Day 1871

Today was another big adventure. I left the hotel around 4 AM this morning to look for the illusive viewing site where we were all going to watch the launch. I had the longitude and latitude of the site, which I was able to enter into the map app on my phone, but that was all. The GPS in the car was useless, because the back roads that led to a weather station on top of a small mountain near the air base weren't even listed. Most of these roads were just used for fire safety. Did I mention it was pitch black. As I was driving up the mountain, I eventually saw a few people wandering around in the dark with flashlights, so I stopped the car and joined them. We came to a clearing in the trees and off in the distance to the West was the rocket, bathed in the light from some incredibly bright spotlights. We were about three miles away from the tower, which was as close as anyone was allowed to go. There was a guy with a Mohawk haircut just ahead of our small group who seemed to know where he was going. One of us asked him where the viewing location was and he didn't know either. I knew who he was though. This guy was Bobak Ferdowsi, NASA's famous Mohawk guy from the Mars Curiosity landing. You never know who you're going to run into in the dark. We could all see the rocket quite well from where we were standing, but everyone wanted to find the "official" viewing site, because NASA had promised an audio feed of the countdown that everyone could listen to on speakers.

Looking at the longitude and latitude mark on my iPhone map and comparing it with my own position, it seemed that the site was further up the mountain. We walked uphill for about half a mile and there it was. There were some small concrete bleachers and a growing crowd of people. Even the mayor of one of the nearby towns was there. For some reason the entire Grand Jury for the city of Santa Barbara was there as well. By the time the launch was about thirty minutes away, there were close to two hundred people on the mountain with us.

Everything looked perfect. The sky was clear and full of stars. I've never seen this many stars in Dallas. The city glare is just too bright. As the countdown progressed, we heard one person after another give mission control a go on their area of responsibility. Mission Control said that there was over a 90% chance that the launch would take place at 6:20 AM. The only problem were reports of high winds in the upper atmosphere. The winds would come and go, so they sent up a final weather balloon to get a reading with about five minutes left on the count.  The telemetry came back indicating that there were 70 mph winds in the upper atmosphere. This was considered dangerous and the launch was scrubbed at T-minus 4 minutes and counting.

There was only a three minute window to achieve the proper polar orbit, so the launch was rescheduled for Friday. Everyone was so disappointed. Some were able to change their schedules and stay another day. Others, like myself, had their chances of seeing the launch scrubbed as well. There are only two flights a day in very small prop planes to the town I flew to on Tuesday. I didn't want to fly standby and there were connecting flights in Los Angeles to deal with as well. It proved too difficult and way too expensive to change plans on such short notice, so I am back in Dallas now. There are no guarantees that the launch will take place tomorrow either. It might get scrubbed over and over again until the conditions are perfect. It took an entire year to get the spacecraft ready, so I don't think they're in any hurry to launch it when something isn't right.

I'm sorry I missed the launch, but I'm definitely not sorry I went to Vandenberg. This is the most fun I've had in quite a while. You guys keep on watching the NFL and the MBA. I want to watch the Space-X Dragon launch when it is certified for manned flight a few years from now.  I think I'm officially a space geek now.

Spirit is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1665

I had another doctor's appointment today. I've been doing all these tests for so long now that I think I'm learning how to cheat. Blood sugar levels rise and fall throughout the day. You can schedule lab work to make blood sugar levels appear lower if you want to go to the trouble. Heart rate and blood pressure levels can be regulated to some degree with controlled breathing. I used to drink lots of water as soon as I got to the doctor's office when I knew they needed a urine specimen, but then they would do this ultrasound test and tell me that my bladder wasn't emptying properly. Of course it wasn't. I had just consumed boatloads of water. Now, I time this test too, drinking about ten ounces of water three hours before my appointment and no liquids again until the appointment is over. Whatever works is my motto. Apparently my plan was a success because the doc was pleased with the test results and told me that I didn't need to see him for another year.

It looked like it was going to rain all day, but it never did. Everywhere I went there were ominous dark clouds on the horizon. I kept hurrying home to make sure the dogs were OK, but there was never a drop of rain or a single thunderclap. It was just another hot July day with strangely dark skies. As much as I hate rain, I'm beginning to hope we do get a few showers this week. The grass in the back yard is drying up at an alarming rate. I water every evening, but it doesn't seem to be enough.

