Day 4662

Today was disappointing. The rent has gone up again on my storage unit and the washing machine broke. The storage warehouse increases rates every year. All storage warehouses do this. This is why I moved several years ago. Now my rent is even more than it was at the last storage warehouse when it became too expensive. I hate to move again because it is a giant pain. Janet says I ought to just throw everything in the storage unit away. That's not easy for me either.

The irritating thing about the washing machine is that I may have caused the problem myself. I decided to wash the hat I always wear when I walk in the park. The old hat was filthy. I was going to put the hat inside a lingerie bag but I couldn't find one, so I just threw it in with the rest of the laundry. I was kind of worried that the bill of the ball cap might get bent by throwing it in the washer, but I never thought the whole hat would fall apart. When the washer stopped in mid-cycle with an error code that indicated a clogged filter, I unloaded the soggy wash and discovered that parts of the hat had completely disappeared. Who knows how this happened but I bet those missing pieces are stuck in the machine's filter. I'd clean the filter myself if it were accessible. It's buried away inside the machine somewhere. I called the appliance repair shop but my favorite technician doesn't work there anymore. Hopefully whoever replaced him knows what they are doing. It's always something. I was dreading the annual maintenance costs for my car and now I've got an appliance repair bill on top of that.

The web worms in the park keep getting worse. Janet and I have to check each others clothing after our sunrise walk to make sure we aren't bringing any of the little green worms inside with us. Typically a few worms escape our scrutiny and I'll see them crawling on my shirt while I'm eating breakfast. They say the infestation should be over in two or three weeks. It won't come a minute too soon.

I don't know how the people in Florida can handle all the devastation they are currently facing. I think the worst that has ever happened at our house was a broken water pipe under our concrete slab that flooded the AC vents under the floor. A tree fell on our house once, but it didn't do any real damage. It's a good thing we've been lucky because I don't handle major problems well. I get the problems fixed, but they put me in a bad mood for weeks. Even something as minor as a broken washing machine can ruin my day.

At least the weather was nice today. It's easy to avoid the web worms when I'm taking my long walk in the park, but it's dark when we take Dawn on her sunrise walk and she often leads us right through them. Dawn is a creature of habit and it's easier to walk through the web worms than it is to get her to take a new route. I wasn't very fast on my walk this morning. My feet are slowing me down again. I think the recurring foot pain is going to be around forever. It's not bad enough to stop walking, but it sure is irritating. 

For some reason Southwest Airlines has only refunded half my airfare from the canceled Florida flights. I did change my reservation from September 27 to October 2, but I didn't think that would complicate a refund. I suspect that the rest of the money will turn up in a few days, but today the missing funds were just one more source of irritation.

I finally tested the remote shutter app for the Olympus camera. It works, but is not nearly as convenient as the remote shutter app for the Panasonic camera. Both of these apps connect to the camera using WiFi, but it's not easy to get the Olympus camera to connect. I guess I'll keep using the Panasonic camera for rocket launches.

I've taken this week's trash out to the curb and I've got an appointment for a haircut tomorrow. Getting a haircut usually puts me in a good mood for a while. I could have used a haircut today.

Sweet Pea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3933

They've raised the rent on my storage warehouse again. These annual increases are so predictasble and relentless that it's infuriating. It's almost like they are begging you to move to a different location. I've already done this once, but it's a lot of trouble. I could probably save a lot of money by moving back to my old warehouse as a new customer. Like I said, it's a lot of trouble though. I wish I could just wave a magic wand and make some of this stuff go away. 

I don't want to have a yard sale because I hate dealing with strangers. I don't want to sell on eBay because a lot of the stuff is heavy and difficult to ship. I did make an effort two or three years ago to sell a few things. I was successful at selling most of the guitars. I repaired some of my vintage synthesizers, but there was no market for them. After three years about half of my train collection has sold. The old computers are basically worthless, but it's a lot of trouble to take them all apart and remove the hard drives. Stuff just accumulates and then you forget what it is or why you bought it in the first place. I've still got stuff from my Dad's estate in the warehouse. There are probably a few things from my grandparent's estate. There's a lesson in this somewhere, but I didn't learn it soon enough. The millennials who spend their money on experiences instead of stuff are probably the smart ones.

Dawn walks a little further every day. We're still going very short distances though. I'm not sure she'll ever get back to where she was before. We're not going to push her. When Dawn starts to slow down or look tired, we immediately turn around and go home. Dawn does seem to be improving. Tomorrow we start gradually reducing her Prednisone dose. The real test will come when she has finished all her meds.

The temperature was still nice when we took our short morning walk with Dawn, but warmer weather has definitely returned. It was actually pretty hot when I took my longer afternoon walk. I wish the weather was more predictable, but I guess I wish everything was more predictable. When I was walking this afternoon I saw the mother Muscovy duck again. There were only three ducklings with her this time. Where did the other three go? Nature can be pretty cruel. I'm not sure I even want to know what happened to the ducklings.

It looks like the Delta IV Heavy launch is finally going to happen tonight. The weather looks good and the countdown is going smoothly. I'd still like to see one of these giant rockets before they are retired and become obsolete. These days they are only used to launch billion dollar school bus sized spy satellites for the CIA. Nobody really knows what these satellites do, but watching them head into orbit is pretty impressive. I'll try to stay awake tonight and watch tonight's launch on my computer. The next time one of these monsters launches from Cape Canaveral sometime in 2022, I hope I can see it in person.

