Day 2630

We're definitely having an early Spring. It's not surprising, since temperatures have already topped 80 degrees several times this month. It's weird to see trees turning green and wildflowers starting to bloom in February, but that's what's happening. It's a shame that Texas weather is so unpredictable. Probably just as soon as everything is in full bloom, there will be a big ice storm and all the flowers will freeze. It has happened before. Actually, this happens just about every Winter. Texas plants must be pretty resilient.

I wonder how many coyotes we have in the neighborhood. Just about every morning I'll run into someone walking their dog who asks me if I've seen the coyotes. We've all seen the coyotes by now. One neighbor told me that his dog ran out the front door last week and went to play with the coyotes. "I thought Daisy was a goner," he told me. I was expecting to hear a sad story, but fifteen minutes later, his dog came home unharmed. There are also bobcats in the neighborhood. I'd be more worried about the bobcats than the coyotes.

Dash continues to improve. He seems just about back to normal now, which if you knew Dash, isn't very normal at all. Now comes the hard part. We've got to convince him to start eating dry dog food again. He loves the canned food we've been feeding him while he recovers and he's pretty stubborn to begin with. It's going to be hell convincing him to eat kibble again. Dash has a tendency to get crystals in his urine, so we put a lot of research into finding a diet that was healthy and would prevent crystals and kidney stones. The diet works, so one way or another, we've got to get him eating it again.

I stopped by the bank again on the way to the grocery store to try and resolve my safe deposit box issue. This time there were even more people waiting in the lobby than there were yesterday. Why do all these people need to talk with a banker? I didn't have the patience to join the queue, so once again I'll have to come back later. Maybe all the people in the lobby got the same letter I did. It's always a possibility. If I was smart I would wait a month or two before returning to this bank. Eventually, all these other people will get their problems solved.

The app that allows me to bypass the checkout line at the grocery store was working again this week. All my purchases from last week were still there though. I had to manually erase each of them before I could start putting groceries in my cart. I love bypassing the checkout line, but this experience is a reminder that technology is only a time-saver when it works.

Dot's new pain pills seem to be keeping her more comfortable. Unfortunately, they aren't making her any stronger. What this means is that she wants to be more active, but still stumbles around and falls over without my assistance. I spent most of the afternoon holding up her rear legs while she walked around the house and smelled things in the back yard. I always try to encourage her to move around when she feels like it. It takes a lot of time, but I probably need the exercise too.

I had some website updates to complete this morning. There isn't a lot of difference between weekdays and weekends anymore. We sleep a little later in the morning on weekends, but that's about it. This client was very nice and just told me to make the updates when I had some extra time. Even though there was no rush, I still felt compelled to do the job right away. I guess I'll always be this way.

I"m going to try and go to the gym early tomorrow. Maybe this way I can complete my workout while Dot is still asleep. I keep trying to construct a predictable world, but it just isn't going to happen.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2512

Sometimes on Sundays I stare at the screen for thirty minutes before I write a single word. I'm just too tired. I went to the gym right after breakfast this morning, because I knew that if I waited until I finished the household chores, I probably wouldn't go at all. Right after breakfast wasn't that early though. It was actually closer to lunch. By the time we cleaned up Dot's latest accident in the house and gave the dogs their morning walk, it was already pretty late.

There are no pretty faces at my gym. I can't believe that everyone is so old. They are a steely eyed, very determined bunch though. A lot of the men look like they were CEO's before they retired. One old guy always exercises in a button down dress shirt and street shoes. It's like he's still at the office. I probably look just as old to these geezers. Especially if I arrive after I've vacuumed the house.

It's really hard to keep the house clean when Dot keeps peeing and pooping all over the place. I try though. Every Sunday the Dyson picks up an unbelievable amount of dirt and dog hair. Maybe the house smells a little better, but it certainly doesn't look much better. I sure wish this vacuum cleaner was easier to clean. I mean how many people need to use a leaf blower to clean their vacuum cleaner? The leaf blower actually does a pretty good job, but it would have made a lot more sense for Dyson to use a bag to catch the dust like everybody else does.

