Day 4591

Today is the 53rd anniversary of the first moon landing. We need more events like this. It might have been the last time the entire world felt good about something. Nevermind the fact that the Apollo program was all about the Cold War and the moon landing probably never would have happened if we weren't in a race to beat the Russians. It was still a stupendous achievement. I remember those days well. I was in college then and wasn't nearly as cynical. I actually believed all those who said we would have cities on Mars by now. What happened? There are no cities on Mars and the cities on Earth are crowded and very unsafe.

Dawn didn't have training class this evening. It was too hot. The temperature slowly builds throughout the day and it is usually hottest right around sunset. The sun has already set and it is still 104 degrees at our house. Hey, it is only 80 degrees indoors though. By bedtime, the temperature will be down to 78 and tomorrow morning it will be 75 again. It is actually probably a bit cooler in most rooms. The thermostat is right next to the air return for the AC and this is the warmest place in the house. 

I've really started to appreciate our sunrise walks with Dawn because they are the only times when the weather seems tolerable. This morning there was a nice breeze and we had a very enjoyable walk. As soon as the sun peeks above the horizon you can instantly feel the difference. The sun feels hot even at sunrise. Dawn seems perfectly content to just get one walk a day now. She's basically a very lazy dog and spends most of her time sleeping on the bed anyway.

I try to stay busier, although sleeping on the bed during the day sounds pretty good to me as well. I went back to the gym again after eating breakfast and checking my messages on the computer. Until our heat wave is over, this will probably be my routine for the rest of the summer. I might even try mall walking this Sunday when my gym is closed. I just don't think it is healthy to be out in this heat for very long. My summer routine at the gym is pretty much the same every day. I walk several miles on the indoor track to get my Fitbit steps and then I shoot some baskets on the basketball court for fun before I head home again. I always hope that I can find a space in the parking garage, because the car heats up very quickly if left out in the sun. I don't want anything to melt.

There isn't a lot to do in the afternoon. This is when I often take a nap if I feel so inclined. Janet likes to watch movies on her devices, but I have trouble doing this. I have trouble picking up a book either. Occasionally I will look at Amazon or New York Times best seller lists but I don't see any literary masterpieces. Every celebrity has a book these days. I should have been a ghost writer. I know these guys didn't write their books themselves. Actually, I should just start methodically re-reading all the books on my office bookshelves. I can't remember what is in most of them, but I know that I used to have good taste in books and enjoyed them all. It's hard to believe that I really read all these books. There are hundreds of them.

There is all this squabbling right now about fossil fuel versus renewal energy. Absolutely nobody is talking about the real problem. There are way too many people on the planet chasing too few resources. Humans are like Kudzoo Vines. We chop down all the trees to make houses and eat all the fish out of the sea. We should be planting more trees. Everyone is worried about greenhouse gasses, but trees actually love CO2. They convert the stuff into oxygen. We just don't get it. Instead of planting forests, we create vast deserts and then build solar panel farms on them. Nature tries to help by sending us new diseases every year designed to reduce our population. We're like busy beavers though and always find a cure for these diseases. We never learn. We keep building bigger cities and can't seem to produce enough food. I still think at the rate things are going humans will be extinct in 300 years.

On that happy note I will continue watching a small line of storms to the North of us on the weather radar. I was hoping that we might get some of that rain later this evening, but the storms seem to be dissipating. Who would have thought that after all my complaining about roof leaks, I would actually be hoping for rain.

Lady Jane is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3529

Every time I go to the bank I wonder what has happened to jobs in this country. There are lots of empty offices and very few employees. All I needed this morning was to go to my safe deposit box, but I had to wait forever because there was only a single banker helping everyone. Next to his office were six identical vacant offices. The tellers cages were equally empty. There was only a single teller on duty.

This is happening everywhere. There are fewer cashiers at the grocery store. There are fewer employees selling stamps at the post office. Even my new breakfast restaurant seems to be doing more with less. I noticed this morning that there is no full time cashier. When you are ready to pay your bill you walk over to the empty cash register stand and after a while a waiter will notice you and come over to take your money. Unemployment is supposed to be at an all time low. I wonder where everyone is working? I don't think they are working at ad agencies. There are significantly fewer agencies in Dallas than there were when I moved here in the 1970's.

I thought it was going to rain for a while this afternoon, but all we got were a few ominous looking clouds. No rain hit the ground. The clouds didn't even cool things down very much. It was still a hot and very humid day. When I start hoping for rain you know something is wrong. It has been dry way too long and the grass in the front yard is looking pitiful. I'll take my chances with the roof. We need some rain.

