Day 1990

I'm torn between a desire for more work and an equally strong desire to just pack it in and formally retire. It would be nice to be able to buy a new car whenever I felt like it and acquire new cameras and watches with reckless abandon, but I'm not sure it is worth the effort any more. When I started my company, I used to tell students and freelancers to never work for anyone who paid you out of their own pocket. Things were much easier when all my clients were large corporations and the bills went to the accounts payable departments instead the owner of the company. Now virtually all my customers are small businesses and nothing is ever fast enough or cheap enough. It becomes tiring after a while.

I only mention this because some new work came my way today and all of it seemed about as interesting as cleaning up Dot's dog poop. Truthfully, I have been interested in learning how to design responsive, mobile friendly websites, but I'm not making any money doing this. I actually gave away my first two mobile friendly sites because I felt vaguely guilty that my clients didn't have this capability already. I'm just not very aggressive about making money anymore. When people ask me to do something these days, my first response is usually to try and talk them out of doing the job. It's only when they're persistent that I agree to take on new work. I usually know in advance that the job isn't going to pay very well and the client is going to be picky anyway. It's hard to get excited about all this because I still remember the days when corporate clients used to fly me around the world and pay me large sums of money for just coming to their meetings and talking a good game.

I still put in a good days honest work, but what matters to me now are the dogs. They both got a long, rain-free walk this morning and Dot spent the afternoon with me at her physical therapy session. She did great today in the underwater treadmill and seemed to enjoy her acupuncture therapy. Even the vet was impressed at how much she'd improved since last week. I think last week's lethargy might have been weather related. At her age, Dot is bound to have arthritis, along with all her other problems. Muggy, rainy weather just isn't good for anyone's arthritis.

I got a lot done today. The roof is clean and dry again. The dogs prescriptions have been renewed. The trash has been taken out to the curb for Friday morning pickup. Dot got a good workout at her therapy session and I paid the last of the recurring bills for May. Tomorrow I've got several new articles to write and I've got to decide whether to pursue these new jobs that are being dangled in front of me. All in good time. The most important thing tomorrow is going to my favorite restaurant for a leisurely breakfast. It didn't rain today. Maybe it won't rain tomorrow either. There's always hope.

Sam is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1989

The bad weather continues. Last night our power went out twice and strong straight line winds blew part of the roof off the greenhouse. This is the second time that winds have blown part of the roof off the greenhouse, so I'm not sure if the problem is strong winds or a weak greenhouse. Dash was upset by the thunder and lightning last night, but Dot slept through the entire thing. Even the beeping noises from the electronic devices when the power went out didn't wake her up. One of the blessings of old age is that Dot sleeps very soundly now. She needs her rest, so I'm glad the storms didn't send her into a panic like they used to.

It became obvious as soon as I looked out the living room window that one of today's chores was going to be putting the greenhouse back together again. The structure is so old and rickety now, that it's hardly worth the effort. Rain gets inside with or without the roof, since two of the roof vents blew away three years ago and a couple of panes of glass are broken. I gave up raising plants in the greenhouse decades ago, since all the local critters just looked at the place as a convenient place to have lunch. Rabbits, squirrels, rats, and possums all managed to get inside. They all seemed to love tomato plants. Now the place just houses the lawn mower.

When I was testing one of my mobile sites this morning I kept getting an error message from the phone company when I tried to make a call directly from the website. I thought I had made a coding error and wasted about an hour trying to research the problem. It was a mystery. I marked up the code exactly the same way I did on another site where everything worked successfully. Why wasn't this working? Finally I noticed that I had the wrong area code in the phone number. The number I was trying to dial didn't even exist. When I corrected the phone number in the HTML document, everything worked perfectly. Sometimes obvious mistakes aren't so obvious after all.

I hope the power doesn't go out again tonight. There's more rain on the way and I need to get some sleep. Whenever the power goes out I have to immediatly disconnect the Uninterrupted Power Supplies for the computers to save the batteries and make them stop beeping. Then I have to call in the outage report from my mobile phone and hope the battery will last long enough to navigate my way through the power company's lengthy automated messaging system. When the power finally does come back on again, I have to go to the utility room and quickly turn off the washer and dryer. They always turn themselves on automatically when power is restored. The printer beeps when it tried to reconnect to the WiFi and the thermostat has to manually be rebooted before it will reconnect to anything. The two clock radios and even the clock that turns the coffee maker on every morning all need to be reset. I try to do all this without waking the dogs, because if they see I'm up they will think it's time for breakfast even if it's three in the morning.

I'm not even going to bother with the water on the roof. What's the point if it's just going to continue to rain.

