Day 4577

Another really hot day. Our air conditioner is running constantly and is having trouble keeping up with the heat. The temperature is already in the mid 80's when we take Dawn on her sunrise walk now. This is OK, but by mid-morning it is already too hot to do much outside. Sadly, there is no relief in sight. The forecast shows that the next nine days will be pretty much the same. It's a triple digit month.

I must have gotten stung by one of those hornets when I was cleaning the windows the other day. I didn't notice anything at the time, but now I've got a big welt on my leg. It looks and feels just like a bee sting, so I'm pretty sure that's what it is. I'm not allergic to bee stings, but this is irritating. The swelling is much worse than your usual mosquito or chigger bites.

I didn't even think about taking a walk in the park today. After I checked my messages and did the breakfast dishes I headed straight for the gym. The place wasn't very crowded today. Probably because I was earlier. Since this gym is run by a major hospital, there are always a lot of physical therapy patients. I always feel like I'm falling apart until I see what these people have to go through. Considering my age, I'm pretty lucky to still be relatively healthy. I'm glad they keep my gym super cold. It may be boring walking around the small indoor track, but it certainly beats getting sunburned while being drenched in sweat. I shot baskets for a while, walked several miles on the indoor track, and used several machines that will help my upper body strength. I have a feeling that I may be back tomorrow. I just can't handle a walk in the park in this heat.

I'm finding ants all over the place in the house now. Most of them appear near doors and windows and almost all are dead. I have no idea where they came from. Maybe they were part of the ant invasion that appeared on our front porch last month. After I vacuum the dead ants up, they don't tend to reappear. Maybe this was a one time event. I certainly hope so. One of the downsides of living near the park is that there are critters everywhere. We have to watch out for possums and raccoons when we let Dawn out at night and squirrels are everywhere. Luckily, we seldom see snakes. Our main battles are with the spiders who relentlessly built huge webs near our windows. Most of the spiders are harmless and help control other insects, but the webs are a huge nuisance. 

I'm still having trouble staying occupied during the day. Now that I'm no longer working and have stopped collecting things, the only things that seem to interest me are rocket launches and observing the night sky at McDonald Observatory. Where did all the other interests go? I used to write songs and play in a rock band. I spent several years as a fashion photographer. At one point I considered myself an art collector and never missed a gallery opening. None of these things interest me anymore. I guess it's OK for interests to ebb and flow, but it does seem a bit strange. Most people seem to keep their interests and obsessions for much longer.

Dawn won another ribbon at training class tonight. I was surprised that they even had the class since it was so hot, but Janet said there was a nice breeze and the dogs were all OK. Dawn really likes going to this class now. Like the Sunday outing and her early morning walks, it has become part of her routine. My own routine is almost as simple as Dawn's, but I don't win many ribbons.

Cisco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4305

Dawn surprised us this morning. She walked twice as far as she usually does on her sunrise walk and had lots of energy the entire way. Of course she slept for the rest of the day, but you never know with this dog. Maybe she knows like I do that this beautiful Fall weather isn't going to last forever. We might as well take advantage of it while we can.

I don't spent nearly as much time at breakfast now since I'm just having a bowl of shredded wheat instead of making my elaborate and very large smoothie. You'd think I'd find something productive to do with this extra time, but I still seem to do exactly the same things in the same order.

Maybe Dawn's energetic early walk wore me out. I felt good this morning, but my pace on my long walk was a lot slower than usual. After a while, my foot started to hurt again too. By the time I returned home I was beat. It seemed weird that Dawn had more energy today and I had less. I certainly had plenty of time to recover. There was nothing at all on the agenda.

I got a second bill from the plumber this morning. I already paid the bill, but this makes me wonder whether they ever received it. The business reply envelope they sent with the bill was much smaller than usual and I remember thinking "this is going to get lost in the mail." I have no faith in the post office anymore. Of course, I don't have much faith in anything else either, but just adds one more thing to my list of things to sort out later.

The hospital is already sending me instructions for my upcoming endoscopy/colonoscopy. It's a little early guys. Why don't you wait until a few day ahead of time so I won't forget. My brain is like a sieve now. If you tell me something I need to know a month from now I will have totally forgotten about it when the time comes. 

