Day 4289

It felt like Fall today. The cold front everyone was expecting arrived this morning and it made a huge difference. Walking was enjoyable again. We had a nice sunrise walk with Dawn and then when I was ready to take my long walk after breakfast, the temperature had dropped even more. I don't know how long this is going to last, but I'm going to enjoy it while I can.

When I mowed the grass this weekend I was worried about my surgery. I should have been worried about my bad shoulder. I must have aggravated something because my shoulder has been hurting ever since. All things considered, I'm really in pretty good shape, but the aches and pains of aging can be irritating. I'm starting to feel like an old broken down machine.

I got a jury summons in today's mail. This was a surprise since I've been exempt from jury duty for  quite a while. The first thing I did when I reached the mandatory age limit was apply for a permanent exemption. I never liked getting selected for jury duty. I'd spend most of the day down at the court house and inevitably end up getting sent home. Occasionally, I'd make it as far as the voir dire process. I never got seated. I learned quickly that if you asked questions during voir dire, either the prosecution or the defense lawyers would decide that you weren't what they were looking for. I'm sure there's a number I can call to get my exemption reinstated. I'll put it on tomorrow's to-do list. I don't know how I slipped through the cracks this time, but these guys have already told me many times that they don't want me as a juror.

Very little happened today. I paid a bunch of bills that had accumulated while I was in Florida, but that was about it. I thought that bills would be easier to keep track of now that I pay everything online. It turns out that getting a paper statement in the mail is still the best way to remember these things. Some folks send me a reminder e-mail and others don't. Who remembers old e-mail anyway? Oh, well. Unless I forgot something, I'm all caught up for the moment.

I haven't heard anything from the observatory lately, but now I can't decide whether I even want to go out to West Texas in October. It's such a long, tiring drive. I've been thinking of taking my own car the next time I make the trip, but after my trip to Florida I think I'll stick with rental cars. There's just too much that can go wrong with a car on a road trip. I wish Southwest Airlines flew to Alpine or Marfa. That's not going to happen though.

It's supposed to be even colder tomorrow. That would be nice. This is kind of the sweet spot as far as temperatures go. It's nice to be outside when the temperature is in the low seventies. It's not jacket weather yet, but you don't get too hot being out in the sun. Fall is beautiful in Texas. Unfortunately, it only seems to last two weeks.

Rowe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3918

Did I do anything at all today? It's hard to say. We certainly got an early enough start on the day. It was interesting to watch the sky change from heavily overcast to nearly clear as dawn approached. A thin crescent moon, Venus, Mars, and several bright stars would pop in and out of the clouds as we walked. The heavy cloud cover actually reflected the city light and made things appear a little brighter than they should. Area rowing clubs were already out on the lake practicing in the dark. The sculls had little electric port and starboard lights that we could see in the distance. I wonder why these guys start so early? Cyclists start pretty early as well. Janet and I are usually the first people walking their dog.

We walk early so Janet can take a class at the gym. I have no reason to get up early at all. Usually these early starts just leave me with more idle time later in the day. I used to like watching the news as a drank my morning smoothie, but current events have spoiled that. There's nothing good on the news these days. I just watched the Weather Channel this morning. Come to think of it, the Weather Channel wasn't very encouraging either. Wildfires are still raging out of control on the West Coast and another hurricane is headed for the Gulf Coast. I'm glad that all we have to deal with at the moment is high humidity.

The Sky and Telescope editor told me not to send high resolution pictures to the magazine at this time. He wanted smaller lo-rez images to look at while he was putting the layout for my article together. This gave me something to do today. I downsized all my McDonald Observatory images and got ready to send the smaller files to the magazine. There is no real urgency to this project. As I mentioned the other day, my article won't appear until February of 2021.

I also paid some online bills today and made a halfhearted effort to reconcile my account. I still can't find the missing transaction. I'll give it another month or so. If the missing amount stays the same, I'll just make a journal entry to even things out again. I've done this before. It's a lot easier than fretting over small mistakes.

There was nothing happening on the Boca Chica live feed today. There were still people in the chat room though, all speculating about the uneventful video they were looking at. I hesitate to join these conversations. Spending inordinate amounts of time watching construction workers weld bits of metal to something that looks like a stainless steel grain silo is just an open admission that you don't have a life.

