Day 4988

The Bordetella vaccine that Dawn got yesterday really helped. She hardly coughed at all today. I think the only time she started coughing at all was when she drank water too fast. I don't know why nobody seemed to think she had kennel cough. If it quacks like a duck, it is usually a duck. I always thought she had either kennel cough or the canine flu. Hopefully Dawn remains healthy and we can put this problem behind us. The last thing we need during this impossibly hot summer is a sick dog.

It looks like Houston might get some rain from the storm system currently in the Gulf, but it doesn't seem like any of this moisture will reach Dallas. The forecast still indicates clear skies and triple digit temperatures for the next week. We've learned to look forward to our sunrise walks with Dawn. The hour before sunrise is the only time when you can even pretend that being outdoors is enjoyable. It was 85 degrees when we walked Dawn this morning. There was a light breeze though. It felt nice.

I went to the gym later today because Janet likes me out of the house while she's cleaning on Monday afternoon. I had lots of time to kill this morning so I wrote a letter to my sister, did a load of laundry, payed bills, and did some more work on my neighbor's website. Website maintenance is turning into a struggle these days. The Dreamweaver software I've always used to upload and maintain sites is obsolete and barely runs anymore. I'm sure there are newer alternative available but they won't run on my older computer. I'm still running the Sierra operating system, which is the latest system that will run on my 2011 desktop. I really don't want to buy a new computer at this point. I don't use it very much and will use it even less when I finish with the blog.

When I finally made it to the gym I did surprisingly well. Where did I get all this energy today? I had my best pace on the indoor track in weeks and completed my ten free throws on the basketball court in record time. It took me less than seven minutes today. The gym must have fixed the air conditioning system because it was nice and cool inside while I was there. No wonder there have been more people using the gym lately. It's probably one of the more pleasant places you can go in town these days. The temperature at the gym is certainly cooler than the restaurant where we ate on Janet's birthday.

I made some minor updates to the Dalmatian Rescue website when I returned home and then took a nap. I got an invitation today from McDonald Observatory to attend an appreciation dinner for past and present volunteers. I appreciate the invitation but it seems like a really long drive just to go out for dinner. I think I'll pass on this one. I'd love to return to the observatory at some point, but I don't know if I'm up for the drive anymore. On my last drive home from Fort Davis I had a strong feeling that this was going to be the last trip. I was really tired and the eighteen wheelers that were continually barreling past me on the freeway were frightening. These days my drive to the gym is about as far as I want to go.

I'm probably still up for an occasional trip to Kennedy Space Center. Titusville is a nice sleepy little town and I like it there. The launch photographers are a pleasant group to hang out with as well. With any luck I'll make it down there again this year. There's no hurry though. I don't feel like going anywhere until the weather cools off. Right now I'll just make very short trips to my very cold gym.

Joe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4932

I guess I'd better get used to this heat. It's not going away. Each morning when we take Dawn on her sunrise walk it seems a little warmer than it did the previous day. The low temperature is in the eighties now with the highs in triple digits. That being said, our sunrise walks are still the best part of the day. There is usually a nice breeze and no hot sun beating down on your head. We all enjoy these early morning walks. Until the weather cools down a bit they are the only walks that Dawn gets.

I had my shredded wheat and fruit for breakfast and then foolishly decided to tackle a few outdoor chores. I didn't do much, but it was enough to make me realize that this is not the time to be doing yard work. I'm surprised that the mail still gets delivered. The other day a Dallas mailman died delivering the mail in this heat. I cleaned the spiderwebs off the eaves and living room windows and then watered some plants that were looking really dry. That was enough for one day. Dawn likes to sun herself in the grass but I have to watch her carefully and make sure she doesn't stay out too long. 

We haven't seen any rabbits on our sunrise walks this week and it makes me wonder how the animals in the park are handling this heat. There's lots of underbrush in the prairie areas and I'm sure the smaller animals can use this to hide from the sun. I need to remember to put some water out for the squirrels. Even the birdbath in our back yard has gone dry.

