Day 3222

I had lots of errands today. Everywhere I went, I was faced with rising prices. I bought some Salicylic Acid at the drug store and and the price had increased by $2 a bottle. I bought some halogen bulbs at the hardware store and the price had increased by $3 a bulb. The grocery store is always full of price increases. I've been buying those blue paper shop towels for years and the price has almost doubled. Laundry detergent has gone way up . Strawberries are still cheap though. Go figure.

I stopped by the storage warehouse to see when my annual rent was due. Naturally, next year's rent is more than this year's. I've been a loyal customer for decades and yet my rent keeps increasing every single year. It would be a lot of work, but I'm really tempted to move everything to a new storage warehouse so I can take advantage of the new customer discounts. Every time I hear that inflation isn't a problem, I shake my head in disbelief. Maybe big screen TV's are cheaper than they used to be, but the cost of almost everything else has gone up.

For the first time in weeks, I saw blue sky. Amazingly, it was a beautiful Fall day. The performers at the little circus in the park seemed almost giddy with excitement. They were selling tickets, stringing lights, and getting ready for a show this evening. The park was full of people riding bicycles, sitting in hammocks, and throwing frisbees. I had to keep an eye out for loose dogs. There are always loose dogs on a nice day. I saw two dogs get in a fight off in the distance. Luckily they were nowhere near Dash and I.

There were no accidents today. Not yet anyway. Miraculously, Dash slept through the night and walked outside the next morning and pooped in the yard. He took his meds without incident, ate all his breakfast, and was enthusiastic about his walks. For most of the day, he seemed like a normal dog.

I should have vacuumed this afternoon, but I watched cooking shows on PBS instead. It's hard to get motivated. The combination of roof leaks, poop on the floor, and worn out appliances has taken it's toll. I look around and keep thinking "what's the point."

Another watch winder broke today. Back when I was really interested in watches, I bought winders for the watches I regularly wore. One by one, the motors in these winders have started failing. Nobody seems to be able to repair these things either. You'd think a simple electric motor would run forever. Nope. About twelve years seems to be the limit.

We had fried chicken tonight. Sometimes I forget how good simple southern food can be. Hey, blue skies, fried chicken, and no poop on the floor. That's a good day in my book.

Emily is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2229

If you're old enough, you probably remember car trips where your parents told you to count the cows you saw out the window. This used to keep me occupied for hours. Attention spans are shorter now, so I imagine a new kind of game is needed. Maybe you could have the kids count the number of times the people at the next table in a restaurant use the word "like" in a conversation. You know what I'm talking about. When I was having breakfast this morning, two girls at the next table must have used the word 100 times within five minutes. "I was like you've got to be kidding, and then she was like no way, and then like you wouldn't believe what happened next..." This went on and on and on. Every single sentence used the word "like" on one way or another. When did this start? I even hear people talking this way on TV now. We don't read. We can't write. We've forgotten how to speak coherently. I don't hold out a lot of hope for the future.

I did like my breakfast in the old fashioned sense of the word. It was delicious. On my way home, I stopped by the grocery store and picked up the ingredients to make burgers for dinner. I thought I'd try some heirloom tomatoes, since I've always wondered what they tasted like. I thought they'd be better than ordinary hothouse tomatoes, since they're more expensive. Nope. They weren't very tasty at all.  I'm still wondering what's so special about heirloom tomatoes.

Today was mostly spent wrapping up a bunch of loose ends, so I wouldn't have anything hanging over my head this weekend. I finished my remaining website projects, wrote a letter to my sister, paid a few bills, picked up another prescription at the pharmacy, and went to the Dollar Store to look for rubber snakes. It was a fairly productive day. The dogs got walked. I'm caught up on work. Dot pooped outside. And I finally received a reply from the watch winder company. I still haven't found the rubber snakes though.

I was disappointed to hear that the watch winder company won't repair the two defective units I inquired about. They said they are too old to fix and that parts are no longer available. This may be true, but I was still hoping that they would replace the winders like they did with the first one I sent them. I guess one replacement watch winder is all you get. It's hard for me to get very upset about this however, because I'm not all that interested in watches anymore. Like most things in my life, it appears like collecting watches was just a phase I went through.

It's supposed to be clear tomorrow, so maybe I'll get up early and look for Mercury in the Eastern sky. I don't know why it's a big deal for me to see Mercury because it's just a faint little speck of light.  I like following the planets though. If I didn't live in a city and the skies were darker, I'd probably be out with a telescope looking for Uranus and Neptune.

