Day 4879

I got started on my SpaceFlight Magazine article today. I'm not really happy with it yet, but at least I'm making progress. As usual I lost a paragraph and had to start over when Microsoft Word froze on me and I had to restart the computer. I really need to remember to save my work more often. No harm done though. I didn't like that paragraph anyway.

It was another slow and largely uneventful day. We got up and walked Dawn earlier than usual because Janet had an early appointment. Dawn continues to seem strong and no longer shows any signs of weakness in her front legs. She hasn't fallen in quite a while now. I haven't fallen either, but I do show signs of weakness from time to time. There's nothing wrong. I'm just getting older.

After my usual breakfast I checked my messages and got ready for my long walk. Most of my messages are spam these days. There doesn't seem to be any way to avoid these unsolicited messages. I get them on my land line, my cell phone, and on my computer. I've gotten where I never answer the phone unless caller ID shows a number that I clearly recognize. Most of the e-mail spam is painfully obvious. How stupid do these guys thing I am? Spam and telemarketers are still irritating though. I uses every spam blocker in creation and still a lot gets through.

I made pretty good time on my walk today, but my feet are hurting again. These walks are starting to seem like Ground Hog Day. The same things happen over and over again. I pass the same people, see the same animals, and end up complaining about the same aches and pains. Long walks are still the best way to kill time that I can think of. If I didn't take these walks I would just stay at home and eat snacks. A two hour walk adds structure to an otherwise amorphous day. I'd consider walking three hours a day, but I don't think I could make it. Two hours is pretty tiring as it is.

Much of my work on the article today was just doing research. I returned from Kennedy Space Center last Friday, but I forget things quickly. I don't know what I'd do without Google. You can quickly find the answer to virtually anything on Google these days. Doing research use to involve a trip to the central library and hours of searching through books, magazines, and newspapers. The whole process is so easy now.

I didn't finish my article, but I did finish my long walk. I need to start walking on the other side of the lake just to break the monotony. I could always go to the gym instead, but it's more enjoyable to walk outside instead of around the gym's small indoor track. I'd probably accomplish more by just going to the weight room at the gym, but I've become totally hooked on getting my Fitbit steps every day.

I've taken this weeks trash out to the curb and am waiting for the rain that has been predicted all day to finally start. Tomorrow I'll finish my article and send it off to the magazine. I'm ready for another launch trip. There is very little that interests me here in Dallas.

Crosby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4810

Another cold, cloudy day. No rain though, so that's good. Lately I've been having trouble thinking of something to write about. Time passes quickly, but every day is almost exactly the same. I reluctantly get out of bed when Janet tells me that we'll be walking in twenty minutes. The one mile walk wakes me up. Dawn loves to smell things and always enjoys herself no matter what the weather is like. I usually overdress for this walk because I'd rather be too warm than too cold. When we get back home I change back into my indoor clothes and make the bed.

When I go out to the kitchen to fix my breakfast, Dawn is usually waiting for her shredded wheat. She knows she gets two shredded wheat squares every morning now. As soon as she's had her treat, she goes back to the bedroom to nap. I fix some coffee, take my morning meds and eat my breakfast while watching one of the business channels on TV. I find the business channels less annoying than watching the news. I use half and half with my cereal instead of regular milk and Janet usually leaves me a small bowl of cut up strawberries to put on top. Even though we have a perfectly good dishwasher, I always wash and dry my breakfast dishes by hand and put them away before going back to the office and turning on the computer for the day. Rituals are important.

I always have tons of spam in my inbox. Even more spam is caught by my hosting company before it ever gets to me. Why are there so many spammers? Are people really stupid enough to respond to these messages? People send you fake invoices and shipping notices, hoping that you will reply and say you never ordered anything. They are just trying to extract personal information from you. I've thought about canceling my land line phone because the calls are all spam now. Most even show up as "suspected spam" on the caller ID. Why does the phone company even put these calls through if they know they are spam? Sadly, I think I know the answer. The spammers are probably their best customers.

Modern life is just one small irritation after another. Nothing works smoothly anymore. It's almost impossible to talk with a real person if you need technical help with something. If you do reach a real person they're usually in a call center in Indonesia and you can't understand what they're saying. Grocery shelves are frequently out of whatever you went to the store to get. I couldn't find real whipping cream this week. City traffic is impossible now. Where did all these people come from? I'd like to live in a small town except I'd also like to have easy access to the best doctors and veterinarians. I've got no complaints about health care and veterinarians. Pretty much everything else sucks.

