Day 2000

2000 days might not mean much to most of you, but it's kind of special to me. When I started blogging five and a half years ago, I never dreamed that it would lead to sharing the major and minor events in my life for 2000 consecutive days. I haven't missed a single day yet. Power outages, scheduling conflicts, dog emergencies, fatigue, travel, and a lack of anything interesting to say, haven't put a dent in this blog. Somehow, I've always managed to keep on going. I've probably mentioned this before, but I've never been this consistent about anything in my life. Hey, I'm a Gemini. I typically start things with a lot of enthusiasm and then just quietly abandon them when no one's looking. This is different. I actually think the blog means something. I'm just not sure what it is.

There have probably been many days just like this before. I've already written about some of them. The days are similar, but writing this endless journal has taught me that no day is exactly the same. Each day is kind of like the moon. It sits there in the sky unchanged for millions of years, and yet when I look at it tomorrow, it will look a little different. It's the perception of things that changes. I may be doing exactly the same things I was five years ago, but they look different through older, and hopefully wiser, eyes. Maybe that's the value of a journal like this. It allows you to begin to see what happens as we age. You have to look closely, but there are small but noticeable differences already in my perspective on life. I wonder what you'll be reading if I can manage to reach Day 5000.

I'm still amazed at how quickly our cool, wet Spring is turning into a typical hot, dry Texas Summer. The temperature has risen by more than thirty degrees in just a few days. The vegetation is still lush and green as a result of the unprecedented amount of rain we got in May, but the ground is already drying up. There is no more mud in the park. The only evidence of the rain is an ugly outline of Styrofoam cups and trash around the shoreline of the lake, serving as a reminder of how high the water was just a few weeks ago. The temperatures got into the mid-90's this afternoon. It was way too hot for Dot and Dash. Several dogs succumbed to heatstroke at a big rescue event in town today. I'm glad we didn't go. As the days get warmer, I will continue to get up even earlier in hopes of getting the dogs walked before it become too hot for them. I'm not a morning person, but there's not much of an alternative.

To beat the heat, I continued working on my new website project this afternoon. I'm making good progress, but it's hard for me to work for more than three hours at a time. The work is tedious and if I keeps staring at the screen for too long, I start to make mistakes. When I arrived at a good stopping point on the website, I went to the gym. It's going to be a while before I can figure out how to make it to the gym three times a week like I should be doing, but at least I'm going on Sunday's now. You've got to start somewhere.

I'm still surprised at how I got such a clear handheld picture of the moon this morning while I was walking Dash. I had the camera in one hand and Dash's leash in the other. Sometimes you get lucky.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1999

For the second night in a row, Dash woke me up at 3 AM to go outside and poop. Something isn't normal. He doesn't have diarrhea, but he can't hold it till morning either. He also began taking doxycycline for Lyme Disease today. I don't think these two events are related. They are just part of a never ending saga of dog problems. I'm still not sure whether Dash actually has Lyme Disease, or whether the antibiotics are just a precaution. We'll probably never know. The test just said that he was exposed to the disease.

The replacement part I ordered for the refrigerator arrived this morning. After a quick repair, the ice maker works again. It's probably too early to celebrate though. I still don't know what actually caused the auger inside the ice maker to break. I read on the Internet that there is a special sensor in the freezer that periodically triggers the automatic defrost cycle. This is why you don't have to defrost modern freezers anymore. If this sensor goes haywire, the defrost cycle can stay on too long, causing ice in the ice maker tray to melt a bit and then freeze back together in a clump. This big clump of ice is usually too much for the plastic auger which moves the ice to the dispenser on the freezer door. Big clumps of ice probably caused the auger in our refrigerator to break. If the new auger I bought breaks too, I'll probably wish that I had just called the appliance repairman. For the moment, everything works perfectly.

Things dry up quick in Texas as soon as the rain stops. I noticed that the ground wasn't wet and mushy anymore, so I ran the sprinklers for the first time in over a month. It would be a shame to let the lawn wither and die after it got off to such a great start in May. I don't think I have to worry about yellowing, dried up grass quite yet though. Everything in the yard is still growing nicely. Things are growing so nicely in fact that is was already time to mow the grass again.

