Day 2731

I had some websites that needed to be updated this morning and when I opened the design application I normally use, I was greeted with a message saying that my browser was out of date and that I needed to upgrade to the latest version before I could save my files. WTF? Everything worked fine yesterday. I tried to upgrade the browser and I was greeted by another message saying that newer versions were not supported by my current operating system. This was getting really irritating. I tried to change the website without using the expensive cloud-based design application, but it was hard to get everything to format correctly. This is why I hate cloud-based applications. You aren't in control anymore.

I had to get the website fixed today, so I upgraded the operating system on a laptop that didn't have anything important on it and then downloaded the new browser that my web application wanted. I was eventually able to fix the client's website, but I couldn't upload the new files because the FTP program I use was on the other computer. What a mess. By the time I got the website updated, many hours had passed and I knew I wasn't going to get anything else done. When I contacted customer support and asked them why they were making my life so difficult, they just said that hardly anyone was using OS 10.8.5 anymore and they decided to stop supporting it. Thanks for nothing guys.

At least I had a nice breakfast this morning. I haven't had Lox and Bagels for quite a while and I'd forgotten how much I enjoy them. This used to be my go-to travel breakfast when I was on business trips. Needless to say, it's been a while. It was nice to have an enjoyable meal completely unaware that the rest of my day was going to be filled with computer problems. If I knew what I was in store for, I probably wouldn't have eaten at all.

I think Dash had a good excuse for not wanting to walk today. It was so hot that I didn't want to go outside either. In Dallas we go straight from praying the furnace won't break to praying the air conditioner won't break. There only seems to be a few weeks of nice mild weather, and even then the air is so filled with pollen that my eyes are constantly watering. When it gets hot in Dallas I fantasize about living in Colorado or Wyoming. When I was a kid, our family spent summers near Crested Butte long before it became a ski area. We lived in a little cabin up near the timberline and the air always seemed so clean and fresh. Of course, the air was probably clean and fresh everywhere fifty years ago.

I'm sure the weekend will be busy. There's another website I need to update using the convoluted and time consuming two computer method I improvised today. There are a bunch of household chores that I'd planned on starting today that now have to wait until tomorrow. Everything will get done, but personally I'd rather sleep in late and do nothing at all.

Hershey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2354

I wish Steve Jobs were still alive. I never used to have problems with operating system updates, but lately the new Apple OS and IOS updates are so buggy that they seem like Beta versions. I'm almost scared to update my phone anymore, because each new IOS update seems worse than the previous one. The combination of buggy system software, spotty U-verse service, and a brand new hosting company has created a perfect storm of bad news. Just about every morning when I boot up my computer, I'm greeted with a new problem. Was my phone causing the problem? Does the WiFi router need to be re-booted again? Have I configured my webserver wrong? It's hard to even know where to begin.

I was in tech support hell for hours this morning, trying to track down why my e-mail wasn't working and I couldn't even access my own website. I finally ended up talking to a very knowledgeable IP guy who told me to call my ISP and tell them to check the routing path and clear it if necessary. This sounded easy enough, so I called AT&T and made the request. "This is beyond the scope of my capabilities," said a voice that sounded like he was talking to me from Pakistan. "I can give you the number of our paid subscription support if you'd like." "You mean that after all I pay you guys every month for U-verse service, you want to charge me extra to unscramble my flaky internet connection?" "I'm sorry," said the hard to understand voice from Pakistan. "Would you like me to send you a brand new router at no charge?" This was crazy. "You mean you guys would rather send me a new router than reset my connection." I said. I hate dealing with tech support. I've still got the problem I started out with this morning. There a new router on it's way to me that I probably won't be able to install correctly. To add to my problems, I can't decide whether to upgrade my phone to IOS 9.3.2 because I read an article that said it could turn your phone into a brick.

Since it didn't appear that my connection problems were going to be resolved quickly, I went to the battery store and special ordered a new battery for my little WiFi hotspot. T-Mobile said these batteries weren't made anymore and tried to see me a new hotspot. They were just being lazy.  I knew this battery was available somewhere because I've been replacing weird batteries for years. The new battery will arrive next Wednesday. The little WiFi hotspot is slow, but it is very reliable. Without it, I would have missed quite a few blog posts over the years.

