Day 2987

I was prepared for thunderstorms, but it was just another dreary wet day. Dash seems to enjoy walking in a light mist, but he sure gets dirty. It took me about as long to clean him up as it did to walk him. I did a terrible job of guessing when it was going to rain. We got wet on both our walks and then I got rained on again when I went to the vet to pick up meds.

I need to remember to check the pills while I'm at the vet. When I got home I realized I'd picked up the wrong prescription and I had to go back again. The first trip the roads were dry. The second trip I got caught in a downpour. That's the way the weather was today. The on again off again rain caused me to forget to turn the pump off on the roof. I hope I didn't burn it out. OK, I shouldn't blame the rain. I was probably just forgetful again. I'm getting so forgetful I'm going to forget my own name one of these days.

I've been asked to put together a proposal for a new website job. I should be happy, but part of me doesn't even want the assignment. I'm getting tired of designing websites. I spent a lot of time learning to build responsive websites after static sites went out of fashion. Now, less than three years later, I'm hearing that responsive sites have become passé. The world has moved on to adaptive websites. What the hell is adaptive design? Apparently, nobody looks at websites on a computer anymore. It's all about the phone. I'll put together a proposal and bid on the project, but I'm getting too old for this.

Instead of trying to figure out what adaptive design was all about, I glued stuff back together with superglue. My fitness tracker is falling apart, so I glued the cracked silicon band with superglue. A corner has chipped off my iPhone case, so I glued that back together with superglue as well. Superglue is great stuff as long as you don't get it on your fingers. I was pleased that both of my repairs were a success. I may be a failure at fixing refrigerators, but I'm pretty good at fixing plastic iPhone cases.

I discovered a whole new category of refrigerator today. I don't know why I haven't noticed these before, but I kind of like them. Some people call them urban refrigerators. They are very slim and quite tall. Looking at the pictures, I think they would fit anywhere that didn't have a low ceiling. We'll see if Janet likes these. There's a good chance she won't. These beautifully modern refrigerators seems to be designed for tall people who don't eat very much.

I had to open three different cans of food today before I could find something that Dash would eat. Meals are becoming quite complicated. I miss the days when Dash would eagerly gobble up anything I put in his bowl.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2487

Today was busier than I expected. As usual, it took forever to take care of my morning chores and get the dogs situated, but when I eventually got around to turning on the computer, there was lots of work waiting for me. I saw that I now had the information I needed for a long overdue website update, as well as a request for a new article. When I started working on the website, I saw a notice that there was a software update that would allow my responsive, mobile ready websites to load up to ten times faster. The good news was that all my clients would love for their websites to load faster. The bad news was that I now had to learn something new. Oh, well. Progress marches on, I guess. When I finished my update, the site actually did load faster. It certainly wasn't ten times faster, but maybe the modest speed increase was worth forcing my tired brain to remember even more complex code that I can barely understand.

Most of the articles I write are for products that I would never use myself. It can be challenging to make overpriced junk seem like something everyone needs to have, but I do the best I can. I've done this for years and years and I'm pretty good at it. Maybe this is why I'm somewhat amused when politicians call each other liars. Of course they're liars. Our whole society is based on lying. How long would you last at work if you told your boss or supervisor what you really thought? Do you actually believe everything you hear on the news these days? I didn't think so. So, maybe I embellished things a little when I wrote my article. No real harm was done. Hey, maybe somebody really loves this product. I can say nice things about almost anything. I'll leave the disparaging comments to those folks who write restaurant reviews on Yelp.

Dot is really getting weaker. I don't know what to do. She desperately needs daily exercise to keep her leg muscles from atrophying further, but she's not strong enough now to walk as far as she used to. It's a vicious circle. A lack of exercise makes her weaker, which forces us to decrease her exercise even further. In theory, the underwater treadmill can still help Dot, but she needs to be relaxed for the therapy to do any good. Riding in the car causes a lot of stress for Dot, so it negates most of the benefits of the therapy. We hesitate to extend her short walk around the block, since it's clear that this is about all she can handle. Maybe this is as good as it gets.

Dash has his own problems too, but they are completely overshadowed by Dot's deteriorating condition. It's hard to remain upbeat when your dogs are fading away in front of your eyes and your business is fading away at an equally alarming rate.  Everything, including my own health, appears to be headed downhill. I imagine that the blog was more fun to read when it was more about beginnings than about endings. That's not the way life is, unfortunately. We all reach the end of the line eventually. For now, the challenge is finding beauty in a life of diminished expectations. I complain a lot, but I actually am extremely grateful for each additional day we are given. Dot is still here. Dash is still here. Janet and I are still here. Tonight we'll get some sleep and tomorrow we'll start over again.

Lightning is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2227

I must have worked harder at the gym on Monday than I thought, because I woke up feeling sore this morning. I think this is the way you're supposed to feel after a good workout, but I'm not fond of the sensation. Both of my arms ache. Maybe the reason I'm not adding any muscle is that my workouts aren't strenuous enough. It was purely accidentally that I had a tough workout on Monday. The place was crowded and the equipment I usually use was busy, so I tried some other machines. As I was getting ready to leave, I noticed that my favorite machines were available again, so I did those routines too. I didn't really think about it, but I probably added about thirty minutes to the workout. Maybe this is what I should have been doing all along.

I took Dash to the vet today for some routine lab work. I'm glad that Dash doesn't need to go to the vet very often, because he's terrible in the car. I don't know whether he's excited or scared, but he sits directly behind me and barks the entire way. If I had to transport him everyday, I'd probably be deaf by now. When I got Dash back home again, I got back in the car and went to the pharmacy to get the prescription I should have picked up yesterday. I could have accomplished this in a single trip, but I think it's wrong to leave a dog in the car, even for a short time. The dogs travel to the dog park and the vet with me, but we don't run errands together.

