Day 2303

Why is it so hard to find a birthday card? I had to get a card today, so I stopped at the Hallmark store on the way home from the post office. As always, none of the thousands of cards in the store seemed remotely appropriate. The humorous cards didn't seem funny. The emotional cards expressed the wrong emotion. I found one card that had the kind of picture I was looking for, but the message said Happy Birthday from your Grandmother. These cards all must be designed for a reason, so maybe I'm just not their target audience. After spending way too much time looking at cards I hated, I did what I always do. I got a blank card with a picture of a dog on the front.

I followed the landscapers instructions and watered the new grass for several hours this morning. Maybe this is why the grass always dies. If I water enough to get a root system established, the yard is a soggy mess and I'm constantly having to clean the dogs paws every time they go outside. If I don't water enough, the grass never has a chance. If I'm lucky, the Spring rainy season isn't quite over yet, and I won't have to worry about watering schedules at all. That's what happened last year. We had weeks and weeks of rain right after the grass was installed and although I hated the rain just as much as I usually do, the grass looked great.

I just noticed a new feature on my Apple Watch.  When you are using the maps app, you can quickly find nearby restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores and gas stations with a tap of your finger and then get turn-by-turn directions to the place from wherever you happen to be. This would be real handy if I ever left the neighborhood. As it is, I already know where all these places are. I'm not sure how useful turn-by-turn directions are on a tiny one inch square map, but you never know.  If I can't figure out where to go for breakfast this Friday, I'll ask the watch.

I'm getting tired of all these presidential primaries. There was another one tonight. Can't we just go ahead and have the election now and get this over with? I can't get very excited about anyone. I saw a yard sign the other day that said "Everybody Sucks 2016." Maybe I'll get one of those signs. It pretty well sums up my sentiment.

I noticed that Dot only has three more Palladia pills left when I gave her the chemotherapy meds this evening. So far, she's handling the pills pretty well. There are days when it even seems like she's getting stronger. It's probably just an illusion though. I wouldn't be surprised if Dot's staying the same and I'm getting weaker. After she takes the remaining Palladia pills, we'll do another ultrasound scan and see whether the tumor is getting smaller. As long as it isn't getting much bigger, we're OK.

I got an e-mail from B&H today notifying me that a camera I've had my eye on for some time is on sale. Hmm. I definitely don't need another camera. I can't even afford another camera. Why am I even thinking about this? I'm always seeing these memes on Facebook saying that memories and experiences are far more important than stuff. I don't believe them. Maybe dogs are more important than cameras, but for the most part, stuff still does it for me.

Angel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2302

The landscapers were here all day. Dot barked a lot, but it really wasn't as bad as I expected. We go through this ritual every year. The landscapers don't add anything new. They just replace the stuff that died during the Winter. This year we lost quite a few Liriope plants and of course all of our St. Augustine grass. I've become resigned to the fact that the grass is going to die, no matter what we do to take care of it. One year I thought seriously about putting in artificial turf, but I've see a few installations and they all look cheesy. Artificial turf also starts to smell after dogs pee on it for several years.

So here we are again. I feel like I'm paying way too much to have a small yard look nice for eight months out of the year. What's the alternative though? Years ago, I filled up my car with heavy squares of St. Augustine turf every Spring and installed the grass myself. It's just not worth the trouble anymore. I really didn't save that much money anyway. The landscaper gets a much better wholesale price on grass and plants than I could and this savings pays for a big chunk of his labor. I guess it's worth it.

Since I had to stay home all day, I actually got quite a bit of work done. I finished two new articles today and shipped them off to the client. There was even time left over to complete some minor website updates. The dogs were surprisingly good today. I was expecting total chaos, but Dash largely ignored the landscapers and Dot couldn't even hear them. It's sad that Dot is growing deaf, but it can be a blessing on days like this. She would bark whenever she saw the guys working out the living room window, but when I turned her around so she was facing the kitchen, she would immediately forget what she was barking about and start thinking about food again.

Since I upgraded the operating on my phone yesterday, I thought I'd upgrade the operating system on my watch today. The procedure took over an hour and the only difference I've noticed so far is that my maps app doesn't work anymore. This is par for the course with Apple upgrades. They add a bunch of features I'll never ever use, while quietly wrecking essential things I use everyday. You should never upgrade a computer operating system just because you're bored. It never ends well.

Now that there's new grass in the yard, I'll have to remember to water it everyday. For the next month or so the yard will be damp and soggy and the dogs will have muddy paws every time they go out to pee. Maybe that artificial grass wasn't such a bad idea after all. Even though it will involve some extra work on my part, I think today was a success. The yard looks great now. The lush green grass, trimmed hedges, and healthy ground cover probably won't last long, but at least we made an effort.

I took my evening meds this morning again. Now I need to remember to take my morning meds this evening before I go to bed. One of these days I'm going to end up taking the dogs pills by mistake and then I'll really be in trouble.

Dottie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2301

It was a busy day. I updated the operating system on my phone, vacuumed the house, washed the car, polished some shoes, and went to the gym. The dogs seemed content to sleep in late this morning, but I was already up. I woke up around 4 AM to clean up a mess that Dot had made in her bed and couldn't get back to sleep. I don't even think Dot realizes that she poops in her sleep. The incontinence has become so routine that I managed to clean everything up and start a load of laundry without waking anyone. Even Dot didn't wake up.

