Day 4415

Some days are eventful. Other days nothing happens at all. One of the downsides of writing a daily blog is that you have to account for all the days. I wouldn't be offended if you just skipped today's post. The big event of the day was driving a few miles to the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions. Some days I wonder how the days go so quickly even when nothing happens. You'd think I'd feel bored or fidgety when nothing happens, but it just seemed like a normal day to me.

Time goes by quickly when you are naturally slow. I spend a lot of time eating breakfast, switching back and forth between the news and business channels on TV as I sip my coffee. I spent more time with breakfast when I drank my enormous smoothie, but it still shouldn't take hours to eat a bowl of shredded wheat. I've grown to depend on our sunrise walk with Dawn to wake up in the morning. When I hear Janet say "we're leaving in ten minutes," I get out of bed and get dressed. Janet and Dawn are faster than me and the brisk morning walk ensures that I'm wide awake when we return and I don't just go back to bed again.

I used to spend a lot of time answering work related e-mail after breakfast, but now I just wade through a mountain of spam. It's rare that anything in my inbox even needs a response. Old habits die hard though. Without a lot of writing and editing jobs to keep me busy, I just waste time on Facebook and bookmark various camera and astronomy sites for future reading. I'm so used to sitting in front of a computer that I don't know what I'd do without it.

The weather was beautiful today. Yesterday's dismal drizzle turned into clear blue skies and nice moderate temperatures. One of the reasons I take my long walk every day is that it is an excellent way to kill time. I purposely walked slower than usual today and it seemed to help my foot pain. I think I saw one of the eagles sitting atop a distant tree but it was too far aways to be certain. Usually I know the eagle is around when I see a bunch of photographers with long telephoto lenses all pointed in a specific direction. I did see all the resident ducks and geese. There are way too many White Pelicans, Mallards, Coots, and Double Crested Cormorants to count, but I always look for the ten Domestic Geese, the two Canadian Geese, and the two Muscovy Ducks.

I've temporarily lost interest in the star tracker. I've already determined that the product kind of works and I don't think there are going to be any improvements until the next firmware upgrade. It seems pointless to take the Polaris out in our yard. The front yard isn't level and I'm always scared that a speeding car or truck is going to come careening through the yard again. It's happened before. There is a slight bend in the road just before it reaches our house and people, especially drunk people, have been known to miss the turn. The back yard is safe from traffic, but it is too hard to turn off all the security lights. There are nearby streetlights as well. Basically the neighborhood isn't very conducive to astronomy.

I paid the rest of the January bills today and noticed that these recurring expenses keep going up as well. It's a shame that the stock market us headed down again. I was feeling good for a while. Hey, at least I didn't succumb to buying Bitcoin. Crypto is taking a tumble as well. When I was working I was never concerned about fluctuations in the market. I always knew it was easy enough to earn more money. Retirement is a bit different. No matter what you've managed to save, it never seems like enough. 

Bones is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4172

Some days I just stare at the screen and wonder what to write about. I don't like to write about politics or current events and there is only so much you can say about the weather. My routine is fairly predictable and often boring. You already know about my morning smoothie and my long daily walks. I spend hours at the computer every day, but I don't work anymore so it is unclear what I am actually doing. The blog doesn't really have an audience anymore, although it still seems important to reach my 5000 day goal. 

Lately, I've been waiting until I hear Dawn eating her breakfast to get out of bed. She's a noisy eater, so this kind of serves as my alarm clock. I don't want to spook Dawn by coming out to the kitchen while she is eating. She's such a nervous dog that this will often make her quit eating entirely. Every dog we've had has caused me to make changes in my routine. With Dawn the changes have been much more frequent.

I always make the bed when Janet takes Dawn outside to pee after her breakfast. I have to work fast because I know that she will come running back to the bedroom and hop on the bed whether I've finished making it or not. This is where she stays for most of the morning. I'll take her outside on a leash from time to time because I know that she likes being outdoors. She won't take the initiative to go outside on her own though. I've even left the back door open, but all this accomplishes is letting more mosquitos inside.

I waste a lot of time researching my next equipment purchase. Sometimes it's cars I'm interesting in. Other times it's camera gear. Lately, I've gotten interested in small, very portable telescopes. I learn a lot while I'm doing this. It's mostly useless knowledge, but the quest does keep me busy. I'm wondering why Sky & Telescope didn't like my proposal about an article on the trend toward alt-azimuth imaging and tracking. I've learned a lot about the subject while researching telescopes and find it interesting.

I'm not looking forward to summer. I got hot on my walk today and the temperature wasn't even that bad. I"m trying to remember what I used to do in the summer. I walked Dot and Dash around sunset a lot. I used to walk Spot after dark, but Dallas was a lot safer then. I'd never do that now. One way or another, I'm going to have to deal with summer. It's getting hotter every day.

One of these days I'm going to need to finish unpacking from my trip to the observatory. The camera gear still needs to be unpacked and returned to it's usual place. A little voice in my head keeps asking why it is necessary to do this. If I go on another trip, I will have to gather all the gear together again and put it back in the travel case.