Libby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1988

Short weeks always confuse me. It seemed like a Monday for most of the day, but is was really Tuesday. It's probably going to be like this for the rest of the week. After breakfast, I made an appointment for Dot to get her semi-annual ultrasound scan at the cancer center. This test was actually due a few months ago, but Dot was still recovering from surgery. Dash was due for some tests as well. I made an appointment to get his blood work done so the vet could re-check his phenobarbital levels. We do this once a year to make sure there is still enough phenobarbital in his blood stream to control seizures.

When I got all the dogs vet visits scheduled, I put together another mobile friendly website. I thought my client would be delighted when I told him that he finally had the mobile site he'd been asking for. The guy seemed strangely uninterested though. I explained how Google was already demoting sites that weren't mobile ready, but he still seemed to want to hang on to the old static site. Go figure.

The rain was more sporadic today. There was a light mist when we walked the dogs this morning and I actually caught a brief glimpse of the sun later in the day when I was taking Dash on his evening walk. It's so wet outside that I have towels strategically placed just outside the back door so I can dry the dogs off after their walk before they go in the house again. My jeans are usually soaked halfway to the knee from walking through the wet grass in the park. The wet pants go in the dryer and the equally wet shoes are placed on top of one of the furnace floor vents. With a little luck, everything is dry again by the time we take our next walk.

One of the worst things about all this rain we've been having are the mosquitoes. They're everywhere. I don't know how so many got inside, but they appear to be here to stay. The little beasts are hard to catch, because you usually don't even notice them until you hear one buzzing right beside your ear. At least we're on high ground, so we don't have to worry about flooding. The pictures I've been seeing on television from Austin and Houston are unbelievable. I've lived in Texas for a long time, but I don't ever remember a Spring like this.

I'll have to admit that I was a little disappointed that my client wasn't all that excited about the work I'd done today. I need to remember that most people don't spend that much time thinking about social media and Google rankings. A website is no different than a Yellow Pages ad to many of them. Oh, well. I learned some new things putting together this second mobile friendly site. That should be useful. Eventually, this knowledge will come in handy.

There is more rain on the way tomorrow. We'll be fine though. There are plenty of bananas for the dogs, lots of dry towels, and a ton of old static websites that I still need to make mobile friendly.

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1987

I'm running out of ways to describe a rainy day. Rain has become the new normal. Once again it was raining when we woke up and the dogs had to wait for their morning walk. We ate breakfast while waiting for the skies to clear and kept checking the weather radar until we found our opportunity. The ground is so saturated with water that everything is soft and spongy. Dot and Dash normally like to smell things in the grass, but even they prefer walking on the roads lately. It's amazing how green and lush the park looks this Spring. All the neighbors lawns look great and Spring flowers are blooming everywhere. I imagine that water bills all over the city will be lower this month.I haven't seen anyone using their sprinkler system all month. I was amused listening to an interview with a local car wash owner on TV this morning. He said that business was way down and that only ten people had washed their car today. I kept wondering how even ten people could think it would be a good idea to take their car to a carwash on a day like this.

I'm easily amused on a rainy day, so I spent the afternoon trying out all the attachments on the new Dyson vacuum cleaner. I had already vacuumed the office yesterday and was astounded to pick up just as much dust as I did yesterday in the supposedly clean office when I vacuumed the shelves and hard to reach corners with the special attachments. The shelves above eye level were exceptionally dusty, but luckily the clever Dyson people made a special tool to clean areas about your head that you can't see. The best thing about the Dyson is that it is relatively quiet and it doesn't scare the dogs. Our old Hoover always sent them into a panic, but they both just ignored me while I was cleaning today.

I keep thinking of ways to improve the mobile sites I'm building, so I went back and fixed some mistakes I'd made earlier in the week. I'm definitely a late bloomer when it comes to responsive design, but I'm starting to get enthusiastic about the possibilities it presents. As I continue to become more familiar with CSS and structured HTML, I doubt that I'll ever build a static site in Dreamweaver again.

I've started wearing a plastic Essix retainer at night that one of my dentists created for me just before I had my wisdom tooth removed. Since some of my upper teeth are unopposed by lower teeth anymore, this retainer is supposed to keep the upper teeth from continuing to grow downward. I thought only rodents had teeth that continued to grow, but apparently ours do as well if they are not held in check by another tooth directly above or below. I thought I'd hate the retainer, but it is strangely comforting. It fits perfectly and is not unpleasant to wear at all. Putting it on, taking it off, and cleaning it, will add one more element to an already lengthy  set of morning rituals.

The rain finally stopped around 6:30 PM. There was just enough time to give Dot and Dash their evening walks and take a quick photo of a surprisingly beautiful sunset. There will be more rain tomorrow, but we're getting used to it.

Ranger s today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1986

We got a new vacuum cleaner today. The old Hoover had done a yeoman's job picking up dog hair over the years, but it was no match for two aging Dalmatians, a wet muddy Spring, and a house filled with mismatched rugs. Could a Dyson Animal restore order to this mess? Before we could answer this question, I had to assemble the Dyson. Inside the box were a bunch of pieces and the world's worst instruction manual. Dyson may have re-invented the vacuum cleaner but their instruction manuals are even worse than Ikea.