It still amazes me that I can fill up an entire Dyson canister with dirt and dog hair and the rugs and carpets don't look any better. The canister full of dirt is the only evidence I have that I've actually cleaned the house. Cleaning the car is more satisfying because at least it looks a little better when I'm finished.

On the way to the gym, I stopped at a kitchen store to look for a bread knife to replace the one I lost last month. I don't know how you can completely lose a bread knife that always stays in the kitchen, but I did. I noticed that a nearby Sports Authority store was closing, so I went inside to look for bargains. The store was filled with garish signs saying that everything must go and advertising close-out prices that were up to 50% off.  I'll have to go back again because the store was way too crowded for my taste, but I did manage to find some slip on sandals that I can use to take the dogs out in the middle of the night.

I must have been the youngest person at the gym this afternoon, and I'm not very young. I guess old people are the only ones who would choose to stay inside and walk on a treadmill on a beautiful Spring day like this. The handful of octogenarians in the gym was fine by me. I like doing things when the rest of the world is doing something else. I had a good workout and I didn't miss the sunshine either. I'd already taken Dash on a nice long walk in the park.

It's a good thing that I got a lot of errands done today, because I'll have to be home all day tomorrow while the landscapers are here. I've got to keep an eye on Dot, because sometimes she gets upset when she sees people in the backyard. Since Dot can't hear very well anymore, there's a good chance that she'll sleep through the whole thing, but I don't want to take any chances. Dot still thinks she's a guard dog, but she can barely move and could easily hurt herself if she's trying to run around and bark at strangers like she used to.

I'm starting to see some really pretty Irises behind our house. I see them every Spring. Our next door neighbor planted the flowers over twenty years ago. He died of leukemia almost fifteen years ago, but the exotic looking Irises still remain. When I see these blooms, they remind me of a time when neighbors were actually friends.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2300

Just as I predicted, the lawnmower died about ten seconds after I hauled it out to the front lawn. Despite seeing a reassuring green light on the battery charger, it was clear that the battery needed to be replaced. It wouldn't hold a charge at all. I removed the problematic battery, put the mower back in the green house, and headed for the battery store. The repair guy even remembered recelling this battery before. He said he could refurbish the battery pack while I was grocery shopping and that was good enough for me. A few hours later, the battery was back in the charger, getting ready for a second attempt to mow the grass.

Why aren't batteries more reliable?  Every time I tell Janet that I'm interested in getting a Tesla, she tells me I'm nuts, reminding me that I spend half my life complaining about batteries. Laptops, phones, cameras, watches, recorders, and even lawn mowers immediately turn into worthless piles of junk when the batteries start to fail.  It wasn't so bad when you could just pop in a new battery and get back to work, but increasingly batteries aren't removable. Replacing my laptop battery required a trip to the Apple store. Ditto for my phone. Odd batteries, like the one found in my lawn mower, require a special technician who can take the case apart and recell the battery. It's all a giant nuisance. Somebody told me that the Tesla is powered by 8,000 small lithium-ion batteries that are all wired together. When those things start to fail after four or five years, an old fashioned gas guzzler isn't going to seem so bad.

I was planning to write another article today, but dealing with the faulty lawn mower battery consumed most of the afternoon. At least the story has a happy ending. The mower works now and the front yard looks much better. The first time I mow the lawn each Spring, it always seems much harder than it did the year before. It shouldn't be this way. I'm active. I walk the dogs everyday. I work out. And after all this, the lawn mower keeps getting heavier every year. I blame it all on muscle atrophy caused by taking statin drugs. My doctor still wants me to take statins though, claiming that a heart attack is much worse than a little muscle atrophy.

The weather was just about perfect today. The temperature was in the low seventies. The humidity was low. There didn't even seem to be much pollen in the air. Naturally, the dogs enjoyed their walks and Dot even felt like wandering around in the back yard smelling things. I had to wander around with her, holding up her rear legs with the harness, but that's OK. Dealing with Dot takes a lot of patience, but it's worth it when you can see that she's still able to enjoy herself.

I'm not sure what I'll do tomorrow. After mowing the grass, I feel like I've already had my weekly workout. I'll probably go to the gym anyway though. When your other alternatives are vacuuming and cleaning the office, the gym starts to look pretty good.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2299

I had breakfast at a place I haven't visited for several years and it was even worse than it was before. Maybe I've become too picky. All I want is a restaurant with fabulous food, nice ambience, and reasonable prices that is less than five miles from my house. Is that too much to ask? To be fair, this morning's meal wasn't that bad, but little things count. Real maple syrup is much better than Mrs. Butterworth's and a carafe of fresh half and half is better than a plate of those little plastic Coffee-mate cups. Instead of guys with hipster beards wearing wool watch caps, today's restaurant was filled with overweight substitute teachers playing Candy Crush Saga on their phones while they waited for their order. I don't think I've found my new home yet.

