Day 4151

I got a haircut today, so that means I'm one step closer to being ready to travel. I always get a haircut before I take a trip. I guess it's kind of like putting clean clothes in your suitcase. It's not totally necessary, but it's nice to get started out on the right foot. I definately look more presentable now. I don't get haircuts as frequently as I did before the pandemic, but I'm certainly not going back to the way I looked in college. Back then I thought long hair made me look like a rock star. Now I think it makes me look like a homeless person. I asked my stylist when she was going to feel comfortable cutting hair without a mask. She said maybe never. This didn't seem strange to me at all. A lot has changed during the past year.

I got another rejection letter from NASA today. This notice was a bit different. It said that my credentials had been verified but my request to cover the launch was declined because the launch had been canceled. I will be given another chance to reapply when the launch is rescheduled. Is this good news or bad news? I have no idea. Since the launch was supposed to take place last March, it seems like they could have just waited a little longer instead of starting over from scratch. I'm kind of hoping that there are no important launches until all the post-pandemic travelers get their first vacation out of their systems. Planes are full and prices are insane right now. I'm in no hurry to join the madness. At least my trip to the observatory should be fairly quiet. There's not a lot of people traveling to that remote mountain.

I successfully added the astrophotography software to my new laptop partition. I thought that this would be easy, but it was surpassingly difficult because the software was developed by Germans. These guys were obsessed with verification and security. I had to jump through all sorts of hoops to get access to their download servers. When I launched the software to see if it worked on my computer, it seemed totally confusing to me. I have no idea what this actually does. That's OK. Learning how to use PixInsight is one of the reasons I'm going to the workshop.

We decided to wait until I returned from my haircut to walk Dawn today. I don't think she was happy with this plan. She was definitely eager to get out of the house. I was surprised at how hot it was this afternoon. Maybe this was why Janet and I walked Dawn really early last Summer. Neither of us can remember why we started doing this. It seems crazy to walk before sunrise now.

Dawn was hot and tired when we completed her short one mile loop. I probably should have gone back to the house with her. By the time I finished my long walk I was sweating profusely and was pretty tired myself. The temperature was in the high 80's today and it was very humid. I hope this isn't a sign of what's to come. I'd like our nice Spring weather to last a little longer.

I've taken the trash out to the curb and am ready to restart the week again. It looks like I'm going to have to mow the grass again this weekend. I'm not looking forward to that. This mower isn't self-propelled and it's getting harder and harder to push. I'd like a weekend with nothing to do at all.

Patches is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4065

Janet and I got our first Covid shots today. After waiting a year, the whole experience was kind of anticlimactic. I was in and out in less than twenty minutes and that included the fifteen minute wait after the shot in case there was an adverse reaction. If you've got a choice, get vaccinated in a hostital instead of one of those huge community mega-sites. I'd heard horror stories about people waiting in their cars for hours at some of the Dallas mega-sites. Everything was so efficient at the hospital. There were no lines. There was plenty of parking near the facility. All our information was already in the computer when we arrived. The shot itself was quick and painless. There was even a guy playing the piano in the area where we waited to see if we were going to have an adverse reastion. I'm not easily impressed, but these guys were very impressive.

In three weeks we get our second dose of the vaccine and hopefully we'll be looking at Covid in the rear view mirror. It's been a long year and I'm ready to move on. There are rocket launches to see and observatories to visit. If Dawn wasn't terrified of riding in the car, we'd even consider taking her on a long car trip. Maybe it's a little early, but I've had no reaction to the vaccine so far. My arm isn't sore at all. Knock on wood. Usually shots don't bother me and I've been vaccinated for almost everything.

It was really cold today. Dawn had to wear her coat when we walked this afternoon and I wore two coats just to make sure I wouldn't get cold. Dawn was eager to return to the house after she finished her mile, but I continued walking as usual. My foot pain wasn't as bad today. I don't know whether my foot was better or if it was just too cold to feel the pain. I'm definitely familiar with cold weather. I just don't like it. I went to high school in Alaska. I lived in Aspen for a while. And one of my first jobs was in Idaho. I don't know why it took me so long to discover Texas. Texas was where I should have been all along.

It's supposed to start raining tonight and temperatures will be near freezing in the morning. This sounds like a recipe for sleet or freezing rain. Yuk. I'm glad I got the vaccine out of the way and have nowhere to go tomorrow. Tomorrow sound like a good day to curl up with your dog, except that Dawn doesn't like to curl up with me.  If I lie down next to her on the bed, she usually gets up and goes to the kitchen. I keep telling Dawn that she's running out of time to be friends with me. Janet is eager to travel again and sooner or later Dawn and I are going to be spending some quality time together. 

I'm a little disappointed that Sky & Telescope rejected my idea for an astrophotography article. It was the only idea I had. I guess the proposal didn't really get rejected. My editor said he'd put it in his "maybe" folder for next year. This wasn't good news for a person who's always looking for instant gratification though. I guess I'm going to have to wait until I can get out to an observatory again to come up with any more astronomy articles. There's nothing to see here in Dallas. I don't even like to go out after dark in Dallas these days. The city doesn't feel safe anymore.

