Day 2190

I spent the day trying to return the house to normal. The camera equipment was packed up and returned to its proper place. The large muslin photo backdrop was cleaned and folded. Some things went back to the office. Some things were hidden under the bed. The majority of the equipment was loaded into the car and returned to the storage warehouse. When the clutter was gone, the dust and dirt that had accumulated from three weeks of benign neglect became even more obvious. Out came the Dyson and the house was vacuumed from one end to the other. I had to clean bird poop off the car again too. The evil bird has returned with a vengeance.

Some things will have to wait until tomorrow. I need to get the water off the roof again. I know it's up there, but other things have been more important. I still need to put up a Christmas tree. I never got around to putting up the mini-blinds either. There just isn't enough time anymore. I hate to rush Dot when I take her outside. It takes a lot of patience to hold up her rear legs while she aimlessly wanders around and smells things. Dot still likes to smell things, so I let her stay outside as long as she wants. I can always catch up on whatever I'm doing later. Sometimes I think Dot forgets why she went outside in the first place. I understand. I often forget why I'm doing things.

When I went to the bank this morning I noticed that the skin on my arm was turning a bright red as I felt a flushing sensation on my face and extremities. Damn. I must have taken my nighttime meds in the morning again. I take Niacin to help control cholesterol, but I need to take it at bedtime. Niacin in high doses causes an uncomfortable flushing sensation, but you don't notice it when you are asleep. I seldom mix up my morning and evening meds, but when I do, the Niacin serves as a not so subtle reminder that I need to get my act together.

I started looking for a smaller dehumidifier for the back of the house today. Curiously, I found that most of the smaller capacity units were almost exactly the same physical size as the larger units. They were almost the same price too. Maybe this is why these smaller dehumidifiers don't sell very well. Why would you buy a 30 pint, or 50 pint model if the 70 pint model was the same size and only cost $50 more? These companies need some marketing help. I may need to rethink getting a second dehumidifier. These smaller units make no sense at all.

I'll probably continue cleaning tomorrow. I'd love to start the new year with a clean uncluttered office. Of course, I'll like to start the new year with a big bank account, healthy dogs, and five new clients too. Some things just aren't going to happen. I can't decide whether decluttering is feasible or completely hopeless. It is such a huge job and the rewards are somewhat minimal. It's not like I'd do anything differently if I had a clean office. It would be nice to be able to find things though.

Tomorrow is my Blogiversary. Kind of amazing to think I'll be starting my eighth year writing Some Assembly Required and I still haven't missed a single day. If I was this dedicated about everything, Lord knows what I could have accomplished.

Lance is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2189

We're done! I always say that I never want to do one of these pet picture marathons again, but that's just my aging body talking. When it's all over, I usually think we've done something good. Hundreds of people now have their Christmas card photos. We've made a lot of people happy. And we've raised a fair amount of money to help my favorite charity. Shooting Santa photos with people's pets is the only team activity I get involved with all year. Maybe a little teamwork isn't such a bad thing. I'll have to say that we're a pretty good team. It takes eight people to put together these Santa Paws events and over the years we've become experts at it. People come back year after year to dress their pets in ridiculous costumes and have Santa hold them on his lap. They say we have the best Santa photos in town. I believe we do.

Today was tiring, but everybody was in a good mood since we knew we were on the home stretch. I think most of the bad, misbehaving dogs decided to come today. We definitely had our hands full. Our set got peed on again. Several dogs were nervous and didn't want to have anything to do with Santa. Other dogs couldn't stand still for two seconds. Quite a few drooled a lot and couldn't keep their tongue in their mouth. It takes a lot of patience to be a pet photographer. It also takes a lot of dog treats. Eventually, we got a good photo of almost everybody, but some dogs took longer than others.

Texas weather is remarkably inconsistent. When I went to bed last night it was warm and muggy. During the night it poured rain and by the time we called it a day at our Santa Paws location this afternoon, it was thirty degrees cooler and felt like it could snow. I thought there might be a lot of no shows because of today's rain, but I think all the weather did was make people late for their appointment. I never criticize people for being late anymore, since I'm late so often myself. Dallas traffic is terrible and encountering a single traffic accident or construction site can put you twenty minutes behind. With some of the wild dogs we photographed today, I'm amazed that many of these people made it to the photo shoot at all.

With the Santa Paws season behind us, it's now time to catch up on other things. I'll make a trip to the storage warehouse tomorrow to return some of the equipment we used and hopefully return with a box or two of Christmas ornaments. Putting up a Christmas tree is definitely on this weeks to-do list. So is putting up the new set of mini-blinds I bought last week. I'd like to sleep in tomorrow, but it's a work day. Janet will be getting up at the crack of dawn to get ready for work and we'll all go on a morning walk as the sun comes up. After that, who knows. There is a fresh bunch of bananas and a tub of strawberries in the kitchen for my morning smoothies. There is certainly plenty to do tomorrow, but it will be hard to resist the temptation to take a long nap as soon as Janet's car leaves the driveway.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2188

Three down, one to go. I photographed everything from Chihuahuas to Old English Sheepdogs today. Since it was a rainy day, I thought attendance might be down, but we were booked solid, just like our previous two events. I wonder what dogs really think about being dressed up like elves? Most are surprisingly patient. Some people do several costume changes with their pets. When we get busy there are so many costumed pets wandering around that it seems like we are in the dressing room for a weird Broadway musical.

