Day 4410

I saw both eagles together for the first time today. They were perched high in a tree that was very close to the trail. Of course I didn't have my camera with me. I did have my phone though, so I got as close to the tree as I could and took a fairly terrible picture. One of the eagles flew away as I approached the tree, but you can still see the other if you look carefully. The eagle that flew away had something long and thin in its talons. Maybe it was building material for the nest, or perhaps it was a snake. I'm pretty sure that eagles would eat a snake. They appear to eat just about anything. I know they like fish. That's why they hang out at the lake. Several of the birders have seen them catch fish at Sunset Bay. 

The fact that the eagles were so close to the trail this afternoon makes me want to figure out how to carry a camera with me. I'm bound to see these eagles again. I do have a light weight pocket camera with a telephoto lens that collapses into the camera body when the camera is off. It's not an ideal solution, but it would be a lot better than a phone with no telephoto lens at all. Today's picture is probably the worst that I have ever uploaded to the blog. Hey, maybe it will inspire me to do better.

It was bitterly cold this morning and didn't really warm up much throughout the day. We waited until later to take Dawn on her morning walk, but the wait didn't help much. It was still 25 degrees. I didn't attempt my long walk until after lunch in hopes that things would warm up. Nope. The temperature never got above freezing. The wind wasn't terrible today, but there was enough of a wind chill to make me feel like an arctic explorer again. I didn't get 20,000 steps today, but who's counting. At least my feet didn't hurt much today. It was a pretty good walk and I did see the eagles.

I made some progress with the star tracker this morning. While I was waiting for the temperature to warm up, I upgraded the app on my phone and downloaded the new firmware to the Polaris tracker. The two upgrades made some things better and other things worse. This is still a work in progress. For the first time I was able to calibrate the unit accurately so that when I asked it to go to a star or planet, it was at least pointing in the general direction. The tracking seems to work smoothly now. It's hard to tell how accurate the tracking is since I'm doing all this during the day inside my office. I have Stellarium on my computer and I use this powerful planetarium software to confirm that the Polaris is pointing in the right direction. The tracker actually seems to work as promised. At least it works for a while. Inevitably the Polaris will crash if I use it long enough. Once it starts crashing, I have trouble getting it to work again. As I said, this is still a work in progress.

I'm really glad the gas company was able to get the leak fixed yesterday. It would have been dangerously cold last night without the furnace running. This cold weather makes me wonder if we're going to have another power generation fiasco like we did last winter. There has been a lot of talk, but I don't think the state has actually done much to ensure that an extended freeze won't curtail natural gas deliveries to power plants again. Last winter was a huge mess and some people were without power for days.

It was very cold when I took the trash out to the curb this evening. The freezing weather made me think of one of my favorite stories from childhood. If you've never read "A Pail of Air" by Fritz Lieber you ought to look it up. The story was published in Galaxy Science Fiction magazine in December 1951 and I still remember it after all these years. It is a young boy's recollection of living on a world that was pulled out of the solar system by a passing dark star and is now lost in deep space with a frozen atmosphere and a small handful of people who survive by melting the frozen oxygen over a constantly burning fire in a small room insulated by many layers of blankets. Not sure how plausible this scenario is, but it made an impression on me.

April is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4068

The weather keeps getting colder. I had trouble starting my car for the first time in ages. I need to remember to start it every day now until the weather gets warmer. I had a couple of errands to run and the stores were packed. People were buying groceries like the end of the world was coming. There were so many posts about frozen water pipes on Facebook that I got worried and put new insulation foam around all the outdoor faucets.

Dawn refused to walk this morning. There wasn't anything wrong. She was just being smart. She knew almost instantly that it was way too cold for a walk. I didn't have the good sense to come back inside with her and took my six mile walk anyway. I discovered a new use for my N95 masks. The close fitting mask really helped keep my face warm. My coat and gloves kept me pretty warm yesterday, but my exposed face was freezing. With the hood of my jacket up and my mask on, only my eyes were exposed today. I completed my walk, but was happy to return to a warm house. I know people who love Winter weather. I think they're all nuts. When I was young, I read a story by Fritz Leiber called A Pail of Air. It was about how the earth got pulled out of its orbit by a passing dark star and how one family survived by melting oxygen from the frozen atmosphere that had settled over the earth like a thick snow. I always think of this story on very cold days.

We got a notice from the electric company that we all need to conserve electricity during the freeze by  turning our heat down and using as few appliances as possible. I doubt that that's going to happen. When people are cold, their first instinct is to turn up the heat. I really hope we don't have an ice storm. Whenever there's an ice storm there are power outages all over town. Trees fall. Power lines break. It's a big mess. Hopefully, the weather won't be as bad as people are predicting. They say we may see a new record low temperature early next week. Zero degrees in Dallas is very, very rare.

For now everything is fine. The furnace is working well. The two dehumidifiers are keeping condensation away from the windows. We've got plenty of warm clothing. I'm still nervous about this kind of weather though. Things can go downhill quickly when the roads get icy and the power goes out. I still don't understand how northerners can take this kind of weather for granted. Zero degrees is even worse than 100 degrees to me.

If the roads are dry in the morning I need to remember to get my grocery shopping done early. Janet got her shopping done today, so we should have plenty of food. If we get snow or ice, I'm not driving at all. The problem with slick roads here in Texas isn't the ice, it's the other drivers. Nobody knows how to drive on ice here. 