I forgot to order printer ink today, so the large printer is sure to be clogged on Monday. I'm sure there's still water on the roof as well. If it warms up this weekend, I'll take care of that. I need to think of something fun to do as well. I think The Martian is out on DVD now. Maybe I'll go look for a copy when I'm running errands tomorrow.

Raider is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2218

Are there song lyrics that seem to stick in your head forever? The words "Ground Control to Major Tom. Your circuit's dead, there's something wrong." have been rattling around in my head for decades. Now, David Bowie is dead. I was surprised to hear the news, but I shouldn't have been. A steady stream of my contemporaries are now departing this earth. It used to be when they played the annual "People We Lost" tribute during the Oscars, it was usually people much older than me that were remembered. Now the dearly departed are my age. It's sobering to realize how little time we have on this planet. I'll miss David Bowie. He was a tremendously talented person. After all these years, The Man Who Fell To Earth is still one of my favorite movies. Space Oddity has always been among my favorite songs. If you haven't already watched the video of Lazarus, Bowie's final song, I would encourage you to do so. It's hard to believe that this song was released just two days before his death. Now there's another song that will be rattling around in my head for decades. Well, maybe at least one decade. I'm optimistic.

Not much happened today. I talked to my financial adviser about the stock market meltdown. I'm glad I sold a bunch of stuff before the end of last year, because it would have just gone down further if I'd held on to it. This definitely isn't the time to be buying stocks. So, how do you make money when the sky is falling? I guess you'd have to win the lottery.

Dot has gone several days without any accidents, but my luck came to an end today. She pooped in the house twice. The second time was while she was eating her dinner. Food was going in one end and coming out the other at the same time. Luckily the area around the dogs food bowls is well protected now, so the cleanup was relatively easy. This has all just become part of daily life. I continually walk around with poop bags in all my pockets now, because you never know when or where she's going to go next.

I'm trying to get the watch winder company to replace my remaining defective watch winders. They're not as responsive as they were the first time. I think when they discovered how many watch winders I had, they got cold feet about sending me a replacement for each of them. I'm going to be persistent though. If they replaced one winder because of a defective Chinese motor, they should replace them all. We'll see what happens. Watch winders are simple little machines. They should really last as long as the watch they're keeping wound.

On slow days like this I amuse myself by looking through the B&H catalog and fantasizing about photo equipment I think I need. I really don't need anything, but it's fun to imagine how new gear would change everything. Today I discovered the Metabones Speed Booster. This clever adapter lets you pair full frame lenses with a micro 4/3 camera and gain a full stop of speed while reducing the crop factor. If this all sounds like Mumbo-Jumbo to you, you'll have to trust me that it's a big deal. If I got one of these gadgets, I could use some of my old Nikon-F lenses on my current digital cameras and they'd be faster than they were originally.

Janet was watching the Alabama vs Clemson game this evening on TV, so I started watching too. Pretty exciting game. Why can't the Dallas Cowboys play this way?

Pepper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2143

I went and got the blood tests that my doctor needed right after we walked the dogs this morning. They always want you to fast before these tests, so it's easier to do them first thing in the morning and eat breakfast afterwards. A lady I'd never seen before approached me with a pile of forms to sign before they drew my blood. She said she was a representative of the lab that did the testing. I read page one of the forms and they basically said that I had to pay for anything that insurance didn't cover. What was this all about? Insurance has always covered everything before. I told the woman with all the forms that it was my doctor who insisted on all these tests and it was his job to get them paid for. The whole incident was irritating. Maybe I'll eventually get a bill and maybe I won't. That's not the point. The whole process of navigating the healthcare system is kind of like being lost in a corn maze. It's hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys.

Today was a writing day. I didn't think my writing assignments would take me as long as they did, but sometimes the muse just isn't with you. I struggled today. I often find that the "no-brainer" jobs are the hardest, because it can be very difficult to write something compelling when there is nothing to say. Really innovative products sell themselves. The rest provide job opportunities for people like me. I'm not complaining, mind you. I'll write about virtually anything if you pay me.

Yesterday, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that my defective watch winder was being replaced for free with a brand new model. Today, I was disappointed to discover that it will cost three times as much as I originally anticipated to fix my old multi-track tape recorder. These two different approaches to a repair problem illustrate perfectly how we have become a throw away society. The watch winder was made in China and it was actually less expensive to throw the old unit away and replace it with a new one than it would have been to ship the winder back to the Chinese manufacturer. The tape recorder had to be repaired because it was no longer in production. Most of the repair cost was labor. The cost of the parts themselves was minimal. In the future I don't think anything will be repaired. It will all be replaced. It's so much easier to throw the old stuff away and let the robots build more.