Eventually I got the thing put together without breaking anything and put it to the test. I thought the house was relatively clean and was dumbfounded by the huge amount of dirt and dog hair the machine was able to pull out of the carpets and rugs. We have a small house, but I had to empty the Dyson canister twice before I was finished. Janet said the house even smelled better after I finished, but I'll have to take her word for it. All I can smell anymore is sausages cooking and good barbecue.

Tornado warnings woke us up twice during the night. Now the phones and WiFi devices seem to have their own weather warnings. These weather warning are kind of like Amber Alerts. They are almost impossible to turn off. I think I have been more successful at turning off notifications than Janet, because most of last night's alerts came from her devices. Maybe the real sirens went off too. It was hard to tell. At any rate, we turned on the TV in the middle of the night and learned that the really bad weather was to the North of us and then went back to sleep.

It was still raining when we got up in the morning, so the dogs didn't get their morning walk until after 10 AM. Luckily, Dot didn't poop in the house this time. Maybe the new Dyson will help remove any remaining evidence of her previous storm related accidents. The ads are true. That machine is remarkably powerful.

When the skies cleared, I removed the standing water from the roof. I have a new system now. I leave the pump in place and plug in the extension cord dangling over the edge of the roof right after I wake up in the morning. By the time I have finished breakfast and walked the dogs, most of the main roof is clear. When I climb up on the roof to move the pump to the smaller carport, all I have to do is sweep the residual standing water from the main roof. This system only works when there is not a lot of gunk on the roof to clog the pump, but it worked today.

I didn't bother going to the gym because I felt like clearing the roof, walking the dogs, and testing the new vacuum cleaner was all the exercise I needed. I probably wouldn't have had the time to go out anyway. The new website forms I built for my client yesterday already needed to be changed today.

I noticed that there is another opportunity to apply for NASA press credentials to view a Space-X Dragon launch in late June. As much as I'd like to go, I'm going to have to pass on this one. Dot still needs to be supervised during the day. I've got some major dental bills in June. And our annual homeowners insurance is due. I think Dot needs another ultrasound scan at the cancer center too. A three day trip to Kennedy Space Center would be a little much on top of all this. I'm glad I had the opportunity to go to the SMAP launch at Vandenberg back in January. Life was less complicated then.

Ziggy 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 1984

Today didn't exactly go as planned. I didn't get my car back from the shop because, after the wheel was repaired, the paint shop didn't match the color of the other three wheels. It has to go back to the paint shop for a new, and hopefully more accurate, powder coating. The U-verse service technician didn't arrive as promised either. I waited and waited and finally the guy showed up around 4:30 PM. He was supposed to arrive at 1 PM. Since Dot is hard of hearing, she didn't notice when the technician knocked on the door. Several minutes later she saw him in the living room and barked so hard that she pooped on the carpet. This is why you don't want to get an old dog too excited. Barking and pooping often happen simultaneously.

It turns out that the U-verse problem wasn't the router, the TV receiver, the WiFi hub, or anything else in the house. The entire line that runs down the alley has gone bad and needs to be replaced. My technician said that they needed a different type of technician to fix the wire, so I've got a new service appointment for tomorrow. U-verse service is still down. Oddly, even though U-verse is down, Roku, Hulu, Chromecast, and the pet cam, which all connect to the same IP network still work. In many ways losing U-verse is no great loss. Telemarketers are the only people who call on the land line. Roku and Hulu a pretty good alternative to U-verse TV. And my little T-Mobile 4G hotspot is even faster than U-verse Internet service. I wonder why I even bother with U-verse.

Since I was stuck in the house for most of the day waiting for the U-verse technician to arrive, I had lots of time to work on various Internet projects. I added some online forms to one client's site and had enough time left over to finish my first real mobile site. The site looked pretty good, so I went ahead and launched it. Hopefully the client will like what I've done. If they don't, I built in a back-door that will let me revert to the old site very quickly if needed. Working this way is so much faster than trying to schedule a meeting to present something. I don't mind changing things if I've gotten something wrong. It's easy to get feedback from clients if a site is live and almost impossible if they're just speculating about something that doesn't even exist yet.

It looks like the rain is going to continue through the weekend. According to the long-range forecast on my phone, the rain will continue forever. The app looks ahead two weeks and there is a little thunderstorm icon on every single day. It's rained so relentlessly that I'm actually starting to adapt to it. I've rigged up a pump on the roof that will remove about 80% of the water with me needing to be up there. This won't keep the roof dry, but it will significantly reduce the weight of the standing water and make it easier for me to sweep off the remaining water when the rain quits. I'm becoming adapt at finding dry intervals to walk the dogs too. Even the rainiest days have little gaps between the storms.

