Day 4593

Yay. NASA approved my application for press credentials and it looks like I will be attending the Artemis-1 launch later this summer. Forget everything I said yesterday. This launch definitely won't look like all the others. The Space Launch System is the largest rocket we've ever built and it's headed to the moon. Well, this first one is headed around the moon anyway. Hopefully, I'll get lucky about the launch dates. The trip could still get expensive if the launch gets delayed after I'm already in Florida.

All in all, it wasn't a bad day. I entered a few of my astrophotography pictures in a Dark Skies photo contest, went to the gym in the morning, and got a haircut in the afternoon. The weather was still very hot, but other than our sunrise walk with Dawn I managed to stay indoors. These sunrise walks provide a good preview of what the day is going to be like. It was humid this morning. I hate getting hot and sweaty before the sun even comes up. Sunrise walks are still tolerable though and Dawn likes them.

I haven't had the nerve to check airfare and hotel rates for my upcoming trip to Florida yet. I'm sure it will be more expensive than last time. I can't think of a single thing that has gotten less expensive this year. Sign of the times I guess. I think travel is still beneficial though. I don't do much, but it's good thing to have something to look forward to. Who knows. I may make it as a space journalist yet.

I got stung by a bee again this morning. This is the second time in a week. Technically, I guess I got stung by a wasp, but it still felt the same. These wasps are everywhere in our yard. It's hard to avoid them. I really hope that Dawn doesn't get stung. She's scared of almost everything already. I definitely don't want her to get scared of going out in the back yard. Lounging in the grass on a sunny day is one of her favorite things.

I always feel better after a haircut. I don't know why I spent my younger years wearing my hair longer. Shorter is definitely better. Especially in the summer. My hair is a lot thinner now, but it still seems to grow fast. It's funny. Yesterday I said I typically don't get a haircut unless I've got a trip planned. Well, now I've got a trip planned again. I still can't decide whether to go back to the observatory this year. One thing at a time is probably best.

I take my car in tomorrow morning for the factory recall. It seems like my car is a little old to still be getting recall notices, but you hate to ignore these things. Hopefully the dealership will do what they promised and won't keep my car over the weekend. They said the repair should only take two hours. I've heard that before. Two hours means about the same thing as two weeks to these guys. We'll see how it goes. I've got groceries to buy tomorrow and being without a car will complicate things.

Pongo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4584

This heat is wearing me down. The entire day just seems like a futile effort to escape from it. The temperature on our sunrise walk with Dawn is already higher than the high of the day just a few weeks ago. By lunchtime the temperature is well over 100 degrees and it doesn't begin to cool down again until it is time to go to sleep. The air conditioner is working, but it can't keep up with the heat. We start out at 75 degrees in the morning and it is always over 80 by dinnertime. I'm sure it has been this hot before. I'm not so sure why people settled here in the first place. I'd rather be in the mountains right now. Telluride sound nice. So does Flathead Lake.

I continue to take my long walk right after breakfast. I'm still able to complete my route, but I need a change of clothes when I'm done. The trails are pretty empty these days. Only fools like me are out walking. As soon as my car repairs are finished, I'm headed back to the gym. I'm still kind of irritated about the cost of catalytic converters, but what can you do? I can't pass my annual safety inspection without one.

I tried entering an online photo contest this afternoon. After filling out the lengthy entry form, I discovered that the submit entry button didn't work. All that work for nothing. I thought I had a good photo too. This contest was put on by the International Dark Sky Association and I've got some fairly decent Milky Way photos. I probably wouldn't win anyway, but hopefully these guys can get the website fixed before the entry deadline closes. I rarely enter contests of any type, but I like this organization. I think I've even met some of these guys out at the observatory.

I got a letter from the Space Force today saying that my press credentials have been renewed for another year. This is good news. It means I've got a back up plan if NASA rejects my application to cover the Artemis-1 launch. The Space Force location for viewing launches isn't quite as close to the pads as the NASA Press Site, but it's still pretty good. There are actually quite a few Space Force launches during the year. I won't be able to afford to go to Florida for a while though. I've got a catalytic converter to pay for.

Dawn loves to lie out in the sun on days like this. Maybe this is why she's been itchy lately. I bet she gets bitten by ants. I get bitten by ants every time I'm out in the yard for any length of time. The ants are everywhere and it's increasingly difficult to keep them out of the house. I don't mind all the squirrels in our yard, but I wish the ants and the hornets would go away. I don't let Dawn stay out in the yard for too long. Ten or fifteen minutes at a time is plenty. I don't want her to get sunburned or have a heat stroke. I'm surprised she actually likes the sun because she also loves the air conditioning.

It was really a slow day. The big event of the day was reading a camera manual in an attempt to remember how to change a setting on one of my cameras. I eventually solved the problem, but I still hate that I forget things. Don't let anyone tell you that old people's memory is just as good as a younger person's. It's not. I really think there should be an age limit on politicians. There are far too many forgetful old people running things.

