Day 1581

I can see the writing on the wall. I think I need to get out of the website business. All my clients are unhappy. They're not upset with the design or the writing on their sites. They all think that whenever someone searches for their type of business on Google, they should be at the top of the list. I try to tell them it's not that easy when you've got ten million other companies who also want to be at the top of the list. It used to be relatively easy to get on page one of a Google search, but when everybody on the planet has a website, the game changes a bit.

I know a lot of the unhappy folks think it's my fault that they're not on page one of every Google search, but there's not all that much I can do. I tell them why time honored SEO tricks don't work anymore and why Google wants everyone to buy Adwords, but they don't want to listen. Adwords are expense. SEO companies are expensive too, and don't always produce results. Most of my clients don't want expensive. They want their website to be like Facebook. Facebook is free. Their friends notice their Facebook posts too, so they think everyone should notice their website. Sorry guys. It just doesn't work that way.

I had to turn the furnace back on this morning. The temperature dropped from yesterday's balmy 80 degree weather, to a damp, chilly 40 degrees this morning. Winter is not giving up without a fight this year. I didn't think I would have to wear my goose down ski jacket again, but that's what I had on this morning when I walked Dot. With the addition of a nasty thirty mile an hour wind, it actually seemed a lot colder than 40 degrees.

I never dreamed that Dash would be so eager to go in for cancer treatments. He know when he gets radiation now, and on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday he's the first one up. Often he is waiting at the front door for us to put his harness on while we are still getting dressed. I'm really glad that he likes the other dogs at the cancer center and seems to think we're taking him to doggie day care. It's definitely not what I expected though.

I'd love to see tonight's total lunar eclipse. I'll probably miss it though. In the Central Time zone, the eclipse doesn't even start until 1 AM and won't reach totality until 2:45 AM. My only chance of seeing the thing is if I wake up to go to the bathroom during the middle of the night and happen to look out the window. There was a time when I would have spent hours setting up telescopes and cameras to document an event like this, but not anymore. I've seen dozens of lunar eclipses and they're all pretty much the same. Anyway, there will be tons of pictures of the moon on Facebook tomorrow anyway.

I moved Dot's acupuncture appointment to tomorrow, since I have a doctor's appointment when she typically goes for acupuncture and water therapy. I need to remember to send in my Quarterly Estimated Taxes tomorrow as well. I got another jury summons in the mail today, so I guess they didn't forget about me after I postponed my jury duty last month. I don't know why they would want me on a jury anyway. I'm convinced that everyone is guilty before I even get to the courtroom.

Flash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1580

One of these days, I'm going to have to bite the bullet and go paperless. Every couple of months, I try to wade through the mountain of accumulated paper and throw away as much superfluous mail as I can. I have a tendency to save things that I think might be important, and then forget what was so important about the letter later. On days like today, I find myself throwing away a ton of coupons that expired three years ago, invitations to attend seminars that have already taken place, and the ubiquitous unopened proxy statements. I don't know why I get the proxy statements in the first place. Please vote for the following slate of directors, they say. Like my 100 shares are  actually going to make a difference? Annual reports, proxy statements, unsolicited credit cards, surveys, almost anything from AARP is a total waste of postage.  Today I found five letters that really did need to be dealt with and threw away over 100 that were just junk.

What does it mean when 90% of your e-mail winds up unopened in your spam folder, 95% of your phone calls are from telemarketers, and virtually everything the mailman delivers is junk mail?  I must be the kind of customer marketers are trying to reach, because I am deluged with junk. I don't add my name to "do not call" lists because I'm convinced that this will actually increase the number of telemarketing calls. I never open anything in my spam folder because I think this might trigger a hidden malware application. Proxy statements go directly into the paper shredder. It wasn't always this way. As recently as ten years ago, I looked forward to a visit from the postman and clients routinely called me on the phone instead of sending cryptic e-mails that wind up in my spam folder anyway.

After I reduced my mountain of unopened mail to a more manageable size, I got some bleach soaked rags and tried to clean up my bathroom. Somehow when dust, moisture, and soap interact, it leaves a thin layer of scum that is almost impossible to remove. The electric toothbrush, water pic, soap dishes, and toilet are all sparkling clean now. In about a month, they will all be covered with the same scum again. I'll have to deal with the tile grout another day. That's getting pretty disgusting too.

The only reason I even attempted to deal with these tiresome chores today was that it was pouring rain outside for most of the day. I won't need to water the new grass in the back yard for a few days, but I will need to go up on the roof again and remove all the standing water. I'll need to go to the battery store and get a new 24V lawn mower battery too. If I let the front lawn go too long, it will be a tangled mess of tall weeds within a matter of weeks. The lawn mower battery will be expensive, but it's still a lot easier than putting my gas mower in the car and taking it to one of the city's few remaining lawn mower repair shops. These little shops used to be everywhere, but not anymore. Today, people apparently just drag their non-functioning mowers out to the curb for the trash truck to take away and buy another cheap mower at Home Depot. Actually, they just get a yard guy to mow their grass. I'm one of the only people in my neighborhood who still mows his own grass.

