Day 3862

One of my credit cards got updated recently with a new contactless version that you don't need to insert in a terminal. For some reason the bank decided to change the number on the card, so I thought I would have to update all my online accounts. Much to my surprise, most of the websites where I had an account on file already had the new credit card number before I even had a chance to tell them about the changes. Weird. I've long suspected that privacy is just an illusion and that all our secrets are out there in the cloud already. I was initially surprised when I started using online banking services to pay bills. The whole process was so easy. It's all starting to make sense now. The banks and financial institutions already know everything about you.

It was supposed to rain today, but it never did. All we got was a lot of humidity. We took a shorter walk this morning just to get back inside where it was air conditioned. Our clothes were so damp from the humidity that it might as well have rained. At least rain would have been cooler.

I don't think I did anything productive today. I continued to sort thorough old photo gear, looking for the perfect lens to take a picture of the comet. I was looking for a fast manual telephoto with clear distance markings on the lens so I could focus easily in the dark. All my new digital cameras have lenses that focus electronically. You can set them to manual mode, but the focusing is still done electronically. This makes it hard to focus when you turn autofocus off and can't see anything through the viewfinder. Some of my best comet pictures the other day were ruined because the lens wasn't exactly set on infinity. If I want to use these new lenses for astrophotography, I guess I need to focus on a distant object in the daytime and then tape the lens barrel in place. It probably doesn't matter anyway. There are lots of clouds on the horizon tonight. Time is running out. I might not see the comet ever again.

Dawn has another vet appointment in the morning to recheck for crystals in her urine. Hopefully, she will cooperate and give us a sample before we go to the vet. I think Janet has perfected a method of getting a urine sample from Dawn, but it still doesn't work every time. If you don't place the ladle just right when she starts to pee, you are out of luck. I think the vet is still under Covid protocol. You can't actually go in the exam room with the vet. A vet tech just takes your dog to the back and then you wait for the results. It's weird that everyone seems to have different rules for dealing with the virus. I haven't gone out much, but the dermatologist, dentist, and hair salon all clearly had very different rules. The restaurant where we went for my birthday dinner didn't seem to have any rules at all.

The longer this pandemic goes on, the more envious I am of my friends out at McDonald Observatory. They were socially distanced before the pandemic even began. When the observatory closed to the public, they didn't have to worry about people at all. This sounds perfect to me. What could be better than getting paid for doing something interesting without any of the craziness that the rest of us are dealing with. I worry that they might start to like the isolation and never open the observatory again.

I hope Dawn's exam goes well tomorrow. I'm not ready for any sort of doggie medical problems. Been there and done that way too many times.

Katie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3325

I think we're well on our way to becoming a surveillance society. Companies know so much about us already, but they still want to know more. I called my insurance agent today to ask about a low mileage discount. I hardly drive at all anymore, so I thought if these things exist, maybe I could lower my bill. The reason I wanted to lower my bill was that I'd just received it and of course, it was higher than it was before. "Sure, we can lower your bill," the agent told me. "Let me send you a small tracker you can install in your car and then all you have to do is download our Safe Driver app on your phone." "How big a discount will I get," I asked. "We can't tell you right away," the agent said. "After we've been able to analyze your driving habits for about six months, we'll revise your premium." "So what you're telling me is that my premium could actually go up after six months," I said. The agent was silent.

My insurance company is becoming just like the phone company, the cable company, Facebook, and everybody else. These companies want to learn your habits, get all your data, and then sell it to third parties who will bombard you with targeted advertising and telemarketing calls. I would have preferred to give the agent two service reports from the Land Rover dealer spaced one year apart that would validate the actual mileage I drove in a year. Apparently, that wasn't an option.

I guess I'm on the wrong side of history. After dealing with the insurance agent, I called another company who wanted me to start paying them electronically. I didn't want to do this. After a long conversation where I explained to them that it was still perfectly legal to pay with a check, they finally relented and let me keep things as the are. I'm sure in about six months I'll get another letter saying that as a "courtesy" my account has been converted to electronic payments.

I've definitely reached the "get off my lawn" stage of life. These companies are just going to have to deal with me for another twenty years. I still like paper. I write letters. I save receipts. And I see no point in talking with Siri or Alexa. As far as I'm concerned the world was a better place when phones were dumb and people were smart. In case you've forgotten, we went to the moon fifty years ago. Have we really advanced that much since then? I don't really thing having my insurance company tracking my trips to the post office and the pharmacy is going to make the world a better place.

Doesn't it seem odd that our society has become obsessed with efficiency and yet nothing actually works. Maybe we should all slow down for a while. We might discover that inefficiency is actually better. Personally, I have lost all interest in speed. Whenever I see someone in a hurry it reminds me of the treadmill at the gym. Sure, you're moving but you're not actually going anywhere.