With the grass mowed and the yard looking better, I went and ran my regular Saturday errands, stopping to pick up Dash's doxycycline at the vet on the way home from the grocery store. Dot was feeling stronger today, but neither dog wanted to spend much time outside. Dalmatians don't like the heat, and it was over 90 degrees this afternoon. The dogs were smart to spend most of the day napping on their dog beds. Just mowing the grass in the unfamiliar heat wore me out.

I followed the dogs lead and spent the rest of the afternoon indoors, getting started on my fifth mobile friendly website. I'm becoming familiar with this new landscape now and am designing in a much more structured way. I have to be much more methodical about coding than I was before. All-in-all, it is much harder to put together a website using this new responsive design methodology. What Google wants, Google gets though. I just don't see many other alternatives. One surprising bonus from my new found consistency is that my designs actually look better than they used to. Consistency was never one of my strong points, so the forced discipline of structured HTML is actually very beneficial.

Lets hope that Dash sleeps through the night this evening. It would be nice if whatever is giving him the runs turns out to be something simple like eating horse poop. If it is related to Lyme Disease, it could be more serious. I saw on TV that the new dog park in our neighborhood is finally open. I bet Dash would like to try out this new park. He's been so good at walking very slowly with Dot in the mornings, that he deserves a chance to race around like a nut in the dog park.

Wendy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1998

Poor Dot. Her Ultrasound scan this morning showed a small growth on her liver and an unexplained shadow on her spleen that were not there in a previous scan taken about eight months ago. Her oncologist told me that there was no reason to get alarmed yet. The vast majority of small growths like this turn out to be benign cysts. We were at a cancer center though and cancer doctors want to know if an unexplained growth might be cancer. The oncologist wanted me to bring Dot back next week so they could aspirate some cells from the questionable areas and send them to a cytology lab for analysis. Since she will need to be sedated for this procedure, I went ahead and had a full blood chemistry panel done today. At least that part of her annual exam later this Summer is already done.

Dot's oncologist is a realist. She said that no matter what the results turned out to be, she couldn't see herself recommending surgery. Dot has had just about all the surgery she can handle at her age. I agree with her that it's good to know what's going on though. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the new growth in her liver was just a cyst. I've had several small benign cysts in my kidneys for years. Cysts and growing older just kind of go together. I have to admit that I was a bit disappointed with today's test results. Dot is my miracle dog. After all she's been through this year, I was really hoping that her lab reports today would be perfect.

I noticed this morning that my breakfast restaurant has raised its prices. The cost of my favorite meal has gone up a dollar. Truthfully, I was surprised this had not happened sooner. This is still one of the most reasonably priced quality restaurants in town. I don't begrudge their modest price increases a bit. I just wish I had a way to raise the price of my own services. The cost of just about everything continues to go up, and yet people continue to want to pay less and less for website design.

At least there is plenty of work. I had an initial meeting with a new website client this afternoon and we all got along well. I got the job and will begin building their new site later this month. I also decided that my mobile friendly skills were ready for prime time and almost immediately got a job to convert an older static site to a mobile friendly design. I'm going to be busy this month.

I was certainly busy today. In addition to my trip to the cancer center with Dot and the new business meeting later in the day, I still had time to write a new article and send it off to its destination. By the end of the day, I was tired. We didn't get a lot of sleep last night, mostly because Dash had an upset stomach and kept getting me up to take him outside. I've never seen a dog who is so indecisive about pooping. I knew he had to go, but it took three trips to the back door at thirty minute intervals before he finally did his business. It doesn't help that the sodium vapor security light in the back yard is starting to go out and every time it blinks on and off Dash thinks it is lightning and races back inside again. Eventually, we all got back to sleep but it was almost morning by then.

For all his peculiar habits, Dash is a very smart dog. Sometimes I think he knows English. Usually, on our afternoon walks he like to take a right turn when we get to the alley and go directly into the park. Today when he tried to turn right, I told him that we needed to go left today. "If we turn right, you might get bit by the neighbor dog again." He gave me a worried look and immediately turned left.

