Day 4919

It was hard to stay ahead of the weather today. It would rain for a while, but never stop for long enough to get anything done. Dawn missed her early walk this morning because of a sudden storm. I almost missed my long walk as well. I actually did get rained on for a while, but it wasn't bad. Basically, the word of the day was wet.

I tried to call the roofer about the standing water on the roof but my contact person wasn't available. I just left a text message. The roof isn't leaking and I doubt the roofers can do anything, but I'm still unhappy. Getting a roof that drained properly was one of my main objectives when this whole roof saga began.

When I was walking this morning I noticed that there was a lot of interest in a loose dog. The dog seemed friendly, but the local park ranger and several police officers both seemed interested. They must have called animal control because when I was returning home I saw an animal control officer trying to catch the dog. I felt sorry for the dog since it probably won't last long in the pound. The animal control officer didn't seem to know what he was doing. Instead of using a catch pole, he was trying to catch the dog using a large net. It kind of looked like a huge butterfly net. With a little cheese, this dog would have probably come right over and let you put a leash on him. Maybe there was more to this story. The dog might have bitten someone or maybe there were worries about rabies. Who knows. I see loose dogs in the park all the time, but seldom see this kind of drama.

I shouldn't have been so industrious yesterday, because I had nothing to do today. I did a load of laundry because that's what I always do when I can't think of anything else. The good news was that the water from the machine didn't overflow the drain today. There were other problems though. Our phones went dead for a while which was strange because the Internet still worked. I eventually discovered that if I disconnected an old wall phone in the kitchen, the phones worked again. This means that there is a bad connection in the wiring somewhere. It's almost not worth trying to fix this though. We still have plenty of phones without the problematic kitchen phone.

I don't know why I bothered taking a walk today. There was a light mist when I started and intermittent showers throughout the walk. I was pretty wet by the time I returned home. I never even considered not walking though. These long walks have become an integral part of my day. At least it was cool outside. The ducks seemed to love the weather. I saw lots more ducks today than I usually do.

Dawn seem bothered by the storms today. This was odd because she usually totally ignores the weather. I'm worthless at calming Dawn down when Janet is away. If I come in the bedroom when she's upset, she'll just go to the opposite side of the house. Dawn needs to get serious about bonding with me. Eventually Janet is going to take a vacation again.

I have no plans for tomorrow. This means it will probably be exactly like today. I think there is more rain in the forecast tomorrow as well. Oh, well. The rainy season will be over soon enough. 

Marcie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4917

We started the day with clear blue skies and ended the day with a thunderstorm. I guess I shouldn't be surprised. It's almost always like this in early June. We made the most of the nice part of the day though. Dawn got her sunrise walk and a nice Sunday outing.

I went mall walking like I always do on Sunday. I go earlier now because I discovered that the mall is actually open at 9 AM. I wish walking outdoors was this pleasant. The mall is very quiet early in the morning and the temperature is perfect.

There's always something new to look at in the store windows and even though I'm not that interested in clothing, the ever changing windows keep me occupied. A new store seems to open every week. Sometimes I wonder how it makes sense to locate in this mall. There are tons of small high end stores and I never see any customers in them when the mall is open. When I went to pick up my glasses last week, almost all of these smaller stores were empty.

Dawn was ready to go on her outing as soon as I returned from the mall. I thought it might be too hot outside for her today, but she had a lot more energy than I did. By the time we finished our one mile circuit, Janet and Dawn were way ahead of me. As usual, we stopped for ice cream on the way home. There is always a help wanted sign outside the ice cream store. You'd think this would be a good summer job for high school kids. Maybe kids don't have summer jobs anymore. I certainly don't see any kids mowing lawns in the neighborhood these days.

There's a new update for the star tracker, but I haven't even bothered to install it yet. I'm probably going to lose interest in this thing before I manage to get any decent pictures with it. There are too many trees and streetlights to attempt astrophotography in our backyard and I'm definitely not going to be wandering around in the park late at night. Even though there were mountain lions in the area, I always felt safe setting up equipment at all hours of the night when I was out at the observatory. Not so much here in Dallas.

