Day 3034

I looked up at the sky when I took Dash out to pee last night and I couldn't find Jupiter. How could a planet disappear? I guess I'd forgotten how long it's been cloudy when I take Dash out in the middle of the night. Saturn, Mars and Jupiter were no longer in their familiar positions. It seemed like yesterday when the three planets were neatly arranged in a straight line stretched across the Eastern sky. Of course it seems like Christmas was yesterday too. The older you get, the faster time flies.

It's just about impossible to get Dash to do his business at a reasonable hour. I take him out several times every night now. Dash ought to be glad that I'm a light sleeper. He seems supremely confident that I will always be there to open the door for him. Strangely, I don't really feel sleep deprived like I did when Dot was sick. I take naps now. Dash's behavior is not going to change. He's certainly not losing much sleep since he spends most of the day snoozing. I figure if you can't beat 'em, you might as well join 'em. I'm going to sleep during the day too.

I tried to find the special adhesive that can glue silicon to silicon, but nobody carries it. I struck out trying to find a replacement band for Janet's Fitbit too. I'm beginning to think that it isn't even worth the trouble to shop at retail stores anymore. Both of these hard to find items are readily available on Amazon. All I have to do is click on the "add to cart" button" and they'll be here next week.

There seems to be fewer and fewer people at the gym each time I go. Maybe this is seasonal, or maybe there's a better gym out there. I hope enough people keep attending this gym to keep it open. I'd hate to see the place close. I've grown fond of the place and it would be difficult for me to go anywhere else. If I had to go to a trendy gym full of young people, I'd probably stop going entirely.

We ordered Dash some indoor boots that he can wear around the house. He's really starting to slip on the bricks now. Hopefully, the lightweight rubberized boots will provide the traction he needs. I'd hate to bring all those ugly rugs  home from the storage warehouse again. The three rugs we've strategically placed in the kitchen to help him eat are bad enough. I suspect that it's only a matter of time before the rest of the rugs return as well.

I've started watching a show called Detectorists on BBC. The show is supposed to be a comedy, but it is bleak and a bit melancholy. Maybe that's why I like it. The main characters have dead end jobs, or no jobs at all, and spend their time searching the English countryside for hidden gold with metal detectors. They find nothing but old buttons and pull tabs from beer cans, but never seem to give up. The awkwardness and futility of these characters seems so real that each episode becomes a sad metaphor for life in general. I think there still another season of this show that I haven't seen yet. Maybe I've finally got something to watch on Netflix.

Can you believe it's the middle of April already?  Maybe by the end of the month Winter will be over.

Krissy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3009

The bomb squad was in the neighborhood last night removing a live grenade that was found in the road. Since this is Texas, it was unclear whether this was a malicious act or if someone just lost their grenade. I was surprised that the event didn't receive much coverage in the local news. I did read that a police robot moved the grenade to a nearby school playground where it was safely detonated. So that's what I heard last night. I just thought it was a car backfiring, but I heard the noise at exactly the same time that the bomb squad was removing the grenade. What a world we live in that something like this wouldn't even get much attention.

Janet had to go to work so early this morning that Dash was totally confused. He usually eats his breakfast with Janet but this morning he didn't even wake up until she was ready to leave. I didn't wake up either. I took Dash outside to pee and saw Jupiter, Mars, and Saturn stretched out in a line in the Southern sky. This was all the evidence that Dash and I needed to go back to bed. We slept for another three hours and then ate our breakfast at a normal time.

The weather was kind of chilly this morning, but it still seems like Spring. We watched the sun come up on our morning walk and I found a patch of Purple Phlox starting to bloom. The Purple Martins have returned and are engaged in a war with the local Sparrows for possession of the Martin houses in the park. I saw the Cedar Waxwings again perched in a Cedar Tree and off in the distance there were still a few White Pelicans floating serenely on the lake. I enjoy mornings like these, especially when there are no bicycles to be seen.

The refrigerator is still working like a charm. It's to early to claim victory, but I have a feeling that the recent repair just might work. The reason I'm optimistic is that the temperature is very stable now. Last week it kept fluctuating. If there is still no ice build up two weeks from now, I'll be able to cross the refrigerator off my to-do list for a while.