I started my second article when I returned from my breakfast excursion. It's nice having something to write everyday. Writing adds some much needed structure to my day. One assignment a day is plenty. Two or three deadlines at the same time is stressful and no writing jobs at all makes me feel like my business is failing. These jobs don't pay very well, but if I could manage to do one a day consistently, I'd do fine. It's hard to believe that I used to complete three or four new jobs each day and still had time to take care of the dogs. Now, I'm lucky to write five or six articles a month.

I've been real lucky with Dot this week. Somehow, she's back on schedule again and has only pooped in the house once or twice all week. It makes life so much easier when she does her business out in the yard just before bedtime and then sleeps soundly until we take her out in the yard again the next morning. The neurological issues that are causing her incontinence aren't going away though, so I've learned to be appreciataive whenever we get lucky.

Somehow my dissatisfaction with breakfast on Friday has resulted in a dissatisfaction with dinner as well. For the past month or so I haven't been very excited about grocery shopping and just picked up take out dinners instead. I used to love shopping for something special on Friday, and now I can't even bring myself to go to the grocery store. Actually, the take out meals have been pretty good. We've had Thai food for the first time in ages, and tonight we had some delicious barbecue from my favorite barbecue place. I'd bring home take out all the time if it weren't for the fact that it is generally much too salty and is quite a bit more expensive than cooking for yourself. I'd gain ten pounds in less than a month if I ate restaurant food all the time.

Tomorrow will be the big test to see whether the lawn mower works. The battery is charged and ready to go. It was too cold to mow the grass today, but I've got no excuses this weekend. The way it looks now, I'll be doing yard work tomorrow and going to the gym on Sunday. That ought to burn up enough calories so I can bring home a few more take out meals.

Haley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2298

Maybe I ought to complain more often. After mentioning the dearth of writing assignments yesterday, I opened my mail this morning and discovered that I have four new articles to write. I wrote one of the articles today and will save the other three for later. I need to figure out how to get more writing clients, because it's the perfect activity while taking care of sick dogs. I've had difficulty going to meetings and have avoided taking jobs that involve travel since Dot has gotten sick, but writing doesn't disrupt anything. I just sit at the computer with the dogs at my side and if they need anything, I'm right here. I'm glad there is still something I can do that doesn't involve meetings and supervision. When I started my company, I was more of a traditional ad agency. I did pretty well for quite a few years, but eventually burn out set in. Now, I prefer solitude. I look for clients who appreciate what I do, but basically leave me alone. They're out there, but they're definitely getting harder to find.

Dot is becoming more dependent as she grows weaker. She barks when she wants me to help her up and whines when she's not getting enough attention. This isn't a good thing. I'd like her to feel independent as long as she can. I can't ignore her though. She has difficulty walking without assistance now. Her rear legs often get stuck in an awkward position while she's sleeping, and when she's restless, it's often a sign that she needs to pee or poop. I've made the transition to full time dog butler so smoothly that Dot still leads a happy, relatively normal life. I can't say the same for myself. I'm not sure I even know what normal is anymore.

It looks like it's going to be a good year for wildflowers. I see new blooms every day and pretty soon the meadows and open fields in the park are going to be an explosion of color. Since the same flowers appear year after year, I've gradually learned their names. Learning about your surroundings can make almost anything interesting. I can identify at least a dozen species of birds by their song and can name the constellations in the pre-dawn sky on our morning walks. My powers of observations are still very selective, unfortunately. After all these years, I still don't know the names of most of my neighbors.

I didn't mow the grass today, but I did charge up the heavy 24 volt lawn mower battery. After charging the thing for about eight hours, a green light came on and the battery appears to be OK. Tomorrow, I'll install it in the lawn mower again and see if I have the energy to mow the front yard. When I moved to the neighborhood, everybody mowed their own yard. Now, I'm the last one left. Everyone else has a lawn crew that comes once a week during the Summer. I used to think this was a big waste of money, but every time I push the mower up a hill, having someone else take care of the lawn starts to make a lot of sense.

I have no idea what I'm going to do for breakfast tomorrow. I feel like I don't have a home anymore. My favorite restaurant has changed and I need something new. Maybe I'll just drive around aimlessly until I see something that looks appealing. There are lots of restaurants in the vicinity. I just haven't been to most of them for quite a while.

Smiley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2297

I'm beginning to wish that I could move Dot's physical therapy appointment back to Thursday. Traffic is worse on Wednesday. The vet clinic seems busier too. As a result, Dot and I spend at least an hour and a half longer away from home. It's not like I have that much to do anyway, but I never realized that switching our appointment would make such a difference. I'll have to admit that there are some benefits to the new schedule. I don't have to struggle to get Dot ready anymore. We leave right after I feed the dogs their lunch now, and it's always easy to get Dot up when there is a meal involved.

Dot seemed stronger than she did last week. She did really well in the underwater treadmill today. I'm convinced there is a reason for everything, but I can never figure out why Dot has good days and bad days. She has had some very good days after resuming her chemotherapy, which is somewhat counter-intuitive. She has also had bad days when she is relaxed and well-rested. The only thing for certain is that every day is a new day. I never really know what to expect.

The rain returned today. There were severe thunderstorms and even tornado warnings in the area, but luckily all we saw in our own neighborhood was a gentle, steady rain. Today's storms didn't last all day, so the dogs still got their normal walks. I'm sure there is water on the roof though. I'll deal with the standing water and a very dirty car when the skies clear again.

