Day 4848

The weather continues to follow its unpredictable ways. It was over 90 degrees this afternoon. Yikes. That just doesn't seem right. Even though there were clear skies for most of the day, we are under another severe weather alert. It's supposed to start raining pretty hard in about an hour from now.

I tried to finish mowing today but the mower's battery died again before I could complete the back yard. I can't decide whether to replace the 24 volt batteries or replace the entire mower. Mowing the grass is one of my least favorite things, but it is good exercise and I still don't like the idea of paying a lawn service. At least our yard is small. Pushing the mower still feels tiring although it doesn't take all that long. I'll charge up the mower again and finish the rest tomorrow.

It was too hot to give Dawn an afternoon walk, but she did get a nice early morning walk. It's hard to keep her from eating grass in the park. I don't know if this is a nervous habit or if she really likes the taste. Sometimes she gets a blade of grass stuck in her throat and starts coughing. Usually a drink of water solves the problem but she doesn't seem to understand that eating grass is a bad idea. I guess it could be worse. Petey, one of our earlier Dalmatians, was obsessed with eating other dog's poop.

I went to the bank and then came home and paid the early April bills on my computer. After the mower died and put an end to my lawn care efforts I did a load of wash. Next came the day's real chore: a long walk in 90 degree weather. I completed my six mile route and even managed to get over 20,000 steps today but it was an effort. How did I do this last summer? I guess I was younger then.

All the White Pelicans in the park are gone. Their numbers have been decreasing for over a week, but I didn't see a single bird today. It seems like they stayed a little longer last year, but it's been a warm Winter. The birds spend the summer in North and South Dakota and then return the following Winter. They've been doing this for as long as I can remember. I think birds are a lot more predictable than people.

I've been wondering why I haven't heard anything about my credential request for some upcoming launches at Kennedy Space Center. Today I discovered that my only media contact at Space X no longer works there. Now who do I ask about Space X launches? People move around a lot these days. My contact list is basically worthless. Every time I try to contact someone, they are no longer there. Hopefully I will still get credentialed, but you never know. 

Nothing is very predictable anymore. In the time it has taken me to write seven paragraphs, tonight's severe weather alert has expired and the storm headed our way don't look nearly as bad. I think we're still going to get some heavy rain but we'll have to wait and see. I don't have a lot of faith in the weather forecast anymore. Whatever happens, we still need to get Dawn outside and pee before we go to bed.

Lexi is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4457

Today was busy. Well, it was busy for me anyway. I finished working on my taxes and took the files down to my accountant. For many years I've burned a CD of my Quickbooks files to support all the paper documents. Nobody's computers except for mine seem to have a CD drive anymore, so I took them a zip drive this year. I have no real idea what I owe these days. It's too complicated. Hopefully, the damage won't be too bad this year. There are already plenty of other bills I need to pay.

On the way home I stopped to get some printer ink. All I needed was the Cyan cartridge, but I had to buy a three pack with a Magenta and Yellow cartridge as well. Since the Magenta and Yellow cartridges currently in the printer are pretty full, I will probably lose this new ink long before I need it. It's weird that the colored ink gets used at all since all I print are black and white documents. Computer printers are probably going the way of CD drives pretty soon. There is very little use for them anymore. I could have probably sent all my tax files to the accountant's Dropbox as PDF files, but old habits die hard. Tax season to me still means a big manilla envelope full of paper documents. 

When I returned home I added the three new dogs to the Dalmatian Rescue website. The site is up to date now, even though my Dreamweaver software barely works anymore. It's a good thing I know HTML fairly well. I haven't upgraded any Adobe software since they went to a subscription model, so the copy of Dreamweaver I use is ancient. It probably wouldn't work at all if I had the latest OS running on my Mac. I stopped upgrading the computer quite a while ago too. I hate the relentless desire of companies to monetize everything and turn owners into renters. I still think you should be able to buy software in a pretty box with a CD inside and be able to use it forever. The box should include a decent instruction manual too. Why does everything have to be a cumbersome PDF file that takes forever to read on your computer?

This weather is driving me nuts. The temperature fluctuates wildly from day to day. I never know what to wear anymore. I was cold when we took Dawn on her morning walk, so I dressed warmly when I took my long walk later in the day. I didn't think it had warmed up much, but I was hot before I had gone two miles. I never should have worn two coats, because the outer coat was too bulky to tie around my waist. My feet hurt a lot today as well. Foot pain seems just as unpredictable as the weather. 

