Day 3767

I woke up early this morning. The last thing I needed was an extra two hours in an already eventless day. I remembered that Jupiter, Saturn and Mars were all located very close to the moon this morning. and went outside to take a look. Sadly, it was cloudy and I saw nothing. I did notice a surprising amount of early morning traffic though. I think the natives are getting restless.

I was even more surprised to learn today that NASA has set a launch date of May 27 for the Crew Dragon mission. I was almost certain that this would get postponed because of the virus. I wonder if my press credentials will get approved. I've already passed the security verification stage of the approval process, but that's only half the battle. I bet that NASA is still trying to decide how many members of the press corps to invite since everything is still so restricted at Kennedy Space Center. Hopefully, I'll hear something soon. I'm definitely going to go to the launch if I get media accreditation.

I bit the bullet and ordered everything I need to upgrade my computer with a super fast two terabyte solid state drive. I've watched the installation video three times now and think I can do this upgrade myself. I'm a bit clumsy, but I'm also slow and methodical and follow directions well. At any rate, doing this myself seems a lot easier than dealing with a computer repair shop during the lockdown. I've called several repair shops and I got the impression that my computer might sit there for weeks. Things aren't running very smoothly in the retail world right now.

We have a new rule in Dallas that everyone must wear a mask when they are out in public. It was cold today, so when I went to the post office with a stack of bills and letters, I wore a black wool skull cap and leather gloves with my new black mask. I looked exactly like a bank robber. I think the city finally realized that if they were demanding us to wear masks when none were available, they would have to open the fabric stores they closed last week. I heard on the news this afternoon that fabric stores are back open again. Janet has some nice Dalmatian print fabric she was going to use to make dog scarves. All we need is some Pellon from the fabric store for the middle layer of the mask and we'll be sporting some spiffy Dalmatian themed masks next week.

I think seniors aren't getting their stimulus money until May. I guess that makes sense. There are a lot of people who need the money a lot faster than we do. I still really feel sorry for the restaurant owners. The really got screwed. All the yard maintenance crews, tree trimmers, and roofers in our part of town seem busier than ever. Restaurant are dead in the water though. They all have signs saying they still do take-out, but they aren't very busy. A lot of local restaurants aren't going to survive. I wonder who decides what is essential and what isn't. I'm still amazed at how many new television commercials I'm seeing. Advertising agencies must be adding a third shift.

I'm glad that Dawn enjoys our long walks. Walking is the high point in our day. There certainly isn't much else to do. Walking is healthy and is usually a solitary experience. I can't believe a number of states have banned taking walks outside. Some states won't even let you walk your dog. As far as I'm concerned this is a good time to be a Texan. We're doing a good job of containing the virus without going batshit crazy. I never realized all those years ago what a smart move it was to leave Seattle.

Bella is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3752

The park is open again. There was no explanation why it closed yesterday and no explanation why it reopened again this morning. I did notice a few overnight changes in the neighborhood. There were a ton of newly printed no parking signs warning people not to park on city streets or on the grass surrounding the park. This seems like a reasonable solution for reducing park traffic to me. I would have loved to have been a fly on the wall when city leaders were discussing the park last night. I wonder what caused them to abruptly reverse their position?

Banning vehicular traffic seems to be working. Just like Monday and Tuesday, there were very few people in the park this morning. I think today's solution is much better than yesterday's. The people walking their dogs in the neighborhood are happy. The joggers and cyclists are happy. The neighbors who were mad at people parking on their front lawns are probably happy too. I'm sure there are people in other parts of town who aren't happy, but they have their own parks to walk their dogs in. There are hundreds of parks in Dallas.

Maybe now that the city has solved the park problem, they can turn their attention to the fabric store problem. Every time I turn on the television I hear people encouraging us to make our own masks. There are lots of YouTube videos now with detailed instructions on how to make a good, reliable mask. There's only one problem. Our proactive county judge shut down all the fabric stores. Why are fabric stores considered a nonessential business when people are practically begging us to start making our own masks? It doesn't make sense.

I'm glad they haven't shut down the appliance repair shops yet. Our washing machine is working again. I managed to find an excellent repair shop after doing an extensive Google search. The repairman was very knowledgable and had exactly the part I needed. He was very polite, wore gloves, had a mask his wife made, and we both kept our distance. I felt like this was the way things were supposed to work.

I'm tempted to try fixing my computer myself. There are some excellent tutorials on how to replace my hard drive online and I think I could take the 27" iMac apart and successfully put it back together if I worked slowly and carefully. I've certainly got the time. There isn't much else to do these days. I'm actually getting used to working using the external hard drive. Once I master all the new little quirks, I may actually prefer working this way,

Last night was weird. There were two huge possums in the yard when we took Dawn out to pee before we went to bed. Dawn started to chase the possums and then she and the possums both became scared at the same time. The possums both climbed on tree limbs and froze in place. Possums have a habit of faking their own death in order to fend off predators. That's where the phrase playing possum comes from. I couldn't even scare the possums away. They refused to move. When we came back in the house there was a terrible smell. I thought something was on fire and Janet and I nervously searched the entire house looking for something that might be burning. It turned out that a big moth had flown into one of the halogen lamps in the living room and gotten fried.

Nothing weird happened today. All in all, today was a much better day than yesterday.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day