Monday, May 1, 2023

Day 4876

How can it be May already? This year has really gone quickly. We've had a health scare with Dawn and I've made two trips down to Kennedy Space Center. For the most part, life has been uneventful though. I guess that's a good thing. I'm not looking for a lot of drama at this point.

Today was a typical Monday. We took Dawn on her early morning walk. I had my breakfast of shredded wheat and fruit and then I took some things to the storage warehouse, filled the car with gas, and went to the bank. I was planning to mow the grass in the front yard today but never got around to it. Oh, well. There's always tomorrow for chores I'm trying to avoid today.

It looks like we'll be starting on the roof replacement soon. The roofers want to set a date to begin and have sent me a final contract to sign. I asked Janet to read over the contract because after a career in the title business she knows far more about this type of thing than I do. Whenever I read through any type of contract, it always seems like the other party wants to be responsible for nothing and wants me to be responsible for everything. This company comes highly recommended by people we trust, but I'm still apprehensive about dealing with contractors. Once burned, twice shy is the rule of thumb here.

The weather is still very nice, but there are increasing signs that Summer is on the way. I guess it's time to take the protective covers off the outdoor faucets and shut off the ones that were set to a slow drip during our short spell of freezing weather this Winter. I need to decide whether to buy a new lawnmower this year. I don't know whether the old mower is going to survive another season. Everyone else in the neighborhood uses a lawn service now, but I hate dealing with others for things I can still do myself. Obviously I can't put on a new roof myself, but I can probably still manage to mow the lawn.

I still need to write my article about the Viasat-3 launch and send it off to SpaceFlight Magazine. I'm disappointed that I didn't see the launch in person, but it won't affect my ability to write the article. I did get a lot of good pictures while I was down at Kennedy Space Center. I just didn't get any of the launch itself. I could probably send pictures of a previous Falcon Heavy launch and nobody would know the difference. Viasat-3 was the fourth Falcon Heavy launch I've attended and these night launches all look exactly the same.

I had a pleasant long walk this morning although I was surprisingly slow. I was actually feeling pretty good, but my pace was terrible today. I still don't understand why I'm not more consistent on these walks. My elapsed time for the entire walk can vary by up to eight minutes. We've had lots of rain this year, so the park looks unusually green this year. When we moved here over thirty years ago, I didn't realize what a special place this was. Just got lucky I guess. The neighborhood is very stable and we live near one of the largest urban parks in the entire country.

I don't have any plans for tomorrow. Not to worry. I didn't have any plans for today either and the day turned out OK. 

Betsy is today's Dalmatian of the Day


Watch of the Day