Thursday, February 4, 2021

Day 4060

I backed a Kickstarter project today. Either I'm getting very bored, or my tolerance for risk is improving. I backed another Kickstarter project a long time ago and if memory serves, the project got funded and the product was eventually produced. I hope this project gets funded too. The product is very cool and will help me with my astrophotography efforts if it ever gets produced. You have to be patient with Kickstarter. A lot of ideas die on the vine and even successful projects can take a long, long time to go into production.

I received a package from the dehumidifier company this afternoon. Inside was a small piece of styrofoam. That's all. There were no instructions or anything. This wasn't what I was expecting at all. The styrofoam piece is the wrong size to fit into the bottom of the shut off float so it will actually float. Even if the small part did fit, the float would still not be able to shut off anything. I was expecting some sort of electrical switch that would turn the unit off when the tank became full. No luck there. This is very frustrating to say the least. I think the solution is just to never buy this brand of dehumidifier again.

Janet and I finally made our appointments to get vaccinated. We'll be getting our first shot early next week.   We opted for a hospital connected with our primary care physicians instead of one of those drive-thru mega sites. I've heard that this hospital has things running very smoothly and that you are in and out in less than twenty minutes. I hope that this is the case. I wasn't really anticipating such a demand for this vaccine. We decided that it would be a good idea to make our reservations now, before they opened the floodgates and let everyone get the vaccine. Right now the vaccine is only available to first responders, health care workers, and old people. Janet and I would be in the old people category.

It remains to be seen whether I'm going to feel comfortable traveling again after I get vaccinated. I hope so, because I don't think I'm going to get published again until I have a story to tell. There are going to be a lot of interesting launches this year and hopefully some star parties as well. I need to get on the road again, because it's hard to write about doing nothing. Years ago I had a regular column in a little magazine called The Dalmatian Quarterly. I just wrote about my dogs and the stories were well received. I guess I could write stories about Dawn, but the magazine is gone. It died, along with a lot of other interesting little magazines. I'm lucky that specialty publications like SpaceFlight Magazine still exist. I'm such a Luddite. Magazines are still much more satisfying to me than social media.

Dawn is still enjoying her two short walks each day. I'm not sure I'm enjoying my own walks though. My feet are starting to hurt again. The easy solution would be to just stop walking for a while until the foot pain subsides. That's hard to do though. I think I've become addicted to these long walks. They provide a structure to my day. Walking takes up so much time that I don't fret much about being idle. It's weird how walking really does occupy the mind. I decided to support the Kickstarter campaign on my walk today. I also came up with a different slant on my new Sky & Telescope article. There was a very unusual cloud formation overhead as I walked. It felt like I was looking up at an enormous quilt with an entire sky full of puffy little rectangular squares. These weird clouds were actually a transition to clear skies. By the time I returned home, the sky was completely clear.

I guess I'll have to contact the dehumidifier people again tomorrow. It's hardly worth the effort though. I really don't think anything will be resolved. I should probably just rake leaves and work on my astrophotography article. After I get that shot next week, my arm will probably be too sore to rake leaves anyway.

Duke is today's Dalmatian of the Day


Watch of the Day