Day 4783

It was a fairly typical Saturday. I did my grocery shopping and continued to be amazed at how expensive everything is getting. I did my walking and was equally amazed at how slow I'm getting. I'm still making an effort though. It seems important to keep moving.

There was a light mist in the air when we took Dawn on her early walk this morning. It never really turned into rain, but my jacket was wet by the time we returned home. Dawn was wet too. I think she would have preferred staying home. I wish everything would dry out. There are still leaves to rake and I don't want the roof leak to reappear. I was thinking of repairing the damaged areas with what remains of my five gallon bucket of Armorflex silicon coating, but the surface needs to be dry before you can apply this stuff. I'm not sure if I can manage to lift the bucket up to the roof either.

I couldn't find shredded wheat at the store today. Hopefully the shelves will be restocked before I run out completely. I have become such a creature of habit that I don't know what I'd do if I'm forced to eat something else for breakfast. At least I found everything else on my list. I was actually very close to the gym this morning, but I came home and walked in the park instead because I didn't want to leave the groceries in the car. I didn't want my week's supply of strawberries to go bad.

I'm beginning to think that the bald eagles have moved somewhere else. I haven't seen them for over a month and I'm out in the park every day. It still seems kind of ironic that the birds would disappear right after the city fenced off several acres of land near their nest. The eagles stay so high in the trees that I don't think they care what is happening on the ground anyway unless it is something they can eat.

No leaks today. The ceiling is stained again though. It's probably not worth bleaching the stains away with more rain on the way, but the task is back on my to-do list. I really need to get serious about hiring a roofing company to replace the roof. I find it very irritating that replacing a roof has become so expensive, but being mad isn't going to stop the leaks. I need to find someone who will give me a twenty year guarantee. In twenty years from now I'm probably not going to be around anyway.

I looked at some of the test pictures I took with the star tracker yesterday and finally discovered where panorama pictures were being saved when I hit the "save to local" button in the Benro app. I thought they were being sent to the camera, but apparently they are being saved on my iPhone instead. This is good to know if I ever get around to actually using the tracker. For now it is just something to test on a slow day.

Hopefully the weather will stay dry for Dawn's Sunday outing tomorrow. Rain or shine, I'll probably go mall walking as well. There will definitely be ice cream.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4534

It's a little late, but the rain has finally arrived. I spent most of the day trying to avoid getting wet but I guess you can't avoid it forever. I did manage to get my long walk finished before the storms started and Dawn got her walk as well. Now we wait for the roof to start leaking. We've got quite a downpour right now and the pumps on the roof aren't working. It's not a good combination.

Other than waiting for the rain to start, it was a pretty slow day. I discovered that the shower drain was clogged when I was taking a shower today. I wish I'd discovered this before I was actually in the shower and already wet. I had to get dressed so I could go outside and get my tools to snake out the drain before I could continue. Water is not my friend. Between running toilets, slow drains, and leaking roofs, I've had just about all the water problems I can handle.

Dawn must have know that the weather was about to change because she refused to take a sunrise walk. It wasn't raining, but the ground was wet. That's all it takes with her. Luckily, Janet was able to give her a walk in the afternoon before the next round of storms hit. I think Dawn is much better at forecasting the weather than the apps on my phone. Yesterday they said the rain would start last night and continue all day today. The forecast was only off by 12 hours.

I wasn't feeling lucky today, so I postponed updating the star tracker app on my phone. It was tempting because there wasn't much else to do today, but I kept remembering that the last time I updated this app was when all my camera connection problems started. One of these days I'm going to have to deal with this. My phone keeps wanting to update apps automatically when they become available. I've had to disable this function and update apps manually, being careful to avoid the Benro app.

I wish I could get the pumps to work without going up on the roof. Sometimes when the extension cords to the pumps are under water for too long they short out and throw a circuit breaker. Other times, leaves and dirt clog the pumps and need to be cleaned out. Unfortunately, you never know that something is wrong until after it starts raining. Oh, well. It is what is is. I'd better go get the buckets ready. It will be a miracle if we don't get a leak tonight.

My problems always seem so minor whenever I turn on the news. I guess that's why I don't like listening to the news anymore. I often feel like I am witnessing the total collapse of society. If you are even a casual student of history you realize that all civilizations come to an end at some point. We've had a good run, but we may be nearing the end of ours. I wonder what the next Middle Ages will be like? Probably a bit like BladeRunner. I may be wrong but I keep thinking that globalization is behind many of the problems we are seeing today. Just because something is too big to fail doesn't prevent failure. It almost guarantees it. The world would be a better place if there were lots of tiny little powerless civilizations, all completely independent of each other. If one fails or goes haywire, the rest just continue on. Of course this wouldn't work in a world filled with jet planes and satellite phones. It wouldn't work if two tiny civilizations decided to join forces and take over a third tiny civilization either. Hey, I've got no answers. Maybe we just need a lot fewer people.

I hope this rain stops soon. I know that rain is a lot better than drought and wildfires, but water still makes me nervous.

Ziggy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day