Day 2091

We made a serious effort to clean the rugs today. Some rugs went to the laundromat. Others got cleaned in the back yard. The rest just received a vigorous vacuuming. The house is cleaner now, although it still looks just as messy. It's hard to complain about the rugs though. They do their job. Dot is able to walk around the house without slipping and falling, which would be virtually impossible if she still had to deal with our slippery brick floors.

Whenever we do some serious cleaning, Janet tries to get me to clean out my office. There are probably a hundred good reasons to get rid of things, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I am surrounded by the remnants of decades of hard work and interesting experiences. If I got rid of these things, what would I replace them with? The ironic thing is that if I were really busy, it wouldn't bother me to work in a bare office. Now that I'm not so busy, I treasure the cluttered memories. My Dad's office was like this as he neared retirement. The University let him keep his cluttered office for a few years after he officially retired, but eventually he was forced to vacate what was probably the original man cave. He went downhill quickly after that.

I'm going to the gym earlier on Sunday's now. It probably doesn't make much difference, but I find that I have more time for other things if I do my workouts in the morning. The gym seems pretty empty on Sunday mornings. That's a plus too. I had a good workout today and still think the Apple Watch is keeping me from being lazy. I need to make an effort to get to the gym at least once more during the week. Maybe Tuesday or Wednesday. I'm holding my own now, but with two good workouts a week, I might actually start getting stronger.

When I was trying to figure out how to fix my computer's optical drive yesterday, I read that some people were wrapping a baby wipe around a credit car and sticking this crude cleaning instrument into the drive slot in an attempt to dislodge dust from the burner lens. This didn't really seem like it would work, but what did I have to lose? Eight people said this method cured their problem and one said it ruined his drive. This seemed like pretty good odds. I carefully inserted the baby wipe wrapped credit card into the slot several times and then tried to burn a DVD. It worked. I don't know if this is a short term or long term fix, but it sure beats buying a new computer.

Last week when I was taking a shower, I discovered there was a cockroach in the shower with me. Today, when I was washing my hair, I discovered a lizard in the shower. I don't know how these critters get in the house, but they don't appear to have much difficulty. At least we don't have a doggie door. People with pet doors in our neighborhood frequently find raccoons and possums crawling through them. When I was younger, I probably would have thrown the lizard down the toilet. Since I've mellowed quite a bit over the years, I carefully captured the small reptile and took is outdoors where I released it. You've got to be real careful with little lizards because it's easy to break their tails if they are handled roughly. This little guy did fine though and I was glad to see him wander off to join all the other critters in our yard.

Tomorrow is Labor Day. If my Facebook feed is any indications, a lot of people seem to get this holiday mixed up with Memorial Day. It's just another Monday to me.

April 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 2089

Do you ever feel that your life is starting to look like a reenactment of Groundhog Day? I'm sure you remember the movie where Bill Murray was forced to repeat the same day over and over again until he finally got it right. Sometimes I feel this way. Every day I eat the same things. Almost every day I clean up poop and wash the soiled dog blankets. Every time I do a load of laundry, I plug the floor drain in the utility room with a rag so water from the rinse cycle won't come back up through the drain and flood the room. After I take a shower I always put rags around the edge of the shower stall to soak up water that has seeped through cracks in the tile between shower walls and floor. Every evening I print the same JPEG file to keep the ink lines in my large printer from clogging. There are literally dozens of little rituals like this. The dogs get the same two walks every day and I patch up and repair the same websites over and over again. I know that I've got to break out of this monotonous cycle, but it's a comfortable rut and I feel no urgency. Hopefully, I won't be stuck in the time loop as long as Phil Connors was in Groundhog Day.

I've been wondering why traffic seemed so bad this week, and then I realized that school was back in session. There literally seems to be twice as many cars on the road. I pass a private school on my way to breakfast every Friday and I see cars lined up for ten blocks as parents queue in the right hand lane to drop their kids off for class. Luckily, I am going in the other direction. The same cars return every afternoon to pick the kids up. When you add the additional trips for band practice, soccer practice, and other school activities, the roads are always busy. It certainly is a different world from the one where I walked or rode my bicycle to school. I wonder how parents find any time to themselves these days.

The stock market had another miserable day. When is this going to end? I feel like my retirement income is an ice cube sitting out in the hot sun. It is just melting away day-after-day and there is very little I can do about it. I think people are going to regret the day when politicians sold them this idea that a 401K Plan that they managed themselves could provide a much more secure retirement income than the old fashioned defined benefit plans their parents generation relied on. It hasn't worked out all that great so far. I'd trade my 401K for my Dad's pension any day. He and my Mom lived comfortably on that pension for many years. I can't say that I'm going to do nearly as well. I might not be able to retire at all.

Work was busy for a change. I added a new section to one of my client's websites and changed out photos in another. There have been no writing jobs all week though. It's always feast or famine. I can never manage to keep a nice, steady workload for very long. At least I can still pay the bills. There's not much left over anymore unfortunately, and that's a bit worrisome. 

We've got a three day weekend coming up. I don't know what we'll do with the extra day, but maybe we'll think of something. I know we won't be sleeping in late. That's just not in the cards anymore. If we don't get Dot outside early, it's a virtual certainly that she'll poop in the house. Of course if she poops in the house in the middle of the night, I can always sleep in a bit longer after I've cleaned things up. That's what I did last night. Oh, well. Here's hoping for a relaxing weekend, starting with no barking dogs at breakfast tomorrow morning.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2088

I know some of you think that when work is slow I do absolutely nothing. Au contraire. I'm usually quite busy tilting windmills. Lately, I've been doing a lot of research on Google, trying to see if it is possible to adapt some of my old equipment so I could still use it in today's digital world. It would be nice if I could speed up my old computers so they could run today's complex software. It would be even nicer if I could use some of my old analog camera lenses on the latest digital bodies.