Supposedly my car will be finished tomorrow and U-verse service will be restored. I kind of doubt that either of those things will happen. The only thing I'm sure of is that the dogs will get two walks and we'll all enjoy a good breakfast

Rosco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1983

It's been a long day. It was raining again when we woke up this morning, so I had to wait until later in the day to walk the dogs. As usual, they refused to go outside and do their business while it was still raining. They acted agitated and upset until I got the bananas out, and then they both completely forgot that they wanted a walk. The rain was already diminishing by the time I finished breakfast, so I only had to wait an additional thirty minutes before the morning showers stopped and I could take Dot and Dash to the park.

When I finally got the dogs taken care of, I turned on the computer and discovered that the Internet was down. Actually, the entire U-verse service was down, because the land line phones and televisions weren't working either. I tried re-booting the router several times and when that didn't work, I called tech support. After spending forever in automated call center hell, I finally got to talk with a real person. AT&T couldn't get things working from The Philippines, or Malaysia, or wherever their call center is these days, so a technician is going to come out tomorrow. I hate it when the network goes down. Usually the problem turns out to be a defective router and when they replace it, I have to reconfigure every WiFi device in the house so all the devices can join the network again using the new router's password. Even the thermostat and several of my cameras are on WiFi now. It's going to be a lot of trouble to reconnect everything.

Luckily, I have access to an alternate WiFi network, so I could still get my work done today. Having U-verse down definitely slowed me down though. Just calling tech support took forever. In today's world, having a network outage is just about as bad as a power outage. This is why I always have a backup network. You can't really be a web developer without access to the Internet.

Dot did great today during her physical therapy session, but she hated riding to the vet in the loaner car. It's too small and the rear seats don't fold completely flat like they do in my car. I had to pull over to the side of the road several times to reposition Dot, because the slight incline of the folded rear seatback made her slide backwards and get stuck every time I went up a hill. I would never buy a small car. Large dogs and small cars just aren't a good mix. The old Defender 90 was the perfect vehicle for hauling dogs around in. The entire back of the car was completely flat and there was tons of headroom. Dot and Dash enjoyed riding around in that car. Too bad I couldn't keep it running forever.

I had been planning to do some additional work on my mobile friendly test site today, but several real jobs got in the way. I was surprised that I got as much done as I did, since I was uploading files using the much slower backup WiFi hotspot. Where there's a will, there's a way, I guess. I'm just glad it's Friday tomorrow. A week of relentless rain, car problems, dental problems, and a bad case of cabin fever have taken their toll on me. I'm looking forward to the long Memorial Day weekend, even though I have no plans whatsoever.

Casey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1982

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1981

My loaner car has a new feature called intelligent start/stop. I hate it. When your car comes to a stop at an intersection, the engine shuts off completely. When you take your foot off the brake and press the accelerator again, the engine starts and off you go. Who thinks of these things? I've spent almost my entire driving life trying to avoid having my engine stall out at a busy intersection with a bunch of angry drivers behind me. Now this behavior is called a feature? It's crazy.

My service adviser  told me that intelligent start/stop systems will be mandatory on new cars starting in 2017. Maybe these things will work for a little while, but what happens when the car gets older and your battery starts to get weak? Dead batteries are another thing I try to avoid. I noticed that all the electronics on the car, even the air conditioner, continue to run while the car is sitting at a stop light with it's engine off. That probably puts a strain on the best of batteries. Call me old fashioned, but I think a car's engine should always be running when you're behind the wheel. I don't know how long it will take to repair my damaged wheel, but while I'm driving this loaner, I'm going to disable the fancy Eco-Start system.

Dot seemed really tired today. I hope she hasn't strained a muscle or injured anything. Progress is much slower now than it was during the initial weeks following her surgery. I need to remember how far she's come. Considering that she was completely paralyzed a few months ago, it's remarkable that she's walking at all. I still hope her legs continue to get stronger and that she will eventually be able to walk without the Help 'Em Up Harness. Maybe that's expecting too much though. Dot is a very old dog. I let her set the pace these days. On a good day, we'll have a nice slow walk in the park. When she's tired, we don't even make it around the block.

I've noticed that Dot is never too tired for breakfast. Janet feed the dogs their regular breakfast when she gets up, and later they get to share a banana with me. Dot and Dash used to get excited when I cooked sausages, because they always got a taste. I think they like bananas even more than sausage though. They're going to be really disappointed if I ever lose interest in having banana smoothies.

I spent a long time today learning how to make responsive objects that you can click with a mouse on your computer and swipe with your finger on your phone. I see these things on mobile websites all the time. Swiping to the left or right with your finger is the primary way you navigate when viewing a mobile site. Mouse-over behaviors don't work at all, since you don't use a mouse on your phone or tablet. It's still seems pretty complicated to me, but I'm slowly getting the hang of it. Each time I update my test site, it gets a little better.

