Day 4906

I finished my article this morning, edited some pictures, and sent the package off to SpaceFlight Magazine. The pictures were almost identical to other rocket pictures I've taken. The article was pretty similar to other articles as well. It kind of made me wonder why I continue to do this. I guess I chase rockets for fun. What is fun though? I don't really know.

Today wasn't just warm, it was hot. The temperature got up to over ninety degrees. I guess it isn't Spring anymore. Summer has arrived. It was still nice outside when we took Dawn on her early morning walk, but I should have taken my long walk right after breakfast. By the time I got around to leaving the house, it was already too hot. I'm always slow to change my routines, but it's about time to go back to using the treadmill at the gym instead of walking outside.

I still haven't fixed the screen door, but I did update the Dalmatian Rescue website this afternoon. I do so little web design and maintenance anymore that I'm starting to forget things. The applications I use are becoming out of date as well. Luckily I still remember enough to get things done. It seems strange now that I used to have lots of clients and did this every single day. There are times when I miss the structure imposed by work.

The friend who is selling my model train collection sold a few more things today. Sales have slowed down to a trickle, but it's still a nice surprise when something sells. Why did I collect these things in the first place? It's a mystery. I wish I could find someone to sell my watches. I've really lost interest in watches over the years and only wear the Apple Watch anymore. There is nothing wrong with collecting things, but it can become an obsession. There is always something new and you never seem to have enough. I collect absolutely nothing these days. Too bad it took me thirty years to arrive at this point.

I'm still resisting the urge to climb up on the roof and inspect things after yesterday's big rain. If I keep climbing up on the roof it will have defeated the whole purpose of getting a new roof. The roof doesn't leak any more, so I should just leave thing alone. I wonder how many days it will be before curiosity gets the better of me. Realistically, I'll still need to go up on the roof from time to time. We have lots of trees and branches occasionally fall on the roof that need to be removed. I'm not going to make visits to the roof a regular occurrence though. Those days are over.

Dawn did well at training class tonight. She seems to love this class even though she hates riding in the car. I probably need to find some sort of class as well. At this point Dawn is probably learning more than I am.

Amy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4882

We got quite a bit of rain last night, but I think I slept through most of the storm. An app on my phone said there had been a power outage, but I slept through that as well. The ground was surprisingly dry when we took Dawn on her early walk, although there was a lot of water on the roof, judging by how long it took the pumps to clear the standing water away. I thought there would be leaks with this much water, but so far there hasn't been a problem. Any rain without a roof leak is fine by me.

Janet had to leave right after we walked Dawn this morning, so I had my shredded wheat and fruit instead of our usual weekend breakfast. I checked my messages and then headed for the mall. Very little had changed since last week. One new store had opened, but most of the window displays were the same. I've walked past these stores so many times now that I've got my favorites. John Varvatos has the best looking men's clothing and Scanlan Theodore has the best looking women's clothes. Gucci seems to have the ugliest clothes. If the stores were actually open when I walked, I would probably enjoy visiting Williams Sonoma the most. I'm not much of a cook, but I do enjoy nice cooking utensils.

Dawn was ready for the Sunday outing when I returned from the mall. As usual she was excited when we got ready to go and immediately panicked as soon as the car started. This Sunday walk is about the same distance as our regular sunrise walk, but we complete it two minutes faster. This is probably because Dawn spends more time smelling things on our early morning walks. I tried my best to keep up with Dawn and Janet today. I need to work on elevating my heart rate on these walks. Elevating my heart rate is probably a lost cause though because the Carvedilol I take slows down my heart.

Dawn doesn't really calm down on her Sunday outing until we go to the ice cream store. Dawn loves ice cream. The ice cream is good, but it is certainly no bargain. They've raised their prices twice since we started getting cones on Sunday and they don't even bother to fill the bottom of the cone. They basically just put a big scoop of ice cream on top on an empty cone. I can't really complain though. Ice cream is an indulgence, not a necessity.