There are a ton of things that need attention around the house, but I keep trying to avoid them. The carpenter on the roofing job was pretty good, but I haven't called him yet either. I keep telling myself that there's no rush. I seem more concerned with finishing things than starting new things these days. I'm eager to finish my 5000 day goal on this blog. I don't make large Giclée prints anymore and I haven't used my little recording studio in ages. I used to always have some sort of new project on the back burner. Now all I want to do is take a nap.

Maybe I'll install the new star tracker software tomorrow. It certainly beats my next alternative, which is mowing the grass. I have an appointment to get a TSA Pre card pretty soon, but no real travel plans. At least I'm still interested in chasing rockets. That's something I guess.

Willa is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4543

We had another big thunderstorm last night. The thunder was so loud that it scared Dawn, who typically ignores these things. I woke up when Dawn kept hopping off the bed to go to her "safe" place in the corner of the room and then hopping back on the bed again a few minutes later. It took about fifteen minutes before she decided that it was safe enough to go back to sleep again. I kept getting text messages on my phone from Oncor saying that there was a power outage in our area, but we never lost power. The roof didn't leak either. Luckily, storms with straight line winds move quickly and everything was calm by morning. I'm tired of all this rain, but at least the lawn looks good. Late Spring is usually pretty wet here. By July, I'll be wishing these storms were back again.

It was way too wet to take a sunrise walk with Dawn this morning. She didn't even want to go out in the back yard and pee. We figured that we could walk her later in the day. I ate my breakfast and ran the pumps on the roof. Amazingly, they're still working. Now that Summer is approaching and most of last Fall's leaves are gone, I'm just going to let the residual standing water on the roof evaporate. There's no reason to tempt fate by climbing up there too often.

The accessory I ordered for the star tracker came in today's mail. This will make it easier to attach the camera to the tracker in both landscape and portrait orientations. I've got everything I need now. All that's missing are some dark skies and the will to go outside at night and get bitten by mosquitos and chiggers. I'll keep practicing with the tracker so I can reliably set it up and use it in the dark. One of these days it will go back to McDonald Observatory with me.

I took my long walk early today while the air was still cool from last night's storm. As long as it's not hot and muggy, I still prefer walking in the park to working out at the gym. I was surprised when after a few miles my route was blocked by a construction crew. They were putting in a new bridge over one of the creeks that feeds the lake. It looked like they built the entire bridge offsite and were just lifting it in place with a giant crane. I've been watching crews build the concrete piers for this bridge for weeks. I still didn't expect that this is the way they would finish things though. Since I couldn't walk any further, I turned around and walked the other way. I ended up getting the same amount of steps and saw a part of the lake I haven't visited in months.

Dawn was almost back to normal today, but she's still a little more nervous than usual. She freaked out for a few minutes when she heard the mailman at the front door this morning. Dawn doesn't like surprises. Anything out of the ordinary can startle or scare her. I'm beginning to think that she has PTSD. She seems to behave very similarly to the way many people do with PTSD. Clearly something traumatic happened in her past and she'll probably never forget it.

I saw a rat in the atrium today. We haven't seen rats in the yard for almost five years. There was a guy in the neighborhood who used to take care of a lot of feral cats. I think they kept the rat population down. He found homes for the cats before he moved and I haven't seen cats in the neighborhood for quite a while. Owls used to eat mice and rats in the meadow behind our house as well. I don't even hear the owls anymore. I wonder where they went? 

I'm pretty sure the dishwasher is leaking. Do we need a new dishwasher, or is there just a loose water line connection somewhere?  I'll have to call the appliance repairman to find out what is going on. He'll probably monkey around for half a day and then tell me that I need to call a plumber. Nothing is easy these days.

At least the week is almost over. I've taken this week's trash out to the curb and the weather looks like it's going to be nice tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will be uneventful. I'm kind of like Dawn in may ways. I'm good as long as there are no surprises.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4526

I thought we were going to get a bad storm last night, but it passed slightly to the East of us. We experienced a few minutes of strong straight line winds, but got very little rain. Needless to say, I didn't see last night's lunar eclipse. I expect the rain. What I didn't expect was a power outage. The power went out several hours after the storm had passed. I probably wouldn't have noticed but Dawn woke us up. This strange dog isn't bothered by thunder and lightning, but power outages freak her out. I called in the outage to the power company and tried to get back to sleep. Dawn wasn't about to go back to sleep. She sat on the middle of the bed in high alert mode for what seemed like hours.