We had our first dog that wanted to bite us today. The owners said he was just being protective. Why would someone bring a dog like this to sit on Santa's lap? It boggles the mind.

I remember these days more by what we have for lunch than anything else. Normally, I don't eat lunch at all, but convincing dozens of dogs to act like supermodels can make you hungry. The first day we had Papa John's Pizza. The second day we has sandwiches from Schlotzsky's. Today we had lunch brought in from Panera Bread. This is all forbidden food for me, so having a slice of pizza while a pair of Schnauzers are having their costumes changed is a guilty pleasure. I don't see how people can eat like this day after day though. This much salt, sugar, and refined white flour just isn't healthy.

The dehumidifier struggles on days like this. On warm, rainy days the humidity outside is 100%. I've decided that I feel the most comfortable when the humidity is around 35%, but the little machine just can't deliver this desert like dryness after a heavy rain. Maybe it would be easier to just move to Arizona. Janet wants to buy a second dehumidifier for her closet. By Summer, we'll probably have dehumidifiers all over the place.

Despite the rain and a very busy schedule, Dot and Dash still managed to get their two daily walks. Dash and I got wet on our evening walk, but neither of us seemed to mind. After spending a day watching strobes go off in a room filled with the smell of wet dogs, it was nice to be outside again. Tomorrow, we've got to regroup and do the whole thing all over again. Nobody peed on the backdrop today, but it did get dirty since it was raining outside. Maybe I can just sweep it off with a broom before we start tomorrow. All the batteries are recharging now and nothing is broken. I think we're good to go.

Savannah is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2187

I spent the day trying to solve a series of vexing technical problems. I still can't figure out why the camera I normally use to take Santa pictures fails to trigger the strobe lights when I press the shutter button. It didn't used to do this. I think it an auto-focus problem with the lens. I could be wrong. Whenever I hear a beep confirming focus, everything is fine. When the lens starts hunting and fails to focus, the shutter won't fire. I tried a variety of different lenses and metering styles trying to isolate the problem, but I didn't have much luck. Nothing I did made the problem go away. Oh, well. I guess I'll have to use the back up camera again tomorrow.

I want to upgrade the system of my desktop computer so I can run the current version of Pro Tools.  The problem is that a lot of software I use everyday still needs my much older operating system. I'm not touching any of the Apple operating systems after they stopped naming them after cats. If I installed El Capitan or Yosemite, nothing would run. My software is all too old. There's got to be a system that's new enough to run Pro Tools 12 and old enough not to crash everything else. Maybe Mountain Lion is what I need. This OS may already be obsolete to most people, but it's still new to me. When I tested Mountain Lion on my laptop, everything seemed to work. When I tried running my desktop computer with an external boot drive with Mountain Lion installed, there were all sorts of problems. Sure, I guess I could upgrade all my software, but the newer versions of Adobe products are all subscription based now. I prefer to own software instead of rent it. At any rate, I still don't know if Mountain Lion will run the software I need and I don't have the nerve to install it just to find out.

Janet thinks the dehumidifier still isn't getting her closet dry enough, so I decided to move it to the bedroom today and see if that made any difference. The only difference I noticed was that the bedroom quickly became warmer than the rest of the house. There wasn't enough air flow through the room and the warm exhaust air from the dehumidifier gradually made the bedroom five degrees hotter than the rest of the house. Basically, my experiment with moving the dehumidifier failed. My search for the perfect operating system for my aging desktop computer failed. And my attempt to discover what was wrong with my camera failed. I'm three for three today.

At least breakfast was good. Actually, dinner was pretty good as well. I've started using our little George Foreman Grill to cook burgers and pork chops. It's quick, it tastes almost as good as cooking on the grill outside, and there's virtually no mess.  In six minutes I had a tasty, perfectly seared burger without any pots and pans to clean. That's my kind of cooking.

All the photo equipment is packed and ready to load in the car tomorrow morning. If I can make it through the next two days, I will have survived another year of Santa pictures. Maybe when things settle down, I'll finally get around to putting up a Christmas tree. It's hard to say this year. I'm so tired that I could easily imagine waking up Christmas morning and not even remember what day it was.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2186

This morning was busy. We walked the dogs a little earlier so I could take Janet up to the Land Rover dealer before work to get a loaner car while hers was in the shop. Dot and Dash were a little miffed that they had to wait for their breakfast, but all was well as soon as I returned. By the time I finished fixing my morning smoothie and had my requisite two cups of coffee while watching the morning news, it was already time to take Dot downtown for her weekly physical therapy session. I don't know whether I'm unusually slow, or if time is running faster these days. Whatever it is, it's getting harder and harder to get anything done.

There are so many daily rituals that just didn't used to exist. It takes forever to sort through my e-mail each morning. Most of it is spam and junk, but there's always something important from a client buried in the spam folder, so I have to look at everything. I have to move all Dot's dog beds from their nighttime to their daytime positions each morning and wash anything that got soiled. Now, emptying the dehumidifier bucket is a regular ritual too. The machine has an automatic shutoff when the bucket gets full, but I've discovered that it is quite heavy and easy to spill on the floor if you let it fill to the top with water. There are so many little things like this that it is often 10:30 AM or even later before I get around to doing any actual work.