I received input for several new website updates this afternoon, but I'm going to wait until tomorrow to look at it. Enough is enough. Working on weekends must be becoming more commonplace. Everyone is doing it now. Even Janet is bringing home work on weekends. I can probably get everything done tomorrow, but I definitely don't want to deal with it tonight.

I wonder if Anthony Weiner used a Macintosh? Huma Abedin claims that she has no idea how 650,000 of her e-mails wound up on Weiner's computer. She probably does know, but giving her the benefit of the doubt, if she ever opened an account on her husband's computer, all the e-mails she was sending on other computers could have quietly been updating on this one as well. Cloud-based computing can be sneaky that way. I know that when I send or receive an e-mail on my computer, it winds up on my phone, iPad, and laptop as well. 650,000 e-mails sounds like the mother lode of everything the FBI has been looking for. This is probably even more information than Wikileaks has. With this much information, there is probably something pretty damning. I know she won't do it, but Hillary should withdraw from the race immediately for the good of the country. If she wins and gets indited after the election, all hell is going to break loose. She could always pardon herself, but I don't think that is going to go over very well. I don't think there is much of a precedent for running the country from prison either. Just let Tim Kane run. He'll do most of the things the democrats want anyway. Hillary is toxic at this point.

I'm a great believer in Karma. Bill Clinton only got a slap on the wrist for his own misdeeds. He not only was a friend of Anthony Weiner, he introduced him to Huma Abedin and actually married the couple. A few dick pics later and everything comes crumbling down. Hey buddy, what goes around comes around. I have no sympathy for these fools.

I can't wait for the time to change next week. I'm getting real tired of walking the dogs in the dark before breakfast. Of course, when the time actually does change,  I'll be complaining about walking in the dark in the evenings. That's just the way I roll.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2462

Nothing works anymore. Our security light went out last night. When the electrician replaced the fixture a few months ago with a new LED light, he said this would be the last security light we would even need. Wishful thinking, I guess. The last forever fixture lasted about six months. It's not like this was the only thing that wouldn't work this morning. I got a no signal error when I turned on the TV and had to reboot the set top box. My phone wouldn't connect to the WiFi network as well. Rebooting fixed both balky devices, but why should I have to do this every other day? When I went to get groceries, the Scan and Go app that I've been bragging about had trouble reading bar codes. The oven seems fine though. Just three days ago, I thought the oven was a lost cause. The point I'm trying to make is that very few things are reliable these days. You're always waiting for the other shoe to drop. I never open the sunroof on my car because once Janet's sunroof got stuck in the open position just before a rain storm and everything inside the car got soaked. I've never had much faith in people, but it sure would be nice if I could have faith in my machines again.

I had some complicated website revisions to make this afternoon. The job should have been easy, but the files I received had been corrupted and I had to recreate them from scratch. I get a lot of work on weekends now. The people who send me these assignments must not read the blog or they would know how I feel about working on weekends. Working 24/7 is a badge of honor to some people. Maybe these guys mistakenly think I'm one of them. Not that it matters, but I did get the job finished.

It rained a lot last night. The sound of the wind woke me up and that's when I noticed that it was really dark in the back yard. Normally, I go right back to sleep when I wake up, but the darkness make me uneasy and I walked around the house checking things before I eventually went back to bed. Nobody else woke up. By morning, everything seemed normal again and I wondered if I'd just imagined things. The ground was wet and the temperature was a lot cooler, so the brief storm must have been real.

One of my doctors called and told me that my PSA levels were too high and they wanted to retest them in a month. Years ago, I would have been alarmed by this news, but today I was just irritated. My PSA levels have fluctuated wildly my whole life and I don't think they mean very much. I've read numerous studies that confirm my skepticism. I suspect that this test, like many others, is mostly a way for doctors and labs to generate extra money. The older I get, the less a lot of this stuff matters. No matter what I do, I'm not going to live forever. I'm starting to feel the same way about Dot's cancer rechecks. If one of her periodic scans showed the tumors were growing again, what could we do? Not much at this point.