So far my efforts have been fruitless. I have some really nice Canon ENG broadcast lenses that I'd love to use on my current digital video cameras. So far, it seems impossible. These lenses were made to work with the 2/3 sensors found in Beta SP cameras. The image these lenses produce isn't large enough to cover the much larger 4/3 sensor found in my cinema camera. When I gave up on the Canon broadcast lenses, I thought my Bronica lenses might work. These medium format film lenses would certainly completely cover the 4/3 sensor, but nobody makes an adapter to attach the lens to the video camera. There are plenty of adapters for old Nikon and Canon lenses, but Bronica went out of business a long time ago and nobody cares about it anymore. There isn't a large enough market for anybody to make a profit manufacturing Bronica adapters. I even have some old Sinar view camera lenses that would cover any size sensor, but apparently nobody has even thought about adapting view camera lenses to modern video cameras. I found absolutely nothing on Google about using these lenses with video cameras.

It's frustrating to have fully functioning professional equipment that was good enough to shoot network TV commercials in the 1980's, but is now shunned even by beginning wedding photographers. I haven't adapted well. I love the old Macintosh towers I used to use in the early 1990's. My old Nikon F-2 still seems like the most useful and versatile camera I've ever owned. I even like reel-to-reel tape. Maybe this is why I enjoy watching old Perry Mason and Alfred Hitchcock shows on late night TV.

Dot had a good day. Now, she seems strong enough again to enjoy her early morning exercise walk and still have enough energy to do her afternoon physical therapy session. Today, she did a full seventeen minutes in the underwater treadmill. She's gained weight though. I don't know what that's all about. Nothing has changed since last week. I asked Dot's vet about Dash's strange new eating habits and she seemed baffled. She said she'd never heard of a dog who refused to eat from his bowl, yet ate everything normally when the food was transferred to a dinner plate. He doesn't seem sick. He just seems weird. We'll give him a Pepsid AC tonight before he goes to bed, just to see if he might have heartburn or a reflux problem.

I started a new book today. This one's been sitting on a shelf in the office for months. It is a memoir written by a co-worker of mine when I was starting out in the ad business in Seattle. I've been reluctant to read the book, since this guy ended up being hugely successful, building an award winning multi-million dollar ad agency while I was sitting in a small room writing with two dogs under my desk. I shouldn't be envious though. The first few chapters of this book were hilariously funny and remarkably accurate about what it's like to work in the ad biz.

It's hard to believe that this week is almost over. I've already taken this week's trash to the curb and gotten Dot's bed prepared for the night. I've still got to brush my teeth and run my daily test print on the large format printer. Then it's time for Perry Mason and sweet dreams about tomorrow's breakfast.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2087

It didn't take me long to finish my book. Hmm. Now, what am I going to do? Without any pressing deadlines, it looked like it was going to be a long day. I could have used up some time making biscuits and gravy this morning, but I didn't feel like eating anything that heavy. I had my fruit smoothie again. For the third time this week, Dash didn't want to eat his breakfast. I switched bowls and put his food on a dinner plate and then he finally finished his meal. Eating shouldn't be so difficult though. Something is wrong.

I was a bit surprised that I was so captivated by a novel where the hero spends much of his time staying alive by solving complex math and chemistry problems. Unlike Interstellar and Farscape, there were no wormholes to make travel to other planets easy. Unlike Firefly, this wasn't a spaghetti Western with spaceships. The ship wasn't alive like Lexx. And nobody fired a gun. From what I learned during my visit with the NASA folks in January, The Martian is pretty realistic. It will be interesting to see how Ridley Scott adapts the story to film, especially since the main character spends most of his time completely alone without the ability to communicate. There certainly won't be much dialog. The story works great as a book, since the narrative is in the form of a logbook, much like the real log kept by Samantha Cristoforetti while she was a crew member on the International Space Station.

I guess this blog is kind of a logbook too, although my own ship is going nowhere and if I'm trying to escape from anything, it is only in my own mind. Like Mark Watney, I try to stay busy. I sewed a button on some pants today. I cleaned up poop in the living room after Dot couldn't quite make it to the back door after dinner. I keep the TV on a lot, but usually mute the sound. Typically, I just watch the moving stock ticker at the bottom of the business channel. It's not like knowing what is going on with the stock market makes any difference. I just like to know.

I thought about getting a new battery for my laptop today, but I didn't want to deal with the hassle of making a reservation at the Apple Store Genius Bar, only to discover that I'd have to come back again later. It's frustrating that you can't really call an Apple Store by phone and ask a simple question like whether they could replace a laptop battery while I waited. I've tried calling these stores before. Each store actually does have a local phone number, but when you call, it is really just a call center in another state. Getting a simple answer about anything isn't so simple anymore.

I paid a few bills and took them to the post office this afternoon. I mostly just did this to get out of the house for a little while. I would rather have taken a check to the bank, but there were no checks for me in the morning mail. It's always a good day when there's money in the mail, but mostly it's just bills. The mailbox is where the rubber meets the road. It is here that I watch my expenses continue to increase while my income slowly decreases.