Apple introduced a new Apple Watch today. It looks exactly like the old Apple Watch. It's hard to get excited about Apple product introductions anymore. Do I need a phone that is a little faster? Do I need a watch with three new watch faces? When you are retired, the answer is almost always no. I just wish I could keep my older equipment running forever. As far as I'm concerned, the older stuff is almost always better.

I hate the new Facebook layout. Blogger has a new layout that looks almost as bad. I keep switching back to the older legacy view, but it's getting harder. Now, Facebook will only let you look at things the old way for 48 hours at a time. What's the point in trying to make everything look the way it does on your phone? I'd rather have my computer look like a magazine. Actually, I'd rather just read a magazine. Hey, a Luddite can dream. One of these days I'm just going to go back to writing this journal on paper.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3842

You don't have to convince me that July has arrived. It definitely feels like July. We got started on our morning walk before sunrise again and were lucky to have a breeze and overcast skies for most of the way. Dawn knows all the routes we travel so well now that we let her choose how long to walk. If it's cool outside and she has lots of energy, she'll usually pick a longer route. On hot days like today, she'll pick a shorter route home that shaves at least a mile off our travels. I continue to be amazed at what a smart Dawn is. She's kind of street smart too. I get the feeling that she's seen and survived a lot in her former life.

I paid my early July bills online this morning, but still had to go to the post office to mail a letter to my sister. Since there was no line at the counter today, I finally bought a roll of stamps. This roll ought to last me for several years. Periodic letters to my Luddite sister are the only reason I need stamps anymore.

It was a slow day so I did what I usually do on slow days: look at cars on the Internet. It's weird that I'm so interested in cars since I don't even like to drive, but that's the way it is. Ever since I spent that week at the Astronomers Lodge, I've decided that my desire to buy a 4x4 Sprinter Van was just a passing fancy. It is much more comfortable to stay in a hotel while you are traveling. Now I'm interested in the new Ford Bronco that is going to be introduced in a week or so. I owned a Bronco once and it was a fairly rugged trouble free car. There's plenty to choose from though. A British company called INEOS is introducing a car called the Grenadier that is a dead ringer for the old Land Rover Defenders I loved so much. This tough looking Defender clone features permanent all wheel drive and a BMW engine. It's going to be available for the US market too. Something to think about. I might even consider getting a Tesla Cybertruck. It's hard to bet against Elon Musk. Once they get around to putting a few Superchargers in Fort Davis, a Cybertruck is going to start looking pretty good.

While I was eating breakfast this morning I watched with some amusement as police began to dismantle the Seattle CHOP zone on TV. Very interesting that it wasn't the violence and murders in the occupied zone that caused the Seattle mayor to change her mind. It was when the angry mob started marching toward her own house. The people of Beverly Hills have banned protests in their ritzy neighborhood too. What a bunch of hypocrites. It's all fun and games for these armchair warriors until the mob threatens to burn down their homes.

There is a very famous quote from George Orwell in his book 1984. You probably read it in school: “Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.” The interesting thing to me is that the left thinks this ominous message refers to Donald Trump, while the right is convinced Orwell is talking about today's cancel culture. This is the world we live in. We are able to look at the exact same thing and see something different.

I hate all this conflict. I think the United States has become too divided to govern effectively. I wish we could just agree to let the red states secede and form their own woke country. California, Oregon, and Washington State would make a nice little country. Maybe they could take an empty state like Nevada too so all the Californians who have moved to Texas could return to their roots. This will never happen of course, because Americans are too argumentative to do anything practical.

Before someone writes the next tell-all political book, we need to remember that over 100,000 Americans worked on the Manhattan Project for several years during World War II and not a single one of them betrayed the secret of the atomic bomb. That's unity. Before we continue finding Nazis under every tree, we need to remember that Wernher von Braun, the beloved scientist who took us to the moon was an actual real Nazi. Before we tear down any more statues and cancel everything, we need to remember that it was the Jewish people who insisted that Auschwitz remain standing after World War II, so that history would never forget. I think we started erasing history long before the statues started tumbling. It's convenient for a superficial world that communicates using Emojis to just remember what we like. We need to own both the good and the bad and erase nothing. It's who we are. Civilization requires both.