The weather has been horrible this week. It's so humid and muggy outside that it feels like you could cut the air with a knife. My dehumidifier is working overtime to keep the air comfortable inside. Dot doesn't like the heat and humidity. I've been having a hard time getting her outside anyway now that she's become weaker, and hot, humid weather just adds to the problem. She did poop outside today, which was a small blessing. I just got lucky. When I had her outside after lunch, a big truck drove down the alley behind our house and got her so excited that she immediately started to poop. I wish I could schedule someone to drive down the alley every time I had Dot outside.

The plumber is coming back tomorrow to fix the leaking sink. This should only take a few minutes since the problem is just a compression fitting that wasn't tightened enough. The plumber better not try to charge me for this additional service call. He should have checked his work the first time he was here. After unnecessary car repair charges and a ridiculous attempt to charge me for resetting my router this morning, I'm not in the mood for unwarranted extra charges.

Maybe tomorrow will go smoothly. I'm not counting on a trouble free day, but it would be nice.

Ranger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2234

Yay. I finally managed to see all five visible planets this morning. I got up early and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. When I went outside, there was Mercury, right below and slightly to the left of Venus. Saturn, Mars and Jupiter were also easy to see, along with a waning gibbous moon. I continue to be surprised at how quickly sunrise occurs. When I first get up on a clear day, the sky is dark and there are lots of stars. By the time we walk the dogs, the sky has acquired a deep blue-black color with an orange glow along the Eastern horizon. As we walk, you can see the sky grow brighter and the remaining stars grow dimmer minute-by-minute. About halfway through the walk, only the planets remain. Mercury disappears first, then Mars, Saturn and Jupiter. Often Venus remains in the sky almost until sunrise.

Today was just as slow as yesterday, but I was in a much better mood, probably since it was clear and sunny outside. After breakfast, I decided to take a camera and retrace my steps in the park without the dogs. It was amazing how many more animals I saw without Dot and Dash barking and scaring them away. I saw a Red-tailed Hawk, several woodpeckers, lots of ducks, and a Great Egret. It was enjoyable to wander around and look for things to photograph. I need to do this more often.

I was having difficulty installing the latest system on my iPhone and then I read that one of the bugs that this new system was supposed to fix was a difficulty in installing upgrades. Hmm. What do you do when the old system doesn't want to let you install the new one. I kept getting error messages over and over again until I tried to do things the old fashioned way by plugging the phone into my computer and making the upgrade using iTunes. How quickly we forget. I used to always add new apps and make system upgrades while connected to iTunes. Somewhere along the line, the phone started upgrading itself and I forgot about iTunes. It's good to know it's still there when you need it.

Dot was restless today. I took her outside for short periods of time over and over again, but mostly she just wandered around aimlessly. After having at least half a dozen opportunities to do her business outside, she still decided to poop in her bed while I was out photographing birds. When I returned , she was standing in her pen, looking at her soiled bed like some other dog had made the mess. I guess Dot's accidents can't be helped. She doesn't want to have accidents, but with all the neurological problems she's having, she just doesn't have that much control. I never get mad at her for making a mess. The same thing is probably going to happen to me someday.

I was surprised to see that my trash can had been emptied this afternoon. Not only was it the wrong day for trash pickup, the trucks never come down the alley anymore. Maybe this has something to do with the road construction that's underway on our street. I wish the sanitation folks had told me they were coming. I would have taken the rest of the trash outside to the can. Maybe this was it for the week. The road crews are getting closer and closer. I have a feeling that the street might be blocked on Friday morning.

This week has gone surprisingly fast, considering how uneventful it has been. Maybe I'm getting better at amusing myself.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2194

I spent most of the day replacing my computer's obsolete operating system with another obsolete operating system. The move from Lion to Mountain Lion was much more complex than simply downloading the current operating system, which is what most people would do. I'm very wary of new Apple operating systems. All too often when you install a new system, you have to update half your software as well. I'm happy with my old software and the last thing I want to do is buy it all over again.

Eventually, even people like me are forced to upgrade though. It's almost a law of nature. I picked Mountain Lion because it was old enough to support most of my existing software and still new enough to support Pro Tools 12. The problem with installing something so old and using it as a new system is that there are a lot of dependencies that need to be resolved. X Code wouldn't work anymore which meant I could no longer run Unix programs on my Mac. I couldn't just install the new X Code, because it was too new. I had to find am old copy of version 5.1.1 which Apple no longer supported. Some of my security software wouldn't work either. It could have been worse, but I ended up spending most of the afternoon testing each of the applications I use and making upgrades when necessary. The important things all work now, but it was a monumental effort for a system that is already obsolete. I've still got Mavericks, Yosemite, and El Capitan to go.