Maybe I'll have the energy to make a decent breakfast tomorrow. I hope that Dot has the energy to have a good workout in the underwater treadmill. It seems like I just took her for a therapy session yesterday, but time goes by quickly these days. Dot actually does seem stronger since we stopped the chemotherapy. She's walking about the house again unaided. I'm often surprised to find her next to me while I'm working and wondering how she managed to get up without her harness. Moments like these make even the slowest day worthwhile.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2086

I started reading The Martian today. I could have easily finished it if I didn't have the dogs to tend to and this blog to write. There certainly wasn't anything else going on today. I'd forgotten what a good way to kill time that reading is. As an added bonus, I could do my reading sitting next to Dot, who always likes having me nearby. Dot likes to lounge in the sun on nice days, so after lunch I took her out in the back yard and sat next to her reading my book for about 45 minutes. This worked out well for everyone. Dot had a companion and the bright sunlight narrowed my pupils, giving my eyes better depth of field, so I didn't need my reading glasses.

I could relate to the character of Mark Watney in the book. I'm not stranded on Mars, but I am alone a lot and spend a good deal of my time fixing things that break. Like Watney, I also spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about poop. I'm not in a desperate race to save my life, but I do feel like I'm trying to save my sanity at times. This book should be an inspiration to any aspiring writer. Andy Weir couldn't find a publisher, so he put the book on his website for free, one chapter at a time. Fans encouraged him to create a Kindle edition and sell it on Amazon. The e-book quickly rose to the top of Amazon's science fiction charts where it eventually caught the eye of traditional publishers. Five years after Andy started writing the book, it made its debut on the New York Times Best Seller List.

So, maybe there's hope for my dog stories yet. Not very likely. They'll probably be available free on my website forever. That's OK though. I never made any effort to get published. I kind of prefer doing things this way. There's a lot to read on my website if you're so inclined, but if you're not, that's OK too. At least you're reading the blog.

One of my clients asked me today if I'd be interested in taking over the SEO duties from another company they are currently using. Maybe. I asked the client what the current SEO experts were doing for them. He didn't know. "What do you mean you don't know," I said? "What are you actually paying for?" He really didn't know. "Have sales picked up since you hired this company," I asked? Nope. I'd say this was a pretty good sign that my client is wasting his money. I guess the question now is whether I could do any better. I'm not sure. A lot of SEO campaigns are totally worthless.

I'll probably finish reading my book tomorrow morning. I could have read the entire book in one sitting if I wasn't interrupted so often. I'm slow at a lot of things, but I'm a fast reader. I'll have to pick up some more books this weekend. They are a remarkably good way to kill time. I'm not even sure what interests me at this point in time, but I'm sure there's more to life than the trade journals and B&H photography catalogs that are my current reading matter.

I tried and failed to take pictures of dragonflies today. At this time of year, there are hundreds of them hovering over the meadows in the park in the afternoons. I've seem cool looking pictures of dragonflies in flight before, but the little critters are devilishly fast, fly in erratic patterns, and are almost impossible to keep in focus when you're using a zoom lens. Maybe I'll do better tomorrow.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2085

Sometimes I hate computers. I only had one job today. It was an easy one. I just needed to burn a few DVD's for a client. I hit the "burn to disc" button on my computer and almost immediately started getting error messages. Unfortunately, every time I got an error message, I wasted a blank disc. Some of the messages said it was impossible to calibrate the laser properly. Other messages said that the operation couldn't be completed because of some obscure error code number. I Googled the error code message and discovered that hundreds of people were having the same problem that I was. None of them seemed very happy with Apple. Many people said that their DVD burner worked just fine until they upgraded their system. A few suggested that Apple knew about the problem and that's why they no longer made computers with DVD burners. It didn't really matter what the reason was. My optical drive was broken.

I thought I'd burn the DVD's using my laptop, but there were problems there too. The hard drive on the laptop was almost full and I needed to transfer about 10 GB worth of photos before I could use the DVD burner. In addition to having very little free disc space, the laptop needs a new battery and I've got to run it using AC power. Hey, the optical drive still works though, and I was eventually able to burn the DVD's. These types of problems never used to occur when I got a new computer every three years. I can't afford that kind of extravagance anymore though, so everything is gradually falling apart.

Dot has become totally unpredictable. I took her out in the backyard after dinner when I thought she might need to poop. I walked her around with her harness for almost ten minutes and she did nothing. As soon as we went inside and I started unloading the dishwasher, she pooped on the largest and hardest to clean throw rug in the living room. Then she slipped and fell in the poop. I cleaned up Dot first, and then I tried the best I could to clean up the rug. Thank goodness for those new enzyme cleaners like Outright and Nature's Miracle. Without them, this rug would have been a lost cause. As it is, it will still take days for the rug to dry out enough for me to see if my efforts were successful.

Last year at this time, Dot was still having incontinence problems and I was mopping up pee almost every day. Now, I'm cleaning up poop. It wears you out after a while. Dash is acting weird too. For the second day in a row, he refused to eat his breakfast. There was no brisket on the kitchen counter today, so I couldn't use that as an excuse. I don't know what is wrong. He eats the very same food for diner without a problem. He still barks and begs for treats while I eat my own meals. It's just breakfast that he refuses to eat. Whenever Dash acts weird, I worry that the cancer has returned. If his appetite doesn't return soon, we're going to have to run some more tests. It's always something, isn't it?

I'd like to start reading my new book soon, but who knows what surprises tomorrow has in store for me. It's hard to believe it's September already. The dogs get their monthly heartworm pill in the morning. I haven't tired of my breakfast fruit smoothies yet, but it's going to be a tough choice tomorrow. I know that's there's bacon in the refrigerator. I'm wondering if it's even worth the trouble to get the optical drive in my computer repaired. I could get a brand new external disc burner for half the price of a repair. In the old days, today's problems would be a good excuse to go to the Apple store and buy one of those super fast black cylindrical towers. Times have changed though. Now the tech toy money gets used to pay vet bills. Oh, well. I don't need a super fast computer anymore and I probably couldn't afford one anyway.