I have a feeling that we're going to be spending a lot of time indoors for the next few days. I should start a new project that will keep me busy, but I'll probably just fret about the furnace instead.

Lucy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3502

I did more grocery shopping than usual today. First I got the things I usually get on Saturdays and then I went to the stores where Janet shops and got the things she usually gets. I think I have the easier job, since I typically only go to one store. Janet always goes to several different stores. It's weird to me that with so many things on grocery store shelves, you still can't get the same things in all stores. Some stores have better produce. Other stores have better meat. I don't even bother to look for bargains, but they are out there if you want to take the time to look. It's amazing how much price and variety actually vary.

I had breakfast and all my shopping done by 10 AM, but my efficiency wasn't rewarded with cooler weather. Apparently yesterday was an anomaly. By the time I started my first walk of the day, it was already too hot. I didn't bother to carry an extra camera today. The animals were all in hiding anyway.

Since I finished my chores earlier than expected, I decided to watch a movie on Netflix. The first thing I noticed when I logged on was a notice saying that the price was going up next month. Weren't higher subscription prices one of the reasons their stock took a big hit last week? People don't like higher prices.

I watched a Chinese science fiction movie called The Wandering Earth. I was expecting to hear the actors speaking Chinese with English subtitles, but they had dubbed the entire movie in English. I generally don't like overdubs, but since weren't a lot of close up scenes, you really didn't notice any lip-sync problems. This movie has gotten good reviews and was a big hit in China. It was interesting how the Chinese see an apocalyptic future. There were no aliens popping out of people's chests. There was no breakdown of civil society. Instead, humanity managed to pull itself together to save the planet from being swallowed up by an exploding sun. The premise of the movie was that to escape the sun turning into a red giant, we could stop the earth's rotation, attach 10,000 giant fusion rockets to one side of the planet and propel it out of the solar system on a 2,500 year journey to another star. The movie was well done with special effects equal to anything Ridley Scott or James Cameron could come up with. I'll admit I've been intrigued with stories of the Earth leaving the solar system ever since I read A Pail of Air by Fritz Lieber when I was a kid. I don't think the sun is going to blow up in 2061 though. A little too soon.

I've been eating Cadence Kitchen flash frozen meals all week. These flash frozen dinners are delicious and I've had no heartburn problems at all. I think these meals contain too much salt though. That's probably one reason they taste so good. Restaurant chefs always use too much salt as well. I've been on a low sodium diet for a long time and can really feel the effects of too much salt. I guess it's back to a more bland diet when Janet returns.

The AT&T service technician is supposed to come out to the house tomorrow morning. Coincidently, the Internet has been working fine today. There was one little glitch early this morning, but mostly it's been smooth sailing. I hope this guy can find a problem even when it's not very evident. I hate dealing with intermittent problems. This is like when you hear a funny noise in your car and the noise goes away as soon as you take it in for repairs. We'll see how the service call goes. Hopefully, I'll still be able to go to the gym.

Deuce is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3307

It was hard for me to get up this morning. Once again I didn't get enough sleep. I'd stayed up too late late watching an old black and white Dr. Who episode and wondering which Doctor it was. If you were wondering too, it was Patrick Troughton and his companions were Jamie and Zoe. The show was eventually over, but a crinkling noise from the shower curtain I'd bought to protect the bed woke me up more than Dash did. He rarely gets up at night anymore. He just poops in the bed in his sleep. That's OK though. I always make sure that there's a puppy training pad placed under his butt. Whenever I wake up, which is often, I check to see if he's pooped and when necessary change the puppy pad for a fresh one.

I probably would have slept until ten this morning if Janet and Dash hadn't already been ready to walk. I quickly got dressed and off we went. It's still very cold. I'm surprised at how many joggers we see on days like this. They dress lightly, but seem to be enjoying themselves. I, on the other hand, dress like a polar explorer. I wear more layers than I used to, but I still can't stay warm.

Cold day always reminds me of a story I'd read as a kid called "A Pail of Air." The story was about the last four people on earth, who stayed alive after the earth got pulled out of its orbit by a passing dark star. They stayed alive by heating frozen air they scooped up in buckets and let it turn back into oxygen by placing it in front of a perpetual fire they could never let go out. How can I remember this old science fiction story sixty years later? It must have made an impression.

They keep the gym colder than I'd like, but about halfway through my workout I'm usually feeling fine. Maybe this is how those joggers feel. I probably just don't move around enough in the Winter. I'm too tired to move more. My Fitbit says I take between 10,000 and 15,000 steps a day. That's plenty for me.

I couldn't postpone vacuuming any longer because the floors were getting filthy. Most dogs are scared of vacuum cleaners but Dash likes to follow ours around. It never was a problem when he was younger, but now Dash can barely stand up and keeps getting tangled up in the cord and falling over. After extricating him a few times this afternoon, I finally had to pen him in another room until I finished cleaning.

Maybe that old Fritz Leiber science fiction story from 1951 stuck with me all these years because life has always been about survival to me. You do simple things over and over again to stay alive, to stay sane, and to keep moving forward. Hey, it's working. I'm still here. I don't get bored doing the same things at the gym every Sunday. I'm finally starting to understand how to shoot free throws. I don't get bored eating the same thing for breakfast over and over again. Actually I think I have perfected breakfast. I don't even get bored with writing about nothing every evening for thousands of days. Writing is good. It keeps you thinking.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day