I built some online forms for a client today. I made sure to do this before I attempted to upgrade my system. You never know what is going to be broken after the upgrade. It could easily have been Dreamweaver. Luckily Dreamweaver, Photoshop. Microsoft Office, Colorburst, Final Cut Pro, and Quickbooks Pro still work. That's all I really use these days anyway. I thought about upgrading my phone as well, but that would just be asking for trouble. One major upgrade a day is plenty. I'm sure IOS 9.2 can wait. I still don't know why I bothered to upgrade to IOS 9.1. Basically all these software upgrades are a giant pain.

Breakfast was good today. Actually, everything was pretty good today. The weather was nice, the humidity was low, there were very few surprises, and the bird didn't poop on my car. Dot didn't have any accidents today either. As far as I'm concerned, a day without poop is always a good day.

I don't have any big plans for this weekend, but I'm sure I'll be busy. There are leaves to rake, software to debug, rugs to clean, and dogs to walk. I need to remember to turn the outdoor faucets on just a bit so they drip a little. I don't want frozen pipes, especially in the greenhouse. If it doesn't get down to freezing tonight, it will soon. It's weird. Even though I accomplished virtually nothing today, I felt oddly energized. Trading one obsolete operating system for another equally obsolete system is fairly complex. My brain got a little exercise today. Sadly, that's somewhat of a rarity. Most of my daily activities require no thought at all.

Alvin is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2116

We started the new month with a new schedule. We go to our physical therapy sessions in the mornings now. Mornings are good because Dot is less likely to poop in the car. On the other hand, mornings are not so good because there isn't much time to get ready. By the time we took the dogs on their morning walk, ate breakfast, took a shower, and got the car ready, it was time to go. Dot definitely didn't like riding in the Evoque. I tried my best to make a comfortable flat surface, but her bed still had a bit of a tilt to it and Dot managed to get stuck. I had to stop a couple of times along the way, but eventually we made it to our destination.

Even though Dot wasn't happy about her ride, she did amazingly well in the treadmill today. She was strong enough that we were able to increase the speed and do a small amount of interval training for the first time in several months. No accidents in the house today either. Actually, we have had very few accidents this entire week. I'm not sure we can attribute this pleasant turn of events to the Melatonin we've started giving her before bedtime, but it's the only change I can think of.

Work was surprisingly busy today. I got two new website projects that will keep me busy for a while. I'm not sure how excited I am though. One of the projects is kind of a pro bono deal that I won't make any money on. The other project has such a low budget that it's hardly worth talking about. That's the state of web design these days. Take it or leave it.

There was another tragic school shooting today. Once again the shooter was a young male. Hasn't anyone figured it out yet? Terrorist shootings. Gang related shootings. School shootings. They all have one thing in common. These crimes are almost universally committed by young men. Instead of endless agonizing about mental health and gun law issues, just ban young men from having guns. Period. Make the penalties for possessing a gun so severe that no young man would even want to go near one. So, how would you enforce such a ban? You couldn't. You probably can't enforce any other solution either. That's the problem of living in a free society. The obvious solutions are impossible to implement without destroying the free society we all claim to love. Do we want safety or freedom? Eventually, we have to decide.

I got a call from the Land Rover dealer today telling me that they are working on my car. Does this mean it will be done soon? Not necessarily. I've gotten these sorts of calls before and then waited a week or more before the car was actually finished. I don't really care how long it takes, but I'm guessing that Dot would really like to have things wrapped up before next week's physical therapy session. She hates the Evoque.

There's already another update to the buggy IOS 9 on my phone. I'm downloading it now. The current system is causing all sorts of problems with my WiFi network, but you have to be connected to WiFi to download the new system. This may take a while.

Tori is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2115

I was glad the yellow warning light came on again when I was driving to the dealership this morning. At least the repair guys won't think my suspension problem is something I imagined. Who knows how long the repairs will take. It always seems to take much longer than I anticipate. This is probably why Land Rover has always been pretty generous with their loaner cars. If you've got a free loaner car, you're not going to complain as much about how long the repairs are taking.

