Day 4390

I'm going to have trouble staying awake until midnight. The older I get, the less of a night owl I become. It's hard to believe that I once played in a band where New Year's Eve always meant loading the bass amp and the PA system back in the car at 2 AM after our gig was over at some hotel. It's hard to understand the desire to party anymore. Why do all those people stand out in the cold in Times Square every year just to watch a big glass ball drop? A glass of champagne while watching the fireworks on TV is festive enough for me.

I did my grocery shopping today because I thought a lot of the stores would be closed tomorrow. I think everyone else must have had the same idea. The stores were packed this morning and the shelves were kind of empty. I think the crowds were worse than just before Christmas. I didn't even bother to get gas because there were long lines at the pumps. Luckily, my shopping list was short, so I didn't have to fight the crowds for long.

It was overcast and foggy again this morning but still quite warm. I don't think the colder weather is going to arrive until Sunday. I need to remember to set the outdoor faucets to drip so they won't freeze. I was going to do this today, but I forgot. Usually after our first hard freeze the faucets continue dripping for the rest of the Winter. The water bill goes up a bit, but it's hard to remember to turn the faucets off again.

I was going to get my star tracker operating today, but I decided to wait. What's the hurry. The beta software for the iPhone app is still going through almost daily changes. Hopefully each version gets a little better. I still read the support group for the Kickstarter backers. Nobody has really gotten their Polaris to work yet. I think I'll let the brave ones monkey around with this thing and potentially break it. I'll wait. I'm confident that everything will be operating reliably by Spring. Maybe I'll take the sophisticated little tracker with me on my next trip to McDonald Observatory.

2021 has definitely been a weird year. I made one trip out to the observatory in May and another trip to Kennedy Space Center in September, but it still felt like I spent the entire year waiting for something to happen. Basically 2020 and 2021 just blur together in my mind. It just seems like we have been arguing about Covid and what it all means forever. I'm hoping that we can move beyond this in 2022, but then I was hoping exactly the same thing this time last year. We'll see what happens. All I know is that dystopian science fiction is getting closer to reality every day.

I stopped making New Year's resolutions years ago. I'm not even interested in becoming a better person. Good enough is fine. I eat healthy food. I exercise. I stay out of trouble. I try my best to stay curious. What more do you need? I have no big plans for the year ahead. It would be nice if Dawn learned to trust me. I'd like to go see the Artemis 1 launch this Spring. Maybe I'll volunteer at the Dark Sky Festival  next year. The world's not going to end if none of these things happen though. I'll continue writing articles but getting published isn't as much of a priority as it was several years ago. Hey, I can always take a long walk.

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year. At my age, a Happy New Year just means not getting cancer or having your dog die. Maybe something exciting will happen next year. We can hope. I do have a project now. It's going to take me at least a month to figure out how to use this new star tracker.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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