Maybe nothing will break tomorrow and Dot won't poop inside again. One can only hope.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2084

When I arrived for my photoshoot today, I was greeted by two kids, a cockatiel, several parrots, a rabbit, a Labrador retriever, a basset hound mix, a large iguana, a lizard, a box of puppies and kittens, and two very large snakes. Through a process of elimination, we selected five animals that seemed to get along well with the children and each other. Amazingly, the children weren't afraid of the snakes, but I got a little nervous myself when a large yellow python wound up in my lap while I was looking through the viewfinder.

These type of photos aren't easy. Is everybody looking at the camera? Is the cat going to go after the bird? Will the snake eat a puppy? We had wranglers for each animal to keep things safe, but still there were a lot of surprises. The seventy pound snake moved pretty fast and always seemed to slither out of the frame. The bird flew away several times. The iguana was getting old and occasionally fell off its perch and landed on the floor with a thud. I was amazed that the rabbit was so calm. Most rabbits wouldn't want anything to do with a situation like this, but our bunny was calm and collected and stayed with us for the entire shoot. I think the photo came out great. I'm not sure what the snake thought.

I thought Dash was sick this morning. He got us up early, went outside, immediately pooped in the yard, and then wouldn't eat his breakfast. This had me worried. Dash always eats his meals. He seemed perfectly normal on our morning walk and as soon as we got home again I figured out what was going on. There was a smell of brisket in the air when I opened the back door. Janet was fixing a slow cook meal in the crockpot and the smell of the meat simmering overnight must have driven Dash wild. He's a very stubborn dog and he woke up wanting brisket for breakfast instead of his dog food. As soon as we gave the dogs a little taste of the brisket, they both were happy and spent the rest of the morning sleeping quietly on their dog beds. This evening when the meat was safely in the refrigerator, Dash thought his dog food was just fine and ate it eagerly.

With a concert and a photoshoot on the agenda, this turned out to be a very busy weekend. There was no time to mow the lawn or go to the gym, but I'm surprised that we got as much done as we did. The dogs still got their walks. The dog's bedding got washed. Dot only pooped inside once this weekend, but that still required a full load of laundry. The house could be a little cleaner, but I did manage to get all the photo equipment packed up and back to the storage warehouse. Tomorrow, I'll need to burn some DVD's so the client can sort through the hundreds of images I took today. I think there are still some website revisions I need to make as well. Oh, in case you're wondering, the brisket was deliciou.

Tessa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2083

We woke up to rain for the second time in as many weeks. Maybe the seasons are finally starting to change. The dogs always notice the rain first. I think they smell it. There was no thunder or wind this morning, but Dash went into his rain panic mode anyway. Dot taught him well, because now he's even more storm phobic than she is. Since Dot is half deaf now, she sleeps through a lot of things until Dash wakes her up with his barking and whining. She must have known what he was talking about this morning, because it didn't take long for her to go into storm panic mode too. It was a gentle rain and I knew she was going to poop soon, so I took her outside in the rain and walked her down the alley. We got wet, but it didn't take long. After barking at the weather a couple of times, she did her business.

I was hoping that we could go back to bed for a while, but Dash was wide awake when we returned to the house and he wanted his breakfast. So much for sleeping in on Saturday morning. By the time we fed the dogs and had a little something ourselves, the rain has stopped. I wish I had gotten all the pecan shells off the roof yesterday, like I had planned. Pecan shells must contain some sort of natural dye, because whenever it rains in the Fall, the broken shells on the roof immediately turn the water a dark tobacco brown that stains everything. If you're wondering why the pecans are all broken, it's because the squirrels feast on them. We gave up on eating the pecans or making pies with them years ago, because the squirrels always get them first.

When I went up on the roof later in the morning to check things out, there must have been ten pounds of broken pecan shells mixed in with the water. It was an ugly mess. It took me over an hour to get things cleaned up, and just like they always do, the broken pecan shells had stained the white roof even further. The roof looks terrible now, but at least it doesn't leak. In my ongoing battle with nature, it's the squirrels, spiders, and armadillo who always win. To add insult to injury,  I saw two well fed squirrels pulling up my St. Augustine grass by the roots and eating it while I was putting the Sump Pump away.

I thought one of my clients was a telemarketer this morning and refused to pick up the phone three times in a row. Janet, who is more curious about repeat phone calls than I am finally picked up the line and apologized for my behavior. Hey, it seemed like a telemarketer to me. There was no name on the caller ID and telemarketers often call several times in a row. They know you'll eventually pick up the line.

We went to the Eisemann Center tonight to see the Rich Tones. Janet has friends who sing in this group and we go every year to this annual concert. I didn't think I'd like a 100 member women's barbershop chorus when we first started going to these concerts, but the music grows on you. The group often takes pop hits like Lady Gaga's Born This Way or Michael Jackson's Beat It and re-arranges them as massive acapella numbers for their 100 voice choir.  The show was good tonight, but I worried that we were leaving the dogs alone too long. Of course, they were just fine when we got home.

The big photo shoot is tomorrow. I"m supposed to take a group portrait of several dogs and cats, a large lizard, two snakes, a rabbit, and a guinea pig. Maybe there's a parrot too. I hope the snake doesn't eat the guinea pig.