Dot did great at her therapy session today. She even rode better in the car on the way to the vet and I didn't have to stop and re-position her this time. Dot's vet was one of our locations for Santa pictures this year and I was happy that everyone enjoyed the event and was pleased with their pictures. Now, they want Dalmatian Rescue to come back and do another photo event later in the year. We used to shoot photos on all the major holidays, but everybody was younger then. Now, we mostly just work during the Christmas season. Valentine's Day pictures were surprisingly popular though. A lot of people think of their pet as their favorite valentine.

I got my December invoices in the mail today. Billings were pitiful this month. The declining nature of my business is a big reason why I was upset with my financial adviser yesterday. I always expected that as I eased into retirement, my investments would replace the lost income and allow me to maintain my lifestyle indefinitely. It's not working out that way. I never dreamed that interest rates would drop to 0%, that the entire middle class would start to disappear, and that my hard earned skills would become a somewhat worthless commodity. At least I'm not burdened with debt. I'd hate to have a lot of debt at my age. A lot of my friends still do.

It's all about the little things now. I'm pleased that I've temporarily outwitted the bird who poops on my car with my clever rubber snakes. I'm pleased the the dehumidified continues to suck water out of the house. I'm pleased that the bananas we bought last weekend lasted all the way through the week. I'm especially pleased that Dot pooped outside after dinner. Enough time has passed that I've almost forgotten the mess she made in her bed this morning.

Princess is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2185

I had one of my periodic meetings with my financial adviser today. Usually we just chit-chat about the market a bit and he makes a few recommendations that I almost always go along with. Today was not going to be one of those days. When he asked how I was doing, I told him as politely as I could that I was not a happy camper. We've been working together for almost five years and my account hasn't really grown very much. Actually, performance has been pitiful. Sure, the market has been extremely volatile and a lot of things haven't gone as expected, but that's what you pay these guys for. I honestly expected that my adviser could do a much better job of growing my portfolio than I could, but so far that hasn't been the case. I actually did a pretty respectible job of managing my own investments, but it was very stressful for me. I don't like dealing with money. I did my research, but I got tired of fretting about whether I did the right thing. Eventually, I hired a financial adviser. The guy I chose was highly recommended by people I respect, but I'm beginning to think I made the wrong decision. I know hindsight is always 20/20, but there are just too many common sense things that should have been done differently.

I caught Dash drinking out of the toilet again and when I yelled at him to stop, it must have startled him. He jumped backward and ended up flipping over the water bowl on the floor that he should have been drinking out of. The spilled water soaked a large rug in the bathroom and generally made a mess everywhere. When I was mopping up the water, I got a call from Janet telling me her car had died. She mentioned yesterday that she was hearing a funny noise but didn't think it was serious. I guess it was serious after all. I told Dot not to poop all over the place while I went to pick her up Janet, but I didn't have high hopes.

It was just one of those days. I went to Home Depot earlier in the day to look for a replacement for the mini-blinds  I'd singed with the ceramic heater and discovered that they no longer made the size I needed. I was told to buy a larger blind and then cut it to the proper size myself. The sales associate who helped me said there were videos on YouTube that would show me how to do this. This wasn't what I expected, but I bought the blinds anyway. How hard could it be to watch a YouTube video?

I'll probably regret my decision tomorrow. Everything is harder than expected these days. I haven't had much luck sealing the tile floor in the shower and didn't do a very good job at cleaning the muslin photo backdrop that got peed on this weekend. Actually, the only success I've had this week was figuring out where to place the rubber snakes to scare the evil bird who's been pooping on my car away.

Tomorrow will be busy. As soon as we finish taking the dogs on their morning walk, I need to take Janet up to the Land Rover dealership so she can pick up her loaner car. Dot has another morning physical therapy session, so it will be a quick turnaround when I get home again. Hopefully, I will still have time for breakfast. I never do well when I don't have time to fix my smoothie and drink some strong coffee while I watch the latest bad news on TV.

My Dad would have been 98 years old today if he were still alive. He died quite a while ago though.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2184

Dot helps keep things in perspective. I cleaned up a rug that Dot had just pooped on and then cleaned up myself a bit for a Christmas party at the Presidential Library. I rarely go to parties of any sort these days, but I'll have to admit that this one was quite nice. I was Janet's guest, so I tried my best to find some clothes that weren't ridiculously out of style. They probably were out of style, because I looked exactly like every other old man in the place. It was a pleasant evening. There was an open bar. We had a delicious dinner. We met George and Laura. And we were still home before 9:30 PM. It's weird that every modern president has one of these libraries. They are really quite extravagant. I've driven by LBJ's library in Austin a few times and heard a lot about Clinton's library, but I'd never actually been inside one of these buildings before. The library is only a few miles from my house, but it felt like it was in a parallel universe very far away.

My own universe is much smaller and consists mostly of poop. I'm still trying to outwit the red Cardinal that poops on my car everyday. It seems to like to look at itself in the car windows, so that's were I've been placing the rubber snakes. Now, all the bird sees when it flies up to the window is a big snake. The strategy seems to be working. The bird still targets my car, but it's avoiding the snakes. Now, all I need to do is go to the Dollar Store and buy some more rubber snakes.

I discovered that I could watch the Dr. Who episode I missed Saturday night on my computer.  BBC America has a website where you can watch complete episodes of pretty much every show they broadcast. The only downside is they use some sort of proprietary video player and you can't skip the commercials or back up the tape to watch something you missed. I'll have to watch the entire show over again, because Dot pooped at a critical point in the story and by the time I cleaned up the mess, the show was over. I still have no idea what the season finale was all about. Dr. Who scripts are so complex now that if you snooze, you lose. Is Clara dead or alive? Is Peter Capaldi still the War Doctor? What is all this business about being a hybrid? Maybe the Hell Bent will make more sense if I can watch it again while the dogs are asleep.