Watson is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4297

As expected, they didn't finish working on my car today. I knew they wouldn't and it's not even a big deal. I think I am finished with the dealership. This whole experience was the last straw. I looked on the Internet and discovered two places in the Dallas area that exclusively work on Land Rovers. Both had excellent reviews along with much lower prices than the dealership. I don't know why I haven't looked for something like this earlier. I just got in the habit of going to the dealership. I liked the free loaner cars and the place wasn't far from my house. Now that the loaners cars aren't a sure thing and prices have gone through the roof, it looks like my loyalty to the dealership was a bad decision. It would be smarter to just pay for a rent car myself and take advantages of the lower prices at other repair shops.

The rain I was expecting last night never arrived. It was still dry this morning when we took our sunrise walk with Dawn. We have to leave later now because the days are getting shorter. I wish they would make the change back to Standard Time a little sooner. I don't care when it gets dark at night because I do almost everything in the morning now. It would be nice to wake up to sunlight again though.

My pace is improving on my long walks. I've lost weight, but I feel like I'm back to normal now. I'm probably ready to start lifting weights again. Truthfully, I was probably ready a week ago, but I just haven't felt like going to the gym. Something needs to be done about muscle atrophy, so I can't avoid the gym forever. I'll probably return as soon as the weather turns bad. Our beautiful Fall weather isn't going to last forever, so I might as well take advantage of it while it's here.

I still haven't heard anything from the observatory, but it might be best if I postponed any travel plans for a while. October is going to be an expensive month with car repairs, plumbing bills, along with various doctor and dental bills all coming due at the same time. Living on a fixed income is fine when nothing goes wrong, but you can start to feel poor pretty quickly when you are hit with surprises. I never liked surprises even when I was younger. Now I hate them.

I finally found something to enter in the Olympus photo contest. The theme for the contest was "Into the forest" and I had to go all the way back to 2004 to find a wildlife photo shot with an Olympus camera. This certainly wan't one of my best, but it will have to do. I'm glad the rules didn't stipulate a new Olympus camera. My photo of a male and female Mallard duck sitting on a log together was shot with one of the first serious digital cameras available. It took pictures natively in tiff format at 300 DPI. Even my current cameras don't do that anymore.

Janet said that Dawn did really well in training class tonight. Apparently, she's ready to graduate to a more advanced class starting next week. Progress with Dawn has been slow, but she is definitely becoming more comfortable with her new life. Dawn seems confident now and a lot of the fear she had initially is gone. When I fixed her dinner tonight, she was right there beside me and eager to eat. Six months ago this would have seemed impossible.

Sweetpea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4296

Today's service appointment was a mess. After making the service appointment over a month ago to ensure that I'd get a loaner car and then calling yesterday evening just to make sure that a loaner car would be waiting for me this morning, it get to the dealership this morning and you guessed it: no car.

I had to take an Uber home, but that wasn't nearly as frustrating as discovering that prices had nearly doubled for a major scheduled service. Everything I had done today was something I'd had dealt with before and it was unbelievable how much prices have gone up. I've driven a Land Rover since 1995 but maybe it's time to just get a cheap American car and say to hell with it all.

I'm not sure when I'll get my car back, but it probably won't be when it was promised. I don't know why I'm bothered about all this since I don't drive much anyway. I guess I'm just sick of the rising cost of everything. 

I got up early this morning to arrive for my service appointment on time. I shouldn't have bothered. Absolutely nothing happened with the car until around noon. It turned out that they wouldn't start the repairs until I approved each line item in an online service form. I ended up declining a lot of things because I knew I could get them done at just about any garage in town for a fraction of the price. I finally did get a loaner car just before the dealership closed this evening. This is pretty much an admission that the repairs will take longer than they initially claimed.

The temperature wasn't hot today but it was extremely humid. Sadly, my morning walk wasn't that pleasant today. When I looked at the forecast, it was pretty clear that rain was on the way. We need the rain, but I never did get up on the roof to clear away falling leaves and pecan shells. I usually check the pumps if a rainy spell is expected. I haven't done that either. Hopefully everything still works. I'm really not in the mood to deal with a roof leak again.

I got an e-mail today advertising a new Olympus photo contest. I knew I had some very good photos in the categories they were looking for so I thought about entering.  After I found the photos I was looking for in my files, I read the entry form again and discovered that the photos had to be taken with an Olympus camera. Never mind. It appears that most of my good photos were taken with a different brand of camera. It's hard to cheat these days because the make and model of the camera is always listed in the photo's Metadata.

The next thing on my agenda is an appointment with the digestive specialists who removed the stones from my bile duct. They apparently discovered that I have Barrett's esophagus when they were inserting their scope into my intestines. I'm not sure what they want to do next, since I've already read the lab reports saying that the cells they removed to test turned out to be normal. I bet they want to do another endoscopy to confirm their earlier results. Since these guys are also who my doctor recommended to do my next colonoscopy I wonder If I could get them to do both procedures at the same time. It would save me a second trip to the hospital and I'd only have to be anesthetized once. Makes sense to me anyway.

Hopefully, there are no surprises from the dealership tomorrow. I've already resigned myself to a big bill. I just don't want it to get any larger. It looks like it is going to start raining soon. Let's hope there are no roof leaks tonight. I've already had a bad day. There's no need to make things worse.

Spanky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day