I lost another friend to cancer today. The list keeps growing. It's amazing to me how many former classmates and coworkers are gone. It's alarming how many of these people were actually younger than I am. I guess I should focus on the equally amazing number of people I know who have survived something serious. Life is never entirely fair, but I try to remember to enjoy the time I have left on this earth. It's not going to last forever.

I wonder why there's not more concern about all the fires in the Amazon rain forests? Jeez. This is where our oxygen comes from. You can't get more basic than that. The sad thing is that these fires weren't caused by drought or lightning strikes. They were set by humans who want more farmland and cattle ranches. With all the talk about climate change these days you still don't hear much serious discussion about the real cause of all our problems. The problem is overpopulation. There are simply too many people on this planet. It is not sustainable. We have become an invasive species who are rapidly destroying everything. We all need to quit having babies for a while.

I'm still concerned about the weather in West Texas. Two of the three long range forecasts I'm following predict clear skies. Unfortunately the third says there's a 50% chance of rain. Why can't you weather experts agree on these things? I want clear skies when I go to the observatory. I should be concerned about the wild gyrations in the stock market, but I've given up on stability in the market. The market overreacts to everything these days. I try not to overreact to anything, but it's getting harder.

Mickey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3451

I saw a woman pulling up Queen Anne's Lace in one of the meadows this morning. I'd seen small groups of people doing this before, so I asked what she was doing. She said she was trying to remove the invasive species from the native prairie. Lots of luck with that. The lady had about a dozen Queen Anne's Lace plants in her hand. She and I were literally surrounded by millions more of these plants as far as the eye could see. I had to admire the effort, but this was the best example of a quixotic quest that I had ever seen. I think the invasive plants are winning this battle. As I was leaving to continue my walk I asked what she planned to do about the Johnson Grass. The lady had no answer. Johnson Grass is almost impossible to eradicate.

I wonder what motivates people to do impossible things? I see people trying to do the impossible almost every day. The last remains of the Blackland Prairie were definitely a lot prettier when Janet and I first moved here, but I don't know if pulling up Queen Anne's Lace one plant at a time can save it. Buffalo and antelope used to graze here. Early settlers replaced most of the prairie grasses with crops and trees. They began to extinguish the naturally occurring prairie fires that allowed the prairie to flourish. As a result most of the 12 million acre prairie is gone. Ironically, the only reason the 250 acres of native prairie in the park survived is that the place used to be a dairy farm before it was a park. The cattle loved the prairie grasses just as much as the buffalo did. Grazing cattle saved the prairie. The cows are long gone now and the city won't mow the area, so invasive species are taking over. Every year I see fewer flowers and more Johnson Grass. It's a shame.

My solution to situations like this is always fewer people. Humans are the worst invasive species of all. We are much worse than Queen Anne's Lace or Johnson Grass. We are rapidly eating all the fish in the sea, sawing down the rainforests to make houses, and continuing to reproduce at an exponential rate. This is simply not sustainable. Solar panels and windmills aren't going to fix this. Somebody needs to convince the human race to quit having babies for a while.

I kept thinking about impossible things as I continued my walk but I didn't have any answers. I don't even know how to save the city's exploding population of stray dogs. The dogs aren't the problem. It's the irresponsible people who own them. Every time there is a big rain and the tributaries overflow their banks, an avalanche of plastic bottles, Startbucks cups, and other trash float into the lake carried by the rising water. This is all people's trash from Northern suburbs. More irresponsible people. In the ensuing weeks an army of Park and Recreation workers clean up the trash that has accumulated on the shoreline and haul it away. Then it rains again and the whole process starts all over again. It's hopeless.

Maybe things like this are why my feet are getting more activity than my brain these days. I've got no answers. Everything I see people doing to fix things seems wrong. Probably my solutions are wrong too. I'm as human as the next guy.

For the moment, I'll just keep walking and try to stay active. Since today was a nice day and I had little to do, it was almost impossible to avoid mowing the grass. I mowed both the front and back yards. Mr. Fitbit will be happy today. I got in a lot of steps for a weekday.

Wendy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3202

My mind wanders at the gym. I think about things. What if disease and famine were meant to be part of our existence? Did we accidentally become smart enough so that we could ignore the rules that applied to everything else on the planet? Humanity has spread like a Kudzu vine, destroying everything in its path? When I go to the doctor, I sometimes wonder if I should just eat healthy food and take my chances. I take a lot of pills that didn't even exist 40 years ago. Was I meant to live that much longer than my grandparents. Modern medicine has dramatically extended our lives and increased our numbers, but was that really what nature intended?

