Day 3719

Having an extra day in February always seems kind of weird. Of course, February is a weird month anyway since it is so short. I kind of wish every month has twenty eight days. Four complete weeks each month would make things easier to remember. Unfortunately, the Earth's orbit doesn't work out that way. I'm always impressed that our ancestors were able to divide up the year so accurately even back in Roman times. Caesar's calendar wasn't all that different than ours.

Breakfast was interrupted this morning by a visit from the roofer I met yesterday. He seemed very knowledgable and his company had good credentials. Not surprisingly, his bid was just as high as the other reputable roofers I've talked with. There are no bargains here. Basically a flat roof is always going to cost about three times more than a shingle roof.

While I was up on the roof this morning I was pleased to see the the silicon patches I applied yesterday had cured properly and looked ready for the next rain. I was a little worried about this batch of silicon because it didn't seem quite as thick as the previous batch. Probably I just didn't stir the stuff enough. Silicon is a lot harder to mix than paint because it is so thick. You can't shake the bucket either because it is too heavy. Probably I should have bought one of those paint mixers you attach to a power drill. I just stirred the stuff with an old drumstick I found in the storage warehouse. I guess mixing the silicon coating isn't rocket science, because the batch I applied yesterday dried just fine.

Janet walked Dawn by herself today to see whether her nervousness was because of me or if she just always want both of us to accompany her. Evidently, Dawn was still a little apprehensive, but they completed their walk successfully. Probably it is just a matter of getting used to new situations. We try to introduce Dawn to new experiences and it seems to be working. She seems more relaxed with each passing day.

Something is wrong with Facebook again. For the past several weeks I've been having problems uploading the preview picture that accompanies my daily blog post. When you post a link, the preview pictures are supposed to be uploaded automatically. It usually takes several tries now to get a preview picture to load with the link. I guess it wouldn't matter if I wasn't such a stickler for consistency. I had to try twelve times last night before I could get Facebook to find the preview picture. Hopefully, things will be easier tonight.

I wish the media would quit talking about the coronavirus. I've always been a bit of a hypochondriac and all it takes is a ten minute Google search to convince me that something is terrible wrong and I'm going to die. That's the trouble with having an imagination. It's easy for it to run wild. Now, every ten minutes I'm hearing that I should never touch my face and eyes with my hands. Jeez. I've got terrible seasonal allergies and I'm always rubbing my eyes. Visine doesn't really help that much and my eyes are always watering on walks. I probably don't wash my hands enough either. I hate that Purell stuff.

Should I apply more silicon to the roof tomorrow, or have I done enough? It's impossible to know. I wish I could get over my obsession with taking at least 20,000 steps on Sundays. It would be much more enjoyable to just stay home and take a long nap with Dawn.

Holly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3659

Another decade is drawing to a close. This is my seventh decade on this planet and I'm still having trouble with these arbitrary measurements. We use these ten year blocks of time to neatly classify pop music and identify trends, but if we didn't use the decimal system, the whole concept of a decade would be meaningless. There isn't even a compelling reason to start the year on January 1st. Wouldn't it make more sense to start the year on the shortest or longest day of the year? Nope. We start the year on January 1st because in 46 B.C. Julius Caesar decided it was time to reform the Roman lunar calendar and go back to the way the Egyptians measured time. He chose to start his new Julian solar calendar on January 1st. to honor Janus, the god of new beginnings. The day stuck, despite the fact that the Chinese still start the year between January 21 and February 21 and the Hebrew calendar begins in the Fall. March 1, March 25 and Dec. 25 were all considered New Year’s Day at various points in history. Go figure.

I got waitlisted again for an upcoming launch at Kennedy Space Center. This is the second time I've been waitlisted in recent months. There is kind of a community of folks who obsess about these NASA invitations. It doesn't take long to learn who got accepted and who didn't make the cut. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the selection process. Sometimes you can get selected several times in a row. And then there are long dry spells where your application seems to be ignored. It is easy to be disappointed when your applications isn't selected. After you've been to one launch, you want to go to all of them.

There's still a chance that I may get press credentials to attend the Solar Orbiter launch, but that remains to be seen. I'm still a little unsure how the press accreditation process works and my contacts at the magazine that would be sponsoring me are out of the office on Christmas vacation. This will all be resolved in due time, but it's hard to be patient when nothing else is going on.

I added all the new dogs to the Dalmatian Rescue website today. Considering that none of the dogs would stay still, I think the pictures came out pretty good. This is the only website I maintain anymore. I don't even update my own site these days. I used to maintain dozens of different websites and was busy making additions and changes every single day. Those days are long gone. Most of my old clients retired even before I did.

Janet and I found a forgotten bottle of champagne in the back of a kitchen cabinet, so we will toast in the New Year if we can manage to stay awake for a few more hours. Other than a very sad day last April, 2019 wasn't a bad year. You can always hope the new year will be better though. Hope keeps you moving forward. Here's hoping that all of you find yourselves happy and fulfilled in the year ahead.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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