I updated the Dalmatian Rescue website this afternoon. I'm not very involved with website design and maintenance anymore, so I'm getting a little rusty. The updates to the Dalmatian site are very easy, but sometimes it takes me a while to remember how to modify the code. Part of the problem I'm having lately is that I use a browser based design tool and my Safari browser is woefully out of date. Apple won't update Safari unless the operating system is updated as well. I can't update the OS any more because my computer is too old. The old computer does everything I need though, so I'll probably be using Sierra forever. I can use High Sierra on the laptop, but that's still a very old operating system.

It was a busy day in the park, but I missed most of the activities. There was a charity dog walk that the vet we used with Dot and Dash was involved with. We probably would have taken Dot and Dash on something like this, but Dawn is unpredictable around other dogs. There was also an annual car show in the park that I like to go to, but I forgot the date and it was already over by the time we got back from our Sunday outing with Dawn. I could have gone to the car show instead of mall walking this morning, but it never even occurred to me. I'm a creature of habit.

I guess I'll send my article about the Viasat-3 launch to SpaceFlight Magazine tomorrow. I still can't decide whether to go to the AX-2 launch at the end of the month. I'll probably get credentials for this one, but these trips are getting way too expensive. 

Spot is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4583

When it rains is pours. I was hoping that something very minor was wrong with my car, but I didn't get luckly. I took the car to the shop first thing this morning and got the bad news a few hours later. One of my catalytic converters has gone bad and needs to be replaced. I can't ignore this because the car won't pass the safety inspection that is due next month without functioning catalytic converters. Third party converters aren't available for this model either, so I will need the expensive Range Rover catelytic converters. These things were never cheap, but now the price has gone up dramatically because of the rare earth materials that are used to scrub the vehicle's exhaust. I think a lot of the platinum and palladium used in catalytic converters comes from China or Russia. Also, the larger the engine, the more expensive the converter. None of this is good news for me. I could have replaced all my kitchen appliances for less than this is going to cost me.

It looks like I'll be walking in the park this week as well, since I don't think I'll get the car back until Friday. Each day I take these walks it seems to get hotter. Granted, I didn't get an early start today, but after the Uber driver took me home, I was still on my way before 9:30 AM. That wasn't early enough. There is no way to stay cool in triple digit weather. The long range weather shows these 100 degree days lasting for the next several weeks. No rain in sight either. My rational mind wants to just abandon the thought of getting my steps every day. My stubborn mind wants to keep going though. We'll see. I definitely need to get an earlier start tomorrow. Today's walk was miserable.

It's hard to get used to temperatures in the mid-80's on our sunrise walks with dawn. It never gets cool anymore and the air conditioner always seems to be running. I really hope that nothing goes wrong with the AC system this summer. Maybe since I recently replaced the motor in the outdoor unit, I won't have to do anything else for a while. It is a bit disconcerting to hear the AC running constantly. All I know is that mechanical things break a lot more frequently than you'd like.

The new pictures that were released today from the James Web Space Telescope are pretty amazing. It's hard to wrap your mind around the sheer number of galaxies in our little corner of the universe. There's got to be other life out there. It's pretty humbling to realize that earth isn't very special at all. There are probably millions of planets like earth.

I added Spot, our new Dalmatian, to the rescue website this afternoon. Every time I do any type of website maintenance it's kind of alarming how much I have forgotten over the years. Even simple things take me longer now, because I make stupid mistakes. Jeez. I used to be really good at this. Any skill is a use it or lose it proposition. It's easy to stay on top of your game when you are doing something every day. Doing the same thing once a month is a lot different.

I've got no big plans for tomorrow. No little plans either. Sometimes I wish I could just sleep until summer was over. I may need to look for another movie to watch. I'll try to take my walk early, but it's definitely not a great time to be outside.

Winston 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 4429

We got off to a slow start today. Dawn froze on her morning walk and refused to move. This hasn't happened in ages. It's been so long since Dawn froze on a walk that we thought this behavior was ancient history. Usually Dawn will start following Janet if she starts walking away, but not today. We tried everything we could think of to get her interested in walking but all she wanted to do was go back to the house. Later in the afternoon we tried the same walk all over again and had no problems whatsoever. Go figure. 