I had a complex website revision to do today. The job would have been easy in the old days, but using Dreamweaver is just a distant memory now. These new responsive websites are much more difficult. If you see a website that looks nice on your phone, there was probably someone like me who spent hours making sure that the layout resized automatically and looked good on any type of device. Life was so much easier when everyone had a simple Motorola flip phone and a 17" CRT on their desktop.

Life was also easier when I didn't spend half the day dealing with dog poop. I knew that Dash must have done his business in the yard this morning, because he didn't poop on our walk. Usually, when we take the dogs outside to pee when we get up, I keep an eye on what Dash is doing. It's always easier to clean up the poop right away, rather than find it on the bottom of your shoe later. I must not have noticed what he was doing this morning. After breakfast I went looking for the illusive poop, because I hate stepping in it later while I'm following Dot around holding up her rear legs. I'll never figure out why it is so hard to find dog poop in the yard and so easy to accidentally step in it. Eventually, I found what I was looking for, but I could think of better things to do.

I wonder how much further the stock market is going to fall. We've wiped out all of 2015's gains already and it's just January. I'm not very optimistic about the future. Sure, the market will go back up again, but unless you are very disciplined or very lucky, you will never be in the right place at the right time.  I think my parents felt much more secure in their retirement with a nice defined pension plan that they could depend on. Now, everybody's got a 401K that goes up and down with the market. The market is not rational either. It is increasingly driven by current events, and we are all lousy at predicting the future. How do you insulate yourself from this madness? I wish I knew the answer.

April is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2177

The photo shoot went pretty much as expected. One of the people I was supposed to photograph said I had the day wrong and was supposed to come on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure I got the day right, but I could be wrong. Everybody was too busy to take photographs. One person didn't like her hair. I had trouble getting a good white balance while bouncing the flash off the brownish ceiling tiles. No matter what the background was, I told everybody that I could crop the photos to make them look good. Like I said, it was all pretty normal.

I'm still fascinated with the dehumidifier. How can there be so much water in the air?  I never really noticed the moisture before, but the air in the house does feel noticeably drier now.  Every time I empty the condensate bucket, there seems to be another gallon of water. Is this just water vapor that is naturally in the air? Is water being sucked out of the porous brick walls? Were our clothes, bath towels, and sheets gradually absorbing water over the years? Who knows. I sure wish somebody had told me about dehumidifiers about fifteen years ago. If the house was dry, I probably wouldn't have had to re-paint the trim around the windows so often. I might not have ruined my old Vox Mark VI guitar either. I left the guitar in a damp closet for too many years and the hardware rusted, the neck warped, and the sunburst finish became hopelessly cracked. Live and learn, I guess.

The weather seems to be improving. I actually saw a few patches of blue sky today. It's still cold outside, but that's to be expected for the first of December. At least we don't have snow like some parts of the country. I used to live in Alaska and spent a year in Idaho, but I still don't understand the fascination with snow. To me, snow is just like rain except it is a lot messier. Maybe we'll have a warm Winter. I'm all for warm Winters and cool Summers.

I revised one of my mobile friendly websites this afternoon. It's a bit disconcerting that my new coding skills seem to go in one ear and out the other. These complex sites don't come naturally to me and I'm constantly having to relearn things that I've already done. Hopefully, this knowledge will become second nature at some point and stick in my brain, but it hasn't happened yet. Usually, after I watch a couple of tutorial videos, I'm back up to speed again. I don't think I'll ever really catch up, because the online world keeps changing. By the time I master responsive design it will become obsolete and there will be something newer and and even harder to learn on the horizon.

It's hard to believe it's December already.  The dogs got their heartworm pills today and I started thinking about putting the Christmas tree up. When we walk the dogs in the morning, we can tell that several of our neighbors have already finished decorating for Christmas. There's no shame in being late though. I promise I'll get everything finished before Christmas Eve.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2150

I've decided that I need complete quiet and isolation to stay sane. Yes, today was pretty crazy. I was trying to code a fairly complex website today and I kept getting interrupted by phone calls from the plumber, knocks on the door from my insurance agent, more phone calls from claims adjusters and even a mold remediation company. Dot freeks out whenever there are visitors and typically poops on the floor. I have to watch Dash like a hawk, so he won't escape thorough an inadvertently open door or gate when there are visitors. It is very stressful. Dot was kind of wobbly today and at one point I was worried that she might be having vestibular problems again. I was so glad when the calls and visits associated with the plumbing leak finally ended.

I have to really concentrate when I code these complicated new responsive websites I'm building now. I was working on a problem that normally would have taken me about an hour. I kept getting interrupted at a critical point in the process and as a result, I made a series of mistakes seven times in a row before I eventually uploaded something that worked. My little update took me most of the day. If I get interrupted when I'm coding websites or even writing an ad, I lose my train of thought. I'll try to pick up where I left off after I've dealt with the distraction, but often it is a lost cause. That's what happened today. I kept having to start my project over and over again, because the distractions created a roadblock in my one track brain.

The dogs are so used to my quiet and private life that anything abnormal makes them both very nervous. They are much happier when we follow our regular schedule and I give them my undivided attention. I can't really blame today on the dogs though. I need large blocks of completely uninterrupted time to get anything done. I don't multi-task well. Truthfully, I don't multi-task at all. Writing and coding are quiet thoughtful activities that require a lot of time. Since the dogs like to sleep a lot, it works out well. I write articles and code websites while the dogs are sleeping and we go on walks together and have tasty snacks while they are awake.

