Day 4908

These days just seem to race by even with virtually nothing happening. You'd think that time would slow down, or that I'd get bored on slow uneventful days, but it's not like that at all. I wake up and then all the sudden it's dinner time. I have a routine that seems well suited to wasting time. We always start out by giving Dawn a morning walk. We start at the same time Winter and Summer, but now the sun is already up when we walk. The temperature is usually pleasant early in the morning. This short one mile walk is usually the nicest part of the day.

I make the bed while Janet and Dawn are having their breakfast and then I eat mine. I take my time because why hurry. There is almost never anything important on my schedule. Breakfast is the only time I watch television. I channel surf back and forth between all the cable news channels. I don't have a favorite but usually end up on one of the business channels.

I like being informed but usually get my news by reading Google News on my computer. This also seems to be where the cable news shows get their news. Nobody makes much of an effort anymore. I hate the paywalls that traditional news sources have placed on their websites and refuse to pay for them. Call me old fashioned but I still think the Internet should be free. I've had an Internet presence for over twenty years and have never tried to sell anything. I still think I liked the old days of Usenet news groups best. Who needs pictures and video. I still like to read.

Now that Summer has arrived I'm trying to take my long walk earlier. If I was smart I'd just go to the gym, but that would involve driving. As long as the temperature is bearable, it's much more enjoyable to take a walk in the woods. Walking is relaxing because you don't have to think. Daydreaming on a walk is completely different than fighting traffic on busy Dallas streets. Truthfully, even the park has gotten too busy for me, but it's my backyard so I'll continue to walk there. I really miss the isolation of Mt. Locke out at McDonald Observatory. The place is a science installation, not a recreation destination so there are never a lot of people there. Sadly, I have to drive a full day to get to the place, so those trips will be few and far between in the future. 

Today's walk was just like yesterday's walk, but it was cooler outside since I started earlier. I really hope we're not going to have a hot summer. I don't know if I can handle 100 degree days anymore. Last year I would soak my shirt and hat in water before I started walking. This year I think I'll just go to the gym if it gets much hotter. There isn't much to see in the park in the summer anyway. The animals are hiding from the sun and the migratory birds have already left the area and moved north.

It's time to make a grocery list again. I wonder what will be more expensive this week? Tomorrow afternoon Dawn's training class is having a summer party. Dogs are invited, so hopefully Dawn will enjoy this. If not, we can just walk home since the party is being held in the park. The glasses with the progressive lenses were supposed to be ready tomorrow, but I haven't heard anything from Lenscrafters. We'll see. It's a safe bet that I'll get the glasses before I get my new driver's license.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3654

I've given up on predicting the weather. I thought it was supposed to be warm and sunny, just like yesterday. Nope. I woke up to fog and noticeably cooler temperatures. It didn't warm up much as the day progressed and it may even rain tomorrow. Hmmm. This wasn't good news for my roof repair plans. I decided to go ahead anyway. The areas I was planning to patch were small, so even if the material didn't dry correctly, I wasn't going to waste a lot of silicon.

I went ahead and took my walk before going up on the roof, in hopes that it might get a little warmer. That didn't work either. It was kind of a dismal day, but at least it didn't rain. The reason I have so many repairs is that two years ago I applied a lot of silicon coating way too thin. I was trying to make the stuff go further, but I basically just wasted it. I learned later that this coating must be a very exact thickness to be effective. Applied too thick or too thin, it just doesn't work well. I know better now, but over time I'll probably have to re-coat everything I did two years ago.

I had no desire to leave the house today. I took my walk for the exercise, but the car never left the driveway. I balanced my checkbook, which is something I should do more often. It's hard to keep track of things after several months. I also made a halfhearted effort to straighten things around the house and then took a nap.

I always think I'm sleep deprived, but I'm probably getting plenty of sleep if you count naps. For some reason Fitbit only tracks sleep at night. I'm sure there's a good reason for this. The time I spend staring at my computer probably looks a lot like sleep to these tracking devices. I'm very still and don't move around much. How would Fitbit know the difference? It's weird. I'm fascinated with tracking my sleep, but have no interest at all in tracking my ancestors. A lot of friends have bought those ancestry.com or 23andMe DNA kits and don't even wear a Fitbit. To each his own I guess.