Dash seems kind of lethargic today. I hope nothing is wrong with him. I feel a bit lethargic too, but my problem is just a lack of sleep. Hopefully, we'll all sleep well tonight. I'm going to need some extra energy to make it to the gym tomorrow.

Cleo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2400

I like big, round numbers like 2400. I'm only 100 days away from the halfway point of this journey. I wonder if I'll be able to continue this peculiar marathon for 5000 consecutive days? Will I run out of things to say, or have I already run out of things to say. It's often hard to tell the difference. When you spend year after year ending each day with a 500 word recap, you start to realize that life consists of a relatively small number of recurring themes. There are so many thing that all of us do over and over again. I'd still like to think that this somewhat monotonous journey is a grand adventure. There has to be some small justification for the thousands of hours I've spent telling this tale. I hope I don't wake up one morning thinking that this has all been a monumental waste of time. I'd really like to make it to Day 5000.

I've learned some valuable things about life along the way, but I definitely don't learn something every day. Some days I just try to chart a course that takes me from waking up to drifting off to sleep again. Today, I thought I'd clean the house before I went to the gym. One reason the house is so dirty is that when I wait until I return from the gym, I'm too tired to do anything else. I vacuumed, did the laundry, and returned the rugs that had been drying in the back yard to their original places. I finished my chores and arrived at the gym a few hours later than usual. I was surprised at how crowded the place was.  Could a few hours really make this much difference?

Dot seemed a bit tired today. Janet thought we should just let her rest, but I thought she still needed a little bit of exercise. I felt a bit guilty when she immediately went back to her bed looking exhausted and went to sleep as soon as we returned. Maybe she did need to rest today. I really try not to push her too hard, but I know that physical therapy is not a part time activity. You have to be relentless with physical therapy in order to make any progress. Later in the day, Dot bounced back and I felt a little better. It's still hard to know where to draw the line however. If Dot seems to want to walk, we walk; even if it takes us forever to go around the block.

I think desire is everything and I want to encourage Dot to maintain her desire to live. We must be doing something right, because if she makes it through the summer, we will be sharing our lives with a 17 year old Dalmatian. There aren't many 17 year old Dalmatians. In many ways, the journey Dot has already made is much more remarkable than my own quest to create a 5000 day journal.

In addition to my household chores and workout routines, I updated some websites this afternoon. Working on weekends is commonplace now, mostly because my clients seem to have more important things to do during the week. Websites aren't as much of a priority now. Everybody still has one, but they often don't spend much time thinking about it. I guess getting my assignments on Friday afternoon is still a lot better than not getting them at all.

I continue to do my assignments immediately, as if they were rush jobs, because I don't want to acknowledge how irrelevant I've become. I continue to post a blog entry every single day, because I'm afraid that if I skip even a single day, I'll conclude that the whole experiment was a silly pursuit and just quit. I continue to walk Dot each and every day, because I realize how quickly one can become an invalid. I never give up, but there are times when I would like to.

Good grief. Dot just pooped in her bed again and it looks like she's about to eat it. Gotta go.

Keller is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2377

I treated the yard for mosquitoes today. It's too early to tell whether the spray treatment works, but the entire yard now smells like a giant Citronella Candle. I tried to pick a time to spray the yard when I knew the dogs would be asleep, but as soon as I finished, they both woke up and needed to go out and pee. The bottle says this stuff is completely safe around pets, but it would have been nice if they'd given the yard a chance to dry before we tested that theory. I wiped their paws off with a rag and they both went back inside and resumed their nap .

Breakfast was enjoyable this morning. I'm trying new things, and so far the experiment seems to be going well. It may not seem earth shattering to try something different for breakfast, but for me it is. For over three years I went to the same place and ordered the same thing every Friday morning. Those days appear to be over now, whether I like it or not. I didn't really ask for this variety, but maybe it's for the best. At any rate, my Eggs Benedict were quite tasty this morning.