We have risen to the top of the food chain and eaten all the other animals. The oceans are systematically being depleted of fish. The forests have been chopped down to build houses for us. So much oil has been pumped from the ground that it is causing earthquakes. I read statistics occasionally that say there are still plenty of animals left on the planet. When you read the fine print, you discover that only a tiny percentage of what remains are actually wild animals. The vast majority of animals that remain on the planet are cows and pigs that are being raised for food. 60 percent of the mammals are livestock, 36 percent are humans, and just four percent of the living mammals on the planet are wild. I wonder if we have become too smart for our own good. Maybe our cleverness just guarantees that we will be extinct soon. Would the Earth be safe if we quit trying to live forever?

I don't know the answer to these things, but it makes the time go faster on the treadmill. I was terrible on the basketball court today. I couldn't connect with anything. Maybe some residual emotion from yesterday was seeping out of the base of my brain and destroying my hand/eye coordination. Fitbit says my resting heart rate is higher this week as well. Not good. I need to take a deep breath and just turn off the television.

We tried some new protective coverings for the bed last night, but they didn't really work. Two or three times a night, Dash will wake up and circle around on the bed to find a new position. When he does this, the blankets and protective coverings just get crumpled and wind up in a ball. This is a work in progress. Luckily, Dash made it through the night and pooped outside early this morning. I actually got some sleep last night.

I'm thinking about applying to participate in another NASA event. This one takes place in Houston, so travel would be easy. The are so many flights to Houston from Dallas that I might even be able to return the same day. This is all good. The bad thing is that I think I've lost my mojo. NASA seems to be looking for social media stars. That's definitely not me.

The catalog for the second auction came out today. My remaining art looks pretty good. The first auction takes place later this week. This will all be over soon. When I look at these catalogs it still seems strange that these things used to hang on my wall.

There was a beautiful sunset tonight. We've got to start walking earlier though. By the time we got home, it was completely dark.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3188

I listened to a program about Schadenfreude on the way to the gym this morning. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the concept of feeling pleasure at someone else's misfortune. Apparently, researchers have discovered that in today's increasingly polarized world, people will tend to accept something they know is wrong if they think the wrong might make someone they dislike look even worse. This explains a lot. Politics and a lot of foreign policy decisions depend on Schadenfreude.

Democrats and Republicans. Palestinians and Israelis. The Patriots and the Falcons. Is it all just the same? People pick their team and stick with them no matter what. If you're a Falcons fan, you're going to be happy at Tom Brady's misfortune whenever he gets sacked. If a rough tackle puts him out of the game, you're even happier. Politics and diplomacy are starting to seem a lot like football. I like football, but is this any way to run the world?

I like to solve the world's problems while I'm on the treadmill. I never tell anybody my solutions because they'd never listen. Global warming? Piece of cake. Just stop having babies until the earth's population declines by about 40%. Cities would become smaller. Fish would return to the ocean. Forests would flourish. Could anyone convince the entire world that two children is plenty and maybe none would be even better for a while until we got things back in balance? I doubt it. Russian meddling? Big deal. Just open the files and show everyone that our own CIA has been doing the same thing for most of the Twentieth Century. We've done more meddling over the years than all the other countries combined. Countries shouldn't meddle in other countries business, but they do. People shouldn't take pleasure in someone else's misfortune, but they do. Basically, we were the meanest monkeys in the monkey kingdom. Otherwise, dolphins would probably rule the earth.

I only philosophize at the gym. Most of the time I realize that Dash is right. It's better to think about nothing. I'm fairly comfortable living like a dog. I eat. I sleep. I observe and occasionally photograph things in nature. People say it it is important to be passionate about something but I don't even know what that means. Dogs can be obsessive, but I don't think they are passionate. Passion often leads to anger. Obsession just leads to collections. Our first Dalmatian collected tennis balls. He would find them on walks and carry them in his mouth until we got home. He was obsessed with tennis balls and by the end of his life had collected hundreds of them. It all made sense to me. During the same period of time I was collecting model trains.

I've already started seeing pumpkins and Christmas Trees. The Hallmark Channel is already advertising that they are ready to debut 34 all new Christmas Movies. Where has this year gone? It's almost over already. I guess I'd better make reservations for Thanksgiving Dinner before it's too late.

Dalmatian of the Day

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