I think my transition to the new web server is just about complete. I've finished troubleshooting the online forms and all the e-mail accounts are working now. The only difference I've noticed in performance so far is that the new server occasionally gets overwhelmed by heavy traffic. It's just like U-verse in a lot of ways. The site will go down for a few minutes, but by the time I get through to customer service, everything is running fine again. Maybe big hosting companies are like the airlines and try to keep things as close to capacity as they can. At any rate, it's going to take a while to get used to this, since my old server hardly ever went down at all.

Tech support people are probably going to hate me as I grow older. I can already see that I'm turning into one of those irritating people who continually call with some esoteric, weird problem just to have someone to talk to. During my transition to the new web server, I've already called tech support half a dozen times. I'm a curious person and generally just wanted to know why things were configured a certain way. I used to have lots of geeky friends to ponder these issues with, but now tech support will have to do. Maybe somebody knows why the favicon has disappeared from this blog. The little icon is loaded on the server and the code I added in the blog header is correct, but the favicon doesn't show up anymore. One more of life's little mysteries.

A bigger mystery is where all the writing jobs have gone. Last year at this time, I was swamped with writing assignments. This year my work load has slowed to a trickle. I write about watches and the oil and gas industry a lot. Both of these industries have suffered setbacks in recent years. Hopefully, when the dust settles, the writing assignments will return. Life is easier when there's always something to do. It's also nice to have extra money at the end of the month.

I have no idea what I'll be doing tomorrow. I'm pretty well caught up on almost everything.
 

Sparky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2296

The landscapers came out today. They think it's funny that I have to replace the grass every year. I think I'm their only customer where they have to do something like this. The turf is always installed properly and I water and feed it properly. The problem is that the roots from the large Oak trees in the back yard suck up all the water and the canopy of leaves blocks out direct sunlight. The yard just doesn't get enough sunlight for St. Augustine grass to thrive. Bermuda Grass needs even more sunlight and won't grow at all. I've planted most of the yard with ground cover that does well in shady areas, but the dogs like to sit out in the grass during the Summer, so we put in a small patch of grass every Spring for them. The yard looks great until August and then it gradually starts to die out. It's not an ideal solution, but it's better than nothing.

I added an SSL Certificate to my website this afternoon. The certificate is probably overkill, since I'm not selling anything on the site and have little need for security. Modern browsers increasingly expect a secure site though, so I guess it was worth the effort. The whole process was a lot more time consuming than I thought it would be. I had to add some code so that people who had already bookmarked the http: version of the site wouldn't get an error message and would go to the new https: version instead. The web hosting folks said that the SSL Certificate would improve my search rankings. I kind of doubt this is true, but we'll see what happens.

It was time to get more Allopurinol and Levothyroxine for Dash today. It seems like I'm always picking up pills for somebody. Dot takes meds to control her blood pressure and chemotherapy drugs to control her cancer. Dash takes Phenobarbital to control seizures, along with his daily thyroid and blood pressure meds. My own prescriptions are mostly to control high blood pressure and cholesterol, although there are a few for other things as well. I can't even remember why I'm taking some of them. There's a whole little area in the kitchen now just for pills. Dot takes her chemotherapy medication every third day, so we never end up taking the pills on the same day. I have to use a calendar to keep track of all this. It gets complicated.

It's ironic that I used to have to use a calendar to keep track of work deadlines. Now, I just use the calendar to keep track of prescriptions. Work is pretty easy to manage these days. When a job comes in, I usually just do it right away because I'm so bored. I haven't had a backlog of work in quite a while.

I finally got the forms working again on the new web server. This was a questionable use of my time, because nobody uses the forms anymore. Typically, they get filled out by spam-bots that randomly type gibberish in each of the form fields. I probably should have eliminated the forms instead of fixing them. They were fantastic in 1995. Now, they're just a nuisance.

Spring is when the Purple Martins return. Unfortunately, it's also when the cockroaches return as well. While I was writing this, I looked down and saw a huge roach sitting on my foot. This startled me and I flinched, flipping the bug up in the air. Lord knows where it landed, because I can't find the disgusting thing now. My office is so full of clutter that the bug could stay hidden for another month. Such is life in the South.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2295

I took my tax information over to the accountant this morning. I used to bring a heavy pile of three-ring binders, file folders, and envelopes full of receipts. Now, I basically just bring a single CD with my Quickbooks Pro files. You'd think this would make it easier for the accountant and he'd give me a discount, but he actually charges me more. Times have changed. Oh, well. I've become very fatalistic about taxes. I just pay what I'm told to pay and try not to think about it.

On the way home I stopped at the REI store and got a pair of hiking pants for walking the dogs. It's only a matter of time before I have an entire wardrobe full of REI clothes. They aren't particularly stylish, but they seem extremely durable and well made. The pants I bought today reminded me of my old Defender 90. I don't know why I like indestructible things so much. Maybe it's because I feel we are living in an increasingly apocalyptic world.

With my taxes out of the way, I thought I'd catch up on a few other things as well. I called an audio repair shop to ask about a tape recorder I'd left with them ages ago. They said they were still waiting on a part that was on back order. Jeez, are they getting this part from Pluto? I brought the recorder in for service last October. I'm a very patient person, but this is getting ridiculous.