Duke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2082

Not my circus. Not my monkeys. This has become my universal response to just about everything I see these days. The world has become such a strange and chaotic place that I am having difficulty relating to things that are apparently normal now. Almost every time I turn on the TV I am reminded of this old Polish idiom. I feel the same way on those rare occasions when I visit a client's office or go to a public event. "What planet am I on," I sometimes think. Coincidentally, I drove by an actual circus when I was running errands this afternoon. I didn't see my monkeys there either. Even this little parking lot circus seemed strangely out of place to me.

Reading books used to seem normal to me, so I bought a book today. I've been meaning to read Andy Weir's The Martian for quite a while, but somehow never got around to it. I've known about the book for ages since it is a favorite of the space geeks I follow on social media. I've actually read big chunks of the book online, but have never read the whole thing. Maybe now would be a good time. I always like to read a book before they make a movie out of it. 9 times out of 10, the book is better than the movie.

I went to the storage warehouse today and picked up the equipment I'll need for this weekend's photo shoot. The equipment seems to get heavier every time I load it in the car. It would be nice if there was a place in the house to store this stuff, but that option disappeared years ago. Now that Dot has trouble moving around, the house has become more crowded than ever. There are dog beds everywhere, so she'll have a comfortable place to rest wherever she is. Dot has limited mobility, but she is much happier when she still has free reign of the house. She has a comfortable bed in every room now and I don't have to confine her in a small pen to keep her safe. When we go to sleep, I move several of these beds together to create a large area that she won't slide off of when she tries to re-position herself during the night. One of the beds goes in the car whenever we go to her physical therapy sessions. I feel like I'm always moving dog beds around.

I tried to rig up an alternate pet cam this afternoon. The baby monitor that I use to monitor the dogs when I'm away has been crashing a lot lately. It makes me nervous when I open the app on my phone to see what's going on and all I get is an "unable to connect" message. I usually fix the baby monitor the same way I fix every other electronic device in the house. I turn the thing off and then turn it back on again. It's amazing how simply rebooting something just about always solves the problem. At any rate it would be good to have an independent back up camera in case the baby monitor goes wonky again.

It doesn't take a lot to make me happy. I saw Mars on the Eastern horizon as we walked the dogs this morning. I got one of the three good parking places when I went out for breakfast. Dot didn't poop in the house at all today. And I'm all caught up on the week's work. Quite a few things make me unhappy as well, but maybe it I don't turn on the TV, don't pick up the phone, and avoid rush hour traffic I won't notice them so much.

Mandy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2081

Today is Dot's birthday. No, it's not the day she was actually born, it's the day we adopted her. Dot was a stray and we'll never know for sure what her history was before she found us. She was definitely a young dog, perhaps two or three years old. That would make her fourteen or fifteen years old today. I'd like to think she's fifteen, because I want her to have lived a long and happy life. When we were younger, we used to make elaborate birthday cakes for our dogs. I even took a cake decorating class once. The little dog cakes were gorgeous, but neither of us have the energy to make them anymore. We take the easy route now. I went to Sprinkles and got exactly the same thing I got for Janet's birthday: chocolate marshmallow cupcakes for the people and dog cupcakes for the dogs.

There's been a huge film crew in the park for the past several days and I've been curious to find out what's going on. I thought someone must be filming a big budget feature, since there was a forty person crew and a huge eighteen wheeler full of equipment. Today when I was taking Dash on his evening walk, I asked one of the crew members what they were doing. It turns out they were filming a brand new show on the Food Network channel called BBQ Blitz. There's currently a show called Food Network Stars and the winner gets their own show as the grand prize. This year's winner was an ex NFL football payer named Eddie Jackson who loves barbecue. They were filming the first episode of his new show, which will air sometime in October. I guess it's kind of like Top Chef, except that everyone makes barbecued food. Lord knows why they picked our park to film the first episode, but it will be interesting to see the show.

Dot did really well during her physical therapy session today. I do think she's getting stronger since we stopped her chemotherapy. Everybody, including Dot's vet, seems to agree that quality of life is more important to an old dog than the actual amount of time they live.  Nevertheless, it will be a really hard decision to make if we discover that the cancer has grown when she has her next Ultrasound scan in September. I'm hoping that the tumor has not grown at all or is growing very, very slowly. I'd hate to start the chemotherapy again, now that I know it was making her uncomfortable.

This is the weirdest political season I can ever remember. The only authentic candidates in the race are Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump. Everyone else has already been bought and paid for by special interests and huge corporations. Sanders and Trump couldn't be more different if they tried, but they both resonate with people because they just say what they think instead of having a focus group or talking to their pollsters every time they open their mouth. It's kind of refreshing to see the political insiders in both parties get their feathers ruffled by these two. I don't know about you, but I'm sick of professional politicians.

I noticed that another neighborhood restaurant has started serving breakfast and I was going to try it tomorrow until I read the Yelp reviews. Most of the reviews were from people in the area and said things like "I was so hoping to like this place, but the food just isn't that good." Without Yelp, I probably would have tried the place and might have even liked it. No wonder most of my local retail clients hate Yelp. It really changes things. I guess I'll just go back to my regular restaurant. Since I only go out once a week, it would be a shame to be disappointed.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2080

I was expecting to see lots of cute dogs on the Internet today. Hey, it is National Dog Day. Instead I see a disturbing and very graphic POV video of the senseless murder of two journalists on live TV taken by the shooter himself and posted immediately to Twitter. Is this what our world has come to? It's very sad. There will be the usual outrage about guns and gun violence in the weeks to come, but the problem goes far beyond guns. There are simply way too many crazy people and it has become socially unacceptable to lock them up in insane asylums. When I was a kid, every state had a huge network of mental hospitals and it was a fairly easy process to have a loony relative committed. I once knew a man who was the director of one of these state hospitals. He took me on a tour back when I was in college. It scared me. A lot of the people who were locked up seemed no different than I was.