The weather is going to get a lot colder by Friday. We may even get snow. Why does this happen every year? We have an early Spring. Things start to turn green and then we get a late hard freeze that kills all the early growth. We've frequently had terrible weather in March, so I wouldn't be surprised if we did get some snow this weekend. At least April is always nice. April isn't that far away is it?

I've been trying to get Dawn used to having me do the things that Janet usually does in preparation for her upcoming trip. So far, it isn't going so well. Dawn is still very nervous around me when I am alone with her. She will come and eat her dinner after I fix it for her, but I have to go back in the office while she eats. She won't eat if I am in the kitchen. She finally comes to the backdoor when I call her to go outside and pee. There is a whole breakfast routine she still needs to learn though. Janet always feeds her breakfast and gets her to take her pills while I am making the bed. Often Janet will take her down in the park to poop as well. She won't even leave the backyard with me unless Janet is nearby. It's going to be an interesting week. Dawn is a very smart dog and Janet has been able to do amazing things with her at training class. Hopefully it won't take her long to realize that I mean no harm and am actually her friend. Dawn needs to understand that Janet needs vacations too. I've had the opportunity to go to Kennedy Space Center and McDonald Observatory last year, but Janet hasn't gone anywhere since Covid started. 

Val is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3533

Tonight was an adventure. We saw lots of Javelina pigs. Some of them were very close but we didn't get attacked. We saw enough deer crossing the road to make us drive very carefully. Before it got dark were saw an enormous number of hummingbirds. When we got to the top of Mount Locke around 9 PM, we were treated to a spectacular lightning show. We saw no stars tonight. An unexpected thunderstorm rolled through the area and we were right in the middle of it.

All was not lost though. Since the astronomers were not able to see anything tonight either, we got a behind the scenes look at some areas at the 107" Harlan J. Smith telescope that are normally off limits on tours. During an earlier daytime tour of this same telescope I was even able to operate the controls that made the telescope move. Getting to experience these huge telescopes up close was pretty amazing, but it would have been nice to see stars. I asked one of the astronomers what was the best time of year to visit and he said you could get bad weather at any time of year. He told me that some visitors were lucky to experience a spectacular night on their first visit, while others had bad weather three or four times in a row. "You just have to get lucky," he said.

At least the skies were clear last night. Before we went to sleep yesterday Janet and I went outside and looked at the sky for a while. The night sky was amazing. I saw more stars than I'd even seen in my life. It's too bad that the Special Observing Night wasn't yesterday. Evidently Sunday night was even better, but we were still in Dallas then. All this just goes to show that nature is full of surprises. The fancy long-term weather forecasting service I subscribed to predicted an 87% chance of clear skies tonight. Unfortunately, tonight was part of that remaining 13%.

As you might imagine, I was disappointed not to see stars. It was a long drive to get caught in a storm. We could have stayed home and had a rainy day. I think it rained in Dallas today too. At least we made it back to the hotel before the severe weather arrived. I wouldn't want to be driving on those mountain roads at night an a bad thunderstorm.

Even though we got rained out tonight, this has still been a very enjoyable trip. The Davis Mountains are beautiful. McDonald Observatory is fascinating even on a cloudy day. The three large telescopes are amazing. The largest, the 433 inch Hobby-Eberly Telescope is still one of the largest in the world. It is currently one of the telescopes being used to find exoplanets around distant stars and is also involved in a study about dark matter.

It's too bad this place is so remote. I'd like to return when the weather is better. Fort Davis is a charming little town. Most of the residents are retired. Evidently local businesses have a hard time finding help because all the young people can't wait to leave the area and go to a city where there is more action. When we returned from the observatory tonight there was not a single car on the city streets. The place looked like a ghost town. Actually the observatory looked pretty ghostly tonight too with the observatory towers bathed in flashes of light from nearby lightning strikes. Janet said it felt like we were watching an old Frankenstein movie.

The rain is pounding outside our hotel window and I hear a lot of thunder at the moment. The weather might clear up tomorrow, or it might continue raining. Weather is unpredictable, Either way we will be leaving town after breakfast in the morning. Maybe I'll come back someday.

Dot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3423

I've been trying to think of an interesting way to occupy my time. Maybe astronomy vacations are a thing. Well yes, actually they are. I was surprised at how many options are available. In December of 2020 you can take a three week cruise around the tip of South America to view a total eclipse of the sun off the coast of Patagonia. This one's a little pricy, but you do get to go to Antartica. More reasonable are a wide variety of dark sky photo workshops. These workshops seem to take place in spectacular remote locations like Joshua Tree National Park or Badlands National park. It doesn't seem to be easy to fly into places like these, but I guess that's what cars are for. Prices vary considerably but the workshops are quite small and all seem to led by well known astrophotographers.