It's hard to believe that Christmas is just around the corner. I've done absolutely nothing this year. I haven't put up a tree yet. I haven't bought presents for anyone. I haven't even got a plan. I'm just too tired to think about it. Maybe after I finish up with this year's Santa photos I'll get in the spirit of things. Until then, I'll continue to get up early, watch the parade of planets in the pre-dawn sky as we walk the dogs, make my banana and strawberry smoothie, drink some strong coffee and get ready for another day.

Willow is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2183

We're making progress. Our broadband service was finally restored today and the humidity in the house is down to 38%. When the technician called to tell me that everything had been fixed, I asked him what the problem was. "We found four separate faults in the fiber line to your house," he told me. "That sounds pretty major," I said. "Was service out for the entire neighborhood?" "No, it was just you," the guy said. It figures. Our house just seems to attract problems.

I stretched the soiled photo backdrop out on a long clothesline this morning and sprayed it with the Nature's Miracle enzyme. It was a nice day, so it didn't take long for the muslin cloth to air out and dry. I think it looks and smells much better, but Dot and Dash beg to differ. They are still real interested in the cloth backdrop when I take them outside. I'll see what Janet thinks. You can't dry clean or wash these hand painted backdrops, because all the paint will come off. I'll clean the backdrop again tomorrow and hopefully by next Saturday it will just be another large, somewhat dirty piece of canvas. I'm hoping for the best. The last thing you want is the smell of pee when you're shooting a long sequence of pet pictures. If one dog has marked the canvas, all the other dogs will want to pee on top of the same spot to claim it. That's just the way dogs are.

Even though our U-Verse service is working again, I'm still tempted to switch to Time Warner. I checked prices today and their top of the line bundle is about 40% less than what we are currently paying right for U-Verse. Cable providers are tricky though. They are masters of bait and switch tactics. You sign up for something and then you notice a few months later that you are paying quite a bit more. None of the cable providers include taxes in their pricing either. It's amazing how many weird and often expensive local and state taxes they can get away with adding to your bill. No wonder so many people are just watching Netflix and Hulu on the Internet. So far, the Internet has managed to escape most of the ridiculous taxes the utilities and telecom providers tack on to your bill.

The evil bird that poops on my car has returned to spend another Winter taunting me. I know it's the same bird every year. I wonder how long birds live? I think that parrots can live 50 years or more, but what about Blue Jays and Cardinals? This bird always poops on my car and never on Janet's. It drives me nuts. I've tried everything to scare the bird away, but nothing seems to work. I really thought rubber snakes would do the trick, but this bird has no fear of snakes. It even pooped on one of the rubber snakes yesterday.

I thought I might be able to see Comet Catalina this morning, since it is currently located very near the Moon and Venus in the pre-dawn sky. It turns out that the comet was fainter than expected though, and I wasn't able to find it with binoculars. I'll try again tomorrow morning, but I suspect that the glare from cars and streetlights will pretty well mask the faint sixth magnitude object.

Work continues to be slow this month. Maybe this is the new normal. I certainly hope not.

Humphrey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2182

For the first time in a very long time, Blogger appears to be down. When I logged on to write my post tonight, I couldn't view my blog at all and kept getting a message saying "Whoops, that's an error. We apologize for the inconvenience." Somehow this seemed like a lot more than a minor inconvenience when I was faced with the prospect of missing my first daily post since I started the blog 2182 days ago. I did a quick Google search and discovered that other people all around the world were having the same problem. Somehow this was comforting. My blog didn't just disappear. Google is working on the problem and if I write slowly, there's always a chance that they will get everything fixed before I finish telling you about today's activities.

There were certainly plenty going on today. We completed our second Santa Paws photo shoot and for the most part, everything went well. Everyone was tired. Some volunteers wore the same clothes that they did yesterday. I didn't even have time to take a shower. It was a long drive to today's location, so I had to get up even earlier than I did yesterday. We got Dot and Dash walked and fed, packed the cars with equipment, and off we went. I wish I had time to diagnose what was wrong with my camera yesterday, but that will have to wait. I just took a different camera with me today and all was well. Camera problems are mine and mine alone. The rest of the crew has their own problems to deal with. Sometimes the printer refuses to cooperate. Other times our credit card reader won't work. Frequently, people are late for their appointments and we get off schedule. We're a good team though. At the end of the day, everyone has their pictures and goes home happy.

Our luck ran out with the backdrop today. Several dogs peed on it and one dog pooped. I need to remember to pack a bottle of Nature's Miracle enzyme cleaner with the rest of my gear. It's the only thing that works with these types of stains. Our host had some disinfectant cleaners, but the backdrop still smelled like pee when I got home. I hung it outside to dry and will see if I can salvage it after I deal with the U-Verse people tomorrow.

I'm being optimistic and assuming that the U-Verse repair folks will actually show up tomorrow. Sometimes they don't. This has been the longest service outage I've had in a long time and it's starting to get on my nerves. As a web developer, I really depend on having a good internet connection. The Internet should be as reliable at your water and electricity. Oops. Now that I think about it, the Internet is actually more reliable than our electricity and water. After living without water for a week in a home that has power outages after every thunderstorm, I realize now that nothing is all that reliable anymore.

