Day 3907

There's been rain in the forecast all week. We planned our walk this morning to avoid getting wet, but it never rained. It was certainly humid enough though. I'm definitely ready for some crisp, cool Fall weather. I'm never sure when Fall begins or ends. Sometimes it's 80 degrees here on Christmas.

I paid some of my September bills today. You'd think paying bills online would be quicker and easier than writing checks, but it isn't turning out that way. For some reason there are often small discrepancies between Quickbooks and the online accounts. I must be entering the information wrong in Quickbooks, but the errors are often hard to find. I'd like to put everything on autopilot, but you've got to check on recurring expenses because they frequently change. I'm surprised at how often Medicare related stuff changes. This is often why my books don't balance.

I think once you go on Medicare, the amount of spam and telemarketing calls you get goes up exponentially. Janet and I both get way more spam and dubious offers than we used to. Older people are sitting ducks for spammers and scammers. Just about the only way you can avoid them is to never answer your phone. I block numbers almost every day, but these people keep finding us.

Dawn seemed nervous around me again today. This only happens when Janet is away for long periods of time. As soon as she returns, everything is fine again. In these situations, I've found that it's best to just ignore her. The harder I try to convince Dawn that I'm friendly, the more it seems to upset her. The Pandemic probably hasn't helped things. Neither of our schedules are like they used to be. I guess I should be encouraged that Dawn seems a little more comfortable now. This is just going to be a long, slow process.

Dawn is our first retirement dog. It was completely normal for all our other dogs to spend their day with me. I was the one who was always here. I walked them, fed them, and played with them while Janet was at work. Things are different now that we're both here all the time.

Very little happened today. I should have gone up on the roof and removed the standing water, but I thought if I did it would just start raining again. I had an excuse for everything today. It was too muddy for yard work. It was too early to write the editors at Sky and Telescope again. I definitely wasn't in the mood to clean out the office. Maybe that's why I just took a long nap.

Tomorrow is grocery day again. Is it even worth looking for peaches when they are all being recalled? Why is it harder to find extra sharp cheddar cheese? I've given up on Clorox Wipes. Did we ever even need them? We seem to be doing fine without these things.

Domino is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3873

The park is so busy on Saturday mornings now. It never used to be this way. We got an early start today, but apparently not early enough. It was way too crowded on the trails. Is the pandemic turning us into a nation of fit and healthy people? Naw. Probably not.

I ran my usual Saturday errands after breakfast and on the way home a warning light came on saying that I had a low tire. Typically I would have gone to the dealership because the tires are filled with nitrogen. I didn't have the patience to sit around for several hours, so I went home and got out the air compressor. Ordinary air will do just fine. I couldn't find any nails in the tires, so I filled them up to the required pressure and called it a day. I used to do this all the time with the Defender, but I haven't used the compressor in so long that I was surprised that it even worked.

Dawn took her monthly heartworm pill this morning. I'm glad that she's relatively healthy and doesn't need a lot of meds. Giving the dogs their pills eventually got very complicated with Dot and Dash. So far, I take the most pills in the family. Nothing exotic, but they all are necessary. If you aren't taking any meds at my age, you probably aren't seeing the doctor enough.

I wonder why it took me so long to warm up to online banking? It sure is easier to pay bills this way. It only took me a few minutes to pay my utility bills this morning. I haven't gotten around to depositing checks using my phone yet, but it's only a matter of time. If the pandemic has caused me to change ingrained habits like going to the post office every few days, I imagine that other people's habits have changed as well. I read an article the other day that said ice cream sales are up and deodorant sales are down. Somebody is certainly selling a lot of bicycles in town. I've never seen so many cyclists in the park. Life is changing and some of the changes are going to be permanent.

Sadly, a lot of jobs will never return. Companies are already discovering that they can do just as well with fewer people. So many of us were always non-essential and just didn't realize it. I've been non-essential for most of my life. I was just lucky that my clients and employers seemed to find me useful.  I'm sure the pandemic is already creating a wide variety of brand new jobs. Change always creates new jobs. Actually, this probably isn't a bad time to be a web designer. Everything takes place online these days. I'd have to know a lot more if I was starting a web design shop today. Things were a lot simpler back when I started my company. Life in general was simpler then. It's not that surprising that I would like to find a time machine and go back.