As the day progressed, the skies gradually cleared and by late afternoon there were patches of blue sky punctuated with billowing cumulus clouds. The day started dismally, but it ended up being quite pretty. The dogs were as eager to get out of the house as I was, so we took advantage of the nice weather and went on a long afternoon walk. On the way, I thought I saw a squirrel staring at me from a knot hole in a nearby tree. "This would make a cool picture," I thought, and inched closer to the tree to take a picture. When I got about a yard from the tree, I noticed that it was a rubber squirrel that someone had placed in the knot hole. Sure fooled me. Who would bother to put rubber squirrels in random trees in a public park? You'd have to be crazy. Oh wait. That would describe half the people who visit this park. I guess random rubber squirrels are just another aspect of life in the city.

Valli is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1579

Didn't this happen last year? I get out the lawn mower to cut the grass for the first time and the battery won't hold a charge. Batteries are the Achilles heel of modern technology. I hate them. I did everything right this year. I kept the 24V battery inside, so it wouldn't freeze during the Winter. I kept it on a trickle charger the entire time. How did this ungrateful battery reward me? It powered the mower for about three minute and then it died.

So far this Spring, I've had battery problems with my UP fitness band, my iPhone, one of my laptops, and now the lawn mower. Refurbished batteries never work as well as new ones either. My replacement UP band only holds a charge for seven days instead of the promised ten. The lawn mower battery was refurbished with new cells last Spring. Maybe that is the problem. I guess I could go back to the gas powered mower, but I probably couldn't even start it anymore with my dislocated shoulder. Gas mowers are difficult to start in the Spring anyway. Usually I forget to prepare the mower properly for Winter and the gas lines and tank are all gummy when I try to resurrect the machine in the Spring. Gasoline is meant to be used immediately. It really doesn't sit well for months at a time.

I counted six loose dogs in the park this afternoon. There are signs all over the park saying that dogs must be on a leash at all times, but nobody seems to care anymore. I live in a city where a significant percentage of the population doesn't even bother to get a driver's license. If they don't think a driver's license is important, I'm sure they don't think a leash for their dog is important either. There is an increase in people bringing aggressive dogs to the dog park as well. Just last week one of Janet's friends had her dog attacked by an aggressive dog in one of our favorite parks. With each passing year, I have fewer and fewer good things to say about living in a city.

I sympathize with those ranchers battling the government in Nevada. I've always admired farmers and ranchers. They seem to be the last hard working, no bullshit people left in this country. If my family had been grazing cattle on open range land for decades and I was abruptly told by some government bureaucrat that the land was now a protected habitat for a turtle, I'd be pretty pissed too. At any rate, I hope the ranchers stand strong. Our government has gotten out of hand on so many levels.

Although today's attempt at mowing the grass was a dismal failure, all the other weekend errands got completed. The grocery shopping is done and the pantry is restocked for another week. The car has been filled with gas and the sheets are clean. There are thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow, but I hope we avoid them. There is still a lot of work to be done.

Nellie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1578

Dash is back on schedule again. The cancer center called at 6 AM this morning and said the radiation machine was working again, so we resumed the treatments. He's slightly more than halfway done now and is starting to show a bit of what the oncologist euphemistically calls sunburn. They say this skin redness is normal during radiation therapy, but truthfully, nothing seems very normal about this whole process.

Work was slow today so I finally got up on the roof and removed all the standing water from last week's rains. You'd think that the water would have evaporated by now, but it was still there.  I should have gotten the water off the roof earlier, because pollen and debris from the budding trees had turned the water into a dark brown mess. The energy saving white roof was kind of pointless, because all the junk that falls from the trees every Spring has already stained the roof, turning the reflective white into a rich brown sienna color. I don't think Burnt Sienna is a very energy efficient color.

I need to find something new to eat for breakfast. I'm growing tired of all my Friday favorites. The only things that appeal to be now are wheat products like pancakes and french toast that are still on the forbidden list. I've done such a good job at eliminating sugar from my diet and keeping diabetes at bay, that I really hate to return to eating french toast and waffles again. My body seems to convert wheat products directly into sugar, so I'm better off without it. Bread sure sounds good though.

I still get lots of trade magazines in the mail. In fact, trade magazines and bills are just about the only things I get in the mail. I avidly read all the magazines with reviews about new gear. I love reading about the latest and greatest guitars, cameras, microphones, lenses, and recorders. The other magazines are filled with business tips about improving productivity and streamlining business processes. These magazines bore me and I throw them away. I have no interest in improving my business processes whatsoever. Actually, I think I started my company just to give me an excuse to buy lots of cool gear. It worked for quite a while, especially when I was doing a lot of radio and TV commercials. Now, I mostly just write things and this requires virtually no gear at all. What a shame.

It looks like it's time to get the lawn mower out of the greenhouse. If I don't get the front yard under control soon, weeds are going to overpower the Bermuda Grass and I'll have to ask the landscaping guy to come back again. The big Yazoo gas mower isn't going to start without a major tune up, but I've still got the electric mower. The electric mower should start just fine, because I've been keeping the heavy 24V battery nice and warm under my desk all winter.

