Day 2304

My rubber snakes are gone. When the landscapers were using their leaf blowers to clear away all the leaves in the yard, they must have blown the snakes off the car, bagged them up with the leaves, and thrown them away. The two colorful rubber snakes were the only things I've found so far that were the least bit effective at keeping annoying Bluejays and Cardinals from pooping on my car. It should be an easy matter to go buy some replacement snakes, but rubber snakes are surprisingly hard to find. I found mine at the Dollar Store in a bin filled with cheap children's toys. When I went back to get some more today, they were all gone. Now the bin is filled with little action figures and rubber dinosaurs.

I haven't been having much luck getting Dot to her physical therapy appointment lately. She pooped in the car again on the way downtown. I kind of knew it was going to happen when I had to get off the freeway and take a detour because of an accident. It doesn't take much to get Dot upset. Once she realized we were no longer on our regular route, it was all over. Once we arrived, Dot did pretty well. We've had to slow down the treadmill a bit, but she's still hanging in there. When Dot was getting her acupuncture therapy, the vet kept asking me if I smelled incense. Nope. My sense of smell isn't very good. The only thing I was able to smell this afternoon was poop. It turned out that another customer had brought incense with them. Why? Your guess is as good as mine.

I'm going to have three choices for breakfast this Friday. The Dream Cafe has finally opened a restaurant in the neighborhood. I've been waiting for this place to open for over a year. We drive by the location every week on our way to physical therapy and I noticed today that the construction crews were gone and people were eating on the patio. I hope the place is as good as the original downtown location. Maybe I'll go this Friday and try their fried chicken and waffles. If you haven't had chicken and waffles, you haven't had a proper Southern breakfast.

I missed another opportunity to view a Space X launch at Kennedy Space Center. I'm not even going to apply for NASA credentials anymore. The Dragon Cargo Spacecraft launch is tomorrow. I'll watch it on my computer. Leaving town just isn't going to happen while I'm taking care of Dot. Hopefully, NASA will continue their social media outreach program for bloggers like me. I went to one of these launches as NASA's guest a little over a year ago, and I'd definitely like to do it again some day.

Until then, I'll keep doing laundry and cleaning up poop. I learned a long time ago that life isn't always exciting. There are ups and downs punctuated by long periods where nothing happens at all. I'd like to think that taking care of Dot is as important as anything else I've done, but it does test my patience at times. I haven't seen any rocket launches lately, but I've learned to appreciate little things like a good night's sleep and looking forward to chicken and waffles.

Paxton is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2228

I just solved a problem that has had me stumped for the past three hours. It feels good. I inherited a Wordpress site from another developer who used a lot of strange and unfamiliar widgets to create much of the site's functionality. When I opened the dashboard this afternoon to make a few changes, I discovered that the latest version of WordPress no longer supports the third party widgets. The site was broken. I was totally screwed, because the functions the obsolete widgets added were not included with the theme the original developer used. This is one reason I hate WordPress. The themes only seem easy because they hide all the code away. They can be really hard to fix when something breaks. I needed to figure out an alternate way to duplicate the functions without starting over from scratch. After hours of research on Google and WordPress forums and quite a few unsuccessful experiments, I finally came up with something that worked without destroying the original theme. I still hate WordPress though. I need to convince this client to start over and do a proper responsive website.

The website debacle was just one facet of a rather nasty day. The weather was horrible. It started out cold and damp and kept getting colder throughout the day. It started raining hard just before I had to leave the house for Dot's physical therapy appointment. I was a bit apprehensive, since Dash is just as scared of storms as Dot. He usually sleeps on the bed when I'm gone, but I left the door open to my office because he often hides under my desk when it storms. That's where I found him when I returned. I felt bad, but it's pretty essential that Dot's gets her acupuncture and water therapy.

