Day 3550

It looks like the highway department is already late on their bridge project. Our road was supposed to close today, but now it looks like it won't close until late tomorrow evening. From what I've read, the new bridge won't have any more lanes than the old bridge but will have better sidewalks. Pretty expensive sidewalks if you ask me. Construction is supposed to be finished by March of next year, but that seems unlikely. Highway projects never seem to get finished on time.

I thought today would be a good day to see if I could fix the old dehumidifier. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but the unit has proved very difficult to disassemble. I finally got the thing apart after removing almost forty screws. Even then, it was difficult to gain access to the guts of the machine. The dehumidifier is put together like a Rubik's Cube. I patiently disassembled the unit one slow step at a time and then discovered what the words "sealed system" mean. Although there was plenty of dust inside the unit, the parts I really wanted to clean were inaccessible. I was able to clean the front surface of the evaporator coil, but the rest was out of reach. Maybe my cosmetic cleaning job will help, but I doubt it. I should have just believed the instruction manual when it said "no user serviceable parts."

I wasted a lot of time today with my futile repair efforts, but at least I was inside. Our Fall heat wave doesn't show any signs of abating. When I gave up on the dehumidifier and decided to take my walk, I was wondering if we were ever going to get any Fall weather. Hey, it's supposed to be nice in September. I read that somewhere. For now, I'll continue to drink lots of water and sweat even more.

I ate too much today. Not only did I have a big breakfast, we went out for dinner at one of my favorite smokehouses. I had Burnt Ends, which are even tastier than a rack of ribs. The food was delicious but barbecue is always too salty. I'm going to have heartburn tonight. I don't know why I continue to eat food that I know will give me heartburn. There are plenty of things that don't. I do try to eat a healthy plant-based diet, but pizza and barbecue are just too tempting at times.

I doubt that I'll be eating much for breakfast tomorrow, but there will be plenty of errands to run. Saturday's are always busy. I need to get more fresh fruit for my smoothies. I need to get some batteries and light bulbs at Home Depot. Maybe I'll do a side-by-side test of the old and new dehumidifiers. If the old one still isn't working well, I guess it goes out to the curb with the lawn mowers.

The new Dalmatians are finding homes quickly. It looks like Bandit will be the next to find a home. He might get adopted tomorrow. I wish more people would take a look at Charlie and Treasure. They've both been at the kennel a long time. Everyone finds their forever home eventually. I think the dogs are more patient than I am.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3549

I filled my car with old gasoline containers, rusty propane cylinders, half empty cans of paint, motor oil, antifreeze, and a ton of old non-functional spray cans filled with remnants of bug spray, WD-40, household cleaners and other unidentified liquids for a trip to the hazardous waste disposal center. There were four red plastic gas cans, each filled with a different amount of gas. I don't use gas powered tools very often, so when it came time to fill the tank, I never could remember what kind of additives I'd added to the gas. Two cycle motors needed one thing and four cycle motors needed another. It was always easier to just buy a new gas can and start over from scratch.

Home Depot has made a lot of money from me over the years because I routinely ended up buying things I already had. I threw away a lot of duplicate cans of old, hardened spackling paste and sheetrock mud today. I've been meaning to get rid of this junk for a long time but it is a lot of trouble. I hope the effort was worthwhile. The greenhouse is almost ready for repairs to begin. The two non-functional lawn movers have been taken to the curb for the bulky trash truck along with a lot of other broken lawn and garden stuff. The mowers will probably be gone before the trash truck arrives. There are always people who cruise the streets a few days before big trash day looking for metal they can sell.

I was pretty ambitious today, considering that it is only Thursday. After I cleared away the old hazardous waste, I charged up the one remaining electric lawn mower and mowed the grass. Hopefully, I won't need to do this again, but I probably will. Sometimes the grass continues growing through the end of the year here in Texas.