The refrigerator is starting to look pretty bare, but I still don't feel like going out for breakfast in the morning. I either need to get real creative with what's still here or go to the grocery store in the morning and restock the larder. They say that intermittent fasting is good for you, but I haven't been able to do that yet. Long, slow meals are the best way I know to kill time.

I wish I'd hear something about living arrangements at the observatory or press credentials from SpaceFlight Magazine. I know nothing is going to happen until the first of the year, but it's hard to be patient when everything's up in the air. Clearly I have too much time on my hands. I doubt that I'd even be thinking about these things if I was as busy as I used to be.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2841

Time slows down when you're waiting for a repairmen. They never tell you when they are going to arrive, preferring to keep you guessing. If you think they're going to be early, they'll be late. If you think they're going to be late, they'll arrive when you're taking your morning shower. I wish they'd just tell you how many service calls were ahead of you. Maybe then I could plan my day a little better.

Since the most likely components to fail have already been replaced, the list of things that could still cause the refrigerator to malfunction is growing smaller. I did a little research and found two more parts that could cause the evaporator coil to freeze. One of these parts costs $14 and the other one costs $250. You can guess which one the repairman said I needed.

It's kind of hard to decide at this point whether to give up on the refrigerator and buy a new one or just keep replacing parts until it finally works. The repairman said that if I bought a new refrigerator, I shouldn't expect it to last more than five or six years. "They don't build these things to last anymore," he said. I'm sure this is true. We live in a throw away society. Our whole economy depends on people replacing everything they own every five or six years. My parents had a refrigerator that lasted twenty five years. I don't think that's even possible anymore.

I'm inclined to buy the part and hope for the best. The weekend we went looking for refrigerators, I didn't see anything I liked that would fit in the small space we have available. If Janet has strong feelings one way or the other, I'll just do what she wants. That usually ends up being the best solution anyway.

Dash seemed to have a little more energy today. He still wouldn't take a walk this morning, but his appetite has improved. I don't know if we'll ever convince him to eat dry food again, but if he's healthy I don't even care. After sleeping most of the day, Dash seemed eager for an evening walk. When Janet got home from work we took him to the park and were genuinely surprised at how perky he seemed. Maybe the Plavix is starting to work. Since it is still important to keep Dash calm and rested, we actually had to slow him down this evening. I wasn't expecting that.

Last night the battery charger for my Anton Bauer batteries quit working. This morning the wireless mouse for my computer quit working. I wonder what will quit working tomorrow? Surprisingly, the shower didn't leak today. Go figure. As long as Dash keeps eating and continues to hang in there, I'm not going to worry about the little stuff.

Jersey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2736

I spent most of the day at the hospital. Our dogs have had every conceivable type of surgery over the years, but none of this really prepares you for surgery in a large metropolitan hospital. There are mountains of forms to sign. You can easily get lost in the labyrinth of hallways leading to your destination. It can all be fairly intimidating. I noticed that Janet's blood pressure was higher than normal when they looked at her vital signs in the pre-op staging area. The nurse just laughed. "Everyone's blood pressure is high in this room," she said.

While we were waiting, I met the surgeon, the anesthesiologist, a nurse-patient liaison, and more operating room nurses than I can remember. There was actually a second surgeon, but he was busy in another operation, and didn't introduce himself. Everyone was extremely professional and did their best to put us at ease.

There is no way to be relaxed about major surgery though. Janet was scared and I was just hoping that my innate fear of doctors and hospitals wasn't showing. I didn't want to make things worse. The only comfort was that Janet had done her homework and found a superb surgeon. Everybody said that this guy was the very best. When the anesthesiologist came to prepare her for the operating room, I went home to feed and walk Dash while waiting for the call that everything was OK.