Scooby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1997

It's always something. When Dash and I were returning from our walk this evening, one of the neighbor's dogs came charging through an open gate and started attacking Dash. Sadly, this has happened before. The neighbor always apologizes profusely and sometimes offers to pay for any damages. I can't seem to get them to lock their gate though. This time they said their yard guy must have left the gate open. As the large Shepard mix tried to grab Dash around the neck, I tried to command it to sit and stay while grabbing it firmly around the collar and pulling the dog away from Dash. I held both dogs at arm's length to keep them apart while walking slowly up the hill toward my house. Luckily, I didn't get bitten myself. I get so frustrated by people who can't control their dogs. I see unleashed dogs in the park every week and do my best to avoid them. People may think their dog is friendly, but you never know. I've worked in animal rescue for long enough to understand that dogs can be very unpredictable. In the right circumstances, any dog can bite you. I've been bitten numerous times.

Dot seemed tired at her physical therapy session today. We had to run the treadmill slower and her muscles seemed tight during her acupuncture therapy. The vet said we should curtail her exercise walks for a couple of days and let her rest. It's hard to keep the right balance of exercise and rest. She needs to keep moving to keep her leg muscles from atrophying, but she's an old dog and you don't want to push her too hard. I had Dot tested for exposure to Lyme Disease too while we were at the vet. We still haven't decided whether Dash should start taking doxycycline though. Since this is the drug of last resort for many very serious problems, you definitely don't want your dog to build up a resistance to this antibiotic. Dash shows no symptoms of Lyme Disease whatsoever, so it might be wise to save the doxycycline in case he needs it for something even more serious later. We'll see. We're going to do a few more tests to see if yesterday's results might have been a false positive.

The ice maker on our refrigerator broke recently and I am so frustrated with the high cost of appliance repair that I was determined to see if I could fix things myself. I found a website that sells appliance parts directly to the consumer and also features very detailed YouTube videos showing exactly how to make the necessary repairs. I looked at the video for fixing the ice maker on my refrigerator and quickly realized that this was something I could do. I ordered the part and ended up paying less than a third of what it would have cost to have a repairman come out. I should have done the same thing when the washer and dryer broke earlier this year. The wax motor door latch assembly for the washer only cost $79 on this website and it came with explicit instructions for how to remove and replace the faulty latch assembly. I paid a repairman over $350 to replace exactly the same latch assembly. I won't be doing that again.

The ease of repairing things yourself got me thinking about my own business. I've been losing business for years to template based website solutions that let people quickly and very inexpensively design their own websites with no coding required. I can't really blame people who would rather pay $25 for a template than give me several thousand dollars to create a custom site for them. I'd probably do the same thing myself. The problem is that nobody wants to be poor. Appliance repairmen, watchmakers, website designers, and car mechanics keep charging more and more in hopes of maintaining their lifestyle in a changing economy. Eventually everyone puts themselves out of business because they are too expensive. It's hard to even find a good appliance repairman anymore. In five more years they might all be gone. It's hard to compete with cheap parts on the Internet.

Dot goes for her Ultrasound scan tomorrow morning. These type of high-tech services aren't going to go out of business soon. You can't just go out and get your own MRI machine. Even my vet friends are feeling the squeeze though. They purchase all this expensive diagnostic equipment for their practice and then their customers still want to get all their pet's meds on discount Internet websites like 1800PetMeds. The age of the big retail markup is over. Janet buys all her clothes on the Internet now and I haven't been to a camera store in years. And people wonder why there are no jobs. It's kind of ironic that all these people are clamoring for a higher minimum wage now. They are just going to be replaced by robot kiosks anyway.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1996

I finished my fourth mobile friendly website today. The site is up and running and the client likes it. I feel proficient enough doing these things now that I'm almost ready to try converting some of my more difficult designs. I've actually enjoyed learning this new skill, but if I'm true to form, as soon as I get really good at something, I lose interest. We'll see what happens. I doubt if there's going to be a stampede of people wanting me to build mobile sites for them.

I got a call from Dash's vet today. His test results have come back and one of the tests indicates that he's been exposed to Lyme Disease. This particular test gives false positives frequently, so the vet said there was no reason to get alarmed yet. She is going to contact Dash's oncologist to see whether he thought Dash should begin treatment even though he shows no symptoms yet. Evidently the veterinary community is not in agreement on whether a dog that is not showing symptoms of Lyme Disease should start taking doxycycline immediately. Some say yes, others say no. Ordinarily, I'd want to go ahead with antibiotics, just to be safe, but Dash has had a lot of Clavamox recently to treat his infected paw. You don't want to overdo antibiotics. One thing is certain. There are a ton of ticks in the park, so Dash could have easily been exposed.

