Day 2572

Why have the Russians suddenly become this huge problem? Something seems fishy to me. Let's say that the WikiLeaks information originally did come from the Russians, even though Julian Assange denies this. The WikiLeaks information was all true. Even the Democrats acknowledge that John Podesta's e-mails were authentic. So, are we supposed to believe that our democratic process was compromised by revealing information that was actually true? Heaven forbid. This just seems like a lot of sour grapes. Whatever the Russians are doing, they've been doing it all along. We do the same thing to them. It's called spying. This manufactured crisis didn't happen overnight. Personally, I don't think Obama cares what the Russians are doing. He just wants to create havoc for Donald Trump by pitting hard-line republicans like John McCain against him and making it as difficult as possible for the new administration to conduct foreign policy. This would certainly explain throwing Israel under the bus at the United Nations too. People should be outraged at the way we threw Israel under the bus, but they are too busy being outraged about a bunch of things that don't even matter. Grow up people and quit being such sore losers. Instead of pardoning a bunch of criminals and thugs during his last days in office, Obama should pardon Julian Assange and Edward Snowden. I learned more factual information from these two guys than I have from any politician.

As you can see, I need to get out more and quit watching so much television. I'm dangerously close to talking back to the television like my Dad used to do. Is is a bit distressing that there is almost nothing to unite us anymore. There is no objective truth either. All the recent furor about fake news has made me realize that most of what I've been listening to for the past fifteen years has been fake news. It's all fake news. I don't trust Fox. I don't trust MSNBC. I don't trust any of it. It's sad that we have become so tribal. Worst of all, Facebook has ruined everything. Now that I know what my friends really think, I don't trust them either.

It should come as no surprise that caring for an old, sick dog has become my solution. I don't have time to argue about politics. Each morning I try to gather my wits about me and get ready for a day of cleaning up poop, helping Dot walk, and keeping her from injuring herself. I try to keep Dash engaged too, so he doesn't feel left out. Dot did very well today. Maybe it was the cool temperatures and low humidity. She walked with confidence and for the most part, was able to move her rear legs without my help. Dot did poop on the floor, but I was able to make a dramatic save and quickly place a nearby piece of paper under her before the poop hit a rug. Little things like this make my day.

An old college friend called the other day and wants to have lunch when he is in town next week. This shouldn't be a dilemma, but of course it is. For starters, I don't eat lunch anymore. I don't feel comfortable leaving the house for very long either. I wouldn't mind seeing the guy though. I wonder if I'm starting to use Dot as an excuse when I actually could go somewhere. It's complicated.

I do still eat breakfast, so I'm looking forward to going out for a tasty meal tomorrow morning. My breakfast excursions are perfect. The dogs are sleeping after their morning walk. My favorite place is nearby, so I'm rarely gone much more than an hour. I don't have to talk to anyone, but I like the other customers and feel vaguely connected anyway. It's just what I need.

Petey & Greta are our Dalmatians of the Day

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Day 1982

I've been telling people that I've got a huge hole in my jaw where my wisdom tooth used to be. No one believes me. They think I'm a whiner. Well, the dentist believed me. "That's a mighty deep socket you've got there," he said. He was surprised that it had been a month since I had the tooth extracted and said said the socket usually starts filling in by now. I asked him how long it would be before my extraction site would fully heal and he said it could be as long as six to nine months. Great. I'm going to have to keep doing salt water and antiseptic rinses after every meal for the rest of the year.

The dentist can't even begin to repair the adjacent tooth for another six weeks. He said that filling this particular tooth would be very difficult because of the location of the cavity, and he wanted the empty wisdom tooth socket to heal some more before he even attempted to fill the tooth next to it. He also said I need a new crown on the tooth next to the one that needs to be filled. Basically, the last three teeth on the lower right side of my jaw are toast.

I just got finished paying for the oral surgery and now it looks like fixing the next two teeth is going to cost even more. Yikes. I don't know why crowns are so expensive. The last time I had a crown it cost me $500. Now it costs two or three times as much for a dentist to create these pricy little porcelain caps. Growing older sucks. It was much more fun to spend my money on cameras and guitars than on medical bills and prescription drugs.

I'm taking what I've learned playing around with my responsive test site and using this somewhat fuzzy knowledge to built my first mobile site for a client. CSS classes and structured HTML are finally starting to make a little sense. It's kind of sad that I'm probably not be able to use Dreamweaver and Fireworks in the future. Adobe has basically abandoned these stand-alone products anyway. The Dreamweaver software I use isn't even updated anymore. If you want the latest and greatest Adobe innovations you have to get a subscription to their Creative Cloud products. The software I'm using to build responsive websites is all cloud based as well.

