Day 4186

I think I'm losing my ability to fix things. A light burned out in my office today. It should have been a simple matter to replace the bulb. It wasn't. I had to get a ladder to reach the fixture, hidden on top of a tall cabinet. I kept replacing bulbs, but none of them would light up. Were these all bad bulbs, or had the fixture itself gone bad? I should have screwed a bulb I knew was good into the fixture to test it, but all the known good bulbs were in the ceiling can lights and I would have had to go outside and bring in a taller ladder to reach them. I still don't know if the light fixture is bad. It probably is, but it's too much trouble to test it. I eventually found a brand new box of LED bulbs I bought at Home Depot a few months ago by mistake and used them to replaced the bulbs in another easier to reach fixture in the office. The brighter bulbs seem to help. Problem solved I guess. The light on top of the tall cabinet still doesn't work though.

Almost overnight we have gone from daily rain to daily extreme heat with near one hundred degree temperatures. Maybe I shouldn't have been so critical of all the rain we were getting. I'm starting to miss the cooler temperatures already. It's been so humid the past several days that the buckets in the dehumidifiers are filling almost three hours earlier. I have to keep an eye on the dehumidifier without an automatic shut-off. It's in a small bathroom and I never thought it would collect enough water to overflow. We got pretty close today.

To keep myself from getting depressed, I keep buying astronomy gear. Nothing I've bought is terribly expensive and all of it is light and easy to transport. I could backpack with this gear if I was the backpacking type. Today's purchase was a better and easier to adjust mount for my star tracker. Eventually, I'll use this stuff, but it will probably have to wait until I make another trip out to the observatory. It's not even worth the trouble to set this stuff up in the backyard. In addition to all the light pollution in Dallas, there is a very bright security light in the back yard that is almost impossible to turn off at night. The security light comes on automatically at sunset and there is no switch. I would have to turn the light off at the breaker box and that would turn off some other things as well that need to be left on. 

I've grown so frustrated at my inability to get author copies of my latest SpaceFlight Magazine article that I decided to just buy a back issue off their website. That effort failed too. I filled out the online form and ordered the February 2021 issue, but when I tried to place my order I kept getting asked for my password. There was no place to add a password or join anything. I gave up. I don't think I'm ever going to get a copy of this issue.

Dawn was eager to walk today, but quickly realized how hot it was. She's starting to seem like a very smart dog for choosing such short walks. One mile is fine in this weather. Six miles, not so much. I kept walking out of stubbornness. I hate to give up now, because it's only going to get hotter next month. I have to change clothes when I return home these days. It's so hot and humid that I'm drenched in sweat. Even my hat was wet today. I filled it with water from a water fountain and put it back on my head. I thought this would keep me cooler, but it didn't help all that much.

It's been a long week, but at least it's almost over. I've already taken this weeks trash out to the curb and I'm about ready to call it a day and go to bed. Getting up bright and early tomorrow morning might be a problem.

Escher is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day