do.

After solving a bunch of trivial website problems, I went out and bought the new TV that Janet and I had been planning on getting. You don't just turn on a new TV and adjust the rabbit ears anymore. When I turned on this TV for the first time, I was greeted with a 25 step install program on the screen that took me over an hour to complete. Most of the setup procedure was pretty straightforward, but it took me quite a while to get the TV to find the office WiFi network. It always takes me a long time to hook up new things to the WiFi network because I'm continually forgetting the firewall settings on the router. All's well that ends well though. I now have a TV that can talk to my computer. Lord knows why I'd want to send an e-mail to my television, but the capability's there if I ever need it. One of the more interesting things about this TV is that it is supposed to turn itself off if nobody is in the room. I wonder if it counts dogs as people? Only Dot and Dash are in the room with the new TV this evening, and it's still on.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day