Our air conditioner is working well, but I hate to think what our electric bill is going to be next month. I guess it was a good thing that we added three inches of insulation to our new roof. It's bound to help some, but with so much single pane glass in the house, it's still hard to keep the place cool. Usually I'm glad when the rainy season is over. Not this year. I'm ready for Fall and the worst of summer hasn't even arrived yet.

I got a check in the mail from Wells Fargo today. There was no explanation and I thought it might be part of some kind of scam. I called my broker to see if the check might have been part of some kind of sale on their part. Nope. They had nothing to do with Wells Fargo. My broker reminded me that Wells Fargo had recently settled a huge class action lawsuit and asked if I was ever a customer. Bingo. Jeez. That was twenty years ago though. Just goes to show that you never know what you're going to receive in the mail.

I went back to the gym later this morning. Going to the gym is probably the only way I'm going to get my steps for the rest of the summer. After I walked two miles on the indoor track, I shot free throws on the basketball court for a while and then used some of the machines to work on my upper body strength. I actually had a pretty decent workout today. Going to the gym every day has made me realize that my car gets terrible gas mileage. Probably a big 5.2 liter V-8 is't the best thing for driving around town.

I'm still debating whether to get a new phone. The old phone works fine but I haven't been able up update the operating system in years. Since I can't update the IOS, I can't update my Apple Watch either. I can postpone the inevitable, but eventually I'm going to have to update the phone for security reasons alone. A lot of modern apps won't run on my old phone either. I'm very comfortable with using obsolete software, but this can't go on forever. 

Tomorrow looks like more of the same. We'll get up early and take a sunrise walk with Dawn. I"ll eat my breakfast while becoming disgusted with what's on TV. Then I'll sort through the spam in my e-mail to see if I have any real messages. I'm sure I'll go to the gym. The gym is actually colder than inside our house. It's not a bad place to hang out on days like this.

Derrick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2785

I didn't accomplish much today. At least Dash ate well. He finished both his breakfast and dinner with no hesitation at all. Will he throw up tonight? I've learned that anything can happen with Dash. Everything seems normal now, so that's a good sign. I did call his vet to ask if there is anything we might have overlooked, but haven't received an answer yet. Something is wrong, but I'm not sure if there is anything more we can check. Once every week or so, he just throws up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. On the days he throws up, there is usually no prior sign of an upset stomach. We watch him carefully now when he goes outside, so I don't think he's eating bugs either. It's frustrating.

I don't know why the grass is dying in the back yard either. There are no signs of grubs and the new grass has received plenty of water. I mowed today and now the grass looks even worse. There are lots of reason why we have to replace this grass frequently, but it should last at least a month or two. I'll call the landscaper, but somehow I feel that this problem will be as difficult to resolve as getting a refund on the fraudulent gift card.

When my client told me that he has put a check in the mail on Monday, I kind of expected to receive it on Tuesday. We're in the same zip code. I mean, how long could it take? Well, I didn't get the check today either. Maybe the guy was just thinking about putting the check in the mail. I'll wait until next Monday before I complain again. I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt, but there is no reason to be this late with a payment.

I'm trying to think of something that didn't frustrate me today, but I'm coming up blank. I still can't get old Windows video files to play on my computer. The software that used to convert them isn't being updated anymore and probably won't be in the future. Nobody cares about old Windows video anymore. I don't even think Microsoft supports these files now. The price of progress is having to  abandon old habits and old routines. Upgrading to Sierra allowed me to continue using the important software I use in my business, but I lost a lot in the process. This happens every time I do a major upgrade. Eventually, I'll just forget about the old, obsolete stuff.

I made an appointment to get my hair cut tomorrow. At least this is one thing I won't be disappointed with. My hair is such a mess now that it couldn't possible look any worse. I probably should have made a vet appointment for Dash instead of getting a haircut, but it is much easier to get a haircut on short notice. I've already taken Dash to two different vets for this vomiting issue and nobody seems to have a solution. Give him a Pepsid. Change his food. Look for signs of a vestibular event. We've already tried all the obvious things.