I'm still wondering whether I'm going to run out of money this month. I paid the Visa bill and my annual homeowners insurance today, but the Mastercard bill with the humongous car repair charge hasn't arrived yet. It's going to be a close call. I guess I don't really need to pay my credit card bills in full every month, but partial payments seem like a slippery slope. I've always paid my bills on time. If something ever happened where I couldn't, I think it would be a very ominous sign.

I seem to get most of my work assignments on Fridays now. I'm not complaining, but it would be nice if I were able to spread the work out during the week. As it stands, I often end up working weekends even though the office is dead quiet during the rest of the week. I have a couple of new assignments this weekend. Some of the assignments could probably wait until Monday, but I have a feeling that I'll be working this weekend anyway. My compulsion to turn work assignments around as soon as I receive them is almost as strong as my compulsion to pay bills on time.

I've got a birthday coming up this weekend. I've always been a typical Gemini with a need to have two of everything. Lately, the things that come in pairs seem to be bad knees and sore elbows. It's a bitch celebrating a body that is falling apart. Hey, I'm still here though. Every time I look at Dot, I realize it's all about attitude. If she can keep hanging in there, so can I.

Bali is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2350

The mosquitoes are terrible this year. I must have been bitten a dozen times while we were walking the dogs this morning. Mosquitoes always seems to carry something nasty. Last Summer everyone was worried about West Nile Virus. This year it's the Zika Virus. Of course, the dogs always have to worry about getting heartworms from a mosquito bite. That's why Dot and Dash continue to take a heartworm pill at the first of every month. I wish there was a place where mosquitoes weren't a problem, but I don't think this place exists. Even when I was growing up in Alaska, there was a terrible mosquito problem in the Summer. I don't know how you get rid of the insects without harsh chemicals. We've tried UV bug zapper lights that didn't work very well. One year we had a weird contraption in the back yard that generated a cloud of carbon dioxide gas that was supposed to cause the mosquitoes to move elsewhere. It didn't work at all. There is an organic spray that isn't toxic to the dogs that you can apply with a garden hose. We tried this last year and it worked well until the first big rain washed it all away. I'm not sure what remedy I'm going to try this year, but I'm sure I'll try something. I'm tired of getting bitten by the little beasts.

Today seemed more like a work day than a Saturday. I spent the morning completing a major website update involving adding 73 new pictures with captions. I probably could have waited until Monday to finish this update, but I knew that I'd enjoy Sunday a lot more without a deadline hanging over my head. It took a while to make all the changes, but the job is done. Now I can spend the rest of my weekend vacuuming, cleaning up dog poop, and other fun things.

Butter was on my grocery list today. I always get butter at Sam's Club because you save a lot of money buying in bulk. Unfortunately, I should have looked at the packaging a little more carefully before I made today's purchase. Instead of regular sticks of butter, I had gotten huge logs of butter that must have been meant for restaurants. Jeez, how was I to know. The packaging looked almost identical. I had to drive all the way back to the store and exchange the restaurant sized logs of butter for some regular sized sticks.

It took forever to balance my checkbook this afternoon. I used to do this routinely, but now I despise the task and only bother to straighten things out every two or three months. Inevitably, I discover that I've entered something erroneously in Quickbooks that causes a mysterious discrepancy, For a writer, I'm atrociously bad at typing. It typically takes me longer to proofread my articles than it does to write them. Finding math errors I've made takes even longer. If I had more money in the bank, I wouldn't even bother to balance my checkbook at all. Tracking down missing pennies is a waste of time.