Since I like to complain, I'll complain a bit about the Evoque anyway. The car is more expensive than the larger LR2 or the appealing new Discovery model. It has a small 4 cylinder engine and terrible visibility. The rear seats don't fold flat and the engine shuts off when you stop at a light. The stop and go engine is supposed to be a feature, but it is a giant annoyance to me. I never really believe the engine is going to start again when the light turns green. I hope they are able to fix my suspension quickly. I'm not looking forward to driving the Evoque for the entire month of October.

It was a nice warm day, so the dogs wanted to sun themselves in the backyard after lunch. Instead of lying in the grass, Dot now likes to lie in the Monkey Grass beds next to the greenhouse. This is killing the Liriope plants, but I don't have the heart to make Dot move. I did a little gardening while I was watching the dogs. It's always been difficult to grow the type of plants I want, but surprisingly easy to grow weeds. If I don't pull the weeds, they crowd out the good plants. As I was pulling weeds, I noticed that clumps of them made a pretty good makeshift broom. I used the clumps of weeds to brush away a dense mass of spiderwebs on the back windows. I thought this was pretty clever, since clearing away the spiderwebs with a regular broom typically ruins the broom. The webs stuck to the clumps of weeds like a charm and them I just threw them away.

I've been having trouble with my phone ever since I upgraded to IOS 9. A lot of the apps I use don't recognize the WiFi network anymore and use cellular data instead. I looked on the Internet and a lot of other people are having the same problem. Apple needs to fix this quickly. As soon as people start realizing that they've inadvertently maxed out their data plans by using cellular data when they thought they were using WiFi. My watch is having trouble getting the temperature from my phone as well. Makes me wonder about the wisdom of upgrading my laptop to the new El Capitan system. What could possible go wrong?

I still haven't figured out how to get Dot in the Evoque for tomorrow's physical therapy appointment. That will be my after breakfast project, unless a new writing job accidentally falls in my lap.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2109

I finished the book I've been reading. I watched the Pope's address to Congress. I deleted a section on a client's website that was no longer necessary. I paid a few bills and took them to the post office. It was a very uneventful day. I should use days like this to embark on ambitious personal projects, but I haven't been very ambitious lately. Most of my energy is spent taking care of Dot. Anything that is left over is usually frittered away. I wonder what to put in my morning smoothie when peaches go out of season. I wonder why some of my watches run fast and others run slow. I do the stretching exercises for my shoulder without a lot of enthusiasm. I'm torn between wanting more excitement in my life and being terrified of it. When all else fails, I take a nap with the dogs.

Yesterday I updated the operating system on both my phone and the Apple Watch. Battery life seems better on the watch now, but worse on the phone. This happens every time I update an Apple operating system. Location services is what kills your battery on the iPhone. Apple is very sneaky about trying to get information from the millions of phones it sells. If you're not careful, your phone is constantly sending information back to Apple about all manner of things. I learned today that the phone sends your GPS location back to Apple when the motion sensors detect that you are in a moving car. Apple uses this information for a crowd-sourced database of traffic conditions that can be used with their map application. I don't really care about the privacy issues. I turned this function off primarily because it is a battery hog. As soon as I manage to find all these hidden battery drains, Apple will update the system again and I'll have to start all over.

I find it interesting that both the Democrats and the Republicans are already trying to spin the Pope's speech to congress to support their own agendas. The speech seemed pretty clear and direct to me. I don't know why the politicians and pundits are spending so much time explaining what the Pope was trying to say. They should have just listened to what he actually did say. As I said earlier, I'm not a terribly religious person, but the Pope's speech today made most of what I've heard from the current crop of presidential candidates seem pathetic. How did we ever become so divided?

This weekend the Dalmatian Rescue group has its annual charity golf tournament. I have taken pictures at this event for many, many years. Every year it seems a little more tiring. I don't understand the fascination people have with golf. It takes a long time to play eighteen holes. It is often hot and muggy. Last year, I inadvertently knelt down on a fire ant mound to get a shot of someone on the putting green and was instantly bitten by hundreds of ants. It took almost a week for the swelling to go away. I'm not going to kneel anywhere this year. We can't leave Dot for very long, so Janet and I will trade off this year. She'll check people in before the tournament starts and then come home. I'll go take pictures of the golfers and then come home. Then Janet will go back to the awards dinner. When this event is over, I don't think I have any more events until it's time for Santa photos again.

