Day 1964

I picked up one of those Chromecast sticks that plugs into your TV while I was out this afternoon. Now, all three HDMI ports on the back of the TV are filled with little devices that bypass cable. I never use the Roku and Hulu steaming sticks, so it is doubtful that I'll use Chromecast much either. I guess I just got the thing because it was on sale and I was curious whether it worked or not. Yup. Works like a charm. I'm fascinated by technology. I just don't watch TV very much. I was happy enough with my old analog TV that only got 13 Channels. Unfortunately, all the TV stations switched to digital broadcasting a few years ago and turned the thing into a door stop. Jeez, who needs 250 Channels? I mostly just watch old black and white Perry Mason shows to help me go to sleep at night anyway. Ironically, Janet would probably like Chromecast, but wouldn't have the patience to install the companion software on her computer and learn how to use the thing. I have lots of patience. I just don't understand the whole concept of entertainment. I could go for months without even turning a TV on.

I didn't really realize that eating would be such a problem when I had my oral surgery. Dislodging all the little food particles in my mouth after a meal takes longer than it took to eat the meal in the first place. I'm supposed to swish warm salt water around in my mouth to remove food debris, but it takes forever. According to my post-surgery instructions I still can't brush with a toothbrush or use a water pic. Somehow, my remaining teeth have become more sensitive to hot and cold too. It just makes me want to eat nothing but custard or Jello.

I really didn't do much today. I got groceries, filled the car with gas, refilled prescriptions, did some laundry and changed the sheets on the bed. I do most of these things every Saturday. It took a while for me to figure out how to install the Chromecast stick, but once I got it working properly, I just turned off the TV. No need to actually watch anything. Taking a nap with the dogs seemed like a much better alternative.

I'm glad I got the water off the roof yesterday, because it was too hot to go up there today. In the Summer, I have to wear gloves, because some of the surfaces become too hot to touch. The only good thing about the Summer heat is that after a light rain in July or August, the standing water just evaporates and I don't have to bother with sweeping it away.

I'm hungry for French Toast. It's tasty and easy to chew. French Toast for breakfast tomorrow sounds delicious. Unfortunately, I'm not eating bread anymore. I don't completely remember why, but I quit eating bread quite a while ago. It probably has something to do with avoiding diabetes. Bread is high in carbs and can spike blood sugar levels. Bread just isn't that good for you. It is very tasty, but blocks that absorption of other nutrients, contributes to vitamin-d deficiency, and quickly turns to sugar in your body. What a shame. Bread tastes to good.

Maybe I'll go to the gym tomorrow. I think I'm caught up on Sunday chores. I need to go to the gm more often, but I'd rather work on adding some new features to my mobile friendly test site. Learning something new is much more entertaining to me than watching a movie using the Chromecast stick. Going to the gym isn't entertaining at all, although I do like shooting the basketball. I'll probably just take another nap with the dogs.

Bogart is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1960

I think the antibiotics are working. Dash did a lot better at keeping all four paws on the ground today. He still limped a little when he tried to walk too fast, but his condition was visibly better than yesterday. It wasn't all smooth sailing though. Dash woke me up twice during the middle of the night to go outside. He raced around the yard on three legs like he was possessed. Dash acted like he had an upset stomach and needed to poop. After several tries, he eventually did. It could have been the Clavamox. On the other hand, it could have been something bad he ate in the park. The important thing was that Dash eventually did his business and we finally got some sleep.

I made some website revisions today and after I uploaded the new content, the client sent me an e-mail saying that nothing had changed. This happens all the time. Am I the only one who regularly clears my browser cache? I patiently explained that he was looking at an old version of the site and that if he re-loaded the page, cleared his browser cache in the preference menu, or just restarted the browser he would probably see the new changes. Since I never heard back from him, I guess one of those remedies worked.

I had some writing jobs today, but I got side-tracked experimenting with my mobile friendly test site. Today I learned how to create drop down menus that automatically re-size for different devices. Life was so much easier when everyone was looking at the same 17" CRT display and used their phones for making phone calls. I'm slowly getting comfortable working in this new responsive design environment, but I'm also getting bored with it. It's a race against time to see if I can learn enough to be useful before I get sick of the whole thing. It's getting harder to find a reason to stay on the cutting edge of anything anymore.