I hope the U-Verse technician can quickly and quietly fix our broadband without upsetting Dot and causing her to poop all over the house. I hope I can salvage the pee stained muslin photo backdrop so I don't have to buy another. I hope I can convince the client who was ready to dump me on Friday that I can provide the same quality of service at the new ad agency he's considering. I hope I can keep a smile on my face for the rest of the Christmas party season. Nobody needs to know how I really feel.

After spending most of this weekend eating fast food, I realize why so many people are overweight and have diabetes. Junk food tastes so good that it's hard to resist. Too much sugar and salt is always pretty tasty. It's too bad I couldn't lose weight on a steady diet of pizza and burgers. I always enjoy the pizzas I eat while I'm working on location, but it's back to healthy food tomorrow. I have tremendous will power, but I often wonder what's the point of it all. The people eating junk food seem to be having more fun.

Emma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2181

It's that time of year. We completed our first Santa Paws photo shoot today and just like I expected, the day was full of surprises. My first surprise was discovering that we had a brand new Santa. Our regular Santa is a huge Steelers fan and was evidently up in Pittsburgh watching a game. The new Santa was great, although I bet he didn't realize how much work this was going to be when he agreed to help us out. My second surprise was that my main camera refused to sync with the strobe lights. Bummer. I'm real glad that I brought a decent back up camera or we would have been in big trouble. My third surprise was that I survived the day. Almost as soon as I got home at the end of the day, my hip went out of joint, but during the shoot, my creaky knees, back, and shoulder performed admirably. The set survived as well. Nobody peed on Santa today and nobody got bitten. In the Santa photo business, that's a good day.

We've got to turn around and do this all over again tomorrow. People think I'm complaining, but I really am too old for this. Every dog is a different size, so you're always standing, kneeling, bending over, and contorting your body into unnatural shapes to find the best angle. I always have a lot of sympathy for the old dogs that slowly make their way onto the set. I know how they feel.

Our broadband connection is still down. In today's world, three days without the Internet or TV is a long time. I missed the season finale of Dr. Who this evening. I'm not even sure if the Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft was able to launch today. It might be time to switch back to Time/Warner. We'll sort this out later. As soon as I finish posting tonight's blog entry, I'm going to bed. I'm too tired to watch TV tonight anyway. Tomorrow morning will be an exact repeat of today. The only difference about tomorrow is that I've got to drive farther to get to the location. We'll get up extra early, so we'll have time to feed and walk Dot and Dash before we leave. Since I need to pack the car, take a shower, and eat a little breakfast as well, I don't get much sleep when we're doing Santa photos. Dot didn't help matters when she pooped in her bed again during the night. She can't help it. When our schedule changes, it throws her schedule off as well.

One of my clients wrote me and told me that a lot of things are changing at his company and he's thinking of using an ad agency to do his next web site. Yep. It was basically a Dear John letter. I'm pretty sure that one of the new brands he's affiliated with offered free design services to sweeten the pot. I'll ask if I can bid on the re-design, but the letter didn't sound promising. It's hard to compete with free.

I think I've recharged all the camera batteries. I hope the backup camera doesn't break tomorrow. We're on thin ice now, because I don't have a backup for the backup camera. I need to remember to unplug everything that makes me nervous before I leave the house in the morning. This means I can't leave the dehumidifier running or fire up the little ceramic heater under my desk. When I remember these things when I'll halfway there, it really makes me late. I'm sure I'll forget something important. I'm equally sure that everything will turn out OK. It always does.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2180

Our U-Verse service has gone out again. Whenever I deal with cable company customer service representatives I understand road rage a little better. It is infuriating to pay so much for a service that is so unreliable. Whenever U-Verse goes down I'm tempted to go back to Time Warner Cable. Then I remember that their service was even worse. The last time I had reliable internet service was in the Internet dark ages when I had a dedicated DSL line pulled to the house. The old DSL line was faster and more reliable than the fancy WiFi network I have now. Everything was connected by Ethernet and I rarely had an outage. The phone company doesn't even offer DSL lines anymore. Times have changed.

So, how am I posting this if I don't have Internet service? I have a backup connection with another phone company. You have to have a back up for everything these days, especially if you're a website developer. It's frustrating to be at the mercy of the phone company. Nothing is dependable anymore. U-Verse won't even come out to look at the problem until Monday. They told me that they had no technicians available. Really? I saw a U-Verse technician in the ally behind my neighbor's house about thirty minutes after I got off the phone with customer service. I told him that my service was out too, and asked if he'd check my line while he was in the neighborhood. He must have done absolutely nothing, because the line is still dead.

The only productive thing I did today was get a haircut. The mall is already packed with Christmas shoppers. I had trouble finding a parking place. Every time I get a haircut, I look at the clippings on the floor and am amazed at how white my hair has become. My hair used to be curly and now it is perfectly straight. What's that all about? The stylist was complaining about having bags under her eyes. I looked at myself in the mirror and said, "That's nothing. Look at me. I look like a racoon." Basically, every aspect of growing old sucks. Especially looking in the mirror.

On the way back to the car, I stopped in the Apple store. I really like the new larger iPad Pro. This thing has a great screen and could easily serve as a laptop substitute if it was paired with a wireless keyboard. It would also make a great little teleprompter for video shoots. Unfortunately, I can't afford one of these seductive gadgets at the moment. I can't even afford the WiFi scale that also caught my eye.