The construction crews are making good progress on the access road they are replacing in the park. These guys start their day early. They were already hard at work when we took Dawn on her sunrise walk this morning. Parts of the road are already finished but I'm hesitant to walk on it yet. I don't want to get tar on my Hoka shoes. The new route I'm taking now to avoid the construction is about a half mile shorter than my regular route. Even something as minor as this throws me off. I like consistency and continuity. 

Dawn seems to be getting tired of wearing the No Flap Ear Wrap. I can't say that I blame her. I usually take it off when she's in the house, but you never know when she's going to vigorously shake her head. So far the hematoma on her left ear hasn't gotten any smaller. Hopefully by this time next month we'll be able to see some improvement. 

Nora is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4471

It's Winter again. After a few seventy degree days I thought I could finally put my Winter coats away, but apparently not. I was surprised at how cold it was this morning. Wasn't I wearing shorts yesterday? Oh, well. It's bound to get warmer sometime soon.

The cold weather didn't seem to bother Dawn. She was eager to walk again this morning and seems happy that the whole family is back together again. Dogs have simple expectations. I think that all Dawn wants is the confidence that her life won't be disrupted again. 

It was a slow day for me. I paid some bills and wrote a letter to my sister. I never got around to mailing the letter, but I can do that tomorrow. I was finally ready to order the Hoka boots I've been thinking about, but discovered that they were out of stock again. Maybe they've always been out of stock. The website I was ordering from didn't let me know that the boots were not available until I placed the item in my cart and was ready to check out. Seems like they could have let me know when I first started looking.

I think the Axiom-1 launch that I applied to attend has gotten postponed. I haven't heard anything official yet, but I think the schedule has been pushed back at least a week. That's fine by me. I'm not really ready to go anywhere yet. I think the only reason I applied to cover this launch was because I thought it would be easier than usual to get approved. We'll see. I'm feeling ambiguous about everything lately.

I've cut a mile off my daily walk in hopes of preserving my feet. So far it hasn't made much difference. My feet bothered me quite a bit today. Actually the whole walk bothered me. It was way too cold for late March and there was a stiff wind. I make myself keep walking because otherwise I would probably do nothing. I'm getting plenty of rest already although I'm still not sleeping well. I don't think I'm going to sleep well until my nasal congestion is completely gone.

I do feel better today. That's a good sign. I'm not blowing my nose continually like I was on previous days, although  I still have to sleep on my back because of sinus drainage. I don't have Covid or even a bad cold. I've had these exact same seasonal allergy symptoms every Spring for as long as I can remember. Every year they seem to start a little earlier and last a little longer. It's irritating and it's easy to start looking for another explanation, but it's just pollen.

This doesn't look like a good year for wildflowers. The early bloomers like Wild Iris and Grape Hyacinth are looking puny this Spring. There are fields where I typically see thousands of blooms and this year there are only a few scattered flowers. There are lots of other flowers that I haven't seen at all. Several of the resident geese have disappeared as well. I usually see ten on my daily walks and lately I can only find seven. There is an extra Muscovy Duck though. I saw three yesterday. I wonder where the extra one came from. It kind of looked like the smaller duck that flew into our yard last month. I wonder about ducks a lot. I guess it's better than wondering why there are so many grey cars lately. Grey has suddenly become a very popular color.

I'm being bombarded with spam lately. Every single day I receive an avalanche of spam and Phishing attempts on every device I own. I never answer the calls that say "suspected spam" on my caller ID. I don't open suspicious e-mail messages that say my accounts have been compromised. I routinely block all the unfamiliar calls and texts I get on my iPhone. The attempts keep coming though. Janet and everyone I know are dealing with the same thing. It doesn't give you a lot of faith in humanity. 

Brooke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3627

Lots of rain today. It was such a dismal, wet day that I decided to take my walk at the gym. This was a first. Driving in the rain to walk on an indoor track isn't something you'd expect of me. Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as I thought. Walking five miles on an indoor oval track is much better than getting cold and wet in the park. I may do this again. There is no sensation  of distance when you are walking on an indoor track. The only sensation is of time. To my surprise, I completed my walk faster than I do in the park. This was probably because there were no hills to climb. I also passed people on the track, which almost never happens in the park. People in the park are young and fit. People at my gym are taking physical therapy or recovering from heart attacks. I often think I'm one of the younger members.

I had to pick up something for dinner on my way home from the gym and the store was almost empty. I guess everyone was eating leftovers today. Since it was a cold, rainy day I thought we'd have chili for dinner. Eating chili almost guarantees that I'll have heartburn later this evening, but it still seems like the perfect meal for a wet winter day.

