Day 3706

Dawn got her first walk in the park today. She loved it. Before Dawn entered the rescue program, she had been used for breeding. We think she is about six years old and Lord knows how many litters of puppies she's had. She hasn't really had a chance to be a normal dog. You can tell she's trying to make up for lost time. It's been a joy to have this gentle girl around the house. Her wounds are healing nicely and every day she discovers something new.

Today was beautiful. The sky was clear and the temperature was around seventy five degrees. It was definitely not your typical Winter day. It wasn't surprising that the park was full of people today. Dawn encountered lots of other dogs on our walk and wasn't reactive to any of them. She just minded her own business and continued exploring new smells. This was really encouraging. Despite her recent attack, she appears willing to forget the past and move forward with her life. A person could learn a lot from this dog.

I stayed pretty active today. As far as I can remember, this was my first 25,000 step day. According to my watch, I set a personal best for exercise and activity. I might do this more often if every day was as nice as this. I had a good workout at the gym, came home and walked Dawn with Janet, then mowed the grass and took my regular five mile walk. You might wonder why I'd be mowing the grass in February. It wasn't really grass. Just a lot of Winter weeds. Weeds are a year round problem here in Texas.

I wish I had more silicon material because this would have been a great day to spread the stuff everywhere. It's still Winter and there are a lot more cold, wet days to come. I hope that I fixed the worst areas yesterday, but it's better to be safe than sorry. I probably should go to the roofing supply store and buy another bucket of this stuff in case we get a nice day like this again.

There were lots of small sailboats on the lake today. I think one of the sailing clubs was having a regatta. When we first moved here, I thought of getting a small sailboat. I'm glad I didn't. I doubt that I would have used it much. I rarely even use my kayak. It's nice living near the water, but I don't have a strong desire to be out on the water. I've seen too many large snakes swimming in the lake and I tend to believe the people who say the water is polluted. No thank you to water sports. I'll just stay on the shore and photograph pelicans.

Monday is our day to visit the kennel dogs but I'm not sure what we'll be doing tomorrow. Maybe Janet can go to the kennel while I stay home with Dawn. If Janet wants to stay home and have me go to the kennel, that would be fine too. We just don't want to leave Dawn for a long time before her stitches are removed. She could still make a mess of things if she started to scratch at the stitches and try to pull them out.

I've got a title for my Solar Orbiter article now. That's as far as I've gotten. No apologies. Did you really expect me to write on a day like this?

Joshua is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3487

Some days are very uneventful. I had a different type of omelet this morning when I went out for breakfast at the new place in the neighborhood. For the second week in a row they gave me free juice. I like this place. There are lots of things to try on the menu, so this will probably be my go-to place for the rest of the summer. You can tell this is a neighborhood restaurant. There are lots of older customers and lots of young families. No singles at all.

I tried to take my first walk of the day before things got too hot. I guess I failed because I still came home drenched in sweat. There are sailing classes for kids on the lake during the summer. This morning I saw a small sailboat tipped over with other boats nearby. At first I thought this was an emergency, but several minutes later the boat was upright again. Then another boat tipped over and this one quickly became upright again as well. It finally dawned on me that the kids were being taught what to do in case their boat capsized when they were the only one on board. This would definitely be a good skill to learn.

The White Pelican has disappeared again, but I'm seeing a lot of Scissor-tailed Flycatchers lately. These birds are amazing to watch, making abrupt turns in the sky and even hovering like helicopters at times. When I see these birds I think I need to bring a better camera with me, but it is too hot for that. A heavy camera would just be an encumbrance. Did I tell you that I take most of my wildlife pictures in the winter.

The stock market set an all time high today. All three major indices closed at record levels. This is good news but it makes me a little nervous. Too many times in the past I have witnessed the market set a new record and then immediately go into a slump. I hope this won't happen again but I wouldn't be terribly surprised. It's all about fear and greed. If enough people get nervous they will take their money off the table.

On day like these when nothing is happening I charge batteries. It doesn't take long to find a piece of equipment with a dead battery in the office. I try to keep everything charged, but it's easy to forget about things. If you leave a battery uncharged for long enough it becomes useless and impossible to charge. It's a constant struggle. I thought I'd reached the end of the line with an old laptop I hadn't used in a while, but the battery light finally started glowing and by the end of the day the computer was fully charged again. I've given up on watch batteries. It's just too much trouble to keep a stock of weird little batteries and taking the back off some of these watches has become a giant pain. The watches need to go to auction. All you really need these days is a Fitbit.

I guess I'm not as patient as I thought I was. I keep wondering what my article will look like in the magazine, but I'm going to have to wait until mid-August to find out. Such a long time.

Winston is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3475

Another 20,000 step day. This isn't much by historic standards, but it's about all I can manage these days. Multi-day backpacking trips didn't used to faze me when I was younger. Times have changed. I don't think I could make it all the way around the lake today. I'm not winded or even that tired. It's my joints. My knees, shoulders, and elbows have all seen better days. Sometimes it feels like all the cartilage is gone. I take glucosamine and chondroitin but I'm not sure how effective this is at rebuilding cartilage. I certainly don't see much difference after years of taking these pills.