It's weird not having a TV. There's almost always a TV on in some part of the house, even if nobody is watching it. The house seems unnaturally quiet. If I listen carefully, I can hear the dehumidifier running in the living room, but that's about it. As you've probably guessed, the dogs have gone to sleep already.

I'm still dreading tomorrows photo shoot. Nobody scheduled a break for lunch, so we're booked solid from early morning until mid-afternoon. I'm tired already. I've got all the batteries charged. I've packed up the equipment in various nylon bags and I'm ready to go. I'm thinking that this is the last year I'm going to do this, but that was what I thought last year as well.

Today's Dalmatian of the Day passed away yesterday. He was always one of my favorites. RIP Camp!

Camp is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2179

I'm glad I didn't go to Florida now. The Orbital ATK Cygnus launch got scrubbed a few minutes before the scheduled launch due to weather problems. This is the same thing that happened when I went to Vandenberg Air Force Base. Sometimes I think that the only people who actually see these things are people who live nearby. There are so many factors that can cause a launch to be postponed that it's almost impossible to plan a trip around a date that was arbitrarily set months in advance. If you're on a tight schedule or can't afford to extend your trip, you're just out of luck.

I thought that the new dehumidifier was broken today when I moved it to another room and I couldn't get it to turn on again. It seemed like a circuit breaker had been tripped, but I couldn't find any breakers to reset. I was stumped. After spending over an hour on the phone with two different customer service representatives in two different states, I think I finally figured out what the problem was. Evidently the unit turns itself off and powers down when the desired humidity level has been met. The humidity target you set isn't stored in memory though and is lost whenever you unplug the unit. When I unplugged the machine, the humidity settings reverted to the factory default, which turned out to be higher than the humidity in the house. Since the machine wasn't being asked to lower the humidity any more, it wouldn't turn on at all. Odd design, if you ask me. It would have been nice if somebody put all this in the instruction manual. When I re-set the desired humidity to something lower than the actual humidity, the machine started working again. It's been working fine ever since.

I've really been having trouble getting Dot to her physical therapy session lately.When she sits up and turns to look out a side window, one of her rear paws stays in place and gets twisted. This is uncomfortable and Dot starts whining. I find a place to pull off the road and straighten her out again. She has very little nerve sensation in her left rear leg, so I don't even think she initially notices that one of her legs isn't moving with the rest of her body. By the time she does notice, it is usually too late. If Dot would just lie down in her bed during our journey, everything would be fine. She feels compelled to bark at people out the window every time we pull up to a stop light unfortunately. She got twisted around twice today and not surprisingly, we were late to our appointment. I'm perpetually late everywhere now.

When did dry cleaning get so expensive? I took two suits to the dry cleaners the other day and the bill was $31. This seems almost double what I used to pay. I'm glad I don't have to dress up for work and go out for lunch with co-workers anymore. I'd be broke. It puzzles me that economists continue to say that inflation is under control. Most of the things I buy regularly seem to have gone way up in price.

Work continues to be busy and somewhat frustrating. I hate it when someone I'm familiar with leaves a company and a new person is assigned to deal with me. Usually these new people don't realize that they'll get the best results if they just leave me alone. Team building exercises just make me mad, or in some cases very sad. They are so unnecessary. Chill. I'm going to do a good job. I just don't want to be part of your team.

Maybe things will return to normal tomorrow. The weather is still nice. I think I've got time for breakfast at my favorite restaurant. I may even get a haircut.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2178

Today was busy. I worked on two different website projects, got a new writing assignment, and tried to clean up the mess Dot made last night when she pooped on one of the larger rugs in the living room. At least the weather was nice. When we walked the dogs this morning, I saw stars for the first time in well over a week. Hopefully, clear skies mean warmer weather as well. It's going to take a long time for that rug to dry out after I hosed it down this morning.

I retrieved most of the equipment from the storage warehouse this afternoon for this weekend's Santa Paws photo shoot. This stuff seems to get heavier every year. Things that I used to be able to easily lift with one hand now require both hands. Last year I remember thinking I was too old for this sort of thing and here I am again, another year older. I can't even remember how many years we've been doing these fundraisers, but it's been quite a while. I try not to be grumpy, because this is actually a great fundraiser. My knees are shot though. My back isn't so good either. This isn't fun anymore.

Janet wanted me to take a suit to the dry cleaner for a Christmas party that required a suit for some reason. I continue to be amazed that all my old suits still fit. I haven't put a suit on since I quit going to that breakfast networking group a couple of years ago. I kind of enjoyed the novelty of dressing up and having bacon for breakfast back then, but the moment has passed. It feels odd to wear a suit now. It actually feels odd to wear anything other than my worn dog walking jeans and beat up hiking boots. I'll look nice for the party though. I managed to find decent looking wool suit in the closet that still didn't have any moth holes.

I watched the Orbital ATK Cygnus pre-launch press conference on NASA TV this afternoon while I was working on one of my websites. I kept thinking that I could have been at that press conference. Oh, well. Even though I'd rather be in Florida now, I still think I made the right decision. I couldn't really afford the trip. I didn't have time to make travel arrangements anyway. And it's been months since I've felt comfortable leaving Dot. When you're taking things one day at a time, you really can't block out a week to take a quasi-vacation. I'm OK leaving the house for a couple of hours. A couple of days, not so much.