I'm still debating whether to try the new restaurant tomorrow. It's tempting, but I hate dealing with those school zones. I'd better not postpone this too long or the place might go out of business.

Scout is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2108

It seems to take longer and longer to get Dot to her physical therapy sessions. Today, when I started to get her ready, she didn't have her harness on. It took quite a while to get her suited up, since she wanted to sleep instead. When I got her ready to go, she wanted to go out in the back yard instead of to the car. Once I had her outside, she stood around aimlessly for about five minutes and did nothing. She didn't even pee. When I finally got her in the car, we were already late. Traffic appears to be worse on Wednesdays too. I'm, glad we'll go back to Thursday sessions next week.

For the second week in a row, Dot seemed tired. We slowed the treadmill to one mile an hour and her walk was steady, but she used to be able to do much better. The treadmill speed goes all the way up to five miles an hour. That's pretty fast even for a regular human treadmill. I asked what the faster speeds were for and apparently dogs who compete in agility events use the treadmill's faster speeds for conditioning and endurance training. I imagine that there is a lot of water splashing around at five miles an hour. Dot enjoys the acupuncture portion of her therapy more than the treadmill. I think it relaxes her. Even though Dot is slowing down, we're still hanging in there. The therapy and the morning walks really do help.

I upgraded my Apple Watch to the new 2.0 operating system today. The upgrade took forever. Since you can't really plug the watch into anything, software upgrades have to be done using the Bluetooth connection to your phone. I guess the software download goes from the Apple server to your phone, and then from your phone to the watch. I initially got a bunch of error messages saying that I didn't have enough storage space available for the download. I abandoned the download, took Dot to the vet, and when I got home again thought I'd try downloading the software again. Apparently, it never stopped downloading the first time I tried, because the progress bar said that there were only 48 minutes left before the download was complete. That was a lot better than the eleven hours to completion message I got before taking Dot to physical therapy. The error messages were all gone too. Apparently the computers knew what they were doing, even if I didn't. I ate dinner, walked Dash, and when I got back, the new 2.0 operating system had been installed. The whole procedure seemed to take about six hours.

A former client called me this evening and asked if I could help him edit his Dad's first novel. This really wasn't my area of expertise, but I enjoyed catching up on things. When we used to work together, we both had a Dalmatian. I asked him if he still had Dalmatians and we spent the next twenty minutes talking about a succession of great dogs who lived long and happy lives, only to die of cancer at the end. Between the two of us, we had shared our lives with over a dozen Dalmatians.

I'm not Catholic or even very religious, but I've got to admit that I like Pope Francis. If only our own politicians could be this humble and direct. When politicians call themselves "public servants," it's a joke. The pope really does appear to be a public servant. He doesn't rely on opinion polls or focus groups, he just asks himself, "what would Jesus have done." I'm not sure that this philosophy would work for politicians though. It probably doesn't make the Vatican very happy either. If the president kept asking "What would George Washington have done" before making a decision, a lot of outcomes would be very different. I don't agree with everything the Pope says, but you could learn a lot from his simplicity and directness.

I'll need to remember not to go to physical therapy again tomorrow. We did that today. I'm so set in my routines that I could easily imagine putting Dot in the car and repeating things tomorrow. That's why I need the Apple Watch. I can't remember anything.

Sage is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1843 - New Year's Day

It was so cold today. The temperature hovered around the freezing mark for most of the day, while a steady rain soaked the ground. The forecast warned of sleet and slush, but it never materialized. Nothing froze except for me. I thought I'd managed to find little windows of opportunity to walk the dogs on the weather radar, but Dot and Dash weren't quick enough and we got soaked both times. It seemed like I spent a good part of the day cleaning muddy shoes and drying the dogs with bath towels.

Janet went to the gym today, but I didn't feel like driving in this weather and stayed home all day. I'm getting frustrated that I'm still using Lion as the operating system on my desktop computer, so I thought I'd investigate how I could upgrade my system without having to upgrade all my important applications as well. Applications like Media Composer and Pro Tools are very picky about which operating system you use. They are also very expensive. If I was still doing a lot of video work, I'd just bite the bullet and upgrade everything to the latest versions. That seems a bit excessive though when I only do a few video jobs a year. Everything works fine now, as long as I keep using Lion as my operating system. After checking around on the user groups it looks like there is a free maintenance upgrade to my current version of Media Composer that would allow me to move up to Mountain Lion.  Of course Apple has already discontinued Mountain Lion and moved on to Mavericks and Yosemite. Apple has become very frustrating now that they have largely abandoned creative types and want to make all their computers work just like an iPhone.  Not my cup of tea. I don't think I ever want to install Yosemite.