With all this activity, it wasn't surprising that I didn't get started on my five mile walk until mid-afternoon. I was tired, but I had vague aspirations to do 20,000 steps on a weekday. I don't think I've done that before. I've only taken 19,000 steps so far, but the night is young. I still need to do a load of laundry.

The highway department looks like they're almost ready to demolish the bridge near our house. Some of the inconvenient detours are already in place. The road that travels under the bridge is supposed to close tomorrow. I don't know when they are actually going to blow up the bridge. We'll see what happens. I don't have a good feeling about this. Road construction projects take forever and they're always a much bigger mess than anyone anticipated. I still don't understand why the bridge is coming down. There is nothing wrong with it. I traveled over it one last time today.

I'm going to have to rethink where I go to breakfast tomorrow. Most of the regular places I go require that I drive under the doomed bridge.

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2265

When we were walking the dogs this morning, I noticed that all the neighbors were getting brand new concrete driveways. Apparently the construction crew that is fixing the street also does freelance concrete work on weekends. I can see why everyone is jumping at this opportunity. They are all getting highway grade concrete work at half the price a private contractor would charge. These guys don't need special permits from the city because they are already paving the road. They probably get quantity discounts on concrete, since a ton of concrete is already being used for road repairs. Best of all, there is no big contractor markups on the job. The neighbors just pay the crew directly. I wish I could get a new driveway for half price like the other neighbors, but my driveway exits to a different street that is unfortunately not under construction. I don't quality for this unexpected bonus.

I finally crawled up on the roof and removed last week's standing water. Half the water had already evaporated. Maybe if I had waited another week, the roof would have just dried out on its own. I think I got lucky this time. We had a very windy day right after it rained and the wind blew away all the dead leaves and a lot of the standing water. The roof only gets messy when leaves create little Beaver ponds that keep the water in place. The roof seems to be holding up fairly well this year. I didn't see any cracks in the elastomer, which was surprising. Maybe the gods have finally realized that I've had enough water problems for one year.

I typically use those automated checkout lanes at stores because they are generally much faster. Not today. When I was getting groceries, I got stuck in line behind someone who tried to stick every single credit card in his wallet into the machine before he eventually gave up, abandoned his buggy full of food, and walked out of the store. Why would you even try to use the automated check out if all your credit cards had expired? People amaze me sometimes.

It was unusually warm today and Dash tried to crash several outdoor picnics while we were walking in the park. He's got a good nose for barbecue. It was embarrassing when he was tugging at his leash to reach someone's barbecue grill. I kept having to explain to people that he was really a very friendly dog who had no manners whatsoever. I kind of hate it when people picnic in the park, because they throw their bones on the ground and I have to watch carefully to make sure that Dash doesn't find them. I've had dogs that have swallowed pork ribs or chicken bones before and it usually involves a trip to the vet.

I should go to the gym tomorrow, but it has been a long day and I haven't completely recovered from my cold yet. I think my body would appreciate a nap a lot more than a workout.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2220

I've wondered for years why the city has never bothered to fix our street. The street has been ignored for so long that it has gradually just become a collection of potholes. I really wasn't expecting that it would ever be repaired, but much to my surprise a parade of heavy equipment arrived in the neighborhood late this afternoon. It looks like the shabby street is finally going to be repaved. There must be a master plan for street maintenance in Dallas, but I've never been able to figure out what it was. Some streets seem to be continuously under repair. Others get fixed every five years or so. And then there's our street. I haven't seen a road crew here for twenty five years. It will be interesting to see how long it takes to repave the street. It could be weeks, or it could be months.

Other than watching the road crews unload the huge machines that scrape the old asphalt off the road before it is repaved, there wasn't a lot that happened today. I actually forgot what day it was from time to time, because the day seemed exactly like yesterday. It was clear and cold for the second or third day in a row. Dot got us up right on schedule by pooping in her bed again. I managed to spot Venus, Saturn, Mars, and Jupiter in the pre-dawn sky on our morning walk. When we returned home, I fixed my breakfast smoothie and made some coffee. The breakfast ritual takes quite a while, but I wish it took longer. Day like this can drag on forever.