I did get a response to the website proposal I sent out last week. The guy seems interested, but he wants a lot of complicated stuff that I know he doesn't have the budget for. I've either got to convince him to simplify his wish list or come up with more money. I'll put together a modified proposal tomorrow, but I'm not very confident that this project is ever going to happen.

I accidentally left out some ingredients in my smoothie this morning and it actually tasted better. Why did it take me three years to discover this?  I shouldn't have been surprised. I learn most things by accident.

Nautica is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2784

I don't think I'll ever buy a gift card again. The gift card company keeps asking for more and more information. It's almost as if they think we're the perpetrators of a fraud rather than the victims of one. We keep providing all the information they ask for, but they don't seem that much closer to refunding our money. Why this investigation process should take ninety days is beyond me. I'm sure they know exactly what happened. There is an entire Consumer Reports website about gift card fraud. The sad truth is that this type of thing has become so commonplace that the company doesn't particularly care. Janet and I are just a statistic.

I like things to be predictable. That's a big reason why the gift card fraud is so frustrating. I've always thought of gift cards as a simple and convenient way to give someone money. If you have to worry about someone else gaining access to the card before you even use it, it suddenly isn't simple or convenient anymore. It's just one more giant hassle in a world full of giant hassles.

I wish Dash knew how much I want life to be predictable. He's driving me crazy by changing his food preference every day. Some days he likes the Hill's I/D that we used to feed Dot. Other days he won't touch the stuff and prefers the Hills I/D Low Fat that the vet wanted us to feed him when his triglycerides were through the roof. Usually, he wants a little wet food mixed in with the dry, but not always. It's really hard to predict what he's going to eat on any given day. Today, I split his dinner into two parts, because he wouldn't wait until 5 PM. He ate the first part of his dinner with gusto. An hour and a half later, he refused to touch exactly the same thing. I removed the food from his bowl, ate my own dinner, and then put Dash's dinner in a different type of bowl. I made sure he saw me stirring the bowl with a spoon and pretending to add new ingredients. This subterfuge did the trick. Dash finished his meal.

There was very little work to do today, so I used my time trying to find replacements for some of the software that refuses to work after I upgraded my operating system to Sierra. My computer used to be able to play Windows videos, but not anymore. Neither Apple of Microsoft seems to have any interest in being compatible with each other these days. It's a shame. Since most of my clients are still on Windows systems, I sometimes have a need to open and play Windows audio and video files. I did a Google search, downloaded a few open source Windows media players, but none of them worked. That's the trouble with Google. Something that got rave reviews in 2013 might not work at all in 2017.

At least computer problems aren't messy. I'm starting to think our shower is leaking again, and that is messy. We had a shower pan leak once before and we pretty much had to rip out the entire shower and re-tile everything to fix the problem. Maybe it isn't as bad this time, but there is a distinct musty smell in the bathroom that wasn't there before. I hate water problems because you can't ignore them. If you ignore a leak, it will eventually ruin everything.

The new grass is already starting to die. It's received plenty of water and it seems to be getting enough sunlight too. It definitely shouldn't be looking spotty and thin so soon. I'll call the landscaper to come take a look, but I doubt that he'll do anything. He'll just say that I did something wrong and that it's my fault. Somehow, it's always my fault.

Lilly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2542

I need to rearrange how I spend my day. I can't change getting up too early. We have to get the dogs fed and walked before Janet goes to work. I can't change going to bed too late either. I'm usually the only one still awake to take Dot out to pee at the end of the day. In between, there's still a little flexibility. I need to try and get anything important done between 9 AM and 2 PM. So far, it's a pretty safe bet that this is when both dogs will be asleep. After they eat their rice cake for lunch, all bets are off. I don't know where Dot got her new burst of energy, but she's active almost all afternoon now.

I wish she was steady enough on her feet so that I could just let her wander around on her own. Unfortunately, she's not steady at all. She falls down a lot, gets stuck behind furniture, and poops when you least expect it. Afternoons are a three ring circus, but it's good to see Dot active again.

