Day 2389

Do you feel like you are inundated with an onslaught of spam and phishing scams? I do. Everyday my inbox is filled with e-mail spam and bogus offers. My land line is worthless. Nobody calls the land line anymore except for telemarketers and scammers. Today I received a voicemail that implied that I was in big trouble and needed to return the call immediately to avoid being called before a grand jury. This seemed highly unlikely, so I entered the phone number in the Bad Numbers website and sure enough it was a scam. Hundreds of other people had received exactly the same message today. The older I get, the more I find myself a target of these scams. Scammers target older people because they are more vulnerable. I don't understand the mentality of a scammer. Some scams are very elaborate and require a lot of thought. Wouldn't it be easier to just get a real job and work for a living?

I could tell that Dot was tired today at our physical therapy session. Part of the problem was that she was stressed from riding in the car. When Dot is stressed, she always poops in the car, which makes me stressed as well. It also didn't help that the water in the treadmill tank was too warm. Dot likes the water cold, although most of the other dogs apparently like it warm. At any rate, she didn't bring her A Game to therapy today. When she got home, she pooped in her bed and made another big mess. She's fine now, but it's been a long day for both of us.

I wonder if the new fiber optic lines in the neighborhood are working? I haven't seen the AT&T installation crews for weeks and everything looks finished, but my Internet speed hasn't improved a bit. If anything, it has gotten slower. I'm not even sure who to ask about this. It's not surprising that the AT&T technical support people in India or Indonesia don't know anything about the fiber optic line. Why would they? I thought the folks at the AT&T store a few miles down the road could give me some answers, but they didn't know anything about the new lines either. If I hadn't seen the men laying the cable with my own eyes, there would be no reason to believe that anything had happened at all.

It's amazing how polarized our society has become. I'm a channel flipper and I compulsively use the remote to switch back and forth between channels while I eat breakfast. Sometimes I'll see exactly the same news story explained in three completely different ways. If you only listen to one account, you'd probably believe what you were hearing was true. When you hear competing views presented in real time as fact, it can get confusing. I think we've gotten truth and belief all mixed up. The Internet is even worse. People go to elaborate lengths to make up false stories and present them as true. I'm not talking about obvious satire or websites like The Onion. There are some serious efforts to deceive out there. Why? I'm a simple person and I'd like to know what's really going on without having to check Snopes.com all the time. What if what I'm reading on Snopes isn't even true? That would be really disorienting.

I've got a day of rest tomorrow and then on Friday, I've got to load Dot in the car again and take her to another vet appointment. She's due for her monthly re-check at the cancer center. This time we'll be doing a chest x-ray in addition to the usual Ultrasound scan and blood work. Sometimes I wonder if this extensive monitoring is even necessary, and then I remember how some of our first dogs died suddenly and painfully when nobody realized that they had cancer. It's always good to know what's going on. There will always be a lot that I don't know, but I do make an effort.

Sparky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1865

Have I mentioned that Janet retired at the first of the year? Since she's no longer working fourteen hours a day, we've been going to more movies. Today we saw American Sniper. I can understand why this movie has become a box office hit, but fail to grasp why it is so controversial in certain circles. This is a well made film in the tradition of Saving Private Ryan and Hurt Locker. I find it sad that we live in such a polarized society that everything from the car you drive, to the food you eat and the movies you watch is seen as a political statement. It's a movie! Get over it.

While waiting for the feature to start we sat through half an hour's worth of trailers for upcoming features. Each one was a more violent version of a movie I'd seen ten or fifteen years ago. There was a new Terminator movie, a new Mad Max movie, and a new movie by the director of District 9 that seemed exactly like District 9. Doesn't anybody like movies like Secretariat and Remains of the Day anymore? I'd rather see Old Yeller again than any of these apocalyptic blockbusters.

Dot worried me today. She fell on our morning walk and I had to help her up. She lost her footing when her rear foot landed on a loose rock and just fell over. I have to remember that even though her energy levels have improved and she acts like she wants to chase squirrels again, she is still pretty fragile. It's a tough job to let her feel like she's a young dog again while still carefully watching every single step she takes. Dot's OK now. I just need to remember where that loose rock is.

Dash is nearing the end of his chemotherapy treatment and now that there aren't many Palladia pills left in the bottle, I noticed that I was short by five pills. These pills are so expensive that you'd think that they could count them correctly. I called the cancer center and when they checked their records, they discovered that they were short a few pills when they renewed Dash's prescription three months ago, and just gave me the pills they had. I wish they had told me this at the time. At any rate, I went up to the cancer center to get the remaining five pills and then picked up some food for dinner at Central Market on the way home.