Dot has not had a good week. I'm worried about her. Hopefully, her vet can give me some good advice about this latest step in the journey when we go for our therapy session tomorrow. I'm not sure what we can do at this point. We're both really trying, but Dot keeps getting older. The last thing she needs is a crew of noisy people digging a tunnel under our house to reach the broken pipe, but fixing the pipe is inevitable. The leak simply must be stopped as soon as possible.

Dot is completely off schedule now, so she will probably poop in her bed sometime during the night. I wouldn't be surprised if running the washing machine continually isn't what caused the pipe leak in the first place. Some things can't be helped. We'll just continue doing the best we can. If I see Santa between now and Christmas, I'm just going to ask for my life to return to normal.

Ginger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2124

Sometimes you can't win. If you're a photographer, you've probably heard of ImageBrief. It's actually a pretty cool idea. Members get an e-mail every day with a list of images that buyers are looking for. If you happen to already have an image that meets the description and like what the client is willing to pay, you can submit the image in your files for approval. Usually, I have nothing to submit, because I don't happen to have pictures of Norwegian children playing on a beach in Vietnam, or small green frogs sitting on top of a mushroom. Art directors can be quite specific. Today, I saw that someone was looking for multiple images taken inside an aircraft maintenance facility. Perfect! As luck would have it, I was once asked to take hundreds of pictures of a large aircraft maintenance facility. This was kind of an odd subject, so I thought I wouldn't have much competition. I looked on the shelf where I used to keep my outtakes, all neatly arranged in ring binders. Of course they weren't there. The pictures hadn't been there for years. All the clear plastic pages filled with Kodachrome slides were in the storage warehouse somewhere. You'd think it would be an easy task to run down to my storage space and get these images. Nope. There are tons of ring binders, filled with old ad copy, financial records, letters, photos, and assorted other stuff, all boxed away in unmarked banker's boxes. I have absolutely no idea where the photos from the aircraft maintenance assignment are.

Even if I managed to find the photos, what would I do then? Also somewhere in the storage warehouse is a very nice old 4000 DPI Canon film scanner that hooked up to your computer using a SCSI cable. SCSI was great back in the 1990's, but Apple hasn't supported this outdated interface in decades. Maybe Kinkos could convert the images, but I didn't have time anyway. The submission deadline was seven hours away. Oh, well. This was definitely a missed opportunity. The pay was good and I had some great pictures. I just couldn't find them. So far, the only pictures I've actually submitted to ImageBrief were when someone was looking for pictures of dogs in costumes. I guess they didn't like the costumes Dot and Dash were wearing.

My breakfast restaurant has hired a new server and for the second week in a row the guy has tried to clear my plate away while I was up at the coffee bar getting my second cup of coffee. Each time I said "Hey, don't clear my plate away. I'm not finished yet." You'd think the guy would know by now that I always go over and ask the barista for a second cup of coffee midway through my meal and then get a third refill in a to-go cup just before I leave. The guy apologized profusely, but he's not very observant.

The software I currently use to create mobile friendly websites just announced a major upgrade that will allow developers like me to create sophisticated content management systems. This new CMS capability is of course a lot more expensive than what I'm currently using. If I were creating complex blogs, online catalogs, or an online version of The New York Times, this fancy new product would be very valuable. Most of the websites I create are pretty simple though and I'm afraid that the software I'm just starting to become comfortable with will soon be discontinued. Nothing is permanent these days and almost all cool new software products are subscription based. I hate the Creative Cloud and all these subscriptions, which explains why I'm still using a very old version of Photoshop.

For some unexplained reason, Dot pooped all over the house around 1:30 PM. I wasn't expecting this, because she had done her business normally on her morning walk. When she does this, I'm usually safe until at least 4 in the afternoon. Life is full of surprises. I cleaned up the mess and did a load of laundry while I was updating a website the old fashioned way using an ancient version of Dreamweaver. I'll admit it. I'm a dinosaur, but at least I was a T-Rex back in the day.

Maverick is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2050

I actually got out of the house today. I took a couple of Janet's watches up to my watchmaker to get the batteries changed. She had stopped by the Omega store in the mall over the weekend and they wanted an insane amount of money to change a battery. The amount was so high that it was almost as if they were telling her, "We just want to sell you overpriced new stuff. When it breaks, we don't ever want to see it again." I told Janet that I knew a guy who was still reasonable and fair. I enjoy talking with the watch repairman. We are both relics from a bygone era. We talk about fast cars, fine watches, and the futility of running a small business in today's world. I don't see the watchmaker much anymore. I can't afford to collect watches anymore. I can't even afford to keep them all running anymore. I was pleased when the watchmaker told me that the new mobile website I'd built for him was actually helping his business. Evidently, people really do use their phones to visit websites these days. Who knew? I just use my phone to check the weather.

I also fixed Janet's running shoes today. She was ready to throw a pair of somewhat new looking Nike's away when I told her that I just glue mine back together. The soles never seem to wear out on running shoes. They just fall apart first. The glue that seems to substitute for any type of legitimate stitching begins to delaminate fairly quickly. I discovered one day that I could just use Superglue to re-attach the soles to the upper portion of these shoes and they were good as new. I just use an old Jorgensen clamp from my Dad's workshop to bind the sole to the shoe while the glue is drying and thirty minutes later they're ready to wear again. After fixing the shoes and getting the watch batteries replaced, I felt like I'd had a reasonably productive day, even though I'd done no design or writing at all.