I had better luck when I called the landscapers. They said they'd be out to take a look at the yard tomorrow. These guys are good, but they always want to charge me too much. I have to explain that I'm not asking them to do nearly as much as they did three years ago. They seem to like the price they got three years ago. Eventually, we come to a mutual agreement, but it shouldn't have to be this hard. I also called the roofer, but he didn't even return my call. That's pretty typical for a roofer. I'll probably have to bug this guy for a month to get him to come over and patch the current crop of bare spots.

I was so efficient about taking care of unfinished business today that I don't what I'm going to do tomorrow. If the weather stays nice, maybe I'll mow the grass. The first step is to see if the big 24 volt battery will hold a charge. The second step is to take the battery to be re-celled when it dies unexpectedly after five minutes of use. The third step it to actually mow the grass and then complain about how the weeds have taken over again. That ought to take most of the day.

Hopefully, I'll get a good night's sleep tonight. That's a lot more important than what I'm going to do tomorrow. I take a a short nap before I start writing the blog in the evenings now. I know I'm going to be up several times during the night with Dot. Naps are good and interrupted sleep is a lot better than no sleep at all.

Doc is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2294 - Easter

I think I've finally got all my tax information in order. I keep postponing this task longer and longer because it's so discouraging. This is the one time during the year when it becomes abundantly clear that I'm not making much money anymore. What's even worse it that I know that my accountant will charge me more than he did last year to tell me that I made less than I made last year. I certainly don't begrudge my accountant for raising his rates every year. My dentist and my plumber do the same thing. Just about everybody raises their rates except for web designers, who are expected to work for much less than they did ten years ago.

We're still supposed to get some severe weather later in the week, but today was perfect. The dogs loved the crisp, clear Spring day and we were able to take two nice walks. We certainly weren't the only ones in the park today. The place was full of family Easter celebrations. Every open field was filled with children looking for Easter eggs. I wish people still hid real eggs. Hard boiled eggs would be fine, because if the children didn't find them, animals would eat them or they would just rot and disappear. Plastic eggs filled with candy and trinkets tend to stay around forever. From now through May, I'll have to be on the lookout for candy on the ground, because Dash will smell the stuff and try to eat it. Chocolate is really bad for dogs and a lot of these plastic eggs are filled with chocolate. Nobody seems to care about littering anymore. Public parks just seem to be a designated place where families can litter with impunity.

In addition to working on my taxes today, I was also able to catch up on a few things around the house. I went up on the roof and cleared away the standing water from last week's rain. It was nice to see that some of the water had already evaporated. The warmer it gets, the faster the water evaporates. When I was working, I noticed several new worn places that will need to be patched. Patching the roof after the Spring rains has become an annual ritual. I need to call the roofer, as well as the landscapers and a tree trimmer this week. It's that time of year. Hopefully, I won't need to buy a new lawn mower. I seem to need a new mower every four or five years. I'll see if I can get the current mower started tomorrow. If I wait much longer, the front yard is going to be full of weeds.'

I tried to superglue some broken stuff back together this afternoon. I think I was successful with the Nike running shoes, but the watch band was a dismal failure. I need to remember that superglue and duct tape are not the answer to every problem. As careful as I try to be, I always manage to get some superglue on my fingers. It's almost impossible to get this stuff off. I usually try acetone or Janet's nail polish remover, but if I wait too long, even that won't work.

I'm not sure what I'll be doing this week. Work has often been slow at the first of the year, but it's not the first of the year anymore. This slow period has lasted a lot longer than I anticipated. It's beginning to look like this might be permanent. I wish I knew how to get clients who would pay me what I made in 1995. I wish I knew how to get clients period. My business grew through referrals from existing clients and everyone is retiring now. It's the end of an era.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2293

In theory, today would have been a good day to sleep in. Unfortunately, lazy mornings are only a theoretical concept at our house. Dash ensured that we got up early as we always do. I thought he needed to go outside, but the little shit just wanted his breakfast. I know Dot would have been happy to sleep a bit longer, since she and I had already been up twice during the night cleaning up another mess in her bed. Basically, it was just a regular Saturday morning.

I'm making progress getting everything to work on the new server. It really doesn't matter whether my website works perfectly or not, but I still find a small amount of pleasure in learning how things work. The new server is different than the old server and I'm slowly learning why. It's unlikely that you'd know the difference if I corrected all the small errors I'm finding or not, but I'm correcting them anyway, mostly because I can.

I decided to go to the gym today because it is going to be closed for Easter Sunday. I also had some errands to run that I was planning to take care of on the way home. Trying to cram all these activities into a single afternoon was a mistake, because I ended up leaving Dot alone too long. When I returned, I discovered that she'd pooped in the small protected area where I'd left her. She must have slipped in the poop because her leg was dirty, along with three small rugs and all her blankets. I think she ate the poop too. I hate when this happens. If I was there, I could have helped her. She hates to make a mess in her pen and I could tell she had struggled to get away from it. It's hard to live your life where you can never leave the house though. I try to make sure everything goes smoothly, but sometimes it doesn't.

