Day 4902

Just another grocery day. The day started as always with Dawn's sunrise walk. It was nice and cool this morning. I wish the temperature would stay in the low 70's for the rest of the summer, but of course that's not going to happen. I'd better enjoy this weather while it lasts, because in a month from now it's going to feel a lot different.

When we returned to the house we had a big weekend breakfast. I couldn't eat like this all the time, but it's nice to have a change of pace from my shredded wheat and fruit. Shredded wheat was on my grocery list today, but I still couldn't find any at HEB. Hopefully they'll have my favorite brand back in stock before I run out. I found everything else easy enough and was back at the house by 11 AM. I've discovered that the stores aren't nearly as crowded if I go shopping an hour earlier. Probably a lot of things would be easier if I did everything an hour earlier.

By the time I was ready for my long walk it had warmed up quite a bit. It wasn't uncomfortable though because it was still overcast outside. It always feels cooler when there is no direct sunlight. There were no ducks to count today. The Muscovy Ducks have been gone for several weeks, but the geese were gone today as well. I have no idea where the geese went. I'm not even sure that these domestic geese can fly. I thought that breaking in a new pair of Hoka shoes would ease my foot pain, but the new shoes haven't made much difference. Some days are good and other days are terrible. There's no point in going to a doctor about this. I've seen the orthopedic specialist several times and it's pretty obvious that I have arthritis.

I was going to work on my AX-2 article this afternoon, but never got around to it. I've managed to convince myself that there is no point in finishing the article until the eight day mission is complete and the Dragon capsule splashes down in the Gulf of Mexico on June 1st. Hey, I've still got plenty of time.

I resisted the urge to do another load of laundry this afternoon. I think my obsession with doing laundry is why our water bill has gone up. I hate to think what the water bill is going to be like in July when we are watering the lawn again. Actually, all the utility bills have gone up this year, but what else is new. It's just another sign of the times.

It's supposed to rain tomorrow, but I think we'll still be able to take Dawn on her Sunday outing. The rain isn't supposed to start until later in the afternoon. There has been no appreciable rain since the new roof was completed. I'm curious to see how well it drains. I'd be real disappointed if there is still standing water up there after all this trouble. I'll go to the mall again in the morning. Mall walking is another thing that would benefit from starting an hour earlier. I went earlier last week and the place was almost empty. 

I really need to make an effort to work on my article tomorrow. I need to put a new screen on the screen door at the back of the house as well. I've got a roll of screen wire. I just don't have the energy to do this anymore. Usually after my walks all I want to do is take a nap.

Libby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3127

I think the gods of keeping things too long are punishing me. When I went to the storage warehouse to pick up some more things to sell, I got a nasty surprise. The protective foam inside a mixing board's flight case had completely disintegrated, turning the inside of the case into a sticky mess. Even worse, when I finally found a guitar that had been hidden behind several large boxes the last time I looked, I discovered that the neck had cracked. It's not uncommon for a guitar neck to warp, but I'd never seen one with a large crack like this. I managed to get the vintage mixing board cleaned up, but the guitar was hopeless. I took it to the vintage guitar guys anyway, in hopes that it could be fixed. They just looked at it in dismay. They said the best I could hope for was that a British theme restaurant or sports bar would buy it as a decoration to hang on their wall. The guitar was not playable.

No wonder antiques are often so expensive. It's really hard to keep something old in new condition. If it's made of cloth, it will get eaten by moths. It is is made of metal, it will rust. If it's made of glass, you will probably end up breaking it. I'm not exactly batting 1000 in my attempt to downsize. Some things survived the ravages of time and others didn't. Now I know what the phrase 'use it or lose it" really means.

Retrieving things from the storage warehouse and cleaning them up took a lot of time, so I didn't get much done today. It could take months to clean out the warehouse. So far, it's been discouraging work. Nothing looks better than when I stored it away. Where did I ever get the idea that I could unpack this stuff decades later and it would still be as good as new? I'm still determined to unload some of this stuff, but I'm not going to get rich doing it. A lot of things need to go straight in the dumpster.