All the dogs seem to want to do these days is eat. I try to be very quiet when I'm snacking in the kitchen, but they always seem to hear me and come racing out for a treat of their own. This is problematic now, because Dot can't get to the kitchen as fast as Dash anymore and she gets mad. To make the small journey from one end of the house to the other, I need to hook her up in her special harness and support her rear legs in case she starts to fall. This involved procedure kind of takes the fun out of eating a few Fritos in the kitchen. I shouldn't be eating these high cholesterol salty snacks anyway, but I'm kind of like the dogs. What else are you going to do on a hot Summer day?

I discovered a quick and fairly easy way to update the new Dalmatian Rescue website, so that's one more thing I don't have to worry about. I was a bit apprehensive about converting an animal rescue website to a mobile friendly format, because these sites change so frequently. I'm so used to making these periodic updates using Dreamweaver that I wasn't looking forward to changing the complex code required in a responsive site. The whole process wasn't as hard as I thought, so maybe this old dog still has a few tricks left after all.

While I was driving up to the watchmaker's office today I listened to someone on NPR talk about different things you could do to keep memories from fading away as you age. Supposedly, a seventy year old person only retains half as much new information as a child. Makes sense to me. I was like a sponge when I was younger, soaking up an enormous amount of information every day. Now I can barely remember where I put my reading glasses. Luckily, writing seems to be one of the best ways to ward off senility. If there are bonus points for developing an ability to write about nothing at all, I should be good to go for a long time.

Deuce is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1994

Yay. I fixed the furnace all by myself this morning. Don't even ask why we needed the furnace running on the first of June. Texas weather is weird. The last time the HVAC technician came out to the house, he showed me how to fix one of our most persistent problems. In a typical year, I usually have to schedule several service calls because the furnace won't stay lit. The gas comes on and then shuts right off again. It's usually a faulty heat sensor that is causing the problem. At first, technicians would replace this sensor. Then one day, a helpful technician told me that the sensor wasn't broken, it was just dirty. He took the thing apart and sanded the heat sensing element with a piece of fine sandpaper. Good as new.

Eventually I got tired of paying $90 for someone to sand this little metal thermocouple and asked if I could do it myself. It was easy enough to remove the dirt and scale from the metal. Getting the sensor out of the furnace was the problem. When the technician came out to install my fancy WiFi thermostat earlier this year, he was nice enough to take me step-by-step through the process. Amazingly, I remembered his instructions this morning and I fixed the furnace myself. I could have just waited for things to warm up though. By afternoon, I had the air conditioner running.

Dash's blood test tomorrow is complicated. Not only does he have to fast, he has to take his thyroid medication exactly four hours before the test is done. Since his appointment is at 9:30 AM tomorrow, we have to get up at 5:30 AM to give him his pills. Since Dot and Dash would never wait until after 9:30 to have their breakfast, I need to drop Dash off at the vet immediately after we finish our morning walk and then return home to feed Dot. I'll then eat my own breakfast and return to the vet to pick up Dash again. Luckily, this particular test only has to be done once a year.

I worked on another mobile friendly website today. My strategy so far has been to make sure I know how to convert a client's website before I even mention the subject to them. Every website is different and some have proved quite difficult to convert. I don't want to promise something that I can't deliver. When I've got a site that functions properly offline, I'll ask the client if they'd like to convert their website to a mobile friendly version. Some folks are really happy that I'm looking out for them and others don't even know what a mobile friendly site is. I'm certainly not making much money doing all this work, but it is a necessary learning experience. In the near future, all websites will be done this way, so I only have a limited amount of time to get up to speed.

It's hard to believe that it's June already. The year is almost half over and the only things I can remember are Dot's spinal injury, my wisdom teeth, and lots and lots of rain. Hopefully the second half of the year will be far less stressful than the first. I did enjoy getting invited by NASA to view that satellite launch in California, but even that trip was marred by an unfortunate car accident. I've got a birthday later this month, but that just makes me even older than I am now. In just a few more days I will have posted something on this blog for 2000 consecutive days without missing a single day. That's probably a bigger deal to me than my birthday right now. If Dot continues to get better, I'll be a happy camper. The rest of the year can just slide by.

Charlie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1980

I had to renew some prescriptions today and a bottle of pills that cost me $30 last month suddenly increased to $160. Yes, I've entered the so called doughnut hole again. Part-D prescription drug plans have always seemed overly complex to me. There are six or seven different categories of drugs, each with it's own co-pay rate, and then there are three different benefit stages that plan members must navigate during your plan year. You start out with a reasonable co-pay, then after you've received a certain amount of benefits, you enter the doughnut hole, where rates skyrocket for a while. If you keep refilling your prescriptions, you eventually reach what they call the catastrophic coverage stage, where you pay next to nothing for your meds. I know the government is trying to save money, but do they really need to make things so complicated? Wouldn't it be much simpler to just have a somewhat higher co-pay all year long and keep the coverage constant? I feel the same way about taxes. A simple flat tax would be so much easier for everyone.

It was strange to see blue skies this morning as we walked the dogs. I haven't seen the sun for quite a while, so today's mild weather was a welcome treat. The dogs enjoyed the sunshine as much as I did, and Dot had one of her best days in a long time. We walked up and down several hills and she got some much needed exercise. Since the long range weather forecast is still predicting rain for the remainder of the week, I thought I'd take advantage of this rare clear day to mow the grass. The grass had grown so rapidly as a result of almost a month of solid rain that I had to raise the mower blades a bit. At the regular setting, the thick grass was just too much for the little mower.