My project for today was seeing which applications still worked on the laptop after the big system upgrade a couple of days ago. I haven't tested everything, but so far I've only had to delete four applications. That's actually pretty good. There isn't room on my desk to set up a second computer, so I had to work on the kitchen table. The dogs didn't like this. If I'm in the kitchen, they think it's time to be fed. If I ignore them for too long, they both start barking. Needless to say, I didn't get as much accomplished as I'd hoped. Maybe I've done enough. Microsoft Word works. Final Cut Pro works. And I think Pro Tools works. The web browser and e-mail work too. That's all I ever used to use when I was on the road anyway,

I meant to get the water off the roof today, but I didn't get around to it this morning when the dogs were sleeping. This afternoon, Dot would never settle down long enough for me to get anything done. I didn't want to be up on the roof if she fell or pooped somewhere. It probably wouldn't have even mattered if I was up on the roof. Dot wandered into the office just before dinner time and promptly pooped all over the carpet. I'd taken her outside at least ten times today, including once five minutes before she messed up the carpet. Why she couldn't poop while she was outside remains a mystery to me. Basically, I'm so tired of cleaning up poop I could scream.

The humidity was actually lower outside than in the house today. This is a rarity. The weather was nice, so I opened the windows and let the house air out. 25% relative humidity is a lot nicer than 85% relative humidity. I hope the dry weather continues. It would be nice to spend the Winter without worrying about mold.

I started charging batteries for this weekend's photo shoot. Tomorrow I'll unpack the strobes and make sure that they still work. I've got all this equipment, but mostly I just take pictures with my phone these days. I thought oday's sunrise was worth putting on my camera roll. Dash didn't even notice the beautiful sunrise. As always, he had his nose to the ground, trying to sniff out nasty things to eat.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2194

I spent most of the day replacing my computer's obsolete operating system with another obsolete operating system. The move from Lion to Mountain Lion was much more complex than simply downloading the current operating system, which is what most people would do. I'm very wary of new Apple operating systems. All too often when you install a new system, you have to update half your software as well. I'm happy with my old software and the last thing I want to do is buy it all over again.

Eventually, even people like me are forced to upgrade though. It's almost a law of nature. I picked Mountain Lion because it was old enough to support most of my existing software and still new enough to support Pro Tools 12. The problem with installing something so old and using it as a new system is that there are a lot of dependencies that need to be resolved. X Code wouldn't work anymore which meant I could no longer run Unix programs on my Mac. I couldn't just install the new X Code, because it was too new. I had to find am old copy of version 5.1.1 which Apple no longer supported. Some of my security software wouldn't work either. It could have been worse, but I ended up spending most of the afternoon testing each of the applications I use and making upgrades when necessary. The important things all work now, but it was a monumental effort for a system that is already obsolete. I've still got Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan to go.

I built some online forms for a client today. I made sure to do this before I attempted to upgrade my system. You never know what is going to be broken after the upgrade. It could easily have been Dreamweaver. Luckily Dreamweaver, Photoshop. Microsoft Office, Colorburst, Final Cut Pro, and Quickbooks Pro still work. That's all I really use these days anyway. I thought about upgrading my phone as well, but that would just be asking for trouble. One major upgrade a day is plenty. I'm sure IOS 9.2 can wait. I still don't know why I bothered to upgrade to IOS 9.1. Basically all these software upgrades are a giant pain.

Breakfast was good today. Actually, everything was pretty good today. The weather was nice, the humidity was low, there were very few surprises, and the bird didn't poop on my car. Dot didn't have any accidents today either. As far as I'm concerned, a day without poop is always a good day.

I don't have any big plans for this weekend, but I'm sure I'll be busy. There are leaves to rake, software to debug, rugs to clean, and dogs to walk. I need to remember to turn the outdoor faucets on just a bit so they drip a little. I don't want frozen pipes, especially in the greenhouse. If it doesn't get down to freezing tonight, it will soon. It's weird. Even though I accomplished virtually nothing today, I felt oddly energized. Trading one obsolete operating system for another equally obsolete system is fairly complex. My brain got a little exercise today. Sadly, that's somewhat of a rarity. Most of my daily activities require no thought at all.

Alvin is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day