Day 3366

Our power went out before dawn this morning. I knew a storm with straight line winds was headed our way, but I wasn't expecting a citywide power outage. I think over 100,000 customers were affected. Needless to say, it took a while to get the lights back on again. The Oncor outage reporting system was overwhelmed for a while. Initially, the system didn't even recognize me when I called in our location.  When Dash started pooping in the dark, I knew it was going to be a long day.

My initial worry was the heavy rain. With no electricity, the pumps weren't working. I knew that water would accumulate quickly on the roof, but there was very little I could do. I found a portable camping light, cleaned up Dash's poop, and convinced him to come back to bed for a while. There certainly wasn't much point to getting up early this morning. There wasn't going to be a morning walk.

I thought the high winds would blow the roof off the greenhouse again, but luckily it stayed in place. Power outages are not uncommon in our part of town. Sitting in the dark wondering if Dash is going to freak out and if my phone battery is going to die is a very familiar feeling. These outages make me realize how dependent we've become on electricity. You can't do much in our house without electricity.

Eventually the power returned and I began the time consuming process of resetting clocks and timers. The washer and dryer turn on automatically after a power outage. This shouldn't be happening, but it does. Everything has a clock in it these days. The land line phones, the WiFI thermostat,  the Keurig coffee maker, and the timers on the living room lights all need to be reset. The furnace wouldn't even work until I reset its internal calendar. It didn't know whether it was supposed to be on the day or nighttime settings. It's always a pain to get the WiFi network and U-Verse TV up and running again. The router for the network is supposed to reboot automatically after an outage, but it seldom does. If you turn things on and off again enough times, they usually start to work though. By the time Janet returned from the gym, I had everything working again.

The day turned out surprisingly nice despite its rocky beginnings. After the storm blew through and headed East, the skies cleared and by early afternoon the temperature was up to 75 degrees. Dash eventually got a nice walk. It was just a little late. I hope I got the water off the roof in time. That seems to be the key to preventing a leak. I turned the pumps on as soon as the power was restored and by the time I climbed up on the roof to finish the job, the water level was actually pretty low.

I was supposed to have a meeting with my financial adviser this afternoon but I didn't feel like driving to his office. We just talked on the phone instead. I'm glad I don't own any Boeing stock. Boeing is getting hammered because of worries about the 737. I flew home in a 737 on Monday and everything seemed fine. The company says pilots just aren't reading the instruction manual, but some pilots say otherwise. The problem is that modern planes are just a giant computer. You don't fly them manually anymore. It's usually not a problem if you need to reboot your computer at the office. If you need to reboot your plane's computer during takeoff, you've got a big problem. This is why I'm not very optimistic about self-driving cars. Can you imagine millions of cars with wonky computers on the road. It's not going to end well.

I seemed really busy today, but as usual I didn't get much accomplished. Dash got his walks and took all his meds. I fixed my morning smoothie, and all the electronic gizmos in the house are working again. As power outages go, this one wasn't too bad. I didn't need to go buy bags of ice to save the food in the refrigerator and I didn't have to call AT&T to come out and fix the U-Verse. The only challenge was cleaning up poop in the dark. Hopefully, tomorrow will go smoothly.

Wyatt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2413

When Dash and I were out on our walk this morning, we passed a message written in chalk on the sidewalk. It got me wondering what hope actually meant to me. I hope that Dot will be with us for another year. I hope that Janet stays healthy and happy. I hope I won't run out of money before I die. My hopes are pretty basic and almost exclusively centered around the small world I live in. I never hope for world peace or a winning lottery ticket. That's rainbows and unicorns stuff. I'm a realist. If you've ever been a part of a dysfunctional family, or a member of a homeowner's association you understand how difficult it is to get along on even the most basic level. Neighbors become mired in petty arguments about barking dogs and trees on the property line. 50% of all marriages end in divorce. If our cities and states and individual countries are so divided, how can we ever expect the entire world to come together. It has never happened in human history.