I have an appointment with the dentist tomorrow. This is the dentist that fills teeth and makes crowns. My other two dentists specialize in oral surgery and dental implants. I hope the dentist I'm seeing tomorrow can successfully repair tooth #30 and send me on my way. If he can't, I may have to go back and see the other two dentists. Like I said earlier, I've opened a Pandora's Box of dental misery.
        

Holly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1980

I had to renew some prescriptions today and a bottle of pills that cost me $30 last month suddenly increased to $160. Yes, I've entered the so called doughnut hole again. Part-D prescription drug plans have always seemed overly complex to me. There are six or seven different categories of drugs, each with it's own co-pay rate, and then there are three different benefit stages that plan members must navigate during your plan year. You start out with a reasonable co-pay, then after you've received a certain amount of benefits, you enter the doughnut hole, where rates skyrocket for a while. If you keep refilling your prescriptions, you eventually reach what they call the catastrophic coverage stage, where you pay next to nothing for your meds. I know the government is trying to save money, but do they really need to make things so complicated? Wouldn't it be much simpler to just have a somewhat higher co-pay all year long and keep the coverage constant? I feel the same way about taxes. A simple flat tax would be so much easier for everyone.

It was strange to see blue skies this morning as we walked the dogs. I haven't seen the sun for quite a while, so today's mild weather was a welcome treat. The dogs enjoyed the sunshine as much as I did, and Dot had one of her best days in a long time. We walked up and down several hills and she got some much needed exercise. Since the long range weather forecast is still predicting rain for the remainder of the week, I thought I'd take advantage of this rare clear day to mow the grass. The grass had grown so rapidly as a result of almost a month of solid rain that I had to raise the mower blades a bit. At the regular setting, the thick grass was just too much for the little mower.

It was pretty busy for a Monday. In addition to going to the pharmacy and mowing the grass, I began working on my first mobile website for an actual client. My initial efforts are nothing to write home about, but I'm definitely making progress. Two months ago I didn't even know what responsive web design was. Since I'll probably eventually have to redesign every site I manage, I'm trying to tackle the easy problems first. If this goes well, I'll try something a little more difficult next time.

All the rain we've been having must be causing the foundation to shift a bit. The screen door at the back of the house is getting sticky again and this morning I watched a ceramic tile in the bathroom crack right in front of my eyes. I thought I'd superglue the chipped tile back together again and ended up gluing my fingers together in the process. I need to make a mental note that nail polish remover does not work to remove superglue from skin. Acetone does work though. Luckily, I had a small bottle of acetone in the utility room, or my thumb and forefinger would still be stuck together.

The dogs immediately started barking this morning when they saw me get the bananas out for my breakfast smoothie. They wanted to make sure that I remembered to save a banana for them. I didn't forget the dogs, but in the confusion of the moment, I did forget to add the eggs to my smoothie. Oh, well. This morning's concoction probably wasn't as nutritious as it should be, but it still tasted good. At least the dogs were happy. In addition to remembering to add eggs tomorrow, I need to remember to take my car to the dealership. I have an appointment to get the wheel fixed that I damaged hitting a large pothole. Hopefully, I won't hit another pothole driving up to the dealership. The roads are really that bad.

Skippy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1979

Although we had heavy thunderstorms last night, our power stayed on. When the skies cleared and the sun came out later this morning, our power went out. Go figure. It's anybody's guess what caused the problem this time. It wasn't the weather, and it wasn't the trees. The power company had just finished trimming all the trees in the neighborhood a few weeks ago. Maybe a piece of equipment at one of the sub-stations was underwater. We've certainly had our share of flooding recently. I haven't seen the lake this high in years.

There's not a lot you can do when the power goes out. We walked the dogs and Dot did surprisingly well. Earlier in the morning, she threw up, but it was probably just storm phobia stress. The thunder was loud and relentless last night and Dot didn't like it a bit. I was afraid she would try to hop up in the bed and hurt herself, so I slept on the floor with her to keep her calm. No wonder the dogs like to sleep in the bed so much. The floor is pretty hard. Sleeping with Dot calmed her down though, so it was worth the sore back in the morning.

Since the computer, the television, and even the coffee maker were all dead, I decided to wash the outside windows. I've been avoiding this task, since the windows were not only dirty, they were filled with spiderwebs as well. I think most of our resident spiders are harmless, but I've never liked spiders and do my best to avoid them. I disturbed a couple of big ones today, but the windows are a lot cleaner.

Since clean windows didn't bring the power back, I had no choice but to go to the gym. I think it's been well over a month since I've visited the gym and the dogs aren't walking very far either. I'm out of shape again. I tried to do my regular workout routine and was amazed at how quickly I'd regressed. It seemed like I was starting all over again. My doctor says I need to get on the treadmill more, to counteract a gradual loss of bone density, My physical therapist says I need to do lots of stretching exercises to keep from getting a frozen shoulder. If I did everything I am supposed to do, I'd be at the gym all the time.