Bentley is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3361

It's hard to get used to Texas weather. It was eighty degrees this afternoon and I had the air conditioner running in both the house and the car. It was such a warm day that we were even able to give Dash a much needed bath. We used to regularly take the dogs to neighborhood dog washing facilities, but Dash has difficulty standing up in the tubs now. There's not enough room to bathe him at home in the shower, so we have to wait for a warm day and go outside. It takes two of us to clean him and everybody gets wet, but the effort is worth it when he starts to smell like pee.

Dash didn't enjoy his bath, but he sure smelled good afterwards. He did enjoy two leisurely walks on a beautiful, warm day. Maybe Spring isn't quite here yet, but it's definitely on the way. It felt like Spring today.

I went back to the hotel for breakfast, because I felt like relaxing. The dining room is always quiet and sedate and the waiters know me by name. Even the chef looked up and smiled when I arrived this morning. I'd eat at this place all the time if the menu wasn't so small. Everything is delicious, but you'd think they could come up with more than four items. The trendy restaurant seems to have hundreds of items on their breakfast menu.

I knew when we gave Dash a bath that there would be other cleaning as well. A clean dog doesn't last long in a dirty house. Both of us spent most of the afternoon vacuuming, dusting, and doing laundry. All this activity didn't stop Dash from peeing on the living room floor, but the house is reasonably clean now. I expect that this will last about two days.

I finally got the telephone bill. In an effort to pressure me to go paperless, they keep sending me my bill later and later. If I don't pay it on the same day it arrives, I'll get hit with a late fee. A week before this bill arrives, I get an e-mail saying that my paper bill will arrive in seven to ten days and asking me if I wouldn't prefer to just pay it electronically. So far, I have resisted. What's so bad about writing checks and taking bills to the post office? I like the leisurely pace of paper. The electronic world seems hectic and rude.

Even the airlines have done away with paper. I was wondering when I was going to get my boarding pass for my trip to Houston and then I got a message saying that I should download the airline's app and an electronic boarding pass would show up on my phone. It's a brave new world we live in. I find it ironic that everybody is worried about hacking, but still feel compelled to live their lives online. People didn't tend to steal your information when you put it in a letter.

I was hoping for a good night's sleep last night, but Dash had other ideas. He pooped in the bed three times. Everything landed squarely on the puppy pads and it only took me a minute or two to roll the pad up, seal it in a plastic bag, and take it outside. I've even gotten better at quickly getting back to sleep after these episodes, but it's not the same as an uninterrupted night of sleep. Eight hours of continuous sleep is still the holy grail. Oh, well. Three blocks of two hour sleep, followed by a one hour nap are still better than nothing.

Bacardi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2654

The bugs are going to be terrible this Summer. I've already been bitten by mosquitoes and chiggers and its only March. I'm a magnet for bug bites while guiding Dot slowly through the back yard while waiting for her to pee. Long pants and socks provide more protection, but it sure gets hot in the Summer. So far, I've found fire ants in the front yard, little sweet ants in the bathrooms, crane flies lining up to get in the back door when I leave it open for Dot, and lots of mosquitoes every time it rains. I haven't seen any cockroaches yet, but they can't be far behind. Dot and Dash are both on a flea and tick preventative, but I found a tick on Dash's face just yesterday. The battle against bugs is relentless in Texas.

The back door is really going to be a problem this Summer. I have to open the door ahead of time before I attempt to take Dot out to pee. If I can't keep her moving swiftly from her bed to the door, she pees immediately. This morning, I stopped just for a second to open the door and she peed all over a large rug next to the door. Jeez, I just washed this rug yesterday. It's a mess. I kept a fly swatter nearby while I was eating breakfast this morning to kill the crane flies that had wandered inside while I had Dot out in the back yard.

Today was surprisingly busy. I had several websites to update, including one that required me to brush up on some tricky code designed to automatically resize the site for mobile devices. It's a shame that I learned to create mobile-ready websites just as my business was starting to wind down. Mobile sites are complex and I don't do enough of them to keep my skills in tip top shape. Every time I get a request to modify a mobile site, I inevitably have to relearn something.

I have no idea what made Dot throw up yesterday. She seemed fine today. Surprisingly, she seemed to have more energy as well, even though the weather was still quite warm. We only walk Dot at sunrise and sunset now. It seems to help. This new schedule has messed up my own eating habits though. I now have to eat my dinner very early.