Tomorrow is the big day. I can't eat anything after 10 PM tonight and Janet has to drive me to the dentist tomorrow. I'm supposed to take an antibiotic and a pain killer one hour before surgery. There is a nice steak in the refrigerator, but Janet froze it, saying that I'll probably be eating soup for the rest of the week. The procedure is only supposed to take an hour or so, but somehow I think I'll be dealing with the aftermath for a lot longer. I just hope when I wake up from surgery that only one tooth is missing. I still have a fear than more than one will be removed if the oral surgeon decides that some other teeth can't be saved either. I know that the tooth right next to the impacted wisdom tooth has been damaged, but I'm hoping that all it will need is a filling. If the second tooth has to be removed, I will need an implant. Dental implants are a long, expensive process. Let's keep it simple. Just remove tooth number 32 and be done with it.

Tomorrow will be interesting. I've got lots of writing and website work that needs to get finished. The dogs still need their walks. Tomorrow's blog post needs to be written and published as well. I hope the anesthesia wears off in a hurry. I don't have time to be loopy all day.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1957

The nasty storms that blew through town last night were followed by clear blue skies and mild temperatures this morning. The beautiful weather was a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one. The dogs both enjoyed their walk today and it was hard to get them headed toward home again before they became too tired. Although he is continuing to get better, Dash still starts limping if he walks too far, and Dot just doesn't have the strength for a long walk yet. While we were headed home, we passed a fire department ambulance hopelessly stuck in the mud. I hope that there was nobody in the back, because it looked like it was going to be a long time before this particular ambulance was going to be delivering anyone to the hospital.

As I do on most days following a hard rain, I removed the standing water from the roof. Today I let the pump do most of the work. It takes a lot longer and I have to climb up and down several times, but removing the water is definitely easier this way. I let the pump run on the main roof while we were eating breakfast, changing the bed sheets, and doing laundry. Then I went up again and switched the pump to the lower carport roof while I swept off the residual water from the main roof. Sound exciting? No, I didn't think so. Hey, at least I got something done. This seems like a much better way to spend my time than all those people down in the park today who spent their afternoon sitting in a hammock. I counted about ten hammocks today. Apparently sitting in a hammock on a nice day is a popular thing to do.

Since I was thinking I'd mastered the basics of responsive design, I thought I'd try something a little fancier this afternoon. Apparently, I didn't master all that much. I was trying to add drop down menus to my rudimentary mobile friendly site and even watching the tutorial video three times didn't help. This is a lot different than Dreamweaver.

When I was getting groceries today, I stopped by the pharmacy and filled the prescription the oral surgeon gave me in January. The prescription consisted of an antibiotic and two painkillers. Great. So, having your wisdom teeth removed is going to hurt and there is a risk of infection. I'm still not very happy about having this tooth removed. I'm a very symmetrical person and it's going to drive me crazy to have more teeth on one side of my mouth than the other. You might wonder why I don't just have the wisdom tooth on the opposite side of my mouth removed too, but removing more teeth than absolutely necessary would also drive me crazy. I'll just be glad when this is over.

Dot seems to be in a bad mood tonight. She's been barking at me and Dash for most of the evening. I don't know what she wants. I've taken her outside three or four times and she just stands there. I think she's frustrated that although she is much stronger now, she is still not strong enough to do the things she wants. It would probably be frustrating for anyone to get a taste of freedom and then realize you are still not really free.

I'll probably go back to the gym tomorrow for the first time in ages. I used to get a lot of exercise walking the dogs, but now that both Dot and Dash are taking short, very slow walks, these excursions hardly even register on my UP band. I'm definitely not getting my 12,000 steps a day anymore. I could always mow the grass tomorrow, but I think I'll wait until the ground gets dry again. I don't want the lawn mower to get stuck in the mud like that ambulance I saw this morning.

Pogo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1858

I got a lot done today. I attribute the day's success to seeing the sun again. We had a great walk this morning. It was still chilly outside, but with shadows on the ground and the sun on my face, it all seemed reasonably comfortable. My shoes were still muddy when we returned, but it was no big deal. All is forgiven when there's lots of sunshine. Janet went to breakfast with me for the first time in recent memory. She liked the food, but I don't think she'll become a regular. My go-to meals have too many calories.

I was a little surprised that I've never heard anything further from the new client that was supposedly headed my way. The initial inquiry was from an ad agency, which probably explains everything. Ad agencies are notorious about not following up on things. I probably won't hear from them again until late on a Friday afternoon when they have some kind of rush deadline that will ruin my weekend.