Dot actually did pretty well today, considering how damp and cold it was. Her vet spent some extra time working on her shoulder muscles during her acupuncture session in an attempt to relieve some of the tension. I think it worked, because Dot was very relaxed on the way home. I wasn't very relaxed because the rain was getting worse and the roads were a mess. I had to drive through a construction zone and the car ended up getting muddier than I've seen it in months. At least the rain washed off the bird poop. The evil bird has started pooping on the right hand side of the car where it is unprotected by rubber snakes. I guess I'll have to go to the Dollar Store and buy some more snakes.

I'm glad that this week is about over. I've had enough of disastrous stock market losses, cold weather, difficult assignments, and lack of sleep. There's water on the roof again, but it's too cold to deal with it yet. The shower drain is backing up and the refrigerator is just about empty. It's almost time to start thinking about doing my taxes again too. Hey, the skies are supposed to clear off tomorrow. Maybe a good breakfast, some strong coffee, and a little sunshine are all I need to jump start my mood and get my Mojo working again.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2184

Dot helps keep things in perspective. I cleaned up a rug that Dot had just pooped on and then cleaned up myself a bit for a Christmas party at the Presidential Library. I rarely go to parties of any sort these days, but I'll have to admit that this one was quite nice. I was Janet's guest, so I tried my best to find some clothes that weren't ridiculously out of style. They probably were out of style, because I looked exactly like every other old man in the place. It was a pleasant evening. There was an open bar. We had a delicious dinner. We met George and Laura. And we were still home before 9:30 PM. It's weird that every modern president has one of these libraries. They are really quite extravagant. I've driven by LBJ's library in Austin a few times and heard a lot about Clinton's library, but I'd never actually been inside one of these buildings before. The library is only a few miles from my house, but it felt like it was in a parallel universe very far away.

My own universe is much smaller and consists mostly of poop. I'm still trying to outwit the red Cardinal that poops on my car everyday. It seems to like to look at itself in the car windows, so that's were I've been placing the rubber snakes. Now, all the bird sees when it flies up to the window is a big snake. The strategy seems to be working. The bird still targets my car, but it's avoiding the snakes. Now, all I need to do is go to the Dollar Store and buy some more rubber snakes.

I discovered that I could watch the Dr. Who episode I missed Saturday night on my computer.  BBC America has a website where you can watch complete episodes of pretty much every show they broadcast. The only downside is they use some sort of proprietary video player and you can't skip the commercials or back up the tape to watch something you missed. I'll have to watch the entire show over again, because Dot pooped at a critical point in the story and by the time I cleaned up the mess, the show was over. I still have no idea what the season finale was all about. Dr. Who scripts are so complex now that if you snooze, you lose. Is Clara dead or alive? Is Peter Capaldi still the War Doctor? What is all this business about being a hybrid? Maybe the Hell Bent will make more sense if I can watch it again while the dogs are asleep.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner. I've done absolutely nothing this year. I haven't put up a tree yet. I haven't bought presents for anyone. I haven't even got a plan. I'm just too tired to think about it. Maybe after I finish up with this year's Santa photos I'll get in the spirit of things. Until then, I'll continue to get up early, watch the parade of planets in the pre-dawn sky as we walk the dogs, make my banana and strawberry smoothie, drink some strong coffee and get ready for another day.

Willow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1838

It was cold when we walked the dogs this morning, but as it turned out, this was as warm as it was going to get. As the day progressed it continued to get colder and colder. Now, it looks like it might freeze tonight. Of course tomorrow, the temperature will be back up in the fifties again. I'll never be able to get used to Texas weather.

When I was out shopping this afternoon, I saw several neighborhood Christmas tree lots packing up their tents and disposing of their unsold trees. A Christmas tree lot the day after Christmas is a sad sight. I wonder what these guys do the rest of the year?

The stores had huge sales on wrapping paper and Christmas ornaments today. I know people that always buy their wrapping paper this way. I don't think that far ahead. I just look for what's lying around the house on Christmas Eve. When I was getting groceries, I saw a crowd flocking to one particular aisle. I pushed my buggy toward the melee to see what all the commotion was about and discovered that all the Christmas candy and sweets were half price. I don't eat many sweets myself but got caught up in the moment and ended up buying a box of half price Godiva chocolates.