I still haven't gotten around to preparing my tax materials for the accountant, but at least I've cleared the deck so I can concentrate on that tomorrow. There are so many things I need to do that it feels a bit overwhelming. The grass is getting long in the front yard and I still haven't checked to see if the mower works. I know there's water on the roof, but it seems like a huge waste of time to remove it, since it's going to rain again in a few days anyway. I did put clean sheets on the bed and did several loads of laundry. It's important to make an effort.

Tomorrow, the park will be littered with colored eggs and candy. The place is a popular spot for family egg hunts and the children never come close to finding everything their parents have hidden. Dot and Dash find all this stuff the next day and I have to be careful that they don't eat the candy and other trash left behind by the Easter crowds. If anyone has their egg hunt early tomorrow morning thay are sure to see real Easter Bunnies. This seems to be a good year for rabbits. We see dozens every morning on our walks. Maybe the coyotes have moved on the greener pastures. In prior years coyotes have eaten a lot of the bunnies, but this year they appear to be thriving.

It's already time for bed again. The kitchen selves are stocked with food. Dot's blankets and the hallway rugs have been cleaned. I learned a few things about writing Perl scripts. I even had a pretty good workout at the gym. Although I did quite a bit today, I feel like I've accomplished nothing.

Bubba is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2292

My accountant told me that he needs to receive all my tax preparation materials by Monday and I haven't even started yet. Guess what I'll be doing this weekend? I don't think I've ever been this disorganized before. I'm behind on literally everything. It's hard to even prioritize at this point. Dot needs lots of attention. The website updates I do for clients take a lot of time even though they don't bring in a lot of money. For the past several days the process of migrating my website empire to a new server has been consuming me. It's hard to remember why I did something in 1995. A lot of old code on the site doesn't work on the new server and it's a very tedious process to de-bug everything.

The main problem is that I'm just not getting enough sleep.  Last night I woke up at 2 AM when Dot pooped in her bed. I woke up again at 4 AM for no reason at all. And then we all had to get up at 6 AM so the dogs could take their morning walk before Janet went to work. All this would have been fine if I hadn't stayed up until 1 AM the night before. Late to bed and early to rise is not a good combination.

I went to the new restaurant this morning. My breakfast was excellent, but why do they have to serve everything in cardboard take-out boxes? The place doesn't use plates at all. The lack of proper dishes probably makes kitchen cleanup a lot easier, but would it kill them to serve my breakfast on a plate?  This is the trouble with hipster ambience. They like this sort of thing. My old restaurant occasionally irritated me with plastic forks, but at least they had real plates. Truthfully, breakfast would be a lot more enjoyable if there were white table cloths, nice china, and friendly, knowledgeable waiters who refilled your coffee cup every five minutes. I can't complain about the food though. The food is fabulous.

I got the watch back today that I took in for servicing a few weeks ago. One down; two hundred and fifty to go. I'll never get all these watches running again. I wonder if I should even bother. Friends tell me that I should sell some of the unwanted watches, but I hate dealing with eBay. I used to buy and sell frequently on eBay, but the place is full of scammers now. It's just too much trouble to deal with them. Craigslist is even worse. I wouldn't even consider selling anything on Craigslist.

I spent an enormous amount of time today trying to figure out why none of the scripts in my cgi-bin work anymore. Everything worked fine on the old server, but now the scripts are useless. I'm sure that only a few lines of code need to be changed, but which lines? I called tech support at the new hosting company several times but never connected with anyone who knew how to write Perl scripts. I know how my mind works. I'll figure this out eventually and get everything working again, but the effort will be a complete waste of time, since I don't even need the scripts anymore. I'm just curious why something that works on one server won't work on all servers. I should spend my rather limited energy doing something useful, but I probably never will. That's not how I roll.

I wonder if the gym is open on Easter Sunday. I bet not. Ironically, I drove right by the gym this afternoon. I should have just stopped and asked.

Petey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2291

I basically spent the entire day setting up new e-mail accounts and migrating websites from one server to another. The good news is that about 80% of what I moved still works perfectly. The bad news is that the remaining 20% doesn't. I hope I never have to change web hosting companies again. My website is like a house that has been remodeled too many times. When I was troubleshooting this morning, I discovered code that hadn't been updated since the mid 1990's. A lot of clever things I did back then are completely obsolete and aren't even supported anymore. Instead of redesigning the site, I simply abandoned pages when they quit working and moved on. There are tons of orphaned pages on this site that I should have never moved to the new server, but since I couldn't remember why there were there in the first place, it was easier to move everything. I'll sort it all out later.

I got a call from a woman this morning who was interested in having me build a website for her business. She had started a gluten free baking company and wanted to sell her bread online. Unfortunately, she had no bread for me. The was the third referral I've received this year from someone who basically wanted a website for nothing. It's discouraging. I explained that there were a lot of drag and drop templates available that would let her inexpensively build her own website, but that it took a long time to design a good custom site and I was doing this for a living. Maybe she doesn't even need a website. I've seen people who've done pretty well using nothing but a free Facebook business page.

The Internet has changed so much that I'm wondering why I'm even bothering moving everything to a new server. One of the sites I moved today was for a greeting card company I started many years ago. The cards were beautiful, but the company never went anywhere. I initially thought that the greeting cards could be used to raise money for Dalmatian Rescue, but the company didn't even generate enough revenue to pay for the cards I had printed. There may still be a box of greeting cards hidden away in the storage warehouse somewhere, but the website is about all that remains of the company. The last inquiry I received about greeting cards was five years ago.