I feel sorry for the roofers if they still have to work in this weather. It's really hot. I think we set a new temperature record today. I wouldn't be surprised if the roofers canceled the repairs because of the heat, but if they do come out this week, the roof is definitely dry.

Dash and I walked around sunrise again today. I think everyone with dogs in the neighborhood had the same idea. The park was surprisingly crowded this morning, but luckily all the dogs we encountered were friendly. You almost have to walk early these days. Once the sun is high in the sky, the heat is brutal. Several people asked me about Dash's boots this morning. Their dogs weren't sick. They just wanted something to protect their dogs feet from the hot pavement. I should carry business cards for Ultra Paws with me. I'm sure I've brought them some business this Summer.

My water bill is going to be huge this month. I'm having to water the grass and shrubs almost every day. Even though it's hard to keep things green, I hope that things stay hot and dry until the roof gets fixed. As soon as the roofers get finished though,  I'm going to join the rest of Dallas and pray for rain.

Riley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2260

I dropped my car off at the dealership right after we walked the dogs this morning. Amazingly, I was able to replicate the intermittent electrical problem I've been having. This almost never happens. Usually, when I bring my car in with an intermittent problem, it works perfectly for the service technician and nobody believes there is anything wrong. Sometimes, it has taken me three or four trips to resolve these frustrating on-again, off-again problems. Who knows how long it will actually take to get the car fixed, but at least everyone believed me today.

Dot had another accident in her bed last night. She managed to eat most of the evidence again too, before either of us woke up.  Yuk. I'm surprised that Dash didn't have an accident as well. Since it was raining outside, he categorically refused to go in the yard and do his business. I told him that he'd have to hold it until morning, but he didn't seem to care. Luckily, the rain finally stopped, so I think we're back to normal again. I've really grown to appreciate a day with perfect weather. When everything else is a disaster, nice weather can really help. Nope. The weather wasn't very nice today, but it would have made life easier if it was.

Work is picking up again. I have three new articles to write and several website updates to make. There was a time when I could have done all of this in one day, but not anymore. Since I'm still limping along with a nasty cold, these new jobs could take me the rest of the week to finish. It felt like I was busy today, but at the end of the day, I'd accomplished virtually nothing.

The high points of my day were almost pathetic. I used the sanitize setting on the washing machine to clean a particularly messy dog blanket and discovered that the super hot water in the waste water lines accidentally helped to unclog a sluggish shower drain. I was fascinated with the sanitize setting when we first got the front loader, but quickly discovered that it took forever to do a load of wash and wasted a lot of water. Maybe I ought to use this setting more often if it helps to keep the plumbing lines clear. On the other hand, it is possible that this super heated water caused our underground water leak. I'm not certain what the melting point of the lead solder they used to use in old cast iron pipes, but I'm sure it is quite low. The plumber did tell me that the joints in one of the cast iron sewer lines coming out of the utility room had failed when he fixed our underground leak last year.

I finally received a credit from the water company to for the water we lost during the pipe leak. Unfortunately, I thought the credit notice was a water bill and wrote a check to the water company for the amount of the credit. How was I to know?  The credit memo looked exactly like a bill if you didn't notice the tiny type that said "no payment required. Luckily, I finally did figure out what was going on while I was looking for a stamp for the envelope and I tore up the check. I guess I should have noticed that the dollar amount on the bill was negative too. I always forget that the standard way to show negative numbers is to put them in parentheses. I'm glad I noticed my mistake, because the water company would have taken my money and just sent me a larger credit notice next month.

I know you're tired of hearing about how yucky having the flu feels, so I'll quit whining about it. Eventually, I'm bound to feel better.

Maggie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2164

So, what did I learn today? For starters, I learned that a lot of water leaked out of our broken pipe last month. I received our first water bill since our plumbing problems began, and it was humongous. I called the city to see how to go about getting an adjustment on the bill and since I was dealing with a government bureaucracy, the procedure was about ten times more complicated than it needed to be. I'm supposed to go ahead and keep paying my bills like normal, and then fill out some paperwork and send it to a completely different department to apply for an adjustment to my bill. Supposedly, about three months from now the city will apply some sort of formula based on my historic water use averages and credit back some of this month's huge bill. I wonder if the people making the adjustment and the people currently taking my money even talk to each other. At least the problem is fixed now and I only have one wonky bill to deal with.