Later, when my own mother was diagnosed as manic depressive, I became somewhat of a mental health advocate. I never dreamed that mental health advocacy would lead to this. We have gone too far. Giving people Prozac and tossing them out on the street again isn't going to stop school shootings and senseless violence perpetrated by crazy people. We have to develop a way to stop these people before they hurt someone. I'm sure that a lot of you saw the film Minority Report. That's exactly where we are headed if we don't get a grip on this situation. We have almost reached a tipping point. You can see it in the rhetoric of politicians. And you can see it in your friends Facebook postings. I don't care what you think about mental health issues. Society needs stability to survive and it will get that stability one way or another. When crazy people threaten the rest of the world's sanity, the lunacy simply has to stop.

The stock market had a good day, but today's gains did little to assuage my uneasiness. This roller coaster ride has already chopped over 8% off the value of my investment portfolio in just a matter of weeks. I used to take these meltdowns in stride. I knew, and still believe, that the market will always bounce back. The problem is that you can never be sure when it will bounce back. It might be months and it might be years. The older you get, the more you start to think that you might not live long enough to see the next boom in this perpetual boom and bust cycle. My Dad lived quite comfortably off his old fashioned university pension. I don't think many of us who depend on an increasingly volatile market and a 401K plan for security will do nearly as well.

I had a long conversation today with a guy who seems destined to become the new brand manager for a company I work with. I don't know if this is good or bad for me. New brand managers often want to get rid of old suppliers. I was asked for my opinions and I gave them. We'll see what happens. I've had a long run with this particular company, but nothing lasts forever. Hey, there's always room for a September surprise. Maybe the guy actually listened to what I had to say.

It seems like I just took Dot to physical therapy yesterday, but it's already time to take her again. This year is going by very quickly. I'm not sure whether to rest Dot tomorrow morning, or take her on her normal walk. She does seem a little bit stronger. Maybe we can do both. I'm not having much luck strengthening Dot's weak rear leg, but I am getting better at anticipating when she is going to poop. For two day in a row I have recognized the telltale signs and gotten her outside in the nick of time. It's too bad I can't do this while I'm sleeping. That's when most of the pooping occurs.

I hope tomorrow is a calm and peaceful day for everyone. With any luck, Dot will be able to go her full 18 minutes in the underwater treadmill. Maybe I'll remember to take out the trash too. That's enough to make Thursday a success for me. I don't set the bar very high these days.

Cammy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2079

We heard thunder off in the distance when we woke up this morning, but we went on our morning walk anyway since the weather radar showed the storm would pass to the East of us. Distant thunder doesn't bother Dot as much anymore since she is so hard of hearing. She's still scared of lightning though, but I had that covered. I upgraded my weather app recently to show real time lightning strikes and there was no lightning in the vicinity. Personal weather radar has made it so much easier to walk the dogs. I could live without a lot of things, but I'd have a hard time giving up my weather radar.

I hope my broker didn't decide that today would be a good day to pick up some bargains. The market was up over 300 points while I was eating breakfast and then went up and down like a yo-yo for the rest of the day. At the close it added another 200 point loss to an unrelenting week of big declines. I don't even look at my stocks these days. It's just too depressing. Even stop loss strategies can't really protect you in times like these. In a volatile market like this you can get stopped out of a good stock in a matter of seconds when an unpredictable wild move triggers a sale that you didn't really want. You can't chase trends either, because they change too quickly. You pretty much have to stick with your convictions and weather the storm. I agree with Dot and Dash on this one. Weathering a storm is not much fun.

Today was pretty slow. Slow is good though. I wish things were even slower. I stayed busy by finishing a writing assignment and making arrangements for an upcoming photo shoot. There were several vet appointments I had to schedule for Dot in September and Dash was low on phenobarbital, so I made a trip to the vet to get another month's supply. That was about it. I kind of wish I had one new writing assignment each day and one new website to design each week. This would give me an almost ideal workflow with minimal boredom or stress. It seldom works this way though. Writing assignments tend to come in clumps and most of my website work is just maintenance and updates now. Designing a brand new website is much more fun. I don't even solicit photography jobs anymore because I hate carrying the heavy equipment. I'm kind of dreading my photoshoot this weekend and hope my shoulder doesn't go out again.

Don't get me wrong. I still like taking photographs, I just don't like hauling a ton of strobes, power packs, soft boxes and backdrops to a location shoot. I was actually kind of pleased this afternoon to capture two ducks gazing into each others eyes. It sure looked like duck love to me. Photos of duck bills don't pay my bills though. Luckily, I'm still pretty good at lighting, even though the equipment seems to have grown a lot heavier in recent years. Maybe I've just gotten grumpier.

I'm really starting to fade. When I played in a band, I used to lug our entire PA system, my guitars, and a huge bass amp to every gig. I couldn't even lift those large speakers anymore. Some of the equipment has gotten lost over the years, but some of it is still sitting in the storage warehouse. It will probably stay there forever, because it has become too heavy to move.

Getting old sucks. Just ask Dot. I'm sure she'll agree with everything I say. At least I can still walk normally. I thought switching back to Benicar would stop my cough, but it hasn't helped much. The cough must be something else. Do I go back to the doctor and have him add yet another drug to the laundry list of prescriptions I take every month, or do I just forget about it and live with the cough? It probably doesn't even matter. I'm inclined to do nothing and just switch back to the old blood pressure medication. It was certainly a lot cheaper.

Listening to the current crop of political candidates is certainly more entertaining than watching the stock market crumble, but it is equally depressing. I'd like to say "Not my circus, not my monkeys," but they actually are my circus and monkeys. I've got to vote for one of these clowns. So far, I don't like any of them.