I guess it's a good sign that there are still no roof leaks. We've had a ton of rain lately. The pumps on the roof have been working pretty well, but they don't even come close to removing all the water. At best, the pumps can turn four inches of standing water into one or two inches. To remove the rest I have to get up on the roof and sweep the water over the edge of the roof with a big push broom. When it eventually stops raining, that's what I'll be doing.

Ginny has discovered squirrels. We may have to start taking her out to pee on a leash again. A dog that is recovering from heartworm treatment shouldn't be running around the back yard trying to catch squirrels. All our dogs have liked to chase squirrels. Dot even caught a few. It doesn't help matters that there are a ton of squirrels in the park. They could care less where the park ends and our yard starts. I've seen up to a dozen of them in the yard at the same time.

I didn't do any Black Friday shopping today. Instead, I deleted hundreds of Black Friday messages from my e-mail inbox. The ads and e-mail spam are relentless. From now until Christmas, retailers are determined to sell me something. These guys should know that I'm not really their target audience anymore. I don't need much. Unless someone's going to offer me a Mercedes Sprinter van for half price, I'm not interested.

Fitbit says that I am sleeping better since Ginny has arrived.  This is a bit counterintuitive, but it makes sense to me. Having a warm dog next to you is comforting. I didn't sleep well when Dot and Dash were sick, but they needed lots of attention. When our dogs were young, we all slept well. Ginny certainly has no trouble sleeping. She is sleeping next to me right now.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3435

I was pleased to see the guys who arrived this morning to bury the new fiber optic cable that AT&T installed last week. I wasn't so pleased when one of the guys digging the trench broke the new cable and I was back to square one again. If there is a lesson to be learned from this, I guess it would be to never let anyone with a shovel get anywhere near a fiber optic cable. Murphy's Law always prevails. Needless to say, the crew with the shovels had no idea how to fix the cable. I had to make an appointment with a fiber optic technician to come out and install the cable all over again.

Amazingly, the technician actually did come out today. I was impressed. The guy told me that even though it was company policy to bury these cables so that they would remain undisturbed, quite a few got damaged anyway. If they would just dig the trench a little deeper I don't think they'd have this problem. Most of these cables that run from the distribution box to the house are only a few inches underground.

It took quite a while to get me back online again but hopefully there won't be any more problems for a while. My neighbor has finished messing around with her fence and I'm certainly not going to be doing any digging. I asked the technician when 5G was coming to Dallas and he told me that it was already here. The super high speed service hasn't arrived in our neighborhood yet, but I'm sure it will.  I'll be getting messages from Apple urging me to upgrade my phone and messages from AT&T urging me to upgrade my network. Personally, I don't think I need a faster connection. Who really needs to download a movie in two seconds anyway? What I need is a connection that doesn't go down every time we have a heavy rain.

I still haven't heard from NASA. I haven't heard from a roofer who still owes me a bid and one of the auction houses I've been dealing with either. Sometimes I worry that important messages are being quarantined or deleted by the industrial strength spam filter on my web server. You never know what winds up in the spam folder. I seldom look at these messages because they don't even come to my computer. I can log into the server and inspect the quarantine folder if I want, but it's like looking for a needle in a haystack. There are thousands of spam messages. It's easier to pretend that these messages don't exist.

I'm tempted to stop people I see walking dogs so I can pet them. I haven't done this because I remember when people would stop me when I was walking Dot and Dash. I always tried to give the dogs long enjoyable walks even when I was busy working. Not surprisingly, they always had a way of making me late. It's hard to let your dog smell every tree when you're on a schedule and you definitely don't want to stop and chat when you've got a conference call in thirty minutes. I can tell that a lot of the younger people walking dogs are on a schedule. You can see it in their eyes. I'll sometimes talk to older retired people I know in the neighborhood. I leave the younger working people alone. They've got enough on their plate already.

Janet and I were talking about working the other day. We miss working in a lot of ways. We both enjoyed our jobs but don't want to deal with rush hour traffic anymore or trying to please a much younger boss who knows far less than we do. I'd love to find someone who will give me challenging things to do, pay me well, and then just leave me alone. No meetings and no big collaborative group efforts. Lots of luck with that. Hard to believe now that I actually had this type of arrangement for many, many years. I guess I was lucky.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3386

And just like that, Google+ was gone. I thought the last day was going to be today, but I guess it was actually yesterday. Everything I posted to Google+ over the years has simply disappeared. I was going to write a goodbye post like everybody else, encouraging people to follow me somewhere else. Too late now. I still think Google+ was the best social network. The whole idea of circles was so much better than friends or followers. I'm going to miss this place. It was definitely an idea worth keeping.

