Day 3505

I see some strange things when I'm walking in the park. Today I saw a guy riding a bicycle with his arm in a cast. You might not need both hands to steer, but don't you need both hands to operate the brakes? Hmm. I wonder how he broke that arm? The guy was riding like he was competing in the Tour de France too. It made no sense to me. The animals make no more sense than the humans. At this time of year birds like to congregate on electric wires. Sometimes you'll see hundreds of birds on a wire. At one of these locations I always see a big pile of dead birds directly under the wire. The birds are getting electrocuted. Don't they know what is happening? You'd think that at least one of these birds would be saying "Has anyone seen Bob lately," he was here just a minute ago." Getting zapped doesn't seem to deter the birds though. They come back to the same wire every day.

We had our first triple digit day of the Summer. It was well over a hundred degrees this afternoon. Coincidently, this was the day I paid the electric bill. The electric bills in July and August are always horrendous. It doesn't really matter where you set the thermostat, the air conditioner is always running. There's no point in wishing for cooler weather now. It's going to be pretty warm from now through the end of September.

I'm still trying to figure out the weather in West, Texas. I had a day all picked out to go to McDonald Observatory and just before I was going to make my reservation I checked the long range weather again. The day I wanted was clear yesterday and today there was a 40% chance of thunderstorms. The alternate day I was looking at had an even higher chance of thunderstorms. I looked at Yelp reviews of people who had visited the observatory and almost half of them said they had experienced cloudy skies. Almost all of them said it was much colder than they expected. I did a little research and discovered that July and August are considered the "monsoon" season in West Texas. Evidently during this time of year a stationary low pressure system typically sets up over Arizona and New Mexico drawing moisture into the area. It may not rain every day, but it is not the best time for astronomy. Despite all this, I think the area around the observatory is supposed to have clear skies for 2/3 of the year. People say there are better chances of clear skies in the Spring, but it can also get very cold in the mountains. Snow and ice are common. I wish the place wasn't so remote. It's a very long drive if you are just going to wind up with cloudy skies. On a clear night there is no place better for dark skies in the country though. Do I take a gamble or not?

These hot summer days are long and uneventful. No wonder Janet likes to travel. I'm not much of a traveler myself but almost everything I'm interested in doing seems to be outside of Dallas. That must mean something. If I was more of a free spirit, I'd probably be on the road right now. Since I'm not a free spirit at all, I'll be thinking about what to have for dinner tomorrow while I take my morning walk.

Penny is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3501

Maybe I'm getting too much sleep. I woke up early and couldn't get back to sleep. Since I wasn't tired, I took this as a sign that I should walk early. Not that it made any difference but it was surprisingly cool outside. The air quality was terrible though. My new watch told me so.

I had thought the water level at the lake was so low because of the Summer heat. I guess I was wrong. I saw something on the news today that said a piece of the dam that regulated water level had broken. The dam had sprung a leak. This wasn't a piece of high-tech equipment that broke. It was just a big piece of wood. That doesn't seem hard to replace. Maybe I'll see the water level rising again soon.

I didn't see much on my walk today. I took a better camera with me to photograph Egrets but they were too far away. Yesterday they were close to shore. Birds are unpredictable. Today the only thing I could find to photograph was a small lizard.

Instead of going out for breakfast this morning I stayed home and finished off the fresh fruit. I should have gone out. I think the breakfast restaurant tradition started in the first place because four smoothies in a row was all I could handle. While I was eating I tried to figure out some of the new functions of my watch. In addition to providing air quality warnings and electrocardiograms, it also did a lot of other cool stuff. Maybe it wasn't such a bad purchase after all.

I noticed that some new viewing dates have opened up at McDonald Observatory, so I started investigating a trip out there in more detail. Planning a trip was more complicated than I anticipated. Special viewing nights at the big telescopes are limited to eight people and even thought viewing dates for the Fall were just announced a few days ago, they were already filling up fast. Since astronomy trips are fairly worthless unless you have clear skies, I tried to see if there were special long range weather forecasts for astronomers. Surprise. Actually there are. I looked at several potential observing dates in September at the 82" telescope and there was a high probability of thunderstorms. Not good. It looked like there was going to be a clear day in August when there was an opportunity to visit the smaller 36" telescope, but there was only one opening left. I think Janet wants to go on this trip, so that wasn't good.

Were all these forecasts event even remotely realistic? Usually the weather forecasts for tomorrow are wrong in Dallas. How can you accurately predict the weather for September? It's a mystery to me. Every day in September had a specific prediction though. Forecasts for August were even more specific. Can I trust these forecasts? I'd hate to drive all the way out to Alpine, Texas and have it rain on my viewing night.

Planing the trip was so complicated that I decided to think about it for a while. Do I drive or take Amtrak? Oddly, you can take the train to this small Texas town. Which telescope is the best? There are three to choose from: the 102", the 82", and the 36". At first glance you'd think that the biggest one would be the best, but that isn't always the case. Viewing nights for the 102" inch telescope are only offered when there is a full moon. The smaller 36" telescope is available on a few select nights where there are dark skies. Also, tickets are not refundable if it rains at the last minute. You just go listen to an astronomer talk instead of looking through the telescope. It's all kind of a crap shoot. You just have to pick a day and hope you get lucky.

So far, I haven't been very lucky with my U-Verse service. The fiber optic line still goes down periodically throughout the day. A technician is coming over on Sunday, but I bet he isn't going to have the patience to diagnose an intermittent problem like this. I bet he just replaces all the equipment instead.

Smokey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day