Dot seems a bit stronger today. I don't know shy she has good days and bad days, because life is very consistent around here. I don't know why I have good days and bad days either. I hope Dot does well at her physical therapy session tomorrow. I've got lots of questions for the vet. I don't know how hard I should push her. She really needs the exercise to build muscle, but she's very old too. Since Dot is extremely food motivated, she's starting to gain weight again as well. Extra weight makes it even harder for her to stand under her own power. Without treats, it's hard to get dogs with limited mobility to do anything though.

Tonight is the very last David Letterman show. I saw the show live once when I was in New York, but I wouldn't be surprised if I slept through tonight's finale.

Harley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1481

I took the Christmas tree down today. The dogs got their first bath of the year as well. I guess 2014 has officially started. We didn't make it to the dog park after all. There were simply too many errands to run. We may not make it tomorrow either. According to the latest weather reports, it is supposed to be very cold tomorrow. I don't expect much sympathy from my friends up North however. Even though it is expected to be well below freezing tomorrow morning, we are still one of the warmer places in the country. I'm just glad I don't live in Minnesota right now.

The large printer is clogged again. This printer is so frustrating. It is too heavy for me to get it out to the car alone, so taking the thing to a repair shop is problematic at best. There is little point to having one of those repair people who come out to your office take a look. These guys have no magic bullet. They'll just say that I need a new print head and charge me $1500. What I really need is someone who will just change out all the ink lines. Unfortunately, this seemingly simple task is virtual impossible due to the way Epson designed the printer. I've really grown to hate this printer, but I still want it to work properly.

I'm beginning to wonder why I ever got AT&T U-Verse service. In theory, there are several hundred channels, but on closer inspection there is never anything worth watching. They play the same movies over and over again, so it doesn't take long before you've seen all the ones you like. My favorite stations are the same way. I used to like watching the NASA Channel until I discovered that they have a very small inventory of broadcast material that they play over and over and over again. All they want to do is put something on so they don't have dead air. I hate all the reality shows like Storage Wars, Duck Dynasty and Pawn Stars. There are literally dozens of channels filled with this crap. Even the oldies channels that play black and white episodes from The Twilight Zone and Perry Mason have run their course. I'm beginning to realize that I've seen all these shows before. It's almost as bad as when I used to watch Fawlty Towers on PBS and realized that I'd seen Basil try to catch Manuel's pet rat before the hotel inspectors could find it at least ten times. Maybe I ought to just read a book.

The leaves have all fallen off the Oak trees in the back yard by now. The thick carpet of brown leaves is actually kind of pretty and effectively covers all the dead grass. On the down side, it also covers the dog poop, which is much harder to find now. I stepped in some today and will probably continue to step in poo until Spring. I used to spend endless hours raking leaves, but I think I'll just leave them all on the ground until Spring and then hire someone to haul them away. I've finally decided that life is too short for raking leaves.

Hunter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 827

Most of today was occupied by getting U-verse installed. It was such a long, involved process that I boarded the dogs for the day. Dot would never have tolerated strangers moving things around in every room of the house. Since we were replacing all the phones, the televisions and the entire office network, I was expecting the worst. So far, the results have been largely favorable. The television works and we have a lot more channels than we had before. The Internet is quite a bit faster than it was before. The phones have built-in voice mail, so I don't need the answering machine anymore. I like a lot of the little things the best. When someone calls, the caller ID number shows up on your television screen. You can record an entire season of your favorite show just by clicking on a single button. The DVR automatically records each episode and then you can watch them whenever you want. So far, so good. It will probably take me months to learn all the available features but the main thing is that we are getting more services than cable for less money each month. As long as this complicated fiber optic system doesn't crash on us, I'm a happy camper.

I can't say that the dogs were all that happy today. Apparently, they both hate day boarding. When I picked Dot and Dash up after the U-verse installation was complete, Dot was panting like she'd been left out in the sun all day and Dash was making strange warbling bird noises. They were both very happy to return home again. Oddly, after all the boarding agitation, they were both very good at training class tonight. Dash had one of his best nights in months. We was even able to do some of his exercises off-leash. OK, I forgot to bring the long leash, but he did much better than I expected without it. Maybe I don't even need the long leash anymore. That would be great. If I could actually get to the point where I could trust this dog to come when he's called, it would be a miracle.

Now that the big household electronics upgrade is behind me, all I have to worry about are the washing machine repair and a potentially expensive trip to the Land Rover dealer. The mystery noise under the hood is getting louder, so I'd better take the car in soon.

The weather was beautiful all day. I'm sure the U-verse installation went a lot smoother than it would have if the technicians were trying to hook up new phone lines in a thunderstorm. I hope the nice weather continues. It should! After all, it's officially Spring now. Summer will be here before you know it, and that means I'd better turn my attention towards getting the rental property leased or sold.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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