While I was on the phone trying to get some medical records this afternoon, Dot had a major accident in the house. I smelled it before I saw it. It was like a poop explosion. She pooped all over the carpet in my office and then stumbled and fell in the poop. First I had to clean Dot up. Then I had to take her harness off and hose it off before I put it in the washing machine. Then I had to do my best to clean the carpet itself. It sure would have been nice if Dot had pooped on one of the dozens of small rugs we've spread around the house to help her walk. I can take the rugs to the laundromat or hose them off outside. The carpet is more of a challenge.

Tomorrow is another day. I'm hoping that Dot does well at her physical therapy session. I'm hoping that it doesn't rain. I"m hoping that the carpet still smells clean after it dries out tomorrow.

Abi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2142

When I was reading the new issue of Electronic Musician this morning I was surprised to see that there is now software that allows you to add realistic sounding vocals to songs you've written without using a real singer. The voice synthesizer software is called Cyber Diva and you just enter lyrics and a melody into digital audio workstation applications like CuBase and you've got an instant lead vocalist that sounds pretty real. I was intrigued. I'm way past the stage in life where you get together with other musicians at 2 AM to lay down a demo on a tape machine in your bedroom. Been there, done that several decades ago. Something like Cyber Diva might make it easier for me to get back into songwriting again. I used to always have other singers record my songs because I inherited my mother's terrible singing voice. Maybe synthesized vocals are the next big thing for the solo songwriter. I did a little research and discovered that this sort of thing is already popular in Japan. Not surprisingly, the software is Japanese. Most of the available voices are Japanese too. Cyber Diva is their first attempt to create an electronic voice that sings in American English.

I finally heard from the watch winder people today. Evidently my defective unit is too old to repair and not being manufactured anymore. The good news is that the company is sending me a brand new replacement three motor winder at no charge. I was pleasantly surprised. I sure wish that other companies worked this way. It would be nice to hear my service representative at the Land Rover dealer say "I'm sorry sir, we can no longer repair your car, so we're just going to give you a brand new one."

Today was another slow day. After I finished some minor website updates, I did what I often do on slow days. I washed my car. Much to my chagrin, I discovered that I'd driven through some fresh road tar. It's much easier to drive through road tar in Dallas than to get the sticky stuff off your wheels. In many ways, life is a lot like driving through road tar. You're minding your own business and all of the sudden you're in the middle of a big mess. Just like the road tar, you often don't realized how bad the mess is until long after the incident is over. At any rate, an easy task quickly turned into a difficult one. I found some solvent in the utility room and methodically cleaned the wheels. I still don't know where the tar came from. That means I could easily drive through the same patch again tomorrow.

I did manage to see the planetary trio this morning when we were walking the dogs. Mars, Venus, and Jupiter weren't as quite close together as they would have been yesterday morning, but it was still an impressive sight. When I looked up at the sky I kept wondering whether I'll be accepted to the next NASA launch. I don't think my application was as inspired as my initial application last January. I guess it all depends on who else applies.

Tomorrow should be busier. I have several new articles to write, along with the usual assortment of useless activities that constitute my day. Dot and Dash are continuing to have a good week. You can't ask for more than that.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2138

Today basically sucked. I woke up with a sore back because I spent a good portion of the night sleeping on the floor with Dot. There were severe thunderstorms during the night and it was the only way I could keep her calm. For some reason, the dogs like to sit in the shower during storms and I didn't want her slipping on the tile floors in the bathroom or pooping all over the house. I must have been tired, because I promptly fell asleep on the floor and has a dream that Dot and I were watching wild animals through the bedroom window. Sleeping next to her did keep Dot calm though, so I guess it was all worth it.

We found a short dry spell to walk the dogs in the morning, but basically it rained all day. I thought about staying home for breakfast, but we were out of peaches and bananas, so I drove to my breakfast restaurant in the rain. The storm knocked most of the traffic lights out, so the short trip took much longer than usual. I certainly didn't prove much by getting all the acorns off the roof yesterday. Last night's wind and rain knocked thousands more off the trees, so the mess I was trying to avoid is up there anyway. It is supposed to rain for the next five days, so I'm not even going to bother going up on the roof. It's futile to remove the water now.

