Day 4749 - Christmas Day

It was a very quiet day. I didn't talk to anyone all day. Dawn's first day alone with me went better than expected. She was a little nervous last night but she fell asleep long before I did. She wouldn't come out of the bedroom for breakfast this morning, but was eager to eat when I brought her bowl back to the bedroom. The little diva evidently wants breakfast in bed.

I ate my own breakfast and then took Dawn down to the park to do her business. She doesn't like to wear her regular harness when Janet is gone, but will follow me down to the park if I use the special training leash that Janet uses at dog school. She acted fairly normal this morning, smelling everything to find the perfect spot before peeing, but she definitely didn't want to take a walk. As soon as she was finished she headed straight back to the house.

My Waterpik broke today and I tried to order a replacement on Amazon. I discovered that I can't use Janet's Prime account anymore because she's enabled two-factor authentication and gets a code sent to her phone before each login attempt. Oh, well. I used my regular Amazon account and paid the shipping. Amazon Prime is nice but it's not worth each of us having our own Prime account. I use two-factor authentication for almost everything myself. It's weird to think that ten or fifteen years ago you didn't even need passwords on the Internet. A lot has changed over the years. I think I liked things better when I had a little 300 baud dial up modem and getting online was an adventure.

Since both my gym and the mall were closed today, I took a long walk in the park. The temperature had warmed up quite a bit by early afternoon and it was actually a very nice day for a walk. I didn't make great time today, but I did OK. I didn't see the eagles either, although lots of people were looking for them. I've walked this route so many times by now that I can predict my pace along the way almost to the second. There was a little excitement on the way home this afternoon. There were ten police cars and at least thirty cops surrounding a car on a nearby road. The police were lobbing tear gas canisters at the car and using a bull horn to tell the guy inside to come out and surrender. Eventually the driver did surrender and left the car. Then a large group of officers went up the the car with guns drawn to make sure there was nobody else inside. There were lots of spectators taking pictures with their phones but nobody knew what was going on. Clearly this guy was in some serious trouble. Whatever he did, it was a lot more than speeding or running a traffic light. I checked the news but there was nothing about the incident. That's kind of sad. It's probably just another day in the life for Dallas police.

I wish that Dawn didn't get so depressed when Janet is away. I haven't seen her wag her tail yet. She did come out and eat her dinner in the kitchen tonight though. That's a good sign. She came out for her bedtime snack last night as well. Dawn actually adjusts to changes fairly well. I just hate to see her sad.

There isn't a lot on the agenda for the rest of the year. I might be going to another launch in January, but I haven't been approved yet. Basically my life revolves around going down to Kennedy Space Center three or four times a year and and making at least one trip out to McDonald Observatory. I don't have any desire to go anywhere else. I haven't picked up a guitar in years and my little recording studio is gathering dust. Things change I guess. At least I'm still interesting in something. 

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 4155

We picked up a new dog at the vet on our way to the kennel this afternoon. Aries is a beautiful six year old female who was an owner surrender. I can't recall that we've had another dog named after a zodiac sign. I wonder is she has an Aries personality. Aries is friendly, very gentle, and will probably find her forever home almost immediately. I wouldn't be surprised if she was determined as well. That's a typical Aries trait. I took some pictures of her for the website, but I think she already have someone looking at her. A dog this nice doesn't stay at the kennel very long.

Cooper was still at the kennel, but only because the guy who wanted to adopt him still needed to fix a few things in his yard. As soon as the yard is secure, I think Cooper will have his forever home. Charlie will probably be with us a little longer, but he certainly deserves a good home as well. Charlie is one of the smartest dogs in the rescue program. He just never developed a soft mouth as a puppy, so you have to be careful where you put your hands. 

Dawn got her walk today, but I had to skip my longer excursion. I'm already way behind on packing for my trip. I did take a short walk after we returned home from the kennel, but the weather hasn't been very cooperative today. It's been on the verge of raining all day. I thought I was going to get lucky, but when I had to go out and run some errands toward the end of the day, I got soaked. I hope the weather improves later in the week, but it's not looking good right now. I have a feeling that I'm going to be driving to West Texas in the rain.