The power company eventually restored our power and life returned to normal again. I cleared all the water off the roof from yesterday's storms. I fired up the computer and made a few minor website updates. Janet fixed a nice dinner. And I didn't need to worry about making today's blog bost using a laptop with a half dead battery.

My mouth has finally healed enough from the wisdom tooth extraction for me to go see a different dentist next week. I'm not looking forward to this, but it would be silly to postpone things. The whole reason I had the wisdom tooth removed in the first place was to save the tooth next to it. If I delay getting this tooth repaired, it might have to be pulled as well. This whole dental journey has been like opening Pandora's Box. I just hope it all ends reasonably soon.

I think we'll see a little sunshine tomorrow, but starting Tuesday the thunderstorms return. The long range weather forecast says to expect the storms to continue all the way through Memorial Day. Too bad we can't send some of this water to California. We've got way too much here.

Susie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1978

We began walking Dot and Dash together again, and just as I expected, Dot was much more energetic and seemed determined to keep up with Dash. Both dogs are incredibly stubborn. She just didn't want to walk by herself while Janet was away. We walked the dogs very early since Janet had a training seminar she needed to attend. I took the opportunity to go out for breakfast, since the rain kept me away yesterday. The dogs just went to sleep since they were both tired after their walk.

The ground is still too wet for me to mow the grass, so I decided to write another article on my to-do list before I ran my regular Saturday errands. While I was writing, I noticed that Dot was licking the blanket in her dog bed. Not a good sign. Sure enough, a few minutes later she began trying to throw up and began her frantic behavior again. I still don't know what causes this, but I suspect she might try to eat food crumbs that have fallen to the floor and end up swallowing a bunch of lint and dog hair instead. This might not be the cause of her problems at all, but it sure seems plausible. Dot is obsessed with food and a lot of it falls out of her mouth as she becomes older. Now that there are throw rugs everywhere to keep Dot from slipping on the bricks, it is much harder to keep the floors clean. At any rate, I sat outside with Dot until she become calm again and then she and Dash had their dinner, took another walk, and everything was back to normal.

Janet and I has an animal rescue fundraiser to attend tonight and I was a little nervous leaving Dot alone with a house full of rugs and carpets she could eat. I knew she was very tired and it seemed to be a safe bet that she would just sleep while we were gone. We weren't going to be gone long anyway. I think I enjoyed the annual wine tasting event more when I could still drink wine, but the food was good and so was the cause. We've been going to this event for over nine years now and it seems to get better every year.

Dot was still sleeping calmly in exactly the same spot where we left her when we returned, but I'd still like to get to the bottom of this strange grass eating frenzy. Something specific has to be causing this behavior. The episodes are so sporadic that it's hard for me to see a pattern. The vets mostly just tell me to give her a Pepcid AC and call them if the frantic behavior gets worse. They don't know what is causing this either.

I'm still working on my mobile friendly test site. I was making pretty good progress until Dot started trying to throw up. Despite the minor dog emergency, I did learn how to make translucent drop-down menus where you can still see a hint of what is underneath the menu. I don't know why writing structured HTML and giving everything a CSS class seems so difficult for me, but I'm slowly getting there. It takes a long time, because when I make a mistake, I need to figure out why things didn't work out as expected. I don't want to continue making the same mistakes over and over again.

All-in-all it was a good day. I had a delicious breakfast. The dogs returned to walking together again. Dot recovered quickly from her upset stomach. The Wine on the Roof fundraiser was enjoyable and both dogs are already tucked in for the night. Maybe I'll even get a good night's sleep. That would be nice.

Liberty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1977

Change of plans. I knew it was going to be a long morning when we woke up to another round of thunderstorms, so I didn't even consider going out for breakfast this morning. It's a race against time when we wake up in the middle of a thunderstorm. The first thing the dogs do every morning is go outside and pee. When it's raining however, all bets are off. Dot and Dash absolutely refuse to leave the house during a heavy rain. Dash can hold it pretty well, but Dot will eventually poop on the floor. Luckily, using the new Minute-By-Minute app on my phone I was able to find two tiny windows where I could get the dogs out to do their business. Dot had a five minute window, which was plenty of time for her. She quickly pooped in the alley and came back inside. About thirty minutes later I was able to find an eight minute window where I could take Dash to the park. Dot must be teaching him about the weather, because he did his business amazingly quickly. One minute after we returned to the house, the deluge began. A few years ago we would have both been soaked, but Dash is learning how the world works. I think he's learned that a short walk is much better than a wet walk, especially when there is thunder involved.