I started writing another article after breakfast. I probably could have completed two articles today, but why bother. I still need something to do tomorrow. I write to a word count and need at least three hundred words for my editors. When the subject is interesting it is not hard to come up with 600 to 900 words. Today I only managed 360. Not surprisingly, it is often harder to write the shorter articles than the longer ones. Coincidentally, it is also harder to write blog posts on days where nothing happens.

I saw a psychologist on one of the morning TV shows talking about how buying a lottery ticket actually makes most people happier for a short period of time. Almost universally, when you buy a ticket you start thinking about what you would do if you win. Nobody really expects to win, but supposedly thinking about something positive for a day is good for you. So, you really haven't wasted your money on a piece of paper, you've actually bought a little positive attitude instead. No matter what your circumstances, for a very short while your glass is half full. Works for me. Daydreaming is also supposed to be good for you, so I should be in great shape. I daydream all the time.

It is ironic that I have made money by selling all my worst stocks at the end of 2015. If I had held on to these losers, they would have all gone down even further when the market started crashing in January. We had another bad day today with a drop of 364 points. The market has already dropped over 7% this year and the month isn't even over yet. Not good! Bolder people than me are aggressively shorting stocks now. I think the market is too volatile to do something risky like this, but I understand why some people take the risk. It sucks to keep losing money. No wonder people are buying over 100,000 Powerball tickets a minute today. When you can't count on jobs or the economy, you start counting on luck. Hey, maybe I'll win tonight. Or, maybe you'll win. Good luck.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1283

The road crews were back in front of the house again this morning. This time it was paving machines, re-applying the same sort of asphalt surface they had scraped away a few weeks ago. Is this progress? Sadly, in today's world, I suspect it is. Millions of tax dollars were spent to fix a road that was never broken in the first place. Meanwhile, dozens of nearby side streets are still full of potholes and will probably never be fixed.

In honor of my advancing age, I fell on my butt and sprained my wrist while doing yard work. I was tugging on a large vine, trying to get it out of a tree. When the vine snapped, down I went. Oh, well. Now my right wrist matches the other one I'm always complaining about with the Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

I got a ton of social media birthday greetings yesterday. Most of them were from people I'd never actually met. At least I had a vague idea who most of the Facebook greetings were from. I didn't have a clue who sent me birthday greetings on Google+. Not only did I fail to recognize the people, in many cases, I didn't even recognize the language the greeting was written in. For the record, I received no greetings at all from actual family members. They probably learned years ago that it just wasn't worth the trouble.

I wasted quite a bit of time today trying to apply online for a legitimate and well-deserved exemption on my real estate taxes. The powers that be couldn't have made the process more difficult if they tried. After I finally assembled and filled out the required forms, I noticed a little note at the bottom of one form that said everything had to be notarized. Why have an online form at all if it has to be notarized? It kind of defeats the whole purpose. I guess I'll finish this task another day.

Dot had very little energy on our morning walk. Even though we started out earlier, while the weather was cooler and there was still a breeze, I could tell she was getting too hot. We turned back well before our usual halfway point and made it home safely, but I'm really starting to worry about the old girl. She still loves to walk, but one of these days, I'm going to have to carry her home. That's not going to end well for either of us.

I've already taken the trash out to the curb for tomorrow's weekly trash pickup and am starting to salivate, thinking about my Friday breakfast outing. Staying on my wheat, sugar, and salt free diet forever is not going to be easy. I can still have meat in moderation though and I'm hungry for meat. I see a tasty, meat filled omelet in my future tomorrow.