I keep hoping that the ice maker will start working again, but we haven't seen any ice for several days. It's a safe bet that the ice maker is broken and will need to be replaced. We got a big bag of ice on the way home from the kennel. Maybe that will last until I can make arrangements with the appliance repairman to get this fixed. Something always seems to be broken around here. As soon as I get one thing fixed, another thing breaks.

I'm starting to wonder why I wanted to go to the astrophotography workshop at all. I'm very disorganized this time and I'm dreading the long drive. Hopefully the weather in West Texas will be nicer than the weather in Dallas. The rain is pounding down now and there is lots of thunder. There have been several severe weather warnings on the television this evening as well. I'm really glad that Dawn is unaffected by the weather. Thunderstorms don't seem to bother her at all. I wish I could say the same.

It's been a long day and I need to get some sleep. I'll do a little more packing before I go to bed. I guess there's always tomorrow, but I am running out of time. Why didn't I get organized sooner? I certainly knew this was coming. 

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2855

I think I've messed up my day count. This is Day 2855, but according to Blogger I've actually written something for 2865 consecutive days. Where did the missing ten days go? I don't have a clue. I'm sure what happened was that one day I made a typo in the title and then the next day I just added one to that number and kept going. I really don't have the time or the inclination to search through a year's worth of blog posts to find the gap, but this odd mistake will be added to the long list of things that irritate me. I'm so meticulous and always spell check everything. How could I make a mistake like this?

Dash didn't walk at all today. He wouldn't leave the yard this morning and since Janet had to go to a funeral after work, he wouldn't take an evening walk either. I tried everything to get him to take an evening walk. At one point I left all his gear on for an hour or so, hoping that he could get used to it. The knee brace wasn't the problem. He walked around the yard with his knee brace and boots just fine, but as soon as I put a leash on him, he started heading for the house. The days are getting shorter, so this is only going to get harder in the months ahead. I don't know what this reluctance to walk is all about. The knee brace isn't bothering him and he can walk normally while wearing it. He doesn't mind the rubber boots either. He wears these around the house at times and seems to forget he has them on. For some reason that only Dash knows, he just doesn't want to leave the yard anymore.

I finished my article today, but it took longer than I expected. When Dash doesn't get enough exercise, he is constantly pestering me to let him outside. As soon as he's out, he just wanders around for a minute or two and then wants to come in again. In and out we go, all day long. I can't just leave the back door open. An open door is an invitation to all the squirrels, raccoons, and feral cats that wander through our yard. There are plenty of bugs that would fly through the open door as well.

After I shipped my article off to the client, I got caught up on my website revisions. I wish now that I'd never bothered to convert everyone's site to a mobile friendly format. None of my clients even seem to care that their site automatically resizes for tablets and phones. The mobile sites are more complex and harder to change. The worst thing is that I can't use Dreamweaver anymore and need to make my changes using a cloud based design program. Modifications that used to take a few minutes can now take up to an hour. The sad thing is that I've got plenty of time to do all this because there aren't that many clients left.

Today's picture is pretty pitiful, since Dash wouldn't walk anywhere with me. It's just a crow in the back yard. I don't know what I'm going to do tomorrow. I might have to take a picture of my morning smoothie. I hope I can figure out how to get Dash walking again. He used to love long walks and certainly needs the exercise. He shouldn't do anything strenuous with the blood clots in his heart, but his doctor said that slow walks would actually be good for him.

The parts I ordered for the refrigerator arrived this morning, but I've still heard nothing about the important mother board that the appliance repair folks ordered. All I ordered were some rubber gaskets and a temperature sensor that the repairman said never goes bad. I could have ordered the motherboard myself as well, but I was afraid I might have to pay for two boards if the repair shop wouldn't send theirs back. Lord knows when this thing will get fixed. I'm still convinced that I could have watched a few YouTube instructional videos and fixed the refrigerator myself weeks ago.

It looks like I might have to take some money from the retirement account to pay the Mastercard bill. That's what happens when business dries up. I guess this is what the retirement account if for, but I'd hoped to leave it untouched for a few more years. Sometimes I wonder if planning ahead even matters. You could have everything all worked out and then there's a nuclear war with North Korea or that super volcano under Yellowstone National Park explodes. Then what? I don't even think the preppers have an answer for that.

Little Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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