Water on the roof isn't my only water problem. I keep hearing water running in the pipes even when all the faucets are turned off. There are no obvious leaks anywhere that I can find, so the only thing I can think of is that there is a small leak under the slab. If this is what's happening, it's not good news. Any kind of plumbing problem under the foundation usually ends up being a giant expensive mess. I'll check next month's water bill to see if water usage has gone up. This month's water bill was actually smaller than the previous month, so if there's a leak, it's probably a small one.

I discovered that the reason I haven't heard from the watch winder company is that the guy I shipped the defective winder to is on vacation. It would have been nice if he'd told me he was going on vacation before I sent the package. Now, my claim won't even be processed until the guy returns. Ironically, right after I hung up the phone with the watch winder people, I discovered that the motor in another watch winder had burned out. Since I bought these things all about the same time, maybe all of them are getting ready to die on me. Does it really even matter? Probably not.

Apparently the Postal Service creed doesn't mean much anymore. You know how the saying goes: "Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds." The postman used to deliver our mail in all types of weather, but our new mail carrier is definitely a fair weather friend. I've noticed for quite a while now that whenever we have a big storm, we don't get any mail that day. I don't know if the post office sanctions this or whether our mail carrier just throws the mail in the trunk of her car and waits for a sunny day. It's not like it used to be though.

Hopefully, we're going to get a break from this rain sometime this weekend. It's going to be a long two days otherwise. I'm accustomed to the rainy season by now. So far, it appears to be right on schedule. This will be our first Fall and Winter where we're dealing with Dot's limited mobility though. It makes things a bit harder.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2136

There's going to be another opportunity to apply for NASA press credentials to cover a resupply mission to the International Space Station in early December. I'd love to go, but predictably, I'm already making excuses. What about the dogs? Could I afford the trip? Could Janet take a couple of unscheduled vacation days to look after Dot? It's silly to fret about this, since I haven't even been accepted yet. Actually, I haven't even applied yet, but I probably will. I really enjoyed being NASA's guest at Vandenberg Air Force Base last January, so having an opportunity to do this again at Kennedy Space Center would be fantastic.

I got a call from the cancer center today telling me that it was time to schedule Dot's next ultrasound scan. It doesn't seem like it's been two months since her previous scan, but it will be soon. I made the appointment and am hoping that we'll continue to hear good news. Dot has felt so much better since we discontinued the chemotherapy treatments. I'd hate to even consider resuming them again.

I was almost certain it was going to rain when we walked the dogs this morning. The sky was heavily overcast and there was a light mist. It's even darker walking in the dark on a cloudy day. I decided that we definitely need some more streetlights in our neighborhood. As the day progressed, the chances of rain diminished and by mid-afternoon I was seeing patches of blue sky again. This would have been a good day to get all the pecan shells off the roof, but I got sidetracked by other things. If it rains tomorrow, I'm really going to wish I'd taken advantage of the opportunity to remove the messy shells while they were still dry.

I should have heard from the watch winder company about my repair by now, but I haven't. Why am I not surprised? I'm not a very high priority on anybody's list these days. Since there were no deadlines to meet today, I did some routine bookkeeping and worked out a termination agreement with the website client who wants to move on to greener, cheaper pastures. Other than walking the dogs, the only time I got out of the house was to renew a few prescriptions at the pharmacy.

I tried to get Dot's physical therapy moved back to the afternoon, but the best I could do was buy myself an extra half hour in the morning. Once again, it's amazing how time flies. It seems like it was just yesterday when I was getting the car ready to take Dot downtown for last week's appointment. I guess you know that today was the day Marty McFly and Doc traveled to in the future to repair the damage from their previous time travels. Back to the Future is all in the past now. The film accurately predicted that we would that we would be flying drones everywhere and watching large flat screen TV's, but didn't anticipate smart phones at all. I prefer the more distant futures envisioned in shows like Farscape and Lexx, but I did see all three Back to the Future movies. Wish me luck on my application to attend the Orbital ATK Cygnus launch. That's a spacey thing that's off in the future too.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2128

The vet said she thought Dash was walking better this week. I was thinking the same thing. He's not limping as much now and seems a little stronger with each passing day. It's clear that he does have a floating kneecap on his right rear leg. It's just not very clear how severe his luxating patella is. We did some tests and agreed to evaluate him again next week. Hopefully, Dash will continue to improve. If not, we can always make an appointment to see the orthopedic specialist. We'll do what needs to be done, but I'd like to avoid surgery if at all possible.