It seemed a bit ironic that just after we had fixed the air conditioner and bought some new fans, we didn't have any electricity. Both the AC and the fans were useless. We could feel the temperature rising in the house almost immediately, but at least the outage happened during the middle of the night when things were cooler. If we lived in a safe place, I would have opened the doors and windows so we could get some air circulation. That's not going to happen in the city though. Eventually I went back to sleep and hopefully so did Dawn.

The power was back on in the morning, but it must have been off for about four hours because that's how far the clocks were off. I reset everything, turned off the washer and dryer which somehow come on automatically after an outage, and got ready for our early morning walk with Dawn. Everything is back to normal again. Last night wasn't what I expected though. I was hoping to view an eclipse.

When we went up to the kennel to visit the rescue Dalmatians today, we discovered that Willie was back. This was disappointing, but sometimes things just don't work out. Willie is a very sweet dog who is going to find a great home, but it looks like he will need to be the only dog in the family. It was hot today and everyone wanted to stay inside except for Jo Jo. This dog definitely prefers playing outdoors. We continue to be impressed at how well Rocket is adjusting to his new life. He seems like a normal dog now. After everyone had their play time and lots of treats, we headed back home. It was my turn to drive today and I kept thinking how much nicer it was out in the Davis Mountains. I like a road with no cars on it.

There was plenty of time to take a long walk this afternoon, but I wasn't feeling up to the task. It was just too hot outside. After walking a a little more than a mile I headed for home again. Since Dawn walked a little longer this morning, I managed to eek out a total of four miles today. It wasn't much, but it kept my Fitbit happy. I don't think we're going to see cool weather for quite a while. This strange May heat wave will eventually end, but it's Summer now. Summers in Texas are always hot.

As usual, I have no plans for tomorrow. I'll probably think of something, but I hope it doesn't involve the star tracker. I'm getting sick of that thing. I anticipate more power outages this summer, but lets hope there isn't another one tonight. I need to catch up on my sleep.

Liberty is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4487

Today was busy. After beakfast this morning I joined the other rocket photographers at the NASA Press Site to set remote cameras at the launch pad. I don't set remote cameras myself, but I like to ride on the bus with to other photographers. This is the only time the press is allowed to get close to the pad, so it's a great opportunity to get pictures. I can't believe that some of these guys continue to set remote cameras after all the tales I've heard about ruined cameras and lenses. 

You usually set remote cameras the day before the launch, so there's always a chance that it will rain overnight. Even with protective enclosures, many cameras have been ruined with water damage. If you get lucky and manage to avoid the rain, there's always a chance that your camera will get ruined by rocket fuel or flying debris. The remote cameras are set very close to the launch pad and are triggered to start shooting by the noise of the launch. There are no guarantees that your camera won't get destroyed. Sometimes I wish I had the nerve to try this, but I don't have any cameras I can afford to lose.

Today there was a certain amount of nervousness among even the more experienced photographers because as the morning progressed, we kept hearing news about a major thunderstorm headed our way. This was the same storm system that caused multiple tornados in Georgia last night, so it was something to be taken seriously. Several guys decided not to place their cameras after all. Somehow we managed to set up cameras at all four remote locations before the rain started. The timing was perfect for people like me, but it was little comfort to the photographers who knew their cameras were already getting wet.

I thought I could make it back to Titusville before the weather got really bad and I almost made it. The deluge started right as I was going over the NASA Causeway Bridge. Not the best place to be in a blinding rainstorm. I made it over the bridge and then cautiously made my way back to the hotel. The rain is over now, but it lasted quite a while. I was stuck in the hotel for most of the afternoon. Actually, this wasn't a bad thing because it gave me a chance to get started on my SpaceFlight Magazine article.

I have a hard time getting 10,000 steps a day when I'm traveling. I end up standing a lot, but that doesn't count to my Fitbit. The Fitbit wants me to be moving and burning calories. I usually walk up and down the little street where the hotel is located after dinner. It's kind of boring and there is nothing to see except for other hotels, but it gets the job done. You' think with all the walking I do that I'd feel really fit. Nope. I still spend most of my time feeling old and tired.