It looks like our nice, mild weather isn't going to last very long. Even though yesterday was unusually cool for June, the temperature shot into the 90's today. That's Texas weather for you. It's always bouncing back and forth between extremes. It was kind of funny in a way that two days ago I was fixing the furnace so I could warm the house up a bit and today the air conditioner was running all day. At least the water bill was low this month. I hardly ran the sprinklers at all in May. I need to remember to get the roofers to come out again now that things have dried out. The patches they made earlier this Spring held up well during the May rains, but some additional areas of the original elastomeric coating have starting to bubble up. It is going to be a long, slow process to get a roof that I can completely depend on.

I've got a new business meeting on Friday with a potential website client. The project is for a small non-profit charity that doesn't have much of a budget. I promised one of my neighbors, who is involved with the charity, that I'd do the site, but otherwise I wouldn't be all that interested. I'll look on the bright side though. The simple site will be easy to design and it will give me another chance to polish my responsive design skills. Some of you will wonder why I never seem to be excited about work. Others of you who have been in advertising as long as I have will understand completely.

Since Dot and Dash have different vets now, I always have a chance to get a second opinion. I'll ask Dot's vet if she is at risk for Lyme Disease too when she goes for physical therapy tomorrow afternoon. Who knows. Maybe even Janet and I are at risk. Humans get Lyme Disease too. I had always thought that Lyme Disease was primarily a problem for people on the East Coast. I also thought that only deer ticks transmitted the disease. The disease is starting to creep into Texas though, so maybe I'm wrong on both counts. I'd never know if I had Lyme Disease anyway, since the most common symptoms are fatigue, muscle aches, and joint pain. This is the way I feel all the time.

Friday can't come soon enough this week. I'm tempted to go out for breakfast tomorrow morning and just pretend it's Friday. It's been a long week.

Freckles is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1995

Today was busy. As soon as we finished our morning walk, I took Dash to the vet and dropped him off. Then I came home so Dot and I could eat our breakfast. Then I went back to the vet, with a brief stop at the bank along the way, and met with the vet for Dash's 9:30 appointment. We won't get the lab work back for about a week, but everything looks good so far. Hopefully, this visit will take care of Dash for the rest of the year.

When we got back home again, Dash was eager to have his breakfast, which meant that Dot wanted her breakfast all over again. I put a little bit of kibble in her bowl while Dash was eating, so she wouldn't feel left out and then I had another cup of coffee and a somewhat stale doughnut I found in the refrigerator.

I was feeling confident enough about my latest mobile website experiment to give my client an opportunity to exchange his old static site for this new mobile friendly version I've been working on. How could he refuse. I was offering him the new site for free. When the client accepted my offer a few hours later, I began completing the site I had started a few days ago. By the end of the day I had something that looked pretty nice. I'll probably launch the new site on Thursday. I've eventually start charging for these things, but for right now this is a good way to learn.

I wonder when the city is going to start spraying for mosquitoes? Every Summer people get in a panic about West Nile Virus and the city starts a massive spraying program to eradicate the mosquitoes. Then a different group of people get upset about the spraying and make the city stop. I'm sure these two factions will be at each others throats again this year. Due to all the rain we've had recently, the mosquitoes are worse than I've ever seen. They're everywhere. By the time I've let the dogs out the back door to pee, ten mosquitoes have flown inside. There's one buzzing around my head right now. I hope the city starts spraying soon.

I still can't decide whether to get an Apple Watch. There are few things that I need less than an Apple Watch, but I still find shiny things like this mighty tempting. It's probably a good thing that I can't afford a watch right now. When I get finished paying for dental bills, next year's homeowners insurance, and Dot's next round of scans, there might already be a second generation watch with better battery life and more robust software. Too many times I've been an early adopter of Apple products, only to get left in the dust when they inevitably improve the product and lower the price. I've already got what some might call a first generation Apple Watch anyway. It's a square iPod Mini in an aluminum LunaTik case. I wore this watch for about a month before I got bored with it.