One of the most interesting options are the Special Viewing Nights at McDonald Observatory. Several times a year a select group of people get a chance to look at the heavens through one of the three large research telescopes at the observatory. How cool would it be to spend an evening looking through the 82" Otto Struve Telescope. Professional astronomers often wait months for an opportunity to use this famous telescope because skies at the observatory are still among the darkest in the world. You can take Amtrack to Alpine, Texas too. I'm sure there are other interesting things out there. I've just started looking.

The bad thing about astronomy vacations is that you really have to plan ahead to take advantage of these very limited opportunities. Only a few people at a time are able to get observatory access or attend a dark sky workshop. So what happens if you arrive for an event you planned months earlier and it's cloudy or raining? You lose. There is just no way to guarantee a clear day months in advance.

Weather is really unpredictable. I can't even guarantee a clear day tomorrow. It rained a little bit today, but I was able to take my walk. You see some strange things in the park. For the past week I've noticed a guy with a huge pair of calipers measuring tree trunks. He seems to be measuring every tree in the park. He writes down the diameter of the tree in a little book and then moves on the the next tree. Why? I guess I could ask him some day. I've started noticing the same runners and cyclists day after day. Often our paths cross at almost exactly the same spot. I guess I'm not the only one who keeps a rigid schedule.

I saw a film crew setting up to shoot a commercial in the park as I started my walk this morning. They were still setting up when I returned. I wouldn't be surprised if the crew spent all day to film something that lasted fifteen seconds. I used to do this. For once I felt glad that I was retired.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2331

We woke up to sunshine this morning. The weather has become just as unpredictable as Dot's pooping schedule. I was delighted that thunder and lightning weren't going to be a problem today, but still it would be nice to know these things in advance. I've given up trying to figure out how Dot is going to feel in advance. Every day is a new day. I'm not a flexible person by nature, but Dot has forced me to embrace flexibility this year. Some days she is so weak and tired that she doesn't even want to move. Other days she seems to have found a second wind and actually seems to be getting better. She is so old now that each additional day is a gift. I try my best to adapt to her current condition and I'm even getting used to constantly cleaning up poop.

I wish I could get used to the idea of retirement. 2014 was a good year. Last year, things started to slow down, but billings were still OK. This year has been a disaster. I feel like I've totally dropped off the radar. I've known for forty years that advertising was a young business, but it still hurts to realize that you've gone past your expiration date. Things probably aren't going to change. For most of my career I was the first to try new things and was always on the leading edge of innovation. Now, I don't welcome the latest trends. For the most part, I'm appalled by where we seem to be headed. I have to live with the fact that I'm a clever, but increasingly grumpy old man.

I ordered the camera today. You knew I would. I don't buy things because I need them anymore. I buy things to influence my mood. The new camera probably won't get me any new jobs, but it will make the few jobs I still have a little more interesting. I look forward to experimenting and learning something new. It is ironic in a way that my knowledge of photography continues to improve, while my desire to actually sell the photographs I take continues to decline. I just don't care anymore. I take pictures almost every single day, but rarely show them to anybody. When I do get an assignment, all I think about is what a bother it is going to be to load all the equipment in the car and drive to the location.

I was fascinated by tonight's primary results. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump have pretty well proved that the Democratic and Republican parties are irrelevant. Bernie is not really a Democrat and Trump is not really a Republican. The reason that they are both popular is that most voters aren't either. Almost everyone I know of voting age describes themselves as an independent. If the Democrats were smart, they would nominate Bernie because he has a better chance of winning than Hillary. If the Republicans were smart, they would swallow their pride and get behind Trump. These two candidates are as different as night and day, but they are both protectionists who believe that globalism and bad trade deals have destroyed the middle class. They also both believe that we ought to stay out of disastrous foreign wars. Sounds good to me. Maybe the Democrats and the Republicans ought to start listening to what the voters are thinking for a change.

I hope that Dot sleeps well tonight. Of course, I always hope that Dot sleeps well and there are no accidents. Sometimes we get lucky.

Milo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2231

If you happen to follow my Instagram account, you've probably noticed that certain images appear again and again. On Sundays, there is often a picture of a basketball. On Thursdays, you frequently see Dot exercising in the underwater treadmill. On Fridays its almost always a picture of my breakfast. Although these pictures are similar, they are not the same. Each one records a specific event that will never happen again. To me, repetitious pictures like this are an affirmation. They are a way of saying that I'm still here. Life itself is fairly repetitious. The sun comes up every morning and sets every night. We brush our teeth, we shower, we fix our meals, over and over and over again. Some try to escape this monotony with wild adventures. I celebrate the tiny little nuances that make even the most repetitious event unique.