I really hope that the launch takes place as planned tomorrow. The weather forecast actually looks pretty good, but there is still a chance of high winds. With Space X launches you've got to worry about the weather at sea too. Even if the booster makes it safely of the pad, it still needs a place to land on the drone ship waiting out at sea. If Axiom-1 can't launch tomorrow, there are all sorts of scheduling problems. The Artemis-1 rocket on the next pad still needs to complete its wet dress rehearsal and the NASA Crew-4 launch is coming up very soon. Crew-4 needs to stay on schedule because the Crew-3 astronauts are waiting to come home. We'll set how it goes. I'd really hate to miss the launch, but any least I've already got a lot of great pictures.

Tomorrow is launch day. I need to get some sleep because it's going to be a very busy day.

Molly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4138

I had to scramble to get our walks completed before the rain began today. I took my long walk immediately after breakfast and actually made good time. When Janet returned from grocery shopping, we took Dawn on her short one mile loop. Less than half an hour later it began to rain pretty hard. It continued raining for the rest of the day, but it felt good to get most of our major chores out of the way before the deluge began.

It's still raining and I think we got some hail at one point. It could have been a lot worse however. Other parts of North Texas saw tornados. We didn't even have much wind. The two pumps on the roof are working well today, so all is well. I'm continually grateful that Dawn has no storm phobias. Thunder and lightning don't bother her at all. She just freaks out if I'm in the kitchen with her.

The park was pretty empty when I walked this morning. I guess a lot of people didn't want to risk getting wet. I don't want to get wet either, but I've grown to depend on a multitude of weather apps on my phone. I never take selfies, but I do check the weather a lot. Sometimes the weather radar lets me down, but everything worked perfectly today. Hopefully this storm will have moved well to the East by tomorrow when I need to do my own grocery shopping.

My missing package has mysteriously reappeared. It has taken 12 days for it to move from one post office in Indiana to another post office in Indiana. I suspect that it was thrown in the wrong bin and was only recently discovered. The post office assures me that all is well though. The package is on the move. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll get it sometime next week.

I didn't wake up in time to watch the Crew-2 launch live on the Space X stream, but I watched the replay later. What a beautiful launch! This would have been a great one to see in person. When I see the pictures some of the other launch photographers take, I can't help being a bit envious. I've got to figure out how to get credentialed again. Sometimes I ask photographers I know what their secret is, but nobody has revealed it yet. I'm sure it all depends on who you know. That's how it works in every other aspect of life. Why would it be any different at NASA?

Dawn didn't eat her breakfast this morning. We left the food out and she ate everything normally around noon. When I fixed her dinner this evening, she didn't eat that either. About an hour later when I wasn't in the kitchen, she wandered out and ate everything. Now that Dawn is becoming more confident, she is starting to set her own schedules. There is nothing wrong with this. It is actually a good thing, but it is a bit unnerving for a person like me who had a fixed, inflexible schedule for almost everything.

There are some large, older houses near the halfway point of my daily walk. They were probably built in the 1940's and I've always liked them. Today I noticed that one of my favorite houses was being demolished. This is a trend in our part of town. Developers will buy a house on a large older lot, scrape it, and then put up two large homes on the same lot. There never was a lot of respect for history in Dallas, but   now the old buildings are disappearing faster than ever. I'm sure our house will be scraped someday. It's a shame. A decent person would restore it instead.

I hope I see blue sky in the morning. It's grocery day tomorrow and my list is pretty long. Janet and I have a system on groceries. She buys the things that require a discerning eye and I buy the commodities. It's hard to go wrong when you are just buying beer, laundry detergent, and toilet paper.

Wyatt is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4101

We had quite a storm last night. A strong wind and the sound of thunder woke me up and I had trouble getting back to sleep. I checked my phone to make sure that we weren't under a tornado watch and then I checked on Dawn. For a dog that is scared of everything, she is remarkably unaffected by storms. Severe weather doesn't seem to bother her at all. Eventually I dozed off and when I woke up this morning, the sound of thunder had been replaced with the sounds of the bulky trash trucks picking up all the junk that had been piled at the curb.