Every time I turned on the TV today there was wall-to-wall news and speculation about the San Bernardino shooting. Two of the shooters have already been identified by police as a very religious middle eastern man and a woman from Qatar. Workplace violence? I don't think so.

Greta is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2177

The photo shoot went pretty much as expected. One of the people I was supposed to photograph said I had the day wrong and was supposed to come on Wednesday. I'm pretty sure I got the day right, but I could be wrong. Everybody was too busy to take photographs. One person didn't like her hair. I had trouble getting a good white balance while bouncing the flash off the brownish ceiling tiles. No matter what the background was, I told everybody that I could crop the photos to make them look good. Like I said, it was all pretty normal.

I'm still fascinated with the dehumidifier. How can there be so much water in the air?  I never really noticed the moisture before, but the air in the house does feel noticeably drier now.  Every time I empty the condensate bucket, there seems to be another gallon of water. Is this just water vapor that is naturally in the air? Is water being sucked out of the porous brick walls? Were our clothes, bath towels, and sheets gradually absorbing water over the years? Who knows. I sure wish somebody had told me about dehumidifiers about fifteen years ago. If the house was dry, I probably wouldn't have had to re-paint the trim around the windows so often. I might not have ruined my old Vox Mark VI guitar either. I left the guitar in a damp closet for too many years and the hardware rusted, the neck warped, and the sunburst finish became hopelessly cracked. Live and learn, I guess.

The weather seems to be improving. I actually saw a few patches of blue sky today. It's still cold outside, but that's to be expected for the first of December. At least we don't have snow like some parts of the country. I used to live in Alaska and spent a year in Idaho, but I still don't understand the fascination with snow. To me, snow is just like rain except it is a lot messier. Maybe we'll have a warm Winter. I'm all for warm Winters and cool Summers.

I revised one of my mobile friendly websites this afternoon. It's a bit disconcerting that my new coding skills seem to go in one ear and out the other. These complex sites don't come naturally to me and I'm constantly having to relearn things that I've already done. Hopefully, this knowledge will become second nature at some point and stick in my brain, but it hasn't happened yet. Usually, after I watch a couple of tutorial videos, I'm back up to speed again. I don't think I'll ever really catch up, because the online world keeps changing. By the time I master responsive design it will become obsolete and there will be something newer and and even harder to learn on the horizon.

It's hard to believe it's December already.  The dogs got their heartworm pills today and I started thinking about putting the Christmas tree up. When we walk the dogs in the morning, we can tell that several of our neighbors have already finished decorating for Christmas. There's no shame in being late though. I promise I'll get everything finished before Christmas Eve.

Jada is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2176

I got a surprise this morning. My dehumidifier arrived a day early. This is almost unheard of at our house. Usually FedEx and UPS shipments are late, get lost, or arrive broken. I was glad to see the little dehumidifier and immediately started reading the instructions. The machine was sturdy, simple to use, and not excessively loud. I like it.

It's weird how much moisture is naturally in the air. The humidity in the house is pretty normal right now, but after running the dehumidifier for several hours, I was still able to extract almost a gallon of water from the air. The humidity dropped from 55% to 41% and the air felt better throughout the house. I was impressed. Maybe all my research paid off. We'll see how I feel after a month of steady use, but if initial impressions are worth anything, we've got a winner.

While I was celebrating the single gallon of water I removed inside the house, I remembered that there were still hundreds of gallons of water sitting on top of the house. Since the rain appears to be over for a while, I started the pump, went up on the roof, and started drying things off again. I think that clearing the water from the roof is my own private version of the Sisyphus myth. Like Sisyphus and the rock he eternally pushed up the mountain, my task is never really done. Whatever I do, it will always rain again.

I've had to get creative to keep Dot from pooping inside. Simply taking her outside every five hours doesn't work anymore. Dot has a schedule that she keeps to herself. Sometimes she can go most of the day without an accident. Other times, she might need to go several times in a single morning. You don't get much warning, so you have to learn to anticipate her needs. I have discovered that by gently holding her tail up while walking behind her, I can sometimes get her to poop outside when she forgets why we're walking around in circles. You have to be patient. And you can never get mad when she poops inside right after a nice long walk. Getting old isn't pretty. I just hope that there's someone understanding nearby when it's my turn to walk in Dot's shoes.

I've got a photo shoot on location tomorrow. This is a rarity these days. I'm not really looking forward to the assignment, but I'm not dreading it either.  This will be a good chance to brush up on location lighting techniques and make sure that all my equipment still works before the first of the Santa Paws fundraisers we've got scheduled for December. It's not easy taking great photos of animals in costumes sitting on Santa's lap. I still think I've got the easy job though. I just have to worry about my knees or back going out. Santa has to worry about being peed on or bitten. Hey, it's all for a good cause.

I've heard that there's a 60% chance of the Orbital ATK launch taking place as scheduled. That means there is a 40% chance it will get postponed due to weather or mechanical problems. This is the problem with traveling to view a launch. Let's say you've managed to clear two days in your schedule and scrape together the money for airfare and hotels. There's still no guarantee that you'll actually see anything. The slightest problem can cause weeks of delays. If I were in Florida now, I'd be fretting about these odds. 60/40 is definitely not a sure thing. I'm still here in Dallas though, so I'll just watch the launch on NASA TV whenever it happens.