Although it felt like I spent the day walking, I did manage to get a few other things done. I went back to the store and got strawberries. I should have looked in the refrigerator first. Janet had already gotten strawberries when she went to the store a little earlier. I  also got some more peaches. I guess I didn't realize that there are almost as many varieties of peaches are there are apples. The Earth Rich peaches I got yesterday tasted mushy and fibrous. Today I got a different variety called Sierra Rich which tasted much better.  Needless to say, there is plenty of fruit in the house now.

I was terrible on the basketball court this morning. Maybe skipping a week at the gym made a difference. Hand/eye coordination is a curious thing. You'd think that after all this time I would have perfected the free throw. Nope. Some days I can sink quite a few shots in a row and other days I'm all over the place. Even though my coordination wasn't up to par today, I still enjoyed my time on the court more than the treadmill and hand bicycle. I see a lot of people walking and jogging on the indoor track in the Summer. It would make sense for me to do this as well. For some perverse reason, I still prefer to walk outdoors, even though it's getting pretty hot outside.

Walking outdoors is very conducive to daydreaming. Walking indoors is just exercise. I enjoy trying to identify plants and animals, along with observing what has changed in the neighborhood. There's something new to think about every day. Even cloud formations can be interesting on a hot summer afternoon. There were sailboat races on the lake today. I also noticed that the wild fennel is in bloom. I've often thought about taking sailing lessons, but since I don't even use my kayak anymore, I doubt that I'd go sailing very often. It is not an activity that is usually done alone. The boats are still fun to watch though. There are lots of little Sunfish and Lasers at the lake, along with a variety of larger craft. I think that one of the local sailing clubs must have been having a regatta today. The lake was a busy place.

Now that I've become a slave to my Fitbit, I'm not doing as many household chores. There only so much time in a day. Without a dog, the house stays cleaner now. It's amazing how much hair a Dalmatian can shed. They shed constantly. We were sweeping up big piles of dog hair every week with Dot and Dash and yet each dog always had a full, healthy coat. Where all that hair came from will remain one of life's enduring mysteries.

Not surprisingly, we miss all the dog hair. I think Janet and I will be going to go visit the rescue dogs again tomorrow. There are several new dogs in the program that need to be photographed for the website. That's not the real reason we're going though. We just need our weekly Dalmatian fix.

Tucker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2575 - New Year's Day

I had no desire to get up this morning. My body reminded me that I don't drink anymore. Just the small amount of champagne I had last night to celebrate the New Year slowed me down considerably. Dot kept us on schedule though. She always does. When I saw her trying to get up, I instantly jumped out of bed and raced to open the back door. To celebrate our success at peeing outside, we all went back to bed for another hour.

Eventually, we all got up and started our morning routine, but the New Year definitely got off to a slow start. Dot peed on my house slippers yesterday, so I thought I'd throw them in the washing machine. This just revealed how poorly they were constructed. One of the shoes fell apart and appeared to be made of some sort of compressed paper. This was definitely a job for superglue. I didn't have enough superglue left, but found a bottle of Gorilla Glue in the utility room. The stuff doesn't dry very fast, so the jury is still out on this experiment.

I finally found the receipt for the candelabra base LED bulbs that wouldn't fit in my floor lamps and took them back to Home Depot to exchange for some more of the old fashioned halogen bulbs I was trying to avoid. The guy in the electrical department didn't realize that there were several sizes of candelabra screw threads either. Apparently, I was the first person who had purchased this style of LED bulb. Maybe someday I'll be able to abandon incandescent bulbs entirely, but it wasn't going to be today.

I had high hopes of seeing Neptune this evening, but it wasn't meant to be. The faint planets are almost impossible for someone like me to find in the sky, unless they happen to be located very close to something familiar. Tonight there was a conjunction of Neptune and Mars. I could definitely find Mars. Neptune is supposed to be easily visible through a pair of decent binoculars, but you can't see it through clouds. Like the candelabra base LED bulbs, I will have to wait until some other time.

I wish I had some sort of game plan for 2017. If I had a goal, I probably could accomplish quite a bit. I've had long term goals before. I worked really hard to build my business back in the early 1990's. I worked hard to get healthier when I discovered I had Hepatitis C. I need to remember that keeping Dot alive is not really a realistic goal. I can do my best to keep her happy while she's here, but I have little control over how long she's with us on this earth. Just getting from one day to the next is not a very ambitious goal. I know I can do that. What could I realistically achieve that would actually make me happier if I was successful? I'm stumped.

Goals are a lot like the sailboats I see out on the lake. From a distance they look so peaceful and serene. When I'm out on the water, it all looks different and I almost instantly wish I was back on dry land. I have a feeling that I don't understand sailing any better than I understand goals.

Jasper is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day