Day 3358

It was much nicer today. I could almost overlook the fact that it was 23 degrees this morning because the sun was shining and there wasn't much of a wind. Of course Dash wanted a walk. It takes a while to get him suited up on cold days. We try to put his socks and boots on before he gets up because it much easier to fit these things while he is still lying down. When he gets up we take off his harness so he can wear a warm sweater underneath. Then we attach the Help 'Em Up Harness again, trying to make sure that Dash doesn't fall down in the process. On really cold days he also wears his hat. You may think this is overkill, but everything fits well and when Dash came home this morning, he wasn't shivering.

Long walks were the order of the day. There wasn't much else to do. I think Dash and I were both ready to get outside. Without writing and website design jobs to keep me busy, my days can get pretty long. If Dash were young and healthy, I could walk for hours in the park. Walking is a great way to daydream and kill time.

The muddy area on top of the sewer pipe still seems to be drying up, so I canceled the plumbing appointment that I postponed yesterday. Plumbers are expensive and I'd hate to tear up the yard and spend a lot of money just to discover that the pipe was fine and I was dealing with a drainage problem instead. We have had a lot of rain lately. I think I'll wait until we get some dry weather and then see what the yard looks like. I can always call the plumber back.

When I was busy with work, I also seemed to have lots of hobbies. I collected things. I taught myself to repair watches. I played in a rock band for a while. I convinced myself that I was an artist and had several gallery shows. Now that I have all the time in the world, nothing interests me. Most of the watches aren't running anymore and I don't even care. I tried to resume playing the piano and took online lessons for a month or two, but quickly became bored and my keyboard is now gathering dust. We have Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime and I'm not even interested in watching movies. This is all very curious. I wonder how this happened? I'm not depressed. I don't think I'm avoiding things because when something needs to get done, I still take care of the problem quickly and efficiently. Some people are motivated by desire. I must have always been motivated by deadlines. Without a deadline to meet I'm alarmingly content to do nothing.

I'll probably do nothing tomorrow. A roofer may come over to give me an estimate on a new roof. Since he's a roofer, he may not come at all though. We'll see. On Thursday we take Dash to the cancer center again for one of his periodic echocardiograms. Against all odds, I think Dash's condition has actually gotten better since we saw these doctors two months ago. He's eating better and seems to have more energy. He even got up on the bed by himself today. The little guy is pretty amazing. We were warned that Dash was living on borrowed time over two years ago and he's still with us today. He seems happy too. Maybe doing nothing is the secret to a long life. Dash has perfected doing nothing. He sleeps all day and when he's active he's mostly interested in smelling other dog's poop in the park. I think he's a good role model.

Rory is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3356

20,000 steps today. That's what you get when you walk the dog twice, go to the gym, and remove all the water from the roof. I was surprised that Dash even wanted a walk this morning. It was bitterly cold. There was a brisk wind for most of the day and the wind chill made the temperature feel like 20 degrees. I definitely didn't feel like going up on the roof in this kind of weather, but I knew that if I didn't remove the standing water immediately, it would be ice by morning. So far, the roof leak hasn't reappeared, so maybe all my efforts have been worthwhile. Just being outside today was quite a workout. My trip to the gym seemed easy by comparison.

I wasn't surprised that Dash seemed tired today. Walking in freezing weather takes a lot out of you. We probably should have stayed inside but it's hard to convince a dog who loves to smell things in the park that it is too cold. As soon as Dash gets back inside on these cold days, he starts shivering. He never shivers while he is actually walking though. I still haven't figured this out. At any rate, after a short nap under his favorite blanket, Dash was fine. The cold weather certainly didn't hurt his appetite. Dash ate anything within reach today.

I watched the Crew Dragon capsule dock with the International Space Station on NASA TV this morning. The capsule looked so clean and neat inside. It looked a lot more like the interior of a Tesla Model 3 than your typical space capsule. The Russian Soyuz capsule looks like a flying garbage can by comparison. I'm amazed at the progress that Elon Musk has made in the last ten years. It's pretty impressive. I hope he can reach his goal of landing on Mars while I'm still alive.

I didn't have the energy to do any house cleaning after I finished with the roof this afternoon. I didn't finish updating the Dalmatian Rescue website either. I guess I can do those things tomorrow. Today just seemed like a long, continuous workout. Maybe I lost a few a few pounds. It isn't every day that I rack up 20,000 steps on the Fitbit.

I wonder why I've become so fascinated with tracking things. The Fitbit tracks me while I'm walking around and up until yesterday an IOS app called Fabric tracked me when I was driving around. the Fabric company went out of business recently and the app has gone dead. The same thing happened to Moves, another tracking app I used to use. I guess this shows that there isn't much of a market for apps that track your every more. Most people apparently don't want to be tracked.

I wonder whether I should cancel tomorrow's appointment with the plumber? Another arctic cold front is on the way and temperatures are supposed be get down in the teens. I would imagine that if the ground is frozen, it's going to be a lot harder to find that leak in the sewer line. I can't imagine that the plumbers would enjoy working out in the cold either. I'll call in the morning and see what the plumbing company wants to do. This seems like something that could wait until things warm up a bit.

Dash was restless last night and I didn't get a lot of sleep. Hope things improve this evening. I've done enough moving for one day. I need to be still for a while.

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3351

I noticed this morning that there was a large muddy puddle in the middle of the back yard. WTF? This wasn't here yesterday. It didn't rain last night. For a moment I thought that I might have left a garden hose on, but all the faucets were off. What new kind of hell was this? When the puddle refused to dry up as the day progressed, I began to suspect the worst. Our sewer line passes under the muddy area. A pipe probably rusted or broke. Several other houses in the neighborhood that are about the same age as ours have had to replace their sewer lines. Maybe it's my turn this time.