When Dawn first began to freeze in place we didn't know whether she was having a small seizure or was just being extremely stubborn. We still don't know. She's always fine as soon as we return home. At least we were close to the house this time. Once on a walk I had to leave Janet with Dawn and walk over a mile home to get the car so we could retrieve Dawn and get her back to the house again. We've asked several vets what this all means but it seems like a mystery to them too.

I did even less today than I did yesterday. I paid some bills and made an appointment to get a haircut. Other than my perpetual long walk, that was about it. I got a letter from NASA this morning asking me to fill out a survey so they could assess my needs at the Artemis 1 launch before they made a final credentialing decision. I don't know if this means I'm about to get a press pass or not. The letter did say that completing the survey did not guarantee getting credentialed. I'll just have to wait and see. It does appear that NASA is expecting a lot of people for this historic launch. My best hope for getting accepted is if Covid fades away before the launch takes place. I never had a problem getting a press pass before all the Covid restrictions began.

I wish I hadn't gotten apprehensive about going up on the roof. I know there's still water up there and it doesn't evaporate very fast in the winter. It's discouraging to see brown stains begin to reappear on the living roof ceiling. I worked really hard to get rid of those stains less than a month ago. The roof does better if I go up and remove all the standing water right after a big rain, but I think my recent apprehension is warranted. My sense of balance just isn't as good as it used to be. Bad feet and a weak knee don't help either.

At least I can still walk. I had another 20,000 step day and I wasn't really trying. I wish I could find a source for the Hoka hiking boots. I know if I just go ahead and buy another pair of Hoka running shoes like I've got now, the boots will suddenly reappear and be available everywhere. These shoes really do help my feet but they don't last very long. High end running shoes never last very long. I'm used to keeping a pair of leather boots for decades. I've had boots that I've resoled five or six times. You can't do that with flimsy running shoes. You are real lucky if they last a year.

I added Jo Jo to the rescue website today and marked several dogs as adopted. This is the only website I work on anymore. There used to be dozens of websites that I actively maintained and website maintenance kept me busy every single day. The days of old fashioned static sites are over and my programming skills are deteriorating. I had a good run while it lasted though. It's weird to see a profession slipping away. I'll be able to keep writing forever, but I just don't have the desire to keep up with all the changes in website design. Today's dynamic sites are much more complicated than they used to be. Actually, everything in life seems more complicated than it used to be.

Tomorrow I get a haircut and Dawn gets her annual exam at the vet on Thursday. I'm trying to stick with doing one thing a day. It keeps life simpler.

Taylor is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4298

I got the car back. It runs fine, but it seemed to run fine before I took it in for the scheduled service. I assume that the mechanics did everything on the lengthy receipt I received, but when I leave the dealership it always feels like I just paid for the world's most expensive carwash. The car never seems any different than it did before. I won't be going back to the dealership any time soon. The prices they charge are ridiculous and they don't even try to be competitive.

As I was leaving, the young service advisor implored me to give him a good rating on the survey I knew would be coming. "My job depends on this," he told me. "I know," I told him. "All your predecessors have told me the same thing." I didn't tell him that none of his predecessors were still working at the dealership. I'll give the guy a good score, even though he basically knew nothing. It wasn't his fault that the dealership charged insanely high prices. It's too bad that the survey doesn't rank the dealership itself instead of a low level employee who had no control over anything.

When I returned home, there was a bill from the plumber in the mailbox. This bill was quite high as well but I didn't feel quite as bad about it. The two plumbers had spent the better part of a day trying to retrofit a 2021 restaurant faucet to a quirky 1950's mid-century modern GE kitchen unit. These two large bills pretty much insure that I won't be going anywhere in October. I'm tapped out and the month hasn't even started yet.

