Day 4942

I fixed the screen door this morning. Well, I kind of fixed it anyway. I bought a roll of new aluminum screen wire, but I discovered that it was a lot easier to just tighten and reattach the old screen. It won't last forever, but at least the screen isn't flapping loose anymore. This job used to seem a lot easier. The heavy duty staple gun I've always used to attach the screens to the door seemed a lot harder to squeeze this time. I had to use both hands. Have I really lost that much strength in my hands? Maybe so. I'm just not as strong as I used to be.

Today was almost identical to yesterday. It was pretty similar to Monday as well. We had a pleasant early morning walk with Dawn. She ambles around and smells everything. They say letting a dog smell things is relaxing for them. When we get near the lake there is always a nice breeze. I keep wishing it would stay this way so I could walk in the park, but as soon as the sun rises you immediately know that it is going to be a hot day.

I've been hearing thunder off and on all day, but there is still no rain. We could use some rain. It's been so hot lately that the grass and everything else is starting to look dry. Rain might cool things down a bit too. It's nice that I don't have to worry about leaks ever time it rains now. The roof still doesn't drain as well as it should, but hopefully the days of constant leaks are behind me. I've really gotten tired of climbing up on the roof every time it rains. 

I went to the gym again after fixing the screen door this morning. I keep thinking that the same people are there every day, doing exactly the same things. Of course that's what I'm doing as well. Maybe we are all creatures of habit, just going through the motions over and over again. A three mile walk and a little time on the basketball court seems like a decent workout to me, but Fitbit doesn't agree. It keeps reminding me that I'm not taking as many steps or burning as many calories as I used to. I guess a six mile walk was more serious exercise than I imagined. I'll get back to my long walks in the park eventually, but not right now. It's way too hot outside.

Now that I'm going to the gym earlier, I don't really know what to do with my afternoons. I haven't been feeling like doing much of anything lately. This afternoon I looked at the 2023 launch schedule and tried to decide which ones I really wanted to see. Realistically, I can only afford two more trips to Kennedy Space Center this year. Maybe three if I want to splurge. There are lots of opportunities, but many launches are almost identical to events I've already seen and written about. I have to be careful what I apply for because if I'm accepted, it's more or less a commitment to make the trip.

Mosquitos keep getting into the house. This is another annoying aspect of living in Texas. Mosquitos are everywhere. Hopefully these aren't the malaria mosquitos I keep reading about. The city used to come down the alley behind our house and spray once a month in the summer but they don't do that anymore. A garbage truck use to come down the alley twice a week too. Now I have to take the can out to the street for once a week pickup. Hmmm. All I've really done is trade my winter complaining for summer complaining.

Tomorrow is Dawn's grocery day. I'm glad she doesn't realize that Janet is leaving on vacation soon. She would be sad. Dawn and I will do fine while Janet is away, but she is definitely a one person dog. 

Cisco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 4365

We've got a new TV. Well, we don't actually have a new TV in our house yet, but we do have a receipt saying that we purchased one. Stores are weird now. Very few stores keep a lot of inventory in stock anymore. There may be something on display, but if you actually want to buy it, it usually has to come from a warehouse somewhere. There are still advantages to buying from a store however. A very nice and knowledgable salesman answered all my extensive list of questions about both the old and new TV. Our old Sony had a lot more inputs than the new models on sale today. Manufacturers have realized that there is no longer a need for a lot of inputs, since everybody is just streaming content. Things that are plugged in to our current TV like a Roku stick and Chromecast are obsolete now. All that stuff is just build into the TV these days. I also learned that the problem with our current TV is probably that several of the several of the backlighting LEDs have gone bad. These LEDs can be replaced, but that might not even be the problem. I've dealt with electronic repairs before. Smaller new TVs are so cheap now that often they cost more to repair then than to replace.