It was too wet to use the hedge trimmers I bought yesterday. I made sure that the pumps on the roof were working and then slowly drank my morning smoothie as I looked for something interesting to watch on TV. Dawn wouldn't eat her breakfast this morning which kind of worried me. Whenever a Dalmatian won't eat, something has to be wrong. I remembered hearing her stomach rumble when I woke up in the middle of the night, so I suspect that she got into something bad in the yard. Janet and I decided to wait and see if her appetite returned for dinner before becoming too alarmed.

The sky looked unusually dusty this morning, but the wind was blowing so hard that all the dust disappeared by mid afternoon. When I went on my long walk, I almost got blown over a few times. With the wind in my face, today's walk was quite a workout. I saw five large trees that had gotten blown over in the park and was extremely thankful that none of our own trees were damaged. Over the years we have lost about half of our mature Oak and Elm trees to storm damage. The trees are old and nearing the end of their natural life. Sadly, I think the rest of them need to be removed to insure that they won't fall on the house during a future storm. Violent storms are just a fact of life in Texas. Luckily, the worst of last night's storm went to the North of us.

I've got to think of something interesting to augment my daily walks. The walks eat up a lot of time, but they aren't like the many projects that used to occupy me for months at a time. I've lost interest in so many things. When I look around the office, it feels like a stranger put a lot of the stuff here. I'm no longer interested in making large Giclée prints or having gallery shows. I don't think my large production printer even works anymore. It's been decades since I've played in a band. I don't even write songs or play musical instruments these days. I don't collect things either. In fact, the last several years have been devoted to getting rid of many of my collections. I don't even find these waning interests strange. It's been this way my entire life. I don't expect my current interest in space and astronomy to last forever, but I'm sure I'll always be interested in something. I wonder what comes next.

Luckily, Dawn's appetite returned in time for dinner. She was eager to eat the same things she refused to touch for breakfast. Who knows what was wrong earlier today, but I suspect that it was an upset stomach. Dawn seemed kind of moody today as well. She gets that way when Janet is gone for any length of time. It's a shame that Dawn has decided to be a one person dog, especially since I spend a lot more time around the house than Janet does. We're working on becoming friends, but it is a very slow process.

I guess I'll watch the Artemis-1 static fire on NASA TV tomorrow. At one point I was planning to go down to Stennis Space Center to watch this in person, but I'm glad I never pursued it. With Covid restrictions still in place, I probably wouldn't have been approved anyway. Maybe by the time this gigantic rocket makes its way down to Kennedy Space Center things will be back to normal. This is one launch I'd really like to see. Until then, I'll continue walking, keep learning more about astrophotography, and keep trying to win Dawn's favor with cheese.

Alison is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4048

Today was busier than usual. I can't say that I accomplished a lot though. When I woke up, Janet had gone running and Dawn was nervously peering around the corner of the bedroom door at me. As soon as I got up, she hopped on the bed and reclaimed it for herself. It's unfortunate that she still doesn't feel comfortable being alone in the house with me, because that's how we spend most of our time together. Janet has always spent more time away from the house than I do. Eventually, I made the bed with Dawn sitting right in the middle. I've actually gotten pretty good at this. Dawn is often on the bed when I'm trying to make it.

Before getting started on my Saturday errands, I wrote a letter to my sister and took it to the post office. This periodic letter to a Luddite relative is the only reason I have to go to the post office anymore. It's the end of an era. I've spent a lot of time at the post office over the years. On my way to the grocery store, I stopped at my pharmacy to ask when they were going to get the vaccine. My pharmacist had no idea. He said that the website I'd signed up on was only to receive information about when the vaccine might become available. It was not a sign-up sheet to get vaccinated.

I found everything except for raspberries on my grocery list. I had to go to a second store to get the berries and ended up buying some tasty looking items at the deli counter for dinner. I also stopped at Fry's to get a nickel metal hydride backup battery for an audio recorder. I thought that this hard to replace battery was the reason that the time and date settings wouldn't stay in the recorder's memory. I had to disassemble the recorder to access the rechargeable battery, but it turned out that this wasn't the problem after all. The recorder's main battery had gone bad.  