It's weird that virtually every single problem I've had with the house involves water. Roofs leak. toilets run. Pipes break under the concrete slab. Washing machines break. Refrigerator coils freeze. Somehow the problem always involves water. I guess that's why there are hundreds of plumbers in town. I see a plumbing truck in front of someone's house just about every time I walk Dash. Maybe the wet ground will start to dry out tonight. If not, I'll have to call the plumber. I don't look forward to plumbers digging a big hole in the back yard, but what are you going to do? Things like this are one more reason why I'm never going to have any extra money.

Janet has started putting Dash's boots on before he wakes up in the morning. It's much easier to get the socks and boots on while Dash is lying down, but this doesn't always make him eager to walk. He was very reluctant to leave the house this morning. It took us forever just to get down to the park. Dash would walk a few feet and then he'd stop for a while. I don't know what was going through his head. Eventually we reached the area where the good smells begin and Dash began walking normally again. We took a much shorter walk than we normally do this morning and then Dash went back to sleep again. He didn't eat his breakfast until several hours later. I hope he's feeling OK.

Nothing exciting happened today. I balanced my checkbook after breakfast. Sometimes this process is easy. Other times it is infuriatingly difficult. It took me a long time to realize that I'd failed to record several January bills. I paid the bills. I just didn't subtract them from my balance. Eventually I found the problem and everything balanced but it sure took me a while.

I still haven't accepted the NASA invitation to visit the Johnson Space Center. I probably will, but there are still a few days left until the deadline. I keep finding excuses to postpone making a decision. I worry about Dash having a setback. Today I was fretting about my potential plumbing problem. I need to realize that I'm never, ever going to wake up without a care in the world. There's always going to be something to worry about. It's not a perfect world, but I shouldn't use this as an excuse to do nothing.

I did remember that it was Tuesday today. That means that if I don't procrastinate, I might be able to get a plumber out to the house before the end of the week. I might as well go for it. I despise expensive repairs, but sitting around and watching the mud hole in the yard grow deeper for a few additional days isn't going to make the repair any cheaper. I'll call tomorrow. The sad thing is that the plumbing repair will probably cost exactly the same as a trip to Houston.

Bingo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2714

There were plumbers at the house today. The slow drains in the kitchen finally reached a point of no return and I had to do something about it. Plumbers and dogs aren't usually a good combination, but I was happy to have them over today. Dot hasn't paid much attention to strangers lately. She used to bark at the neighbors, people we encountered on our walks, and any and all service people. She's been pretty quiet lately, but somehow the sight of two plumbers in the house caused her protective instincts to kick into gear and she began her "stranger danger" bark. I haven't heard this bark in months.

The more Dot barked, the more she began to remember she was a dog again. I could tell she was enjoying herself. Maybe it was a jolt of adrenaline. Maybe it was some vivid old memories she managed to resurrect. I don't know. Something happened though. Protecting me from the plumbers stimulated her appetite and as soon as the plumbers left, she ate a full cup of her dry kibble. Later, she ate a grilled chicken breast while Janet was having dinner and then we took a nice walk. It was almost worth the $237 bill the plumbers left me with.

I thought snaking out the pipes would be an easy and inexpensive job. Unfortunately, nothing is easy at our house. It turned out that the problem wasn't in the main drain lines. The clog was in a hard to access line in the brick wall behind the kitchen sink. The plumbers has to remove the garbage disposal and several supply lines in order to reach the line they needed to clear. Everything works fine now, but the two plumbers were here almost three hours.

I wonder why there are always two plumbers now? One plumber used to be enough. The same thing happens with electricians and HVAC repairmen. There are always at least two people on any service call. I'm sure this is a big reason why most home repairs now cost twice as much. I wasn't going to quibble about the price though. I was delighted that the plumbers arrived so quickly. In a house where the washing machine is running constantly, I can't afford to have clogged drain lines.

I know there are people who think I'm not being realistic about Dot. They worry about her quality of life. I know life isn't what it used to be, but days like today make me realize that Dot still has the capacity to enjoy being the family dog. Yes, I know yesterday was a bad day, but that's how it goes. I saw this with my Dad as well toward the end. Things fade in and things fade out. You've got to give the memories a chance. There will be other bad days and sometime in the not too distant future, we will run out of time. All I know is that I'm not forcing Dot to stay with us. She wants to stay with us. At least for a while today, she was a very happy dog.

Ollie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2397

I thought the plumber would only be here about five minutes. I mean, how long could it take to tighten a few loose bolts? I was wrong again. After a lengthy investigation, the plumber determined that there were several defective parts in the brand new faucet. "Since you bought the faucet, we can't pay for these parts," the plumber told me. "Your other plumber was right with me when I bought it," I told him. "I only paid for the parts myself, so you guys wouldn't mark them up 40% on my bill." This apparently didn't matter. Neither did the fact that the first plumber should have noticed that he was installing defective parts. I got the plumbing supply store to exchange the parts for free, but today's plumber still insisted that he had to charge me for today's service call. He said he was going to give me a big discount since this never should have happened, but my bill was still over $150.

As you might expect, Dot freaked out when the plumber arrived and pooped all over the place. After I got the mess cleaned up and managed to calm Dot down, the plumber had to leave to pick up the replacement parts from the plumbing supply store. When he returned an hour later, Dot acted like she'd never seen the plumber before and pooped again. It's been a long day. Sadly, it's also been a fairly typical day. Nothing seems to go as expected anymore.