Today, I made the bed, walked Dash, cleaned up poop several times, fixed a dog boot, did a load of laundry, and took the trash out to the curb. I probably accomplished just as much as all the self-important movers and shakers I saw on TV while I was drinking my morning smoothie.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3074

I'm gaining weight. It probably didn't help that I had Beignets with breakfast this morning. I still try to eat healthy, but it's getting harder. I'm not really a Kale and Quinoa kind of guy. My diet hasn't changed all that much, but my daily activities have. When the dogs were young and healthy, we used to walk at least six miles every day. Dalmatians are active dogs and we kept a pretty brisk pace. Now there's only one dog and he is incredibly slow. Dash and I are lucky if we travel two miles these days.

In theory, there's nothing preventing me from still walking six miles a day. I could easily go on a walk while Dash was sleeping during the day. I have no desire to do this, unfortunately. Walking the dogs was a duty that I enjoyed. It was clear that the dogs needed me. When there was a problem to be solved in my professional career, I always felt the same way. I enjoyed a career as a photographer and filmmaker. Somehow doing these same things as a hobby has little appeal. When someone asks me "What do you like to do for fun?" I seldom have an answer. What is fun anyway?

Are you getting a ton of irritating e-mail from companies and websites saying that they've changed their privacy policies? It's all because of the GDPR. The European Union's new General Data Protection Regulation has changed everything. Personally, I don't think the Europeans realize that privacy is just an illusion. It doesn't exist anymore. Artificial Intelligence needs massive amounts of data to function and your robot overlords are going to get that data one way or another. China, not Europe, holds the keys to the future. They are already using sophisticated facial recognition technology to identify billions of people. In the future, payments will be made with retinal scans, not money. Stores will know what you are going to buy before you even enter the door. I don't necessarily like this, but it's coming. Just to be safe, I've removed all remaining online forms from my websites. I don't want to be ever accused of collecting any information on anybody.

Dash and I were surprised by an unexpected thunderstorm this afternoon. The sun was shining this morning when we took our morning walk. I was expecting clear skies all the way through the Memorial Day holiday. It wasn't meant to be. Around lunch time the sky became ominously dark and I began to hear thunder. We didn't lose power, but the lights did flicker for a while. This was more than enough to throw Dash into a panic. It took a while for me to calm him down, but eventually he settled down under a blanket with me and we rode out the storm. If I had anything else to do, this would have been frustrating, but life is pretty slow now. Comforting a dog under a blanket seemed as good a way to spend the day as anything. We both went to sleep after a while and when we woke up, the rain was gone.

There is a huge sale going on at REI, but there is absolutely nothing I need. I have a feeling that this is going to become a recurring theme. When collecting things and accumulating gear I don't really need fails to give me pleasure, it's probably time to reassess everything.

Ziggy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3015

All day rain. That's all you need to say about days like today. I didn't even attempt to walk Dash this morning. The rain hadn't started yet when I woke up, but as slow as Dash moves these days, I knew we would be drenched by the time we returned. It didn't take long for the storm to arrive. Dash was predictable. He needed to pee, but wouldn't even stick his head out the back door. I kept trying to tell him that this was going to go on for a long time. Unfortunately, he still thinks I can stop the rain.

It didn't take long for cabin fever to set in. Dash was restless and so was I. There's not much to do in a small house on a rainy day. Dash kept going to his food bowl and I kept turning the TV on and off again. I don't know why I kept expecting to find something interesting. There's never anything interesting on daytime TV.

I kept checking the weather radar, looking for a gap in the cloud cover, but the rain was pretty steady. Around 3 PM the rain stopped for a while and I decided to take Dash for an afternoon walk. We walked for about fifteen minutes and then the rain started again. I don't know why I thought we'd be able to make it home. Dash is really slow. We got wet, but at least there wasn't any thunder and lightning.

I dried Dash off, changed my clothes, and watched the stock market lose most of yesterday's gains. I can't recall any really bad news today. Everyone is just jittery. I should stop fretting about the market. I certainly can't change anything.

I'm surprised at the number of people who say they are going to leave Facebook. Why are these people surprised that Facebook is selling their information? Jeez. What else has Facebook got to sell?  Wait until they discover that Alexa and Siri are listening to everything they say. I doubt that many of these outraged people will actually leave Facebook. That would be like me telling someone I was going to give up ice cream or bacon. Social media is here to stay and privacy left the building a long time ago.

I wonder how long it's going to take the roofers to get to me now. Every day of rain probably delays them another three weeks. It's amazing how long this has gone on. Occasionally, I'll look at old blog posts and realize that I've been dealing with this roof problem for over five years. I've still got buckets handy, but luckily there are no active leaks at the moment. The roof is constructed in layers. I worry when the top layer breaks, but water has to penetrate three more layers before it can get inside. We've got another day of heavy rain tomorrow and then hopefully I can start to clean things up.