When I'm house bound on a cold day, I do laundry and fix things. I should have stuck with fixing a light switch or something simple. Trying to resolve all my computer problems was very unsatisfying. I downloaded a few things, but didn't have the nerve to install them. I need to do some more research before I start replacing things, or I could easily make matters worse. To tell you the truth, I enjoyed using Apple products a lot more back in the days when everything was running on OS 9. Lots and lots of little companies catered to the needs of creative folks back then. Now that Apple has discovered the real money is in selling phones, they've largely abandoned folks like me. I don't care about the Cloud or talking to friends on Facetime. I don't even care about laptops. I just want a big desktop computer with a huge monitor that will run the stuff I need for work without ever crashing.

The only thing I don't like about compression pants is that you have to keep taking them on and off all the time. They're great for walking the dogs in the cold, but too hot to wear around the house all day. I'm really glad that men never started wearing panty hose. It's a giant pain to get these skin tight things on and off. It would be nice if someone made them with a fly in front too.

It was hard to remember to take the trash out to the curb this evening. It didn't seem like a Thursday at all. It didn't seem like New Year's Day either. When I was younger, New Year's day was mostly spent recovering from New Year's Eve. Now, it seems like a non-event. There used to be four bowl games that you watched back-to-back whether you liked football or not. You started with the Rose Bowl in California and ended late in the evening with the Orange Bowl in Florida. Now, there are well over thirty different bowl games starting in mid-December and going all the way through January 12. The Orange Bowl is called the Buffalo Wild Wings Citrus Bowl now and the Cotton Bowl isn't even played in the Cotton Bowl stadium.

I'd love to see the sun tomorrow, but I don't think it's going to happen. It looks like we're going to have another very cold, rainy day. Janet thinks we ought to go to a movie. Jeez, I haven't been to a movie in a theater in almost three years. It might be fun. It certainly would be more fun than doing laundry and fixing computers.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1407

Another wayward website client came back to the fold today. It's nice to have the business again, although I'm not sure how long this is going to last. I guess I really shouldn't waste too much time fretting about the permanence of clients. I'm not very sure how long any of them are going to last.

The Apple product announcement today was interesting. The new operating system is free again, which is a nice change from the recent past. The Mac operating system always used to be free in the old days. There a danger in free though. If I don't have to pay for an upgrade, I'm much more likely to install it before I'm ready and screw up everything. I seldom install a new operating system because I really need the new features. It's a lot more likely that I'll install it on a day when I'm really bored. That's always when I get into trouble.

I'd like to get one of the powerful new Mac Pro desktops that are coming out in December. Do I need something this awesome? Probably not. If I still did a lot of video editing, I could pretend that I really needed this thing. Since I just use Microsoft Word most of the time, it's a bit of overkill. If I got this futuristic computer that looks like a shiny black trash can, I'd need a new monitor too. The new ultra high resolution 4K monitors this thing supports probably cost more than the computer. Oh, well. It's something to think about. Maybe I'll get a big video job between now and December.

Since I've been having trouble syndicating the blog to Facebook and Twitter lately, I decided to  install HootSuite. This was probably a mistake, since every time I've installed something to reduce the time I spend on social media, it has always seemed to increase it instead. Maybe HootSuite will simplify things though. I spend about an hour a day keeping up with a laundry list of social media accounts and that's way too much.

The dogs would much rather have me spend my time with them. Now that the weather has gotten cooler. we've started taking long, meandering walks along the shoreline. Both dogs like to smell things near the water's edge and I know Dash is going to fall in the lake one day. Dot is a bit more sedate, but she definitely has more energy than she did during the Summer heat. For the time being, we're all enjoying ourselves.

Much to my surprise, I managed to make it back to the gym today. Maybe Tuesday, Thursday, and Sunday is doable after all. If I could find the time to workout three time a week, I might actually start to see some progress.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1385

I finally upgraded to IOS 7 today. Janet kind of shamed me into the upgrade, since she already upgraded her own phone a few days ago and experienced no problems. I used to be the first to adopt any new technology, but lately I've been dragging my feet. When I get familiar with something now, I'd just as soon keep it forever. Now that IOS 7 is up and running however, I'm wondering what all the fuss was about. I don't particularly like the new flat page layout, or the way apps open and close, but other than that, everything seems to work just as before. They say that Siri works a lot better with the new operating system. I wouldn't know. I never talk to my phone.