I seem to have reached some sort of plateau with the stretching exercises that are supposed to help my shoulder. I was making real progress for the first few days, but now I seem to have hit a brick wall. Maybe, this is as far as my bad shoulder is going to move. It's not that the joint is increasing painful to move, it just won't move at all beyond a certain point. I can lie on a flat surface and extend my left shoulder all the way behind my head with a full 180 degrees of motion. The right shoulder will only extend about twenty degrees past a vertical position. Today, I kept thinking that this is as good as it's going to get, but I'm sure that my physical therapist will think otherwise. We'll see how far she can pull and stretch my sore arm on Monday.

I was worried that the dogs would be too cold today and started to bundle them up in their Winter sweaters. Now that the dogs are both wearing their red Ruffwear harnesses on walks, it's kind of a challenge to add sweaters and coats. These Web Master harnesses are kind of like a coat themselves. Do you put the sweater under or over the harness? I eventually gave up, which is probably what the dogs wanted anyway. They like the cold a lot more than I do. I continue to be amazed at how briskly Dot walks along on these cold mornings.

The rubber snake didn't work. I think all I did was make the bird mad. It not only pooped on the car, it even pooped on the rubber snake. I'll try a different color rubber snake tomorrow, but I definitely think this irritating bird is winning the battle at this point.

I don't really feel like going to the gym tomorrow, but I probably should anyway. I told my physical therapist that I try to go to the gym at least twice a week. Jeez, I'm still having trouble making it even once a week. I think these guys can tell when you're not doing your homework.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1837

I got Janet one of those Jawbone activity trackers as a stocking stuffer gift, but unfortunately I forgot that she has a small instead of a medium size wrist. I took the little UP band back this morning to exchange it for a smaller size and was lucky to find one in exactly the same color. When I went to the exchange desk, they gave me a credit, but told me that the band would cost $25 more than I paid a day and a half ago. WTF? "This is exactly the same thing as the medium size band," I said. At first they tried to tell me that the smaller sizes cost more, but I reminded them that the entire end aisle display with every size and color was the same price. "Well, that was a special Christmas price," the clerk said. "It's after Christmas now." "That would be fine if I bought this today, but I bought it Christmas Eve," I said. "All I want is the same thing in a smaller size." When it became apparent that I wasn't in the mood to pay $25 more for something I had already purchased, a manager intervened and told me that he would adjust the price so I could make a direct exchange. As I was leaving, the manager told me somewhat sternly that prices in this store could change on a dime and that I should never expect the price to stay the same overnight. What a strange experience. All over town stores were having after Christmas sales and this store chose to raise it's prices instead.

When I went out for breakfast this morning it seemed like Christmas never even happened. Most of the customers were staring at their phones and eating breakfast in a hurry, just like they usually do. As I ordered my meal, the thought occurred to me that if I was still doing gallery shows, I would probably make huge prints of the almost identical Instagram pictures I've been taking of these meals and people would wonder what the miniscule differences in each picture meant. Of course, the pictures mean absolutely nothing unless you see them as evidence of OCD behavior.

It's been a really slow week. I think all my clients are on vacation. It was so slow this afternoon that I joined the dogs on the bad and watched the Dr. Who Christmas Special that I had recorded on the DVR yesterday. Despite an almost impossibly convoluted plot, this ended up being one of the most entertaining of these annual Christmas Specials I've seen in years. The Steven Moffat script was an unabashed fairy tale about dreams buried within dreams. It was also the first completely modern interpretation of the Santa Claus story I think I've ever seen. All in all, it wasn't a bad way to spend a lazy afternoon.

Janet picked up a couple of rubber snakes for me at the Dollar Store. A couple of months ago a friend told me that birds were afraid of snakes and that I should try something like this and see whether it would convince the bird who continually poops on my car to move on to somebody else's car. I placed one of the rubber snakes on my driver's side mirror this evening. We'll see what the bird thinks tomorrow morning.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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