I had another smoothie for breakfast and since the dogs were so good at dealing with this morning's awful weather, I gave them a banana as a reward. I think I agree with Dash. A Friday breakfast at home is much better than getting wet. When I turned the computer on, I discovered that I had new writing assignments and one of my clients wants to build a responsive website. I foolishly told him I could make what he needs, even though I'm not not quite up to speed yet. All he really wants is for customers to be able to call him directly from the website when they're viewing it on a phone. Although there's lots I still have to learn, I do know how to do this, so I think we'll be OK.

I went to the doctor this afternoon to get my Benicar prescription changed to something that wasn't involved in a class-action suit. The doctor still thought Benicar was safe and told me he took it himself. Nevertheless, he did change my prescription. He also did a complete blood panel and gave me a bone density test. I knew I wasn't going to get out of there without some sort of test. At least the doctor seemed happy with the result of all the lab work he's done. He said I was in great shape for someone my age and just told me that I should go to the gym more often. Janet tells me the same thing. Too bad I don't enjoy going to the gym. Since the dogs and I probably won't be doing any more five mile walks, I probably should heed their advise. Taking half an hour to slowly walk Dot around the block probably isn't burning many calories.

I picked up Janet at the airport  this evening and the dogs were quite excited to see the whole family back together again. They were both quite good while she was gone, but you could tell that they didn't like the situation. Dot wants to be able to take family walks with Dash again and Dash just wants everybody nearby. He always gets upset when Janet travels. Maybe he gets upset when I travel too, but I don't travel very much. Dot and Dash are so used to having me nearby all the time that I'm convinced they just think I'm another dog.

If the rain ever quits, I'll mow the grass this weekend and clear the water off the roof. If it continues to rain, we'll just have a jungle in the front yard and a duck pond on the roof. Maybe our landscaping and grass will last longer this Summer. It is really, really wet.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1976

I got up at six this morning and wasn't finished with the breakfast routine until well after nine. I don't know if the the routine is growing more complex or if I'm just becoming slower. At any rate, it takes forever to do the simplest things. The first thing I do when I wake up is take the dogs out to pee. Since the ground is so wet, I have to clean each of the dogs paws before we come inside again. Occasionally, we go back to sleep after we do this, but usually the dogs want their breakfast immediately.

I fill all their water bowls with fresh water, put Dot in the little pen we now call the breakfast nook, and get their food out of a big container we keep in the kitchen. When the food is in their bowls, I let Dot join Dash for a quick eating frenzy. I have to put a big rubber Kong in Dot's bowl to slow her down so she won't eat so fast. Sometimes she tries to eat so fast that she chokes on the food. When the dogs have finished their breakfast, I give them their meds. Dash's pills go in a dog food meatball, because they aren't chewable. Dot's are chewable, but of course she wants a meatball too. At this point, I normally take them on a walk, but now that I've started eating bananas with my breakfast, the dogs have become obsessed with bananas. It's easier to go ahead and eat my own breakfast, feeding them each slices of banana as I drink my morning coffee and sip my banana, strawberry and egg milkshake. When breakfast is finished, I clean the Vitamix machine and we begin our walks.

Dot goes first because she is the most eager to get out of the house. She doesn't walk far, but her short walk around the block takes just as long as Dash's much longer walk, because she's so slow. She's getting better at holding herself up, but I still use the Help 'Em Up Harness and two leashes to keep her from slipping. The tail leash has kept her from falling countless times. I don't even bother taking a camera when I walk Dot. I have my hands full. Dot is usually tired when we return and is content to sleep on her dog bed while I walk Dash. Dash is slow too, because he likes to smell things and pee on every bush. I let both dogs take their time, because these morning walks are the best part of their day. Walking slow gives me the opportunity to observe things too, like the tiny mushrooms you see today.

When Dash and I return home, I clear Dot's blankets out of the hallway and put them away, make the bed, put the breakfast dishes away, clean my teeth and rinse with he special mouthwash the dentist gave me. When all this is finished, I turn the computer on and go to work. Luckily, there wasn't a huge amount of work today, because right after lunch, I needed to take Dot downtown for her weekly physical therapy appointment. Dot did really well in the underwater treadmill today, which surprised me a bit, since she seemed tired this morning.

There were a few light showers during the day, but rain wasn't really a problem today. I wrote a letter to my NASA contacts asking why all the NASA sites were down. I got a quick reply saying that the sites were working fine in California. Why would be they not be working in Texas, I wondered? I haven't been able to access any of the NASA websites for over a month, so I've probably already missed out on opportunities to apply to observe another satellite launch. I doubt that I could have gone anyway. Life with the dogs has just become too complicated.

It's been a long week and I'm looking forward to my breakfast outing tomorrow morning. I'm sure that some of my delicious meal will end up getting stuck in the empty wisdom tooth socket, but it will be worth it.

Lady is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1975

I should be used to the rain by now, but it still amazes me how wet it's been this Spring. This has to be one for the record books. Today was another near all-day rain, punctuated with small, well-placed intervals where I was lucky to get the dogs out for shortened morning and evening walks. It's not raining now, but I think the weather is just taking a breather. There is even more rain in the forecast for tomorrow.