The watch winder company told me to return the defective winder in its original box, so I went to the storage warehouse to look for the box. I save a lot of boxes for precisely this reason. It took a while, but I eventually found the box and it still had the instructions and warranty card inside. I'll pack the thing up and take it to FedEx tomorrow. I'm hoping they'll just send me a new unit, instead of trying to repair the old one. Only one of the three winder motors is bad, but with my luck, one of the other motors will quit working as soon as they returned the repaired unit. I'm not sure how the watch winder company will handle this, but at least they were helpful and responsive. Some companies aren't.

I got my October invoices posted and in the mail today. It's a bit unsettling that my billings continue to decline, but I'm not going to lose any sleep over it. My business is slower because my client's businesses are slower. The whole economy sucks. Hopefully, things will pick up again before Christmas. Fall and Winter used to be one of my busiest times, but I don't have as many retail clients as I once did. One project a day is all I want. Any more and I'll be too busy. Any less and I'll start to go broke.

Someone will have to explain the Democratic debate to me. It didn't really seem like a debate at all. Every time someone said something, the rest of the candidates chimed in and essentially said "That's a good idea, but I'll do even more." Nobody criticized each other. It was just an odd love fest. Say what you will about the Republicans, but at least they dusted it up and got their hands dirty. Donald Trump was right. The debate was boring. I didn't learn anything new. That being said, Bernie Sanders was the most genuine. He may be an angry old man, but he's an honest angry old man. You can't say that about many of the others in either party.

There are no vet visits for either dog tomorrow. Actually, there's not much of anything scheduled for tomorrow. We'll see what happens.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2126

I got up early without waking Janet and the dogs and quietly went outside with my Dad's old Carl Zeiss binoculars to look for Mercury. This was the perfect day to look for the illusive planet, because it was located right next to the thin crescent of the waning moon. The pre-dawn sky was clear and I was able to find the almost impossibly thin sliver of the moon about five degrees above the horizon. Sure enough, when I looked though the binoculars, there was Mercury, right where it was supposed to be. It was a nice way to start the day.

When I was at the gym later in the day, a loud announcement came over the PA system saying DISASTER - CODE WHITE IS NOW IN EFFECT. This message was repeated several times, but nobody paid any attention to it.  I think the message referred to a pediatric medical emergency, but it could just as easily have signaled the beginning of the zombie apocalypse. The odd thing to me was although the message was clearly a warning of some sort, nobody seemed to care. Eventually one old man asked if we should leave the building, but the people using the machines next to him just shrugged their shoulders and continued listening to whatever was being piped through their earbuds. Maybe this is why we end up being surprised so frequently. Nobody listens to warnings anymore.

Maybe I should replace my Watch of the Day feature with a Things That Broke Today feature. Yesterday two tape recorders bit the dust. Today it was a watch winder. I suspect that aging rubber parts contributed to today's mishap as well. Watch winders are simple mechanisms. They use a rotating drum to keep a self winding mechanical watch wound up and running while it is not on your wrist. This particular watch winder had been running continuously for over five years, but today a red fault light was illuminated and the motor wasn't turning. I wouldn't be surprised if a rubber drive belt was used to transfer the motion of the electric motor to the rotating drum that holds the watch. Rubber drive belts break easily. I wonder who repairs these things. One more thing to research tomorrow on Google.

I could make a long list of things that are on the verge of breaking. A large sliding glass door in our house is becoming very hard to open. I've already replaced the original nylon track rollers with solid steel rollers that were supposed to last forever. I guess in today's world, forever means seventeen years. The electric lawn mower makes a loud whining noise then I mow the grass now. Sounds like a bearing is starting to go out. The garbage disposal under the kitchen sink clogs a bit too easily and there is a section of the bedroom carpet that is looking really threadbare. Actually, probably everything in the house is on the verge of breaking.

Dash had a good day. He limped a little, but not nearly as bed as he did yesterday. He rested a lot today and we made sure that when he was active that he didn't race around at full speed and aggravate his injury. It's hard to tell a Dalmatian to take it easy, but that's what we're trying to do. Dot had a pretty good day too. There were no accidents in the house and she had lots of energy on her walks.

These weeks go by so quickly. When I was using the arm bicycle at the gym, and later when I was using the Dyson to clean rugs at the house, I kept thinking "Didn't I just do this a few minutes ago." Nope, that was last week. The days, and weeks, and months just blend together in a series of repetitive actions. Tomorrow there will be more of the same. I'll pop in the shower. I'll feed the dogs. I'll fix another peach and banana smoothie for breakfast. I doubt that I'll see Mercury again though.

Katy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day