Alamo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1260

I woke up this morning to an entirely different kind of noise. There was a giant piece of construction equipment on the road in front of our house methodically grinding up the asphalt surface and spitting it out into waiting trucks. I looked at the slow moving convoy and was glad I didn't need to go anywhere. Oops! What was I thinking? I actually did need to go somewhere. The Land Rover dealer had called and told me my car was finally finished and I needed to come pick it up. About three hours later, when the road crew had finally moved a few blocks further down the road, I was finally able to get out of the driveway and retrieve the Defender 90. As I was writing a check for the repairs, someone said "you must be really glad to have your car back." I wouldn't go that far. In truth, I was growing to like the fancy LR4 loaner car. Now, it's back to basics with the old Defender.

There was lots of activity up on the roof this morning as well, but it was hard to hear the roofers over the cacophony of road machinery noise. Things are finally starting to look organized on the roof. Maybe this story will have a happy ending after all. I'm glad I followed Janet's advice and kept my mouth shut. Well, I did write those letters to the contractor, but they were very polite. If I'd actually gone up on the roof and started screaming at people, I don't think it would have ended well.

I went online today and got a UPS package re-routed to a Customer Service Center, so I won't have to wait around all day tomorrow for the delivery. A few minutes later when I looked up the address of the Service Center, I read a bunch of reviews on Yelp telling me to never go to this Service Center because the staff was disorganized and there was always a long line. We'll see. It couldn't be any worse than waiting around all day for the package. Well, it actually could be worse. What if I get down to the Service Center and discover that the package is already on a truck headed to my house? The lady I talked to on the phone today assured me that this wouldn't happen, but you know how good those kind of promises are.

I went and renewed my storage room contract for another year. Every year, I tell myself that I'm going to start thinning things out, so I can fit everything into a smaller storage room that isn't so expensive. Not surprisingly, this never seems to happen. The storage room is kind of like a black hole. Once something goes in the room, it never seems to come out.

With all the commotion today, I almost forgot it was Dash's antigen shot day. Well, I did forget, but I was able to get him rescheduled again for later in the afternoon. How people manage to combine a busy career with ferrying kids all over the place is beyond me. Just managing the activities of these two dogs keeps me busy enough.

I hope things calm down a bit tomorrow. Today was tiring. I thought I'd rest on the bed for a few minutes with the dogs right after dinner and immediately fell asleep. When I opened my eyes again, it was three hours later. So much for keeping on schedule.

Sam is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1215

Today was near perfect. What's not to like about 68 degrees, a light breeze, clear skies, and low humidity. I wasn't the only one who was pleased with the perfect weather either. The park was filled with picnickers, sunbathers, joggers, and horseback riders. I had other things to do. I mowed the grass.

With two new 12 volt batteries installed, the mower ran just fine. Unfortunately, the person pushing the mower needed some new batteries himself. I remember when I first bought the house, I could mow all the grass in the front and back yards with an old fashioned push reel mower. Not anymore! Each Spring I notice that the current electric mower seems a little heavier and harder to operate. Today, mowing the front yard left me winded and tired. I simply can't let my upper body strength deteriorate any more. Walking the dogs is great for my legs, but I've ignored my arms. It might be time to join a gym.

They're repairing the road in front of our house and it's driving Dot nuts. A big, very loud machine, somewhat like an agricultural combine, goes back and forth scraping away the old asphalt and spitting it into waiting trucks. Eventually, some other machines will come and re-pave the road with asphalt again. This process happens about every five years and until the road crews are finished, it will be exceedingly dusty. Dot hates the noise of the machines, and even though she can't see them, she barks continuously.  The odd thing is that there was nothing wrong with the road before the city decided to re-pave it. One more example of governmant money at work.

It's nice to be able to watch Dr. Who whenever I want now. I've mastered the DVR and record all the new episodes now. Instead of racing through dinner to watch the show on the good TV in the bedroom, I just watch it later when I've got nothing better to do. I do have something better to do tomorrow. It looks like it's going to be a fabulous day at the dog park. Dot and Dash are already making plans.

Valli is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day