It rained a lot last night, but luckily the worst of the storm passed North of us. I saw on the news this morning that there was lots of hail and wind damage in some of the nearby suburbs. I always worry about hail storms at this time of year. They can pop up out of nowhere and do a lot of damage. Janet's car was practically destroyed during a sudden hailstorm a few years ago. Even without the hail, the weather has been weird this week. In theory it is Spring now, but I'm still wearing my winter coat on our morning walks. It's way too cold for March, but at least it isn't raining every day like it was last year.

I still can't decide where to have breakfast tomorrow. Having too many choices confuses me. When I first started eating out on Friday mornings, I'd try a different restaurant each week. This wasn't really satisfying, since some of the restaurants were terrible. It may be time to try this again though. I realized last week that I don't have a favorite anymore.

Chelsey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2290

I lost my web hosting and e-mail today. Damn. I knew this was going to happen but I didn't think I would have to deal with moving everything so soon. I've been with the same hosting company since the dawn of the Internet, so migrating all my websites and e-mail accounts is not a trivial matter. Even though I spent most of the day in tech support hell, I'm still not done. Every time you move a large website, a lot of things don't work anymore. It's going to take weeks before everything is back to normal again.

It would have been tempting to just abandon my personal websites, but there were some animal rescue websites on the server that people still depend on, so I decided to move everything. My company website has become a relic. I haven't kept up with the times. The sites I design for clients are much nicer than my own these days. My sealander.com site has become an anachronism. Lets face it, I just don't care about the Internet as much as I did ten years ago.

I do care about Dot, so I broke away from configuring the new mail server to take her to her physical therapy appointment. When I returned, I had to start all over again, because my session timed out and nothing got saved. Dot actually did better than I did today.  She had a good morning walk and kept up a brisk pace on the treadmill during her therapy session. Dot didn't poop in the car this week either. In sharp contrast, my own day was a mess. I still haven't gotten my new e-mail account working properly and there are big chunks of my company website that don't work at all. Hey, it's a start. I'll have everything up and running by this weekend.

Trying to find a new online home consumed most of my day, so I made no progress on preparing my taxes whatsoever and didn't get around to calling the landscaping guys or the roofers either. At least Dash was more or less back to normal today. These dogs are wearing me out. I'm going to try to finish migrating my websites to the new server tomorrow. I've got a little time before they pull the plug on my old server, but at the glacial slow pace I move these days, there isn't much time to waste. Dot's vet was telling me about the difficulties of running her business while moving to a new home today. This reminded me that Janet and I have one more move left if we are ever going to leave Dallas. I'm not looking forward to moving. I'm not looking foreword to growing old in a big city either, so I guess I've got no choice. I have a feeling that moving to a whole new city is going to be a lot more trouble than moving my website.

There's still plenty of time to think about moving. The big move may never even happen, since Janet is in no hurry to retire. In the mean time, I've got poop to clean up, bacon filled breakfasts to fantasize about, and a yard full of grass to mow. I wonder why I selected the fancy unlimited package on the new web server? I can add as many websites, domains, and e-mail accounts as I want. This would have been really useful ten years ago when my business was thriving. Now, most of this capacity will go unused. It will be a miracle if I can manage to add five rather simple websites to the server. So far, I'm having a lot of trouble configuring the first one.

Ariel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2289

Dash survived his dental exam. You'd think having your dog's teeth cleaned would be easy, but nothing is easy with Dash. He has a history of waking up hard after anesthesia, so the vet has a special way to sedate him so he won't be frantic when he wakes up. She was really pleased at how calm Dash was today. When I drove him home I was thinking that we'd dodged a bullet this time, but less than an hour later he was racing around the house in a panic and drooling profusely. I had to put him on a leash when I took him outside so he wouldn't eat grass and leaves. I occasionally get nauseous when I am recovering from anesthesia, so this must have been what Dash was feeling. Things are better now, but it was a three ring circus for a while.

At one point, both dogs wanted to go outside at the same time and I just couldn't manage it.  If I was holding up Dot's rear legs, I couldn't keep Dash from eating leaves. If I was attending to Dash, Dot couldn't even get up. It was a mess. Eventually, Dash calmed down and Dot pooped, but there were some very unhappy dogs for a while. I just couldn't explain to them that I had to deal with them one at a time.

It's sad to see Europe descending into chaos. I used to spend a lot of time in Europe, but I wouldn't feel entirely comfortable there now. I'm glad I saw Greece before it went bankrupt. I'm glad I visited Turkey while it was still a secular country. I'm especially glad I got to spend time in Paris before you had to be careful which arrondissement you were traveling in. Most of my travels took place before the European Union even existed. I bet some of my European friends wish they could go back to those days. Open borders seems to have created more problems than they solved.

I hope Dot's vet can explain why she became lame earlier this week. The leg was completely limp and useless and yet she recovered the next day. Maybe the Palladia pills are making her stumble and fall, but I suspect that another disc in her spine has become compromised. Dot has so many neurological issues that I forget she has cancer sometimes. Hopefully we'll find some answers at our physical therapy session tomorrow. It's hard to accept that nothing can be done at this point, but maybe that is the answer.