Today was like most Sundays. We slept in a little later and waited until after sunrise to walk the dogs. I can eat a bigger breakfast on weekends because I know I'm probably going to work it off. According to my fitness band, Sunday is the most active day of my week. Today when I vacuumed the house, I not only cleaned the rugs and carpets, I got down on my knees and cleaned baseboards, under tables, and even under the bed. I'll have to admit that Janet shamed my into this additional cleaning, but the house does look pretty nice now.

On my way to the gym this afternoon I stopped by the REI store again. I'm kind of fascinated by the stuff inside this store. I got a pair of mountaineering pants. I'll never go near a mountain with these clever pants, but they seemed perfect for walking dogs. The knees in my regular jeans wear out way too fast because I'm always kneeling down to get Dot's harness on and off or clean Dash's paws. Maybe these heavy duty, reinforced pants will last longer. Shoes wear out pretty fast too with two walks a day over rough terrain. I finally retired my old dog walking boots and started wearing a new pair this morning. The odd thing was that I'd had these new boots for over a year. A receipt in the box said I bought them on January 12, 2015. This is typical of me. I tend to wear old clothes as long as I possibly can, because they become more comfortable with age, but I always have a replacement waiting in reserve.

I wonder if I'm going to be able to see Mercury during the short window of opportunity I have between now and early February? I went outside around 6 AM this morning with a pair of binoculars when I knew the planet would be above the horizon, but once again it was obscured by clouds. For the past several days skies will be crystal clear around midnight, then around dawn clouds will roll in. Later in the day the clouds will burn off and it will become clear again. I'll try again tomorrow.

I need to remember to order printer ink tomorrow. The longer I wait, the harder it will be to unclog the printer. I'm not sure how busy I'll be tomorrow. If there aren't many websites to update, I might see if The Martian is available on Hulu. I currently watch old TV shows on Hulu, but haven't used it yet for pay per view movies. I've noticed that falling leaves are starting to accumulate on the front and back porch. It might be time to use the blower again. Janet couldn't find rubber snakes this weekend either, so she got a rubber lizard to protect her car. We'll see how that goes. The pooping birds are definitely still around. They made a mess of the lawn furniture yesterday. All this may sound insignificant and somewhat boring to you, but it's really not. I'm already looking forward to my banana and strawberry smoothie in the morning.

Holly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2213

I took down the Christmas tree this morning, packed everything away, and took the decorations back to the storage warehouse. It seemed like the appropriate thing to do on a dismal, grey day. I don't know what the deal is with the weather lately. One day it will be nice. The next day is will be miserable, And the next day it will be nice again. You never know how to dress when you wake up in the morning. It's making me crazy.

I went to the bank and paid some bills after breakfast. That was about it. I had planned to go to the UPS Service Center and pick up a package, but UPS lost it again. I don't know why these things still irritate me, since they happen so often, but I wish UPS would get its act together. The UPS website and the UPS trucks seem to live in alternate universes. This certainly isn't the first time the website said I had a package that was going to arrive today and it just wasn't on the truck. I thought I could solve the problem by going down to the main service center and picking up the packages myself, but that hasn't been working so well either. Once, a UPS employee told me that the tracking information on the website was electronically generated and just told you where the package was supposed to be at any given point in time. Where the package actually was, could be completely different. That explains a lot.

I noticed that there was a big estate sale across the street from us when I went to the post office today. I knew that there were elderly people living in the house, but I didn't even know they had died. I don't understand the fascination with estate sales. They often attract huge crowds. This must have been a big one, because a line of people stretched all the way around the house waiting to get in. There were large hand lettered signs telling the bargain hunters not to park in the yard. There was another sign that said "no children allowed." That seemed strange. Although the sale seemed to be attracting people from all over Dallas, I didn't bother to cross the road and take a look. I find estate sales depressing. I hope I'm organized enough to downsize and dispose of things before I die when my time comes. Probably, I'll never get around to it though and my storage warehouse will end up being fought over on Storage Wars.

There were feathers all over the back yard this morning. It looked like one of the neighborhood feral cats had killed a bird during the night. I couldn't find the bird, but if it's still around, Dash will find it. My first thought was that maybe the cats had killed the bird that keeps pooping on my car, but the feathers were the wrong color. My second thought was that I really need to find the dead bird before Dash does. The last time Dash ate something dead in the yard, he had diarrhea for two days. Maybe the cats took the bird with them or ate the whole thing. That's always a possibility.