My teeth are still in good condition. The dental hygienist cleaned my teeth and I got new x-rays, but that was it. When I was younger I was lucky if I went to the dentist every ten years. Now I go every six months and do everything the dentist recommends. Eventually, you realize that you've only got one body and it's up to you to take care of it. Surprisingly, my dentist said it was just fine to continue wearing my broken Essix retainer. "It still fits perfectly," He told me as he inserted the left side and then the right side. I was worried that my teeth might have shifted, but the dentist said I was imagining things. "This retainer is a very tight fit," he told me. "If your teeth had shifted, you wouldn't be able to put it on." Works for me. I'm always happy when someone wants to save me a little money.

I got some bad news from the synthesizer repairman today. One of the Sequential Circuits synthesizers I've having restored can't be fixed. A critical custom voice chip is no longer available. Two of the three synthesizers are working perfectly now, but this one will only be good for parts. The technician has already spent a lot of time trying to repair this thing. I hate paying for something that will never work, but the technician has spent months working on these ancient analog synthesizers. He did the best he could. You win some. You lose some.

I wish Dash's appetite would return. He's gone through at least two episodes before where he was an extremely picky eater and it is always frustrating. In the past, his appetite has always returned after a few weeks. Hopefully, it will this time too. Usually by the end of the day we manage to get him to eat something. A lot of food gets wasted and he's still not eating enough. We're constantly changing things to find something he likes. It's hard to tell if this is a physical or a mental problem. We've got a vet appointment scheduled for tomorrow morning to examine his mouth. There's a good chance that his gum infection could be part of the problem.

When I was clearing out my spam folder on the mail server this afternoon, I became alarmed at the enormous amount of phishing attacks that were headed my way. I called tech support and asked if this was normal. "Sadly yes," the technician told me. "These people are relentless." I never could have predicted thirty years ago that most of the messages I receive would be attempts to scam me. My hosting company has an excellent spam filter and Nomorobo catches most of the telemarketing spam on my phone. It's still irritating though. You shouldn't have to feel like you're constantly under siege.

Hopefully we can get Dash's gingivitis under control when we visit the vet tomorrow. It would be so much easier if a dog's dental exam was as simple as the one I had today. When it became unsafe to anesthetize Dash for routine dental cleanings, his mouth began to go downhill. Maybe if we can find the right antibiotic we can still clear this problem up.

I'm still not getting enough sleep, but what else is new.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3345

Dash wouldn't walk this morning. I thought he'd be eager to get outside since the weather was nicer than yesterday. I even saw the sun and a few patches of blue sky for a while. Evidently Dash wasn't impressed by the weather. Before we'd even made it to the end of our street, he turned around and came home. He must have been feeling bad this morning, because he immediately went to sleep as soon as we returned to the house.

There was a post card in the mail this morning saying that there was an attempt to deliver a package and that I was to call the number on the card immediately. This was an obvious scam. The card didn't come from UPS, Fedex, the Post Office, or Amazon. I hadn't ordered anything either. Who were these people trying to fool? I put the card in the shredder, but there will probably be more dubious mail tomorrow. I feel like I'm under siege lately. Most of the mail that arrives at the house is junk. The phone is even worse. They say that 50% of all phone calls are telemarketers now. At my house the figure would be more like 90%. I really feel like the phone company should be paying me to put up with this nonsense. The telemarketing calls start earlier and last longer now too. We occasionally get them after we've gone to bed. I have Nomorobo installed on my phone and still way too many of these junk calls get through.

If we're going to build a wall, we ought to build some sort of electronic wall to stop these irritating intrusions once and for all. Stopping telemarketers might be the one thing that Democrats and Republicans could actually agree on. I wonder why telemarketers even bother. Few people even answer their phone these days. If you don't send them a text, you'll never get an answer.

Don't even get me started about Spam. Luckily my hosting company has a very good Spam filter, so I don't see most of it. Occasionally, I empty the Spam folder on the mail server and I'm always shocked at how many messages there are. Usually there are thousands of them.

Early this afternoon Dash seemed to have recovered and we took a nice walk. It doesn't really matter when Dash feels like walking. I've always got the time. I think it's great that he still has the desire to do things. Sometimes he has more desire than I do. Dash tires very easily and sleeps a lot, but when he's ready to go, we go.

I'd like to think the sunshine I saw today was a hopeful sign. Unfortunately, there are thunderstorms in the forecast for Friday. At least our weather isn't quite as bad as last February. If I remember correctly, it rained all month. The rainy season will be over eventually. The wildflowers will return. They won't last long though. When Summer arrives I'll be thinking that all this February rain was just an illusion.