I'm glad the weekend is here, although I don't really know why. It's not that different from the rest of the week.

Tyson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1577

We still don't know whether Dash will be getting radiation therapy tomorrow. The cancer center said they're still working on the machine this evening and will call us between 6AM and 7AM tomorrow morning to let us know whether to bring Dash in for treatment. There must be a serious problem with the machine, since they've been working on it for almost three days now. Hopefully, everything will be fixed tomorrow. I worry that a big gap in treatments might compromise the effectiveness of the therapy.

Machines always seem to be the problem. On a much smaller scale, I've been having weird problems with my iPhone lately. I'll start to take a picture and the phone will abruptly shut down like the battery was dead. When I go to recharge the battery, I  typically discover that it still has a 50% charge. I went on a couple of Apple forums and discovered that this was actually a common problem for people who have upgraded to IOS 7. Apparently it is some sort of firmware problem where the battery controller gets scrambled ant doesn't know whether the battery is charged or not. I wish Apple would concentrate on developing a better battery, rather than making an even thinner case or a larger screen. I don't particularly care about the size of the phone. I just want it to work reliably.

One of my clients has been having problems with their online forms ever since the hosting company made a server change. The hosting company called me today and told me they had resolved the problem. I tried out one of the forms and quickly discovered that it still didn't work. This is the problem in dealing with technical support. Just saying that a problem is fixed, doesn't necessarily mean that it is actually fixed. It doesn't matter if the problem is a software glitch, a billing discrepancy, or a password that doesn't work, it usually takes at least five tries before you eventually get it right.

Despite all the problems, I managed to get quite a bit of work done today. I efficiently wrote and submitted three new articles. Then I wasted a ton of time inefficiently struggling to resolve a variety of technical issues over the phone with technical support people in India. I have a hard enough time understanding these people and and even harder time finding a satisfactory solution to my problems.

I was kind of disappointed to learn that Stephen Colbert will replace David Letterman. I was hoping that Craig Ferguson would get the job. Ferguson's lazy, largly unscripted brand of humor doesn't appeal to everyone, but he's become my go-to guy when I can't get to sleep at night. The guy does the same thing over and over again with minor variations, but it still seems funny to me. Maybe I'm just jealous that Ferguson gets paid for not really giving a shit about what he does. I wish I could get paid for not giving a shit.

Who knows what will happen tomorrow.  Either Dash will return to his radiation treatments, or the entire treatment schedule will slip even further behind. I sympathize with the folks at the cancer center. Their fancy radiation machine is much, much more expensive than my balky large format printer, but I'm sure their frustration is the same when the machine refuses to work for some inexplicable reason.

Apollo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1576

It was hard to remember what day it was. It was supposed to be Dash's radiation day, but it turned out to be Dot's acupuncture day instead. I drove to one vet to get Dash's thyroid medication renewed and to another vet for Dot's physical therapy. Dash still took his Paladia chemo pills tonight, but won't be going in for radiation treatment tomorrow, because the radiation machine is still broken. I try to keep all this straight, but I never had a good grasp on what day it was anyway. I'll be glad when all this is over. The longer the treatment continues, the more I worry about side effects. I'm one of those fools who reads all the fine print that comes with pharmaceuticals these days. There is almost always something dire hidden away in the tiny type on these product description and warning sheets that will make you wonder how these new miracle drugs ever got approved in the first place. All that being said, Dash is still doing very, very well.

There weren't many website revisions today, but there was plenty of writing work to catch up on. I finished two articles and started on a third. The writing will never win a Pulitzer Prize, but it does make the day go quickly. With several articles to write and several dogs to transport various places, I never have much idle time on my hands. I always try to make time to fix myself a decent breakfast every morning, but I'm starting to fall behind on a host of other things that used to be part of my daily routine. The house hasn't been vacuumed in a while and I'm sure there's still water on the roof from last week's rain. That's the way it is these days. I take care of the dog's needs, do enough work to pay the bills, eat as healthy as I can, and spend the remaining five hours sleeping.

I wish I had a better camera with me this morning. We walked earlier than usual and there was a fine mist on everything. I'm fascinated by the way water droplets tend to form on some plants and not on others. This morning all the while and yellow Primrose flowers has miniscule water droplets all over their petals. Other nearby flowers were completely dry. I only managed to grab a few quick shots with my phone however, because the dogs had plans of their own.

I suspect that tomorrow will be a lot like today. One of these days I need to go have lunch with some of my old work friends again. It's been at least six months since I've met anyone for lunch. Basically, I don't even eat lunch anymore. I'm never that hungry during the day and I find that it's a lot easier to keep my weight under control if I just skip lunch entirely. Essentially, no lunch equals no social life, but I don't really feel like I'm missing much. It's kind of like those cable channels I eliminated yesterday. If I'm not actively looking for the missing channels, I don't even realize they're gone.