I sure wish that Dot had pooped earlier. Now it's pouring rain and I'll never be able to get the dogs outside again until it quits. There may be clear skies again tomorrow. Maybe my package will turn up. Anything could happen. I think there's a good chance that tomorrow might be better than today.

Alle is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 2023

I was hoping to see the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus this evening, but the Western sky was obscured by clouds. If you were looking for the Moon though, everything was fine. The Eastern skies were clear, so I did see a bright, almost full moon rising and a very nice sunset. I try not to miss comets, eclipses, meteor showers and other astronomical events. The constant haze and glare from all the city lights makes most of these night sky events almost invisible, but at least I make an effort to see them.

The weather continues to be unpredictable. If you remember, I was complaining about how hot it was getting yesterday. An unexpected thunderstorm blew through town around 3 AM this morning and cooled things down by at least thirty degrees. When we took our morning walk with the dogs just before sunrise, the air was crisp and cool again. What a nice surprise. According to the calendar it is the last day in June, but for a little while this morning it felt like early April.

I keep hearing about how today is a "leap second" day where an extra second is added to the year to keep our slightly imperfect calendar from getting out of whack. How will anyone ever know if this little slice of time has really been added? I have a couple of watches that are set by signals from the atomic clock in Colorado. I wonder if they'll reset themselves while I'm asleep tonight to add this extra second? If they don't, I'll probably be one second behind for the rest of my life.

I got a message from a cousin today saying that one of my aunts had died. She was 96. There is one aunt left who is 99 and still going strong. Amazing. The men in the family didn't do so well. An uncle died at a relatively early age from Alzheimer's Disease and my Dad has been gone for over a decade now. I wonder how I'll fare? They say genetics has a lot to do with it, but I think it has more to do with living a stress free life. People I've known who were under a lot of stress for a sustained period of time never lived very long.

We had a surprising amount of rain last night, so I had to get the water off the roof again. I think keeping the roof dry and cleaning up dog poop are starting to define my life. Oddly, I don't find these things stressful, so maybe I'll live to be 96 too.

Tucker is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1898

I'll never get used to Texas weather. There was rain mixed with sleet when I woke up. By the time I finished breakfast, the rain had turned to snow. By lunchtime the snow had already melted. By the time I took Dash on his evening walk there were clear blue skies and sixty five degree temperatures. This happens frequently. Actually, I think we are supposed to repeat the whole schizophrenic weather pattern this weekend.

I spent a big chunk of today retouching a photo for a client in Photoshop. It amazes me how much Photoshop has changed the way we look at things during the past twenty years. Photoshop isn't just for Sports Illustrated swimsuit models these days. Everybody uses it. We have gotten so used to looking at idealized perfection that people can't seem to tolerate images that show anything less.

Against my better judgement, I climbed up on the roof and cleared the accumulated water off the roof as soon as the skies cleared. There was an enormous amount of standing water on the roof and I didn't want it to freeze. Yes, within 48 hours another cold wave will arrive and we will have sub-freezing temperatures again. I wish I could just ignore the water, but it is so heavy that the longer I leave it, the sooner it will cause the roof to settle and buckle even more. I think the low spots are already sinking lower, because less water seems to drain off the edge of the roof than it did a few years ago. At least the roof doesn't leak anymore, but my fear is that the roof leaks will start again if I leave four inches of water on top of it continually. In July this water would just evaporate after a rain. Not in February.

I wish I could report that Dot had miraculously started walking again, but she still spends her day laying in various soft dog beds scattered around the house, waiting for me to move her around, or take her out to pee. She is in remarkably good spirits, considering her lack of mobility, but this is no way to live. I really hope that the surgery provides some relief and allows the healing process to begin. If I could ask Dot if she wanted to go through major surgery again, I'm sure she would say no. If I could ask her if she wanted to walk again, I'm equally sure she would say yes. I hope we made the right choice.

I called the hospital again today to confirm our check-in time and continue to hope that Dot will stay strong and be able to cope with the difficult days she has ahead. The surgeon told me that some dogs begin walking on their own within two weeks after her type of surgery. Others of course, require months of physical therapy. I hope that Dot is one of the lucky ones. She has been my friend and constant companion for over a decade now and I don't want to lose her. Please keep Dot in your thoughts and prayers tomorrow as she goes through this difficult but necessary surgery. The surgery itself will take about three hours, which seems like a very, very long time to me.

It feels like there is still a lot of unfinished business today, but it is getting late and we all need some sleep. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.

Cookie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day