Day 4550

I had a memory lapse today and thought I had ordered the wrong dishwasher. For some reason I was convinced that I had ordered a unit with top mounted controls. This was going to be a problem because there is a slight overhand on the top of the kitchen counters that would cover up the controls when the door was closed. I don't know why it took me so long to look at the picture on my phone that I took in the store. What was I thinking? The controls were right on the front of the door like they should be. I guess it was an easy mistake to make. I looked at a lot of dishwashers and they all basically look the same.

I wish the temperature would stay the same as it has been lately when we take Dawn on her sunrise walk. It's pleasant to walk when the temperature is 72 degrees and there is a nice breeze. It's a lot different later in the day when it's 92 degrees under a hot sun. I'm really trying hard to walk earlier now before the temperature becomes unbearable. I started my long walk right after breakfast this morning. It started out well, but I'm slow and it takes me almost two hours to complete my route. By the time I returned home I was hot, sweaty, and wishing I'd gone to the gym instead.

The ants are back. Every June around this time a huge swarm of small ants appears on our front porch. I don't know if they are climbing down from the roof or up from the ground. There are thousands of ants crawling up and down the brick walls of the house. I spray the column with ant spray and the mist inevitably falls back on my head. Most of the ants are dead now, but I'll have to wait a few days to see if they come back. Sometimes it takes two treatments to get rid of them. It's weird that this had happened every June that I can remember. There are usually no ant problems for the rest of the year.

Since I haven't seen the rat in almost a week, I decided to take some leftover potting soil and fill in a hole where I thought it might be getting in the atrium. There used to be a large cactus growing in this area, but it died long ago. If this dirt is disturbed it means the rat is still around. I'm leaving the Havahart trap in place for a few days, but I have a feeling that the rat has moved on.

Since it was an exceptionally slow day I found myself experimenting with the star tracker again. I wanted to make sure that the new attachment I bought would allow me to quickly change the camera from a landscape to a portrait orientation. Everything worked fine, but I still don't have the nerve to install the newest firmware version. I've written the Benro folks in China several times to see if this new update was safe, but communication has always been difficult with these folks. I guess you get what you pay for. Early backers of this project like me received the product for basically half of its eventual retail price.

It was too hot to give Dawn an afternoon walk again. I don't think she cared. Dawn is basically a very lazy dog. Sometimes I envy her lifestyle. She takes a brisk walk early in the morning when it's still cool and then sleeps for the rest of the day. She never misses a meal though. Dawn has a good little internal clock and knows right down to the minute when she is supposed to be fed. As long as a strange noise doesn't upset her, Dawn is a happy camper.

This day is almost over and I've accomplished nothing. The week's trash has been taken to the curb and I'm already wondering what I'm going to do tomorrow. Part of me wants to resume my old breakfast restaurant Friday tradition, but I'm just not very hungry anymore. 

Liberty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4306

I discovered more dead ants this morning. It's not strange to see ants, but I can't recall seeing large piles of dead ones before. Luckily, most of the ants are outside, but they do seem to be coming from inside the roof. Is the one foot space between the surface of the roof and the sheetrock ceiling full of ants? Who knows. I need to crawl up on the roof and see if there is an entry point for these critters, but it's always too hot by the time I've completed my long walk. I know ants stay together in colonies in the ground. Maybe they do the same thing if they find themselves inside a roof. I don't know why they are all dying now, but I wish they'd stop. It's a disgusting mess to clean up.

We were hoping that Dawn would be adventurous on her walk again this morning, but she reverted to her old ways and just wanted to do the short one mile loop. She loves to smell things on these morning walks, so maybe when she leads us on a new path, she is just following a particularly attractive scent.

We didn't get an early start this morning, but it didn't really matter. It was still nice and cool for Dawn's sunrise walk and my own long walk that came later. It's been so nice for the past week or so that it's hard to believe there are severe weather warnings for this weekend. Forecasts change frequently around here, so I'm hoping that the severe weather threat doesn't amount to anything. I hate worrying about roof leaks, power outages, and downed trees.

I wish I hadn't upgrade my phone to IOS 15. Now the battery life is terrible. It won't even last an entire day anymore. I kind of knew this would happen, but the geek in me wanted to know what was so special about this new operating system. Curiosity killed the cat, I guess. I should have known better. New systems with lots of bells and whistles generally don't perform well on old phones.

I did better on my long walk this morning, but I'm still moving slower than I should be. The weather is beautiful and I'm feeling pretty good. Why am I so slow and what gave me that little burst of energy last week? I may be wrong, but I think my seasonal allergies are causing all this. When you are constantly sneezing and blowing your nose, it can be tiring. I guess I could take antihistamines, but I usually have a bad reaction to them. Who knows. Maybe if a storm rolls in this weekend, it will blow all the allergies away.

The dietary changes I made after my hospitalization appear to be permanent. I wasn't really expecting this and certainly haven't made much of an effort to change my lifestyle. Nevertheless, I'm drinking less coffee, have no desire to make my smoothies anymore, and am eating less for dinner. I'm having a small green salad with dinner now, but I started doing this before I went to the hospital. The salad was just an effort to eat more like Janet because she seems really healthy. It will be interesting to see if I actually am any healthier when I go in for my annual physical at the end of the month. Maybe I am, but this all might just be in my mind.

Dawn certainly seems healthier now. Getting rid of her bladder stones seems to have made a world of difference. She's on a special diet that is supposed to prevent new stones from forming. Janet and I have never liked those Hills Prescription Diets though. Finding the right food for your dog is a long, slow process. Everybody has strong opinions and if you ask ten people you'll get ten different answers. Too bad you can't ask the dog. I'm sure that Dawn has an opinion on this. She actually seems to love the food we're feeding her now, so maybe we'll stick with this for a while.

Time to make a grocery list again. I'm going to try to go early again tomorrow. It worked last week. If you can get your shopping done before 10 AM the stores are almost empty.

Madison is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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