Day 4134

How did it get to be Monday again? These weeks go so fast. Whenever we visit the Dalmatians at the kennel, I realize that Dawn is the perfect dogs for us. She is older and pretty subdued for a Dalmatian. Younger Dalmatians have so much energy. Charlie and Cooper are fun to play with, but I don't think I could keep up with these two for very long. Hopefully they will find homes with someone who has as much energy as they do.

I tried to find my lost memory chips today and was told that the post office doesn't consider anything lost until they've had it for at least fourteen days. OK. I'll wait a little longer. Since it only takes two days for mail to travel from the shipper's location to my house, I wonder what's going on for those other twelve days. Amazon Prime has spoiled me. Somehow I think that everything should arrive the next day now.

I also wrote NASA and politely asked why I was being rejected for certain launches. I get accepted for some launches and rejected for others, but there seems to be no rhyme or reason to the process. If I'm doing something wrong on my end, I'd like to know what it is. I think the articles I've written have been very good. What do I know though. If I can't consistently get press credentials, it is going to be very difficult for me to become a space journalist.

Maybe it would be easier for me to become a HVAC technician. The furnace repairs I made the other day are working well. This is a weird time of year. It's very cold around sunrise and when I hear the furnace running I know it's time to get up. The furnace continues running while I'm eating breakfast, but by mid-afternoon it is warm enough outside for the air conditioner to kick in. Every day for the past week we have had the furnace and the air conditioner running on the same day.

My back is still bothering me. I'm comfortable when I wake up, but the process of becoming upright changes everything. Yikes. Those "I've fallen and I can't get up" commercials are starting to make sense now. Am I going to need a cane soon? I hope not, but it might be a good idea to have a few stashed around, just in case. My Dad had a ton of canes and I gave them all to the Goodwill when I cleared out his house. I should have kept a few.

At least I can still walk. Walking doesn't bother my back like it does my feet. It's bending over that bothers my back. If I stay on level ground and don't do anything stupid, a long walk still feels good. I've managed to convince myself that this type of exercise is the best thing for aging, tired bones. I hope nobody proves me wrong. I don't think I'm cut out for yoga, pilates, or lifting weights. You don't need a class or a gym or a trainer to take a walk. All you need is some free time. I've got plenty of that.

We'll see what happens tomorrow. Early voting has started for a local election. Maybe I'll go vote. I need to pick up some more duct tape at Home Depot as well. You can't ever run out of duct tape. Maybe Dawn will wake up and decide to be my best friend. That's a long shot, but it could happen.

Marley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 4133

It was cold when I woke up this morning. I got up and looked at the furnace. Just as I expected, a red light was flashing. The furnace wouldn't ignite. I thought I was going to be able to avoid fixing the furnace this Spring, but I guess my luck ran out. If the furnace won't light, the problem is almost always a dirty flame sensor. It's not hard to fix. It's just a nuisance. I shut the furnace off, unscrewed several access panels so I could reach the sensor and got out my sandpaper. Sanding the flame sensor cleans it so that it will turn on the gas whenever the pilot light comes on. I've done this many times, but I wish someone had told me how to fix this earlier. When I first bought the house, the HVAC guys would come out, tinker around for a while, and then charge me a lot of money. I didn't know that all they were doing was cleaning the flame sensor.

An hour later I had everything put back together and we had heat again. This fix ought to last until next winter. There can't possibly be too many more cold mornings left. I was actually surprised that it was 40 degrees this morning because later in the day I was wearing shorts. That's what happens this time of year. The furnace comes on in the morning and the air conditioner comes on in the afternoon.

After breakfast we took Dawn to her alternate park for a walk and then got ice cream cones on the way home. This is getting to be a Sunday ritual. Dawn gets excited to do something different and seems to really enjoy these outings. We had one minor problem when she appeared lost at one point and refused to move. We thought the new park was familiar to her by now, but apparently not. To get Dawn started again, Janet sits about ten feet in front of Dawn and calls her. Dawn starts moving forward in small, jerky steps and finally she starts walking normally again. By the time we were eating ice cream cones, she had probably totally forgotten about the incident.

Since bulky trash day is tomorrow, I thought I'd spend a little more time cleaning up the yard. Anything I couldn't take care of today will have to wait until next month. I cleared weeds and brush from an area in front of the house and quickly discovered that weeding is not a good activity for someone with a bad back.    I have a lot more sympathy now for people with back problems. A bad back and almost any type of yard work isn't a good combination. I do feel a little better than I did yesterday, so hopefully this problem is just temporary.

After a short nap, I took my daily walk. I never was all that fast, but now I'm walking slower than ever. I'll have to forget about Fitbit goals for a while, but at least I'm still moving. The park was really crowded today. There were Little League games on the baseball diamonds and lots of people having picnics. There are always people feeding bread to the ducks despite signs saying that bread is bad for ducks and that you should feed them dry corn or peas instead. I see messages on the Internet all the time about bread being bad for ducks, but apparently nobody listens.

The extra memory I ordered for my laptop is apparently lost in the mail. I'll have to check on that tomorrow. I also need to reserve a car for my trip to the observatory next month. I keep reading articles that say rental cars are in short supply now. Apparently most of the rental companies sold off excess inventory during the pandemic and now that people are traveling again, they don't have enough cars. I won't have to worry about getting a rent car in Florida for a while. I can't figure out how to get NASA to reinstate my press credentials.

All in all it was a very nice day. Nothing exciting happened, but the yard looks a little nicer and we had a delicious dinner. They say that the Mars helicopter will fly tomorrow. The next Starship prototype and the Space X Crew-2 mission will launch later in the week. I feel out of the loop now, but maybe I can get back to attending some of these launches later in the year. 

Mattie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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