Day 3668

I thought I'd do what the tech-support guy told me to do yesterday, so I took my phone to an AT&T store and asked them to change the SIM card. The guy at the store said the SIM card had absolutely nothing to do with WiFi calling and tried his own solution instead. It didn't work, so he put a new SIM card in the phone. This didn't work either. He told me to call tech support and I told him that I already did and they told me to come here. We both gave up. When I got back home, I looked on the Internet and found out that hundreds of people were having the same problem. Some blamed AT&T. Some blamed Apple. And some blamed their network router. Nobody appeared to have a solution, although many claimed that this feature used to work. I have a feeling that in some future IOS upgrade the 'WiFi Calling' feature will just go away.

I wasn't really surprised that I wasn't able to solve this problem today. It was one of those gray, dismal days where nothing wants to go right. Even though the weather app on my phone said there would be no rain for the next hour, I knew I was going to get wet. I went on my walk anyway because you don't get many steps sitting at your desk and staring at a screen. At least it wasn't cold today and the rain was only a light mist. I think the really bad weather isn't supposed to start until tomorrow.

I wasn't feeling very productive today, so I wrote a letter to my sister and took it to the post office. I think the world would be a better place if we all wrote letters on paper, took pictures with film that had to be sent off to be developed, and went to a movie theater when we wanted to see a movie. Instant gratification is ruining everything. Nobody has any patience anymore. I may be wrong, but slowing the world down a bit seems like a good idea to me.

I practice what I preach and do almost everything slowly. It takes me most of the morning just to eat breakfast. Usually there is time for only one new activity each day. The one thing I can usually do quickly is go to sleep. Not last night unfortunately. Maybe I was worrying about my upcoming trip to the observatory. Maybe I was worried about catching the flu. Whatever it was, by brain wouldn't slow down. It was irritating. Eventually, I got to sleep, but I've been tired all day.

I hope the weather forecast improves overnight. Right now, everyone is predicting severe weather in the afternoon with straight line winds, large hail, and even the possibility of tornados. It doesn't sound good to me. Luckily, these forecasts are often wrong. Even if it doesn't rain, I doubt that I'll go out for breakfast in the morning. That ship has sailed.

Mack is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 3648

I'm trying to expand my horizons. I went to a different part of town and tried a German restaurant for breakfast. The place was crowded with affluent older people and the food was pretty good. This was not like the food I used to eat when I worked in Germany. I had a big plate filled with smoked pork chops, eggs and skillet potatoes. I remember Germans started the day with much lighter fare. In Erlangen I always ate a piece of toast and a single soft boiled egg in an egg cup like all the other locals.

When I returned home, I watched a video of the Starliner launch that I'd really wanted to attend in Florida. I has planned to watch today's launch live on NASA TV, but slept through it. Things didn't go so well. A spacecraft clock got confused and sent the capsule into the wrong orbit. It will be unable to dock with the space station and they'll probably have to do the important orbital test all over again. Oops. Boeing has certainly had its share of high profile problems. First the 737 mess and now this. The big Artemis rocket I visited in New Orleans is also a Boeing project. I bet the Starliner failure will slow Artemis down as well.

It was another cold day. I wasn't that eager to take my walk this morning, but I didn't want to sit around and do nothing. I put on two coats and a pair of gloves and off I went. I wonder if I even have a warm enough coat for winter nights at the observatory. It's much colder in Fort Davis than it is here.   There was light rain in the forecast today, but I managed to complete my walk without getting wet. Today I saw a very tiny woodpecker I need to identify and a tree with strange translucent orange berries. The woodpecker flew away but I did get a picture of the berries.

I learned today that Amazon videos won't play on Safari, Firefox, or my TV. Janet has no problems watching them on her iPad, but the only way I could get them to play was to download a new version of Chrome. I don't really like to use Chrome. After a little research, I discovered that all the problems I was having had something to do with digital rights management. Evidently my older computer doesn't play well with the new rules. Oh, well. As I said yesterday, I'm not all that interested in movies anyway.

Every year around this time I need to decide whether to renew my Avid subscriptions. Last year I decided to drop Media Composer and this year I'm dropping Pro Tools as well. These licenses are expensive and I just don't use this stuff anymore. I have to admit that it's finally getting easier to acknowledge I'm retired. Who was I kidding. I'm not going to shoot any more corporate videos. I don't even know any corporate people these days.

I still can't figure out why I don't sleep as well under blankets. It's counterintuitive. It seems like you'd sleep better when you are cozy and warm. Fitbit says otherwise though. Could it be that I'm sleeping just fine and my Fitbit just doesn't work under a blanket? As I learned from my Amazon Prime experience today, technology can be confusing.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 2775

I went back to the gym today. It's amazing how quickly your body begins to deteriorate if you don't use it. With only a single month of reduced activity, my regular workout was really hard to complete. It wasn't like my leg was hurting or anything. I just didn't have the same amount of energy. When I started throwing the basketball, my shots didn't connect anymore. It was interesting. I thought I was shooting free throws exactly like I've always done, but the ball was landing just a little short. The hand eye coordination was the same, but the muscles had atrophied a bit more. It was like they were delivering 10% less power. I'm going to really have to work on regaining muscle mass. Things have been slowly going downhill for a long time. I'm going to have to start adding more protein to my diet and working out with weights. I've always liked the idea of being thin, but I can't afford to lose any more muscle. It's time for a change.

I was going to watch a few more episodes of The Expanse today and I thought I would watch them on the big TV instead of my computer. Bad idea. I quickly discovered that there's a problem with my Apple TV box. My network connection keeps dropping out even though the box is directly connected to the router with an Ethernet cable. Like many Apple problems, my sporadic connection problems were well documented by other users on Apple forums. A number of people seem to be experiencing the same type of problem I was seeing. No solution from Apple though. There seldom is these days.  I went back to watching my show on the computer.

There was a nice breeze when we took our sunrise walk with Dash this morning. unfortunately, that was the last walk Dash got today. Janet had to go to a meeting this evening and Dash wouldn't leave the house without her. He has become really attached to Janet while she has been home and follows her around all day. When she leaves the house now, he freaks out. I don't know if he is scared or lonely, or a little bit of both. It's going to be a problem when Janet goes back to work. I hope he can adjust. I know he feels more comfortable when Dot and Janet are around, but that isn't an option now. Dot is gone and Janet has a job.

Today went quickly. It's surprising how easy it is to fill a day with almost nothing. The simple act of trying to watch a movie sent me on an extended Google search where I learned some new things about modern technology. Evidently, many of the new devices you plug into your TV are able to control the TV. Your TV is also able to control these external devices. The whole idea is to let you do everything using one remote control. The problems start when two devices are trying to control each other and get confused. I think that's what happened with me today. I probably don't need a Roku stick, Chromecast, and Apple TV all hooked up to the same television. No wonder Janet prefers to watch TV using her iPad.

Jeez, it's almost August and I still don't have a plan for the summer. I've accomplished a few things, but there have been a lot of setbacks as well. There's so much to do that I hardly know where to start. Maybe a nice early walk tomorrow morning, followed by some strong coffee and a fruit smoothie will give me some ideas.

Penny is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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