The surgery went quicker than I thought it would. The first surgeon called about an hour an a half after I got home and the second surgeon called an hour after that to say everything was completed. Surgeons are not very talkative, but both seemed pleased with the results and said there were no complications.

When I went to visit Janet this evening after she got out of the recovery room, she was all hooked up to tubes and looked very tired. She was hungry though and said she wished they had brought her a ham sandwich instead of Jello and chicken broth. There was probably good reason that the doctors didn't want her to eat solid food right away. It was hard enough to get her to drink a glass of water through a straw. Janet wanted me to text her family and friends and let them know she was OK. This took forever, since I'm terrible at texting. I don't see how anyone can do this quickly. I can barely see the tiny keyboard.

If all goes well tonight, Janet will be released from the hospital later tomorrow. There will be a nurse that comes to the house for a while and then I will take over most of the post-op care. Dot prepared me well for being a caregiver, so I think everything will be fine.

It's been a long day. Actually, it's been a very long year. I often wish that life would return to normal, but lately I've come to the conclusion that there is no such thing as normal. When you get to know people well, you realize that nobody's life is all that normal. We are all dealing with things we never expected.

Barley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2346

I'm convinced that waiting for service technicians must be one of the circles of hell in Dante's Inferno. No matter when you schedule things, the repair people are never on time, and when they do finally arrive, the part you need the most isn't ever on the truck. I thought today's plumbing repair was going to be a simple job, but I should have known better. When the plumber finally arrived, he took a quick look at the leaking faucets and told me that simply replacing the washers wasn't going to work. The fixtures had corroded so badly that he recommended replacing the entire assembly. I thought the plumber would go and pick up the parts himself, but he suggested that it would be better if I do it. "I'll probably pick up something you hate," said the plumber, "and even if I do find the right parts, I'll have to mark them up 40%. OK. You convinced me. I drove down to the plumbing supply store and looked at the faucets he recommended. I didn't like either of them. I took one of the handles from the old faucets with me and the owner of the store recognized it and said he had all the parts to completely rebuild my current faucet. This seemed like a better solution to me, since the newer faucets didn't look like they would fit anyway. I bought $90 worth of faucet parts and returned home to reschedule another appointment with the plumber. The dispatcher told me that someone could come out again toward the end of the day, which sounded much better than waiting until Friday. I waited and waited, but the plumber never showed up.

When you are waiting for a repair person, you can't run to the bank, or walk the dogs, or even take a shower, because that's always when the repair guys will arrive. If you cancel everything and wait patiently, they will never show up. If you figure that they're going to be late anyway and decide to run a quick errand, they'll be in your driveway in ten minutes. At any rate I have all the parts now.  The next step is to get another plumber to come out and tell me that I bought the wrong parts.We'll have to go through all the barking again too. The first thing that Dot did when she saw the plumber this morning was poop all over the place.

The sink will eventually get fixed, but I'm betting that something else will go wrong before the job is finished. At least I had something to do while I waited today. Since I wasn't able to leave the house for a large part of the day, I was able to complete one of my increasingly rare writing assignments. Hopefully, I'll have another assignment when the plumber returns. It will help to pay the plumbing bill.

The weather forecast has been wrong almost every day this week. It was supposed to rain today, but the weather was actually pretty nice.  Dot did well on her short walk this morning. I think a week of reduced activity is helping her.  I could use a week of reduced activity myself. I'm perpetually tired these days. Maybe tomorrow will be my day of rest. There certainly isn't much else on the schedule at this point.

Susie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1678

I keep looking at the last happy picture I took of Dot. Although she was just being transferred from one vet to another, she thought she was going home. Her tail was tucked under because she was still in pain, but she was happy. Dot's eyes practically sparkled as she was eagerly awaiting me to close the tailgate and get out my car keys. I'm so sorry to have disappointed her. Happy dogs make me happy and I am still sad.