I think the coyotes that used to live in our section of the park have moved on. I'm seeing tons of bunnies this Spring. For a while there were very few rabbits to be found because the coyotes ate them all. It's nice to see that the bunnies are back. There are a lot more baby ducks this season as well. The city was always trying to encourage people to co-exist with the coyotes, but few people in the neighborhood liked them. Personally, I'm glad they've moved elsewhere.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1994

Yay. I fixed the furnace all by myself this morning. Don't even ask why we needed the furnace running on the first of June. Texas weather is weird. The last time the HVAC technician came out to the house, he showed me how to fix one of our most persistent problems. In a typical year, I usually have to schedule several service calls because the furnace won't stay lit. The gas comes on and then shuts right off again. It's usually a faulty heat sensor that is causing the problem. At first, technicians would replace this sensor. Then one day, a helpful technician told me that the sensor wasn't broken, it was just dirty. He took the thing apart and sanded the heat sensing element with a piece of fine sandpaper. Good as new.

Eventually I got tired of paying $90 for someone to sand this little metal thermocouple and asked if I could do it myself. It was easy enough to remove the dirt and scale from the metal. Getting the sensor out of the furnace was the problem. When the technician came out to install my fancy WiFi thermostat earlier this year, he was nice enough to take me step-by-step through the process. Amazingly, I remembered his instructions this morning and I fixed the furnace myself. I could have just waited for things to warm up though. By afternoon, I had the air conditioner running.

Dash's blood test tomorrow is complicated. Not only does he have to fast, he has to take his thyroid medication exactly four hours before the test is done. Since his appointment is at 9:30 AM tomorrow, we have to get up at 5:30 AM to give him his pills. Since Dot and Dash would never wait until after 9:30 to have their breakfast, I need to drop Dash off at the vet immediately after we finish our morning walk and then return home to feed Dot. I'll then eat my own breakfast and return to the vet to pick up Dash again. Luckily, this particular test only has to be done once a year.

I worked on another mobile friendly website today. My strategy so far has been to make sure I know how to convert a client's website before I even mention the subject to them. Every website is different and some have proved quite difficult to convert. I don't want to promise something that I can't deliver. When I've got a site that functions properly offline, I'll ask the client if they'd like to convert their website to a mobile friendly version. Some folks are really happy that I'm looking out for them and others don't even know what a mobile friendly site is. I'm certainly not making much money doing all this work, but it is a necessary learning experience. In the near future, all websites will be done this way, so I only have a limited amount of time to get up to speed.

It's hard to believe that it's June already. The year is almost half over and the only things I can remember are Dot's spinal injury, my wisdom teeth, and lots and lots of rain. Hopefully the second half of the year will be far less stressful than the first. I did enjoy getting invited by NASA to view that satellite launch in California, but even that trip was marred by an unfortunate car accident. I've got a birthday later this month, but that just makes me even older than I am now. In just a few more days I will have posted something on this blog for 2000 consecutive days without missing a single day. That's probably a bigger deal to me than my birthday right now. If Dot continues to get better, I'll be a happy camper. The rest of the year can just slide by.

Charlie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1993

Today was beautiful. It was 68 degrees when we walked the dogs this morning and there wasn't a cloud in the sky. The recent rains have washed a lot of the allergens out of the air, so I was able to walk without sneezing or rubbing my eyes for a change. I think the dogs enjoyed this pleasant weather as much as we did. They certainly wanted to go outside more often today.

With a clear, allergy free day, I took the opportunity to mow the grass and do some much needed yard work. I even cleaned the windows on the East side of the house, which I should have done months ago. The narrow strip of land between our house and the neighbor's fence has become somewhat of a no-mans land. Luckily the architect had the forethought to put frosted glass in all the windows on this side of the house, because there certainly isn't much to see. Spiders and wasps love this area though, so occasionally I have to get a big broom, a can of bug spray and some Windex and clean the place up.

I found a "Buy One Get One Free" coupon that could be used for any item under $20 at a local hardware store. Since the coupon expired tomorrow, I thought I'd go see what I could find. I've always liked hardware stores. This little neighborhood store was the complete opposite of Home Depot, so it was fun to browse around. I came home with a pair of leather work gloves and my free item was a nice pair of grass clippers. This was a good promotion, because I'm sure I'll go back and get things from this store again even when I don't have a coupon.