I've discovered that I sleep better under a heavy blanket. I wonder why? It seems counterintuitive to me, but my Fitbit always says that I sleep better on very cold nights. I ought to sleep well tonight. It's definitely starting to feel like winter. Northerners probably think we're wimps here in Texas, but this weather doesn't feel natural. At least the furnace is running normally and both our cars are in good shape. We'll see what tomorrow brings. Maybe there'll be another new episode of The Expanse to watch.

Jazz is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3659

Another decade is drawing to a close. This is my seventh decade on this planet and I'm still having trouble with these arbitrary measurements. We use these ten year blocks of time to neatly classify pop music and identify trends, but if we didn't use the decimal system, the whole concept of a decade would be meaningless. There isn't even a compelling reason to start the year on January 1st. Wouldn't it make more sense to start the year on the shortest or longest day of the year? Nope. We start the year on January 1st because in 46 B.C. Julius Caesar decided it was time to reform the Roman lunar calendar and go back to the way the Egyptians measured time. He chose to start his new Julian solar calendar on January 1st. to honor Janus, the god of new beginnings. The day stuck, despite the fact that the Chinese still start the year between January 21 and February 21 and the Hebrew calendar begins in the Fall. March 1, March 25 and Dec. 25 were all considered New Year’s Day at various points in history. Go figure.

I got waitlisted again for an upcoming launch at Kennedy Space Center. This is the second time I've been waitlisted in recent months. There is kind of a community of folks who obsess about these NASA invitations. It doesn't take long to learn who got accepted and who didn't make the cut. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to the selection process. Sometimes you can get selected several times in a row. And then there are long dry spells where your application seems to be ignored. It is easy to be disappointed when your applications isn't selected. After you've been to one launch, you want to go to all of them.

There's still a chance that I may get press credentials to attend the Solar Orbiter launch, but that remains to be seen. I'm still a little unsure how the press accreditation process works and my contacts at the magazine that would be sponsoring me are out of the office on Christmas vacation. This will all be resolved in due time, but it's hard to be patient when nothing else is going on.

I added all the new dogs to the Dalmatian Rescue website today. Considering that none of the dogs would stay still, I think the pictures came out pretty good. This is the only website I maintain anymore. I don't even update my own site these days. I used to maintain dozens of different websites and was busy making additions and changes every single day. Those days are long gone. Most of my old clients retired even before I did.

Janet and I found a forgotten bottle of champagne in the back of a kitchen cabinet, so we will toast in the New Year if we can manage to stay awake for a few more hours. Other than a very sad day last April, 2019 wasn't a bad year. You can always hope the new year will be better though. Hope keeps you moving forward. Here's hoping that all of you find yourselves happy and fulfilled in the year ahead.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3605

The dentist quickly agreed that my retainer didn't fit. After he and his assistant made several attempts to adjust the retainer so it would fit better, they eventually gave up and decided to make me a new one. I was surprised that they were able to do this while I was there. I guess there are advantages to having an in-house lab. The new retainer fit much better but it required a bit of customization before it would fit properly. I don't think my teeth are that crooked, but apparently they are crooked enough to make fitting a retainer difficult. I asked the dentist if I was too old for orthodontia and he just laughed. "I have several patients in their eighties who are wearing braces," he said. "Your mouth is fine, " he added. "I wouldn't do anything." Hopefully, my retainer problems are over for a while until I manage to break this new one.

On the way home I stopped by the vintage guitar store to pick up a check. I asked the manager who bought my guitar and he said it was the bass player of a British rock band called Temples. They are on tour now and were playing in Dallas recently. It's not surprising that I've never heard of this group, but they are popular in Europe and have been on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon as well as The Ellen DeGeneres Show. I listened to a couple of their songs on YouTube and the band was pretty good. Maybe my faithful fretless P-Bass will be featured in a future Temples music video.

My application to cover the Space X CRS-19 launch didn't get accepted. It's not the end of the world, but I was disappointed. Somehow I thought it would be easier to get launch access at Kennedy Space Center now that I've had a launch article published. Apparently this is not the case. Maybe my desire to get published in print publications is actually working against me. NASA seems more interested in getting a lot of social media coverage these days. I'd rather be in a magazine than on Instagram. Hey, it's not all bad. The next time an opportunity arises I'll apply again. While I'm waiting, I'll have more time to put some travel money aside. I've already been accepted to attend three of these special launch events. I'm almost certain that there'll be a fourth one of these days.

Maybe my roof repairs have finally worked. It rained again last night and the roof still hasn't leaked. I'll need to clear away the standing water soon. The weather keeps getting colder and I definitely don't want the water turning to ice. Maybe I'll go up on the roof tomorrow. It's been such a busy week that I haven't had time yet. I go to the doctor for my annual physical tomorrow. Usually this doesn't take long, but I didn't think my trip to the dentist today would take long either. I was at the dentist for quite a while today.

I didn't get started on my daily walk until late in the afternoon. By the time I returned home it was completely dark. The weather was cold and windy, so there weren't many joggers and cyclists in the park today. There were quite a few people walking their dogs in the dark though. That's what you do when you come home from work and your dog is waiting at the door to go out. I've spent many hours walking dogs in the dark.

Chase is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day