Day 1781 - Halloween

I was right. The plastic forks didn't even last a week. When I went to breakfast this morning, the regular metal silverware was back. It's good to see that common sense prevailed. The parking places are still too small, but I can live with that. I didn't seem to have as much trouble parking today.

Ordinarily, I'd share a picture of a pumpkin with you on Halloween, but I didn't see any pumpkins today. Maybe I didn't look very hard. There certainly weren't any pumpkins left in the stores. All the stores have moved on to Christmas by now. Halloween is pretty much a non-event at our house anyway. Halloween is a holiday for children and cosplayers and we don't have either in our neighborhood. We haven't had trick or treaters in years. With all the Ebola worries in this town, probably a lot of people aren't opening their doors to strangers anyway.

Commercial spaceflight certainly hasn't had a good week. First the Orbital Sciences Antares Rocket explodes and then today Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo explodes during a test flight. If I was Elon Musk, I'd be a little nervous right now. I was watching TV when the news broke and was astounded at the damage to the spacecraft. Nothing was left. It was amazing that one of the pilots was able to eject, since it all happened so fast. Even if I had the ridiculous amount of money it takes to secure a ticket on one of these Virgin Galactic flights, I don't think you could talk me into going. I'm a huge fan of spaceflight as long as I still have both feet on the ground. I throw up on roller coasters. I wanted to get a pilot's license once, but flunked out of the flight training class for the same reason. I still remember one of my flight instructors telling another instructor, "You take him up this time, I cleaned out the plane last time." Somehow, I don't think the five minutes of weightlessness everyone is looking forward to would sit very well with my stomach.

I wrote a letter to Lunatik asking if they'd replace my broken iPhone case. I bet they won't, but it's worth a shot. The ads for this thing showed the case being run over by a motorcycle and surviving all sorts of punishment. It certainly shouldn't break just sitting in your pocket.

The concrete trucks were back in the park today, pouring another segment of the new bicycle superhighway. Most of the neighbors seem to like this new development, but I still think it is a colossal waste of money. If I knew that this is how the money would be spent, I probably wouldn't have voted for the bond issue that funded this and other efforts to gentrify the park and turn it into a recreation destination. All I want is a quiet place to walk the dogs.

Roxy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day