I think I could write a book on the nuances of cleaning up dog poop. As Dot's incontinence has gotten worse, my cleanup technique has gotten better. Things that are hard to clean like carpets must always be protected. There are lots of small rugs now that can be thrown in the washing machine after being hosed off outdoors. There are lots of comfy acrylic dogs blankets that can be washed over and over again. Under the blankets are rubberized pads, in case she pees as well. When Dot goes to sleep, I lift up her butt a bit and slide a disposable puppy training pad underneath. If I'm lucky, I can slide the soiled pad out, roll it up and throw it away, without even waking her up when she poops in her sleep. I buy these disposable pads in 100 count boxes now. That's what life has become.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2307

My bank sent me one of those new credit cards with a chip in it. At first I didn't think the card was real, since it was completely flat and looked like it was made out of cardboard. There were no embossed, raised numbers like there always are on conventional cards. I guess the bank thought all those old fashioned carbon copy credit card readers are gone. Maybe they just wish the old 'knuckle buster" machines would go away. I still know of a few small merchants and local restaurants that use them. At any rate, it's the end of an era. I don't know what plumbers and electricians are going to do. My plumber still places the card under his invoice and rubs over the paper with a pencil to trace an image of the raised card number. As many of you already know, I'm not a huge fan of progress. Transactions seem to take twice as long with these new chip cards. To me, they're a nuisance.

I started the day by completing the website update assignment I received yesterday evening. That was a bit of a nuisance too. I suppose I could have waited until Monday to start this, but what if the client really needed it? I may be old and business may be slow, but being responsive is still in my DNA. I've always turned jobs around in a timely manner and have never missed a deadline since I started the company in 1990. The update took a while, but at least it's out of the way. Now, I can spend my time on important things like cleaning up dog poop.

I was bragging about Dot yesterday, but my luck ran out today. She had another accident while I was taking a shower and it took me quite a while to get her cleaned up again. We buy Nature's Miracle enzyme cleaner by the gallon now and our washing machine is going constantly. I was initially really disappointed with the complicated front loader after having to replace the wax motor on the door lock twice, but lately it has been working like a charm. I don't think washers and dryers in laundromats get as much use as ours do since Dot has become incontinent.

Janet got a new iPhone today, and now I want one too. The 6S is much faster than my old 5 model and the retina screen is visibly sharper than anything I've seen on a phone before. It's hard to justify purchases you don't need though. I definitely don't need a new phone. Mine works just fine. I really don't need much of anything, but I'm itching to buy something. It's kind of ironic. When I'm really busy, I never think about buying things. When work slows down and I'm poor, that's when I want to buy things. It shouldn't work that way.

The rain returned this afternoon. Even though Dash and I got wet on our evening walk, I'm not going to complain about the rain. Today's rain actually did me a favor, since I needed to water the front lawn. Now, I'm OK for a while. I can never remember what the watering days are in our neighborhood. Water restrictions were put in place a few years ago when there was a drought, and even though we had a tons of rain last year and the lakes are full, the water restrictions are still in place. I learned a long time ago that once a government regulation is in place, you've pretty much got to learn to live with it forever.

I guess I'll go to the gym tomorrow. I get bored walking on the treadmill, but I do like shooting baskets on the basketball court and I enjoy seeing lots of steps on my activity tracker. Sometimes Sunday's are 20,000 step days.

Livy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2306

The garbage truck didn't pick up my trash this morning. My can was lined up on the street, just like all the other cans, but the truck drove right by and ignored it. I saw this in the distance as we were returning from our walk with Dot and Dash, but there was nothing I could do. As we got closer, I saw the recycle truck approach and asked the guys if they could take my trash. They said it wasn't in a blue recycle can, so they couldn't help me. "But it's all nicely bagged," I said, holding up one of the black trash bags as they drove away. You can't argue with garbageman. Damn. Now there isn't going to be enough room for next week's trash. Janet told me that I have a serious case of OCD if I was fretting about the trash can, but that's how I roll.

I don't think I'd make a good food critic. My breakfast was delicious at the new restaurant this morning, but all I could think about were the people sitting next to me. I felt out of place. Everyone was nicely dressed and there were way too many children. Even well behaved children are too noisy for me. One of the features of this place was a series of large roll-up doors that could be opened to let the outside in. They decided the weather was nice enough to open all the doors about halfway through my meal and immediately I felt too cold. It didn't seem to bother anybody else and many customers chose to sit outside on the patio. I'm sure I'll go back again, but the restaurant felt a bit too upscale for me. I felt more comfortable in the little hole in the wall place I ate last Friday with all the hipster beards.