The new editor at SpaceFlight sent me a style guide for writing for the magazine. It was just your ordinary run-of-the-mill style guide, but I felt a bit disappointed receiving it. The old editor would never have done something like this. He never tried to box me in with a pedantic set of rules. If anything, I always felt like he was encouraging me to be expansive and break the rules if possible. Maybe I'll still have a good relationship with the magazine, but this style guide wasn't a good omen. Why take the fun out of things. Maybe the editor doesn't realize that "Badges? We don't need no stinkin' badges!" is still my favorite line of dialogue from any movie ever made.

I wonder how long Fall allergy season will last this year? My allergies were terrible today. It seemed like I was blowing my nose all day. The ants are back too. The weird thing is that most of them appear to be dying. There were a ton of dead ants in the atrium this morning and we keep seeing them from time to time in both our bathrooms. I wonder where these guys are coming from? At least they aren't termites. 

Cupcake is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4084

My allergies are driving me crazy this year. Every Spring my seasonal allergies seem to get worse and there doesn't seem to be much I can do. Antihistamines seem to be what most people recommend for allergies and they do nothing to stop my continual runny nose and itching eyes. Even so called modern antihistamines like Allegra don't deliver any relief. I'm sick of this. My nose is red and raw and I rub my eyes so often that Dr. Fauci would be appalled. This eventually goes away, but if experience is any guide, I  think I've got another month of misery.

I've been getting unexplained bug bites and I think I now know the cause. Ants. Little sweet ants invade the house every Spring and I think they're getting into my clothes. I was watching TV this afternoon and I watches an ant crawl out of my pants pocket and continue walking down my pants leg. The ants are just as hard to get rid of as the seasonal allergies. You can spray, but they always seem to find a new way to get inside. The ants disappear after a while too, but right now they're everywhere.

The temperature continues to fluctuate wildly. Yesterday it got up to 80 degrees, but today was much cooler. Yesterday I wore shorts and a t-shirt. Today, I had to wear a jacket again. I was actually glad to see the cooler weather. 80 degrees in February is a bit much. It's hard to believe that the temperature two weeks ago was near zero. To say the weather has been strange this year would be an understatement.

The rain was always nearby today, but we never got wet. Actually I hear thunder right now, but I think the rain is to the north of us. Janet and I must have been confident that it was going to stay dry for a while because we both washed our cars today.

I managed to get a lot of walking in today. I was lucky that my foot didn't hurt much. It's rare that I can have a 20,000 step day without a lot of foot pain. I wish I could pin down the cause for all these things that are bothering me. I've done everything my doctors have recommended for allergies and foot pain and nothing fundamentally seems to change. Things just seem to ebb and flow. I haven't even asked my doctor about the ants. He would just laugh.

When I wasn't walking today, I watched several videos about my new camera. There are some advanced features I'd like to use, but they aren't intuitive at all. It's much easier to watch someone explain them in a video than to read the instruction manual. YouTube videos have changed the whole world of do-it-yourself. I've learned how to repair appliances and upgrade computers watching YouTube videos. It looks like this will be how I master this complicated new camera as well.

We visit the rescue Dalmatians again tomorrow. It seems like a long drive to see two dogs, but Charlie and Cooper enjoy the visit and so do we. I really need to start working on my taxes tomorrow.  That's not something I enjoy, but I'm running out of time. I think there are all kinds of extensions available this year because of Covid, but I'm still going to file at the regular time. Why change now? I always file on April 15. What I'm really wondering is whether I'll be attending the Boeing Starliner launch on April 2.

Connor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2789

I hope my shower repairs are successful. I spent a lot of time today cleaning and preparing the ceramic tile for the silicon caulk that will hopefully make the shower stall waterproof again. If I had three weeks to let everything dry properly, I would have used a Dremel Tool to remove all the old grout and then re-grouted the entire shower. Traditional grout takes so long to dry though. If you use the shower too soon, the grout just washes away. The silicon dries quickly, but unless the tile is absolutely clean, it doesn't stick to the surface very well. If the contractors had done a good job when we remodeled the bathrooms fifteen years ago, I wouldn't be having this problem. Contractors could care less what happens fifteen years later. They're long gone by then. I really need to have a new contractor re-do the entire bathroom, but I'm afraid that I'd find someone even worse than I did the last time. Sanded silicon caulk will have to do.

