It's broken.

A few weeks ago, as I've noted here, my dog was bitten by a rattlesnake.

He's better now, except he lost a bunch of fur on one cheek which has expanded into a streak down his left side.  We now know that sometimes rattlesnake bits result in skin necrosis. That didn't happen, but his hair follicles were damages in the path that runs down his lymph system on that side.

The fur is now growing back.

Our dog, fwiw, is a "double doodle". That means he's 75% poodle, and in the remaining portion of his blood line he's mostly golden retriever and and a little lab.

Effectively, he's a standard poodle, and he thinks and behaves like one. Which makes him, I'll note, a really good hunting dog.

None of which keeps people from repeatedly pointing out to me the recent news story in which the guy who came up with "doodles" is quoted as hating the breed. The best comment about that is that he sounds like a "wackadoodle".

I don't know exactly what his problem is, and I don't care, but I will note that the creators of things who rapidly lose control of what they created often go on to be bitter about it and even hate the thing they created.  I think what they hate is the loss of control, quite frankly.  Anyhow, yes I've heard the comments about "did you hear that the guy who came up with. . . "

By the way, did you hear that the guy who came up with the telephone wouldn't have one in his house?

Yep.

The dog and I went out to jump ducks from prairie ponds in the late morning.  When I got to the first pond I went to load the pump shotgun with 3" shells and accidentally put a 3.5" shell in the chamber and one in the magazine.  It's not chambered for that.

Somehow that error, which could have been pretty bad, occurred to me before I shot at anything, but it necessitated a fifteen minute exercise in completely dismantling the shotgun there in the field.

None of which prevented me from repeated the chambering error, which I caught immediately, again a little later.  I know better than this, but I was really, really tired.  And for no good reason.

A little later, on the same trip, the dog barfed up yellow barf.  It turns out that he'd only eaten yellow leaves from the backyard for some weird reason that morning and refused to eat his dog food.

Anyhow, my Dodge D3500 has a rusting body above the wheel well and that needs to be fixed.  It also needs four new tires really badly.

I haven't fixed either of those but I need to.  I was pondering going to 35" wheels (comments please if you have done that) which would mean that I'd have to put a leveling kit on (comments please if you have done that), and I just haven't gotten around to it.

Part of the reason I haven't gotten around to is is that the D3500 went to Laramie with one of my students and has not returned.  It went to Laramie as the 97 Dodge 1500 broke down on the way to Laramie and I had to have it fixed, which took about a month given everything that was wrong with it.  I'd have swapped it out last weekend, and needed to do so as I had plans that fell through and I didn't want to drive the D3500.

I didn't make the swap, however, as my long suffering spouse didn't want me to make a day trip to Laramie she couldn't go on, and since the kids have left, I've noticed that she's oddly switched her parenting instincts on me.  I'm getting a lot of additional instructions on how to do things. . . as in everything, and back seat driving has increased exponentially.  I'm hoping this phase passes quickly.

Anyhow, the unsuitability of the 1500 for a long trip was pointed out to me when I hit black ice on the highway at 80 mph.  I was lucky to come out of that alive.

Meanwhile, my Jeep, which is my daily driver, has the heat stuck on, needs an oil change, and there's a short in the light system.  I might be able to take are of all of that stuff myself, if I had time, but I don't.  I noted these problems to long suffering spouse recently who blandly noted I should take it in to be fixed, so I scheduled an appointment to do that, for which I was rebuked last evening for failure to take into account expenses in light of the 1500, which actually had come in considerably under budget.

That was also accompanied by the comment that "my car needs an oil change".  It might, I have no idea, but it seems to be perpetually in need of an oil change.  While I normally suggest that this gets scheduled in a mild way, having a frustrating evening I simply replied "well call and schedule one then".  My wife drives the newest car in the house and she doesn't really want me to do it.

The problem here is that for some reason I'm supposed to schedule the oil change.  I don't drive the car, so I don't know when the oil needs changed.  The shop is right near work, so just schedule it and I'll drive it down.

Not the right thing to say.

The reason I was frustrated is that I got tired of the old radio in the 1500 and swapped it out for a new blue tooth one.  I'm driving it, I figured, and I'd like a better radio.  That went fine, except in the process I discovered that the prior radio, which was in it when we bought it  half a decade ago, but which was an aftermarket radio, was amazingly poorly installed.  The frame for it is no better now as that's the way they did it, which bothers me.  Anyhow, after getting it in, I went to test it and found that now that my Iphone has updated to IoS 13.1.2, the setting menu will not stay up and I can't use it.

I need to use it.  I get into my settings quite a bit.

So I asked long suffering spouse about where I should go to get it looked at (I had in mind that this was Best Buy, but wasn't sure). Long suffering spouse, however, gave me a long lecture on the advantages of Samsung phones over Apples.

I don't dispute that, I just don't care.  I need an Iphone as it syncs with work, and that's the lawyers oppressive phone of choice.  Truth be known, I'd treat Steve Jobs the way that following generations of Englishmen and Irishmen have treated Oliver Cromwell, if I had my choice, which I'll leave you, the reader, to look up, but its evidence of my disdain of Iphones and cell phones of all types.

After the Glory of Samsung oratory was over I tried again and eventually got the information that it was Best Buy where I needed to go.

That was cheery news as I had been at Best Buy just the day prior to look for the radio.  There, I experienced the opposite of what I recently did in my search for a wrench, the big national chain only had display models but "could order that for you" whereas the local store I went to the next day had one right in stock, complete with advice from the youthful clerk/installer.

So I went back to Best Buy and was referred to the guy manning the "Geek Squad" desk.  I ran through the problem with him and he recommended trying the hard shut off that I had already tried several times, after having looked it up on the net.  It didn't work for him either.

He then gave me an explanation of the problem in Reformed Hittite, that language spoken by all members of Generation Z.  I had to have him slow down and do it again in English, slowly.  Basically it needs to be reset, which may not work.

Great.

If it doesn't work he informed me that it could go back to Apple, but he didn't know the cost. To which I stated "I'm sure it's high enough that it'd be cheaper to replace this Iphone 7 with an Iphone 11", which he confirmed, and made a derogatory comment about Apple in Reformed Hittite.

So I'll have a guy whose really good with that stuff look at it.

Just before I went out to work on the 1500, I took the boots off I wore to work. They're a pair of what used to be called "paddock boots", but which are now called "lacers", the same way that "ropers" are what used to be called Wellingtons.  I don't really care for them but you can wear them to work in a semi formal sort of way, and they're a pair that my son had that he rapidly outgrew so they have low use on them.  Might as well use them up.

I noticed that the seam has separated at the welt so the outsole is separating from the shoe.

And so I type this entry early in the morning, as all these entries always are.

Just after I ate breakfast.

I don't always eat breakfast (no, this isn't turning into a Dos X advertisement parody), but the paper had come and I was hungry. Oh, I found out when I went out and picked up the paper that I'd left the dome lights on in the 1500 all night. . .   Anyhow, I poured myself some Quaker Oat Square cereal and put in a bunch of raisins.

The I poured the milk.

Yup, completely and totally spoiled milk.

And at least my internal clock is working. Sometime last night I looked at my wrist watch and saw it a 11:15.  It didn't feel like 11:15, but I new it was the middle of night and went back to sleep.  Then again, early this morning I woke up and looked at my watch.

11:15.

The battery was dead.

And that's the second watch battery, and the second time this week I've had that happen.  It was 4:00, which I pretty much knew, so I got up 30 minutes later.