Day 4883

I got surprised by the weather again today. There was an unexpected thunderstorm on my long walk and I ended up sitting under a picnic shelter in the park for almost an hour waiting for the storm to pass. At least I didn't get wet. You could kind of pick your weather today. It was cool and partly cloudy when we took Dawn on her early walk. For a couple of hours there were dark clouds and lots of rain. Later in the day it cleared off and it was hot and muggy. You never know what to expect at this time of year.

After breakfast this morning I sent my article about the Viasat-3 launch off to SpaceFlight Magazine. I also edited a selection of pictures to accompany the article. My editor responded favorably a few hours later, so this launch visit is officially over. There are several other interesting launches coming up soon, but I don't know when I'll be back at Kennedy Space Center. I'm feeling poor right now.

The roofing company called today to set a date for the roof installation. They want to begin work next week. After making sure we could change the date in case of bad weather, I agreed to the timetable. I'm not looking forward to this and will be glad when the new roof is completed so I can forget about this again. Since the roof hasn't leaked during the past two heavy rains, I'm beginning to wonder whether this is a big waste of money. I guess it is necessary. I've had problems with this roof for a long, long time. I don't think I really have a choice.

I ran into a couple of people I hadn't seen in a long time on my walk today. They told me that a mutual friend had died recently. This seems to happen far too often as I grow older. Sometimes my Facebook timeline seems like an obituary page. I'm still feeling pretty healthy, but it is sobering to realize that quite a few high school classmates and coworkers from the ad agency days are already gone. Not much you can do about growing older, but I'm definitely going to keep walking.

My second Kickstarter project appears to be getting ready to ship. I got a letter today wanting to confirm my shipping address and asking whether I wanted to pay for expedited shipping. This project is a new kind of self leveling camera tripod. In theory it will make it easier to align and use my star tracker. I had an option of getting a small travel version of the tripod or a larger heavy duty model. The smaller tripod would have been more useful since I always carry a tripod with me on launch trips, but of course I got the big heavy duty model that I will probably never use. I'm well prepared for astrophotography now. It's too bad I'm scared to go outside at night in Dallas.

Janet was gone for much of the day and Dawn seemed disgusted that she had to spend the day with me. This dog would be so much happier if she could just come to terms with the fact that she and I are going to be spending a lot of time together. Other than my infrequent launch trips, I just don't have that much desire to leave the house.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day