We don't know much more than we did yesterday. The good news is that Dot is still alive. The bad news is that her medical team still isn't sure what is causing all the problems. I was afraid that we wouldn't hear anything at all until Monday morning, but we were surprised and delighted to receive a call today from her internal medicine specialist with an update on Dot's condition. I had initially thought that the specialist would leave Dot under the care of her support team during the weekend, but she was in the hospital herself on a Sunday morning, examining Dot and working on a diagnosis.

She told us that based on everything she knew so far, she suspected that Dot's problems originated in her liver. She thought Dot was stable and would make it through the weekend, but she still wasn't eating. This is bad. We won't know anything more until they do an abdominal ultrasound scan on Monday morning to check for hidden tumors, but there are strong signs that Dot may have acute Hepatitis, or even worse, Liver Cancer. I know a lot about Hepatitis after spending the past 30 years living with Hepatitis-C. Hepatitis can be managed and in many cases, completely cured. There are far fewer options available if you have Liver Cancer. For dogs, surgery is just about the only option, since organ transplants for dogs are still just a far-fetched fantasy. We lost Greta to Liver Cancer. We found the best surgeon available and elected to do the surgery, but it didn't work. Greta died four days later. She never even made it out of the hospital. I don't think I could subject a dog to that ever again.

I am not an emotional person, but a sick dog can still make me cry. It was hard to spend the day waiting, knowing that there was absolutely nothing we could do. I will be up at the hospital as soon as it opens tomorrow morning to visit Dot. All I can do though is hold her and hope. The next steps are up to Dot and her team of doctors. I was encouraged to hear the specialist tell me that she thought  Dot wasn't as depressed today as she was yesterday. She is still alert and engaged. That's a good sign, because she hasn't given up yet. Her incontinence appears to have stopped as well. The nurses take her out every four hours so she can pee normally. The doctor was even going to go to the store after we talked this morning and buy some fresh chicken for Dot to see if she could entice her to eat again.

I'm a worrier, but I really wish I wasn't. Worrying only leads to further worrying. I went to the gym today and cleaned all the water off the roof yesterday afternoon, knowing that lots of physical activity makes me tired. Maybe if I'm really tired, I will sleep better tonight. All I did last night was worry about Dot. Thanks for your support. It means a lot.

Lady Jane is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1631

I spent the day getting unsatisfactory answers to some very reasonable questions. How long has it been since you called someone and found a real person on the line who could actually answer your question? It's a pretty safe bet that the larger the organization, the longer you're going to wait. I will only call a government agency when I have plenty of time on my hands. I just put the phone on speaker and continue working on the computer until someone finally answers. Often the wait time is up to an hour. Today I only had to wait thirty five minutes. There were other calls as well. I was perplexed when I got another bill today for auto insurance that I'd already paid for less than a month ago. I sold a car recently, so I thought it was reasonable that I should be getting some money back. Nope! When I called my agent, he told me that I lost my multi-car discount when I sold the second car, so my rate had actually increased. Go figure. You really can't win these days.

I like repairing things, so I was delighted to pick up my favorite winter jacket from the tailor this afternoon and discover that it was good as new again. Earlier this Winter, the neighbor's dog had ripped the arm of the jacket when it tried to bite me. This is a very weird dog. It likes Janet, but always tries to bite me when I am unlucky enough to encounter it without a leash in the back alley. It should never be off a leash, but occasionally it gets loose. The dog is well trained and if I am quick enough to say "sit" or "stay" before it bites me, it always obeys. Sometimes I'm not quick enough though. To their credit, the neighbors offered to pay for the jacket, but I told them to forget about it and just try to keep the dog inside their fence when I walk Dot and Dash down the alley.

I paid a bunch of bills today and it got me wondering about what I was going to cut back on when I finally did retire. A social security check isn't even going to begin to pay these bills. I'm not sure what I could live without either. On some days, I could toss it all. Other days, I feel like hanging on to everything. I used to think that my IRA account would take care of me pretty well, but that was before the big financial meltdown of 2008. One more big crash like this and all bets are off. I'm pretty frugal, but I'm terrible at predicting the future. Even though I'm a very pessimistic person, I always think the future is going to be better than it actually turns out to be.