My accountant wants me to pay online now. I called and asked if I could just write him a check like I have for the past twenty five years and he told me that their office was trying to go paperless. Jeez, could it really be that hard to take a check to the bank? I'm having the same problem with everybody. When AT&T lost my check recently, they tried to get me to switch to online payments too. I get a notice in all my utility bills urging me to go paperless. Paper checks are apparently a thing of the past.

I was an innovator and somewhat of a trend setter for most of my career. Now, I've become a Luddite. I can't stop change from happening, but I sure can complain about it. I liked cars a lot better before they became computers on wheels. I liked it when software was packaged in fancy boxes with detailed printed manuals. I liked shoes better when you could take them to a shoe repairman and have them resoled forever. I liked electronics with soldered components instead of integrated circuits. Everything is ruthlessly efficient and disposable now. It's hard to fix anything. Paper checks may mean nothing to you, but they represent a better world to me.

I have to go to the dentist tomorrow. I decided to go early in the morning, in hopes that Dot would stay asleep while I was gone. It's hard to predict what Dot is going to do though and the dentist doesn't make house calls. Hopefully, I won't have any cavities and Dot won't make a huge mess while I'm gone.

Big Boy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2650

The restaurant I visited this morning was really old school. People were reading newspapers instead of looking at their phones. I didn't see a single phone in use in the entire restaurant. It was odd to see so many newspapers. I must admit that I haven't read the paper myself for several years. The food was good at this old fashioned place, but the portions were huge. I felt vaguely guilty that I couldn't finish my meal. I grew up with a mother who made me eat everything on my plate and I've religiously cleaned my plate ever since.

I actually struck up a conversation will a fellow diner, which was probably rarer than seeing a newspaper. The guy was wearing a t-shirt that said "the Falcon has landed" with a picture of the Space X Falcon 9 rocket. I was enough of a space nerd to realize that this was a play on words, referring to Neil Armstrong's famous phrase "the Eagle has landed" when Apollo 11 touched down on the moon. I asked the guy if he worked at Space X and he said "I wish." We talked for a while about NASA, the moon, Elon Musk, and our fascination with space flight. The guy asked me whether I collected space memorabilia.  I told him no, but that I did stay up late last night to watch the Space X Echostar launch.

Dot had her monthly cancer recheck this afternoon. She rides so much better in the car now that Janet has started going with us to the exams. Janet sits in the back of the car with Dot and is able to calm her when she gets frantic and has a panic attack. Dot was actually calm enough when we arrived at the cancer center today that the nurse was able to get a decent blood pressure reading for a change.

The good news is that the growth of the tumors in Dot's liver has slowed. Each mass only grew about one millimeter this time. She still has four tumors, but no new ones have appeared. The oncologist seemed pleased that Dot was responding well to the pain medication and said her condition was more or less stable. She still wants us to come back every month for an ultrasound scan though. One of the tumors is large enough that it could become a problem at any time. Greta, one of our earlier Dalmatians, also had liver cancer. I wish we had handled Greta's illness the same way we are doing now with Dot. Greta was old as well when we discovered her cancer and wasn't able to survive the surgery. She died at the hospital. It would have been better to just keep her comfortable at home during whatever remaining time she had.

I got a notice from AT&T today saying that my wireless bill was overdue. Jeez, I sent the guys a check over two weeks ago. AT&T gave me an extension until next Wednesday to see if the check shows up. Maybe it will and maybe it won't. How could it take two weeks to get a letter to Atlanta?  I have a feeling that it's finally time to give up on the US mail. The post office has lost things of mine before and I'm sure they will again. Janet pays all her bills online and has urged me to do the same many times. At least when you pay online, you know instantly if your payment went through. Unfortunately, I'm just about as old school as the restaurant I visited this morning. I like traditions like going to the post office and the bank. There is something nice about these traditions, just like writing letters on paper to my sister.

I hope Dot sleeps well tonight. We kind of had a rough night yesterday and neither of us got very much sleep. I remember cleaning up poop and throwing rugs in the washing machine at 3 AM. Hopefully tonight will be calmer. We could all use the rest.

Alison is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day