Day 3169

I've stopped going to the library, but I certainly haven't stopped reading. I think one reason my head is filled with useless information is that on slow days like this, I can spend hours reading odd little articles I find on Google. When I click on the Google Discover tab, I'm always amazed that there seems to be an endless supply of things I've never heard about before. I'll read almost anything about astronomy and space. I like reading articles about how the human race is doomed and headed toward extinction. Most articles about Elon Musk catch my attention. I always read articles about the best diet to feed your dog. Sometimes I'll read articles about the pills I'm taking or the stocks my broker recommends. I like articles about exotic cars and vintage guitars. I'm not interested in politics at all, so I skip over a lot of stuff. Apparently, a lot of people are only interested in politics.

Today I read articles about what might have existed in the universe before the big bang, learned about a new mass extinction theory that says the dinosaurs all died in a single day, read about a Ferrari prototype that uses a "virtual" windshield made out of air, and did some research on several stocks my broker wants me to buy.

My broker and I don't agree on much. I like to contemplate large scale trends like young people preferring pets to children and ordering meal kits from Hello Fresh rather than going to the grocery store. I'm bored by technical analysis and usually could care less when a stock dips below its two hundred day moving average. My broker thinks Gilead Sciences is a good buy right now. What? I hate that company. They're the ones who charged me $1000 a pill for Sovaldi. OK. It is a revolutionary drug that cured my Hepatitis C, but $1000 a pill still seems a bit steep. I wish I'd just kept the first three stocks I'd ever bought: Apple, Boeing, and Southwest Airlines. If I'd kept adding to those positions over the years, I'd have done a lot better than decades of hit and miss trading.

Forget about stocks. What I should be researching is what's causing Dash's loose stools. According to everything we've read, what we're feeding Dash now should be very easy to digest and contribute to firm stools. It's just not happening. It's hard to get a definitive answer from the vets either. The older your dog gets, the more "old age" seems to be the cause of everything. I doubt that I'm going to find a cure for Dash's incontinence, but it does get tiring having a world centered around poop.

I've stopped carrying a camera on our walks because I really need to concentrate on keeping Dash upright. It's kind of a shame. This morning I missed a spectacular shot of a Great Egret. Yesterday evening the setting sun reflecting off the downtown skyscrapers was equally spectacular. I still carry my phone in my pocket, but I would have needed a telephoto lens to capture these images. It probably doesn't even matter. Everything I see in the park, I've already photographed dozens of times before. Just to prove my point, I took another picture of Jimson Weed flowers with my phone this morning.

Dash had a good day, but he still hasn't pooped yet. I'm nervous. I still can't decide whether to apply to join the Jet Propulsion Lab team for the InSight landing either. I guess I'm nervous about that too.

Mandy 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