As I was working today, I watched portions of the the hearing where FBI Director James Comey was testifying before congress about their recently concluded investigation of Hillary Clinton. It sure looked like the fix is in to me. In one astounding exchange, Comey openly admitted that Clinton had lied numerous times. He then admitted that lying to Congress under oath was a federal crime that you could go to prison for. He completely failed to connect the dots however and defended his decision not to prosecute Clinton, saying only that nobody had asked the FBI to investigate Clinton for perjury. He also said that Clinton wasn't under oath when she testified to the FBI and that their conversation with her wasn't even recorded. Unbelievable.

Watching this spectacle this morning just reinforces my belief that our country is hopelessly broken. We have become so divided that I don't think anyone will be able to fix it. The Democrats on the committee kept trying to divert the hearing into a conversation about police shootings. The Republicans just seemed dumbfounded that the FBI Director kept saying things like the Secretary of State might not have been sophisticated enough to recognize security designations on an e-mail message. I have a feeling that this isn't over yet.

I hope that the bathroom sink never leaks again. Truthfully, I'd rather live with a leak than deal with plumbers. I'm so tired of dealing with things that don't work the way I've been promised. It doesn't matter whether it's an expensive car repair that should have been covered under the vehicle warranty, a broadband router that the cable company managed to ruin during their testing procedure, or a brand new faucet that was full of defective parts. Nothing works properly anymore and everyone keeps trying to make excuses for their own incompetence. Maybe in this context, today's congressional hearings weren't strange at all. Maybe this is just the way things are in an increasingly dystopian world.

Delaney is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2348

You can never ignore Murphy's Law when you hire a plumber. Anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. Somehow plumbing problems always end up being more difficult than they first appear. I was well prepared today. I had all the parts necessary to rebuild the leaking bathroom faucets. The only original part I had planned to reuse was a brass valve under the sink that the plumbing supply guys said was indestructible. Unfortunately, the sixty year old parts were so corroded that they were frozen solid and virtually impossible to remove from the porcelain body of the sink. While trying to remove the old faucets, the plumber broke the indestructible valve under the sink and we had to start over from the beginning. I took all the parts I bought yesterday back to the plumbing supply store and purchased a brand new faucet set that I hoped would fix.

I thought everything would be a piece of cake at this point, but the old brass water spout in the center of the sink was even more frozen and corroded than the faucets. I cut my hand trying to help the plumber remove the spout. The plumber, who was underneath the sink, cut his hand even worse. He also ended up having a small porcelain chip fall in his eye. We ended up having to saw the heavy brass spout off using a special metal saw. The important thing at this point was to not break the porcelain, because the plumber said the old basin would be impossible to replace. Eventually, the plumber realized that the sink had the upper hand and called a second plumber to come help him.  The two plumbers spent the rest of the day wrestling with the sink and eventually prevailed. I now have a very nice, and quite expensive, working sink.

Not surprisingly, Dot didn't like all this activity and ended up pooping fives time in the house. Trust me on this. Cleaning up after in incontinent dog is much more difficult when there is no running water in the house. We had to shut off the water to the entire house for most of the day, because the old sink had no shut off valves. By the end of the day I had a huge pile of smelly dog blankets and rugs sitting out in a pile on the back porch, waiting for the water to return so I could hose them off before throwing them in the washing machine.

This was a very expensive day. Before meeting the plumber, I dropped my car off at the Land Rover dealer for a required major service. There is a suspension problem that should be covered under the car's warranty, but the service maintenance is always on my dime. I love my car, except for those days when I have to pay for a major repair. The plumbing and car repair bills were enough for one day, but when I got home the was a call from the guy at the audio repair shop with an estimate of what it would cost to rebuild the second old tape recorder I'd taken to them. Yep. This recorder is going to cost just as much as the one I took in last month. All in all, not a good day. I really need to find a well paying job again. Maybe I should become a plumber.

Oh, did I mention that it rained today too and that the Internet has been down for most of the day. I had thought about putting the dogs beds out on the porch while the plumbers were working, but they are both scared of thunder and wanted nothing to do with going outside. All is well that ends well I guess. I now have a sink that will outlast me and hopefully nothing else in the house will break for a few months. Dot has finally calmed down and is resting peacefully. All I need to do now is figure out a way to upload this post without a working WiFi connection.

Holly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2345

I find dealing with money very frustrating these days. People want to pay me less than they did ten or fifteen years ago, while the cost of everything I use in my daily life is going through the roof. Everything is topsy turvy. Interest rates are near all time lows, but the the purchase price of a home has gone through the roof. Interest rates were over 14% when I bought my first home, but it wasn't a problem because the homes themselves were quite affordable. Cars were a bargain. I remember when you could buy a new Porsche 911 for under $8000 and a cool looking Jaguar E-Type was even less. The stock market was kind to me when the Dow was under 8,000. Not anymore. This is why I hate meeting with my financial adviser. I don't want to listen to complicated schemes to tame today's increasingly volatile market. All I want to do is go back to the early 1970's when I was a young copywriter making a paltry salary but still seemed to have more left over at the end of the month than I do today.

I didn't feel very comfortable taking any of my broker's suggestions this afternoon. I have a gut feeling that things are going to get a lot worse no matter who wins the election. We are in uncharted territory. People are voting for Hillary because they hate Trump and voting for Trump because they hate Hillary. Nobody actually likes either candidate. I think the political system has failed us if the best we can come up with for presidential candidates are two of the most disliked people in history. Can't we do  better than this? Maybe not. We complain that all the jobs have disappeared, but we still want cheap stuff made in China. People in Dallas complain about illegal immigration but still want to keep their gardeners and yard guys. You can't have it both ways. I didn't have an iPhone in the 1970's, but I had a Walkman and everything was fine. Maybe you like the way things are today, but I'd prefer to go back to the days when you could buy a new Porsche for $8000 and the most expensive house in town was less than $50,000.  I'm sure my attitude is infuriating to stockbrokers and financial advisers who are trying to get me excited about today's latest rabbet hole to jump down. I'm sorry guys. Today's investment opportunities suck.