I was going to go look at dehumidifiers in several of the big box stores today, but discovered that nobody kept them in stock. Keeping an inventory is a thing of the past. Unless you're dealing with a popular day-to-day item, most stores force you to buy online these days. Some stores ship the item to a retail store where you pick it up. Other deliver it to your home. If you actually want to look at the item before you buy, you're out of luck. It's frustrating. The reason I wanted to buy a dehumidifier locally is that my UPS guy has a habit of breaking heavy objects by just dropping the package at my door. I've had to return a number of things delivered by UPS and FedEx because they were broken when they arrived. Fragile or Handle with Care stickers mean nothing to these guys.

Faced with the prospect of buying online, I started reading the online reviews more carefully. It appears that most people feel that dehumidifiers are too noisy, only last a year before they break, and are so poorly designed that you always spill water on the floor when emptying the water reservoir.  I remember one review in particular. "Your machine sucks water out of the air just fine," the review said. "It's too bad it immediately overflowed and spilled all the water it extracted on my new carpets and ruined them." Once again, you get what you pay for. With portable dehumidifiers you've got two choices. You can pay $1400 and up for a commercial machine designed to run 24 hours a day, or pay $200 for a consumer machine that will break in a year.

When I was running errands today, the Service Required light came on in my car. I hate this ambiguous message because sometimes it means that something is seriously wrong with your car and other times it is just a reminder that it's time for your next service visit at the dealership. I didn't want to take any chances since I have to transport Dot in the car tomorrow, so I drove over to the dealership and showed them the problem. There was nothing wrong at all. It was just reminding me about the service appointment that I had already taken care of last month.

I got a call from an IT guy today telling me that he had just replaced all the web cams in one of my client's buildings. This meant that the pages for viewing these cameras no longer worked. I told him I'd fix the situation if he'd sent me send me the information I needed to create new web cam pages. Ordinarily, this would be something I could do while I was talking to the guy on the phone. Not anymore. Since I've already converted this particular site to a responsive, mobile friendly format, it is much more complex to modify. There goes tomorrow. Between taking Dot to physical therapy and adding these four live cameras back to the website, that's my entire day.

It was clear this morning and I was surprised to see how far Jupiter and Venus have moved apart in the morning sky. The last time I looked, these two planets were almost touching. It appears that even the planets are moving faster than I am these days.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1607

I took Janet to the airport again today. Sometimes I think she travels a lot. Other times, I think she's the normal one, and I've become a hopeless recluse instead. At any rate, travel's loss has become the dogs gain. It's been years since we've had to board Dot and Dash. I'm just about always here; to walk them, feed them, and nap with them. Before she left, Janet typed up an elaborate list of medication instructions for the dogs. I give Dash his chemotherapy meds on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. She usually give the other regular morning meds while I'm still asleep and the evening meds while I'm writing the blog. I don't think I'll have much problem keeping things straight. I really don't have much else to remember this week.

It was a beautiful day. The mud from Thursday's storms has mostly dried up, but the grass and foliage are still lush and green. I wish things would stay this way all Summer. Everything dries up quickly when the temperatures are in the 90's for months at a time though. It actually got up over 90 this afternoon. I keep the Summer heat at bay by paying my utility bills. Water and electricity bills can get ridiculous in Dallas in the Summer. Later in the year, there are often water use restrictions, but this early in the season, people run their sprinklers like there's no tomorrow. Ditto for electricity. If I'm having my coffee outside on a Summer morning, I'll always hear a low pitched hum that's almost as loud as the ever-present Cicadas. It's the collective noise of all the air conditioner compressors, working hard to cool the neighborhood.

I can either clear the water off the roof tomorrow, or go to the gym instead. Both activities probably burn roughly the same amount of calories. Both are necessary, and neither is particularly fun. I'll just have to see what kind of mood I'm in. Many of you might think that pushing tons of water off the roof would never be the winning choice. Overpowering the forces of nature can be oddly satisfying though. We'll see what the weather is like. If it's really hot tomorrow, I'm going to the gym. The water on the roof will evaporate on a hot day and the gym is air conditioned.