Monday seems to be the one day I can always make it to the gym. I can tell that I'm getting stronger, since I can do more repetitions on the resistance machines now. There are still no signs of increased muscle mass however. If anything, I seem even thinner than before. Several people at the golf tournament yesterday said I looked way too thin. Who knows? For the most part, my doctors have applauded my weight loss, because it reduces the risk of diabetes, but maybe I've gone too far.

I continue to experiment with a variety of cloud based widgets and apps to improve the websites I manage. Today, I replaced several manually created calendars with Google calendars. I don't know why I never tried this before. Now I've got self updating calenders that I don't have to mess with. For years, one of the first things I did every month was go and create new HTML code for the sites that had calendars. These Google calendars are so much easier. I can even designate someone else to update them and add upcoming events.

It's hard to believe that it's October already. Where has this year gone? Now, there's just Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas in quick succession and the year will be over. Time goes by so quickly now. There have been a lot of superficial changes this year, but it doesn't feel like anything has changed. I still get up every morning and do exactly the same things as I did last year. Hey, the dogs are still healthy. That's the important thing.

Friends are telling me that I've become way too negative. It's weird that my own perception is so different. I just like to think that I have an perversely ironic sense of humor.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1379

I thought I'd catch up on my bookkeeping today. I was sure that this little task would only take about thirty minutes, but it took hours. Oops! I had mistakenly entered a few items incorrectly in Quickbooks this month and I couldn't remember what they were. Eventually, I discovered my mistakes and got everything to balance again, but the whole process was a lot harder than it should have been. I sure hope that this isn't how Alzheimer's begins.

I have a new theory about how Dash injured his leg yesterday. I watched him closely on our morning walk to see if there was still any sign of a limp. The thing that struck me was how hard Dash scratches the ground after he lifts his leg and pees. A lot of male dogs scratch the ground with their rear legs. Dash does this ritual with all four legs. Dot and I have to make sure we're out of the way, or we'll get sprayed with dirt and grass. Sometimes he hits a hard patch of ground and one of his legs gets momentarily stuck. Watching him in action this morning, it seemed like he could have easily strained or sprained a muscle yesterday. Just a theory anyway.

My phone is starting to ask me to update to IOS 7. I don't really want to upgrade, since I'm perfectly happy with IOS 6. I'm probably out of luck though. I noticed this morning that IOS 7 had already downloaded itself through the cloud to my phone and is just waiting for me to install it. Sooner or later, I'll click on the wrong thing by mistake and IOS 7 will start installing itself whether I like it or not. That's kind of the way Apple is these days. You get accustomed to doing things Apple's way, or else.

The members of this business networking group I've started going to on Wednesday mornings encourage you to wear "Business attire" to meetings. For me, that would be a bathrobe, but to fit in, I've started digging my old suits and dress slacks out of the closet. Since I've lost so much weight this year, almost none of these clothes fit anymore. They're all too big. After a lifetime of seeing my clothes gradually become too small, I never anticipated something like this happening. I guess I could take some of the nicer clothes to the tailor and get them altered, but I'm not sure if there would be any point to this. As soon as I got the suits taken in, I'd start gaining weight again.

Scout is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1347

Dot has resumed taking normal walks in the mornings again. Dash's condition seems to have stabilized as well. I still feel a need to check in on the dogs while I'm away though, so I set up a laptop to monitor Dash in lieu of the still non-functional nanny cam. By the time I arrived at the cool restaurant for breakfast, the dogs were already asleep on the bed. For the time being at least, things are back to normal.

Yesterday I contacted various customer service departments with a laundry list of questions. It's always surprising who responds and who doesn't. A video equipment manufacturer responded within an hour with helpful suggestions about how to find a replacement quick release plate for their discontinued fluid tripod head. The French nanny cam company responded within a day, saying they were still working on the server problem. The GPS watch company never responded at all.

I made it to the gym again today. I seem to be able to manage two days a week, but it seems next to impossible to find time for a third day. I would think I'd be starting to see some increase in muscle mass now that I've been working out for a while, but I can't see any difference. I'm definitely stronger, since I can do more repetitions on the machines now, but I'm still way too skinny. With all the things I have wrong with me, there could be a dozen reasons why my muscle mass is not increasing the way I'd like. I'll continue the workouts though. At least they make me feel stronger.