At any rate, a new TV is headed to the store where we will pick it up later. There is no point in having it delivered because porch pirates have ruined home delivery. This new TV won't need a set top box to get cable. You also can use a single remote to control everything. That was the feature that sold Janet on this model. You can also watch things on your iPad and transfer the picture to the larger screen if you want. Somehow I don't think all the fancy features will be as easy to use as the salesman described, but we'll see. I never learned how to use all the features on the old TV that we got almost fifteen years ago.

The salesman said he wasn't on commission and that he'd really appreciate it if we'd fill out a survey the store would be sending us. I told him that I knew all about these surveys. All large companies seem to have them now. Apparently promotions and salary seem to be tied directly to survey results. Just like at the Land Rover dealer and even at the hospital, employees seem almost desperate to get good survey results. This doesn't seem fair to me. The old way of working on commission and having a supervisor right in the store evaluate your performance seemed to provide more opportunities for retail workers. I used to know several people who worked in retail on commission that made very good incomes. Basically, I'm just glad that I'm retired now. The work world isn't what it used to be. 

We didn't visit the Dalmatians at the kennel today. Evidently the place is still busy with holiday boarding and we would just be in the way. There has been a change in management and hopefully we will still be welcome in the future. Janet and I enjoy playing with the rescue dogs. I think the dogs enjoy seeing us as well.

It was much colder today. I think the temperature will be even colder tomorrow. I'm not fond of these drastic changes. It will be 75 degrees one day and then 35 degrees the next. It's hard to know what to wear.  Sometimes the temperature will change ten degrees just on my long walk. Dawn seems to enjoy the colder weather more than I do. She had a good time smelling things on her sunrise walk. I dressed warmly so I was fine, but it sure was windy today. I shouldn't complain about the weather when the sky is blue. There is much worse coming in the months ahead. Actually, according to what I've been reading, Texas has better weather than most of the rest of the country. We've had cooler summers and warmer winters than prior years. I hope the warmer winter prediction is true for this year as well.

We've got mosquitos inside the house now. I can't seem to catch them but they're doing a pretty good job of biting me. How can there be mosquitos in December? These things were supposed to go away when summer was over. Hopefully I will find something better to do than chasing bugs tomorrow. Whatever happens, I know a long walk will be involved.

Ellis is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 4180

Another rainy day. I split my walk today into several shorter walks to avoid getting wet. I should do this more often. I stayed dry and still managed to get the same number of steps. Dawn's walks have gotten interesting. She's exploring new areas now, but still seems to know exactly how long a mile is. No matter what direction we travel, we always cover the same distance.

Today was probably the most uneventful day this week. I didn't attempt any outdoor projects because it always looked like it was just about to rain. I was expecting a UPS delivery today, but I'm still waiting for the truck. I'm the very last street on the driver's route and if it's been a busy day the driver sometimes doesn't bother to stop. The website can say 'out for delivery" all day long and then eventually I'll get some sort of delivery exception e-mail saying I wasn't home or something. Hey, I've been home all day except for a few short walks. Not that it matters. I have absolutely no control over these things.

Accepting things you can't control is difficult. I'm learning though. I can't control the weather, the state of the world, the stock market, or even Dawn's opinion of me. It's all good though. I learned a long time ago that trying to swim upstream was a wasted effort. Go with the flow. Make the best of things. If life gets you down, take a nap.

The park was pretty empty today. Maybe everyone else thought it was going to rain too. I can't believe how green everything is this year. This is the wettest Spring I can remember and the plants seem to love it.   The park looks great this year. Even our yard is looking pretty good. The grass seed that Janet sprinkled over some bare areas in the back yard is actually starting to grow. This almost never happens. I hope this doesn't mean we are going to have a hot, dry Summer but it probably does. We never get rain in the Summer.