Livy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1575

I changed my cable bundle to a package with fewer TV channels today. So far, I can't tell any difference. I'm certainly not missing anything. There are so many worthless cable channels anyway that I'll probably never really know what I eliminated. I did save a little money though. I made the changes online, and I did notice when I was checking out that the cable company tried to sneak a new movie package into my cart, adding $20 and then subtracting it again, saying the first month was free. They didn't think I'd notice. I wasn't falling for that. I figured out how how to remove the unwanted movie package and scaled back my land line phone service as well. I should have eliminated the land line entirely. It is used exclusively by telemarketers now. I haven't received a call that actually mattered on the land line in months.

I took my April invoices to the post office this afternoon. Billings are starting to decline again. I'm not sure what to do about it though. I'm pretty busy writing, but I hesitate to go after any more writing work. Editorial writing just doesn't pay very well. I still do the occasional advertising job, but these high budget jobs are becoming a rarity. Most of the young agency creatives just don't want to hire someone the same age as their grandfather. I can't really complain though. I certainly had my own moment in the sun. When I was a young hot shot agency creative, I wouldn't dream of hiring some old fart twice my age. I hired the friends I went drinking with, and I'm sure today's kids do the same.

Dash can't go in for radiation therapy tomorrow. The cancer center called me today and said that the radiation machine was broken and that it would probably take a full day to repair. I certainly hope the machine didn't go haywire with a dog in it. That has always been one of my fears. You'd hate for some technician to calibrate the machine improperly and come home with a radioactive dog. In fairness, the entire team at the cancer center seems very professional and always pays attention to details. Dash will probably be upset when he discovers that he isn't going anywhere tomorrow. He looks forward to these visits to the cancer center now.

Work was kind of light today. I updated one website, did my invoices, and that was about it. Tomorrow looks busy though. I return to writing again tomorrow. I'm going to take Dot for her acupuncture session tomorrow as well. I changed her appointment back to Wednesday after Dash's radiation therapy was canceled. Dot's vet is probably getting sick of me constantly changing her schedule because of Dash's changing transportation needs. There not much I can do about the situation now though. If I happen to have a free day, I'm going to try to use it. When the radiation machine is fixed, Dash may need to go for therapy on Thursday and Friday this week.

I'm starting to see wild irises blooming in the park this week. From now through June, there will be a new variety of wildflower coming into bloom every few days. The dogs are stubborn now, and I can't always get near the flowers like I used to. If I get close to a wildflower now, it usually means there is something stinky nearby that the dogs want to smell.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1574

I got a call from my hepatologist today. He told me that on my latest round of blood tests, my viral load numbers had gone to zero. This meant that for the first time in almost thirty years, the Hepatitis C virus was completely undetectable in my body. I continue my treatment for three more weeks and I'm done. The treatment worked! My doctor wasn't quite willing to officially declare me cured yet, but he did say that these were the results they'd been looking for. I still find it ironic that the very same hospital that gave me a transfusion of contaminated blood back in the 1970's was now home to the world renowned liver clinic that cured my disease. Life is funny that way. Everything eventually comes full circle.

My quest to lower my cable bill today was a dismal failure. I hate cable companies. They lure you in with a low price and a two year contract. The initial two year contract is essential because they know in advance that it will take almost two years to get all the kinks out of your system and ensure that everything is running smoothly. Once you are happy and everything is operating the way it should have in the beginning, your contract runs out and the price goes up. If you are willing to upgrade to a more expensive plan when your contract runs out, they will often give you a artificially discounted rate for three to six months, so your bill doesn't seem like it's going up so dramatically. Eventually, you've taken advantage of all the special upgrade offers and the deals run out. Then your bill can double almost overnight. When you try to downgrade your service, you get no deals at all. The cable companies know how much trouble it was to wire your house and get the WiFi running smoothly. They know you don't really want to start over and go through this instillation hell again with another company, so they stick it to you. It's hard to unbundle services too. I really need the Internet portion of my bundle. Without the TV and phone, the Internet component would be much more expensive though. The worst thing is that the cable company isn't even embarrassed to charge you double for the same services they lured you in with in the beginning. It's just their business model. They know exactly what they're doing. They make a calculated bet that your will just shut up and pay more, because it's so much trouble to rip out the wires and start over with a different company.

I'm still amazed that Dash actually likes going to his cancer treatments. He thinks he's going to doggie day care. These guys are so good at giving anesthesia that I don't think Dash even realizes that he's out cold three times a week. He's not even groggy when I go to pick him up in the afternoon. I used to panic when Dash needed anesthesia, because he was what was known as a "hard wake up" dog at my local vet. I didn't realize then that all anesthesia isn't the same. A wide variety of drugs can be used and patients can have a different reaction to all of them. I'm really happy that the folks at the cancer center have managed to reduce the anxiety and risk associated with anesthesia to an absolute minimum. These guys are pros!

It looks like the rain is ending. It should be a nice day tomorrow, even though I'll be inside working on websites most of the day. Maybe I'll take a break and go up and get all the water from this week's rain off the roof. That's probably as close as I'm going to get to going to the gym for a while.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1573

The weather forecast was right. It rained all day today. There were a couple of short windows of opportunity were I was able to take the dogs outside to do their business, but basically we didn't leave the house today. A cold front must have passed through last night, because it was about 20 degrees colder than it was yesterday. It would have been a good day to light a fire in the fireplace, if we had a fireplace. It might have been a good day to watch a movie on TV as well, if there was anything I felt like watching. We get hundreds of cable channels, but there are only three or four of them that I actually watch. Half the channels in Dallas are in Spanish anyway. On the movie channels, the same Disney movies, Lifetime chickflix, Apocalyptic action movies, and the perennial You've Got Mail and Forest Gump seem to play over and over again.

