I installed the digital TV antenna I got the other day. It works, but it definitely wasn't what I expected. I thought the antenna would pull in ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, and a few Spanish language stations. Nope. It received twenty-three of the weirdest stations I'd ever seen. None of these stations were on cable at all. How did these stations come to exist and who was watching them? There were three Vietnamese channels, including one that seemed to originate from a nail salon. There was a station that played nothing but old episodes of Hill Street Blues. The over-the-air NBC affiliate was something called NBC Kids and played nothing but Saturday morning cartoons. QVC has a channel. There was a Catholic Spanish language televangelist and several channels that appeared to be nothing but ads. I was baffled. I guess this might be marginally useful when the cable was out, but not really. Another problem was that you had to set up your TV to receive either the antenna or cable. You couldn't watch both at the same time. Each time you switched back and forth, you had to run the set-up program to find available channels, which can often take up to fifteen minutes. I doubt that I'll return the antenna, but I doubt if I'll use it either.
I didn't make it to the gym today, but I did stay busy. I vacuumed all the dog rugs and carpets, which takes forever since it involves moving furniture, food bowls, dog beds, and the new dehumidifier. I guess I need to vacuum every week. Two weeks was almost too much for the Dyson. The canister was packed with dirt and dog hair. I'll give the Dyson high marks for cleaning floors, but it's not very easy to clean when you're done. Old fashioned vacuum cleaner bags were so much easier than dealing with this weird transparent canister.
After I cleaned the house, I sawed up the big tree limb that fell earlier in the week into manageable sections and took the pieces out to the curb for big trash pickup. Tree limbs are quite heavy. If a loose limb were to ever fall on me or the dogs, we would be toast. When I look up, everything seems fine, but I still ought to get the tree trimmers to come out and remove anything that might be problematic.
With the tree and the rugs taken care of, I had a choice of a shower or a trip to the gym. I chose the shower. I can go to the gym later. I'd definitely had enough physical activity for one day. While I was waiting for Janet to come home so we could take the dogs on a short evening walk, I watched the Jason 3 launch on NASA TV. This was another Space X launch were they were going to try to soft land the booster on a barge in the ocean. Once again, the barge landing failed. I initially wondered why they didn't just land the booster on dry land, since this worked so well the last time they tried. It turned out that they weren't able to get the complicated California environmental impact statement paperwork completed before the launch, so they used the barge again instead. Why would you even need an environmental impact statement to land a rocket back at Vandenberg Air Force Base? The whole base is full of old rockets and launch pads.
I'm really glad that Dot is feeling better. I know she's fragile and do my best to protect her from harm, but there is so much that is out of our control. All we can really do is give her the best care possible and continue to take things one day at a time.
Chief is today's Dalmatian of the Day |
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