It was cloudy all day, so I didn't get a chance to see Mercury right next to the moon after sunset. I did watch the live feed of the Space X Dragon launch though and was amazed to see the first stage booster rocket successfully land on a barge in the Atlantic Ocean after lofting its cargo into orbit. The barge wasn't much bigger than the rocket. I was very impressed. If I were younger, I'd love to work for Space X. These guys are amazing. I'm certainly no rocket scientist, but I'm sure they have a graphics department. If anyone can get us to Mars, it is probably Elon Musk.

Work was slow all day and then I got an assignment right at the end of the day when I was getting ready to shut down the computer. This happens frequently now. My work isn't a priority anymore. People forget about me until the end of the day, when they want to go home. I could probably wait until Monday to start this assignment, but my work ethic and compulsive nature will probably force me to do the job tomorrow morning.

Dot is completely unpredictable. After yesterday's series of disasters, I wasn't expecting much today. When I went out to mow the grass, I was sure there would be a smelly mess when I returned. Ditto for when I went to pick up take-out burgers for dinner. So far, it's been clear sailing all the way. Knock on wood, but maybe I'll even get a good night sleep tonight.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2118

On Saturdays we make lists. There are groceries to replenish. Sometimes we need furnace filters. Other times its light bulbs. Clothes get taken to the dry cleaner and dogs get washed. We seem to run out of everything from dog biscuits to bottled water at an alarming rate. I like to think we lead a simple, frugal life, but maybe we don't. We never shop together. That would be pointless. Sometimes if I find a better deal on something, I'll text Janet so she can take it off her list. Often I'll come home and discover that we already have something I just got at the store. Hey, the lists aren't perfect.

The dogs did a much better job of sleeping in this morning. I don't know if they understand the concept of weekends, but they did let us sleep until almost 7 AM this morning. No accidents either. That's always a good way to start the day. I was amazed that it was only 57 degrees when we left the house this morning. If only it were this nice all the time. I'd better enjoy the nice weather while it lasts. Usually around Halloween the rainy season starts again. April and October are my favorite months in Texas. The other ten months make me wonder why I moved here.

I did a little website work this afternoon. I certainly didn't need to work today, but the dogs were sleeping nicely and I didn't want to wake them. If I go outside, they think it's time for a walk. If I go in the kitchen, they think it's time for dinner. They seldom get excited when I'm in the office though. Even a dog knows that what I do at the computer is boring. I got quite a bit done before Dash realized that it actually was time for dinner. Once he sounded the alarm, Dot was quick to follow.

I'm not really wild about the new season of Dr. Who, but I'm eagerly watching each new episode anyway. Maybe they'll get better. The relationship between Clara and the Doctor has always seemed a bit odd to me. Rose and Amy Pond were much more effective as the Doctor's companions. The thing that bothers me is that Clara and the Doctor both seem to have embraced the role of superheros. They start each episode looking for trouble and they find it. It's almost like a cartoon. I still watch though. I can't think of anything better to do on a Saturday night.

The Martian is in movie theaters now. Will I go watch it on the big screen or just wait a few months until I happen to see a the DVD in Sam's Club when I'm out buying toilet paper? You guys probably already know the answer to this one. You never know. I could be super bored on a Tuesday afternoon sometime and notice that the movie is still playing at a nearby dollar theater. It's not likely that I've ever drive across town to see it.

Tomorrow it's time to go to the gym again. It's probably time for vacuuming, mowing and all the other Sunday chores too. Time sure flies. This time last week I was charging camera batteries and getting ready to take pictures at the Dalmatian Rescue golf tournament. If you're wondering what the strange looking flower is, it grows on an aptly named tree called a Buttonbush.