It was pretty busy for a Monday. In addition to going to the pharmacy and mowing the grass, I began working on my first mobile website for an actual client. My initial efforts are nothing to write home about, but I'm definitely making progress. Two months ago I didn't even know what responsive web design was. Since I'll probably eventually have to redesign every site I manage, I'm trying to tackle the easy problems first. If this goes well, I'll try something a little more difficult next time.

All the rain we've been having must be causing the foundation to shift a bit. The screen door at the back of the house is getting sticky again and this morning I watched a ceramic tile in the bathroom crack right in front of my eyes. I thought I'd superglue the chipped tile back together again and ended up gluing my fingers together in the process. I need to make a mental note that nail polish remover does not work to remove superglue from skin. Acetone does work though. Luckily, I had a small bottle of acetone in the utility room, or my thumb and forefinger would still be stuck together.

The dogs immediately started barking this morning when they saw me get the bananas out for my breakfast smoothie. They wanted to make sure that I remembered to save a banana for them. I didn't forget the dogs, but in the confusion of the moment, I did forget to add the eggs to my smoothie. Oh, well. This morning's concoction probably wasn't as nutritious as it should be, but it still tasted good. At least the dogs were happy. In addition to remembering to add eggs tomorrow, I need to remember to take my car to the dealership. I have an appointment to get the wheel fixed that I damaged hitting a large pothole. Hopefully, I won't hit another pothole driving up to the dealership. The roads are really that bad.

Skippy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1978

We began walking Dot and Dash together again, and just as I expected, Dot was much more energetic and seemed determined to keep up with Dash. Both dogs are incredibly stubborn. She just didn't want to walk by herself while Janet was away. We walked the dogs very early since Janet had a training seminar she needed to attend. I took the opportunity to go out for breakfast, since the rain kept me away yesterday. The dogs just went to sleep since they were both tired after their walk.

The ground is still too wet for me to mow the grass, so I decided to write another article on my to-do list before I ran my regular Saturday errands. While I was writing, I noticed that Dot was licking the blanket in her dog bed. Not a good sign. Sure enough, a few minutes later she began trying to throw up and began her frantic behavior again. I still don't know what causes this, but I suspect she might try to eat food crumbs that have fallen to the floor and end up swallowing a bunch of lint and dog hair instead. This might not be the cause of her problems at all, but it sure seems plausible. Dot is obsessed with food and a lot of it falls out of her mouth as she becomes older. Now that there are throw rugs everywhere to keep Dot from slipping on the bricks, it is much harder to keep the floors clean. At any rate, I sat outside with Dot until she become calm again and then she and Dash had their dinner, took another walk, and everything was back to normal.

Janet and I has an animal rescue fundraiser to attend tonight and I was a little nervous leaving Dot alone with a house full of rugs and carpets she could eat. I knew she was very tired and it seemed to be a safe bet that she would just sleep while we were gone. We weren't going to be gone long anyway. I think I enjoyed the annual wine tasting event more when I could still drink wine, but the food was good and so was the cause. We've been going to this event for over nine years now and it seems to get better every year.

Dot was still sleeping calmly in exactly the same spot where we left her when we returned, but I'd still like to get to the bottom of this strange grass eating frenzy. Something specific has to be causing this behavior. The episodes are so sporadic that it's hard for me to see a pattern. The vets mostly just tell me to give her a Pepcid AC and call them if the frantic behavior gets worse. They don't know what is causing this either.

I'm still working on my mobile friendly test site. I was making pretty good progress until Dot started trying to throw up. Despite the minor dog emergency, I did learn how to make translucent drop-down menus where you can still see a hint of what is underneath the menu. I don't know why writing structured HTML and giving everything a CSS class seems so difficult for me, but I'm slowly getting there. It takes a long time, because when I make a mistake, I need to figure out why things didn't work out as expected. I don't want to continue making the same mistakes over and over again.

All-in-all it was a good day. I had a delicious breakfast. The dogs returned to walking together again. Dot recovered quickly from her upset stomach. The Wine on the Roof fundraiser was enjoyable and both dogs are already tucked in for the night. Maybe I'll even get a good night's sleep. That would be nice.

Liberty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1977

Change of plans. I knew it was going to be a long morning when we woke up to another round of thunderstorms, so I didn't even consider going out for breakfast this morning. It's a race against time when we wake up in the middle of a thunderstorm. The first thing the dogs do every morning is go outside and pee. When it's raining however, all bets are off. Dot and Dash absolutely refuse to leave the house during a heavy rain. Dash can hold it pretty well, but Dot will eventually poop on the floor. Luckily, using the new Minute-By-Minute app on my phone I was able to find two tiny windows where I could get the dogs out to do their business. Dot had a five minute window, which was plenty of time for her. She quickly pooped in the alley and came back inside. About thirty minutes later I was able to find an eight minute window where I could take Dash to the park. Dot must be teaching him about the weather, because he did his business amazingly quickly. One minute after we returned to the house, the deluge began. A few years ago we would have both been soaked, but Dash is learning how the world works. I think he's learned that a short walk is much better than a wet walk, especially when there is thunder involved.

I had another smoothie for breakfast and since the dogs were so good at dealing with this morning's awful weather, I gave them a banana as a reward. I think I agree with Dash. A Friday breakfast at home is much better than getting wet. When I turned the computer on, I discovered that I had new writing assignments and one of my clients wants to build a responsive website. I foolishly told him I could make what he needs, even though I'm not not quite up to speed yet. All he really wants is for customers to be able to call him directly from the website when they're viewing it on a phone. Although there's lots I still have to learn, I do know how to do this, so I think we'll be OK.