I picked up Chinese food for dinner tonight. When I went to the restaurant to get my order, there was an entire section reserved for DoorDash, Uber Eats, and Grubhub deliveries. There seemed to be a constant stream of drivers picking up orders. There seems to be a lot of people in grocery stores doing home delivery or curbside pickup shopping as well. This is probably why I can never find Clorox Wipes. I got a mailing from one of the New York auction houses that sold my art a few years ago. It was about an upcoming sale of one-of-a-kind face masks created by well known artists. I wonder if all this strangeness will just seem normal next year? We're not in Bladerunner territory yet, but we're definitely headed in that direction.

Snoopy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3813

Of course there are riots. Every zombie apocalypse end of the world movie I've ever seen has riots. The combination of a global plague, an economic disaster, and extreme social unrest all happening at the same time does make you wonder. Is this going to end up like The Stand? Maybe these are the end times. Hey, I'm not waiting for the Rapture or anything, but at this point I wouldn't be surprised to see that giant spaceship from District Nine hovering over the city in July.

I don't think my bank is ever going to reopen. I went to the drive thru today to make a deposit and ended up at a window that wasn't working. I had to circle around and try a different window. I still can't bring myself to use the bank's phone app to photograph checks and make deposits electronically. I'm very suspicious of my phone. I basically only use it to take photographs and check the weather.

My desktop computer is much more secure, but I'm even suspicious of that. I was paying a phone bill electronically today and noticed a suspicious phone number on my profile. I called the company to find out if I'd been hacked or my account had been compromised, but while I was sitting on hold waiting to talk to somebody, it occurred to be that the weird phone number might actually belong to my iPad. Yep. It was my own phone number I was worried about. I hung up before I embarrassed myself talking to a service representative.

We've been getting up really early to walk Dawn before the weather gets too hot. I'm always surprised at how many cyclists are out this early. There must be a lot of people who routinely exercise before they go to work. The park is pretty busy during the first hour of our walk and then the trails thin out again. By the time we returned home around 8:30 AM, the park was practically empty. Early morning exercise must signal that Dallas is returning to work. The roads certainly look that way. Morning rush hour in our part of town is just as bad as it ever was.

Janet's gym is open again, but mine is not. My gym hasn't even announced a date for reopening yet. I wonder who decides these things? I guess it's just as well that my gym hasn't reopened. I'm not sure I'm ready to go back to a gym anyway. Maybe the long walks are better anyway. Five miles in the morning and another three miles in the afternoon is probably all the exercise I need.

It takes a lot of patience not to bother the editors at Sky and Telescope and SpaceFlight Magazine and  continually ask when my articles are going to appear. I need to just start writing new articles, but my interests are limited. I used to think that writing the blog kept me in practice for more serious writing, but I'm not so sure anymore. I'm just treading water here.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3802

Maybe I've become too dependent on weather forecasting apps. Janet and I were both convinced that it was going to rain this morning, so we walked Dawn even earlier than we usually do to avoid getting wet. Getting started before sunrise meant we had the park to ourselves. We saw dozens of Great Egrets and very few people. The temperature was nice as well. I was a little sleepy when we started our early walk, but I hope we can manage to do this again. It was a very pleasant two hours.

It never did rain today. Actually the skies cleared up and it got quite warm later in the day. I didn't feel like mowing the grass, so I thought I'd try to remove the water stains in the living room ceiling with bleach. I don't know why I'm always convinced that this will work, because it never does. I certainly didn't get off to a good start today. When I went outside to get the stepladder, I got stung by a bee.

It's not easy to soak the ceiling with bleach, because gravity causes it to drip down my arm and all over the floor. I've ruined a few items of clothing when I've tried to do this in the past, so I only wear things that I don't mind getting soaked by bleach. I made a good effort today, but I can't honestly say that the ceiling looks any better. I guess I'll be forced to sand everything down and patch the areas with drywall mud. There's still no reason to actually remove and replace the sheetrock until we get a new roof. It would be nice if the house looked a little better though.

I paid some more bills and did a little accounting in Quickbooks this afternoon. Online banking is starting to seem more familiar now. I don't know if I'll ever be confident enough to set everything up to auto-pay, but I'm making progress. I'll have to admit that this is a lot easier than writing checks and driving to the post office.

After all the dire warnings from my dermatologist about possible side effects from cryosurgery, I haven't noticed anything at all. If my face is going to turn bruised and blotchy, it certainly hasn't happened yet. The keratosis doesn't look very different either. Did I even go to the dermatologist? We'll see if the liquid nitrogen treatment works, but this wasn't what I expected.

