Day 3689

Sometimes it's the little things. I got the toilet to stop running today. I took everything apart again and soaked all the parts in vinegar for an hour to remove the built up scale. Then I bought a new ballcock membrane at a plumbing supply store. This tiny little piece of rubber was seventeen dollars, but apparently it is vital. After I carefully put everything back together again, the toilet worked normally. As I have mentioned many times, I will never buy a French toilet again.

It looks like the launch date for the Solar Orbiter has changed again. A new launch hazard warning has been issued, but so far I have received no confirmation from NASA about the new date. This makes changing reservations difficult. I was able to book another hotel for the revised date, but will have to cancel one of my reservations by tomorrow night to avoid a penalty. I can change my flight right up until the day of departure, but hotels are more difficult. When things are busy at the Space Center a last minute change in the launch schedule can leave you without a room. Hopefully, this will all be resolved tomorrow. I hate uncertainty.

The weather was even colder today than it was yesterday. It didn't seem to bother the birds though. The Egrets and Herons seemed at ease wading in the icy water. I was warm enough on my walk, but I needed two coats today. I'm beginning to think that dressing in layers like this will be better out at the observatory than my bulky Alaska coat. There was a stiff wind when I walked along the shoreline and I was still reasonably warm. A lot of people might think that a down jacket on top of another down jacket is overkill, but it seems to work great. Hey, I get cold easily. The inner down jacket is very light and the outer jacket is a larger size so it fits perfectly. Now I need to find some comfortable shoes that keep my feet warm.

My plan to get some astronomy lessons at the little observatory north of town hasn't worked out very well. There haven't been many clear days in January. I guess January has always been like this, but it sure seems gray and dismal this year. Maybe February will be better. I've still got some time. I'd really like to be more knowledgable when I arrive at the observatory.

I have no idea what I'll be doing tomorrow. I'm sure I'll check my e-mail a lot to see if there is any news from the Space Center. I need to answer the latest letter my sister sent. Maybe there'll be bills to pay as well. It's still not warm enough to make roof repairs, but that's probably useless anyway. I guess I should just concentrate on breakfast. Should I go out for French Toast or make an omelet at home? Oddly, little decisions like these seem just as difficult to make as the larger ones.

Malcolm is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2975

I had the best of intentions today. I was going to fix some things around the house, touch base with my remaining clients, and clean up all the dog poop in the yard. Since I got up later than usual, I didn't get off to a roaring start. By the time I finished taking Dash on a morning walk and made my morning smoothie, it was almost 11 AM. I don't think I was always this slow, but it's hard to remember.

The first task on the agenda was fixing a running toilet. This Porcher toilet was made in France about fifteen years ago and is almost impossible to find parts for. Unlike most toilets, you can't just go to Home Depot and buy a new float arm or fill valve. I feel like this thing was engineered by the same people who made Citroën automobiles. It is truly bizarre. The best I can do is carefully take apart the aging mechanism, clean everything as well as I can, and then put things back together. Today, I slowed the leak, but didn't stop it entirely. It was the best I could do.

I tried to find out whether the AT&T technician was going to come out today and hook up the permanent fiber optic cable, but just ended up wasting a lot of time on the phone. The help desk people in Indonesia don't really have a clue where the service guys in the trucks are. I don't really care when the guy comes out. I just wanted to make AT&T aware that there was a buried line in my yard that wasn't hooked up. The two guys that dug the hole yesterday said someone would come out today and finish the job. Not surprisingly, no one showed up.

I've been trying to talk to the guy who replaced the thermistor in my refrigerator a couple of months ago. This repairman seemed more knowledgable that the others the appliance repair shop sent out and I was hoping he could tell me whether it was worth one more try to fix my existing refrigerator. There are two more thermistors in the refrigerator. If all it took was replacing all three of them to get things running reliably again, it might be worth it. I still can't find a new refrigerator that is as good as the one I've got. I can't find the repairmen either. So far, he hasn't returned my call.

It is amazingly warm for February. I think the temperature was over 70 today. I can never get used to this rapidly changing weather. When I'm walking Dash, I always seem to be wearing too much or too little. Today was confusing. The grey overcast skies definitely looked like Winter, but the temperature felt like Spring. Dash seemed confused too. He kept sniffing the air on his morning walk and wouldn't take an afternoon walk at all.

Once again we are wondering how we can stop school shootings. I don't think it will be easy. We live in a world where Call of Duty is the most popular video game. Violent video games and movies have been a favorite of kids for almost thirty years. Mental illness is so common that it almost seems like a lifestyle choice. It is unbelievable how many people are taking anti-depressants and other psychotropic drugs these days. Social media has created a world where everyone demands instant gratification. Nobody has any patience anymore. Worst of all, when anyone talks about restricting guns, people rush out and buy even more guns. It's kind of a hopeless situation.

