Day 4143

Upgrading my computers is always a traumatic experience. I carefully followed all the instructions for installing new memory in my laptop and was convinced that I'd done everything correctly. When I put the computer back together and pressed the power button nothing happened. The computer was completely dead. I took the computer apart again and reinstalled the old memory. It was still dead. After several false starts I finally got it to start using AC power. My control panel said the battery was completely empty. How did that happen? The battery was at 90% when I started the repairs. I called technical support and they told me to try resetting the system management controller. I've reset a lot of things on Apple computers over the years, but I'd never even heard of this. The service guy said that my problem didn't make any sense, but that sometimes things get scrambled when the battery is disconnected. Evidently. The battery is recharging now and we'll see if it holds a charge overnight.

I got some good news from McDonald Observatory today. I can stay at the Astronomer's Lodge while I'm attending the astrophotography workshop. This might not seem like a big deal, but it actually is. I hate driving late at night on mountain roads. I almost hit a deer the last time I was driving back to the Prude Ranch after the workshop was over for the night. If I'm staying on-site at the observatory I can relax and probably stay up a little later taking photographs. Meals are included at the Astronomer's Lodge too. I'm looking forward to this.

We were supposed to get severe weather today, but it never materialized. So far this year we have been very lucky. The bad storms always seem to go to the north or the south of us. I hope this trend continues. I always worry about tornados since our house offers no protection whatsoever. May is supposed to be the worst month for tornados in Texas but the weather hasn't been that bad this year. Alabama and Tennessee seem to be getting a lot worse weather than we have lately. 

It was overcast with a little drizzle today, but I was still able to take my long walk. There are two very large Muscovy ducks I frequently see on my walk. These ducks always hang out together, but today they were more than a mile apart. This was the first time I've ever seen the pair separated. I wonder if they had a spat? Ducks are noisy and apparently very social. I often wonder what all the quacking is about?

It looks like there will be another Starship launch at Boca Chica this week. I keep thinking that I ought to go down there, but it is not as easy as it sounds. South Texas is almost as far away as Florida and there are fewer hotels. Also, when you get down there you never know if there actually will be a launch. This doesn't seem to bother some of the launch photographers, but they are much more adventurous than I am. I still like Florida when NASA rolls out the welcome mat the best. I hope those days aren't gone forever, but we'll just have to wait and see. 

I certainly won't be doing anything exciting tomorrow. I'll look forward to another fruit smoothie and a long walk. Maybe if I'm lucky I can convince Dawn to be friends with me.

Lucky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 4127

It's Monday again. We got another Kong football for Charlie and Cooper to replace the one that got destroyed. Both dogs love to fetch and catch things and have boundless energy. They were delighted with their new toy. Charlie and Cooper are smart, very athletic, and I keep thinking that they would respond well to agility training. I keep hoping that one of these days when we visit the kennel, we'll discover that at least one of them has found their forever home.

I was expecting rain today. We were under a severe weather forecast for a while but nothing materialized. I'm glad when that happens. At this time of year storms can pop up out of nowhere. Sometimes they disappear quickly as well. By the time I took my long walk, I wasn't worried about rain at all. I was more worried about getting a sunburn. Today was very hot for early April.

I decided to upgrade my laptop and install an operating system that will run the astrophotography processing software I need. Step one is to replace the current 4 GB of memory with 16 GB of memory. This is an easy upgrade and I wish I'd done it earlier. Every time I remove the tiny screws that secure the back of the computer in place, I'm afraid I'm going to strip the threads. Apple won't sell you replacement screws. If I am successful at adding the additional memory, I'll create two partitions on the hard drive with a separate system on each. In theory these dual boot systems are easy to create and quite safe to use. I still worry that I'll, screw something up though. I've certainly done that before.

After I ordered two 8 GB memory sticks, I found a replacement for the video component that I accidentally threw away a few months ago and ordered that as well. I may never use this gear, but I hate not having it. I also feel stupid for throwing something away in what I thought was an empty box. The New York audio shop where I found the part told me that had only one left. Everybody tells you that they only have one left these days. The star tracker people told me that they only had one unit left as well. I guess these guys know what they are doing. This psychology certainly works with me. I'm usually the first to buy the last available widget.