Odie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2403

Pokémon GO must really be a thing. I've started seeing a huge increase in the number of kids wandering aimlessly around the park while staring at their phones. I don't understand this phenomenon at all, but then I haven't played video games since Pong first arrived on the scene in 1972. The wireless carriers must love this new game. I have a feeling that a lot of these very rare Pokémon's are located well out of WiFi range.

Dot is improving. With a little assistance, she can walk slowly around the back yard now. I still have to guide her and provide some support, but I can tell that her coordination is starting to improve and she can take steps without trying to hop on one leg. It's a long, slow process to provide the rest she needs without causing her muscles to atrophy further. Like almost everything we do these days, we're taking baby steps.

I spent most of the day writing. I continue to send the completed articles to the same address that has been blocking me. I think the block has been lifted, because my mail is no longer bouncing back to me. Unfortunately, my client still can't find my messages. I think they are getting through, but are probably being quarantined in a spam folder somewhere. I send duplicate files for the time being, using both my regular account and an alternate Gmail account. I kind of wish I still had my old fax machine. It would be quicker to just fax the completed articles.

Dot's injured leg has actually provided some good news for Dash. Since Dot can't walk now, I'm taking Dash on much longer morning walks after Dot goes back to sleep after breakfast. We don't spend any more time away from home, but we walk twice as fast and cover a lot of ground. Dot's decline has taken place over such an extended length of time that I didn't really realize how much shorter our walks have become. Dash enjoys the exercise, but I'm arriving home a bit more winded than I expected. We really walked a long way when the dogs were young. I have no idea how many steps we used to take however. This was long before fitness trackers were invented.

My life is calm and steady, but every time I turn on the TV it appears like the world is in chaos. I would love to return to the days of looking forward to watching The Twilight Zone on a black and white TV with rabbit ears. I grew up in an era when nobody locked their doors at night, never wore seat belts, and thought that TV Dinners were just fine to serve company for dinner. Everybody smoked and we were only vaguely aware of cancer and the dangers of high cholesterol. We build nuclear weapons with reckless abandon and even thought we could build nuclear powered airplanes and cars. I miss those days. In an attempt to make the world a better, more rational place, we only managed to make things worse. That's the way it is with Pandora's box. You can open it, but you can never close it again.

Maybe my e-mail problems will be resolved tomorrow. If Dot continues to improve, we might try taking her on a very short walk down the alley behind our house. Baby steps.

Watson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2402

I discovered today that one of my own clients was blocking me for sending spam. Am I a spammer? Definitely not. Do I share an mail server with someone who is? Probably. This is the problem with all shared mail and web servers. You don't know who your neighbors are. I called my hosting company and asked them to fix the problem. It's not that easy, they said. Thousands of customers could be using the same IP address and most blacklist e-mail filtering software will block the entire IP address instead of an individual user. Is there a solution to this irritatingly common problem? The hosting company said to just wait ten minutes and send my mail again. "If you send the mail again, it will probably be routed through a different mail server," said the tech support guy. OK. You would think that they could come up with a better solution than that. About half my mail went through today and the other half didn't. It would have been easier to just call my client on the phone.

This is why many doctors and hospitals still prefer to Fax medical records and apparently why the Defense Department still runs our nuclear missile system using a very old IBM computer and 8" floppy discs. Simple is often more reliable.  The more complex a system is, the more likely it is to break. My AT&T U-Verse service is spectacular when it works, but it really doesn't work all that well. Apparently the same can be said for my new e-mail account.

Dot still can't walk, but she is beginning to put weight on her left front leg again. This is a very good sign. I'm taking things very slow and giving her plenty of time to rest. She's a difficult patient, because she still wants to be active. You can tell she's frustrated when I hold her up using her harness and inch her around the house. That's all she can do at the moment though. If she keeps making progress at her current rate, we should be walking again in two to three weeks. It is very tiring dealing with a sixty pound dog that only has one good leg. I'd gotten used to supporting her back end, but it's much more complicated to provide effective support for her front and back legs at the same time. Today she peed on my foot when I took her outside, because I couldn't figure out how to get out of the way in time.

Dot is calm as long as Dash is calm, so I'm having to spend extra time with him to avoid the usual barking episodes that prevent Dot from getting the rest she needs. I've started giving Dash extra long walks in the morning, which seems to help. There are no easy solutions though. At this point in time, these are very high maintenance dogs.

