Day 4920

No rain today, but the humidity was so high that it felt like it was raining. At least it was overcast and relatively cool outside. The humidity would have seemed even worse if the sun was shining. I had plenty of time to contemplate the weather today. I don't think I did anything except walk and eat. 

Our sunrise walk with Dawn was enjoyable. Dawn is always eager to go on these early walks. I'm always sleepy, but this is how I wake up. I wish the entire day was like these mornings. It warms up quickly though. By the time I'm ready for my long walk, I usually think it would have been smarter to go to the gym. Today wasn't that bad. I only questioned my sanity a few times during the walk.

The loose dog I saw animal control trying to capture yesterday was still there this morning. I guess they didn't catch it. There's a story here but I don't know what it is. The dog seemed friendly and I thought it would be easy to capture. The dog probably knew what it's fate would be if it wound up at Dallas Animal Services. Maybe a local rescue group will take an interest in this dog. There seems to be an epidemic of people dumping dogs around town and most of the rescues are full. It's all kind of sad.

I'm impressed at how quickly the park department removed all the downed trees from Sunday's big storm. I saw crews working with chain saws yesterday and today almost all of the trees were gone. There were lots of downed trees in the park, so this was a big effort. The park department seems like a model of efficiency compared to other parts of city government. Maybe I just notice things since I'm walking every day, but I'll have to admit that I'm impressed.

As soon as the ground dries out I'm going to have to mow again. We've had so much rain this Spring that the grass is doing really well. Grass has overrun several gravel pathways in the yard, but I don't really care. It's green and everything looks pretty nice. I keep thinking that I should hire a lawn service to take care of the yard, but I need to stay active and it isn't that hard to keep doing things myself. What else would I do anyway? I'm not that busy.

I've got an appointment soon to sign up for TSA Pre. In theory this will make it easier to travel. It will certainly save me time at the Orlando airport. I won't be going anywhere soon though. The roof was expensive and there are other big bills this month as well. I miss my time in Titusville though. I'm already looking at upcoming launches and trying to decide which ones I really need to see. I'm sure I'll be back at Kennedy Space Center later this year however. It's important to still have something interesting to do.

Dawn did well at her training class tonight. She's not been winning ribbons lately, but Janet says she still enjoys the class and knows all the commands. I probably need some sort of training class myself. I've forgotten just about everything.

Daisy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4648

Not much happened today. You can tell the days are getting shorter. We left on our sunrise walk a little later than usual, but the sun still wasn't up when we returned. The weather was nice though. It was just chilly enough to wear a light jacket. Fall is definitely here. It won't be long before it's time for the State Fair.  

When I took my long walk after breakfast I noticed that the first of the White Pelicans have returned for the Winter. Usually about a dozen birds arrive early and the rest begin to appear about a month later. Seasonal changes are very predictable and so far this year everything is right on schedule. 

The stone masons have just about finished the four stone gates in the park. I still have no idea what these gates are for, but they are large and look expensive. There has been a lot of construction work in the park this Summer. The place looks good this year. It's too bad the city doesn't run as efficiently as the park department. The park is definitely cleaner and a lot safer than the city that surrounds it.

I got a notice this morning that it was time to set out this month's bulky trash. That meant that I needed to move a big pile of brush and tree limbs I had cut earlier in an attempt to clean things up on the roof. The neighbor's Pecan tree would droop down and touch our roof when it rained and often this would knock over my pumps. It took a lot longer to move the tree limbs than it took me to cut them in the first place. I got the job done though. I was tired when I finished, but at least I didn't get stung by bees.

A year ago today I was down in Florida for the Inspiration 4 launch. Now I'm waiting for news about the next Artemis-1 attempt. I'm pretty sure I'll return to see the next attempt, but I haven't made any firm plans yet. I wonder why I still enjoy doing this? I've covered quite a few of these things now and each launch is remarkably similar to the previous one. The space community is filled with interesting people though. It's nice to feel like I'm a part of this group even if my contribution is very, very small.