Personally, I think technology has advanced much more rapidly than our ability to comprehend it. Sure, we have self driving cars and everyone is connected to everyone else, but in the process we've managed to destroy a society that has worked pretty well for thousands of years. If we don't slow down, things are only going to get worse.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2309

I spent the morning trying to learning how to create rewrite rules within my website's .htaccess file. On the old web server I had somebody who could do this for me, but apparently now I have to do it myself. Why is this important? Well, part of my website isn't working correctly and the hosting company says it isn't their responsibility to fix it. This is usually how I learn to write code. Sheer necessity is always a good incentive to learn new things. That being said, using PHP, Perl, Javascript, or in this case, writing instructions for the Apache web server, has never come naturally to me. By lunchtime, I had a headache and still didn't really understand what I was doing.

This afternoon, I tackled a much easier task. I prepared my April invoices. Sending out monthly invoices used to take me the better part of a day, but now I can do everything in less than an hour. When you don't have many clients, you don't have many invoices. I took the invoices to the post office, hoping that Dot wouldn't poop in her bed while I was gone.  On the way home I stopped at a little tailor shop in the neighborhood to ask whether they could put a new lining in an old leather jacket I like. I should have picked a better day. The tailor wasn't open on Mondays.

I'm still having to water the lawn every day, so the new St. Augustine grass will establish roots. The soggy lawn wouldn't be a problem if the dogs would stay on the grass. Inevitably, they head straight for the ground cover though and end up getting their paws muddy. Since I have to follow Dot around, holding up her rear legs, I get my shoes muddy as well. In and out we go over and over again. It's amazing how simple things like this can eat up your day.

The little LED lights on my activity tracker have quit working. I like these little Jawbone UP bands, but they sure don't last very long. The band still works and will sync with my phone, but I can't tell if it is in normal or sleep mode. I no longer get any warning when the battery is low either. The two little indicator lights don't work at all. I wonder if it is even worth the trouble to get another of these fitness bands. I've had three already and they all seem to last about a year.

My holy grail is something that will last forever. I haven't found it yet. I did find a place in Florida that still sells parts for my troublesome French toilet. Unfortunately, they don't sell fully assembled fill mechanisms. They just sell the component parts, which must be assembled. Since all these little threaded parts can leak water if they aren't assembled properly, this seems like a recipe for disaster. Maybe I could just buy the parts and have a plumber assemble them for me. I'll have to find a new plumber though. My current plumber hates these toilets and refuses to work on them.

I'd like to do something interesting tomorrow. I could learn a new song on the guitar. I could get out the sewing machine and try to fix the lining on my jacket myself. I could submit some more photos to my stock agency. None of these things seem all that interesting though. They just seem like chores. I
really don't know where the magic is anymore.

Tyson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2308

I discovered today that one of my best friends from college was just diagnosed with lung cancer. The guy didn't even smoke. Life can be very unfair sometimes. I've reached the age where people post good news about their grandchildren and bad news about themselves. Sadly, almost everybody I know is falling apart. That's why I go to the gym on Sunday and feel vaguely guilty that I don't go everyday. Even in the best of circumstances, it is an uphill battle to stay healthy. Some things we have control over, but a lot of things we don't. If there was anybody I thought could have avoided cancer, it would have been my clean living college friend. It just wasn't in the cards.

My accountant called this afternoon to tell me that he'd finished my taxes. In the course of our conversation, he asked me if I was happy with my broker. I asked why and he said that the management fees on my account seemed pretty high when you looked at the rather dismal performance of my portfolio. He said I'd probably do better if I just put everything in a boring index fund that mirrored the S&P and forget about it. I've thought the same thing for quite a while, but have never been sure what to do next. I've asked friends if they liked their broker or financial advisor and most of them were just as disgusted as I am. Nobody seems to want to recommend anybody. Very few small investors are doing well these days. Increasingly, I think the whole system is rigged to benefit the rich and powerful. In the not too distant past, you used to be able to go to your bank and get a 5 year Certificate of Deposit that provided a nice monthly return with no risk at all. US Treasury Bonds also provided a very nice return with little to no risk. Now, anything with any promise of a decent return comes with quite a bit of risk. Investing has become synonymous with gambling. In this kind of environment I can see why Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have become popular. I don't think either of these men can reverse the tide of globalism and corporate greed that created this mess, but at least they have identified the problem.

I tried to fix the odd French made toilet in one of the bathrooms today with little success. They stopped selling these things quite some time ago when plumbers refused to repair them. Parts are impossible to find and plumbers just tell me to buy a new toilet. Instead of a simple fill valve and float that you could buy at Home Depot, this toilet uses a proprietary French fill mechanism that looks like it was designed by Rube Goldberg. I've been using super glue and epoxy to patch the thing back together for years, but it's leaking again. One more frustration in a very frustrating month.

I had another website to update this afternoon, so I barely had time to go to the gym. I did have a good workout, but vacuuming the house and cleaning the rugs will have to wait. While I was at the gym I noticed that I was the only one holding on to the handrails while I was using the treadmill. I must have a terrible sense of balance. Everyone else seemed to be walking just fine without using the rails. It's been a busy day and I'm glad it's over. It's weird to have most of your work on the weekend. I bet there will be nothing for me to do tomorrow. Monday's are like that. Don't get me wrong. There's always something to do if you count doing laundry and cleaning up poop. I just wish there was something exciting to do.

Apollo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day