I tried to get caught up on writing assignments today, but since most of them were going to the client who was blocking my e-mail, I have no idea whether they received the files or not. The client didn't even know they were blocking me. It was the anti-virus software they were using that is causing all the problems. The tech support guy I talk to this morning said that they monitor all outgoing mail using a special algorithm to detect spam messages and eventually the offending spammer will be identified and their account will be terminated. How long will this take? Who knows. I never realized how good I had it when my mail and web sites were hosted on a small secure private server. It's too bad that my friend who ran the company retired. Now that I've joined the modern world, I've had nothing but problems.

I guess the president was in town today but I never noticed. I was too busy cleaning up dog poop.

Winston is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2310

Yay. I fixed yesterday's website problem using a single line of code. I was pretty pleased with myself, even though I had a little help from an Apache Server user group. By modifying some code I saw on the forum, I was able to solve a problem that had my web hosting tech support folks stumped. The problem was so minor that most people would never have noticed, but it still felt gratifying to be able to put two and two together and come up with a solution. Don't count me out yet folks.

I replaced my defective activity tracker with a more advanced model that I found for half price at a sporting goods store that was going out of business. I had gone to the store to look for a cheap fleece jacket, but came away with the activity tracker instead. The best thing about this new model is that you don't have to manually put it into sleep mode every night. The thing just knows when you are sleeping automatically. I doubt that the new tracker will last any longer than any of the others that have fallen apart on my wrist, but I got it at half price. It's hard to resist half price.

I took my jacket back to the tailor today and was pleased to discover that she could fix the lining for a very reasonable price. I'm always impressed with people who can fix things. This tailor does beautiful work and has extended the life of many of my favorite things. The jacket is old and worn, but I still like it. Old leather coats have a lot of character. I'd keep fixing everything if I could, but people who take pride in fixing things are getting harder to find. Like it or not, we live in a throw away society.

Fixing a difficult website problem myself and getting a new lining for an old jacket made me feel good. I even anticipated that Dot needed to poop last night and we managed to get her up and outside at 3 AM just in the nick of time. There were no accidents in the house today. People sometimes think I'm a gloomy person, but it really doesn't take that much to cheer me up. A few things going right will usually do the trick.

I need to ask Dot's vet if I could change her physical therapy appointment back to mornings instead of afternoons. Dot is less likely to poop in the car in the morning and traffic is not nearly as bad. The clinic seems a lot busier in the afternoons too. What was meant to be convenient is actually taking me more time than before. I have a feeling that the vet likes this new time better though, so I may be stuck with it. You have to be careful what you wish for. It is not always what you expect.

I've noticed that since I've moved my e-mail account to the new server, I'm not getting any more spam. The spam must be going somewhere. I don't think anyone's invented a perfect spam filter yet. I need to figure out where the spam is going, because it's probably just sitting in a folder somewhere on the server eating up my hosting space. On the old server there were always important messages mixed in with the spam. I had to check my junk mail folder every day. So, there's my to-do list for tomorrow. Take Dot to the vet and find out where all my missing junk mail is accumulating. Who knows. Maybe hidden away in all the spam is a letter from someone who would like to hire me.

Nellie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2296

The landscapers came out today. They think it's funny that I have to replace the grass every year. I think I'm their only customer where they have to do something like this. The turf is always installed properly and I water and feed it properly. The problem is that the roots from the large Oak trees in the back yard suck up all the water and the canopy of leaves blocks out direct sunlight. The yard just doesn't get enough sunlight for St. Augustine grass to thrive. Bermuda Grass needs even more sunlight and won't grow at all. I've planted most of the yard with ground cover that does well in shady areas, but the dogs like to sit out in the grass during the Summer, so we put in a small patch of grass every Spring for them. The yard looks great until August and then it gradually starts to die out. It's not an ideal solution, but it's better than nothing.

I added an SSL Certificate to my website this afternoon. The certificate is probably overkill, since I'm not selling anything on the site and have little need for security. Modern browsers increasingly expect a secure site though, so I guess it was worth the effort. The whole process was a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be. I had to add some code so that people who had already bookmarked the http: version of the site wouldn't get an error message and would go to the new https: version instead. The web hosting folks said that the SSL Certificate would improve my search rankings. I kind of doubt this is true, but we'll see what happens.

It was time to get more Allopurinol and Levothyroxine for Dash today. It seems like I'm always picking up pills for somebody. Dot takes meds to control her blood pressure and chemotherapy drugs to control her cancer. Dash takes Phenobarbital to control seizures, along with his daily thyroid and blood pressure meds. My own prescriptions are mostly to control high blood pressure and cholesterol, although there are a few for other things as well. I can't even remember why I'm taking some of them. There's a whole little area in the kitchen now just for pills. Dot takes her chemotherapy medication every third day, so we never end up taking the pills on the same day. I have to use a calendar to keep track of all this. It gets complicated.