It's a shame I'm not down in Titusville now. I'm starting to see a lot of media coverage of the Demo-2 mission now that the launch is only a few days away. Obviously some people still have media credentials. Too bad I'm not one of them. I can see these guys asking the astronauts questions on TV. I wonder how many members of the press are actually there. NASA isn't saying, but the Press Site at KSC does look pretty empty.

It was amusing to hear Dr Fauci say that there would be irreparable damage to the country if we didn't open up soon. Wasn't this the same guy who said kids shouldn't go to school next year and that we should stay in lockdown mode over the Summer? I wonder why nobody seems to hold the good doctor accountable for his many flip-flops? He has changed his mind radically on almost everything. The virus isn't something to worry about in the United States. No, forget that. The virus will kill millions. Don't wear a mask. Nevermind. You've all got to wear a mask. I could go on and on. It's all on tape. Hey, the guy's got an honest face. And he's a scientist.

In other news, the State of Washington announced today that they mistakenly gave away millions of the state's unemployment money to a Nigerian Prince. Yep. We're really on top of this pandemic stuff.

Rosco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3795

The lights are flickering and a big storm is headed our way. I hope the power doesn't go out before I can finish this post. It has certainly happened before. It's giant pain to have to start over using battery power, a laptop, and an alternate Internet source. At time like these I wish I could write faster, but I'm pretty slow.

Other than the bad weather, it has been a pretty good day. We had a nice walk with Dawn this morning before the weather turned bad.  My Friday morning omelette was tasty. It wasn't a busy day, but it wasn't a bad day either.

I'm gradually becoming more familiar with online banking, but I think I still prefer writing checks and going to the post office. Somehow checking a few boxes on a website doesn't seem real. I keep checking the website every few days to make sure the transaction has actually gone through. I don't know why I trust the post office so much. The post office has lost my mail several times. So far, the bank's website has worked perfectly.

I'm going to have to get used to doing as much as I can online. New regulations have made doing almost anything in person a totally frustrating experience. Texas is technically open again but you'd never know it if you have to go shopping. With each passing week going to the grocery store becomes more complicated. The new trend is to put lots of arrows on the floor and establish a one way traffic pattern throughout the store. This is not the way most people shop. If you are going to have one way aisles, you definitely need a few passing lanes. It is almost inevitable that you will end up stuck behind someone who can't decide what they want to put in their buggy and they just stand there blocking everyone behind them. Some stores have even blocked entrances, leaving only a single door to enter and exit the store. Not only is this a potential fire hazard, it also creates even more traffic jams. Keep in  mind that I didn't even go shopping today. I'm just remembering this madness from last week. I have a feeling that things will be even worse when I make my weekly shopping run tomorrow.

A Florida friend told me that I might have better luck obtaining access to Kennedy Space Center through the military than with NASA. I didn't even know that this was an option. I found out how to contact media relations for the Air Force and I think I'm going to apply. The forms I need to fill out are lengthy and a magazine needs to sponsor me but what have I got to lose. Evidently this is how some photographers are still managing to get launch access. It's easy to forget that Cape Canaveral is still an active military base.

The virtual NASA Social event for the upcoming Crew Dragon launch is actually more interesting than I'd thought it would be. I find myself posting to the group frequently. Admittedly this is mostly because there isn't much else to do these days. Hey, if I'm going to do something online, I think I'd rather talk about rockets than complain about masks.

I continue to be amazed that Dawn seems to have no fear of storms. All our other Dalmatians had pretty severe storm phobias. This evening while the lights were flickering and thunder was rumbling, Dawn was just calmly lying on the bed as if nothing was happening.

I may get gas tomorrow when I make my weekly shopping run. It's been well over a month since I filled my tank. The new normal isn't normal at all.

Sadie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3785

My article about McDonald Observatory is going to be published in an upcoming issue of Sky and Telescope. I received an acceptance letter from the editors this afternoon. Needless to say, this is great news. Sky and Telescope is a well respected magazine that I have been reading off and on since high school. I was so disappointed yesterday when I failed to obtain media accreditation for the upcoming Space X Crew Dragon launch at Kennedy Space Center. Now, I feel somewhat vindicated. My writing efforts aren't back to square one after all. I also got a letter from my editor at SpaceFlight Magazine saying that they were sad that I wouldn't be able to attend the Demo-2 launch. What can you do? The magazine tried their best to get me access to the launch and I tried as well. Sadly, the virus wins this one. I guess I won't be writing about America's return to manned spaceflight after all.