I'm tired of fixing things. I need to find a good book or a TV series to binge watch on Netflix. I used to be a voracious reader, but it's difficult for me to pick up a book anymore. I wonder why? Maybe I should write a book. There are several dystopian novels floating around in my head, but it just doesn't seem important to put the ideas on paper. I only think about these matters on rainy days. When the sun is shining, I just fix broken things.

According to the weather forecast, tomorrow is going to be just like today. That's a pleasant thought. If it's going to be wet, at least the stock market should have the decency to go up. I need some good news.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2466

This was one of those days where I wondered whether I did the right thing by taking Dot to physical therapy. She was tired this morning and seemed very slow when we took our morning walk around the block. She rested well for the remainder of the morning, so I thought she'd be OK at her therapy session. Unfortunately, Dot seemed even slower when she got into the underwater treadmill. The water kept her buoyant, so she didn't fall down, but you could tell her legs were tired. She's resting again now. We couldn't have taken an evening walk even if she wanted to. It started raining while I was eating dinner and curtailed any plans to go outside again.

Maybe Dot was tired this morning because she didn't sleep well. When Dot doesn't sleep well, I don't sleep well either. The slightest noise wakes me up and Dot woke me up three times last night. It probably would have been a better plan if we both just took a long nap today.

I was really hoping that the roofers would come out and take a look at things before it started raining again, but that didn't happen. The roofers can't make repairs until the roof is really dry, so I'm probably out of luck for a while. If memory serves me, the Fall rainy season starts in late October, so hopefully I can get my problems resolved before then.

It's really difficult for me to get anything accomplished anymore. Dot is restless, but can't move around on her own. I'm constantly moving her around from room to room or taking her outdoors. Dash has gotten moody and refuses to walk early in the morning lately. He prefers to walk about 10 AM after I've finished my breakfast. That's fine, but it takes more time. Today, when I finished with the dogs lengthy morning routine, it was time to start getting Dot ready for her trip downtown for physical therapy. When we returned, I needed to go to a different vet to pick up some pills for Dot. Then it was time to take Dash for his evening walk and eat dinner. That was my entire day.

I installed the correct ink cartridges in my printer today and of course since the printer had been idle for so long, it was clogged. I don't know how much of my new expensive ink I used up getting the printer unclogged again but it was quite a bit. I think Epson makes this ink clog on purpose. These printers are just a way to sell ink. Keeping all these cranky machines working makes me feel a bit like Sisyphus pushing the stone up the hill. There are multiple battery chargers in the office, keeping batteries charged for cameras I haven't used in years. I hear the soft whir of several watch winders behind my desk, keeping half a dozen mechanical watches wound and ready to go, even though I never wear them anymore. It's all kind of pointless.

When Dot was having her acupuncture today, the vet and I talked about how the world was spinning out of control and that it would be nice if we could turn back the clock ten or fifteen years. Personally, I'd rather turn back the clock 100 years. So many things have changed. Privacy has become an antiquated concept. If you think anything is private anymore, you are being very foolish. I think the next thing to fall by the wayside is the notion of truth. Truth is becoming antiquated as well. There is no objective truth anymore. There are just competing narratives. When writers and reporters talk about how the narrative has changed on the news, it as if we are just living inside a story or a movie. Maybe we are.

Nicholas is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1232

I took Dash to the vet today for his antigen shot. He seemed puzzled by the loaner car. Dash is very agile and usually has no trouble leaping into the back seat. The LR4 has a large rear door and plenty of room, but Dash didn't think he could get inside. We tried one door and then the other, but just before he would get to the open door, he would abort his leap and skid to a halt. After four or five tries, he finally realized that this car was just like any other car, and off we went. It is funny to see a dog do this, but I know I'm exactly the same way. I am very reticent to try something new. Once I work up my nerve though, I'm usually just fine. Dash and I are alike in many ways.

I talked to a friend today who is also in the market for a new flat roof. I was hoping that he'd have the answer to all my problems, but it doesn't look that way. My friend is having just as much trouble finding the holy grail as I am. I'm beginning to feel a bit like Don Quixote and have come to the conclusion that the illusive, affordable flat roof we all are searching for just doesn't exist.

I'm trying to decide whether I'd ever wear Google Glass or not. On one hand, I'm a huge fan of technology and a wearable heads-up virtual reality display certainly would be cool. On the other hand, I've never liked wearing glasses and don't even wear sunglasses in the summer. I think these things are going to catch on and will sell like hotcakes in a few years. I hear lots of talk about privacy issues with Google Glass, but I don't think privacy issues will derail this project. Privacy is still an issue with some people my age, but it's a completely foreign concept to many young people. Young people seems to want the world to know what they're doing at all times.