Whatever I did with the ants yesterday seems to be working. I didn't see any ants today. I was hoping that since we had quite a few hard freeze days this winter, bugs wouldn't be as much of as much of a problem this Spring. Maybe this was just wishful thinking. So far, those cold days haven't made much of a difference at all. There's always some sort of bus related crisis in Texas in the Summer. Last Summer it was mosquitoes and West Nile Disease. This year, it's conenose bugs and Chagas disease. The conenose, or "kissing bugs," as they're known in many places, carry a protozoa that is already killing dogs in South Texas. The protozoa circulates in the blood until it takes up residence in the heart and begins damaging the tissue. Often, the first clinical signs of Chagas disease in dogs is sudden death from heart failure. Yikes! One more thing to worry about. As if heartworms, lyme disease, and leptospirosis weren't enough already.

It's time for the dogs evening round of meds and a snack before bed. After that, we'll all pile on the bed, watch a little TV, and sleep in late. Sounds like a plan to me.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1558

We went up and photographed dogs at the Dalmatian Rescue kennel today. One of the dogs was actually being adopted while we were there and it was nice to see him go to his new home. There aren't as many abandoned Dalmatians anymore. I think the irresponsible people have moved on to other breeds. That's a good thing. Most of the Dalmatians who get adopted now go to homes that have had a Dalmatian before. These people love and understand the breed and the dogs find good homes. I'm sure there are still people who see a popular movie and end up wanting a dog for all the wrong reasons. At least that dog isn't a Dalmatian now. Hopefully, Disney won't make any more 101 Dalmatian movies. That movie was largely responsible for the surge in abandoned Dalmatians in 1996.

The weather got cooler again today. This is the time of year when Janet keeps turning on the air conditioner and I keep turning on the heater. Back and forth we go. During these in-between times, I'm always cold and she's always hot. In a month or so, there will be no more ambiguity. By the time June arrives, everybody will be in agreement again. Texas summers are hot.

Our water bill is going to be high next month. One of the things about new grass is that you have to water it constantly. It's ironic. We got the grass to keep the dogs from getting muddy, but now that the entire yard is a soggy mess, the dogs get muddy anyway. Hopefully, the grass will last a little longer than it did last year. The landscape guys treated for grubs again, but grubs are a perennial problem in Texas. No matter what we do, we always seem to have grubs.

I thought Janet would laugh at my idea of putting a little scarecrow on my car mirrors to ward off the pooping redbird. She apparently liked the idea though, because when she was shopping today, she got a bunch of little rubber birds at the Dollar Store and now her car has little bird scarecrows on the mirrors as well. The mailman will probably think we are crazy.

I need to go to the gym tomorrow. I need to figure out how to resume going during the week as well. Now that it appears my liver is improving, the real challenge will be avoid slipping back to my old unhealthy ways. I've always been able to rise to the occasion during difficult times. I'm a big advocate of that old "When the going gets tough, the tough get going" adage. When the danger is over, I'm a terrible backslider though. I definitely don't exercise and eat Kale for the sheer joy of it. At heart, I'm more of a bacon and beer kind of guy.

Brooke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1193

In a lot of ways, days without much to do are harder than the busy ones. I was scratching my head to come up with ways to stay busy today. I did laundry. I watered the new grass. I unclogged the large format printer. I recharged all the portable devices. I even finished my monthly essay for my writers group a week early.

When I was walking the dogs this morning, I noticed that bulldozers were tearing down another house in the neighborhood. One by one, all the little frame houses are coming down and being replaced by mansions. Our part of town has become trendy and desirable in recent years, but apparently the new buyers are too snooty to live in the little frame houses that have surrounded the lake for as long as I can remember. Property values are going up, but only because someone wants to tear down your house.

I was pleasantly surprised to discover something new on the breakfast menu this morning. Since I was eating at the restaurant with the good bacon, I guess I never noticed the healthy section of the menu before. What I ordered were Eggs Benedict with Cuban black bean cakes and grilled tomato slices, all covered with a spicy Chipotle Hollandaise sauce. Although the meal was definitely not a diet item, it was probably much healthier than the plates piled high with sausages, bacon and waffles swimming in maple syrup that I used to order at this place.