If the weather is nice tomorrow, we'll go back to dog training class again. I've moved Dot's acupuncture and water therapy session from Wednesday to Thursday, so the underwater treadmill workout won't make her too tired for class. She was pretty slow when we took her back to class a few weeks ago, but I think she still enjoys going. Dot and Dash are still active and energetic on their early morning walks, but go to sleep again as soon as they return home. I worry that I may have overworked them until I get out their dinner bowls. As soon as they hear food related noises, they both instantly spring to life again.

Maybe I'll go to the gym tomorrow. If today was any indication, there certainly isn't much reason to sit at this computer all day.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1484

Dot and Dash don't like the new cold weather schedule. Instead of walking them right after I get up in the morning like I usually do, I've started eating breakfast first to allow things to warm up a bit before we venture outside. To me, this is an excellent plan, since the temperature warms up quickly once the sun is up and starts to thaw things out. The dogs don't like this additional wait however, and bark at me as I do my best to eat my oatmeal in peace. They don't seem to realize that I'm doing all this for their own good. As far as I can tell, the extra hour I spend eating breakfast usually results in a five degree increase in temperature. This is only when the sun is shining, of course, but so far we've been lucky and it's been sunny all week. Once we're underway, all is forgiven. The dogs love to walk and maybe they realized that as a result of their short wait this morning, they only had to wear one coat instead of the two they wore yesterday.

I'm hoping the year will grow more exciting in the ensuing months. I've got plenty of work to do but it's all pretty dismal so far. I need more time with absolutely nothing to do, so I start inventing my own personal projects again. I don't think I've done anything that didn't involve clients, the dogs, or my own health in months. I wonder now how I ever found the time to play in a band, plan elaborate photo exhibitions, and even take cooking classes. The irony is that when I was doing all those things, I was actually making more money than I am now. At least the market was up today. When the stock market is up, it helps to compensate for all the boring, low paying advertising jobs. I keep telling these kids I compete with these days that they've got to raise their rates and quit living with their parents. They don't listen though. They don't even believe how good it used to be before they ruined everything by undercutting the prices of old dogs like me.

Dash had some lab work done while he was at the vet today to make sure his kidneys are still working properly. We'll have to wait for the results, but his veterinarian seemed to think he was doing very well. I was glad to hear that his teeth aren't in as bad shape as I thought. His gums are still healthy and it looks like a simple cleaning procedure to remove the plaque will be all he needs. I made an appointment to get his dental work done next week. When Dash's teeth are gleaming again, we'll deal with Dot's teeth. Maybe, when both of the dogs get their dental work done, I'll go see the dentist myself. I probably need to see a dentist a lot more than the dogs.

My Wednesday morning networking breakfasts resume tomorrow. We haven't had these early morning meetings during the holiday season and three weeks of sleeping in on Wednesdays has reconfirmed that I'm never going to be a morning person. Most of the other people still appear to go to these meetings to make contacts and pass out business cards. That's fine by me, but I'm still going for the bacon.

Misty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1207

I got an enormous amount done today. Once again, I had to spend the day waiting for the FedEx man, and he was very, very late. I have one supplier who insists on marking all shipments direct signature required, while at the same time denying me the opportunity to re-direct the package to a nearby FedEx office for a more convenient delivery. I find this very annoying, but there is a hidden benefit. While I am waiting endlessly for an envelope that needs my signature, I tend to get lots, and lots accomplished around the office.

Today I re-configured an entire website and launched the new version. Ordinarily, this would have taken me three or four days, but what else did I have to do today? I was trapped.

Today's little exercise provides a good illustration of why I've never been fond of SEO types. My client had hired an SEO wizard to boost his Google rank and get his phone to ring more often. The SEO wizard didn't like the site I had designed. He said it had way too many pictures and not enough searchable text that could be indexed. There was plenty of text on the site, but unfortunately, it was all embedded inside pretty JPEG images. To fix the problem and get the SEO guy off my back, I needed to learn something new. To keep the layout intact, I belatedly learned how to create layers in Dreamweaver. I placed Google-friendly text in these new layers and then positioned the layers directly over the pictures I wanted to keep. Amazingly everything worked. After a day of coding confusing CSS scripts, I had a site that looked remarkably similar to the old site, while containing all the new information that the SEO guy said was missing. We'll see if this makes a difference. Probably not.

