Day 4425

Another very cold day. There was no new snow or ice, but very little melted. As I expected, we have a small roof leak caused by heat from the house melting the ice on the roof from the bottom up. There is still a layer of ice on the roof, but it has started to melt underneath. It's way too slippery to climb up on the roof and fix things, so I'll just have to live with this for a while. At least it's a very small leak so far.

Dawn hates the snow, so she went without a walk again today. I should have done the same, but I run out of things to do in the house fairly quickly. I need a long walk to kill time. Janet can't go back to the gym until the roads clear up, so we took another walk together in the park today. I tried some different boots but they were worse than yesterday's boots. I really need to find some of the more comfortable Hoka boots, but they seem to be out of stock nationwide. I'm sure they'll be back in stock this summer when I won't need them anymore. I think we saw one of the eagles in the nest this afternoon, but we couldn't get closer because melting snow has turned the best vantage point into a swamp. It was a nice day for a walk though. The sun was out and there wasn't much of a wind. I just wish it were a little warmer.

I think I've finally figured out how to use the star tracker. Since I was house bound for most of the day, I spent a lot of time trying to master the surprisingly complex gadget. You can't really track stars indoors during the day, but you can see if the camera and tracker are pointed in the right direction using planetarium software on my computer. At any rate, I think I'm making progress. I was able to go back and forth between several targets without the software crashing. I also learned how to use the tracker to create panoramas and time lapse sequences. I still haven't taken the device outside and photographed anything, but that day will come. All in good time.

It's too bad I don't enjoy watching Netflix movies. Snow days are perfect for binge watching something. I'm not sure what I enjoy anymore. Astronomy is a strange hobby to have if you don't feel comfortable going outside at night. Dallas feels too dangerous for astronomy. I love my time out at McDonald Observatory, but it is way too far away for casual observing. The worse my foot gets, the more I dread making a long car trip as well. I'm even starting to feel out of the loop down at Kennedy Space Center. There's a lot going on right now and if you only make one or two trips a year, it's hard to be considered a serious part of the space reporting community. Some of my Florida friends are on site almost every week. Hopefully, I'll still get to cover the Artemis 1 launch later this year, but you never know. I'd better take advantage of any opportunity I get. I'm starting to think my traveling days are numbered.

It looks like I will be traveling to the grocery store tomorrow. The larger roads are almost completely free of ice by now and tomorrow should be even warmer than today. I'm sure prices will continue to get higher.  Almost everything is higher these days. I got a bill from my web hosting company yesterday and the annual rate almost doubled. Do I even need a website anymore? Probably not. You think more about the cost of things when you are retired. When I was working I never gave a second thought to the cost of anything. In retrospect, those days were pretty good.

Duke is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day