I feed the dogs lunch every day, even though I never eat any lunch myself. Eating seems to be the high point of their day, so I make a big ritual out of feeding them each a rice cake at lunch time. There are virtually no calories in a rice cake, but apparently there is a lot of chewing pleasure. Dot and Dash both love rice cakes. After lunch, Dot likes to sun herself in the back yard. I have to watch her though to make sure she doesn't get sunburned. Dalmatians sunburn very easily. When it's hot like this and there are so many mosquitoes around, ten minutes of sun is usually plenty. While Dot suns herself, I usually knock down wasp nests under the eaves of the house with a broom. It's such an exciting life.

I finished some website updates this morning, but even that slows down during the Summer. I don't hear from my clients much during July, but I do see pictures of them on Facebook riding jet skis, visiting national parks, and doing whatever you do on family vacations. When the kids return to school, I'll get busy again.

My vet called today and wanted to reschedule Dot's acupuncture appointment again. I thought she wanted to change the day, but she just wanted to move the appointment up an hour. Sure. No problem. Hey, what's an hour to me?  I'm sure the dogs and I will never notice the difference.

Delaney is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1576

It was hard to remember what day it was. It was supposed to be Dash's radiation day, but it turned out to be Dot's acupuncture day instead. I drove to one vet to get Dash's thyroid medication renewed and to another vet for Dot's physical therapy. Dash still took his Paladia chemo pills tonight, but won't be going in for radiation treatment tomorrow, because the radiation machine is still broken. I try to keep all this straight, but I never had a good grasp on what day it was anyway. I'll be glad when all this is over. The longer the treatment continues, the more I worry about side effects. I'm one of those fools who reads all the fine print that comes with pharmaceuticals these days. There is almost always something dire hidden away in the tiny type on these product description and warning sheets that will make you wonder how these new miracle drugs ever got approved in the first place. All that being said, Dash is still doing very, very well.

There weren't many website revisions today, but there was plenty of writing work to catch up on. I finished two articles and started on a third. The writing will never win a Pulitzer Prize, but it does make the day go quickly. With several articles to write and several dogs to transport various places, I never have much idle time on my hands. I always try to make time to fix myself a decent breakfast every morning, but I'm starting to fall behind on a host of other things that used to be part of my daily routine. The house hasn't been vacuumed in a while and I'm sure there's still water on the roof from last week's rain. That's the way it is these days. I take care of the dog's needs, do enough work to pay the bills, eat as healthy as I can, and spend the remaining five hours sleeping.

I wish I had a better camera with me this morning. We walked earlier than usual and there was a fine mist on everything. I'm fascinated by the way water droplets tend to form on some plants and not on others. This morning all the while and yellow Primrose flowers has miniscule water droplets all over their petals. Other nearby flowers were completely dry. I only managed to grab a few quick shots with my phone however, because the dogs had plans of their own.

I suspect that tomorrow will be a lot like today. One of these days I need to go have lunch with some of my old work friends again. It's been at least six months since I've met anyone for lunch. Basically, I don't even eat lunch anymore. I'm never that hungry during the day and I find that it's a lot easier to keep my weight under control if I just skip lunch entirely. Essentially, no lunch equals no social life, but I don't really feel like I'm missing much. It's kind of like those cable channels I eliminated yesterday. If I'm not actively looking for the missing channels, I don't even realize they're gone.

Livy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1575

I changed my cable bundle to a package with fewer TV channels today. So far, I can't tell any difference. I'm certainly not missing anything. There are so many worthless cable channels anyway that I'll probably never really know what I eliminated. I did save a little money though. I made the changes online, and I did notice when I was checking out that the cable company tried to sneak a new movie package into my cart, adding $20 and then subtracting it again, saying the first month was free. They didn't think I'd notice. I wasn't falling for that. I figured out how how to remove the unwanted movie package and scaled back my land line phone service as well. I should have eliminated the land line entirely. It is used exclusively by telemarketers now. I haven't received a call that actually mattered on the land line in months.

