Day 4392

It was 18 degrees when we woke up this morning. There was a strong wind as well. Needless to say, we didn't take a sunrise walk. We ate breakfast and waited for it to warm up a little. I was just glad the house was warm. Right after I posted my worries about the furnace going out yesterday evening, the furnace actually did go out. The temperature was dropping rapidly, so it was important to get it fixed before I went to bed. I suspected a dirty flame sensor, since that's usually the problem when the pilot light won't ignite the burners. Luckily, fixing a dirty flame sensor is fairly easy. You unplug the furnace, unscrew a few metal panels, and then sand the flame sensor with fine grit sandpaper. I used to take the flame sensor out of the furnace to do this, but I've learned that I can contort my hand and reach through a little hole to sand the sensor in place. I can't see what I'm doing, but I've learned to do the cleaning operation by feel. It took about an hour to get the furnace running again, but it sure beats freezing.

It warmed up a little, but it was still below freezing when we took Dawn on her Sunday outing. She wore her sweater this morning, but I think she was still a little cold. I was pretty warm because I was wearing two down jackets and long underwear. The double layer of jackets works great and keeps me much warmer than the heavy winter parka I used to wear on colds day like this. We still got ice cream after our walk today, but we were sitting in a warm car. Dawn would have been really disappointed if we didn't get ice cream.

I made some progress with the star tracker today, but I'm still unable to connect a camera to it. The cables that came with the tracker don't fit any of my current cameras. I did find an older camera that could use one of the supplied connection cables, but it saved pictures in the wrong format. At least the star tracker itself seems to work. I updated the firmware and formatted the internal SD card. I can control the tracker from my phone now. I just can't take pictures yet. I suspect that I will have to go to the Apple Store and buy a few more cable adapters.

I don't know why I bothered to take a long walk today. It was really cold. I should have learned my lesson after our short walk with Dawn, but I was determined to get my steps in. The wind was strong and my feet hurt, but I did complete my route. I still don't understand how northerners put up with the cold. There were joggers passing me today wearing only light jackets. I looked like I was headed for the South Pole.

I hope I can get the star tracker to work with one of my cameras. As usual, I don't have one of the popular cameras this system was apparently designed for. I tend to obsess over things and this whole process of figuring things out with very little documentation will probably just lead to frustration. I'm sure I'll end up buying a bunch of cables that don't work and just end up wasting money. The weird thing is that even if I can get the tracker to work, it will probably just sit in a box for months. Dallas just isn't a good place for astrophotography.

I don't have much of a plan for tomorrow. Hopefully it will be a little warmer. It's hard for me to get motivated on warm days. On cold days it's almost impossible. If I can get at least one camera to recognize the star tracker tomorrow, the day will be a win.

Dash is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2187

I spent the day trying to solve a series of vexing technical problems. I still can't figure out why the camera I normally use to take Santa pictures fails to trigger the strobe lights when I press the shutter button. It didn't used to do this. I think it an auto-focus problem with the lens. I could be wrong. Whenever I hear a beep confirming focus, everything is fine. When the lens starts hunting and fails to focus, the shutter won't fire. I tried a variety of different lenses and metering styles trying to isolate the problem, but I didn't have much luck. Nothing I did made the problem go away. Oh, well. I guess I'll have to use the back up camera again tomorrow.

I want to upgrade the system of my desktop computer so I can run the current version of Pro Tools.  The problem is that a lot of software I use everyday still needs my much older operating system. I'm not touching any of the Apple operating systems after they stopped naming them after cats. If I installed El Capitan or Yosemite, nothing would run. My software is all too old. There's got to be a system that's new enough to run Pro Tools 12 and old enough not to crash everything else. Maybe Mountain Lion is what I need. This OS may already be obsolete to most people, but it's still new to me. When I tested Mountain Lion on my laptop, everything seemed to work. When I tried running my desktop computer with an external boot drive with Mountain Lion installed, there were all sorts of problems. Sure, I guess I could upgrade all my software, but the newer versions of Adobe products are all subscription based now. I prefer to own software instead of rent it. At any rate, I still don't know if Mountain Lion will run the software I need and I don't have the nerve to install it just to find out.