I broke down and called a plumber today. The leak under the bathroom sink has gotten worse and I'm not ready to remodel the entire bathroom just to fix it. I'm prepared to hear that the fixtures in the sink are too old and that it's a waste of money to repair them, but what are my alternatives? Modern faucets won't fit in the old sink and a new sink won't fit in the old bathroom. The plumbers will complain, but I'm confident that they will be able to fix the leak. That's what plumbers do, isn't it?

I think I'm going to skip Dot's physical therapy for an additional week. She seems to be enjoying her lighter schedule and is slowly regaining some strength. Maybe we were just pushing her too hard. She's probably not walking enough right now, but the goal will be to slowly get her back to where she was before. I wish the underwater treadmill wasn't so far away. The water therapy is good for her, but a long ride in the car isn't. I have a feeling that transporting her to and from the vet canceled out some of the benefits of the therapy. We'll be back though. Dot's not a quitter and neither am I.

Dash and I walked past a big patch of wild ornamental onions today. I don't think these are the type of onions you eat, but the bees seem to like them. Some people call these flowers Allium. Others call them chives. I've been walking past this patch of wild onions for many years and watching them bloom every May. I wish the stock market were this reliable.

Liberty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2334

It drives me crazy when stuff breaks all the time. I called the electrician today to fix a broken sodium vapor light in the back yard. These lights typically last up to ten years, but this one bit the dust in less than a year. The good news is that the fixture is probably still under warranty. The bad news is that my electrician has gone to a four day week and doesn't work on Friday anymore. He won't be able to come out and replace the faulty security lamp until next Wednesday. By then, Janet and I will both have tripped over rocks and stepped in dog poop while taking the dogs out late at night. The security light is essential.

Next on the list was a call to the plumber to fix the leaking fixtures in the bathroom sink. I knew this wasn't going to be easy. I will have to measure and photograph the existing fixtures and then bring the photos to their offices so they can see if they can locate a suitable replacement. They're probably telling me the truth, since the modern fixtures I see at Home Depot and Lowes are too big to fit in the old sink. I had to do this once before when I owned rental property and it seemed like it took months to get the old leaking fixtures replaced. I keep thinking that all repair people are going to be like those friendly, knowledgeable guys on that PBS This Old House show, but sadly this is seldom the case.

I've started hearing a loud squeak or chirping noise on the left side of my car when I drive over a bump. I heard exactly the same noise a few weeks before the suspension went out on the right hand side of the car last year. To be proactive, I called the dealership to make an appointment to bring the car in for service. They don't have any openings until the end of the month. I guess I'd better not drive over any big bumps until then.

It was quite warm today and I could tell that Dot was already having trouble with the heat. We're going to have a real problem this Summer. The higher the temperature, the less energy she has. In Texas terms, this was just a mild Spring day. It's going to get worse. When Summer really hits us, we might not be able to walk at all. It's going to be a challenge to keep Dot moving in the Summer. I guess we could start using the underwater treadmill more, but it's a long ride in the car to get to our therapy sessions and cars can get very hot during Texas Summers.

Don't ask me why, but I had breakfast at a neighborhood cafe that appears to be a favorite with the over 70 crowd. Literally, everyone in the place was a senior citizen. I hadn't been to this place for several years, but it certainly hasn't changed much. The food is actually pretty good, but that's not why the place is popular. Old people love this place because the portions are huge. I could barely finish my meal this morning. It's weird how people tend to stay with their own tribe. There were no hipsters in this restaurant. There were no young moms, pushing their kids in fancy strollers. All I saw were a bunch of very old men who were clearly going to vote for Trump.

The new camera arrived today. I opened the box to make sure everything was there, but that's about as far as I got. I'll be taking plenty of pictures in the future, but my hands are full with other things now. Taking care of Dot and keeping the house from falling apart has become a full time job.

Patches is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2333

It's kind of two steps forward, three steps back with Dot. She has an amazing ability to rebound, but at the end of the day, we're still losing ground. We skipped the walks today and let Dot sleep. It seemed to help. By lunchtime, she wanted to get up and have her rice cake and by dinner time, she was eager to go outside again. Sure, she pooped in the house a few times, but her abdomen doesn't appear painful anymore and she's putting weight on her left rear leg again. It's a delicate balance. It's is essential to keep Dot moving to prevent the muscle atrophy in her legs from getting even worse, but it's equally essential not to overdo it.

If Dot continues to improve, we'll try a short walk tomorrow morning. When Dot needs to rest, Dash gets to enjoy a much longer walk by himself. We call it our 'Boy's Walk." All I have to say now is "Do you want to take a Boy's Walk Dash?" and he gets all excited. Dash is very good about walking slowly in front of Dot in the mornings to give her something to follow, but I'm not sure he understands how essential he is. I can tell he misses the old days when the three of us would walk for miles at full speed. Before Dot became ill, we could cover three times the distance in the same amount of time that our slow journey takes now.

I'm still having serious connectivity problems with my office network. The hosting company says everything is fine on their end and that the problem originates with my ISP. The ISP says they are unaware of the problem I describe and tell me to call the hosting company. After doing a little research on my own, I've discovered that my ISP is selectively blocking several servers owned by the hosting company, saying that the machines are known sources of malware. The hosting company says than none of the accounts on their servers are spammers or hackers and nobody should be blocking them. Neither party will actually admit to doing anything at all when I press them on the issue. When I tell them that there are tons of other customers complaining about similar  connectivity issues on Internet forums, they basically just tell me that you can't believe what you read on the Internet. It's frustrating. It appears like my ISP is having a little war with my hosting company and I'm caught in the middle.