This was especially irritating today when I paid my latest cable bill and noticed that it had gone up by 30%. What a waste of money. I should probably drop cable entirely and just stick with Netflix and Hulu. I wish you could buy cable channels à la carte. I watch three or four channels and Janet watches three or four more. A plan that included only ten channels would probably be quite reasonable. 

The cable companies still seem quite reasonable compared to the government however. As I've grown older, I'd had to sign up for several government websites. I tried to visit several of these websites today. Each site has their own peculiar password protocols, so you can't use a common, easy-to-remember password to access all of them. What's worse, each site forces you to change your password every six months. It's ridiculous. Once you do manage to login successfully, you usually discover that all your information is wrong anyway. As I slowly learn to navigate the byzantine complexities of the Medicare system, I realize that this is probably what Obamacare will be like for everybody in the near future. I don't think my parents ever really realized that they lived in the best of times. I think I grew up at the tail end of those days of limitless opportunities. The dream may not be over, but it certainly has tarnished a bit.

On one of our short walks between the recurring thunderstorms we passed a small pale blue egg. It must have fallen out of a nearby tree during a burst of wind. The little bird inside isn't going to make it. It was very cold and wet outside today and incubating eggs need to stay warm to hatch. This unlucky egg was already stone cold. This brief encounter reminded me that nature isn't always kind. Nature still probably has a better batting average in this regard than humans do however.

Dash gets his tenth radiation treatment tomorrow. We will pass the halfway mark this week. Dash has been an inspiration through all this. Even though this has been a very rough couple of months for  him with major surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy, he still greets each day full of energy and enthusiasm. In many ways he actually seems happier now than when we started this journey. He gets lots of attention and maybe that's all a dog really wants. Dot is equally amazing. She can barely walk on some days, but she still soldiers on as if she's indestrudtible. If I had Dot's determination and Dash's optimism I would be unstoppable.

Paxton is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1572

Apparently, there's a lot going on in Dallas this weekend. The Final Four is in town and AT&T Stadium is being converted into the nation's largest basketball arena. Bruce Springsteen will be giving a free concert in Reunion Park tomorrow, and it's Duck Commander weekend at the local NASCAR track. All this means to me is more traffic to avoid. You couldn't pay me to attend any of these events. My Dad loved collage basketball, but I never understood the attraction. The closest I ever got to the college game was producing a series of TV commercials featuring Dick Vitale. I did see Springsteen in the mid-1970's at a small theater in Seattle before he became a superstar. He still sings some of the same songs today. I've never been to Texas Motor Speedway at all. It's too loud and too far away for me. I almost went to a Rolling Stones concert there once, but I'd already seen the Stones several times and like I said, the speedway is too loud and too far away.

I'll let everyone else fight the crowds this weekend. I'm perfectly content to give the dogs a long walk in the park if the weather's nice, and hole up inside with them if it rains again. It rained sporadically today, but there were frequent dry patches, so I was able to walk the dogs and get all my shopping done without getting wet. The weather forecast says there is a 100% chance of rain tomorrow. I'm not putting a lot of faith in the forecast though, since the weatherman has been wrong about 50% of the time this week.

There were lots of errands to run today. I picked up some fresh fruit at the grocery store. I renewed some prescriptions at the pharmacy. And I got some new furnace filters for the start of the air conditioning season. I always get the best filters I can find, but the house is still dusty all the time. A dust free house and Dalmatians are two things that don't naturally go together.

My hair is getting curly again. It was curly for most of my life and then it got straight and very fine for about four years. Now, it's getting curly again. I wonder what all this means? Maybe now that my liver is starting to function normally again, my hair is returning to normal as well. Or maybe I'm just using a different kind of shampoo. Like most guys, I have no idea what I'm really washing my hair with. I usually just pick up the first bottle I see at the store that says shampoo on the side of the bottle. I can't even get that right half the time. Once I washed my hair with conditioner for two weeks and didn't even know the difference. I'll spend some time thinking about what software to install on my computer, or what lens I need for my camera. Shampoo?  Not so much.

Angel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1571

Friday's are a bit different now. First Dash goes to the cancer center. Next Dot eats breakfast and gets a walk by herself. After that, I go out for breakfast and get groceries. When I come home, I take a shower, and then I usually get a phone call saying that Dash is finished with his treatment and ready to come home again. You pay by the week at the cancer center, and every Friday they hand you a bill when you arrive. Time passes quickly. We have already finished nine radiation treatments.

I didn't feel like my usual poached eggs and pulled pork this morning, so I went to a different restaurant. This place has had some management changes and although the menu hadn't changed, everything featured on the menu is cooked differently now. I ordered a familiar omelet dish and what I received looked very unfamiliar. Maybe the reason I like my favorite restaurant so much is that the chefs are actually the owners and nothing ever changes.

