Day 1850

There is little incentive to go outside when it is eighteen degrees. You tend to stay in bed longer, linger over breakfast, and look for things to do around the house in hopes that it might get a little warmer. I can't put off walking the dogs forever though, so eventually we all suited up and pretended we lived up North. At least it wasn't as windy today as yesterday. I think Dot and Dash appreciated their sweaters this morning. Even they have their limits.

I still haven't made my travel arrangements for the SMAP launch at Vandenberg Air Force Base. I keep thinking that the minute I finalize everything they will change the launch date and I will have to start all over again. I can't delay things much longer though. Planes often fill up fast and hotels in small towns sometimes fill up even faster. Tomorrow sounds like a good day to get organized. I'll do this tomorrow. Actually, I watched a live broadcast about the satellite on NASA TV this morning. This thing is much more complex than I thought. A huge 20 foot microwave antenna mounted to a long mechanical arm rotates around the satellite at precisely 14.6 rpm. The radar beam from this rotating antenna is aimed at the earth, creating a circle over 600 miles wide as the antenna turns, allowing the entire earth to be scanned for soil moisture in just three days. When you look at the computer animations of this Rube Goldberg contraption in action, your first reaction is "This couldn't possible work." Of course I didn't think the Mars landers could possible work either. I continue to be amazed at what people can do when they put their minds to it. This is why I'm not a rocket scientist. I still have trouble getting my office WiFi network to work.

Dot had a really good day at her physical therapy session. Janet went along with us today, because she'd never seen Dot doing her workout routine in the underwater treadmill. Dot didn't disappoint. She was strong on the treadmill and very relaxed during her acupuncture session. It's hard to believe we've been doing this for over a year and a half now. It still seems like we started just a few weeks ago.

Work as a bit slow today, so I used the time to pay bills and catch up with my bookkeeping. If I'd remembered, I should have sent my January invoices out today as well, but it's hard to remember everything. I do remember that the appliance repairman promised to come back and fix our washing machine tomorrow. I hope he remembers too! I also remembered to take the trash out to the curb for tomorrow morning's trash collection. That's about it. I bet there were a dozen things I forgot.

Jordan is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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