As I approach 4000 days on my blog quest, I'm really starting to wonder if it's worth the effort to go any further. I'm running out of things to say. A lot of days are so uneventful that I wonder why anyone reads this at all. Maybe I'll get a second wind and start doing interesting things again when Covid finally dies out and life returns to normal. Actually I don't even care if life returns to normal. I'd just like to travel normally again.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3593

I renewed my storage unit for another year. All storage warehouses are basically the same. They use a diabolically clever marketing strategy. They lure you in with an attractive rate and then relentlessly start raising your rent until the end of time. New customers get all the deals because the storage companies know that once you go to the trouble of moving all your junk into one of their units, you're not going to want to move again. I moved last year because my monthly rent was getting ridiculous and now the rent is already going up on my new unit.

I keep thinking that I'm going to get rid of this stuff, but it's so much trouble that  I inevitably end up getting a larger storage unit instead. Before I switched storage companies, I increased the size of my storage space three times. Last year at this time I was actively selling art, guitars, and collections. I had hopes of being in a smaller unit this year, but my unit is already completely full. Keeping a storage unit isn't even rational. If I'd just thrown everything away and kept the rent I've spent over the years I'd be ahead of the game. Storing things doesn't even always keep your things safe. I've already ruined one valuable guitar due to heat and moisture issues and spent so much restoring a piece of artwork last year that I only broke even when it came to auction. Knowing all this, I went ahead and renewed my space again. I just don't want to deal with this stuff now.

Today was beautiful. Yesterday's torrential rain seems like a distant memory. I hope the temperature stays warm enough so that I can apply some more of the silicon coating to the roof tomorrow. There are no obvious holes in the coating, but there is one suspicious area that could probably benefit from being coated again with the silicon material. I'll have to do the work tomorrow if I want the coating to dry. The weather forecast says it's going to start raining again on Tuesday.

I continue to be amazed by the pictures I'm seeing of the tornado damage in North Dallas. This was a really bad tornado. I'd been planning to remove the Oak tree in the back yard that was damaged when a large limb fell off a few months ago. It just occurred to me that it is going to be very difficult to get a tree guy to do this job for the next few months. Probably every tree guy in town has their hand full dealing with tornado damage. The same probably goes for roofers and contractors of all types. A big chunk of the city has been totally demolished.

I felt really tired on my walk today. The distance was the same but it felt like the Earth's gravity had increased or something. I couldn't wait to get home so I could take a nap. Sometime I wonder if I could even survive up on Mount Locke living in semi-primitive conditions as an astronomy volunteer. I think I'd make a good guide to the night skies, but I like my creature comforts as well. There's no sense fretting about this now since I haven't even been approved yet, but it's something to think about. I'm not getting any younger. I suspect that's why the observatory asked me so many health questions on my application form.

I guess this is why I keep going to they gym and taking five mile walks everyday. There's still a lot of stuff I'd like to do. When you're over 70, your Facebook feed starts to look like an obituary page, but you can't let that get you down. Hey, my grandparents were active until their mid nineties. Maybe I've got good genes.

Pearl is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2836

I stayed home this morning and made pancakes. Every time I put a pancake on the griddle, Dash went to the back door and scratched to get out. Even though the pancakes got burnt, Dash still took his sweet time to do his business. Yup. It was another rainy day.

Dash wasn't eating dry food today, but he was eating wet. I got him to eat most of a can of Castor & Pollux stew that he likes while I was finishing my own breakfast. I remember asking the vet yesterday what I should be feeding Dash. "Let him eat whatever he wants," the vet said. I'm convinced that this is vet code for "your dog is going to die."

By the time I finished breakfast, the rain had subsided to a gentle mist and I decided to take Dash on a walk. "Slow walks are good, overexertion is bad," the vet told me yesterday. I didn't think this was going to be a problem. Dash always walks slowly now. I put on his protective boots and off we went. About halfway through our walk, I noticed that one of the boots was missing. I wanted to turn around so we could find it, but Dash stubbornly wanted to keep moving forward. Before we made it home, he lost the second boot as well. I realized then that protecting Dash wasn't going to be easy.

After Dash had gone back to sleep, I retraced my steps through the park and managed to find both missing boots. Dash's dewclaw has healed, but in addition to the small rubber boots he'll be wearing on walks, I still have him wear the cone when I leave the house. Now that he's taking Plavix, I don't want him licking or injuring anything.

I had to go pay my storage warehouse rent today because my year is up tomorrow. I always pay a year in advance because I get the thirteenth month free. I was complaining to the manager about the relentless rent increases I get every year and he tried to convince me that I was actually was getting a good deal. "Almost everybody pays month-to-month and we raise their rent every nine months." "Your rent only goes up every thirteen months," he said.  As he was trying to figure out how to give me the thirteenth month free on the company's new accounting software, we both started complaining about all manner of things. That's just what old men do.

The manager told me that he was working at the storage warehouse because he'd been laid off from his last two jobs because of his age. "You don't fit in with our corporate culture anymore," one of the companies told him. "I'm right there with you," I told the manager. It sucks to be cast aside because someone thinks you are too old. Maybe I'll end up working at a storage warehouse someday myself. If you're not already a Walmart greeter, that's where most of the old people seem to wind up.

Dash was moody today, but he eventually did end up eating enough. I had trouble writing my article, because every time I sat down at the computer Dash started slapping at my leg. He wanted me to come in the bedroom with him and take a nap. A nap sounded good, but I had lots to do today. I'm still waiting for the vet to tell me what to do in case Dash starts bleeding. I'm not sure what to feed him anymore either. Today seemed like the first day in a new long march. I'm determined to give Dash the best chance possible to stay alive. A lot of his future is up to luck, unfortunately. The blood clots in his heart could move or break apart at any time.

Sweet Pea is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day