Day 4054

I made another effort to declutter the office today. I gathered up a bunch of stuff to take to the storage warehouse and at the last minute decided to throw half of the pile away. Was this a breakthrough? I certainly hope so. The storage warehouse isn't big enough to hold all this stuff. Much of what I tossed today were portfolio samples. Back when my companuy was busy, I was meticulous about saving samples. I must have saved at least twenty copies of everything I did. Sometimes I would mail samples to prospective clients, but mostly I just hung on to them. As my company's reputation grew over the years, the samples became less and less important. Most of the jobs I got were by word of mouth. I don't even think I've looked at the samples I threw away today in over ten years. It's finally time for this stuff to go.

I got another invitation to schedule a vaccination from a major hospital today. These guys seemed a little more organized than my pharmacy. I made it to the end of the online application form and there were real dates and locations for me to choose. Before making my appointment, I went and asked Janet if I should go ahead and get the shot now. The first available appointment was actually tomorrow. I'm still a little uncertain about this whole process, but Janet said to go ahead and do it and started looking to see if she'd gotten an e-mail too. I went back to the computer and clicked on the date I wanted and got a message saying that this time slot was no longer available. I refreshed my screen and discovered that none of the time slots were available anymore. Snooze you lose I guess. I'll have to be quicker next time. There must have been tons of people who immediately jumped on this invitation right after getting their e-mail message.

Dawn seems like such a happy dog now. Maybe all she wanted was for us to do things her way. She loves her shorter walk and if Janet has time, she is often eager to take another short walk later in the day. We always knew that Dawn didn't like riding in the car. What we didn't know is that she didn't want to go anywhere that seemed unfamiliar. Dawn loves her new home with its big soft bed. Her life has been full of twists and turns. I think she's afraid that if she leaves this place, she might never come back. It's all good now. We'll take her on little walks where she always knows the way home and do everything we can to assure her that this place is hers forever.

I find it interesting that the one thing that had managed to bring this horribly divided country together is a hatred of Wall Street. Everyone is cheering on the band of young Robinhood investors who got together and brought down the powerful hedge funds and short sellers. Democrats, Republicans, and even loners like myself are applauding this democratization of Wall Street. I've been an investor for years and have never liked hedge funds and short sellers. I'd like to see the whole practice of shorting stocks banned forever. To me, investing remains simple. Buy shares of a company you believe in, hang on to the stock, and watch the company grow.

I've been waiting all week for the SN9 Starship to launch in Boca Chica. It appears now that the FAA thinks that Elon's rockets are dangerous and doesn't want to give him clearance to launch. Jeez. Give the guy a break. All rockets are dangerous. Somehow this same FAA thought that the 737 Max was safe enough to fly before they stated crashing. Let Elon pursue his dream of going to Mars. If the bureaucratic web becomes too tangled, he will just take his rockets elsewhere and Texas will lose a lot of high paying jobs.

It's time to make a grocery list again. These weeks really go quickly now. Time slows down a bit when the week is filled with activities. An empty week is exactly the opposite. Blink twice, and it's grocery day again.

Spirit is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3770

It's a shame that it took a plague to get me to clean out the house. Janet likes to clean and I have absolutely no excuse not to help her now. We continued our efforts to clean out the tool shed today. There were so many things we had completely forgotten about. Most of the stuff was worthless. There were a few keepers though. I found a strange looking brass humidor that looked like it was made from an artillery shell. When I looked at the engraving on the side I realized it was my grandfather's. He was the commander of a tank company in Northern Africa during World War II and the humidor was presented to him by his men in 1943. It was made from a tank shell and hand engraved with an eagle on one side and my grandfather's name, rank and presentation date on the other. Pretty cool piece of history.

I decided it was finally time to throw away my original advertising portfolio from the 1970's. I've carried the big black art case around with me since I started my career, but I haven't taken good care of it in recent years. Actually, I completely forgot that I still had it. It's a shame I didn't put this in the storage warehouse decades ago. When I unzipped the case to take a look inside, the smell of mold and mildew was overwhelming. All the paper ad samples were ruined by moisture. I didn't even bother to sort through the mess. It was time for this part of my past to go.

Actually, throwing away the portfolio was a bit of a breakthrough. There is no need to hang on to this stuff. Nothing is permanent anyway. During the entire time I operated my own company, I never showed those samples to anyone. They were already old and obsolete when I started the company in 1990. Maybe now it will be a little easier for me to throw away a lot of other obsolete things that are gathering dust in my office. I need to start looking ahead instead of backwards. Hey, I'm not an ad guy anymore. I'm a space journalist.

The weather forecast looked good when I cleared the water off the roof again this morning. Unfortunately, later in the day the forecast changed and now it looks like rain tomorrow. Keeping the roof clear of water is an endless battle. I'm really thinking now that I need to find a contractor who can build a completely new roof with a pitch so water will drain quickly. This is beyond the scope of most roofing companies. They all just want to recover the flat roof. The only way to get rid of this problem forever is to totally eliminate the flat roof. Maybe if I can get rid of this troublesome roof along with the damaged, aging trees in the back yard, I can cover the new roof with solar panels and get rid of the power company as well.

Janet bought Dawn a big piece of astroturf so she can lie in the backyard and sun herself without getting muddy. Dawn loves to sit out in the back yard. Unfortunately, she also loves to roll on her back in the dirt and the run back into the house and hop on the bed. The experiment seemed to work. Dot likes the big astroturf rug and didn't get muddy at all today. I was surprised that Janet was able to get this big outdoor rug delivered. I guess you can get anything on Amazon these days.

I wish people would just admit that they know nothing about this virus yet. Opinions change wildly from day to day. Millions are going to die. Nevermind, we meant to say thousands are going to die. We desperately need ventilators. Everybody needs to make ventilators. Oops. Now we have too many ventilators. Maybe we can give them to Italy. You remain infectious for 14 days. No, that's 27 days or 35 days. Maybe you stay infectious forever. On and on it goes. Could everybody just shut up for a few days.

Life goes on. I certainly haven't changed much. If anything, I'm more optimistic and productive than I used to be. Go figure.

Wilson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day