I still haven't called the plumber. I think the leak originates under one of the fixtures, but I'm reluctant to deal with the issue, because I've already tried to get these faucets replaced before without much success. When I was having plumbers out to the house almost every day during our big underground pipe leak last year, I asked if they could replace the aging faucets. It didn't seem like a big deal to me, but the plumbers made all sorts of excuses. They told me that they didn't carry faucets or fixtures on the truck and that I would have to purchase the fixtures myself if I wanted them to install them. Since the sink is very old, I knew I could never find a match for the old faucets at Home Depot. I thought the plumbers would be happy to take care of this for me, but apparently not. I didn't press the issue because they were trying to fix a major leak under my foundation and I didn't want to make them mad. I'm beginning to think that absolutely nothing is easy to fix anymore.

I don't know where to eat tomorrow morning. I'm just floundering around, in search of a new Friday breakfast place. There are only about five restaurants that serve breakfast and are close enough to the house to meet my somewhat strange criteria. I guess I'll try them all again and see if something clicks. There was a reason that I abandoned each of these places in the past, but things change quickly in the restaurant business. Maybe one of these places is fabulous now.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2272

I think I'm going to have to call the plumber again. In one end of the house the kitchen sink drains slowly. In the other end of the house, the shower drains equally slowly. This probably means that the entire waste water line needs to be snaked out. I'm always nervous about doing this because the cast iron pipes are fifty years old and the rotating snake that is used to clear debris can also damage the pipes. After our last plumbing disaster, I don't want any more plumbing problems under the slab.

I guess I'm tired of problems in general. I'm forgetting things that I always used to remember. My business is slowing down. The house is falling apart. The dogs have become very high maintenance companions. My own body no longer cooperates with me. It's tiring. I go to bed tired and I wake up tired the next morning. The golden years are a myth. Maybe the notion of a comfortable, carefree retirement has always been a myth for most people. My parents certainly didn't have an easy time of things as they got older.

I certainly don't expect a politician to fix things. When I listen to all the promises from the current crop of candidates, they just sound pathetic. Don't these folks realize that the country has essentially become ungovernable? We have allowed ourselves to become so polarized and divided that we are just a bunch of tribes pretending to be a unified country. People's loyalties are to their tribe these days, not to the country as a whole. I'm not sure this can be fixed. Whoever wins the upcoming election will face a large and vocal group of people on the other side trying to block everything they do. My tribe will probably end up just being the other old people. I'll vote for anyone who promises to strengthen Medicare and Social Security and cut my taxes to zero. Lofty speeches about making the country better for our children will go in one ear and out the other because I don't have any children. I'm sure young people with children will think differently.

Dot had a few accidents in the house today. These accidents have become so frequent that cleaning up poop has become just like dusting or vacuuming. I can't even remember any more whether we're having an accident free day or not. It just seems like the washing machine is going constantly. I guess it's a good thing that I'm getting more efficient at cleaning Dot up and changing the rugs and bedding. Dot can't help her incontinence, so there's no point in getting upset about it. 

All in all, it was just a normal Saturday. The dogs got taken care of. I went out and got some groceries. I did a little cleaning and wasted too much time looking at Facebook. I was mildly interested in tonight's election results, but only mildly. Tomorrow, I'll probably go to the gym. I've run out of excuses for avoiding the place.

Rory is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2158

Sometimes, you've got to be the squeaky wheel. When Dot pooped in her bed again last night and we still couldn't use the washing machine because of our ongoing plumbing problems, I'd had about as much as I could take. I called the president of the plumbing company and told him as politely as I could that waiting until Tuesday for a plumber simply wasn't acceptable. "Your ads say you guys are on call 24/7," I said. "So, what's with making us wait a week and a half to get this fixed?" When I started going on and on about living in a house full of dog poop without running water, the guy told me he would see what he could do. An hour later the plumbing company said they could have a plumber out early Friday morning. Friday was much better than next Tuesday, so I was happy that my little tirade had achieved its purpose. Another hour passed, and the plumbing company called again and said they'd have someone out this afternoon.

When the plumber arrived he asked me to turn on all the water in the kitchen and utility room to help him find the drain leak under the house. Simply turning on the faucet wasn't producing the desired results, so I filled the kitchen sink with water and then let it go down the drain all at once. Not a good idea! The sink wasn't draining. At that point, the dishwasher, which was also on, began to empty and the water had no place to go. A line broke under the sink and the kitchen was flooded with water. Luckily, there were two plumbers several feet away watching this new disaster unfold.

Eventually the leaking cast iron pipe under the house was replaced, the leak under the sink was repaired, and the entire drain line was snaked out. I ran a load of poopy dog blankets to test the system and nothing leaked.  I think we're back in business! The two plumbers were at the house the entire afternoon. Mercifully, Dot slept for the first three hours. When she eventually woke up, she made up for lost time and barked for the rest of the day. Despite all the barking, she didn't poop in the house again. I think this was because she had already pooped in the vet's lobby, right before she got in the underwater treadmill.

There is still a huge hole under the house and one of the loud dehumidifiers is still running in the living room, but I think we're making progress. The tunneling crew will come back tomorrow to backfill the tunnel, unless another leak appears while I'm taking a shower tonight. I think the old house is trying to tell me something. If houses had "use by" dates like milk, this house would have expired and gone sour by now. Don't let me ever buy a house with a flat roof and a slab foundation again.