There have been so many launches at Kennedy Space Center this year that it's making me crazy to see all the other launch photographers photos on an almost daily basis. I should be down there with them. I don't think it's going to happen though. NASA seems to have forgotten about me and I'm beginning to think SpaceFlight Magazine has too. It's been oddly silent on both fronts. Oh, well. If it's meant to be, it's meant to be. I have made an effort to stay in the loop. That's all I can do.

The mosquitos are terrible this year. We have tried several remedies, but none of them seem to work. I usually spray the ground cover with a mosquito repellent, but it has been so wet lately that the rain would just wash the repellent away. Our latest effort is a little burner that look a bit like an incense burner. The pellets that make the smoke that is supposed to drive the mosquitos away won't stay lit though. I got bit by mosquitos trying to fix the thing this morning.

I need to go to Home Depot tomorrow and look for a saw blade that will actually cut through the dead Photinia trees. I also need to buy some more duct tape. Duct tape is my solution for everything these days. I need to get groceries tomorrow as well. Hopefully I can run these errands without getting caught in the rain

The UPS driver actually did deliver my package a few minutes ago. He was very late and probably very tired as well. I don't think this would be a job I would like at all.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 4168

Dawn got her special outing today. It wasn't a clear day, but it wasn't raining either. We thought we'd take her someplace new, but the strange surroundings scared her and we got back in the car and went back to her usual Sunday park. What a dfifference. Dawn would hardly move at the new location, but she bounded out of the car and immediately began smelling things when we returned to our regular Sunday park. This park was new to Dawn at one point too, but I don't know how much new Dawn can handle. Of course we got ice cream cones on the way home. Even though it was a gray and somewhat dismal day, I think Dawn really enjoyed herself.

I took a short nap when we returned home and then I went walking again. I could be doing other things, but walking still seems the best way to fill an otherwise uneventful day. I daydream a lot when I walk. I seldom think about serious things. I plan future trips. I think about what kind of car I'd like to buy next. I count ducks, And I wonder what the neighbors are doing. Sometimes these walks are tiring. Other times they are boring. They always beat mowing the lawn though.

I had to do some website updates today and I couldn't figure out why my changes weren't showing up in my browser. I uploaded the new pages several times and still kept seeing the old site. It finally occurred to me that I needed to clear my cache files. When I refreshed my browser, it was just reloading the old site that was already in the browser cache. Problem solved. I vaguely wondered why I don't always have to do this. I probably used to know the answer, but my web development skills are fading fast.

I watched a YouTube tutorial titled "Getting started with PixInsight" this afternoon. I thought if I understood the basics of this complex program, I might actually get some use out of it. This video was supposed to be for beginners, but it still seemed very complex to me. It was hard for me to stay interested. Things that were easy and intuitive in Photoshop required ten mysterious steps here. I still don't even understand the PixInsight menu. It baffles me that a lot of people love this program. Maybe I picked the wrong hobby. I've been taking photographs for the better part of my life. You'd thing this would be easy, but astrophotography has been a struggle for me.

I'm getting bitten by mosquitos inside the house. Where did these things come from? Mosquitos seem unusually bad this year. It must be all the moisture. I'm starting to see lots of ants too. I guess it's that time of year. Where can you go where the weather is pleasant and there are no bugs? Bugs are everywhere. There were moths inside the Astronomer's Lodge. When I go to rocket launches in Florida I always get bitten by bugs. I always get the most powerful insect repellent I can find and the bugs don't even care.

I still haven't finished unpacking from my trip. The clothing has all been washed and put away, but there's still a lot of equipment I need to deal with. I took the star tracker apart and put it back in it's box today. That's a start. Now I've got a case I can use for pet photography again. Maybe I'll deal with the rest of the camera equipment next weekend. I doubt that I'm going to be using it any time soon.

Tomorrow we visit the rescue Dalmatians again. It only seems like a few days have passed since we saw them last week. Where has the time gone? We are almost halfway through 2021 and it still seems like the year is just getting started. Covid has changed everything. I'm so used to doing nothing that it's starting to seem normal.

Willie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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