I've really got to get some work done on the house. It bothers me that the carefully curated list of suppliers that I've collected over the years is basically worthless now. Just about everyone has either retired or died. I hate to start over or rely on websites like Angi's List. There are few thing more irritating than hiring a sloppy painter or an inept carpenter. Something's got to be done though. I'm not going to get this work done myself.

This weeks' trash has been taken to the curb and I'm wondering whether to go out for breakfast in the morning. I'll probably just have my regular bowl of shredded wheat, but I did used to enjoy my restaurant breakfasts on Friday.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1738

Very little went as planned today. A persistent telemarketer called over and over again at ten minute intervals until I finally figured out how to block the call. I got a past due notice from a vendor I had parted company with and paid in full over two years ago. I also almost threw away a check from a client because the envelope looked like it contained junk mail.

That was just the beginning. All the links suddenly went dead on a website I had just uploaded a few days ago and thought I was finished with. I have no idea what went wrong, but it took me quite a while to fix the mess. The only thing I can think of is that the server reverted to an older backup copy of the site which contained code that I had subsequently changed. Another client gave me the name of a new product they wanted me to write something uplifting about. I did a little research and discovered that they had named their product after an aircraft that had crashed, killing 73 of the 76 passengers on board. Somebody didn't do their homework.

Dot had a small accident last night because we went to bed late and forgot to take her water bowl up. She tanked up on water around 11 PM and just couldn't hold it. I still think her Incurin pills are working. This was our fault. If I drank a ton of water just before I went to bed, I couldn't hold it all night either. 

Dot is still a little sore from the rabies and leptospirosis injections she got on Tuesday, but she still did very well during her physical therapy session. She was able to go fifteen minutes on the underwater treadmill, which was much better than I expected. The only downside to today's visit was that the vet found several fleas on her. Fleas are always a problem, since we live so close to a large park filled with feral cats and other critters. Both dog have sensitive skin, so we can't use Frontline or other topical products. I actually thought her heartworm pills would guard against fleas, but the vet said they only prevented the fleas from reproducing and didn't kill live ones.

It looks like the city is going to tear up one of the trails the dogs and I like to use and replace it with a much wider concrete walkway designed for bicycles and joggers. I'm not looking forward to this. I liked the park a lot better when it was largely abandoned. Now that the park department considers the place an entertainment destination and keeps adding new things to attract more people, the place is turning into a zoo. There's not much I can do about this though. It's not my park. I guess I was lucky that the place lay dormant and unused for so long.

I'm really glad that tomorrow is Friday. From the way things looked today, this week couldn't be over soon enough.

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1589

I stopped to get some tickets to a neighborhood tour of homes when I was driving home from the post office today. Unfortunately, they wouldn't take credit cards, so I'll have to make another trip later. Sometimes these local home tours are fun. I know where most of the houses are and and am often curious what they look like on the inside. Our house could easily be on one of these home tours if we had picked designer decor instead of Dalmatians many years ago. I'm glad we picked Dalmatians though, even though they've made a mess of the doors and the furniture.

If you know where to look, you can still see impressions in the woodwork left by Spot's puppy teeth when he was teething.  There is still a giant hole that Petey tore in the carpet while he was trying to dig a hole to China during a thunderstorm. I've conveniently covered up the hole by placing the large format printer on top of it. Greta was the most destructive. She chewed holes in most of the decorative throw pillows in the living room and completely destroyed a beautiful set of Palazzetti Tomasa dinning room chairs. Despite all this, there is no doubt that the dogs have made me a better person. I don't care about all the dents and scratches. It wasn't always this way. If you think I'm OCD now, you should have seen me back in the days when I arranged all the furniture with zen-like precision and didn't even want anyone to sit in it.