Since fixing things was the theme for the day, I tried to fix some ad copy that my client wasn't too happy with yesterday. I also tried to fix the layout in my new mobile friendly website so the iPhone view didn't look so wonky. I tried to explain to the client that making the mobile friendly site look perfect on every available device just wasn't that easy. I told them that the site was a work in progress and it would gradually become more refined with each passing day. I think the plumber tried to explain to me that my house was a work in progress too. There was no way he could fix all my plumbing problems in a single day. Fair enough. There was no way I could pay for everything I need right now anyway. The important thing was that the two major leaks had been repaired. The toilets are working again and I can do the laundry. That's enough for one day.

Hopefully, there will be no surprises when the tunneling crew returns tomorrow. I've had enough surprises for an entire year.

Jade is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2157

Three steps forward, two steps back. I woke up this morning thinking our plumbing ordeal was over, but when the tunneling crew returned to fill in the large hole they'd created, it didn't take ten minutes before one of them knocked on my door and told me that I still had a leak. It was lucky that I just happened to be doing a load of wash at the same time the tunneling crew decided it was time to fill in the hole. The new leak was located in the cast iron drain pipes. Unless the washing machine or dishwasher were running at the time, you would never notice it. I was lucky. If the tunneling crew has arrived two hours earlier or two hours later, they would have seen nothing wrong and proceeded to fill the hole while the pipe was still leaking. Since the cast iron drain line and the copper supply line are so close together, I suspect that the two leaks are related. One pipe leaked first and over time cause the other pipe to fail.

Now, instead of moving on to other things, I have to reschedule everything. The plumbers have to come out and fix the drain pipe. The environmental cleanup people, who just removed the big dehumidifiers this morning, may have to bring them back. The people who were going to clean the vents on Monday now have to wait until everything else is finished. I have to go over all these new developments with the insurance folks as well. It is all very frustrating. The plumber said we could use the shower and toilets, but not to use the washing machine or dishwasher until the leak is fixed. Ironically, the drain leak would have never been discovered in the first place if I hadn't been using the washing machine to clean blankets that Dot had pooped on while barking at the environmental cleanup crew while they removed the dehumidifiers. Like I said, three steps forward, two steps back.

With all the problems I was having today, it would have been nice if my work projects had gone smoothly. They didn't. I have to edit a writing project to make it seem more general and vague. Hmm. I always thought specifics and details where what made writing interesting. One of my website clients is already making layout changes before the layout is even finished. These things take time folks. Give it a rest.

I went to the post office and bank today completely forgetting that it is Veterans Day and everything was closed. I guess I was confused because there was mail waiting for me in the mailbox this morning. I have a feeling that I must have forgotten to look in the mailbox yesterday. It wouldn't be surprising. I can hardly remember what day it is anymore. Everything has just merged into an endless awful mess. I wish we still had our hotel room, but we had to check out this morning. I decided to re-grout the shower stall while the water was off and the grout still isn't completely dry yet. Maybe it will be dry in the morning. I'm going to need a shower.

Dot has seemed a little shaky all week. It's probably just the added stress of dealing with all these strange new people in the house. Dash is handling things better than Dot. I'm probably doing the worst of all. I've had enough. Did I mention the Internet is down too. Sometimes I think U-Verse is worthless. I'm having to use my T-Mobile hotspot again. It's nice to have a backup. Too bad I don't have a backup plumbing system.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2156

We've got water! The broken pipe was exactly where the plumber said it would be, which kind of amazed me. The leak was located right on schedule too, which amazed me even more. I was afraid it might take weeks to resolve this problem. If you're wondering what actually caused the leak, it turns out that a section of the copper pipe that supplies water to the house was located right next to a larger cast iron pipe that carries waste water away. There were places where the two pipes touched and over the years, the rusting cast iron caused the copper to corrode and fail. That's what the plumber said anyway. He showed me a small hole in the damaged pipe about half the diameter of a pencil. It's still hard to believe that such a small hole could have caused so much damage.

I asked the plumber if there might be other places under the house where the copper supply lines could be touching the cast iron drainage lines. "Sure," said the plumber. "There could be lots of places like this." "Is there anything you can do to prevent this from happening again," I asked. "Nope," said the plumber, "You could have another leak like this tomorrow, or it might never happen again." That wasn't the kind of reassurance I was looking for, but I guess I'll have to live with it. Even though there's a huge hole under the house, it only exposed a tiny fraction of what the builders had put there over sixty years ago. Lord knows what still lurks under the dirt.

In the grand scheme of things, the problems we've experienced this week are tiny compared to the disasters some people have to deal with. The house wasn't hit by a tornado. It didn't catch on fire. A tree didn't crash through the roof. Life was a little inconvenient, but it could have been so much worse. You always see these stories on TV about people rebuilding their lives from scratch after a major disaster has destroyed their home. I don't know how they find the strength to put the pieces back together. Just having no toilets or running water for a week just about drove me over the edge.

There is still a lot of cleanup to do, but life is already starting to return to normal. I ran the dishwasher today and will do a big load of laundry tomorrow. The tunneling company is supposed to come out in the morning and fill in the big hole they created. It's too bad they can't just add concrete walls to the sides and put a door on top. It would be the tornado shelter I've always wanted. They could just keep digging and we could put in a full basement, but it would be much cheaper to just buy a new house.

The environmental cleanup company is supposed to clean our vents before they haul away their big dehumidification machines and leave. When the water was off, I used the opportunity to re-grout the shower stall, so maybe we'll see some improvements there as well. We'll have a lot of bottled water left over when this is all finished with. I was anticipating a long siege and bought too much.

