Day 3834

Another rainy morning. This is getting old. Especially when I keep hearing from my astronomer friends that skies are clear out at McDonald Observatory. We managed to find time to give Dawn a shortened walk this morning. After getting caught in the rain a few too many times, I think we've finally learned not to tempt fate. Dawn was fine with the shorter walk. Not me. I had to go out later in the day to make up the lost steps.

When I went out again I passed a woman feeding the ducks with her children not more than twenty yards away from a crazy man wandering around shouting "My favorite is missing," over and over again. Occasionally he'd add "They're not all missing, but my favorite is gone." Was this guy talking about a loved one, a teddy bear, or maybe a sock? The woman feeding the ducks didn't seem alarmed. There were lots of runners on the trail and everyone ignored the crazy man. This strange tableau seemed to represent America today. We all want to keep feeding the ducks while the world is burning around us. It's pretty weird.

I wonder if the other NASCAR drivers are a little embarrassed after that noose in Bubba Wallace's garage turned out to be a garage door pull. The exact same rope was found in every other driver's garage and they had all been there since 2019. There was no hate crime. There was nothing at all. The media jumped all over this story before any investigation had been made. They did the same thing when Jussie Smollett said he had been assaulted in Chicago. Do you think the media is pushing a narrative? They love this stuff.

I don't love any of this. I don't know many members of the police force, but the few cops I do know are wonderful people. I'm pretty sure that the percentage of bad cops is about the same as the percentage of bad people in the general population. I used to live in Capitol Hill in Seattle. It was a great place back in the 1970's. If I was living there now, I would be outraged by a mayor that does nothing to stop the madness. I don't support tearing down monuments at all. If you think you can improve the future by erasing the past, you are wrong. It just doesn't work that way.

You can't defeat the virus by ignoring it either. I used to think that the Chinese were lying about their relatively low death rates during this pandemic. Now I'm more inclined to believe they were telling the truth. The Chinese had the liberty to impose draconian containment strategies. Jeez. These guys welded the doors shut to people's homes to keep them from moving about. We're so used to having our freedom that we just ignore anything that we don't like. It's not really a surprise that the United States has one of the highest death rates from the virus in the world.

I've thought for a long time that the Chinese would be the first to set foot on Mars. These guys play the long game and seem to have a thousand year plan for everything. We have trouble making a plan for next week. I wish we could get our act together as a country. There is so much potential here. We need more people like Elon Musk and Steve Jobs and fewer people pulling down statues. You may not agree with me, but we'll see who's right soon enough. Chaos is not a winning strategy. Sooner or later the Chinese will just declare "game over."

Boo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1572

Apparently, there's a lot going on in Dallas this weekend. The Final Four is in town and AT&T Stadium is being converted into the nation's largest basketball arena. Bruce Springsteen will be giving a free concert in Reunion Park tomorrow, and it's Duck Commander weekend at the local NASCAR track. All this means to me is more traffic to avoid. You couldn't pay me to attend any of these events. My Dad loved collage basketball, but I never understood the attraction. The closest I ever got to the college game was producing a series of TV commercials featuring Dick Vitale. I did see Springsteen in the mid-1970's at a small theater in Seattle before he became a superstar. He still sings some of the same songs today. I've never been to Texas Motor Speedway at all. It's too loud and too far away for me. I almost went to a Rolling Stones concert there once, but I'd already seen the Stones several times and like I said, the speedway is too loud and too far away.

I'll let everyone else fight the crowds this weekend. I'm perfectly content to give the dogs a long walk in the park if the weather's nice, and hole up inside with them if it rains again. It rained sporadically today, but there were frequent dry patches, so I was able to walk the dogs and get all my shopping done without getting wet. The weather forecast says there is a 100% chance of rain tomorrow. I'm not putting a lot of faith in the forecast though, since the weatherman has been wrong about 50% of the time this week.

There were lots of errands to run today. I picked up some fresh fruit at the grocery store. I renewed some prescriptions at the pharmacy. And I got some new furnace filters for the start of the air conditioning season. I always get the best filters I can find, but the house is still dusty all the time. A dust free house and Dalmatians are two things that don't naturally go together.

My hair is getting curly again. It was curly for most of my life and then it got straight and very fine for about four years. Now, it's getting curly again. I wonder what all this means? Maybe now that my liver is starting to function normally again, my hair is returning to normal as well. Or maybe I'm just using a different kind of shampoo. Like most guys, I have no idea what I'm really washing my hair with. I usually just pick up the first bottle I see at the store that says shampoo on the side of the bottle. I can't even get that right half the time. Once I washed my hair with conditioner for two weeks and didn't even know the difference. I'll spend some time thinking about what software to install on my computer, or what lens I need for my camera. Shampoo?  Not so much.

Angel is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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