Day 2170

It is tempting to join the political debate on Facebook. With a presidential election looming and WWIII on the horizon, my timeline is filled with wildly contradictory opinions every single day. How did I get so many friends who can't seem to agree on anything? My desire to clarify things by telling my Facebook friends the "truth" is tempered by the realization that my own opinions are probably just as misguided as theirs. Why join the fray? It's pointless. If Facebook is a proxy for how the world actually works, we are truly fucked.

Without getting into details, I tend to take the long view on things. When Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter, All Lives Matter were popular memes, only one image spoke to me. It was an icy cold photo of the Andromeda Galaxy with the caption No Lives Matter. Whenever people talk about climate change, I keep thinking that it is pretty arrogant to assume that humans can actually destroy the planet. The planet has been here for billions of years. We've only been here a few thousand. We can certainly destroy ourselves. We're getting closer and closer to doing this every day. The planet will survive however. Earth will clean up the toxic gasses and the radiation on its own time schedule and maybe a wiser, less argumentative species will evolve the next time around. People don't like taking the long view however. They're more concerned about what is going to happen tomorrow. That's why I tend to keep my mouth shut.

Today was a good day for saying nothing. It's a short week and most of my clients are on holiday time already. Even the ubiquitous telemarketers seem to have disappeared this week. I went about my business, making sure the dogs had a nice morning walk and taking an inordinate amount of time to make the perfect fruit smoothie. I've almost sealed the leak in the shower stall, although a small amount of water still seems to end up on the bathroom floor. I've narrowed down the search for the ideal portable dehumidifier to two models, but can't decide which one is best. Neither of these machines is available in Dallas and all I've got to go on are people's comments on the Internet. I'd say my chances of believing the wrong person are about 50/50.

Since today was even slower than yesterday, I took the opportunity to catch up on Dr. Who. This time I watched the show while the dogs were napping and managed to see the entire episode without interruptions. I don't know what to think about Face the Raven. Personally I think Clara deserved a better send off. She might not have been the best companion ever, but she was a good and loyal one. She should have been sent to a parallel universe like Rose or just had her memory wiped like Donna Noble. Although I'm not a fan of the direction that Steven Moffat is taking the show, I'll have to admit that Peter Capaldi is a good actor. There is an intensity about him that Matt Smith never had.

I'm so habitual that's it's going to be harder than you might think to remember that Dot's physical therapy day is tomorrow instead of Thursday. Her appointment is early in the morning too. I'll have to start getting her ready right after breakfast. It's supposed to rain on Thanksgiving but I hope the forecast is wrong. I'd like to enjoy a nice relaxing dinner at our third choice restaurant without worrying about whether the dogs were having a panic attack during a thunderstorm.

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1988

Short weeks always confuse me. It seemed like a Monday for most of the day, but is was really Tuesday. It's probably going to be like this for the rest of the week. After breakfast, I made an appointment for Dot to get her semi-annual ultrasound scan at the cancer center. This test was actually due a few months ago, but Dot was still recovering from surgery. Dash was due for some tests as well. I made an appointment to get his blood work done so the vet could re-check his phenobarbital levels. We do this once a year to make sure there is still enough phenobarbital in his blood stream to control seizures.

When I got all the dogs vet visits scheduled, I put together another mobile friendly website. I thought my client would be delighted when I told him that he finally had the mobile site he'd been asking for. The guy seemed strangely uninterested though. I explained how Google was already demoting sites that weren't mobile ready, but he still seemed to want to hang on to the old static site. Go figure.

The rain was more sporadic today. There was a light mist when we walked the dogs this morning and I actually caught a brief glimpse of the sun later in the day when I was taking Dash on his evening walk. It's so wet outside that I have towels strategically placed just outside the back door so I can dry the dogs off after their walk before they go in the house again. My jeans are usually soaked halfway to the knee from walking through the wet grass in the park. The wet pants go in the dryer and the equally wet shoes are placed on top of one of the furnace floor vents. With a little luck, everything is dry again by the time we take our next walk.

One of the worst things about all this rain we've been having are the mosquitoes. They're everywhere. I don't know how so many got inside, but they appear to be here to stay. The little beasts are hard to catch, because you usually don't even notice them until you hear one buzzing right beside your ear. At least we're on high ground, so we don't have to worry about flooding. The pictures I've been seeing on television from Austin and Houston are unbelievable. I've lived in Texas for a long time, but I don't ever remember a Spring like this.

I'll have to admit that I was a little disappointed that my client wasn't all that excited about the work I'd done today. I need to remember that most people don't spend that much time thinking about social media and Google rankings. A website is no different than a Yellow Pages ad to many of them. Oh, well. I learned some new things putting together this second mobile friendly site. That should be useful. Eventually, this knowledge will come in handy.

There is more rain on the way tomorrow. We'll be fine though. There are plenty of bananas for the dogs, lots of dry towels, and a ton of old static websites that I still need to make mobile friendly.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1722

It sure seemed like Monday today. That's what happens when you have a long weekend. Whatever day you return to work seems like Monday. It wasn't a terribly busy day but it had that unfinished quality about it that Monday's often do. I made an appointment at the Apple store to get the battery on my phone replaced. I have serious doubts that I'll actually get a battery installed tomorrow, but you've got to start somewhere. I also ordered a complete set of ink cartridges for the Epson 4880. I've never had all eight cartridges run out of ink at the same time before, but I guess there's a first time for everything. I don't know why I even bother with this printer anymore, since the ink is quite expensive. Maybe deep down I still have a desire to make large Giclée prints like I did six or seven years ago.

I don't think I'll ever sleep normally again. Even if we do end up giving Dot pills to help control her incontinence, we won't ever be able to completely trust her again. Accidents happen. Since I don't have the heart to make Dot sleep in a crate away from the rest of the family, I am resigned to spending extra time every evening preparing the bed with a vinyl drop cloth under several layers of protective pads. The dogs actually like the protective pads that Janet sewed for them, so we had to make one for Dash too. They have a soft terry cloth surface and a protective waterproof back, making them great little dog beds. Every evening they go on the bed and every morning they come off again. There is a spare pad in case there is an accident during the night. I think we've thought of everything. It's just very time consuming.

I need to get a second opinion about my shoulder. I've been putting off doing this forever, since I'm afraid I'll be told that I need surgery. I really don't want surgery on my shoulder, but I don't want an arm I can't lift above my head either. Also, I'm sure that just about any doctor would tell me that the first thing I need to do is stop walking the dogs with a dislocated shoulder. That's just not an option. I don't like hospitals either. Increasingly, hospitals are where you go to get sick, instead of to get better. Just about everyone I know who has had to go to the hospital recently has ended up getting some sort of infection from all the antibiotic resistant germs that infest hospitals these days. My health plan basically consists of avoiding sick people and it seems to work pretty well. My shoulder still hurts though, so I'm faced with a dilemma.

I wonder if the watchmaker has finished with my watch yet? It's not that I need it or anything. Picking it up would just give me something to do on a dead day. Tomorrow I've got my appointment with the Genius Bar folks at the Apple store. Thursday is Dot's physical therapy day. Maybe I'll call the watchmaker on Friday and see what's going on. It's nice to have at least one thing to do every day.

In case I give the impression that I'm sitting around idle, I'm not. There are still plenty of website revisions and updates each and every day. These are getting too boring to write about though, so you won't hear much about these in the future. The fact that I prefer to tell you about dog pee than what I'm currently doing at work tells you all you need to know about my business. Maybe it is time to retire.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day