When I was taking some mail to the post office this afternoon, I stopped at a neighborhood Italian restaurant and picked up a calzone to take home for dinner. I haven't had a calzone in years. I don't know why I've been craving Italian food lately, but the calzone was very good. It was very inexpensive too. It's a shame that bread and pasta immediately convert to glucose in your stomach. I could live on bread if I didn't have to worry about becoming a diabetic. Oh, well. I can always eat more vegetables tomorrow.

Dash is still eating well and taking two walks a day. I hope this means that his heart condition is improving. The only way we can tell how he's doing is to use an echocardiogram to measure the size of the blood clots in his heart. We'll run another test in a month in a half, but so far Dash seems to be improving.

I hope I don't get heartburn from that delicious calzone. I could really use a good night's sleep tonight.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2142

When I was reading the new issue of Electronic Musician this morning I was surprised to see that there is now software that allows you to add realistic sounding vocals to songs you've written without using a real singer. The voice synthesizer software is called Cyber Diva and you just enter lyrics and a melody into digital audio workstation applications like CuBase and you've got an instant lead vocalist that sounds pretty real. I was intrigued. I'm way past the stage in life where you get together with other musicians at 2 AM to lay down a demo on a tape machine in your bedroom. Been there, done that several decades ago. Something like Cyber Diva might make it easier for me to get back into songwriting again. I used to always have other singers record my songs because I inherited my mother's terrible singing voice. Maybe synthesized vocals are the next big thing for the solo songwriter. I did a little research and discovered that this sort of thing is already popular in Japan. Not surprisingly, the software is Japanese. Most of the available voices are Japanese too. Cyber Diva is their first attempt to create an electronic voice that sings in American English.

I finally heard from the watch winder people today. Evidently my defective unit is too old to repair and not being manufactured anymore. The good news is that the company is sending me a brand new replacement three motor winder at no charge. I was pleasantly surprised. I sure wish that other companies worked this way. It would be nice to hear my service representative at the Land Rover dealer say "I'm sorry sir, we can no longer repair your car, so we're just going to give you a brand new one."

Today was another slow day. After I finished some minor website updates, I did what I often do on slow days. I washed my car. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that I'd driven through some fresh road tar. It's much easier to drive through road tar in Dallas than to get the sticky stuff off your wheels. In many ways, life is a lot like driving through road tar. You're minding your own business and all of the sudden you're in the middle of a big mess. Just like the road tar, you often don't realized how bad the mess is until long after the incident is over. At any rate, an easy task quickly turned into a difficult one. I found some solvent in the utility room and methodically cleaned the wheels. I still don't know where the tar came from. That means I could easily drive through the same patch again tomorrow.

I did manage to see the planetary trio this morning when we were walking the dogs. Mars, Venus, and Jupiter weren't as quite close together as they would have been yesterday morning, but it was still an impressive sight. When I looked up at the sky I kept wondering whether I'll be accepted to the next NASA launch. I don't think my application was as inspired as my initial application last January. I guess it all depends on who else applies.

Tomorrow should be busier. I have several new articles to write, along with the usual assortment of useless activities that constitute my day. Dot and Dash are continuing to have a good week. You can't ask for more than that.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2141

Dash is much better today. The swelling has gone down on his paw and he's walking more or less normally again. He remembers where the bee stung him and won't walk in that section of the park. He's a nervous dog, but he's a very smart dog who learns from his experiences. I wouldn't walk on that trail either if I'd been stung yesterday. I had been thinking about making another vet appointment because Dash had been having some digestion issues last week, but that problem seems to have resolved itself. Dash is eating normally again. He's about as normal as he's going to get.

I didn't see the cluster of three planets this morning, because the sky was very overcast. It wasn't raining though. That's always a good thing. By around 10:30 this morning the blue sky I was hoping for suddenly materialized and it was nice for the rest of the day. Since it was a typical slow Monday, I used this opportunity to clear off the roof again. You would think that I could find better things to do with my time than to spend it perpetually removing water from the roof. Maybe. I can tell you one thing. Once you've had a bad water leak with sections of wet sheet rock falling from the ceiling, you never really trust water or your roof again. I'll always be looking over my shoulder when it rains.