I've taken this week's trash to the curb and am ready to start a new week. It's hard to believe it's almost June. I'll celebrate another birthday soon and will find myself even older. I've only recently started thinking of myself as old. My mind still feels young, but my body tells me otherwise.

Libby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3029

One thing leads to another when you've got too much time on your hands. Spending time last week trying to get an old MIDI keyboard controller to work has somehow rekindled my interest in music. I've been thinking about reassembling my songwriting studio. Some of the equipment is still sitting here in the office. Other stuff is gathering dust in the storage warehouse. Is this gear obsolete, or is it still usable? If it is usable, where would I put it? There isn't much space in the office anymore. It's easy to waste hours thinking about stuff like this. Today I reread an instruction manual for an old Yamaha synthesizer that has been sitting in a corner for years and still couldn't figure out how to use it. It didn't help that there wasn't a keyboard attached to the synthesizer anymore. Was this thing still useful? Who knows.

While I was trying to evaluate old music gear, I got a call from my friend in Kentucky who is going to help me liquidate one of my collections. This is my dilemma. I want to hang on to stuff and need to get rid of it at the same time. The logical part of my brain tells me that anything that has sat in a box for over five years really isn't necessary. The crazy part of my brain still thinks that everything in the storage warehouse will still come home again someday.

As I talked with my friend about the logistics of selling my collection, I realized that it wasn't going to be easy. Not a lot of people share my interests. There's no point in keeping a collection in cardboard boxes though. Especially if you've completely lost interest in collecting. I think the stuff will sell at my friend's store, but it might take a while. At any rate, I made a commitment to inventory everything and eventually say goodby to all the dusty boxes. It's time to start downsizing.

I think I've been eating smoked ham for too long. I'm starting to get heartburn again. This is frustrating, since I really thought I'd put my acid reflux problems behind me. I guess I could start taking Protonix again, but my doctors have warned me that taking a proton-pump inhibitor for an extended length of time is not a good idea. Probably a better idea would just be to start eating healthy, bland food again. I switched to a healthy, plant based diet when I was being treated for Hepatitis C and it took care of a host of problems. The only problem that remained was that I didn't really enjoy being a vegetarian. I've kind of slipped off the wagon now and am eating more red meat than I should.

Dash has his own diet issues. He's eating consistently again, but insists on boiled chicken breasts for breakfast now. He won't touch anything else. Today we tried to add some vegetables to his breakfast by adding peas to his chicken. Surprisingly, he ate the peas, but since he has trouble chewing, a lot of them fell out of his mouth. I've been finding little green peas all over the house today.

I saw a Red Tailed Hawk on our morning walk. I like these birds because they are loners like me. You never see a bunch of hawks sitting together on a telephone wire. Hawks usually hunt alone and other birds seem to defer to them. Mockingbirds, Blue Jays, and Starlings irritate me, but there is something noble about a hawk.

I hope I think of something useful to do tomorrow. Today was a waste. My brain is full of new information about MIDI keyboard controllers, but I still can't play the piano very well.

Apollo is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 1059

It's amazing how often little things end up consuming large amounts of my time. I wanted to get November invoices out today. Everything was ready to take to the post office, but I couldn't get the envelopes to print. Printing envelopes used to be a piece of cake with older printers, but now I have one of those "multifunction" printers and one of the functions that Epson seems to have left out was envelopes. I can't just slide the envelopes into a little slot anymore. I have to take out the paper tray and reconfigure it for envelope sized pieces of paper. If I'm off on the dimensions by even a tiny amount, the envelopes get stuck and I practically have to take the printer apart to clear the paper jam.

Some of you might ask why I don''t just use the large format printer I'm always talking about instead. Nope. That won't work either. The large printer won't even accept something as small as an envelope in the paper tray. Although I could have hand addressed all the envelopes much quicker, I persevered and finally got the multifunction printer to work. As I drove to the post office with the envelopes, I kept thinking that this was a lot of work for the small amount that I actually billed out this month.

I wonder if any of my Entrecard friends are noticing that their blog traffic continues to slowly drop long after the demise of the Entrecard network. That's what seems to be happening with me. For the first time in years, my blog traffic is actually lower than my company website traffic. If you're a regular reader who has never signed up to become a regular blog follower, humor me and sign up now. It won't change anything, but it will make me feel better.

I got an e-mail today with an ad for a low cost film scanner that records directly to an SD card. No computer required. I have a fantastic old Canon scanner, but I haven't been able to use it for years, since it hooks up using a SCSI cable. Jeez, how long has it been since you've used a computer with SCSI peripherals?  I don't even own one anymore. At any rate, I may get this new little film scanner. I've still got thousands of 35mm negatives that I've never digitized yet. Maybe when I can't think of any new ideas, I'll at least be able to retrieve some really good old ones. I continue to think that I shot some of my very best photos in the 1970's. I can't remember what they were though. It would be interesting to scan these old negatives and see if they can hold their own with the stuff I'm doing today.  We'll see.

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day