Considering that the today's beautiful Spring weather was tailor made for gardening and mowing the lawn, I actually got quite a bit of writing done. I managed to complete three articles today and still had time to update at least one website. My website woes are far from over. I'm discovering that as web hosts continue to move and upgrade their servers, many of my favorite scripts no longer work anymore. One of my sites lost all its online forms recently when the hosting company changed how customers are able to access the CGI/BIN directory. I suppose the hosting company still supports CGI, but I will have to re-write some code to get the forms to work again. If they eliminated the directory entirely, I'm going to be really mad. I've always been a firm adherent to the time honored "if it's not broke, don't fix it" idiom. Apparently very few people approach life this way. I am continually having people change things on me that were working perfectly fine.

I've started noticing poison ivy growing in the park again. First snakes, and now poison ivy. It's enough to make me start longing for winter again. Every year, the patches of poison ivy seem to grow larger and more pervasive. Pretty soon the remnants of Texas Native Prairie that everyone is so proud of will be nothing but a big patch of poison ivy and Johnson Grass.

Luckily, these invasive pest plants haven't ruined the park yet. Today I noticed that one of my perennial favorites, the diminutive Prairie Verbena was in bloom again. Almost overnight, the meadows have become filled with these ringlike circles of small flowers.

It looks like it's going to be a nice weekend. An absence of pending chores and a mercifully short "to do" list might make the next two days even nicer. Dash gets a rest this weekend, and hopefully, so do we.

Dottie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1570

Weird. After yesterday's dire warnings about high winds and damaging hail, it was sunny today. That's Texas weather for you. You never really know what's going to happen. It's just as well that I re-scheduled things so I could stay inside, however. As it turned out, there were a ton of vexing website problems that just couldn't wait. I couldn't even log-in to one of the sites I manage. Another had broken online forms. And a third was just slow as molasses. There are days when I would just as soon have nothing to do with the Internet, and today turned out to be one of those days.

My writing assignments went slower than expected today as well. I had a group of articles to write that were all essentially the same. They each had to appear very different though. I get this a lot. "Yeah, it's the same, but make it different." One of these days, I'll simply run out of adjectives and we'll all have to admit that I'm writing the same thing over and over again. It's actually not very easy to make the same thing seem fresh and different, but I do the best I can.

My liver doctors are starting to make me feel like a human pincushion. The keep experimenting with the dosage on the pills I'm taking. They'll lower the dosage after one series of blood tests and then raise the dosage again after the next series of tests. I was hoping that they'd keep the dosage lower, since this alleviated some of the irritating side effects, but now I'm right back to the initial rather high dosage I started with. Hey, I'll do whatever they want. I've only got one more month to go. Dash and I are going to have a big celebration when we complete our treatments.

Dash was poking his nose into some bushes by the side of the trail today, as he is often prone to do. Suddenly, a big snake slithered out right in front of us and disappeared in the underbrush. I guess it's that time of year again. I hate snakes. We've got tons of them around here and I can never remember which ones are safe and which ones are poisonous. Snakes pretty much curtailed my kayaking excursions in the lake. One day I had the kayak out and noticed a huge water moccasin swimming right along beside me. I haven't taken the kayak out since. Basically, I'm a city person who doesn't like people, which leaves me with very few places to go.

I'll probably go out to breakfast tomorrow after Dash goes for his radiation therapy.  Maybe I'll get today's balky websites to work properly tomorrow. Maybe I'll finally get caught up with my writing assignments. Who knows what will happen. It probably all depends on the weather.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1569

As soon as I heard we would be having severe weather tomorrow, I began to reschedule my Thursday appointments so I wouldn't have to leave the house. I've spent so many years around storm phobic dogs, that I've become storm phobic myself. To me, rainy days are when tree limbs fall during a thunderstorm and crush your lawn furniture. Rain is when your car gets pelted with golf ball sized hail. It's when your dogs panic and dig a hole in the carpet or try to jump through the living room window. Rain makes your roof leak and your electricity go out. I don't like rain.

I was able to move most of tomorrow's appointments to either this afternoon or Friday. This made today pretty busy, but I'm glad I cleared the deck for tomorrow. If the dogs don't like the look of things tomorrow, we'll all just get under a blanket and wait things out.

Dash's blood work looked good, so the cancer center renewed his prescription for Palladia for another two weeks. Hopefully, my own blood work looked good as well. That lab test was one of the Thursday appointments I rescheduled for this afternoon. I think they are testing Dash's and my own blood for exactly the same thing. The doctors don't want our platelet count to become so low that we become anemic.  So far, so good for both of us.

