Day 4886

I finally got out the star tracker and began testing it again. This thing is so frustrating. It works perfectly ocassionally, but mostly it randomly crashes in unpredicctable ways. I've spend hours and hours trying to identify and isolate the problem. I always come up with nothing. Is it a bad cable that causes the camera to disconnect? Why does the app often fail to stitch together panorama shots? I can't tell whether it's the camera, the iPhone app, the Polaris itself, or the connecting cables that are causing all the problems. It doesn't help that there never was an instruction manual for this thing. There is an online user group, but almost evereyone is using a different type of camera to connect to the tracker, so useful advice is limited. I gave up trying to communicate with the Chinese manufacturer a long time ago. The marketing people speak English but most of the engineers don't. When this thing works it produces spectacular results, but it only works for me about 20% of the time. I certainly didn't accomplish much today, so the Polaris will go back in the box for another month or so.

The rest of the day was about what you'd expect. Dawn got a nice early morning walk. I ate my breakfast of shredded wheat and fruit while watching the world disintegrate on cable news. I checked my messages and once again found nothing but spam. Then I got ready for my long walk.

My feet haven't been bothering me as much lately. I have no idea why. I can't be bothered to walk in a different direction, so I keep following the same path over and over again. I've walked this route so many times that I notice the smallest details. A piece of gum on the pavement becomes a mileage marker. A missing duck becomes a cause for concern. I'm surprised at how many people follow the same predictable routines as I do. I pass some of the same people walking in the opposite direction every single day. There are a lot of dog walkers I recognize now. There is even one guy who walks his cat on a leash. The park department spent a lot of money putting up fancy barriers to prevent vehicular traffic on the wider trails. Less than three months later most of the barriers are down. I suspect  the park maintenance people complained that they couldn't get their mowers, trash trucks, and other equipment through the barriers. One more example of a bureaucracy at work. Often the left hand isn't talking to the right hand.

My long walk took most of the morning and my experiments with the star tracker took most of the afternoon. There are lots of chores I could do around the house, but chores were the last thing I wanted to do today. I also wasn't interested in mowing the grass, even though it has been growing very quickly with all the rain we've been having. I guess I'd rather just go back to Florida and watch another launch. There is an opportunity to get press credentials at the end of the month for the AX-2 launch, but they'll probably wait until the last minute to notify me again. Who knows if I'll end up going. A lot depends on when the roofers decide to replace the roof.

It looks like tomorrow will be a nice day and then there is rain in the forecast for a solid week. This has been such a rainy Spring. It's has been hard to plan for anything. One way or another I'm sure we'll have a new roof by Summer. I'll probably see another launch or two as well. By July I'm sure I'll regret complaining about the rain. We get all our rain at once and it can be extremely dry later in the Summer. At least some things are predictable. I took this week's trash to the curb like I always do on Thursday evening. The trash truck always arrives while we are walking Dawn on Friday morning. The garbage man is very predictable.

Dodger is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4849

Another slow day. A few things got done, but not very much. I had a telephone meeting with my financial advisor this afternoon. These meetings used to happen more frequently, but I don't have much to say anymore. The market goes up and the market goes down. You really can't outsmart it indefinitely. I basically just wished the guy luck. I certainly don't think I could make better financial decisions on my own.

I got a message from my accountant that he'd finished doing my taxes and they've been filed. I think I lead a simple life, but my tax return always looks complicated to me. At least taxes are done for another year. Now the only thing on my to-do list is renewing my driver's license. It's kind of depressing that I'm not making money anymore, but I had some good years. Things could be a lot worse. I need to remember that I'm not in debt or losing a lot.

The weather continues to baffle me. I was surprised at how cold it was this morning since the temperature was over 90 degrees yesterday. It warmed up later, but I had to wear a jacket on our early walk with Dawn. The day was kind of dismal. It looked like it was going to rain all day, although it never did. There is more rain in the forecast late tonight. Luckily there are no severe weather warnings.

I tried again to find out whether I've been credentialed to cover the upcoming Viasat 3 Americas launch. No luck so far. The friends I wrote in Florida haven't heard anything yet either. I guess I'm just going to have to live with last minute notices and higher airfares. I did receive a notice from the National Reconnaissance Office asking me if I'd like to attend a pre-launch Media Day for the NROL-68 mission. Sure. I'd like to go to all these things. It's just a shame that travel is becoming so expensive.

At least walks in the park are still free. I hope these walks are doing me some good, because they are becoming boring. I could always walk somewhere else, but that would involve getting in the car and driving somewhere. It's so much easier to just head out the back door. I walk the same route every day and usually see the same ducks and geese. A lot of times I see the same people too, although I don't know who they are. I guess a lot of people like to exercise in the park.

I think Dawn is back to normal. She hasn't fallen or appeared to be in any discomfort for over a week. We're going to discontinue her remaining medication in a few days an see if that makes any difference. We're trying real hard to keep her from jumping, but that's hard to do with a Dalmatian. At least she's getting better at using her step to get on and off the bed. We all continue to take things one day at a time. Luckily, most of the days are good.

Dottie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4844

There are critters everywhere this Spring. Last night there was a bunny in the yard when we were taking Dawn out to pee. It took me forever to get the bunny to leave because I didn't want Dawn to get it. Finally, I got it to go out an open gate and then we let Dawn outside. I did close the gate again after the bunny left. 

We've never had a dog with a really strong prey drive, but Dot killed a squirrel once and Gretta killed a bird. Dogs will be dogs. I've always been worried that our dogs would want to tangle with a possum. We see possums in the yard almost every week. There have also been racoons, armidillos, and the ocassional snake. Dawn pretty much ignores the squirrels. There are so many of them that they aren't interesting anymore.

This weather is driving me nuts. It's cold. It's hot. It's wet. It's dry. You never know what to expect. It was really chilly early this morning, but by mid-afternoon it felt like summer. When I wear a jacket on my walks I try to pick something that is easy to take off and tie around my waist. I'm usually cold on the outbound leg of the walk and hot on the return.

I still haven't gotten the grass mowed. My long walk always takes priority and by the time I get home I'm too tired to push the mower. I need to ask my neighbor's landscape crew how much they'd charge to mow my front yard while they are at her house. It's a very small yard and it would only take them a few minutes. Whatever they'd charge, I'd probably think it was too much. I've taken care of the yard for decades and am not used to paying for lawn care. Something's got to change though. I just don't have the energy that I used to.

Yesterday I tripped and fell while I was walking Dawn and now my back hurts along with everything else. Sometime I don't know how I manage to keep walking six miles a day. I've got bad knees, a dislocated shoulder, and some pretty nasty foot pain. I don't think the fall did any damage, but I've really got to watch my balance on uneven ground. Truthfully, I've got to watch my balance walking around the house. This is probably one more reason that it isn't a great idea to go back to the observatory and spend the night outdoors photographing the stars. There are a million ways to fall out there.

Very little happened today. I walked the same route I walk every day and then came home and charged camera batteries and backed up the laptop. There is very little need to back up the laptop since everything gets transferred to the desktop computer anyway. I hate seeing that little message saying "no backups in 208 days" and I guess today was the day to make it go away for a while.

There is more rain in tomorrow's forecast. Hopefully we will be able to get Dawn walked before the rain starts. Hopefully the roof won't leak either. I'll probably miss the rain when the ground is parched and dry this August. Right now I've had enough of the stuff. This has been a very rainy Spring.

Sparky is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day