It looks like a busy weekend. Janet and I are going to a concert tomorrow and on Sunday Dot and Dash are going to be ambassadors for Dalmatian Rescue again at a rescue event. There's always a trip to the dog park if the weather cooperates and I'm sure there will be grocery shopping and errands to run as well. I hope I don't have computer problems this weekend. I upgraded one of the computers to Mountain Lion today. I hate system upgrades, but some of the work applications I use regularly are starting to require this system. If Mountain Lion doesn't cause a mountain of problems on the laptop, I'll eventually upgrade the other computers as well.

It's hard to believe that September is just around the corner. It's not like anything exciting happens in September, but at least the weather will be getting cooler.

Mickey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 799

Here's why I hate computers. I get this e-mail from Quark Express about a month ago telling me not to upgrade to OS 10.7.3 yet, because it was not compatible with Quark. I dutifully go to my control panel and deselect the automatic upgrade option. Several weeks go by and one morning when I start up my computer I get a dialog box asking if I'd like to upgrade to OS 10.7.3. By this time, I've completely forgotten about the earlier message from Quark, so I just click "yes" and the upgrade is installed. About an hour later a client says they need a reprint of a poster I did for them last year. I click on the Quark application so I can print the file, and you guessed it, the application doesn't work anymore, just like Quark warned me. Very frustrating, to say the least!

My Quark Express is toast. I finally figure out how to print the poster my client wants from an old PDF file and then halfway through the printing process, I run out of ink. I drive over to the printer store and buy $150 worth of ink, just so I can make a single courtesy print of an old poster I'd completely forgotten about.

Talking with tech support at Quark while trying in vain to revive my ailing application wasted several hours this morning. Talking with Network Solutions to help another client move one of their domains to a less expensive registrar ate up even more time. Evidently my name was listed as the technical contact for this domain, but it didn't show up in the list of domains I manage. I must have created an account for the domain years ago and then totally forgotten about it. The client forgot too, because no website was ever developed for this domain. Since I couldn't figure out how to log-in to the control panel of the mystery account I have created, I had to convince Network Solutions that I really was who I said I was and get them to make the changes for me. Maybe we should have just let the domain expire. It will probably still sit around unused for another five years.

For some reason Dot didn't want to go to class tonight. She refused to get out of the car and glued herself to the back seat, just like she does when we take her for a bath. She wouldn't budge. I finally had to get in the car and carry her out. Once she was out with the other dogs, she did just fine, but she clearly would have rather stayed home this evening. I can't figure out why she balked tonight. It was really one of the nicest evenings we've had all Winter. Even after dark, the temperature was still over 70 degrees.

A large printing company that used to send me lot of annual report writing work finally responded to my query. Apparently, all their customers are writing their annual report copy themselves this year. Why am I not surprised?

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 727

Another gray, Winter day. I've noticed the Double-Crested Cormorants have returned to the lake, right on schedule. If there's a piling, or a pole, or even a dead branch in the water, you'll usually find a Cormorant sitting on top of it in the morning. The ducks usually fly away as we approach, but these Cormorants don't budge. Somehow, they know that nothing can touch them when they're sitting on a pole in the water.

I upgraded my laptop to Lion today. I really should have waited. I didn't realized how slow it was going to be to download an Apple operating system. Every time I've done a system upgrade before, I've done the installation using a CD or DVD. Trust me, installing using a disk is much faster than a WiFi download. Unfortunately, I think Lion is only available from the app store as a download. If everything continues to work fine on the laptop, I'll download the Lion software to my desktop computer in a couple of weeks. I'm always suspicious of major system upgrades, because inevitably, some essential piece of software no longer works.

Even eating cold cereal for breakfast this morning didn't give me enough extra time to catch up on things. I have a feeling that no matter how hard I work, or how many meals I forgo, I'm still not going to catch up before the end of the year. Today I did some necessary accounting and wrote my daily quota of watch articles. The website updates were minor and I think they can wait until another day. I did need to run some errands though, and by the time the shopping and a trip to the bank were finished, the day was over.

I need to find out when the cutoff date is for Christmas delivery on Amazon.com. I have a feeling that it might be pretty soon.

Savannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day