I did manage to go to the gym today. I think they were surprised to see me, since it's definitely been a while. I've switched my workout around to include more cardio work and fewer weights. This is what the doctors seem to want, and for the moment, I'm happy to go along with their suggestion. The treadmill is a bit boring, but I'm not as sore as I was when I mostly did weights. Whenever I'm at the gym, I think I should go more often, but lately other things have been getting in the way. If I do end up going to the gym more often, it will mean that life has finally calmed down a bit.

Dash dug up something dead next to the neighbor's fence, but I was determined not to let the disgusting carcass spoil the beautiful day. I still don't know whether the animal was a large rat or a small squirrel. I'm glad we caught Dash before he tried to eat the thing or bring it in the house though. We had Sushi for dinner, which is a pretty good way to end a nice day and there is no rain in the long range weather forecast for the first time in over a month. I'm not going to complain about anything today.

Amy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1992

The rain wasn't as bad today. Our stormy weather lasted from just before dawn until just after breakfast. The rest of the day was fine. Toward mid-afternoon, I even started to see a few patches of blue sky. We didn't lose power at all today. The dogs didn't have any major panic attacks either. I'd have to say that things are looking up.

There were a ton of little errands to run today. I filled the car with gas. I went to the bank. I got halogen bulbs for the living room floor lamps at Home Depot. I picked up a new set of ink cartridges for the general office printer at Fry's. There was a trip to Sam's Club for laundry detergent and paper towels and then it was back home again to get the standing water from the latest storm off the roof. I've been up on the roof for three days in a row, but I am getting much more efficient about water removal. If I bought two more sump pumps and 100 feet of extension cord, I might be able to automate the entire process.

When I was walking Dash this afternoon, I noticed that the Passion Vines were in bloom. Passion Flowers seem to be the rarest of the many native Texas wildflowers I see in the park. I only see these exotic looking plants bloom once or twice a year and it's usually right after a big rain. Maybe that's way I saw half a dozen blooms today, instead of the one or two I see in a typical year. I took a photo and Dash and I were on our way. These blooms don't last long. They might already be gone when we pass this way again tomorrow.

Dot is doing amazingly well around the house now. She doesn't even need to wear the Help 'Em Up Harness when she's inside anymore. She can back up when she's in a tight corner without falling over and can sit down with a lot more grace and finesse that she could even a few weeks ago. The only room that's off limits now is one of the bathrooms that has some pretty slick tile floors. We still use the harness whenever Dot goes outside or on a walk, but it doesn't seem to keep her from enjoying things. I'm so glad we made the right decision and had the surgery.

It's almost time for a new set of ink cartridges for the large format printer. I can't believe I've used an entire set of these expensive cartridges just making small test prints to keep the printer from clogging. I haven't made any large exhibition prints for almost two years. This thing would have gone to the storage warehouse a long time ago if I didn't have to keep using it regularly just to keep the lines from clogging. It seems like things you don't use frequently should just sit there, patiently waiting for you. This is not the case with printers. Whoever came up with that phrase "use it or lose it" probably had a printer like mine.

I wonder what excuse I'll come up with to keep from going to the gym tomorrow? I finished most of my errands and chores today, so maybe there isn't any excuse. We'll see. Believe it or not, it's not supposed to rain at all tomorrow. That would be nice.

Ollie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1991

We got a horrendous amount of rain last night. You probably saw it on the morning news. Eight inches of rain in just a few hours is definitely newsworthy. There was severe flooding in many parts of town, including some areas not far from where we live. We are nearing all time record rainfall levels now. This is uncharted territory. The rain seems to be the main topic of conversation with everyone I see. Every time we have a storm like we did last night, I'm really glad that we live on top of a hill. It's a modest, very gentle hill, but it does put us at least 50 feet above the nearest water. Last night's storms knocked out our power again, but the outage didn't last long. By the time I calmed the dogs down and called in the outage report on my cell phone, the power had already been restored.

Nobody got much sleep last night. The thunder was loud enough to wake Dot, and the lightning was bright enough to send both dogs into a storm induced panic. I got a blanket and slept on the floor with Dot for a while in an effort too calm her down. When my bad shoulder started to hurt, Janet traded places with me. By the time her back started to hurt, the worst of the storm was over. When we all woke up this morning, the storm had turned into a gentle shower. The dogs got their morning walk right on schedule and then I went out for breakfast like I usually do on Friday mornings.