We really got a lot of rain last night. We did lose power for a few minutes, but luckily it came back on again quickly. Even momentary power outages are a nuisance. All the clocks need to be reset and for some reason the washer and dryer always turn themselves on automatically when the power returns. I have to remember to turn the air conditioner and any other power hungry appliances off if I am anticipating a power outage, so a surge won't knock the power out again when service is restored. In theory, my neighbors should be doing the same thing, but I doubt that they are.

Last any rate, the storm came and went without causing any damage. Dash got scared and spent about three hours cowering under my desk, but eventually he came back to bed. At least he didn't throw up. We've started giving him his evening meds a couple of hours earlier, just in case he has another episode. So far, so good. We've also started keeping a record of whenever he vomits or won't eat to see if we can detect any sort of pattern to this seemingly random behavior. I hope we can figure this out.

I was using the leaf blower this afternoon to clean up the back porch after the storm and all of the sudden I noticed that there were hundreds of small ants crawling all over me. The ants were coming out of the leaf blower. This was certainly a surprise. I was able to brush most of the ants away before they were able to bite me, but I did about a dozen ant bites. I was glad these weren't fire ants. The bites would have been much worse if they were. What makes thousands of ants take up residence inside a leaf blower? Who knows. The insects are definitely winning this summer. I'll probably have to take the leaf blower apart to completely get rid of the ant colony, but they aren't as much of a problem as the spiders. It wasn't that long ago that I removed all the spiders from around the house with the pressure washer. Now, they're back again. Nature is relentless. Ants of all sizes are everywhere. Spiders love to spin their webs on our windows. Roaches seem to use our underground HVAC ductwork as their own private subway system. I still don't like to use insecticides because of the dogs, so eliminating these pests is fairly hopeless.

I missed the Perseid meteor shower this year and will miss the upcoming solar eclipse as well. Janet has the final part of her reconstruction surgery that day and I didn't really have the money to travel anyway. With all I've been reading about the eclipse, I'm almost glad I'm not making plans to travel to the totality zone. A lot of hotels have been acused of  price gouging by raising room rates by several hundred percent on eclipse day. People are selling fake eclipse glasses online that don't provide any eye protection at all. Monumental traffic jams are still predicted in many parts of the country. And then there always a chance it will rain.

I can live without seeing the eclipse. I just want a shower that doesn't leak.

Emma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1606

This is the time of year when thousands of tiny sweet ants join forces for an all-out assault on the house. All it takes is a tiny crack for them to get in and once they're in, they're everywhere. I started noticing these ants yesterday, and today there seemed to be twice as many. Sweet ants are hard to get rid of unless you can find where they're coming from. My guess is that they're getting through small cracks in the window sills, because that was where they were swarming today. I went outside with a bottle of ant and roach spray and tried to seal off any potential entrance. We'll see how that works. Usually, nothing works. Luckily, these little critters are just passing through. They come every year about this time, and by the time I've come up with a workable plan to get rid of them, they're gone.

I got an e-mail today saying that the yearly rent for my storage warehouse is due again. I can't even remember how long I've had this storage space. Suffice to say, it's been a very long time. It has occurred to me occasionally that what I've paid in rent over the years is probably quite a bit more than the actual value of the contents. The longer I keep this stuff, the more I tend to forget why I stored it away in the first place. At some point, I'll come to my senses and either start selling things, or just toss it all in the nearest dumpster. It's doubtful that I'll reach a tipping point this year. I'm sure I'll just renew the warehouse for another year, take a quick look inside, and continue to wonder what is in some of the unmarked boxes.

My mechanic called today and told me that he had a buyer for the non-running car he never found time to repair. Since he and I are about the same age, I don't think he'll ever find time to repair the car. If I had unlimited resources and a younger mechanic, it would be fun to fully restore the old car and drive it around occasionally. That's not going to happen though. I reluctantly agreed that, even though the offer I received was not great, it was probably time to sell. It took me a long time to remember where the title to the car was. I transferred the title when I moved to Texas in 1977. Eventually, I found the document, but it wasn't where I thought it was.