Today was tiring. I'm hoping that tomorrow will be uneventful and calm. It would be nice if Dot does well in the underwater treadmill. It would be nice if I can eat my breakfast without both dogs barking at me. We'll see what happens. If tomorrow is tiring too, I'll just take a nice nap.

Brooke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2288

Last night just before we went to bed, Dot's left rear leg became completely lame. She wouldn't put any weight on the leg at all and had a lot of difficulty standing even while I was supporting her using the Help 'Em Up Harness. It was almost impossible to tell whether the injury was a temporary numbness, a torn ligament, or another ruptured disc in her spine. I did my best to make her comfortable, putting her to bed on her side, with the bad leg on top in a relaxed position. We all went to sleep and when we woke up the next morning, the leg was fine.

This is how fragile Dot is these days. There is no margin for error. If she sleeps on her weak leg wrong, she is unable to walk when she wakes up. If she stumbles while we are walking in the park, it might take her two days to recover. The Palladia pills make her weak about 48 hours after she takes them. Just barking at Dash is enough to make her poop in the house. Right now, she is the definition of a high maintenance dog.

The dogs should have been happy today, since the weather has turned brisk and cold again. They weren't content with the weather though and pestered me all day. Dot would bark at me to help her up and take her outside. As soon as we were out the back door, she wanted to come in again. We did this over and over again. When Dot would settle down and go to sleep, Dash would start barking and get her riled up again. She pooped in her bed twice. She has one dog blanket I must have washed five hundred times. The thing is indestructible.

I balanced my checkbook today and made sure that I have enough money to finish the month. I wrote some large checks to pay credit card bills and deposited some small checks in the bank. I picked up prescriptions for myself and Dash and tried to make sure that I didn't get them mixed up. I definitely don't need to be taking phenobarbital. Dash needs the stuff to control seizures, but the last thing I need are downers.  Everyday life is enough of a downer as it is.

Just when I was finally warming up to the idea of getting a larger iPhone, Apple comes out with a new smaller model that is exactly the same size as my current iPhone 5. Maybe I'll get one of these new SE models. It's about time for me to upgrade and one of the reasons I've waited so long is that I really like a smaller phone. The larger 6 models just didn't fit in my pocket that well. Maybe these new phones will even fit in my existing case. I think I like my case better than the phone anyway.

Dash goes to the vet to have his teeth cleaned tomorrow morning. I'll need to take him in really early because he has to fast. Getting either of the dogs to do anything without breakfast is always a challenge. I'm glad we only have to do this once a year.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2287 - Vernal Equinox

It was nice that the first day of Spring turned out to be a Spring day. Since this is Texas, we could just as easily have had snow. It was a little cold in the morning, but by mid-afternoon there was definitely a hint of Spring in the air. I used the pleasant weather to catch up on yard work. I pruned some backyard bushes and hauled an abandoned agility course we used when the dogs were younger out to the curb for this week's big trash pickup. I thought about mowing the grass, but I forgot to charge the mower battery, so that will have to wait until another day.

On the way to the gym this afternoon, I stopped at the REI store to look for some flip flops. I like to wear socks around the house and when the dogs need to go outside in a hurry, it's always hard to put on my shoes quickly enough. I've had to go outside barefoot occasionally when Dot couldn't wait. At any rate I was looking for some slip on sandals without the band between the big toe and the other toes that you typically find on flip flops. I finally found a pair that I liked, but they were $130. WTF? How did flip flops get so expensive? There were nice hiking boots in the store for the same price as these flip flops. I left without buying anything, because the price seemed ridiculous. I'll probably come back later though, because the shoes were exactly what I was looking for. Why do I always have to like the expensive things?

While I was at the gym this afternoon, I got to thinking about the yard work I'd done this morning.  Yard work is strenuous. When I did more around the house, I had no need to go to the gym. I used to mow the grass with a push mower. I hauled in tons of round river stones in the back of the Defender to make decorative areas in the shady spots where grass wouldn't grow. I used to put in the St. Augustine turf myself instead of hiring landscapers. I did lots of things that kept me fit and made me tired. I quit using the push mower first. It was simply too exhausting. Gradually other things fell by the wayside as bones got brittle and joints got sore. Today, when I was pruning the Photinia bushes I couldn't even reach a lot of the branches because of my dislocated shoulder. Age has definitely taken its toll. As I finished my twenty minutes on the treadmill, I concluded that going to the gym was for people who work in offices. If you do any type of manual labor, you don't need to go to the gym.

Dash gets his teeth cleaned this week. I always worry about dental exams because a long time ago a friend of mine had a dog who died during a routine dental exam. Dash is what they call a "hard wake up" dog as well. He freaks out sometimes as he is coming out of anesthesia. Dash has a great vet and I know everything will be OK, but I still worry. I don't like going to the dentist myself, but it's something you can't ignore. Gum disease can be very serious in an older dog.

I actually got a good night's sleep last night. My activity tracker said that I reached 90% of my recommended sleep goal. That's as close as I've ever come. Usually I get about 40% of my sleep goal. I don't expect to sleep nearly as long tonight. It's a work day tomorrow and we all get up early.

Baxter is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day