On days like today, I'm not sure how many new clients I could handle anyway. I was almost late for my physical therapy appointment because I had trouble finishing my writing assignments. I got a lot done, but I'll still have to do some additional writing this weekend. When I returned from therapy, I had a big website update to complete. There were 24 new pictures that needed to be resized in Photoshop, plus captions and bios under each picture. Everything was uploaded to the server just in time to begin feeding the dogs their dinner and give Dash his Palladia chemo medication before taking our evening walk.

I'm glad the weekend is here, although Saturday and Sunday aren't much different than any other day when you're freelancing. I like to think of the weekend as a restful time, but I'm not kidding anyone. All my clients know that I'm still here, and if they need something, they're not shy about asking me. The oral surgeon initially wanted to remove my wisdom teeth on a Friday, so I could have the weekend to rest. Rest on weekends? You've got to be kidding. I tried to explain that my office didn't shut down at 2 PM on Friday afternoons, like his did and that weekends were often the busiest days of the week for me. I don't really care when they do the surgery, as long as they do it at 10:30 in the morning. Any earlier and I won't be able to walk the dogs. Any later and I'll get hungry, since I can't eat before surgery.

I had a different therapist today, since my regular therapist had a scheduling conflict. This therapist was stronger and gave my arm some serious tugs. I actually think this approach might be better. My shoulder got this bad in the first place because I was always trying to avoid pain. If the therapist tries too hard to avoid causing pain as well, I probably won't accomplish much. It's a fine line though. Too much discomfort will cause more inflammation and make the whole situation worse. Maybe I just need pain as a yardstick to measure things. I've kind of lost the whole concept of pleasure.

I did manage to find Comet Lovejoy last night. I couldn't see it with the naked eye because of the city lights, but it was fairly easy to spot with binoculars. Right below the Pleiades was a soft luminous smudge that had to be a comet. Either that or my binoculars were dirty.

Selby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1857

I saw the sun today. It's amazing what a little sunlight and blue skies can do. It was still cold outside and I had way too much work to do, but today was much more satisfying than yesterday. Let's hope the clear skies continue for long enough for the ground to dry up. Although the sun made me happy today, cleaning my muddy boots didn't. I don't know how Northerners keep their houses clean. It all seems pretty hopeless to me.

I've heard that tonight is an ideal time to try and see Comet Lovejoy. I doubt that I'll be able to see the comet with all the city lights, but since I didn't even think I'd have the opportunity, I'm going to go out with a pair of binoculars and give it a try. The comet is located near the constellation Orion. This is something even I can find in the night sky, so maybe there's hope.

I called the oral surgeon's office today to confirm my surgery appointment and discovered that the estimate they gave me was for having all four wisdom teeth removed. Whoa! I thought that estimate was too high. The last thing I want is to go to the dentist thinking I'm having one tooth removed and wake up to discover that four are gone. The receptionist explained that almost everybody has all four wisdom teeth removed at the same time, so they just assumed I was going to do this too. "That's not what the dentist and I talked about," I said. Jeez. If I ever have to have all my wisdom teeth removed, I prefer to have them removed one at a time at ten year intervals.

Dot did great at her physical therapy session today. I'm amazed at how much stronger she seems than last January. Since a large part of the year was spent recovering from cancer, her new found strength and stamina seems even more remarkable. I keep thinking that if Dot can do this, maybe I can too. Hopefully, after a year or so, my own physical therapy efforts will start paying dividends as well. I've got to remember that nothing dramatic ever happened during Dot's therapy. There were no decisive moments. She just very slowly began to improve over a long period of time.

There are articles to write tomorrow, broken websites to fix, photo shoots to schedule, and a pile of bills to pay. I'm still going to have a nice breakfast at my favorite restaurant though. I deserve it.

Betty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1819

Some days are more discouraging than others. I woke up with a sore throat this morning. I knew I was going to catch a cold yesterday, when several of the volunteers for our photo shoot turned up with bad colds. If I'm around someone who has a cold, I almost always catch it. Ironically, I almost never get sick, because I'm not around other people very much. Children are the worst. If I'm even in the same room with a child, I catch a cold. I wish this weren't the case, but it is. I've lost my immunity to people.

When I took my car in for service this morning they informed me that this was going to be a "major" service. Major almost always means expensive. They replace all the fluids, clean the fuel injectors, install new brake pads, rotate the tires, adjust the suspension, and all sorts of other preventative stuff. When all is said and done, you get back a car that looks and feels exactly like the one you drove up in. I'm never able to tell any difference whatsoever after a major service. I always do everything they say however, because I don't want to be calling a tow truck with a sick dog in the back of the car.