I went to the doctor this afternoon to get my Benicar prescription changed to something that wasn't involved in a class-action suit. The doctor still thought Benicar was safe and told me he took it himself. Nevertheless, he did change my prescription. He also did a complete blood panel and gave me a bone density test. I knew I wasn't going to get out of there without some sort of test. At least the doctor seemed happy with the result of all the lab work he's done. He said I was in great shape for someone my age and just told me that I should go to the gym more often. Janet tells me the same thing. Too bad I don't enjoy going to the gym. Since the dogs and I probably won't be doing any more five mile walks, I probably should heed their advise. Taking half an hour to slowly walk Dot around the block probably isn't burning many calories.

I picked up Janet at the airport  this evening and the dogs were quite excited to see the whole family back together again. They were both quite good while she was gone, but you could tell that they didn't like the situation. Dot wants to be able to take family walks with Dash again and Dash just wants everybody nearby. He always gets upset when Janet travels. Maybe he gets upset when I travel too, but I don't travel very much. Dot and Dash are so used to having me nearby all the time that I'm convinced they just think I'm another dog.

If the rain ever quits, I'll mow the grass this weekend and clear the water off the roof. If it continues to rain, we'll just have a jungle in the front yard and a duck pond on the roof. Maybe our landscaping and grass will last longer this Summer. It is really, really wet.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1975

I should be used to the rain by now, but it still amazes me how wet it's been this Spring. This has to be one for the record books. Today was another near all-day rain, punctuated with small, well-placed intervals where I was lucky to get the dogs out for shortened morning and evening walks. It's not raining now, but I think the weather is just taking a breather. There is even more rain in the forecast for tomorrow.

Previous rainy days this week have allowed me to get caught up on work, so there wasn't really a lot to do today. I finally got my May invoices in the mail, but that was about it.

I contemplated just watching movies on Netflix today, but couldn't find anything I really wanted to see. Instead, I decided to do some more work on my mobile friendly test site. I think I've learned all the easy stuff, because I had difficulty grasping some of the concepts I was trying to learn today. I ended up making a mess of the test site and had to upload an older archived version to get back to square one. I don't know why I'm spending so much time with this, since most of my clients don't seem very interested in mobile anyway.

I thought I try to get through the day without any pain pills for my teeth. Things must be getting better, because it wasn't all that bad. It's probably time to stop taking Ibuprofen anyway, since it isn't very good for the liver. I still had my breakfast banana milkshake, mostly because the dogs love bananas. I always share with them. Even though it took a while to rinse out the food particles, I had solid food for dinner. There was a tasty casserole in the refrigerator that would have been awful if I liquified it and turned it into soup. Everything in moderation, I guess. Once my mouth has healed completely, I'll still use the Vitamix, but I doubt that I've have soup more than once a week.

I wanted to find out if there were any more NASA launches that I could apply to attend and discovered instead that all the NASA websites are offline. There used to be a ton of NASA sites and they're all gone. Budget cuts I guess. As a web developer it would seem like it might actually be more expensive to take a large site down than to simply leave it up and not update it as frequently. What do I know though. The government works in mysterious ways.

Did you know that the Rolling Stone song Can't Get No Satisfaction was recorded fifty years ago yesterday? Jeez. These guys are still touring and selling out huge stadiums too. When I was learning to play to this song in high school, I never dreamed that we'd still be listening to a seventy year old Mick Jagger singing it fifty years later. Yep. The Stones are coming to Texas Stadium this Summer and the show is already sold out. In just a few more years, it will be fifty years since we landed on the moon. Amazing! What have we really accomplished since then? Sure, we all have smartphones now, but I can tell you from experience that life was a lot more interesting in 1969.

I'm not sure how interesting it is going to be tomorrow. My clever phone tells me that there will be thunderstorms tomorrow. Back in 1969, I never knew when it was going to rain until I got wet.

Haley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1960

I think the antibiotics are working. Dash did a lot better at keeping all four paws on the ground today. He still limped a little when he tried to walk too fast, but his condition was visibly better than yesterday. It wasn't all smooth sailing though. Dash woke me up twice during the middle of the night to go outside. He raced around the yard on three legs like he was possessed. Dash acted like he had an upset stomach and needed to poop. After several tries, he eventually did. It could have been the Clavamox. On the other hand, it could have been something bad he ate in the park. The important thing was that Dash eventually did his business and we finally got some sleep.

I made some website revisions today and after I uploaded the new content, the client sent me an e-mail saying that nothing had changed. This happens all the time. Am I the only one who regularly clears my browser cache? I patiently explained that he was looking at an old version of the site and that if he re-loaded the page, cleared his browser cache in the preference menu, or just restarted the browser he would probably see the new changes. Since I never heard back from him, I guess one of those remedies worked.

I had some writing jobs today, but I got side-tracked experimenting with my mobile friendly test site. Today I learned how to create drop down menus that automatically re-size for different devices. Life was so much easier when everyone was looking at the same 17" CRT display and used their phones for making phone calls. I'm slowly getting comfortable working in this new responsive design environment, but I'm also getting bored with it. It's a race against time to see if I can learn enough to be useful before I get sick of the whole thing. It's getting harder to find a reason to stay on the cutting edge of anything anymore.