I'm not sure yet when my article will appear in Sky and Telescope, but I did learn that they are interested in using my photos as well. I'll send them a selection to choose from later this week. This magazine, like many others, plans their publication schedule months in advance. The editor said they are still trying to determine an appropriate slot for my article to appear. I hope I don't have to wait too long. Like most of you, I could use some good news in the months ahead.

Dawn had to go to the vet today to recheck the urate crystals that were found in her urine at her last exam. She's been taking Allopurinol for a month and we were hoping that this would eliminate the crystals and reduce her chances of getting bladder or kidney stones. Sadly, she still has crystals and has a low grade bacterial infection as well. The vet did a culture and we should know more early next week. I hope we don't need to change Dawn's diet. She really likes the food we are feeding her now.

Dawn is getting better at riding in the car. She is still nervous, but she doesn't appear terrified anymore. She was very well behaved at the vet, although we didn't get to go with her in the exam room this time. The virus changes everything. Everyone, including Janet and I, were wearing masks and a vet tech took Dawn back to a room for her exam while we waited for her in the lobby. The vet did come out to visit with us when she was done and we all kept our distance. It's weird. I know all these people well, but I had trouble recognizing some of them while they were wearing masks. These are very surreal times. I wonder how long we can continue like this before everyone cracks?

We are continuing to take our walk with Dawn before breakfast. This works out well, although it kind of turns my morning smoothie into lunch. It's nice walking early in the morning. The weather is cool and the park is almost empty. Dawn seems to really enjoy the walks as well. She's not a young dog, but has no problems walking five miles. I don't know what we are going to do later in the summer though. Dawn really doesn't like the heat.

I tried online banking today. Actually, I think it's easier to just go to the post office and bank. Hey, I'm trying to adapt to this strange no contact reality, even though it totally sucks. Even a loner like me needs to get out occasionally. I can't wait to get back to Kennedy Space Center.

Dolly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3784

I'm disappointed. My application for media accreditation to cover the Space X Demo-2 launch was denied. NASA was telling the truth when they said that media access to this launch would be severely limited. I know people who always seem able to get a press pass who got rejected as well. NASA did send me a nice letter explaining their guidelines for narrowing down their list of applicants, but it didn't help me much. Credentials were issued based on the number of people that NASA thought they could safely shelter in place at the press site in case of an emergency. Major media organizations that lease their own building at Kennedy Space Center got preference because they could shelter in place at their own buildings. I'm sure the small group of reporters who seems to have covered every launch since the 1970's received preferential treatment as well. It will be a very small group of people at this historic launch though. The press site building is small and isn't going to hold many people when they are spaced six feet apart. Oh, well. That's how it goes these days. I'll try again when the Mars 2020 lander launches later this Summer.

So many things completely baffle me about the new normal. Road construction crews had two months to fix the roads here in Dallas while nobody was driving. It would have been the perfect time to fill potholes and get caught up on things. Nope. Road construction ground to a halt last month. Now that our governor has declared the state reopened again, the construction crews are back, blocking traffic and making a mess of things as usual.

I couldn't get the deposit feature to work when I was setting up online banking yesterday, so I had to drive to the bank and wait in the drive-thru line again. Usually there is a little canister that you put your deposits in and then it gets pneumatically sucked thru a tube to the bank. The little canister was gone today. I guess the bank tellers didn't want to touch it. We were told to place our deposits directly in the tube. I wonder how many little pieces of paper got lost today?

We took our walk with Dawn before breakfast again this morning. The place was virtually empty. Either a lot of people have gone back to work, or old habits die hard. The parks are usually crowded during the weekend, but what's the difference between Sunday and Monday these days? Not much, as far as I can tell. At least it was nice to have the park to ourselves again. The pandemic may have taught people to wash their hands but it certainly hasn't stopped people from littering. There was a ton of trash in the park this morning, left behind by Sunday picnickers. Dawn snatched a half eaten hot dog off the ground and I had to get it out of her mouth before she swallowed it. It's not that I worry about hot dogs so much. It's just that there are too many people who intentionally leave poisoned food, or food with razor blades inside for animals to find. You can't trust anything these days.

I ordered the parts I need to upgrade my laptop this afternoon. Do I really need a super fast laptop if I can't go anywhere? Probably not. It's something to do though. At this point anything seems better than cleaning the office.

Crosby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3783

I've decided it's time to face an emerging new reality. My comfortable analog world is gone. When virus fears eventually fade, a lot of things familiar to me aren't coming back. There are a businesses and restaurants I'll never visit again. They aren't going to survive. Rather than lament the loss of familiar places and routines, maybe it's time to embrace the cloud and go digital. Do I really need to go to the post office and bank anymore? Not really. I set up all my recurring bills for online payment today. I don't know why I didn't do this sooner. It's easy, relatively painless, and will save me a lot of time.