Hobbs is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2090

The holiday weekend is getting off to a good start. Miraculously, the dogs let us sleep in a little this morning. Even though we got up later, Dot didn't poop in her bed. That's always a good sign. We set off on our morning walk around 7:30 AM, which is much later than normal. Dot continues to get stronger and I've noticed recently that she is actually starting to walk a little faster. Dash, on the other hand, is still acting strange. He is still finicky about eating in the morning, but seems completely normal the rest of the day. I don't know what's wrong. Maybe nothing is wrong at all. We're thinking about switching the brand of food he eats, just to see if that makes a difference. I'll ask the oncologist if we need to bring in Dash for another round of tests when I take Dot for her next Ultrasound scan this coming Friday.

Having bacon for breakfast made it seem like a holiday, but when I turned on the computer and checked my e-mail, I knew it was going to be another work day. There was a long list of website revisions to make. I guess I could have postponed the updates until Tuesday, but it made much more sense to go ahead and do them now. It's not like I was going to do anything special today anyway. Today's changes involved altering a Wordpress site. I've grown to hate Wordpress because clients often pick a template and then immediately set about trying to change it. It is almost always easier for me to create a custom site than it is to modify someone else's Wordpress template. Oh, well. Like I said, I didn't have much to do today.

We're trying to figure out how to clean the rugs we use to keep Dot from falling in the house. The little ones will fit in the washing machine, but most of them are too big even for commercial laundromat machines. The rugs in the kitchen are the worst, because that's where the dogs like to hang out. The Dyson is pretty amazing, but even this super vacuum is no match for two Dalmatians eating breakfast for several months. I'm torn between buying a power washer and renting one of those Bissell carpet cleaners. A power washer might actually work pretty well, since the rugs are all made of synthetic material that dries quickly. I need to clean all the spider webs off the windows anyway, so why not take the rugs outside and clean them both with a power washer at the same time. The only downside to this plan is that we'd have to buy even more rugs, so Dot would have something to walk on while the other rugs dried. If I spent my time trying to solve real problems instead of fretting about dirty rugs and broken optical drives, Lord knows what I might accomplish.

Yes, I did make one more attempt to revive the DVD burner in my desktop Mac. I failed again. The thing is probably just dirty, but there is no easy way to clean these drives anymore. My older Mac towers had flat CD trays that slid out to insert a disc. You could buy special cleaning discs that had a little brush glued to the surface of the disc. You would put some solvent on the brush, insert the cleaning disc in the players and run it for a few minutes. The brush cleaned off the laser head and almost always cured sluggish or faulty optical drives. If worse came to worse, you could just unscrew the entire broken drive from the chassis and replace it with a new one. New Macintosh computers are completely different. Almost nothing is meant to be serviced yourself. Some components are epoxied directly to the motherboard, so they can't be removed at all. I have no idea how I'd remove the optical drive from my current Mac. You can't even open the case. I'm sure Apple would prefer that I just buy a new one.

It looks like I'm going to have time to go to the gym tomorrow. I skipped my workout last Sunday since I was doing the photoshoot with the two children and their menagerie of animals. Nothing exciting like that this weekend, so it looks like I'll have to burn off some calories on the treadmill.

Allie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1985

Things are looking up. The U-verse technician was already out in the alley working on the line when we took the dogs on their morning walk. By the time we returned, our Internet was working again. I'm still not sure how U-verse actually works but I'm glad it's up and running. U-verse is supposed to be a super fast fiber optic connection, but a copper wire actually comes into the house. This copper wire is necessary, because very few televisions, computers, and phones will connect directly to a fiber optic cable. I'm sure the copper slows things down though. U-verse isn't really much faster than anything else. To the technicians credit, our Internet is faster than it was last week though. I guess the technician accomplished something.

I got my car back today as well. It's nice driving a decent sized car again. I've never felt comfortable in small cars. Before I had dogs, I used to drive Citroëns. The Citroën is the Tardis of automobiles. These eccentric French cars don't look that big on the outside but the interiors seem huge. Having Dalmatians made me a believer in driving something even bigger than a Citroën, and I've had various SUV's ever since. The gas mileage is horrible, but the trips to the vet are a lot easier.