I only have one more day to familiarize myself with all the mysterious buttons on the production camera before my video shoot on Sunday. It's not like I have been consciously putting off this important dress rehearsal. I just keep running out of time. Walking the dogs, doing my physical therapy exercises everyday, meeting my work deadlines, getting the water off the roof, and even writing this blog takes a lot of time. Some days I take it all in stride. Other days, I get really tired.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1046

I passed a polling station when I was running errands today, so I decided to take advantage of early voting. As usual, my first thought when voting was, "Whoa, if all these people ahead of me in line can actually vote, we're screwed." My next thought is often "Hmm, I wonder if these electronic voting machines are actually hooked up to anything?" Voting using a touch screen is still a bit disconcerting to me. Where does your vote go?  Once you are finished voting electronically, there is no proof that you did anything at all. At least when you buy something in a store, you get a receipt. I've never gotten a receipt for casting my vote in my life. It is all an act of faith.

While I was waiting in line, I saw at least five large red signs that clearly said No cell phones or digital cameras allowed within 100 yards of the polls. I also saw at least fifteen people checking their Facebook accounts with their phones within a few feet of the door that led to the voting booths. So much for that rule. There were also signs warning people not to engage in campaigning in front of the polling station. This sign seemed to be ignored as well. There was a guy holding a huge placard standing right by the front door, asking everyone to vote for his candidate.  It took me about 45 minutes to go through the line and press all the buttons on the touch screen voting machine. I'm done now, although I will continue to wonder if my vote will actually be counted.

I hope my guy wins, but I'm not expecting any miracles whatever happens. I've never seen the country as divided as it is right now. Whichever presidential candidate happens to win will still have to deal with the other half of the country who thinks he's the devil incarnate. Polarization leads to Paralyzation. I am increasingly convinced that we have lost the ability to reach a consensus on anything at all and are headed for permanent gridlock. It's kind of sad. The unified spirit that won World War II and took us to the moon has dissolved into petty bickering. Instead of unity, we have become tribal, with no loyalties beyond our own little tribes.

Hey, at least my new furnace works. It was forty degrees outside this morning and the house was toasty warm. The air doesn't seem to flow through the vents quite as fast with this new furnace, but the thermostat works better, so the net result is about the same. I think the cold weather is going to continue through the weekend. At least we don't have to deal with the "Frankenstorm" that is headed toward the East Coast. I'd hate to have a new furnace and no electricity.

For the second week in a row, I forgot to take the trash out to the street on Thursday evening. The only reason I managed to get my trash picked up today was that I heard the garbage truck banging and rattling down the street and rushed out to greet it with my can. I can take comfort that I've resolved one memory loss moment, but I still have another one to deal with tomorrow. The local health food store is giving cholesterol screening blood tests in the morning and I need to remember not to eat breakfast before I go in for my test. Sometimes I remember these things. Sometimes I don't.

Pearl is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 952

What is wrong with the world these days? We have become so fragmented and divisive that I feel like I can't even leave the house without someone asking me to choose sides. Everyone seems to have selected something to be passionate about, to the exclusion of everything else. In animal rescue circles I see people so passionate about spay and neuter programs that they wouldn't even consider that breeders might be good people too. Personally, I like the fact that there are Beagles and Poodles and Dalmatians. Responsible breeders are good pet owners too, but don't try to tell that to a spay and neuter zealot. They'll cut your balls off.

I heard recently that astronaut Sally Ride had died. By the time the news had made its way to Google+ it had turned into a heated argument about gay rights. Give it a rest guys. Sally Ride was always a very private person about her personal life. I think she would have preferred that people just say "Rest in peace."

Don't even get me started about religion. If there is a god who is smart enough to have created the universe, do you really think he'd approve of 37 different religions using his name to ridicule, diminish and even kill each other? I don't think so. Christians. Jews. Hindus. Muslims. Buddhists. Libertarians. Scientologists. All of you have a point, but you are only looking at part of the picture.

Maybe the polarized, divisive nature of today's society is what has caused me to become a bit reclusive. I used to be quite social, but it just isn't enjoyable anymore. People are always asking me to choose sides. I prefer the company of dogs these days. Hard work and dogs seem to make a lot more sense than arguing about health care and the middle east.

Today was all about hard work and dogs. I took Dash to the vet for his bi-weekly antigen shot and then I hauled a ton of brush and tree branches out the street for this month's "big trash" day. I think the bulky trash truck comes by tomorrow. Hopefully, it didn't come yesterday.  Oh, I did some website work too, but that doesn't even begin to compare to hauling several hundred pounds of wood out to the street.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day