I thought I was going to get a lot of writing done today, but there were a few snafus and I didn't get much done at all. This just means I will be even busier tomorrow. One of the website clients I lost late last year launched their new replacement website today. I was curious, so I took a look. The new site was much more elaborate than anything I typically do. Could I have designed something this fancy? I suppose so. Could I have done this site for the price the client probably paid? I doubt it. I'm not positive, but the new site looked a lot like one of those customized Wordpress templates. Sure, the companies that crank out these sophisticated template sites can offer them at a very low cost. They specialize in a particular industry and all the sites are essentially the same. Clients don't seem to care. They just want all the bells and whistles for a low price. I still like to design one-of-a-kind sites from scratch, but I'm becoming a dinosaur. Who am I kidding. I already am a dinosaur.

People often ask why I don't just do Wordpress template sites myself. To make this business model work, you need economies of scale. In a nutshell, you need to be a much bigger company than I am willing to be. When you can sell essentially the same thing over and over again to a huge audience, you can charge a much cheaper price. When you only do something once, you have to charge more.

I can't believe that there has been another shooting at Fort Hood. I don't understand why soldiers on a military base need to be unarmed. Using weapons is what most soldiers are trained to do. If the Fort Hood soldiers had their own sidearms, both of these Fort Hood shooting incidents might have ended quite differently.

I even stocked up on groceries today, so there is no need to leave the house at all tomorrow if the weather turns bad. I actually hope the weather forecasts are wrong and the thunderstorms leave us alone. Staying inside with two storm phobic Dalmatians on a rainy day is no fun at all.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1568 - April Fools Day

April looks like it's off to a good start. Dot's vet called today and told me that Dot does not have any internal bleeding. That's good news! Lord know what is making her poop so dark, but at least it not life threatening. My accountant called and said my taxes are ready to submit. As is typically the case, my refund this year is almost exactly the same as the amount I will owe my accountant for doing my taxes. Things like this used to irritate me, but now I don't care. I'm just glad to have income taxes behind me for another year.

Dot did great on the water treadmill today. She still has days where she seems like a much younger dog. Today was one of those days. I'm convinced that the water therapy is helping her maintain her mobility as she grows older. The water makes her buoyant and takes weight off her legs when she is using the treadmill, allowing a full range of motion without a lot of stress on her joints. Adding acupuncture to the mix helps to reduce inflammation, remove toxins, and improve blood circulation. It's too bad I can't ask her directly if she thinks these treatments are working. Anecdotally, I would say the answer is yes. She seems stronger, more relaxed, and appears to be suffering from less joint pain than she was nine months ago.

I can see why the missing Malaysian jetliner continues to dominate the news cycle. I am baffled by this story. How can something as big as a Boeing 777 simply vanish into thin air? You'd think when something went wrong, at least a few of the passengers would have tried to use their cell phones. On a plane this big, there's a good possibility that a few passengers even had satellite phones. And speaking of satellites, why haven't we seen any pictures from US satellites? Don't we have way more weather and spy satellites than all the other countries put together? All the satellite images I've seen are coming from countries like Thailand and France. I didn't know Thailand even had any satellites. Maybe they will never find this plane and it will turn into another Amelia Earhart legend.

This is a great time of year to take pictures. Flowers are blooming and animals are moving about. Unfortunately, it is increasingly difficult to take a camera along with me on our daily walks. Dot and Dash require more attention now. I've got to watch Dash like a hawk, so he won't eat some weird crap in the park that might interact with his cancer medication. Dot is frail and I've got to baby her and make sure she doesn't stumble or fall. None of this really lends itself to taking pictures. I guess it doesn't really matter though. I've been taking pictures in the park for so long now that every time I notice something interesting, I realize that I've already taken a picture of it before. Nature is fairly predictable. The same flowers bloom in the same locations every year. The same birds migrate in and out of the park every season. Even the beautiful sunsets seem to repeat themselves at predictable intervals.

Tomorrow, Dash goes to the cancer center for another radiation treatment. My Wednesdays have gotten a bit easier now that I've stopped going to those Wednesday morning business networking meetings. I don't miss those meetings at all. There are still plenty of websites to manage and articles to write. Wednesdays go quickly though. Pretty soon Friday will be here again. I live for Fridays these days.

Haley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1567

Dot may have slowed down quite a bit, but she hasn't lost her ability to bark at repairmen. She barked nonstop while the HVAC guys were here this morning. It's kind of embarrassing that I don't really have the ability to keep her quiet, but that's just the way it is. Dot is the matriarch of the family and she's protecting the house. That's the way she sees it anyway.

Luckily most of the work was outside today. They guys are used to her now anyway. I'm more worried that she'll work herself into a frenzy and have a stroke or something. I put a blanket over her dog gate, so she couldn't actually see the workmen. That helped a little, but she still knew they were there. 

Dash is one-third of the way through his radiation treatment now. His oncologist is very pleased with his progress. The Palladia chemo pills will continue quite a while after the radiation is finished, but so far Dash has had no problems with this part of the treatment either. Dot is the problem girl now. We've got to figure out if there is blood in her stools, and if so, why. I took a sample to the vet this morning, but the results were inconclusive. We'll do another test tomorrow when I take her for her acupuncture appointment.

I wish my Monday work load was more consistent. Some Monday's I'm swamped, and other days like today, there isn't much going on at all. There were no writing assignments today, but I did have one extensive website update to complete. With no competing deadlines, I completed this update with time to spare.