My sister is a historian and one of the smartest people I know. I remember her telling me once that one of the most productive periods in history was when the great Italian city states flourished in Europe. These small city states were extremely competitive and were constantly at war with each other. Since the city states were so small, they couldn't do much damage on a global scale. The competition between the states was good. It created great wealth and played a major role in the Renaissance. Art, science, and philosophy all flourished during this period of time. It was only when countries got larger and decided to expand their influence by conquering other countries that the world started to get screwed up. The rise of the British Empire probably caused a lot of the problems we see today.

Humans are not a friendly species. Great White Sharks and Cobras are puppy dogs compared to us. This is why I've never been a fan of globalization. To survive, we need small redundant systems, so that if one element of society fails, it doesn't take down everyone else with them. The Internet is a redundant system. If a server goes down, information will bypass the trouble and find another route to its destination. There is no master hub that controls the entire Internet. Politicians don't seem to understand the beauty of this model though. They keep trying to make things bigger. The United Nations, The European Union, NATO, and it appears even The United States of America, all appear to be completely unable to bring people together on any lasting basis. I have very little hope that we are ever going to get it right.

None of this really bothers me though, since I seldom venture more than five miles from my house. My philosophy has always been "I'll leave you alone if you leave me alone." As long as the Zombie Apocalypse doesn't begin until five years after I'm dead, I'm fine.

I got an early start on my chores today because it was so hot outside. When I was using the automated checkout aisle at the grocery store, I couldn't get the bar code reader to work. It would beep when I pointed it at items in my cart, but nothing would show up on the register. This must be a common problem, because it didn't take long before an employee noticed me trying to read the UPC code on my strawberries over and over again and came over and rebooted the machine. Turn it off and then turn it on again seems to be the universal solution for everything these days. It's really too bad we can't just reboot the entire world.

Jewel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2343

Wouldn't it be nice if there was someone you could call who always had the answers you were looking for? I'm continually faced with situations where something should work, but just doesn't for some unexplained reason. Instead of asking a nearby knowledgeable friend, I am forced to spend hours searching the Internet for the advice of strangers. Today, I was having trouble getting a camera to connect to the WiFi network so I could control it from my phone. This shouldn't have been a problem in the first place, since I've done this many times before. Today it just didn't work. According to Google, lots of people seemed to be having the same the same problem, but opinions varied widely. Some people thought the camera was at fault. Others though the app on the phone was worthless because it hadn't been updated in our years. Then there was those who said that nothing was wrong at all and that their camera was connecting to WiFi just fine.

You have to resolve these problems through a process of elimination. Is there something wrong with the U-verse connection again? Did my latest IOS upgrade ruin all the older apps on my phone? Did I just not read the instructions correctly? After a lot of fruitless experimentation, I discovered that I needed to reboot my phone. I should have tried this first, since it seems to be the universal solution for all electronic problems. I am constantly rebooting the WiFi router, the DVR, the computers, the phones, and even the thermostat. Why are these connections to the cloud so fragile? I never had to do this five years ago.

Janet and I both think Dot is getting stronger, but I wonder if we are imagining things. The differences we are seeing are subtle at best. I've always believed in the placebo effect. If you really want to believe something, you generally can. Dot does seem a bit steadier this week. On the other hand, she is still senile and poops all over the place. I had a big mess to clean up last night, but strategically placed disposable pads are making the process easier. I don't think there's a lot we can do medically at this point. Instead, we provide a kind of doggie hospice care. We're not going to make Dot well again, but we can keep her happy.

It didn't rain as much as I expected today. Actually, it hardly rained at all. This doesn't mean that we've got clear skies ahead unfortunately. The long range forecast says it's going to be a wet and stormy week. We'll see. The forecast was certainly wrong today. Whatever is going on definitely appeals to the butterflies. I hardly saw any butterflies last year. This Spring, they are everywhere.

I suppose I'll go to the gym tomorrow. It all depends on whether I can go to sleep tonight. I'm ready. All I need to do is empty the water out of the dehumidifier, brush my teeth, and try to slip a puppy training pad under Dot's butt without waking her up.

Lady is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day