The temperature was back in the 70's by mid-afternoon. It's still not dry enough for me to determine where the water is getting in on the roof, but it was certainly warm enough for the dogs to enjoy a little sunbathing time in the back yard. I'm a little leery of doing any more gardening in the back yard, unfortunately. I'll probably never know if I got my Poison Ivy from inadvertently pulling up Poison Ivy plants hidden in the ground cover, or from Dash curling up with me at night after a day of running through a field of the stuff. Hopefully, the steroid shots will work their magic soon.

I used a Klout gift card to go out to dinner with Janet this evening. I like these Klout perks, although I have no idea why I keep getting them. So far, I've gotten dog blankets, gift cards, magazine subscriptions, and books. Maybe if I write a nice review about the restaurant, they'll send me more stuff. I wouldn't even have to lie. The food was actually very good.

Angel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1053

I was delighted to receive a payment from one of my European clients today. Then, about two hours later, I was dismayed to receive a letter from the medical testing lab saying my liver enzymes were way too high again. It went back and forth like this all day. I was pleased when the FedEx man knocked on the door and handed me the new lens I've been waiting for. On the other hand, I was disgusted to see the price of gold drop $40 an ounce in a single day.

I've noticed something new in Blogger. It says "Your blog is now eligible for Google Affiliate Ads." What's that all about? There's also a new little dialog box with a picture of a camera, a bicycle, a blender, and a running shoe. Evidently if I blog about one of these things, I might make a little money. I don't want to blog about any of these things. Knowing Google, it would be a very little amount of money too. I've been running Adsense ads for ages and have never even made enough to pay my phone bill. I think I'll just ignore these Affiliate Ads.

I had to turn the air conditioner back on today. We are only a few degrees away from an all time record high for November 2. It was almost ninety degrees outside this afternoon. Pretty weird, especially when a lot of the country is already getting snow. I'm happy enough to see the warm weather continue. The office isn't insulated very well, and it tend to get chilly when the weather turns cold.

I hope you folks in New York and New Jersey get your power back on soon. The longest I've ever had to go without electricity was five days. I think it's already been five days for some folks in the Northeast. The things I remember most about our big power outage was that food goes bad in the refrigerator very quickly and there really isn't much to do in the evenings without any electricity.

I didn't get to go out for my Friday morning breakfast today. I had to stay and wait for the FedEx delivery guy instead. My package required a signature and I wasn't about to let the driver take the package to my neighbor's house in my absence. Both my neighbors are like a black hole for misplaced mail. If something gets delivered to their houses by mistake, it can be weeks before I see it again. So, I waited, and waited, and waited. Sometimes there really isn't much to do even with electricity.

Delilah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1050

Does anyone else think that shopping has become way too difficult? I try my best to buy everything online, because going to a store is usually an exercise in futility. Today I needed some new shoes. Although I have nicer shoes for weddings, funerals, and important meetings, my go-to shoes for all other occasions are a well worn pair of Sperry Top-Siders. Dallas has a big Sperry flagship store, so I thought that would be the best place to find a replacement for my worn out shoes. The store had hundreds of different Sperry designs. You'd think they'd surely have what I wanted: a pair of the original boat shoes Paul Sperry designed in 1935. This style has never changed and are still quite popular. When I asked for a pair, I was told they were a special order item.

Having failed in the shoe department, I moved on to the Apple store and got a Lightning-to-30 Pin adapter, so I could use my old devices and chargers with my new iPhone. Why didn't the geniuses at the Genius Bar tell me that this adapter will only work if your phone doesn't have a case? What is that all about? Everyone has a case for their phone, The adapter was worthless and I had to make a second trip to the store to return it.