I seem to feel perpetually tired these days. Sometimes I wonder if I might have had Covid and never even realized it. Since literally everything under the sun is a potential side effect from Covid, it's pretty easy to attribute anything abnormal to the disease. Probably, I'm just getting old. Trust me, 70 is a lot different than 40. My joints are toast, but I'm going to continue walking and probably even return to the gym. I'm convinced that you start to go downhill the minute you stop being active.

I have a feeling that I may be able to postpone any further furnace repairs until next Fall. This morning when I woke up I heard the air conditioner instead of the furnace. The temperature was in the high eighties today. Our gas bill will go down for a while, but our electric bill will go through the ceiling this Summer. We have a very small house and I can only imagine what all the people in the huge houses that are popping up all over the neighborhood pay for electricity.

Dawn doesn't like me to be in the kitchen with her so I've started going back to the office after I fix her meals. This seems to work and it is much easier than trying to figure out what is going through her head. Dawn is my buddy when we are hanging out on the bed together. She's scared of me in the kitchen though and won't come in the office at all. Go figure. All is fine when we're outdoors. Dawn loves being outdoors when the weather is nice. Dogs are just as complicated as people. Luckily they are nicer than most people.

Nellie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 4126

We took Dawn in the car to another park today. She seems to like these outings. Dawn is still nervous about riding in the car, but now that she knows where we are going, there is visible excitement as well. It was a perfect day for a walk. The temperature was in the low 70's with a clear blue sky and little to no allergies. For some reason Dawn walks faster and eats less grass when we walk her at the alternate park. At any rate, everyone had a good time and we celebrated by having an ice cream cone on the way home. We're not expert dog trainers, but this is our way of introducing Dawn to new experiences. It seems to be working.

I should have mowed the grass today, but maybe it can wait one more week. I still feel compelled to take my daily long walk and this typically doesn't leave me with enough energy to do yard work as well. I'm probably just making excuses. I'll do almost anything to avoid yard work. Usually in the Spring I'm up on the roof every other day, but this year it's been over a month since I've climbed up to inspect things. At some point I'll need to remove the remaining leaves and make sure there will be no leaks over the Summer, but I'm basically done with the roof for a while. My knees are bad, my shoulder is unstable, and I'm getting too old for this kind of foolishness.

The irises in the park are finally blooming. Most of the flowers are late this year, but the big freeze didn't seem to hurt anything. Actually it seems like it is going to be a very good year for wildflowers. The only things the big freeze decimated appear to be Azaleas, Rhododendrons and our Asian Jasmine ground cover. I'm still hoping that the ground cover returns to life, but things don't look good at the moment.

I had a good long walk this afternoon. Counting our earlier short walk with Dawn, I managed to complete over six miles today. I didn't set any records, but my feet didn't give me a lot of problems either. I've found that the best way to alleviate foot pain is to avoid uneven surfaces and never walk on my toes or the balls of my feet. This slow, flat footed walking style probably makes me appear even older than I am, but on a good day it appears to work.

After my walk I resumed my quest to transform my laptop into an astrophotography processing machine. Every time I come up with a plan, there is a snag that renders the plan worthless. Hardware limitations on the 2011 machine make it impossible to run the latest operating systems. I am currently running a 32 bit operating system and almost all modern software is 64 bit. I may be able to run some 64 bit software by installing the last operating system supported by my laptop. Unfortunately, if I attempt the upgrade I may lose all my currently installed software. It's a problem. My latest plan is to add a new partition on my hard drive and create a dual boot system. On one partition I'll keep all my faithful old software and on the new partition I'll install a newer operating system that hopefully will run some of the astrophotography software I need. My laptop doesn't have enough memory to run the newer operating system, but that can be fixed. I really should have replaced the memory when I upgraded the hard drive and installed a new battery several months ago. Oh, well. I probably thought that attempting to upgrade too many things at once was pushing my luck.

Have I turned into a hopeless geek who has lost all contact with thee rest of the world? Maybe. These things need to be done however and I don't think anyone else is going to help me. Eventually I'll get my computer problems solved and move on to other things like fixing the sliding glass door.

Tyson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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