I though I was going to have an easy day, but somehow it didn't turn out that way. The ants took a long time to kill. The title took a long time to find. And unfortunately, I tried to balance my checkbook. Since I do all my accounting using Quickbooks Pro, I start to think that these are the real numbers, forgetting that I occasionally type things in wrong. Every six months or so, I try to reconcile the Quickbooks entries with my bank statement and usually fail. After three tries today, I was still off by $2.88.  I finally just made a journal entry for $2.88, under the heading of Miscellaneous Stuff.

I still haven't gotten the water from Thursday's torrential rains off the roof. Since it was hot today and will be even hotter tomorrow, I'm hoping that it will just evaporate.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 897

The day started badly, but it ended well. The dogs and I had to endure wave after wave of thunderstorms before the sun finally emerged late in the afternoon. Rainy days are not fun with Dot. She has one of the worst storm phobias I've ever seen in a dog. She shivers and shakes and looks genuinely pitiful during even the slightest rain. During a real thunderstorm, her reactions can be scary. I didn't used to worry about Dot's antics, but now that she's had a seizure, I'm afraid that the panic attacks might trigger another seizure.

We did OK today though. We even managed to squeeze a short walk in between downpours. The real-time weather radar app on my iPhone is incredibly useful on days like this. Even on soggy days like today, I'm usually able to find little gaps when I can take the dogs out to do their business.

I still had to sweep the water off the roof today, but at least I didn't have to deal with the ants. All the ants had been swept away. Ants are incredibly resilient though. Wherever the rain swept the little critters, they're probably still alive, planning another assault on the house.

I'll sure be glad when the sale of my rent property is finalized. After all the activity a few weeks ago, it's kind of weird that nothing is happening now. There really isn't much left to do before we all show up at the closing to sign the documents. I'm sure that everything is proceeding smoothly, but I've heard so may horror stories about deals falling apart at the last second that I'm not going to count my chickens before they hatch.

The dogs did really well at training class tonight. I was proud of both of them. We did jumps tonight and both Dot and Dash love to jump. I'm probably a bit prejudiced, but there are few things prettier than a happy Dalmatian sailing over a hurdle.

Ollie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 896

It's election day in Texas. Maybe the incessant robo-calls will finally stop. Wait a minute, what was I thinking? Today's election was only a primary. The winners will be emboldened to make even more outrageous robo-calls and commercials in the days ahead. The commercials this year are particularly annoying. Every time you turn on the TV, you are greeted with the spectacle of one candidate accusing all the other candidates of being a liar. Jeez, they couldn't all be liars, could they? Sadly, they probably could.

When I woke up this morning, I thought one of the dogs had thrown up, because there was a suspicious looking puddle in the hallway. On closer inspection, the puddle wasn't dog vomit after all. It was something much worse. Paint, or glue, or a combination of the two was leaking out of a nearby cabinet where I kept supplies for household projects I hadn't gotten around to yet. When I opened up the cabinet, it became clear that a can of paint was leaking. I just wasn't sure which one, since several cans were suspiciously rusty and sitting in a big puddle of paint. I ended up throwing away all the old paint. I didn't stop there either. Since I had to take the old paint cans to the hazardous chemical disposal facility anyway, I figured that it would be a good idea to get rid of all the ancient cans of glop that I had around the house. I filled the car with old gasoline containers filled with gas that was so old I would never put it in a lawn mower. I found quite a few equally old cans of brake fluid, motor oil, antifreeze, and windshield washer fluid. It was good to get rid of this stuff, but it left me wondering why I had bought it in the first place.

It rained a lot last night, so I crawled up on the roof after breakfast to get the water off. I was greeted with thousands of ants crawling all over my sump pump. Fire ants, chiggers, and mosquitoes have been particularly bad this Spring. I feel like I am being eaten alive. I got rid of the ants by dipping the pump in the deepest puddle of water I could find. Then it occurred to me that the ants might actually be useful. Ants are tiny. Probably wherever they congregate on the roof is both their entryway to the inside of the house and the source of the water leaks.

I'm glad it's a short week. A four day work week is just fine with me.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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