Dash didn't do much better than I did today. We waited forever to get his antigen shot today, because it appeared that nobody showed up for work at the vet. They were very shorthanded. Maybe I should have just waited until tomorrow to do all these things. The stars clearly weren't aligned today. Even my online purchases went awry. I though I'd found a place in New York that was still shipping, because the shopping cart dialog box said my order would arrive on Thursday. Five hours after I placed my order, I received an e-mail telling me that the store was actually closed because of the hurricane and that my order would be processed when they reopened again. Oh, well. So much for believing websites.

I shouldn't complain though. The weather is still perfect. The dogs and I had a great walk this morning. We saw our first pelicans of the season. Every year, hundreds of American White Pelicans return to our lake for the Winter. I find the predictability of migratory birds reassuring. Seeing a bird return year after year is much more pleasant than learning that an old high school friend has died, or that you've been fired. Too much in life is unpredictable. Especially shopping.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 995

Well, today was a complete waste. I waited and waited and waited for the U-verse guy. When I finally lost my patience and was about to give up completely, I get an automated call from AT&T. "Your technician has been delayed," the message said. No shit! It would have been nice if they told me this about five hours earlier. I waited a couple of hours longer and the technician finally shows up. He can't find anything wrong. This isn't surprising, since there wasn't anything wrong today. The problem is intermittent. "You know there is a problem," I told the technician, "because AT&T always does a line check before they will dispatch a service technician. The technician agreed and kept looking around. When he got to the modem, he asked "Did you add these line filters?" "No," I said. "The last technician added them." "Well, he shouldn't have," the technician says. "This modem has built-in line filters."

This is so typical. I think Obama learned to blame everything on George Bush from service technicians. They always blame any problem on the previous service technician. Don't these guys ever have staff meetings so they can get on the same page? The last guy thought the line filters were real important. This guy just tells me that the last guy was an idiot. I guess time will tell. Everything is working now, but it's only been a few hours.

Dot is probably going to have relapse of her bronchitis after barking at the service technician for several hours. I just can't get her to stop. She apparently doesn't want anyone in the house except for Janet and me. Usually, this isn't a problem. I lead a pretty solitary existence. Often, we go for months between visitors.

Dot and I skipped training class tonight because Dot is still coughing a bit and if she does have kennel cough, she might be contagious. Janet took Dash to the class, while Dot stayed behind to help me with the blog. I'll be curious to see if Dash is any more obedient with Janet than he is with me. If I were a betting men, I'd bet against seeing any dramatic changes. Dash learned all the commands years ago. He's just stubborn.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 784

I felt like I spent the entire day waiting. I'm exaggerating, of course. I really only spent several hours sitting in waiting rooms. That was long enough though. It doesn't matter what you're waiting for these days. If you're getting new tires put on at a tire store, you're going to wait. If you're going to see the doctor, you're going to wait. Even if you're just going to buy cupcakes at Sprinkles, you've going to wait. Of course, when people want something from me, they never want to wait. That's just the way it is.

Luckily, after my long wait to see the doctor, he told me that my latest lab results looked really good. I'd have hated to wait that long, just to hear bad news. Dash didn't have to wait that long to get his antigen shot, but nevertheless, the wait was about five times longer than the time it actually took to give the shot. After I got home, I tried to get everything done on my to-do list, so I wouldn't have people waiting on me. I don't want to be the pot calling the kettle black.

I need to look for some new trails for my walks with Dot and Dash. After uploading over 300 pictures to Instagram, I'm starting to run out of things to photograph. I saw an interesting looking tree this morning and realized that I'd already photographed exactly the same tree from almost the same angle just last month. The park is large though, so it shouldn't be hard to change my route and find some new objects of interest. I'll have to be on my toes if I try a new route though. The primary objects of interest for the dogs are horse poop and dead things. I know where all these road hazards are located on our regular route, but whenever we go someplace new, Dot and Dash are quick to put their superior sense of smell to good use.

I got an e-mail today from one of my best German clients. Yay! I'm glad these guys haven't forgotten about me. One good job from them equals about ten from my local clients.

Stortz is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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