It's ironic that I used to have to use a calendar to keep track of work deadlines. Now, I just use the calendar to keep track of prescriptions. Work is pretty easy to manage these days. When a job comes in, I usually just do it right away because I'm so bored. I haven't had a backlog of work in quite a while.

I finally got the forms working again on the new web server. This was a questionable use of my time, because nobody uses the forms anymore. Typically, they get filled out by spam-bots that randomly type gibberish in each of the form fields. I probably should have eliminated the forms instead of fixing them. They were fantastic in 1995. Now, they're just a nuisance.

Spring is when the Purple Martins return. Unfortunately, it's also when the cockroaches return as well. While I was writing this, I looked down and saw a huge roach sitting on my foot. This startled me and I flinched, flipping the bug up in the air. Lord knows where it landed, because I can't find the disgusting thing now. My office is so full of clutter that the bug could stay hidden for another month. Such is life in the South.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2102

Sometimes I wonder why I even bother to stay connected. 95% of all the phone calls I receive are telemarketers. Nomorobo takes care of a lot of the nuisance calls, but I continue to be amazed at how persistent some people are. Some telemarketers still continue to call several times a day. Do these people really think I'm an idiot? My e-mail is just as bad. There are industrial strength spam filters on both the server and my local e-mail client and still a lot of the spam manages to get through. I never even open these messages, but some of the headers are so preposterous that it makes you wonder what the spammers were thinking. Are there really that many people out there who are dumb as rocks and would fall for these schemes? Maybe there are. I don't think these guys would be so persistent if people weren't falling onto their traps.

I've noticed that the daily bombardment of e-mail spam and telemarketing messages has steadily increased as I grow older. I'm sure they're thinking that if they keep trying, eventually I'll become senile and pick up the phone. It happened to my Dad. He was a brilliant scientist, but when senility began to cloud his brain, he fell for one of those Nigerian scams where someone will tell you that they won the Canadian lottery, but can't claim the prize because they can't afford to pay the tax. They offer to share the lottery winnings with their unsuspecting victim, if he or she will help them pay the tax. I don't know how my Dad fell for such a preposterous scheme, but he was living alone and couldn't resist picking up the phone. He lost everything he made selling his house a few years earlier. If the FBI hadn't stepped in and warned his bank to block large withdrawals, he would have lost even more.

It's sad that the world has come to this. Instead of being open and inclusive, you are forced to put up barriers. I find it hard to trust anyone in today's world. When I'm driving I feel like everyone else on the road is driving without a license or insurance. In Dallas I have good reason to feel this way. I wasn't happy when the Ebola outbreak hit our city a few years ago, because it seemed like someone let down their guard. When I watch the current European refugee crisis on TV, I am convinced that there are ISIS members cleverly mixed in with the hordes of people who are just trying to escape some very horrible conditions. Sometimes I'm envious of friends who go out to Burning Man for a week and manage to convince themselves that the world is full of rainbows and unicorns. I'm pretty observant and I just don't see much to be encouraged about.

Dot certainly didn't provide a lot of encouragement today. She seemed tired. We had to slow down the treadmill a bit during her physical therapy session because she just didn't have the energy. She was only able to go fifteen minutes this week. It's hard to keep the balance of exercise and rest just right. Maybe it was just the weather. It was warmer today and Dot had gotten used to the cooler weather we were having earlier in the week. We'll rest tomorrow. Hopefully, we'll rest tonight as well.

We'll see how tomorrow goes. Dash has a cancer re-check in the morning and I'm not anticipating any problems. He certainly seems healthy now. I've already taken this week's trash out to the curb and am hoping that the truck empties my entire can this time. Friday's are usually good. No matter what happens, I know I can depend on a good breakfast.
 

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1746

There were no pretty wildflowers to photograph this morning. I didn't feel like waiting around for a sunset picture either, so this photo of my breakfast will have to suffice. You've heard about my Friday breakfasts for quite a while. This is why I like them so much. It's hard not to like a plate filled with fresh local eggs, chorizo, tortilla strips, tomatoes, onions, skillet browned potatoes and lots of savory spices. Oh, did I mention that the coffee is roasted on the premises too.

After a breakfast like this and a quick trip to Central Market to pick up something equally tasty for dinner, I'm usually ready for anything.  Fridays are typically busy, but since one of my clients has closed up shop for Rosh Hashanah, all I had to do today were several routine website revisions.