I walked Dot and Dash separately this evening and both Dogs seemed happier. Dot walks extremely slowly now, but she still enjoys being outside. Without the irritation of Dash continually tugging to go in the opposite direction, she actually took a longer walk this evening. Dash took a much longer walk, without the necessity of turning back as soon as Dot gets tired. I'd do this back-to-back walk everyday, except that it takes a lot more time.

We'll see what April brings our way. I like the warmer weather and I'm getting used to all the dog transportation issues. A little variety might be nice. Only the good kind of variety though. I don't need any more health issues or home repair problems. Small things will suffice. A different flavor of ice cream for dessert, or the occasional new magazine in the mail is all the variety I need.

Smiley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1566

Today was a catch up day. I went up on the roof and swept away the remains of last week's thunderstorm. I charged camera batteries and updated software. I did some cleaning. I even made it back to the gym. Since it was such a nice day outside, the gym was practically empty. Between walking the dogs, cleaning standing water off the roof, and my first full workout in several weeks, I was pretty tired.

I can't say I actually enjoyed any of this activity, but it all needed to be done.  Although I do spend a lot of time staring aimlessly into a computer screen, I'm not a lazy person. I continue to push myself, and am determined to never become an overweight Walmart shopper or a professional victim. I remain convinced that we all determine our own destiny. Each and every one of us.

I'm starting to worry about Dot again. I've noticed that her stools have been darker than normal this week. It's not the dreaded tarry black that indicates internal bleeding, but still it's not normal. I'll get a lab test done to make sure nothing's wrong. Dot is so absolutely consistent about everything, that anything abnormal stands out like a sore thumb. Now that Dash is sick, I depend on Dot more than ever as a source of stability. Luckily she is.

It's hard to believe that April is just around the corner. So far, 2014 has zipped by amazingly fast. We seemed to have survived the Winter. The trees in the back yard are turning green again. Most of the shrubs and ground cover survived. The roof shows no signs of leaking and I'm beginning to think that the roofers did a better job than I initially thought they did. If Dash and I can just put our health problems behind us, it might turn out to be a very good year.

Right now, I'll just settle for another good week. Dash resumes his radiation treatments tomorrow.  While he's away, the HVAC guys will be getting the AC ready for Summer. I need to see if I can get Dot's vet appointment rescheduled for Tuesday. And then on Thursday, I've got a doctor's appointment of my own. I'm sure that in between all this, there will be articles to write and websites to revise. It will definitely be a busy week, but it will be April. April is always one of my favorite times of year in Texas.

Sparky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1565

I cooked a family breakfast while Janet walked the dogs this morning. I suspect that this renewed interest in food is temporary, but I might as well take advantage of it while it lasts. I do make a good omelet. I opted not to take advantage of today's beautiful weather and do more yard work. Even though the lawn mower beckoned me to give it a first trial run for 2014, I left the infernal machine alone. I can't postpone the inevitable much longer though. Everything is green and growing like crazy now. I think Spring is here for good.

Janet got some sheets for the bed that were made out of bamboo when she was on vacation. They are supposed to be softer than cotton, yet more durable. I heard similar claims of durability about bamboo flooring when I was considering having bamboo hardwood floors installed several years ago. I never realized you could do so much with bamboo. You can eat the stuff too. At any rate, I put the new bamboo sheets on today. We'll see how well they hold up to the Dalmatian durability test.

I had a ton of small errands to run today. I'm starting to see that price must be more important than quality to people. It doesn't really matter what type of store you're in, there are slightly inferior products in the shelves in an effort to keep prices from going up. This brand substitution is most obvious in grocery stores, but you see it everywhere. Prices are more or less the same, but there are different brands on the shelves. Or maybe the brands are the same, but there is less in the box. There is always an effort to make you think you're getting a bargain, when you really aren't. Personally, I'd rather see prices go up than quality go down, but that's just me.

Since my new diet has forced me to read what is on the label, I've noticed that once you're out of the produce aisles in a grocery store, there's virtually nothing healthy on the shelves. The amount of salt and sugar in most packaged food is simply astounding. About the only thing this country exports to the rest of the world these days are pop culture and bad food. It's ironic. As Starbucks, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken franchises spring up in every corner of the globe, our gift to the world has been diabetes, heart disease, and poorly behaved children.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not a vegan, I don't do yoga, and I still love a good cheeseburger. It just seems like if we put even a tiny amount of effort into eating healthier, the grocery store aisles wouldn't be filled with fat people reaching for big bags of stuff that will make them even fatter. I've learned my lesson about moderation. I'm never going to eat at The Cheesecake Factory again.

I don't know what I'm going to do about walking the dogs this summer. It's already too hot for Dot. About halfway through an already shortened evening walk, Dot decided she'd had enough. She refused to walk any further while Dash was ready to walk another mile. I had a devil of a time getting the two dogs home again. Maybe I'll just walk Dot in the mornings now, when it's a bit cooler. She still does pretty well in the morning.

It looks like I'll finally have time to go back to the gym tomorrow. I bet it will be like starting over. I haven't been in quite a while now.

Elliott is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day