Previous rainy days this week have allowed me to get caught up on work, so there wasn't really a lot to do today. I finally got my May invoices in the mail, but that was about it.

I contemplated just watching movies on Netflix today, but couldn't find anything I really wanted to see. Instead, I decided to do some more work on my mobile friendly test site. I think I've learned all the easy stuff, because I had difficulty grasping some of the concepts I was trying to learn today. I ended up making a mess of the test site and had to upload an older archived version to get back to square one. I don't know why I'm spending so much time with this, since most of my clients don't seem very interested in mobile anyway.

I thought I try to get through the day without any pain pills for my teeth. Things must be getting better, because it wasn't all that bad. It's probably time to stop taking Ibuprofen anyway, since it isn't very good for the liver. I still had my breakfast banana milkshake, mostly because the dogs love bananas. I always share with them. Even though it took a while to rinse out the food particles, I had solid food for dinner. There was a tasty casserole in the refrigerator that would have been awful if I liquified it and turned it into soup. Everything in moderation, I guess. Once my mouth has healed completely, I'll still use the Vitamix, but I doubt that I've have soup more than once a week.

I wanted to find out if there were any more NASA launches that I could apply to attend and discovered instead that all the NASA websites are offline. There used to be a ton of NASA sites and they're all gone. Budget cuts I guess. As a web developer it would seem like it might actually be more expensive to take a large site down than to simply leave it up and not update it as frequently. What do I know though. The government works in mysterious ways.

Did you know that the Rolling Stone song Can't Get No Satisfaction was recorded fifty years ago yesterday? Jeez. These guys are still touring and selling out huge stadiums too. When I was learning to play to this song in high school, I never dreamed that we'd still be listening to a seventy year old Mick Jagger singing it fifty years later. Yep. The Stones are coming to Texas Stadium this Summer and the show is already sold out. In just a few more years, it will be fifty years since we landed on the moon. Amazing! What have we really accomplished since then? Sure, we all have smartphones now, but I can tell you from experience that life was a lot more interesting in 1969.

I'm not sure how interesting it is going to be tomorrow. My clever phone tells me that there will be thunderstorms tomorrow. Back in 1969, I never knew when it was going to rain until I got wet.

Haley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1974

Today was a little stressful. I woke up to the sound of Dot trying to throw up. She was acting frantic like she did on the day she ate the carpet. This was alarming, because the house is now filled with assorted rugs and carpets. I immediately put on some pants and took Dot outside. When this happens, Dot tries to eat any available grass or leaves and that only makes the situation worse. I did the only thing that works. I sat quietly on the brick patio with her until she calmed down. Sometimes this can take up to thirty minutes. She doesn't wake up like this very often, but it still happens. Once Dot was calm and breathing normally again, I fed the dogs breakfast and Dot was normal for the rest of the day. I've asked various vets many times why this happens, but have never received a real answer. Maybe she has an upset stomach from time to time, but her diet is so consistent that this is hard to imagine. Dot doesn't get into the trash either. That is Dash's specialty.

I was tired of drinking a liquid breakfast this morning so I ate some sausage patties and a slice of quiche instead. The dogs seemed upset that I didn't share a banana with them so I peeled one and gave half to the dogs and ate the other half myself. It was a satisfying meal, but a large percentage of it got stuck in my teeth. After spending an inordinate amount of time rinsing my mouth out with hot salt water, which always spoils the taste of a good meal, I vowed to go back to my banana and egg milkshakes tomorrow.

I think my big success today was getting both dogs walked before the rain started. There were no severe storms and it didn't rain all day, but the weather was certainly enough to keep everyone inside most of the day. The dogs usually sleep on rainy days like this, but I feel compelled to be productive. To stay busy, I finished my entire backlog of writing assignments and made a good start on getting my May invoices out. I should have saved some of this work for tomorrow, but I keep hoping for a day when the dogs will let me sleep in late. Today was not that day.

Dot isn't walking as far in the morning, now that she can't walk with Dash for a while. The only way we can walk the dogs together is when Janet walks one and I walk the other. When they were both younger and healthier, it was easy for me to walk Dot and Dash together. Now, I have a hard time when Dot wants to turn around and go home while Dash wants to keep on going. With two people, Dash will eventually turn around and follow Dot. With one person holding the leash, they both just tug in opposite directions. While I was walking Dash this evening, a lady pushing a child in a stroller noticed Dash's protective sock and mentioned that she'd seen one just like it in the park last week. She thought it was a baby's sock, but didn't pick it up. I wish she had. I've been looking for that missing sock for weeks.

I don't know what tomorrow will bring my way, but I do hope the skies are dry, the dogs are calm, and my teeth don't hurt.

Dixie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day