Janet thinks the dehumidifier still isn't getting her closet dry enough, so I decided to move it to the bedroom today and see if that made any difference. The only difference I noticed was that the bedroom quickly became warmer than the rest of the house. There wasn't enough air flow through the room and the warm exhaust air from the dehumidifier gradually made the bedroom five degrees hotter than the rest of the house. Basically, my experiment with moving the dehumidifier failed. My search for the perfect operating system for my aging desktop computer failed. And my attempt to discover what was wrong with my camera failed. I'm three for three today.

At least breakfast was good. Actually, dinner was pretty good as well. I've started using our little George Foreman Grill to cook burgers and pork chops. It's quick, it tastes almost as good as cooking on the grill outside, and there's virtually no mess.  In six minutes I had a tasty, perfectly seared burger without any pots and pans to clean. That's my kind of cooking.

All the photo equipment is packed and ready to load in the car tomorrow morning. If I can make it through the next two days, I will have survived another year of Santa pictures. Maybe when things settle down, I'll finally get around to putting up a Christmas tree. It's hard to say this year. I'm so tired that I could easily imagine waking up Christmas morning and not even remember what day it was.

Emmitt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2182

For the first time in a very long time, Blogger appears to be down. When I logged on to write my post tonight, I couldn't view my blog at all and kept getting a message saying "Whoops, that's an error. We apologize for the inconvenience." Somehow this seemed like a lot more than a minor inconvenience when I was faced with the prospect of missing my first daily post since I started the blog 2182 days ago. I did a quick Google search and discovered that other people all around the world were having the same problem. Somehow this was comforting. My blog didn't just disappear. Google is working on the problem and if I write slowly, there's always a chance that they will get everything fixed before I finish telling you about today's activities.

There were certainly plenty going on today. We completed our second Santa Paws photo shoot and for the most part, everything went well. Everyone was tired. Some volunteers wore the same clothes that they did yesterday. I didn't even have time to take a shower. It was a long drive to today's location, so I had to get up even earlier than I did yesterday. We got Dot and Dash walked and fed, packed the cars with equipment, and off we went. I wish I had time to diagnose what was wrong with my camera yesterday, but that will have to wait. I just took a different camera with me today and all was well. Camera problems are mine and mine alone. The rest of the crew has their own problems to deal with. Sometimes the printer refuses to cooperate. Other times our credit card reader won't work. Frequently, people are late for their appointments and we get off schedule. We're a good team though. At the end of the day, everyone has their pictures and goes home happy.

Our luck ran out with the backdrop today. Several dogs peed on it and one dog pooped. I need to remember to pack a bottle of Nature's Miracle enzyme cleaner with the rest of my gear. It's the only thing that works with these types of stains. Our host had some disinfectant cleaners, but the backdrop still smelled like pee when I got home. I hung it outside to dry and will see if I can salvage it after I deal with the U-Verse people tomorrow.

I'm being optimistic and assuming that the U-Verse repair folks will actually show up tomorrow. Sometimes they don't. This has been the longest service outage I've had in a long time and it's starting to get on my nerves. As a web developer, I really depend on having a good internet connection. The Internet should be as reliable at your water and electricity. Oops. Now that I think about it, the Internet is actually more reliable than our electricity and water. After living without water for a week in a home that has power outages after every thunderstorm, I realize now that nothing is all that reliable anymore.

I hope the U-Verse technician can quickly and quietly fix our broadband without upsetting Dot and causing her to poop all over the house. I hope I can salvage the pee stained muslin photo backdrop so I don't have to buy another. I hope I can convince the client who was ready to dump me on Friday that I can provide the same quality of service at the new ad agency he's considering. I hope I can keep a smile on my face for the rest of the Christmas party season. Nobody needs to know how I really feel.

After spending most of this weekend eating fast food, I realize why so many people are overweight and have diabetes. Junk food tastes so good that it's hard to resist. Too much sugar and salt is always pretty tasty. It's too bad I couldn't lose weight on a steady diet of pizza and burgers. I always enjoy the pizzas I eat while I'm working on location, but it's back to healthy food tomorrow. I have tremendous will power, but I often wonder what's the point of it all. The people eating junk food seem to be having more fun.

Emma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day