We watched a news crew from the local NBC affiliate set up for a live segment on the evening news while we were taking our evening walk. It looked like a big deal because they even had a news helicopter overhead. There's a big controversy right now about building a restaurant in the park. The city wants the restaurant. The neighbors don't. I have a feeling that the neighbors will ultimately lose this battle, but who knows. The city has already turned an arboretum on the other side of the park into a hugely profitable venture. They'd probably like to do the same thing with our section of the park. I'm sure the park department would monetize every square inch of the park if they could get away with it. Personally, I don't mind the idea of a restaurant. I don't like to drive and it would give me a place to eat that I could easily walk to. I do hate the city's efforts to turn the park into an urban entertainment center though. When I first moved to the neighborhood, the park wasn't even on the city's radar. It was largely abandoned and seemed authentically wild and natural. Now it's just becoming a park department version of Disneyland.

Dash sailed though his annual physical with flying colors today. This is usually when he gets his rabies shot and any other necessary vaccinations, but we decided to wait on these until his cancer treatment is finished. Dash has more than enough to deal with right now, without the addition of even more meds that might cause an adverse reaction or additional stress. We'll catch up on the vaccinations later.

Work has been unusually slow this month. Since I had the time, I decided to gather up all the twigs and dead limbs I could find and take them out to the street for bulky trash day. I was surprised that there was still so much brush around the yard to gather up. Wasn't this what I hired the landscape guys to do last month?  At any rate, for the first time in about six months, I managed to get this chore completed before big trash day. I think the trucks are coming to pick things up tomorrow.

Mindy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1495

Every year about this time, I get a letter from my accountant telling me that it's time to start gathering my tax records together. The letters go out early, because he knows that it takes people a long time to locate everything. I don't mind the idea of paying taxes. It makes perfect sense that we all pay for the roads we use and air traffic controllers and the research it takes to look for a cure for cancer. What irks me about paying taxes is that most of the money I hand over to the government every year is just wasted. The money that isn't wasted most likely goes to fund programs that I don't even believe in. I wonder what would happen if we all paid the same amount of income tax, but got to decide where it would go. I wouldn't mind funding programs I believe in. If we all got to do that, I have a feeling that the country would look a lot different.

Most of my opinions about the world are formed by what I see in my own little neighborhood. Lately, I've started seeing a whole lot of government waste. Somebody has decided that the park needs new signs. Most of the important areas in the park already have identifying signage, but apparently, they need brand new signs. I've started seeing a huge number of elaborate stonework and welded metal signs going up. Each of these small monuments to government waste often take a crew of six to ten stone masons and craftsmen up to three weeks to complete. The new signs are usually placed right next to the old simple wood signs that were there all along. I have an idea what happened here. At some point in the past, a bond issue was passed to improve the park. A small percentage of the total, maybe 2%, was designated for signage. Since the original bond issue was for tens of millions of dollars, the total amount designated for signage was probably quite large. Somebody was hired to administer the signage budget, and rather than admit they didn't actually need all that money, they decided to embark on the world's most elaborate park signage program and spend every cent. That's just the way government works. No bureaucrat will ever admit that someone gave them too much money to spent.

Our January weather certainly is weird this year. Another cold front blew through last night and we woke up to near freezing temperatures. Once the sun came out, the temperature rose rapidly and by the time I took the dogs on their evening walk, it was almost seventy degrees. That's quite a swing in a single day. I started the day wearing my goose-down winter coat and ended it wearing a t-shirt.

I've been asked to print a large poster for a February adoption event and am somewhat chagrined to realize that I've forgotten how to make these large posters. I used to do this all the time and was quite good at it. Jeez, this is exactly what I've been trying to keep the large printer unclogged for. I can't believe I've forgotten how to use the large printer. My memory is a sieve. You know what they say: use it or lose it. It won't take me long to get up to speed again, since everything I need to know is already on Wikipedia, but this is a bit embarrassing.

Dovey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day