Pinky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2078

There's nothing like starting your day washing your hair and discovering that there is a giant cockroach in the shower with you. That ugly little incident kind of set the tone for the day. Later, while I was eating breakfast, I watched the stock market drop over 1000 points within a few minutes of the opening bell. The market did recover a bit, but still ended the day with a loss of 588 points. This is not very auspicious, especially after last week's huge losses. Just as I thought life was returning to normal, Dot wandered into my office while I was working on a writing assignment, quietly dropping a long trail of poop behind her. I thought Dot was fast asleep, but apparently not.

It's easy to clean up dog poop. It's not so simple to clean up the mess that China has made of my investment portfolio. I haven't gone into panic mode yet, but I am frustrated. When China sneezes, we all catch a cold. How did we let ourselves  become so dependent on a Country that isn't even our friend? China buys our debt and we buy their cheaply made products. We have become completely co-dependent. Life was so much better when every American town had a factory and we made all our own stuff. Don't people realize that these factories were what provided the well paying jobs that everyone is clamoring for these days? Not everyone is destined to become a rocket scientist and factory jobs were what created the middle class in America. I've never been a fan of globalization. All it has done is create immensely rich multi-national corporations. I'd gladly return to a world where products were made by my neighbors in my own home town. Sure, everything would cost a little more, but is cheap Chinese made stuff at Walmart really worth all we've lost?

I'm pretty certain that nothing I say about China, or anything else for that matter, will make much of a difference. I don't exert much influence over my clients anymore. I seldom change Janet's mind either. Even Dot and Dash don't listen to me. I do have opinions, but I'm tired of tilting at windmills. It's much easier to just drink my morning coffee, take care of the dog's needs, and mind my own business.

I helped a Luddite friend add a bank account to her Paypal account this morning. This wasn't nearly as easy as it should have been. Every time I did something on my computer, Paypal would call my friend to confirm that it was really her. Of course it wasn't my friend doing the typing, it was me. She'd get a phone call asking for a confirmation number that was actually appearing miles away on my screen. I think we eventually got the account set up, but it would have been a lot easier if she'd just learn how to use her computer. I have a sister who is the same way. She won't use a computer at all and I have to send her letters through the mail. I may occasionally want to travel back in time to the 1950's, but I'm a realist. I do know how to use a computer.

Janet got home late from work, but we decided to walk Dot around the block anyway. It was starting to get dark, but we were hoping that Dot would poop again and we might be able to get a good night's sleep. Dot found something to bark at along the way and that short moment of excitement actually did cause her to poop. I couldn't have asked for more. A day that started with killing a wet cockroach actually ended pretty well.

Hero is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2077

I thought I'd fix an old aluminum colander today. This colander was so old that it must have belonged to my Mom. Or maybe it belonged to Janet's Mom. One of the legs had fallen off and Janet was going to throw the thing away. "I can fix that," I said. This was about a month ago actually. Men aren't generally that quick about fixing things. I thought it would be easy to rivet the leg back on the bowl of the colander using my rivet gun. I hadn't used the rivet gun in years, so the first problem was finding it. After searching in all the logical places, I finally found the tool in an illogical place. It made sense that I would store the rivets with the tool, but of course I didn't. It took me another thirty minutes to find a supply of aluminum rivets. I got ready to attach the leg and realized that the broken old rivets were still attached. I would have to drill them out. The batteries on my electric drill were dead, but I managed to find an old AC powered drill of my Dad's. The drill didn't have a chuck though, so I couldn't attach a drill bit. I finally managed to pull the old rivet out of the hole with a pair of pliers. The first time I tried to rivet the leg to the bowl, I forgot to place a washer on the back side of the rivet and it fell out of the hole. Finally, I got things right. Two hours after I started, I had a successful repair. I wonder why I thought that fixing the colander would only take me ten minutes?

Fixing things around the house always takes me a long time. The whole process is kind of like household archaeology. I have to sift through layers and layers of stuff to find the tools I need. We ran out of space so long ago that stuff is just piled on top of other stuff. If a tool is buried under too many layers, it is often easier to just drive to Home Depot and buy another one. The rivet gun was buried under layers of painting supplies, which were in turn covered up by three folding tables that Janet and I used to use at Dalmatian Rescue events. Long before I found the rivet gun, a bunch of wasps found me. They has been building a nest a few feet over my head. I didn't get stung, but the wasps did make me work faster. I often wonder why I embark on projects like this. I could have gone to Bed Bath and Beyond and picked up a brand new colander for just a few bucks. The old aluminum utensil didn't even have much sentimental value. I guess I feel compelled to fix things.

I hope going to the gym on Sunday is beneficial because I could certainly think of better things to do with my time. I've been pretty faithful about my weekend workouts, but I still don't see the fascination with exercise that many people have. Every morning when we walk the dogs, we pass dozens of cyclists and joggers who are up just as early as we are. I'm up because I know that Dot and Dash really need these walks. I wonder why these other guys are up so early?  If I had a choice, I would just sleep in an extra hour. I did go to the gym today though. And then I ate cake when I got home.

The TV went out again this evening, and since I couldn't get things to work on my own, I called U-Verse tech support for help. After answering the usual laundry last of questions, the technician suggested that I disconnect the HDMI cable from the TV and plug it back in back to front. "Why would this make a difference," I thought? I dutifully took the TV end of the cable and plugged it into the U-Verse receiver and took the receiver end and plugged it into the TV. It worked! Since nothing was wrong with the cable in the first place, I wondered why flipping it back to front brought the picture back. The technician didn't know. "Sometimes this just gets the signal flowing again," he said.