Tomorrow is the big day. I can't eat anything after 10 PM tonight and Janet has to drive me to the dentist tomorrow. I'm supposed to take an antibiotic and a pain killer one hour before surgery. There is a nice steak in the refrigerator, but Janet froze it, saying that I'll probably be eating soup for the rest of the week. The procedure is only supposed to take an hour or so, but somehow I think I'll be dealing with the aftermath for a lot longer. I just hope when I wake up from surgery that only one tooth is missing. I still have a fear than more than one will be removed if the oral surgeon decides that some other teeth can't be saved either. I know that the tooth right next to the impacted wisdom tooth has been damaged, but I'm hoping that all it will need is a filling. If the second tooth has to be removed, I will need an implant. Dental implants are a long, expensive process. Let's keep it simple. Just remove tooth number 32 and be done with it.

Tomorrow will be interesting. I've got lots of writing and website work that needs to get finished. The dogs still need their walks. Tomorrow's blog post needs to be written and published as well. I hope the anesthesia wears off in a hurry. I don't have time to be loopy all day.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1957

The nasty storms that blew through town last night were followed by clear blue skies and mild temperatures this morning. The beautiful weather was a bit of a surprise, but a welcome one. The dogs both enjoyed their walk today and it was hard to get them headed toward home again before they became too tired. Although he is continuing to get better, Dash still starts limping if he walks too far, and Dot just doesn't have the strength for a long walk yet. While we were headed home, we passed a fire department ambulance hopelessly stuck in the mud. I hope that there was nobody in the back, because it looked like it was going to be a long time before this particular ambulance was going to be delivering anyone to the hospital.

As I do on most days following a hard rain, I removed the standing water from the roof. Today I let the pump do most of the work. It takes a lot longer and I have to climb up and down several times, but removing the water is definitely easier this way. I let the pump run on the main roof while we were eating breakfast, changing the bed sheets, and doing laundry. Then I went up again and switched the pump to the lower carport roof while I swept off the residual water from the main roof. Sound exciting? No, I didn't think so. Hey, at least I got something done. This seems like a much better way to spend my time than all those people down in the park today who spent their afternoon sitting in a hammock. I counted about ten hammocks today. Apparently sitting in a hammock on a nice day is a popular thing to do.

Since I was thinking I'd mastered the basics of responsive design, I thought I'd try something a little fancier this afternoon. Apparently, I didn't master all that much. I was trying to add drop down menus to my rudimentary mobile friendly site and even watching the tutorial video three times didn't help. This is a lot different than Dreamweaver.

When I was getting groceries today, I stopped by the pharmacy and filled the prescription the oral surgeon gave me in January. The prescription consisted of an antibiotic and two painkillers. Great. So, having your wisdom teeth removed is going to hurt and there is a risk of infection. I'm still not very happy about having this tooth removed. I'm a very symmetrical person and it's going to drive me crazy to have more teeth on one side of my mouth than the other. You might wonder why I don't just have the wisdom tooth on the opposite side of my mouth removed too, but removing more teeth than absolutely necessary would also drive me crazy. I'll just be glad when this is over.

Dot seems to be in a bad mood tonight. She's been barking at me and Dash for most of the evening. I don't know what she wants. I've taken her outside three or four times and she just stands there. I think she's frustrated that although she is much stronger now, she is still not strong enough to do the things she wants. It would probably be frustrating for anyone to get a taste of freedom and then realize you are still not really free.

I'll probably go back to the gym tomorrow for the first time in ages. I used to get a lot of exercise walking the dogs, but now that both Dot and Dash are taking short, very slow walks, these excursions hardly even register on my UP band. I'm definitely not getting my 12,000 steps a day anymore. I could always mow the grass tomorrow, but I think I'll wait until the ground gets dry again. I don't want the lawn mower to get stuck in the mud like that ambulance I saw this morning.

Pogo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1955

I had lots of small problems to resolve today. Individually, they were trivial, but together they wore me out. I was jumping back and forth between Microsoft Word, Adobe Illustrator, Photoshop, and Dreamweaver all day. As many of you know, I don't multitask well. I would always rather have one complex project than a bunch of little easy projects that share the same deadline. Although some of today's projects seemed meaningless, they were all important to my clients, so I jumped back and forth until it was time to take Dot for her weekly physical therapy session.

I've got to come up with a better way to transport Dot to the vet. Traffic was bad today and twice I had to put on my brakes hard enough to cause Dot to slide forward in her hammock and get stuck in the foot-well between the rear seats and the back of the front seats. The hammock keeps her from actually falling into this hole, but she can still get stuck if her weight pulls her forward and the hammock dips into the foot-well. She got stuck at a busy intersection today and I had trouble crossing three lanes of traffic so I could pull over and move her out of the foot-well and back to her seat. Dot was squealing and whining the whole time I was stuck in traffic. It was stressful for both of us. I'm thinking of abandoning the hammock and just putting the rear seats down again and having a large flat surface in the back of the car. She's getting strong enough now that I think she's just about ready to start riding in the car again the way she used to.

I've got to find time to go to a Babies R Us store and get some of those baby tube socks with rubberized feet that Dash can wear on his walks. The torn paw pad is still tender and he walks a lot better when I put a sock on the injured foot. The problem is that the short dog socks we got at a pet store don't work very well. Every time Dash scratches the earth with his rear feet, the sock falls off. Longer socks would definitely stay on better. One more thing to add to my "to do" list.

This has been a long week. I'm beginning to understand responsive website design. Dot is beginning to regain her independence. It's still tiring though. All the new knowledge in my head is starting to give me a headache and even though Dot is able to walk around the house without her harness, I've still got to watch her like a hawk. Dash is still limping too. There's more rainwater to remove from the roof, but I'm not even going to bother with that until this weekend. What's the point? It might rain again tomorrow anyway. Our excessive amounts of rain this Spring has caused me a lot of trouble, but the wet, muddy weather definitely has a silver lining. The new landscaping in the back yard looks great and I haven't had to use the sprinklers very much.