If there's a silver lining to all this, it would be that being trapped here at the house forced me to buckle down and finish the complicated mobile ready website I've been working on. I'm actually caught up with all my work now. Tomorrow I get to see whether the tunneling crew can make the huge mountain of dirt in our back yard disappear. I bet they can't. They'll probably leave us with a smaller pile of dirt and tell us to plant a garden. I'm going to miss taking showers at the hotel. Their shower was so much nicer than ours.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2152

Its started. I'm listening to two large industrial strength dehumidifiers doing their best to suck the moisture out of the house. We're eating off paper plates because there is no dishwasher. I've bought a bunch of bottled water so I can use it to refill the toilet so it will flush if I have to go during the night. There are several more gallons of bottled water to refill the dog bowls. I have a sweater on because my HVAC contractor said that running the air conditioner will help dry things out. Intuitively, you'd think that turning the furnace up would dry things out quicker, but apparently it only makes the situation worse.

If you haven't guessed by now, the water leak got worse overnight and we woke up to a house that felt like a sauna. The humidity inside was over 85% and there was standing water in all the vent registers. The first thing I did was shut the water off to the house at the water main and then spent the rest of the day on the phone with the insurance adjuster, the plumbing company, my HVAC contractor, an environmental cleanup company, and a temporary housing relocation company. Sometimes I had the cell phone to one ear listening to someone while I had the land line phone to the other ear talking to someone else at the same time. It was a madhouse. I had quite a bit of website work scheduled for today and wasn't able to get started on any of it.

As you might expect, Dot wasn't happy about this whole situation and ended up pooping in the house three times. Dot can't hear very well and I actually did a pretty good job of isolating her from all the commotion in the living room. I told the environmental cleanup people to be as quiet as they could, which was kind of silly since the two machines they installed were actually quite noisy. I have to keep the dehumidifiers running 24/7 until the leak is fixed. Sometimes Dot didn't notice that there were strangers in the house until ten minutes after they arrived. When she eventually did notice, she started barking and never stopped. Excited barking always leads to poop coming out the other end these days, so that's why there were quite a few little accidents today. It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that the washing machine is out of commission too. I'll have to go to the laundromat tomorrow morning.

I have a sore throat from talking so much today. I usually don't talk much during the day, but today it was unavoidable. It seemed like there were questions to answer all day long. Everyone I dealt with today was very nice. More importantly, they all liked dogs and appreciated Dot's situation. Nobody got mad that she barked and pooped during our conversations. The HVAC technician even said that he really felt sorry for Dot because he had a bad back himself and understood what it was like to be in constant pain. Ironically, the insurance company will pay to temporarily put Janet and I up in a hotel while the repairs are being made, but we can't leave the dogs behind. Even a pet friendly hotel isn't going to want a dog that poops all over the place. Probably what will end up happening is that Janet will use the hotel during the week so she can get ready for work. I will stay here with the dogs and just use the hotel to take showers.

I wish now that I'd never bought this house. Mid-century modern homes typically have a flat roof that inevitably leaks after the first ten years. There is also usually a concrete slab on grade foundation with no basement. This requires that all the pipes and mechanical equipment be placed under the concrete slab where they can never be accessed again. I can't complain to the architect of this house because he is already dead. The modern looking house is 60 years old. My house doesn't even have a crawl space under the foundation. There are tons of water lines, drain lines, HVAC vent pipes, and conduit for the electrical wiring all buried in the dirt under a one foot thick concrete slab. It's kind of insane when you think about it. The technicians who came over today inevitably said one of two things. They either said "I've never seen a house like this before," or they said "Buddy, you've got a real big problem here." Some of the more astonished technicians said both.

I know this is a first world problem. I've still got a roof over my head. There's food in the refrigerator and the dogs are safe. This will get fixed. At the moment it's still a giant mess though, and I'll be real glad when things get back to normal again.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2149

My life is about to become miserable. The plumbers have discovered a substantial pipe leak located under my living room floor. There are only two ways to fix this problem. You can jackhammer through the brick and concrete slab to access the underground pipe, or you can tunnel under the house. Either way is messy and expensive. The plumber agreed with me that it would be a disaster to tear up the brick floors. There's probably not a maason still alive who could duplicate the intricate brickwork. You'd never be able to find the Corsicana Red brick pavers either. The brickyard went out of business years ago and the antique bricks are now considered collectible by people who buy and sell them on eBay. At $30 and up per brick, I don't think I'll be replacing this floor anytime soon.

Since I am unwilling to totally destroy my floor, that left the tunneling option. The plumber contacted a tunneling specialist who came out to the house to survey the situation. It seems like the best option is to rip up some flagstones in the atrium, destroy our Japanese garden, and tunnel under the utility room where the leak appears to originate. Before any of this activity can began, I have to contact my insurance company and see if the repairs are covered under my homeowners policy. They'd better be! I'll need to contact my HVAC guy too, since it is possible that the furnace will need to be removed during the repairs. Mid-Century Modern houses get you coming and going. The ubiquitous flat roof covering most of these homes makes it easy for rain to leak in, while the concrete slab foundations with no crawl space underneath makes plumbing and electrical repairs almost impossible. There were good reasons why people have built houses with peaked roofs and full basements for hundreds of years. My home is what happens when architects ignore gravity and common sense.