The calendar looks pretty empty next week. Dot does have a birthday on Thursday though. We'll have to do something special.

Mickey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2076

Janet and I went to a barbecue and going away party for one of Dot's nurses today. She's leaving Dallas to begin vet school in London. What an adventure. I always admire people who have the nerve to take a big, bold step forward. Going to vet school at the Royal Veterinary College in London is a big deal. It is consistently ranked among the top three vet schools in the entire world. Of course, Texas A&M, where a lot of my veterinarian friends went to school, is ranked number six in the world. There are a lot of really good veterinarians in Texas. Dot will miss her friend at our water therapy sessions, but she's going to be a very good veterinarian someday.

I've got to start getting more sleep. I got to bed late last night, and even though we slept in a little longer because it was Saturday, my activity tracker still said I'd only gotten 4 hours and 10 minutes of sleep. That's really not enough. Whenever I wake up a little late, my first thought is how to get Dot dressed in her harness and outside before she poops all over the place. Sometime I succeed and sometimes I don't. It's kind of like watching a ticking time bomb. You know it's going to explode sometime. Today, we did manage to get Dot to the back door in time, but neither of us had our shoes on and Dot pooped in the doorway. I should have had my shoes on before we headed for the doorway, but it's hard to be coordinated when you're still half asleep.

The poop soiled area rug is finally dry again and it's actually cleaner than all the other rugs in the house. Maybe I need to take the all the other rugs outside and hose them down with the pressure hose. It couldn't hurt. There are some things even the Dyson can't handle. I've just about concluded that it's physically impossible to keep a tidy house with old, sick dogs. It's just not going to happen. It doesn't help matters that the house itself is older than the dogs, and Janet and I are older than the house. Everything in our little universe is slowly falling apart. I used to wonder why my parent's house looked like it had been hit by a tornado as they got older. It was always as neat as a pin when I was a kid. Now I know the answer. Priorities change, and a messy house can end up being the least of your worries.

One of my worries today was gaining access to my coffee pods. The door to the kitchen cabinet where I store all the Keurig pods was jammed shut. Somehow the latch had broken in the closed position and it was impossible to open the door. I tried everything I could think of the get the latch to release, but nothing worked. I finally had to pry the door open with a large screwdriver and ended up ripping the two screws holding the latch to the door right out of the wood. I was really lucky that I didn't end up cracking the door. Now I've got to find a new latch. Nobody makes them anymore. I bought a dozen of the peculiar looking latches at an old hardware store when I first bought the house. One of my rent properties used the same type of latches and I knew I'd use them. I think they're all gone now though. A lot of door latches can break over a twenty year period. I'll think of something. It's already one of my projects for next week.

Dot seemed pretty perky today. From time to time she would get up from her dog bed and wander around the house with no assistance from me whatsoever. Baby steps. I'm still hoping we can manage to get her a little stronger.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2075

I feel poor. After paying a horrendous batch of August bills and watching the Dow plunge 531 points in a single day, it was easy to feel a bit discouraged. The stock market is right back where it was in 2011. Four years of gains have been erased in a single week. I just wonder how all this is going to end. Everything is getting more expensive, but wages aren't going up. The stock market rises and falls on political unrest instead of market fundamentals. Everybody wants a job, but fewer and fewer people have marketable skills. It's a mess.

Dot pooped in the house again. This time I was ready for her. I quickly moved a rug out of the way, held her harness so she wouldn't fall, and made sure she did her business on the brick floor instead of ruining another rug. We need to move some of the rugs around. She often poops while she is eating because food makes her excited, but unfortunately the biggest area rug we have is right under her food bowl. We need to start buying Outright by the gallon. Without enzyme cleaners like Outright and Nature's Miracle, many of our rugs would have been totally ruined by now.

I think we're just going to have to learn to live with Dot's condition. You can't leave her outside in the yard to do her business because she can't stand on her own. I can spend half an hour outside holding her harness, but she just won't go until something makes her bark or gets her excited. The challenge now is just looking for the best ways to control the damage. I talked to Dot's oncologist today and she agreed to discontinue the Palladia pills for another two weeks based on the initial results we have witnessed so far. Dot may not be any stronger, but she is definitely feeling better now that we have stopped the chemotherapy for a while. When a full month has passed, we will scan Dot again and see whether discontinuing the Palladia has caused the tumor to grow. Until then, we'll just hope she continues to grow stronger.

I managed to finish almost everything this week. My writing assignments have been turned in. Websites have been updated. Bills have been paid. And new piles of poop have been cleaned up. I'm ready for the weekend. My breakfast restaurant was kind of quiet this morning and I managed to snag one of the three good parking places. For some inexplicable reason, most of the parking places have been re-striped so they are about a foot narrower. Only a smart car of a Mini will fit in these small slots, but that doesn't keep the F-250 pickups from trying. I usually park far away to avoid door dings.

I tried again to get the big rug that Dot soiled yesterday clean. I've washed the rug thoroughly with a hose, but it's going to take about a week for it to dry. Janet already bought a replacement rug, but I'd like to see if I can clean the rug anyway.  I'm sure this is going to happen again. If the rug wasn't so stiff, I could probably take it to a laundromat and wash the thing in one of the big commercial washers. I don't think it would fit in the machine though. You can tell that my brain isn't being fully utilized if my big problem of the day was dealing with a poopy area rug.

We're invited to a party tomorrow. I'm always apprehensive about parties, but we'll probably go. There's a fine line between being a little reclusive and becoming completely anti-social and I don't want to cross it.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day