I'm looking forward to going out for breakfast tomorrow. It's nice to have a little quiet time with no barking dogs, irritating telemarketing calls, or dishes to wash. It's amazing how that little hour and a half of tasty tranquility can make the entire day seem better.

Wyatt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1954

Slowly but surely, life is getting back to normal. Dash still has a limp, but he is walking better than he was yesterday. Dot is still a little unsteady, but she is getting stronger everyday. I let her walk around the house without her harness for a while today and she seemed to enjoy it. It's a bit of a problem walking the dogs now, since both have leg problems, but we're doing OK. The big breakthrough is that Dot is confident enough now that her separation anxiety has subsided. I can leave her alone for several hours at a time and she is content to just rest on her dog bed. This allows me to run small errands like going to the post office or bank without worrying so much. To be on the safe side, I always leave Dot in a gated section of the hallway and take her harness off, so she can't get tangled up in something. I put a comfortable bed in this safe area and Dot is fine. She slept a lot before her injury and she still sleeps a lot now.

My website revisions have slowed down this week, but I'm trying to use my time wisely.  I'm still working on getting up to speed about responsive design, so when clients eventually discover that they've dropped in the search rankings, I'll have a solution for them. I learned how to apply transitions and animations across several platforms today. All I have to show for my several hours of study is a single line of type on my company website that slowly fades in and grows to its final size as the site loads. Although this doesn't really prove anything, it's the principal of the thing. I can move objects around and the effect stays the same whether it is viewed on a large desktop monitor or a small phone. Cool. If I contine to learn one new thing a day, I should be pretty good at this responsive design stuff by Summer.

An insurance guy came out to take pictures of the house this morning. He said that needed pictures to substantiate that the construction was load bearing brick. Jeez. I told them that house was constructed using brick bearing walls almost twenty years ago. They must not have believed me. It's weird that it took them twenty years to come out and take a picture though.

I got some more K-cup coffee pods in the mail today. I had written Keurig a while back and asked them what to do if one of the cups split during brewing. One of the cups actually did split and I ended up getting coffee grounds in my cup, but I didn't expect to receive a whole box of K-cups for a single defective cup. I wasn't even mad when I wrote Keurig. I just wondered if I needed to clean the machine after the pod broke. I like this company. It's a nicely designed product that's made in America. The coffee tastes great. And the service is pretty good. What's not to like?

I've got to stop listening to weather predictions I see on my Facebook page. They're almost always wrong. According to my Facebook friends, we were supposed to get huge storms and maybe even tornadoes tonight. I walked the dogs extra early to avoid this ominous storm. I also ate early to avoid a potential power outage. I'm not complaining, but so far it is still dry outside. I think the entire storm system passed about fifty miles south of us. Of course, things could change by morning. This is Texas after all.

Mindy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1953

It's been a long day. Dash woke up limping and he's still limping this evening. I was hoping our vet could come up with a quick fix during his annual exam this morning, but a torn paw pad is painful and Dash will probably continue limping until the pain goes away. The vet cleaned the wound and then glued the split pad back together with medical suture glue. This will keep the cut from getting dirty or infected, but it will still be painful for a while. It's going to be tough on the little guy. He loves to walk and can't seem to keep his protective sock on for more than a minute. The rest of Dash's exam went well, although he does have high blood pressure and is going to have to start taking more or less the same blood pressure medication that I take.

On the way home from the vet, Dash peed in the car. He's never had an accident in the car before. I was really surprised, since he had already peed on his morning walk and again while he was at the vet. Oh, well. I reminded Dash that he and his sister were the reason I can't have nice things anymore, and then proceeded to clean up the mess when we got home. This wouldn't have been a big deal if Dash hadn't lifted his leg and made a direct hit on one of the speakers mounted in the rear door. Since the grill cover won't come off, I'm not sure how I'm going to be able to clean the speaker enclosure. The car will probably smell for a long time.

As I updated websites today, I kept wondering how much trouble it will be to convert these sites into mobile friendly versions. It's almost inevitable that I've have to convert all the sites I manage at some point. I"m not looking forward to this. Many of my clients are fond of their old designs and they're not going to be happy that these familiar workhorses will eventually have to be retired. I worked on my own test site a bit more today, but it was slow going. Just because something looks easy on the tutorial video, doesn't mean that it actually is easy. I learned some new things and made a few refinements today, but I'm still not ready for prime time.

Dot was really good while I was at the vet with Dash, This is the first time I've left her alone for any length of time and she did fine. I checked her on the baby monitor and she was just sleeping calmly on her dog bed. Actually, she seemed better behaved while I was away than when I'm home. When I'm here, she's either barking or getting herself stuck in tight places. I could just keep her penned while I'm working, but she's much happier being able to move from room to room. The bedroom and the office are pretty safe, but if she heads for the kitchen, I make sure to follow her. That's where she always seems to get stuck.

Dash's bad leg certainly complicates things. It took me forever to get both dogs walked today. Dot walks very, very slow and Dash seemed to lose his protective sock about every twenty yards. The dogs still want to walk, but they're not at the top of their game right now. If something happens to my own leg, we're really going to be in trouble.

I hope the dogs are walking well tomorrow. I hope I sleep well tonight. Neither of these things happened today. That's probably why everyone is so tired.

Joe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day