I don't need to go to CVS, Home Depot, or shopping malls either. Anything you can buy in a store, you can get delivered to your door. Why go to Home Depot to look for lightbulbs, only to discover that they are out of stock again? Things are almost always in stock at the online store and are usually delivered in just a day or two. Stores have been practically begging me to buy online for several years now. I just didn't realize how easy it was.

It's time to take a look at my investments as well. The economy is going to take a terrible hit, but there will be winners. Who is going to thrive in an increasingly digital economy? Some companies already seem well prepared for a world where work takes place in the cloud and almost anything can be delivered to your door. Everyone keeps asking when the world is going to return to normal. I don't think it ever will. We do a lot of things out of habit, and each of us is slowly but surely developing brand new habits. Which of our quarantine routines are going to stick? If you guess correctly, you will do very well in the years ahead.

We walked very early this morning. I thought about getting a picture of Dawn with the dawn of a new day in the background. The sunrise wasn't all that pretty though, so I'll save that picture for another day. It was enjoyable having the park to ourselves. The weather was beautiful and we only saw a few dedicated runners and cyclists. The weekend crowds were still waking up. We didn't see any teenagers or families with children this morning.

I did some more roof repairs this afternoon. I tried to lift the heavy bucket of silicon to the roof, but my rope broke and I had to transfer the messy material to a smaller bucket again. Luckily the rope broke when the heavy bucket was less than a foot off the ground, so nothing spilled. It would have been a giant mess if the bucket of silicon spilled and covered the yard. After today's repairs, I can't find any more bad areas. We'll wait until the next rain, and then the whole process begins all over again. Eventually I'll become confident enough to begin sheetrock repairs inside.

This weekend was pleasant and it certainly went quickly. Lets see what happens next week. I'm hoping for additional news from Sky and Telescope and NASA. It would be nice to have a plan again. Until then, I'll probably move ahead and upgrade the laptop computers with solid state drives. I'll order the parts I need tomorrow. Embracing online banking was a big deal for me. I didn't think I'd ever do this. Maybe there are more things I can improve as well. In troubling times it is important to keep moving.

Milo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3049

I went down to the bank today to see why they were deducting $30 a month from each of my accounts. Did I need to keep a larger balance? Was I making too many transactions? Nope. None of the above. Apparently, my plan was obsolete and I never responded to their offer to upgrade me to one of their modern, but decidedly inferior plans. The new fee was just punishment for trying to keep my old plan.

When I asked why I wasn't warned about this change, the bank told me that they'd sent me a letter last Fall. "Did this letter happen to come in an envelope that looks just like all the other junk mail you send me," I asked? "Probably," said the banker. Hmm. I probably shredded the letter without even reading it. At any rate, I was forced to sign up for one of their new plans. It's more or less the same as my old plan except that my account doesn't earn interest anymore and there are no paper statements. I'm sure the paper statements on my old accounts were what was really bugging the bank. Everyone hates paper. There's a note in almost every bill I pay these days begging me to go paperless.

The banker urged me to try online banking. "You'll like it," she said. I didn't want to seem like a grumpy old man, so I didn't try to explain why I'm turning into a Luddite and am growing increasingly suspicious of the online world. There's something reassuring about keeping all your information in ring binders, but I think that ship has sailed.

I received a short letter from my sister today that confirmed some of my suspicions. Her cancer is not responding well to treatment and she's become too tired to write. Cancer is such a cruel disease. The treatments we have today are still pretty crude. I think in the future we'll look at radiation and chemo the same way we now look at Medieval doctors applying leeches. Gene replacement therapy shows a lot of promise, but we're not there yet. I hope the researchers keep making progress. Current cancer therapy is basically just trying to poison you without actually killing you.

Dash and Janet are both cancer free. They are the lucky ones. Spot and Greta both died of cancer.  Dot's abdominal cancer reappeared in her liver toward the very end of her life. My Dad had prostate cancer, but that was the least of his problems. He also had Parkinson's Disease. I'm trying to exercise, watch my weight, and maintain a healthy diet, but you never know what is in the cards. Growing old is not pretty.

Dash had a good day. I think the Movoflex is helping him. The changes are subtle, but he does seem to be walking better and has more energy since he started taking the supplement. Dash's appetite was great today. I think he ate more than I did.

Bea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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