My water bill is going to be huge next month. I'm supposed to water the new grass and vegetation for about an hour a day for the next thirty days. The trouble with watering our yard is that the roots from all the large oak and elm trees suck up all the water. The trees stay healthy, but the yard dries out quickly, no matter what you do. I'm determined to keep things wet this time though. Too much effort has gone into this yard just to see it dry up and die again.

Got a call from the Land Rover dealer around supper time saying that my Defender was ready to pick up. Damn. I was hoping to drive the trouble-free new LR2 loaner car for another week or so. Even with the new engine seals and a brand new fuel pump, I still don't trust the Defender. It has reached that awkward age when, as soon as you fix one thing, another thing breaks.

I'm hoping for a totally uneventful weekend. It's going to be cold outside, so staying inside and watching old movies on Hulu Plus and maybe playing the guitar a bit sounds pretty good to me.

Brooke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 928

Summer has its own set of rules. The other day, someone was asking me why I wear black t-shirts almost exclusively during the Summer. I guess they were expecting to hear that I admired Steve Jobs, or that I thought it looked stylish or something. The truth is that black is just about the only color you can wear outside during Texas Summers that doesn't show huge ugly sweat stains under your armpits after about five minutes. You still sweat of course, but it doesn't look like it.

We tried to get up and photograph the new Dalmatians at the Velvet Snout early this morning, but beating the heat was a futile effort. It was hot in the middle of the night last night and it's still hot right now. I took the pictures quickly today, so the dogs could get back inside again.

Do people tag you on Facebook a lot?  I hate to be tagged, because usually someone has dredged up an old picture that is so dismal it makes me look like warmed over death. Nobody needs to see my high school pictures again. Imagine my surprise when I looked at my wall this morning and saw an old picture that I actually liked. Someone had posted a picture of me playing in a band long, long ago. I couldn't remember where the picture was taken, or even the name of the band I was playing in. It was definitely me though. I recognized the Vox Mark VII guitar that I bought from the earnings of a high school summer job. I wish I had taken better care of that guitar. It would be worth quite a bit now if it hadn't gotten ruined by moisture when I stored it away in a damp closet for ten years. This was before I even moved to Dallas, mind you. Water damage problems have followed me around for a long time.

It's amazing how quickly things go from one extreme to the other here in Texas. At the beginning of June, we were drenched with rain. The grass and the shrubs were growing like wildfire and I thought we were finally going to have a decent Summer. Now, just a few weeks later, everything is bone dry. I need to remember to deep water the Photinia Bushes in the backyard and the Wax Myrtle out front. I got behind on things last Summer and a few trees died as a result. Not this year. We'll just have a humongous water bill instead.

Tucker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 583

The water bill is going to be horrendous this month. I turn on the sprinklers and then I keep forgetting to turn them off again. Maybe it's because so many things turn themselves off automatically these days. The washing machine turns itself off when its done. The coffee maker turns itself off. Even the new television turns itself off when we go to sleep. Maybe I should get some more of those battery powered timers that attach to the faucet. I've bought them before and they all seem to last about two weeks. It really shouldn't be that hard to remember to turn the sprinklers off after a couple of hours.

I feel like I've doubled the size of one of the veterinary websites I manage today. When I started working for these folks, they had eight employees. Now they have over thirty. Since they like to feature employee bios on the site, I need to bring things up to date periodically. This isn't even the largest vet I work for either. Another veterinarian I work with has over fifty employees. If you are young and still considering a career path, you definitely ought to look into veterinary medicine. I'm sure there are unsuccessful vets somewhere, but I sure don't know any. If you don't think you've got what it takes to make it through vet school, just open a doggie day care center. These businesses are becoming increasingly popular too.

I couldn't figure out why my foursquare score kept going up and down. Then, someone told me today that the points are reset every week. I suddenly lost interest in the game. If the points aren't cumulative, I'll never get anywhere. I don't even leave the house all that much.

Trash day again. I just got back from hauling this week's accumulation of trash out to the street for pickup early tomorrow morning. Yeah, I know it's Friday tomorrow, but when the trash can is empty, I consider the week officially over.

Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day