It's a good thing I was headed South towards the restaurant, because Northbound traffic was gridlocked in front of our house. I suspect that a major intersections a few miles down the road was still underwater. Most of the small creeks that feed the lake behind our house are outside their banks and low lying areas are flooded. Since I wasn't headed downtown to go to work, I didn't have a problem. I left the roads with bridges and underpasses to other people had a nice breakfast in the neighborhood instead. By the time I finished my meal, a lot of the high water seemed to have subsided. With things returning to normal, I went to Central Market to get groceries for the weekend, and then headed home to finish this week's work.

Today was busy. I cleared the water off the roof again, updated a few more websites, and finished writing another article. That was more than enough for one day. I'm getting used to all the new rituals imposed by wet, stormy weather and aging dogs, but it is a bit tiring. Everything is peaceful now, although another wave of thunderstorms is scheduled to arrive sometime after midnight. Lets hope that tonight's rain isn't accompanied by thunder and lightning like it was last night. We all could use some sleep.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1990

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

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

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

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

Sam is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1989

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

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

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

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

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

Libby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1988

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

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

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

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

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

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

Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1987

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

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

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

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

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

Ranger s today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1986

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ziggy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1985

Things are looking up. The U-verse technician was already out in the alley working on the line when we took the dogs on their morning walk. By the time we returned, our Internet was working again. I'm still not sure how U-verse actually works but I'm glad it's up and running. U-verse is supposed to be a super fast fiber optic connection, but a copper wire actually comes into the house. This copper wire is necessary, because very few televisions, computers, and phones will connect directly to a fiber optic cable. I'm sure the copper slows things down though. U-verse isn't really much faster than anything else. To the technicians credit, our Internet is faster than it was last week though. I guess the technician accomplished something.

I got my car back today as well. It's nice driving a decent sized car again. I've never felt comfortable in small cars. Before I had dogs, I used to drive Citroëns. The Citroën is the Tardis of automobiles. These eccentric French cars don't look that big on the outside but the interiors seem huge. Having Dalmatians made me a believer in driving something even bigger than a Citroën, and I've had various SUV's ever since. The gas mileage is horrible, but the trips to the vet are a lot easier.

Luckily, we didn't have to go to the vet today, because the rain continued unabated. I don't know what I used to do before I had weather radar on my phone. I totally depend on the radar app now, checking it multiple times a day to find the perfect time to run errands and walk the dogs. I used to live in Seattle, and it never used to rain like this. Who would have thought that Texas would be wetter than Seattle someday. The rain has become a nuisance, but things are sure looking green. I think when July arrives, we're going to appreciate our exceptionally wet Spring.

I worked on websites again this afternoon. I don't typically work on weekends, but there's a lot of stuff I need to get finished and what else are you going to do on a rainy day anyway? If you've got a kid who can't find a job, tell them to learn how to build mobile websites. I noticed that the mobile traffic on my own website went up dramatically since I converted it to a mobile friendly design last week. This either means that Google really favors mobile now, or that I was getting no mobile traffic at all before I made the switch. Creating mobile websites is going to be a boom industry for a while. I suspect that every single website on the planet will eventually find it necessary to scrap their static sites in an effort to attract mobile traffic as well.

Janet and I are getting forgetful. Dash had a birthday a few days ago and we completely forgot about it. We tried to make amends by having a little party for the boy this evening. We used to make special cakes for the dogs and everything. I even went to a cake decorating class once, just to learn how to make the ultimate dog cake. Today the dogs got a doggie cupcake from Sprinkles, and more importantly they got to share some of the burgers we were having for dinner. It's hard to believe that Dash is ten now. I still go around telling people he is seven. How time flies.

Neither of the dogs understands that holiday weekends are for sleeping in. They got us up early this morning and I suspect that they will do the same tomorrow. It's OK though. I'm glad both dogs are still energetic and eager to start the day after all they've been through the past year. I'll be checking the weather radar again tomorrow to see if I can find them a little dry time.

Willie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1984

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

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

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

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

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

Rosco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day