With a slow day, I had time to finish my September writer's group assignment a little early again. This month's prompt was "sleep," so I wrote about my dreams. I probably did this because I wrote something about dreams yesterday on the blog. Today's essay was a little longer, but it was essentially the same thing. When you write as frequently as I do, it's easy to feel like the well is running dry. This wasn't the first time I've borrowed from the blog to do something else, and it won't be the last.

My e-mail account has adopted a new way of identifying spam. Instead of dumping all the suspicious mail in a junk mail folder on my local computer, they keep it on the server and send me a summary once a day. I have to look through all the listings and choose whether to whitelist, delete, or block the detained mail. I know this is for my benefit, but it takes a lot more time than my old method of dealing with spam. I would routinely ignore everything in the junk folder, knowing that it would be automatically be erased when I closed my mail client. I'm sure I've lost a number of legitimate letters this way, but it sure was easy. I dread having to actually look at all the junk I get each day. On an average day there are over a hundred spam messages.

This weekend will be busy. The dogs get a bath tomorrow and Sunday is the Dalmatian Rescue golf tournament. I won't be able to go to the gym on Sunday, but shooting photos of the players on all eighteen holes of the golf course will be a workout in itself.

Suki is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1580

One of these days, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go paperless. Every couple of months, I try to wade through the mountain of accumulated paper and throw away as much superfluous mail as I can. I have a tendency to save things that I think might be important, and then forget what was so important about the letter later. On days like today, I find myself throwing away a ton of coupons that expired three years ago, invitations to attend seminars that have already taken place, and the ubiquitous unopened proxy statements. I don't know why I get the proxy statements in the first place. Please vote for the following slate of directors, they say. Like my 100 shares are  actually going to make a difference? Annual reports, proxy statements, unsolicited credit cards, surveys, almost anything from AARP is a total waste of postage.  Today I found five letters that really did need to be dealt with and threw away over 100 that were just junk.

What does it mean when 90% of your e-mail winds up unopened in your spam folder, 95% of your phone calls are from telemarketers, and virtually everything the mailman delivers is junk mail?  I must be the kind of customer marketers are trying to reach, because I am deluged with junk. I don't add my name to "do not call" lists because I'm convinced that this will actually increase the number of telemarketing calls. I never open anything in my spam folder because I think this might trigger a hidden malware application. Proxy statements go directly into the paper shredder. It wasn't always this way. As recently as ten years ago, I looked forward to a visit from the postman and clients routinely called me on the phone instead of sending cryptic e-mails that wind up in my spam folder anyway.

After I reduced my mountain of unopened mail to a more manageable size, I got some bleach soaked rags and tried to clean up my bathroom. Somehow when dust, moisture, and soap interact, it leaves a thin layer of scum that is almost impossible to remove. The electric toothbrush, water pic, soap dishes, and toilet are all sparkling clean now. In about a month, they will all be covered with the same scum again. I'll have to deal with the tile grout another day. That's getting pretty disgusting too.

The only reason I even attempted to deal with these tiresome chores today was that it was pouring rain outside for most of the day. I won't need to water the new grass in the back yard for a few days, but I will need to go up on the roof again and remove all the standing water. I'll need to go to the battery store and get a new 24V lawn mower battery too. If I let the front lawn go too long, it will be a tangled mess of tall weeds within a matter of weeks. The lawn mower battery will be expensive, but it's still a lot easier than putting my gas mower in the car and taking it to one of the city's few remaining lawn mower repair shops. These little shops used to be everywhere, but not anymore. Today, people apparently just drag their non-functioning mowers out to the curb for the trash truck to take away and buy another cheap mower at Home Depot. Actually, they just get a yard guy to mow their grass. I'm one of the only people in my neighborhood who still mows his own grass.

As the day progressed, the skies gradually cleared and by late afternoon there were patches of blue sky punctuated with billowing cumulus clouds. The day started dismally, but it ended up being quite pretty. The dogs were as eager to get out of the house as I was, so we took advantage of the nice weather and went on a long afternoon walk. On the way, I thought I saw a squirrel staring at me from a knot hole in a nearby tree. "This would make a cool picture," I thought, and inched closer to the tree to take a picture. When I got about a yard from the tree, I noticed that it was a rubber squirrel that someone had placed in the knot hole. Sure fooled me. Who would bother to put rubber squirrels in random trees in a public park? You'd have to be crazy. Oh wait. That would describe half the people who visit this park. I guess random rubber squirrels are just another aspect of life in the city.

Valli is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day