Privacy doesn't matter to me much one way or the other since I don't do much. Other than the trip to the vet with Dash, the only thing I did today was write several short articles. I do manage to crank out a lot of words. If I knew how to put these words together in the right order, I might be the next Stephen King or J.K. Rowling. Unfortunately, as it stands now, my words are just cannon fodder for SEO experts. Sometimes I wonder if anyone even reads the corporate stuff I write for a living.

Tomorrow we start another month. Dot and Dash will begin taking a new type of heartworm medication that hopefully is going to put an end to Dot's seizures. I'm hoping that the old medication was the problem. It certainly a lot easier to change a prescription than to deal with the possibility of mini-strokes and brain tumors.

Bea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1221

I've been mesmerized by the coverage of events in Watertown today. The world has certainly changed. Even terrorists have Facebook pages these days. In this age of social media, it would probably be more conspicuous if you didn't have a Facebook page. Having a social media presence is just another way to blend in. Privacy is gone too. It was simply astounding how quickly accurate, detailed pictures of the two bombers were obtained. In a world where there are CCTV cameras every hundred yards and millions of people walking around with cell phone cameras, don't expect to keep your secrets very long.

I don't think this loss of privacy is necessarily a bad thing, but I wonder where it will lead. Technology is a Pandora's box that has been already opened. I wouldn't be a bit surprised if sometime within the next 50 years there will be a machine that can read your memories. When a suspect is apprehended, they will simply hook them up to the machine, look at their memories, and see if they did the deed. When the memory machine is perfected, a 2.0 version will probably appear that will just kill you on the spot if you are guilty. I'm not sure if this is a bad thing either. It will certainly put an end to a succession of sensational Jodi Arias and O.J. Simpson trials, along with their entourage of money grubbing trial lawyers.

I lead a simple life. I wish other people would too. This morning I had my blood work done again. I still have a celebratory breakfast after these routine blood tests, but it's not bacon and humongous piles of pancakes anymore. I had a plate of fresh fruit and Eggs Benedict with grilled tomatoes and black bean cakes. I'm starting to enjoy my new healthy diet, but I have to remind myself not to be judgmental about all the fat, out of shape people at the other tables. If you want to lose weight, just cut out wheat and sugar. It works wonders.

Work was a bit slow today, but it allowed me to catch up on other things. I balanced my checkbook, went to the grocery store, and even found time to do a little exercise. I'm certainly not going overboard with the new workouts. I'm just trying to do something every day, so it eventually clicks into place and becomes part of the routine.

I worry about Dot. She seems to sleep longer and walk slower with each passing day. I know aging is inevitable, with Dot and with me as well. I wish it wasn't so though. Dot and Dash have woven their way so tightly into the routine I call my life that I don't know what I'd do without them.

Marley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1001 - 9/11

I wonder why the bad memories are the most indelible? While many of my most pleasant memories have faded away, I'll never forget the day the dogs and I were attacked by another dog and Dash was almost killed. I still vividly remember hearing six shots right outside my front door back when Janet and I were first dating, as police shot and killed an intruder in the neighborhood. Although it was many years ago, it seems like yesterday when I sat alone for 45 minutes in the mortuary with my Dad shortly after he died. 9/11 is like this for me. On a Tuesday morning eleven years ago the unthinkable happened and I will never forget it.

That fateful day changed our lives in ways that most of us still don't fully appreciate. An innocence was lost that morning that I don't think will ever be recovered. That was the day that privacy became an anachronism as well. We don't even question the cameras on every street corner now. We don't question being poked, prodded and scanned at airports. These intrusions have just become part of life as we know it. The two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan didn't really accomplish much, but they did set the stage for something much more effective.

Robotic drones were developed that quietly observed everything and just as quietly eliminated the bad guys one by one. Nobody seemed to mind the drones. They have been so successful that they are starting to be used domestically. The border patrol uses them. So do some police departments. As technology improves, these drones will continue to get smaller and more sophisticated. There will be a day when the drones are as small as mosquitoes and will be used to quietly poison their victims. No bombs required. I have mixed feeling about all this. I like the idea of being able to selectively and almost invisibly eradicate evil, but it puts a huge responsibility on the folks flying these things. We are still human. One day, a distraught controller will go rogue and use a drone to kill his ex-wife and then everything will start to unravel.

When I took this picture of the New York skyline looking out my hotel window at the UN Plaza in the mid-1980's, the world was a simpler place. I wish I could go back to those days. I was much less cynical when the twin towers were full of life. I couldn't afford to go to Windows on the World, but I liked to ride the elevators to the top of the towers and look out over the city. The last time I was in New York, I just looked down at a deep hole and mourned.

Shadow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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