Even though it looks like my service visit will be expensive, I'm sure the cost will seem trivial compared to the cost of my upcoming dental work. The specialty dentist I went to today examined me and said he didn't feel comfortable extracting my wisdom teeth because of the unusually long roots. Now, I have to go see another, even more advanced oral surgeon who is an MD as well as a dental surgeon. Dentists always assign teeth a number. Both of the dentists I've seen so far tell me that when tooth number 32 is extracted, they suspect that number 31 will need to be pulled as well. Since the molar next to the wisdom tooth has a cavity below the gum line, they are not sure that a root canal could save the tooth. They aren't even sure if the tooth is still alive. The general consensus so far is that after I have the wisdom tooth removed, I will then have to replace the adjacent molar with a dental implant.

Getting an implant done properly is a long and very expensive process. The damaged tooth is removed and sterile bone power is placed in the jaw where it fuses into new bone in four to six months. When this new bone is solid and stable, a titanium post is implanted in the jaw. The bone slowly grows around this post, attaching it firmly to the jawbone. This process takes another four to six months. When the post has fused with your jaw, a crown is attached and you're done. The whole procedure takes up to a year to complete and involves three different dentists. I'm not looking forward to this at all.

So, there you have it. The stock market had another terrible day and I'm beginning to think some of my assumptions about China and the energy markets were wrong. Dental insurance is more or less worthless if you need anything serious done. After investigating my options I don't think I'll even bother with it. I'm still busy, but my remaining clients keep cutting their budgets. At a time where it would be nice to have more money, I am faced with having less. I shouldn't whine though. I need to remember that even though this was a bad day, it has basically been a pretty good year. Both dogs survived cancer this year and I no longer have Hepatitis C. Sometime in the future I'll look back and be glad I fixed my teeth.

Willow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1814

Well, the news wasn't good at the dentist. I have extensive decay in one of my lower wisdom teeth and the tooth will have to be removed by an oral surgeon. This particular wisdom tooth has always been a problem because it came in at an angle and is pressing against my other teeth. The cavity on the wisdom tooth has spread to the adjacent molar and the dentist won't be able to tell whether this tooth can be saved until the wisdom tooth is removed. Evidently the location of the decay in the molar might make it very difficult to repair. I need to see an Endodontist as well, to see if telltale signs of a root canal problem in another tooth that showed up on today's x-rays needs further attention. So, that's three different teeth and three different dentists. I'm not looking forward to this.

On the plus side of things, the dentist I went to today was fantastic. Janet, who has had every dental problem imaginable, recommended him and as far as I'm concerned, he lived up to his "super-dentist" reputation. This guy, who mostly does complex Prosthodontic dentistry, was extremely knowledgeable and had an array of high-tech equipment that I didn't even know existed. Have you ever had a panoramic dental x-ray? You stick your entire head into a large machine which takes a 360 degree digital picture of your mouth. Digital x-rays are kind of amazing, since you see them on screen as they are being taken. You can blow them up quite large and see all the tiny little blood vessels that keep the teeth alive. I've never seen my teeth in such detail.

On my way home from the dentist, a message appeared on the instrument panel of my car that said "Service Required." I'd never seen this message before, so I stopped by the Land Rover dealer to see what it meant. It turned out that there was nothing wrong. The message was just a reminder that it was time for my next scheduled service. Evidently these messages are pre-programmed into the car's computer and appear when the car decides it's time to hand over some more money to the dealer. I went ahead and scheduled a service appointment while I was at the dealer. I've had Land Rovers for long enough to have learned that you ignore maintenance on these cars at your own peril. I'd much rather have a little sign on the dash remind me now, than have to call a tow truck later. At any rate, with three dental visits and a car repair, it looks like it's going to be an expensive month.

It was much warmer today, but it was also much cloudier. It looked like it was going to rain all day, which probably means the rain will just be delayed until it's time to take Dot for her physical therapy session tomorrow. Maybe it will just rain while we sleep tonight. That would make life a little easier.

I'll investigate dental insurance tomorrow, but I'm not expecting much. If you need anything complex done, dental insurance only pays a small fraction of the total cost. Every little bit helps though, so I'll see what I can find out. I got approved for physical therapy on my shoulder today as well. That will be one more doctor I need to add to my contact list. Oh, to be 25 again. I'm sure Dot thinks the same thing whenever she sees a squirrel. We're both doing the best we can to age gracefully, but as far as we're concerned, getting old sucks.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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