Day 3686

It's easy to spend the entire afternoon with the Dalmatians. They enjoy the attention and we enjoy having the opportunity to get to know them better. Everyone has their own personality. Some like to race around and chase after red rubber Kongs. Others like to play with soft plush toys. Sock and Lord like to stay together, while Charlie and Hank seem to do better on their own. Dawn always gives us one of those big Dalmatian smiles when we arrive. She isn't very playful but is probably the most relaxed of the bunch. She was content to just sit quietly with us today.

Something bit me last night. I woke up with a big welt on my back and have no idea how it got there. It's not the season for mosquitos and chiggers, so maybe it was a spider. There are tons of spiders in our yard, but luckily most of them are outside. There definitely shouldn't be spiders in the bed, but you never know. I'd probably hate to know how many critters come out of the woodwork after the lights go out.

Tax documents are starting to arrive in the mail. Jeez. Is it already that time of the year again? Time passes so quickly now. I feel like I just finished with last year's taxes. It doesn't seem fair that Social Security is taxed. This doesn't really feel like income. It doesn't seem like those mandatory IRA distributions should be taxed as income either. Oh, well. Those are the rules. I just collect all the documents and give them to my accountant.

Since we're spending more time with the dogs now. I'm getting a really late start on my Monday walk. I started well before sunset, but arrived home in the dark again. As the sky grew darker I looked for familiar stars. All I really saw was Venus next to a thin crescent moon. I should have been able to see Mercury on the Western horizon about thirty minutes after sunset, but there were too many clouds. It's too bad I'm a little nervous about being in the park after dark. You get a lot better view of the sky away from all the city lights.

The toilet in the bathroom is running again so I spent some time cleaning the complex mechanical parts. Plumbers won't even fix this weird French toilet anymore. They just tell me to get a Toto. I was convinced that the toilet would work perfectly after I put everything back together. Cleaning the little hydraulic parts inside the tank usually works. This time it didn't. The toilet still runs. All of today's efforts were for nothing.

One of these days I'm going to have to try to clean the large format printer again. This probably won't work either. I have waited too long. I just got tired of spending hundreds of dollars on ink cartridges when I didn't really have anything to print. Epson is really just an ink company. The printer is just there to make you buy ink. I have no desire to make large Giclée prints anymore. A rational person would just throw this printer away. I never claimed to be a rational person though.

I hope this coronavirus scare doesn't get worse. I'm going to get nervous about airports soon if they don't stop flights to and from China. Right now there are still daily flights to and from major Chinese cities. I guess I could drive to Florida for the Solar Orbiter launch, but it would take a full scale plague to make me drive that far. Lets hope it doesn't come to that.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1205

The day started out with a roof leak in the living room and kind of went downhill from there. I had to have an insurance agent over to the house today and the dogs set some sort of new record for continuous barking. The agent liked dogs and thought he could win their trust by feeding them treats. What the hell. It sounded like a good idea to me. A half a box of dog biscuits later, Dot and Dash stopped barking about guarding the house and immediately started barking for more biscuits. Both dogs were a total embarrassment. You never would have known that they'd been in obedience training for almost six years.

Dot made matters worse by getting herself so worked up that she pooped in the living room. The old girl has trouble controlling her bowels when she gets too excited.

There was a lot of website work today. It was all stuff that the clients probably thought was trivially easy for me to implement. In reality, everything that was asked for today was fairly difficult. I'm still not done. On days like this, I have to bite my tongue and repeat to myself "The client is always right."

The one roofing company that I thought might actually have the solution to my problems refuses to return my calls. The last time I talked to them, I got the strong impression that they weren't interested in residential work, but I haven't given up yet. It's frustrating. Several companies are eager to put on a roof just like the leaky one I have now. But how about a roof that can be actually guaranteed against leaks for ten years? Well, those guys aren't interested in me. They just want to do hospitals and football stadiums.

My accountant called today and said he needed some information from when I bought my rent house back in 1978. Yeah, right! That information is going to be real easy to find. He needs the information to complete tax preparation on the sale of this property, but that doesn't make it any easier to find the documents he needs. I had to really scratch my head to even remember when I bought the place, or what I paid for it.

I had to pick up a part for the Defender at the Land Rover dealer this afternoon and while I was at the dealership, I noticed a brand new Defender 90 on the showroom floor. I asked how they got this car, since Defenders aren't imported to the U.S. anymore. The salesman said they were selling it for a collector who bought the car in Europe. What really caught my eye was the price. They were selling this this simple, utilitarian jeep with roll-up windows and no interior to speak of for $74,000. That seemed like an insanely high price for a car that looked exactly like mine. I asked why the price was so high and the salesman said this European version was very rare and he thought they'd get the price. This seems just as crazy as vintage guitar prices, but whatever. I may have to re-think my plan to get another Defender some day. This one was out of my league entirely.

I'm starting to think that my 'spider bite' is actually an early case of poison ivy or poison oak. I think I'd rather have a spider bite.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1204

Today was full of questions with very few answers. I was on the phone for hours with roofers, insurance agents, equipment suppliers, and clients and ended the day just as confused as I started. Finding the answer to something over the phone is kind of like winning the lottery. Your chances of success are very, very small. Every once in a while you get lucky and end up talking to someone knowledgeable. Most of the time you just get shuffled from one person to another until you eventually give up. I think most of the customer service people I talk with on the phone are just reading from a prepared script they see on their computer screen. They can answer very simple questions, but that's about it. I'd like to tell these people that if my question was that easy, I'd have found the answer already on their company website.

I think I got bitten by a spider last night. That seems like a reasonable explanation for the two swollen lumps I found on my arm and leg this morning. I didn't even bother going to the doctor, since I knew they they would just give me a cortisone shot and send me on my way. I've been bitten by spiders before and the trouble with these type of bites is that unless you actually see the spider biting you, the reaction they produce could be caused by any number of things. So, why do I think I was bitten by a spider? Just a guess, actually. I did see a big spider on the bed a few days ago though. If it actually was a spider, I don't think it was a Brown Recluse, or anything serious. The reaction would have been more immediate and alarming. If the swelling doesn't subside tomorrow, I'll go see a doctor. I just don't like taking steroid shots for any and all types of inflammation. Steroids aren't good.

Dash almost got the wrong shot today. There was a new nurse who didn't know Dash's records well. Luckily, when he mentioned the medication he would be injecting, I noticed that it didn't sound right. He ended up getting the right shot, but it's another lesson that you always have to be on your guard. I wish this wasn't the case, but it is. I would like to just put my brain on automatic pilot for a while and coast. I don't think there would be a happy ending it I did this though. Don't get me wrong. I'm not a paranoid person and certainly don't think anyone is out to get me. I do think a lot of people are incompetent however. Incompetance is everywhere.

It rained today, but the weather radar app on my iPad allowed me to successfully navigate the storms and walk the dogs without any of us getting soaked. Since there isn't much to do on rainy days, I got some more articles written. By the time my client gets back from vacation, I'll probably be all caught up again.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day