Luckily, we didn't have to go to the vet today, because the rain continued unabated. I don't know what I used to do before I had weather radar on my phone. I totally depend on the radar app now, checking it multiple times a day to find the perfect time to run errands and walk the dogs. I used to live in Seattle, and it never used to rain like this. Who would have thought that Texas would be wetter than Seattle someday. The rain has become a nuisance, but things are sure looking green. I think when July arrives, we're going to appreciate our exceptionally wet Spring.

I worked on websites again this afternoon. I don't typically work on weekends, but there's a lot of stuff I need to get finished and what else are you going to do on a rainy day anyway? If you've got a kid who can't find a job, tell them to learn how to build mobile websites. I noticed that the mobile traffic on my own website went up dramatically since I converted it to a mobile friendly design last week. This either means that Google really favors mobile now, or that I was getting no mobile traffic at all before I made the switch. Creating mobile websites is going to be a boom industry for a while. I suspect that every single website on the planet will eventually find it necessary to scrap their static sites in an effort to attract mobile traffic as well.

Janet and I are getting forgetful. Dash had a birthday a few days ago and we completely forgot about it. We tried to make amends by having a little party for the boy this evening. We used to make special cakes for the dogs and everything. I even went to a cake decorating class once, just to learn how to make the ultimate dog cake. Today the dogs got a doggie cupcake from Sprinkles, and more importantly they got to share some of the burgers we were having for dinner. It's hard to believe that Dash is ten now. I still go around telling people he is seven. How time flies.

Neither of the dogs understands that holiday weekends are for sleeping in. They got us up early this morning and I suspect that they will do the same tomorrow. It's OK though. I'm glad both dogs are still energetic and eager to start the day after all they've been through the past year. I'll be checking the weather radar again tomorrow to see if I can find them a little dry time.

Willie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1894

I went to Home Depot while Janet was watching Dot to stock up on furnace filters, drain cleaners, plungers, light bulbs and other mundane items that never seem to be there when you need them. On the way home, I paid another visit to the storage warehouse and resumed my search for the Anton Bauer battery charger. This time I found the elusive gadget, although it remains to be seen whether this charger is any better than the other one at home which appears to be worthless. I'll give the batteries 24 hours on the charger before I declare the entire effort a lost cause.

Dot seems to have reached some sort of plateau. She's not getting better and not getting worse. When I lift her up with the harness, she will move her legs but they will not support any weight. I try to hold her at just the right height, so her legs just touch the ground and she can simulate walking. Nobody's fooling anyone though. She and I both know that this is not really walking. For those of you who have asked, Dot's surgery is scheduled for next Thursday.

Since life is kind of hectic right now, I didn't finish all my assignments before the weekend rolled around. Watching over Dot this afternoon gave me an opportunity to catch up on everything. I wrote another article and shipped it off to its destination. I completed the updates on two more websites and looked at a video link that a client sent me. When people e-mail me YouTube links with a subject line saying "beautiful example," it usually means that they'd like to do something similar. I guess if we need to copy something, this would be a good place to start. The video was quite nice.

I'm grateful that we don't have to deal with all the snow that people on the East Coast are getting, but our Winter has still been a bit strange. One day it will be freezing cold and the next day it will seem like Spring. The plants are getting very confused. I have already seen daffodils blooming in the park and some trees are starting to bud. This is unfortunate, because there is more cold weather on the way. We are supposed to have freezing rain and sleet on Monday and Tuesday. Freezing rain is just a code word for power outage to me. I hate freezing rain.

I've got everything I need now to unclog the slow bathroom drain, so I guess that's what I'll do tomorrow. Maybe something more exciting will intervene and allow me to postpone this loathsome task. I certainly hope so. I need to get the water off the roof too, but I'm a bit wary about climbing up on the roof these days. Seeing Dot's condition reminds me that these things can happen to people as well. The last thing I need right now are back problems.

Lizzy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day