Belle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2175

I was walking by a puddle today and I saw an image of Dash's face in a pile of submerged leaves. It wasn't exactly like seeing an image of Elvis on a piece of burned toast or the face of Jesus in a rusty screen door, but it did look a bit like Dash. I could see his nose, a few spots on his muzzle, a bit of an ear, and a sparkle in his eye, all on a yellowing Oak leaf. Can you see the dog in the center of the picture? Maybe it's a sign. I suspect it's just a sign that we've had a lot of rain this weekend.

It continued to rain today, so much of the day was spent keeping dry. We all got wet on our morning walk. The dog's harnesses and most of our clothes went in the dryer as soon as we got home. We didn't see anyone else walking their dogs in the rain, but ours just won't do their business without a proper walk. Rain or shine, they still need their walks. Even though Dash hates to get wet, he'd still rather walk in the rain than poop in the yard.

The rugs get even dirtier than usual during wet weather. I try to wipe the dogs paws before they come in the house, but it doesn't seem to do much good. There are outdoor shoes and indoor shoes because we don't have a mud room. All homes should have a mud room. I vacuumed the rugs and washed dog blankets. I changed the sheets. And I did my best to keep condensation off the windows. At the end of the day it was still a wet, rainy mess.

Our Christmas Photo shoots begin next weekend, so Janet and I have started gathering together the things we'll need. There are boxes of Christmas hats and scarves for the dogs to wear. There are several large 20x10 painted muslin backdrops. There are large tripods and poles to hang the backdrops and umbrellas and soft boxes for the strobe lights. I'm going to wait for a dry day to get some of the stuff from the storage warehouse, but it's better to start early than to forget something important when there's a long line of people and dogs waiting for their portrait with Santa.

I can't wait for the new dehumidifier to arrive. The moisture level in the house is still much better than it was before the remediation company sucked all the moisture out with their big machines. I can tell the house is slowly returning to its natural state though. It's inevitable. With porous solid brick walls, the moisture from the wet exterior side of the bricks eventually is absorbed and then radiates into the air on the interior side of the bricks. The walls are sturdy and solid, but it's kind of like living in an above ground basement.

If I was still going to that Orbital ATK Cygnus spacecraft launch at Cape Canaveral, I would probably be leaving tomorrow. It's a good thing I canceled the trip because there is no way I could even consider being out of town most of next week. I would have loved being NASA's guest again, but it just wasn't in the cards. Maybe I'll have another opportunity when life isn't so chaotic. I feel like I've been treading water recently. The days are extremely busy, but nothing of any significance is ever accomplished. At least treading water is better than sinking. Dot may never get any better, but her condition is stable and she doesn't appear to be getting any worse. Most importantly, she still seems very happy. When you consider the alternatives, maybe treading water isn't so bad.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2174

I think Dot is back to normal. Of course, normal is a very old dog who can barely walk and poops all over the place, but we can live with that. I'm grateful that we dodged a bullet one more time. We are all learning to live with age and infirmity, but adding something new to the mix might have been too much. I don't know how Dot got so sick or recovered so quickly, but I'd like to find out. I don't want this to happen again.

I need to be more careful with the little ceramic heater I use to keep warm on cold days. Yesterday I almost melted the vinyl slats on some mini-blinds covering the window next to my desk. I put the heater too close to the window hoping to evaporate the condensation that was starting to return. Ceramic heaters are generally pretty safe. There is no flame and the case doesn't even get hot to the touch. What I forgot was that the air itself coming out of the heater is very hot. I have seven partially melted slats in the blinds to remind me of that.

I seemed to remember that I had some more mini-blinds in the storage warehouse so I thought I'd replace the one I'd singed. I took the old mini-blinds down, found the new ones and then realized they weren't the same size. They almost fit, but not quite. It was a wasted effort. While I was looking at the aluminum window frames, I realized that there was mold in the track where the window slid open. I got some Clorox wipes from the kitchen and cleaned all the frames in the office. They were filthy. Now I have a burnt shade covering much cleaner windows. I guess that's progress.

I'm learning more about humidity. When it's really cold outside and the furnace runs all the time, the humidity goes down. When the indoor and outdoor temperatures are closer together and the furnace or air conditioner only runs sporadically, the humidity goes up. I think this must mean that the house isn't insulated very well. Hot air does dry things out, but moisture creeps back in quickly when the furnace is off. The air conditioner does a good job of lowering the humidity too, but it's Winter now. We won't be using the air conditioner again for a while. We certainly won't be using it this weekend. The temperature might go down to freezing tonight.

Since several forecasts were predicting freezing weather, I didn't want to deal with ice on the roof. Ice on the roof is even worse than water on the roof. Even though it was nasty outside, I braved the elements and got all the water off the roof while I still had a chance. We've had thick ice on the roof before and I still think this is what caused some of the Sheetrock in the living room ceiling to crack.

I think some people will be confused by this week's Heaven Sent episode of Dr. Who. Was the whole thing a weird dream sequence, or did the Doctor really spend millions of years trying to break out of this strange Rubik's Cube castle? The entire episode was just a very convoluted set up for next week's season finale. I think I liked the series better when each show was a self-contained little adventure. This new series is a single very long show that is meant to be binge watched from beginning to end.

The rain is supposed to continue through Monday. The challenge for me will be to do something useful around the house without breaking anything. The brown melted spot on the mini blinds and the continuing leak in the shower stall are graphic reminders that I'm not exactly off to a good start. Maybe I should just go to the gym tomorrow and wait until Summer to deal with the house.

Dalmatian of the Day

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