// DISPATCH (MICROBLOG)

We foster dogs for The Road Home Animal Project. Today we picked up our latest foster. A young Bernadoodle who apparently has already figured out that life is pretty damn good when you land in a house with people who will feed you, spoil you, and take approximately 900 pictures of your face.

He's here with us for now, getting settled in and waiting for his next chapter. He's young, goofy, ridiculously fluffy, and already acting like he owns the place. Which, technically, he does. That's how fostering works. You take in a dog, get attached, pretend you're being logical about it, and eventually hand him over to someone who gets to be his forever family. He's currently up for adoption through The Road Home Animal Project on Facebook. Another dog rescued. Another chance at a decent life. Not a bad way to spend a Thursday.

Seen this guy on my route today. I was delivering to a house and there he was, sitting on the porch like he owned the damn place. No explanation. No introduction. Just an owl sitting there judging everything.

Honestly, I respect it. While the rest of us are driving around dealing with traffic, people, schedules, bills and whatever fresh bullshit the day decided to throw at us, this guy had one job: sit on a porch and look pissed off. Probably the smartest person I met all day.

What a fucking shitty day. 95 degrees with a heat index of 101. I work outside, so naturally I spent the day getting cooked like a cheap TV dinner. Came home expecting to finally cool the hell down, only to discover the water heater decided it was done participating in society.

So now I get an ice-cold shower. After working outside all day in 101-degree heat. Because apparently the universe needed one last punchline before calling it a day. At least the day is finally over. Tomorrow can deal with its own bullshit.

One thing I really fucking hate is a hypocrite.

You make a rule for someone. You enforce it. You tell them this is how things are going to be. Then your friend comes along and suddenly the rules have magically changed. Same situation. Different person. Different rules. Apparently friendship comes with a premium subscription to selective enforcement.

That shit tells me everything I need to know. I can handle a stupid rule. I can handle someone being an asshole. What I can't stand is someone pretending they're fair while bending every rule for the people they like. If the rules only apply to people you don't like, they're not rules. They're just bullshit with paperwork.

I'm Gen X. We learned pretty quickly that actions mattered more than whatever bullshit came out of somebody's mouth. If you're going to make a rule, follow it yourself. If you expect something from someone else, expect the same from yourself. Otherwise, just admit you're playing favorites and save everybody the fucking theater.

Today we went to the Palace of Gold in Moundsville, West Virginia. I wasn't exactly sure what to expect, because apparently somebody decided that West Virginia needed an enormous gold-covered palace in the middle of the hills. And honestly, I'm glad they did. The place is completely different from anything you normally see around here. Gold everywhere. Ornate buildings. Statues. Gardens. A lake. Peacock stuff. It looks like somebody took a bunch of ideas, threw them into a blender, and somehow ended up with this place.

Inside was even crazier. The detail on everything was ridiculous. Carved wood, gold-colored decorations, stained glass, statues and enough elaborate artwork to make the average American house look like a storage shed. I'm not religious, but I can appreciate somebody going completely overboard with architecture and actually making something interesting. The Palace of Gold is one of those places that reminds you there are still weird, unexpected things hiding in the middle of nowhere. We took a bunch of pictures, walked around the grounds, and basically spent the day looking at stuff that made absolutely no sense until you were standing there looking at it.

Today is International Dog Day. Apparently we needed an official day to remind everyone that dogs are awesome. Humanity really does need paperwork for everything.

These are my three dogs. Three completely different personalities, three different levels of chaos, and somehow they have all decided that this is their house and I just pay the bills. Fair enough. They give me unconditional loyalty, questionable smells, random barking, and enough entertainment to make up for the rest of humanity.

So today belongs to the dogs. No bullshit. No complicated explanations. Just three good dogs being three good dogs.

I’ve been off lately.

Not sick. Not broken. Just not exactly operating at 100%. I haven’t been in the best mood, and honestly, I don’t have some dramatic explanation for it. Sometimes your brain just decides to throw the check-engine light on and refuse to explain the problem. I’ve been more irritated, less patient, and generally not interested in dealing with the usual bullshit.

I’m not going to fake being cheerful just because apparently everyone expects you to walk around pretending everything is awesome. Sometimes you’re just off. You keep your head down, do what you have to do, avoid unnecessary people, and wait for your brain to get its shit together.

I’m dropping WordPress.

I’m going back to straight HTML. No plugins. No themes. No updates. No bullshit. Just files, code, and a browser doing exactly what I tell it to do.

WordPress is easy. That’s the problem. Sometimes I’d rather actually build the damn thing myself. It feels more like the old internet, when websites were weird, personal, and nobody was trying to sell you something every five seconds.

So I’m going back to basics. HTML. CSS. A little JavaScript when I feel like making things unnecessarily complicated.

Welcome back to the stupid little website I actually built myself.