Although my website business has slowed down quite a bit, I still get update requests every couple of days. Most of these updates are simple and don't provide much of a challenge. Sadly, they don't provide much of an income either. I keep hoping that these maintenance clients will spread my name around and one of their friends will eventually bring me a big new project that will keep me busy for months. That probably isn't going to happen though. Everybody has a website these days, but not everybody needs one. Some of my clients look at their website like an electronic Yellow Pages ad. Others have forgotten that they even have a website until I remind them. It can be discouraging to realize that you're not exactly setting the world on fire. On the other hand, it's kind of nice to have clients who still keep using you even though they don't need you at all.

I'm getting to the age where I see far too many obituaries. I see most of these notices on Facebook, because that's where you see everything these days. I haven't subscribed to a newspaper in years. Most of my college teachers have died by now. Many of my former ad agency bosses and early mentors have passed away as well, including one more today. It's kind of sobering to realize what a limited amount of time we have on this planet. Whenever I read that a friend or co-worker has died, I renew my resolve to put my remaining years to good use. This resolve usually lasts about an hour and then I revert to my old ways.

Apple is really getting sloppy about its upgrade program. During the past two weeks I have installed three different IOS upgrades to my phone plus another two upgrades for my watch. I just installed another Apple Watch upgrade this afternoon. Each of these upgrades was designed to fix a series of flaws and omissions found in the previous upgrade. I wish they'd tested these patches before they released them. I'd rather wait a little longer than hurry to install software that is full of bugs.

There will be one more chance to see Mars, Jupiter, and Venus packed into a tight little triangle tomorrow morning. The best viewing time was today, unless you had a sky full of thick clouds like we did. Maybe we'll get lucky tomorrow. Clear skies, no dog poop in the house, and a new job in my morning e-mail: that would be my tight little triangle.

Pearl is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2140

Poor Dash can't seem to catch a break. Just when his back legs were getting back to normal, he gets stung by a bee on his evening walk and now he's limping on his front leg. Actually he was doing a lot worse than just limping at one point. I was worried that he was having an adverse reaction to the sting and managed to get him to the vet five minutes before they closed for the day. Dash can't take antihistamines or Benadryl because he is still taking Phenobarbital to control his seizures. The vet removed the stinger, which I had been unable to find, and gave Dash a steroid shot to reduce the inflammation and pain. He is resting now and should feel much better in the morning.

Before all the bee sting drama, it was just a normal Sunday. For the most part, a normal Sunday involves vacuuming the house and going to the gym. There are always a lot more steps on my activity tracker on Sunday than on any other day of the week. There was a police car in the parking lot when I arrived at the gym and it was still there when I left an hour later. It made me wonder if the gym was having problems with crime in the area. Just about every other part of town is having problems, so it wouldn't be that surprising if this area had an incident as well. Whatever the cause, I was glad to see the police presence. I just wish they'd patrol the park a little more frequently.

There were quite a few people working out today and many of the machines were occupied, so I had to do my normal workout in reverse order. Surprisingly, I burned up more calories doing things backwards like this. I usually do the difficult routines first to get them out of the way. Maybe doing the most strenuous exercises toward the end of my workout when I was already tired burned up more energy. Who knows. I wasn't as good at basketball today either.

The temperature was in the low fifties for most of the day. Shouldn't the bees have moved on to someplace warmer by now? Maybe the bee that stung Dash was a straggler. I usually don't see many bees this late in the year. It would have been hard for a bee to sting me today. I wore my Winter coat for the first time this season. It seemed a little much at first, but I ended up being glad I overdressed. The air was damp and there was a brisk wind. This always makes it seem even colder than it really is.

I hope there is a break in the clouds early tomorrow morning. There is a rare conjunction of Jupiter, Venus, and Mars in the morning sky called a planetary trio that won't occur again until 2021. I've been watching these three planets move closer and closer together for the past month now. If the sky is clear, I should set up a tripod and try to get a decent picture of the event. Usually there's no time to do this sort of thing, since it takes so much time to get the dogs walked and fed before Janet leaves for work.

At this point, I don't think Dash will be going on a walk tomorrow morning, and it is questionable how far that Dot will walk without him. Dot was barking during dinner because she smelled the Beef Stroganoff that Janet had cooked for our evening meal. I told Dot that she had to be good, because she was the therapy dog today. For the first time in a long time, Dot was actually in better shape than Dash. To say we have high maintenance dogs would be an understatement.

Patch is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day