After lunch we took Dawn on her one mile walk. She loves the one mile walk but definitely doesn't want to go any further. I continued to walk after Dawn and Janet returned to the house. That's what I do these days. I thought it might rain, so I wore the new raincoat I got for the last launch I attended in Florida.  The raincoat was a tight fit over my winter coat. I guess I should have gotten a larger size. Maybe it will just be a summer raincoat. It fits perfectly over a t-shirt.

I seldom get over 20,000 steps on a single walk, but I did today. With Dawn's new schedule it's more convenient to take one longer walk than the morning and evening walks I used to take. Hey, I'm flexible, even if I continue to do the same things over and over again. My new shoes are still comfortable, but they are already starting to show some wear. Expensive running shoes are a new thing for me, but they are much more comfortable than the longer lasting leather hiking boots I used to wear outdoors. I guess since all I do these days is walk, the cost of these shoes isn't exorbitant at all. It makes more sense to spend money on something I use every day than on audio recorders that sit on a shelf until all the batteries go bad.

There are severe thunderstorms in the forecast for tomorrow. I'm never happy about the prospect of thunderstorms. I have too many memories of leaking roofs and falling trees in the backyard to appreciate this type of weather. I don't think the bad weather is going to start until sometime in the afternoon. Tomorrow's project for the day is to convince Dawn to walk in the morning.

Chloe is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3989

I think Dallas has decided the coronavirus is over. People cetainly weren't sheltering in place today. There were traffic jams everywhere and the stores were packed. I had to pick up some last minute items for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner and it seemed like the entire town had the same idea. The grocery store that I went to was so crowded that I had trouble moving from one aisle to the next. I got what I needed though. Janet and I will have a nice Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow.

The storm last night was intense, but it was over very quickly. The thin line of storms passed through town at about 50 miles and hour and within fifteen minutes it was all over. We got a lot of rain within a short amount of time and there were some momentary high winds, but we didn't have any damage. One thing we learned was that Dawn does very well during a storm. We all sat together in our pitiful little hallway "safe space" during the worst of the storm and Dawn was completely calm. She just lay down between us and waited until the coast was clear. Petey and Dash would have totally lost it and Dot wouldn't have done that well either. A lot of our former dogs have had severe storm phobias, but Dawn just takes the weather in stride. I think she's more fearful of men than she is of tornadoes.

I succumbed to temptation and got the camera. There was no real justification for this purchase, but I knew that six months from now when the camera was full price again, I would be kicking myself for not getting it when it was on sale. I have plenty of cameras, but this is something I will definitely use. There are several innovative features that will be very useful the next time I find myself at Kennedy Space Center. My next attempt at astrophotography might benefit from this camera as well. At any rate, the deed is done. Now I have to read the instruction manual and learn how to use this thing.

I got a reminder call about my eye exam on Monday. Once you see a doctor about anything, they make sure that you'll continue seeing them forever. My vision is still good, although I need readers now for close up work. My vision would probably be even better if I hadn't spent so many years staring at a computer screen. The eye doctor says that I am slowly developing cataracts, but I can't notice any changes yet. Eventually, I'll have to deal with this, but cataract surgery is still way off in the future as far as I'm concerned. My distance vision is still 20/20 and I want to keep it that way. Good vision is important to almost everything I do. Hopefully the eye doctor won't throw me a curve on Monday.

We had a really nice walk this morning. Last night's storm seemed to have cleared the air and I didn't have any allergy problems at all. Lately it's been a little chilly when we leave the house, but we warm up quickly. Dawn loves the cool Fall weather and has been eager to walk these days. There are days when it's hard to get her out of bed, but today she was waiting at the door for us. It's nice to see her back to her old self. That seizure last month really had us worried.

I hope that tomorrow's celebrations don't cause a big virus spike. I'm tired of listening to pundits attempt to pin the blame for all this on somebody. If there is a huge spike, we'll never hear the end of it. Have a nice Thanksgiving. Eat too much and watch footfall afterwards. Just don't sit grandma right next to your college age kids at the table.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day