I took my April invoices to the post office this afternoon. Billings are starting to decline again. I'm not sure what to do about it though. I'm pretty busy writing, but I hesitate to go after any more writing work. Editorial writing just doesn't pay very well. I still do the occasional advertising job, but these high budget jobs are becoming a rarity. Most of the young agency creatives just don't want to hire someone the same age as their grandfather. I can't really complain though. I certainly had my own moment in the sun. When I was a young hot shot agency creative, I wouldn't dream of hiring some old fart twice my age. I hired the friends I went drinking with, and I'm sure today's kids do the same.

Dash can't go in for radiation therapy tomorrow. The cancer center called me today and said that the radiation machine was broken and that it would probably take a full day to repair. I certainly hope the machine didn't go haywire with a dog in it. That has always been one of my fears. You'd hate for some technician to calibrate the machine improperly and come home with a radioactive dog. In fairness, the entire team at the cancer center seems very professional and always pays attention to details. Dash will probably be upset when he discovers that he isn't going anywhere tomorrow. He looks forward to these visits to the cancer center now.

Work was kind of light today. I updated one website, did my invoices, and that was about it. Tomorrow looks busy though. I return to writing again tomorrow. I'm going to take Dot for her acupuncture session tomorrow as well. I changed her appointment back to Wednesday after Dash's radiation therapy was canceled. Dot's vet is probably getting sick of me constantly changing her schedule because of Dash's changing transportation needs. There not much I can do about the situation now though. If I happen to have a free day, I'm going to try to use it. When the radiation machine is fixed, Dash may need to go for therapy on Thursday and Friday this week.

I'm starting to see wild irises blooming in the park this week. From now through June, there will be a new variety of wildflower coming into bloom every few days. The dogs are stubborn now, and I can't always get near the flowers like I used to. If I get close to a wildflower now, it usually means there is something stinky nearby that the dogs want to smell.

Cooper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1569

As soon as I heard we would be having severe weather tomorrow, I began to reschedule my Thursday appointments so I wouldn't have to leave the house. I've spent so many years around storm phobic dogs, that I've become storm phobic myself. To me, rainy days are when tree limbs fall during a thunderstorm and crush your lawn furniture. Rain is when your car gets pelted with golf ball sized hail. It's when your dogs panic and dig a hole in the carpet or try to jump through the living room window. Rain makes your roof leak and your electricity go out. I don't like rain.

I was able to move most of tomorrow's appointments to either this afternoon or Friday. This made today pretty busy, but I'm glad I cleared the deck for tomorrow. If the dogs don't like the look of things tomorrow, we'll all just get under a blanket and wait things out.

Dash's blood work looked good, so the cancer center renewed his prescription for Palladia for another two weeks. Hopefully, my own blood work looked good as well. That lab test was one of the Thursday appointments I rescheduled for this afternoon. I think they are testing Dash's and my own blood for exactly the same thing. The doctors don't want our platelet count to become so low that we become anemic.  So far, so good for both of us.

I thought I was going to get a lot of writing done today, but there were a few snafus and I didn't get much done at all. This just means I will be even busier tomorrow. One of the website clients I lost late last year launched their new replacement website today. I was curious, so I took a look. The new site was much more elaborate than anything I typically do. Could I have designed something this fancy? I suppose so. Could I have done this site for the price the client probably paid? I doubt it. I'm not positive, but the new site looked a lot like one of those customized Wordpress templates. Sure, the companies that crank out these sophisticated template sites can offer them at a very low cost. They specialize in a particular industry and all the sites are essentially the same. Clients don't seem to care. They just want all the bells and whistles for a low price. I still like to design one-of-a-kind sites from scratch, but I'm becoming a dinosaur. Who am I kidding. I already am a dinosaur.

People often ask why I don't just do Wordpress template sites myself. To make this business model work, you need economies of scale. In a nutshell, you need to be a much bigger company than I am willing to be. When you can sell essentially the same thing over and over again to a huge audience, you can charge a much cheaper price. When you only do something once, you have to charge more.

I can't believe that there has been another shooting at Fort Hood. I don't understand why soldiers on a military base need to be unarmed. Using weapons is what most soldiers are trained to do. If the Fort Hood soldiers had their own sidearms, both of these Fort Hood shooting incidents might have ended quite differently.

I even stocked up on groceries today, so there is no need to leave the house at all tomorrow if the weather turns bad. I actually hope the weather forecasts are wrong and the thunderstorms leave us alone. Staying inside with two storm phobic Dalmatians on a rainy day is no fun at all.

Miracle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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