You may be wondering how the dogs reacted to having plumbers in the house for most of the afternoon. It was a disaster. I tried to fool Dot by putting her in a back bedroom where she couldn't see the plumbers. This worked for a while, but eventually the plumbers had to come through the bedroom to access one of the bathrooms. When Dot noticed the strangers in her house, she started barking uncontrollably. It wasn't long before she pooped on a rug. It's not easy to hold up Dot's rear legs, clean up dog poop, and talk to a pair of plumbers at the same time. At one point I had to gate Dot in the back of the house while I conferred with the plumbers. Unfortunately, I forgot to close the door to the bathroom. Don't wandered into this room while I wasn't looking and slipped on the slick tile floor, which caused her to poop all over again. She fell in the poop and soiled her harness and herself. The floor itself looked like a poopy crime scene. I've been doing a lot of laundry and cleaning today. 

At some point, I had to take both dogs outside for thirty minutes so the plumbers could pinpoint where the leak was coming from. They used stethoscopes pressed to the floor to determine where the leaking water sound was loudest. It goes without saying that with Dot in the house, they wouldn't be able to hear a thing. Dot, Dash and I sat outside on a blanket for 45 minutes. Ironically, when the location of the leak was eventually found, it was located right below the spot where Dot had initially pooped.

Somehow, I managed to get two writing assignments finished during all this madness. While I was writing, I noticed that my client has been misspelling the name of their own products. This was the only humorous thing that happened today. I'm kind of at my wits end. Dot requires constant care and I can't safely take her to doggie day care or a boarding facility anymore. I can't postpone the repairs very long either. This all has to happen soon. Before the plumbers arrived, my biggest problem was inadvertently adding an apple to my morning smoothie. Now I've got real problems.

Wolfgang is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1751

It was interesting to see how the Ebola news developed today. First you would hear local chatter on Twitter. There are so many people who either work or have friends in health care that news travels quickly. Shortly after rumors start flying on Twitter, local talk radio shows are filled with callers talking about the same thing. A few hours later, the same stories start to appear on prominent local, and even national, media blogs. TV news crews seem to pick up the story very late in the game, and finally, at the end of the entire process, a public official eventually issues a statement. There were Tweets about where the Ebola victim lived, what airline he flew to Dallas on, and where the children he exposed went to school several hours before the same news appeared on the local television stations.

With all the talk about how Ebola is transmitted, there's been a lot of local interest in the safety of the sewage system. Surely the guy pooped after he arrived in town. Where is that poop now? They say the virus can live a long time under moist conditions. At any rate,  I wouldn't want to be a worker at the local sewage treatment plant. I don't think I'd want to be a plumber either. One of the most persistent questions I hear is "If there is nothing to worry about, why are all you guys wearing HazMat suits?" I wonder about this myself.

Other than the occasional worry that Dallas will be where the zombie apocalypse begins, it was a fairly normal day. I spent the day doing the usual mix of website revisions and writing assignments. Some of the website work I did today involved redoing what did yesterday. That's pretty normal too. If I didn't redo a lot of things, I would have very little to do.

When we went to dog training class tonight, the sodium vapor lights that illuminate the field at night unexpectedly went out. Without these lights, it is really dark. I'm surprised that the dogs did as well as they did under these conditions. I could still see Dash pretty well, since he is basically white with a few black spots. The owners of the Labs weren't so lucky. Their dogs just seemed to disappear in the darkness.

I thought my fire ant bites would be gone by now, but they seem to have gotten worse. After doing a little reading, I discovered that this was normal. When the hard red welts caused by the bites start to blister, they can itch intensely. I'm in the itchy stage right now. They say that this can last for up to a week. It helps to keep things in perspective though. An ant bite is no big deal when there's an Ebola outbreak a few miles down the road.

Tori is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1319

The plumber arrived promptly at 8:30 AM, right on schedule. Plumbers make a point of being on time. I see plumbing trucks all over town with big signs on the side saying "If we're late, we pay for the call." Unfortunately, a punctual plumber isn't always a perfect plumber. Sometimes nothing gets fixed at all.

That was certainly the case today. It didn't take long for my plumber to tell me there was nothing wrong with my disposal. "Your problem is electrical," he told me. He even took the disposal out and hooked it up to a wall outlet to prove that it still worked. "Can you fix it," I asked? "No, you'll have to call an electrician for that," the plumber told me. "Well, at least hook things back up the way you found them," I said.

When the plumber was hooking the disposal back up, he proceeded to blow a fuse, knocking out my kitchen TV and the coffee maker. Then he handed me a bill for $117 and left. Since the fuse he blew was one of the old fashioned glass kind that screws in like a light bulb, I had to search all over town to find a suitable replacement. My first try was a failure too. I brought home a fuse that had the wrong pitch on the screw-in threads and it wouldn't fit in the socket. By the time I found the corect fuse and went out for breakfast, it was lunch time. I had my eggs anyway, and then I called an electrician.

Yesterday I finally found the correct part number for the elusive engine part I've been trying to find for my Defender 90. I though I'd use this part number as a search term on Google and see what turned up. Much to my surprise, I found four places that still carried the hard to find harmonic balancer or engine damper as some places called it. Just to make sure I was buying the correct part, I called the contact number on each of the the websites instead of just clicking the "Buy Now" button. All four companies I called told me that the part had been discontinued several years ago and was no longer available. "Why is it still for sale on your website," I asked? The answer was always the same. It was just too much trouble to update the website. I asked one of the companies what would happen if somebody actually bought the part in question. "Oh, we just wouldn't fill their order," the guy said. Oh, well. So much for the digital revolution.

The day really didn't get much better. Dot got so worked up while the plumber was in the house that poop flew out her rear end whenever she barked. I had to clean up a lot of little poop bullets on the floor. Then, I broke my new push broom while sweeping water off the roof. I also broke my reading glasses while I was trying to replace the burned out fuse. On the positive side of things, neither dog had a seizure today and my car started nine times without incident while I was out running errands.  I'm still glad it's Friday.

Smokey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day