Day 3922

The sky was exceptionally hazy today. When the sun rose on our morning walk, it was just a dull orange ball in the Eastern sky. Oddly, the air quality was good. The smoke from the Western wildfires must have been high in the atmosphere. We have seen these smokey skies frequently lately. They need to add a new category to my weather app. Clear, partly cloudy, and overcast isn't descriptive enough anymore.

I found everything on my shopping list today, although I has to go to two different stores to find peaches. There were still several things Janet couldn't find on her list. I wonder how long these disruptions in the supply chain are going to last? It's been a long time and quite a few very ordinary things are still hard to find.

We got a late start on our walk this morning and the park was already crowded. The people who go to the park in the morning are completely different from the ones who go in the afternoon. The morning people seem very energetic and productive. They are all cycling, jogging, or walking their dogs. If someone has a camera they are usually taking pictures of wildlife.

Afternoon people are different. Most of them are sitting in hammocks looking at their phones. The cameras are used for taking selfies. There are often large family picnics and the occasional energetic folks are usually riding skateboards. I guess I identify more with the morning people. It's easy for me to imagine that they are the ones designing the phones and selling the hammocks that the afternoon people use.

Dawn was reluctant to come out of the bedroom today and eat her dinner because Janet was gone. I knew she was hungry, but she just wouldn't move. I even went out in the back yard for a while to see if she would come out to her bowl when I wasn't around. Nope. As soon as Janet returned home, Dawn went straight to her bowl and immediately ate all her dinner. This is going to be a problem if Janet ever decides to travel.

Dawn will be just fine if I decide to travel. I just can't decide if I'm ready to go anywhere. I still haven't heard if I am cleared to attend the Delta IV Heavy launch in Florida next week. Would I go if I get the OK? I'm not sure. I still don't feel comfortable sitting on an airliner for three hours with a bunch of strangers. There is so much unrest in the world that I would worry about getting caught up in a demonstration in the wee hours of the morning while returning to my hotel from a launch. Maybe I'm overreacting, but this is the world I'm shown on the news every single day.

I was just getting used to living without seasonal allergies when the Fall allergies arrived. Janet and I are both having problems. It seems like the Spring allergy seasons extends all the way into the Fall allergy season these days. I had a month or so with no problems at all, but unfortunately those were the days when it was over 100 degrees.

I'm thinking about joining a Zoom meeting tomorrow with some of my NASA friends. I'm not all that eager to talk with anyone, but I'm curious how the software works and whether I've actually learned how to use it. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. The meeting is around dinner time. That could be a factor. I hate to miss a meal.

Rhett is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3910 - Labor Day

It didn't seem like a holiday today. The park wasn't crowded at all. There were a few families having picnics, but I saw a few yesterday as well. Maybe Labor Day seems irrelevant if you aren't working. They say that more people are returning to work in Dallas than in most cities, but you couldn't prove it by me. I still see a lot more people wandering around in the park than I did at this time last year.

We got a reminder that today actually was a holiday when we discovered that the Dalmatian kennel was closed. We weren't able to visit the dogs today, but maybe we'll go later in the week. I'd still like to see Hank and Luckie before they make the journey to their new home in Austin.

Without our regular visit to the kennel, today seemed even more uneventful than usual. We had a nice morning walk, but we should have started a little earlier. By the time we returned home we were all pretty hot. Dawn went back to bed and I felt like joining her. Doing nothing can be very tiring.

I watched SN6 travel down Highway 4 back to the Space X shipyard and then later in the day watched the 7.1 pressure vessel travel back down the same road to replace it on the launch pad. The 7.1 tank won't fly anywhere. It will just be pumped full of liquid nitrogen until it explodes. These pressure tests seem to be common in the space world. NASA tested an Artemis liquid oxygen tank to destruction at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Alabama earlier this Summer. I'm still waiting until the real Starship makes it's debut. An early version may take off from Boca Chica before the end of the year. I only mention these live feed videos to illustrate how little is going on at the moment. Who would have thought that I could spend an hour watching what looked like a shiny grain silo travel slowly down a country road.

I've noticed that the people who go to the park in the morning are very different than the people who go in the afternoon. The morning people seem very industrious. They are jogging, cycling, and walking dogs. The afternoon people are mostly sitting in hammocks looking at their phones. I identify more with the morning people. Why would you want to sit in a hammock on a 100 degree afternoon anyway? It makes a lot more sense to take a nice walk on a 75 degree pre-dawn morning.

We saw a lost chicken in the park this morning. The bird seemed bewildered to be wandering around in a world full of ducks. A lot of people have backyard chickens in the neighborhood, so this one probably just escaped. We thought about taking the chicken to a nearby rescue that takes almost any type of animal, but how do you catch a chicken when you've got a dog with you? We'll probably never see the little rooster again. It will make a tasty meal for the coyotes who live nearby.

I wish I'd hear something definitive from Sky and Telescope. I always worry that there will be changes at the magazine and my story won't get published after all. I try to be patient with these magazines, but I really need some good news to get me motivated. It's a lot easier to start a new story when I see one of the older ones in print.

Bailey is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day