I took my long walk early today because I thought I was supposed to pick my car up at 10 AM. As it turned out, the car wasn't ready until very late in the day, but it was still nice to be walking while the weather was cool. While I was walking I saw park department mowers approaching the meadow behind our house. This was good news. The grass has grown very tall in the meadow and it's full of sticky pollen. Every time we return home from Dawn's sunrise walk we have to get wet rags and clean Dawn's legs and paws. They always let the grass grow longer in the Fall so that it has time to re-seed. I'm pretty sure that this native grass will be back next Spring.

I forgot to mark Cooper as adopted on the Dalmatian Rescue website when I was updating things yesterday. I took care of that this afternoon while I was waiting for the call to pick up my car. It still surprises me that my website development skills have seemingly evaporated. I used to be so good at this stuff. I guess the old adage "use it or lose it" still applies. When you do something every day you're going to be a lot better at it than when you do the same thing once a month.

My Fall allergies are back with a vengeance. I'm always blowing my nose and wiping my watering eyes while I walk. It seems like every year the space between when the Spring allergies end and the Fall allergies begin grows shorter and shorter. I'll be so glad when all the Covid fears are over. I'm always checking Google to make sure my allergy symptoms aren't a sign of Covid instead. I've had seasonal allergies for so long that I ought to know the difference. Unfortunately you don't hear much about seasonal allergies in the news and we are constantly bombarded with Covid news. 

It looks like we are finally going to get some rain tonight. All three weather apps on my phone show a band of rain headed towards us. The yard is dry and we really do need the rain, but all I can think of is roof leaks.

Thelma is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4295

We met Oliver today. This young male was handsome, friendly, and very playful. He was larger than I expected and looked like he'd spent a lot of time outdoors. We haven't seen his vet report yet, but he seemed very healthy. Oliver is such a happy dog that I think he'll find his forever home very soon.

Before making the trip up to the Dalmatian Rescue kennel, I had plenty of time to fix breakfast and take my long walk. We started our day as usual with a sunrise walk with Dawn. These Fall mornings continue to be delightful. It was brisk and cool this morning with a beautiful sunrise. I thought that Dawn might want to walk a little further today because the weather was so nice. Nope. Her short one mile loop was all she wanted. When I returned to the park for my long walk an hour later, it was still nice and cool. It was a good day for walking.

We could definitely use some rain. The park is starting to look very dry. I haven't seen the water level at the lake so low for quite a while. I noticed today that the White Pelicans have returned for the Winter. Actually, they started returning a few days ago, but they were so far away that I couldn't tell what type of birds they were. Like the State Fair of Texas, the return of the Pelicans is a sure sign that Fall has arrived.

I watched the Landsat 9 launch today on the ULA website. Vandenberg Air Force Base is always so foggy. I've been out there once and it looked about the same as it did today. It's hard to believe that California is dry and prone to forest fires when you are out at Vandenberg. I think that NASA uses Vandenberg whenever it needs to launch a satellite in a polar orbit. The one launch I watched from the base several years ago was also launched in a polar orbit and used to monitor the earth's resources. I doubt that I will be returning to Vandenberg Air Force Base any time soon. It is more expensive to visit than Kennedy Space Center and much harder to obtain access. 

My Fall allergies have returned with a vengeance. I'm blowing my nose all the time now. This happens every year and it appears that allergy season is right on schedule. There isn't a lot of time between the end of Spring seasonal allergies and the beginning of Fall allergies. After all these years I'm still not exactly sure what I'm allergic to. It's definitely something in the air.

I got a reminder to take my car in for service tomorrow. The dealership had gotten very good about e-mail reminders. I wonder if they've gotten any better about doing the maintenance? Usually they say the car will be ready the next day and I end up waiting four or five days to get it back again. This is why I always insist on a loaner car. 

I added Oliver to the Dalmatian Rescue website this afternoon. I do so little website work these days that I'm starting to forget things. Even simple updates take me longer now. It's hard to believe that I was doing this type of work every single day for many years. I've been retired for long enough now that the world of work just seems like a distant memory. Getting articles published about rockets and astronomy doesn't really seem like work. It's more like a weird hobby. I don't always get paid for the articles I write and few people read them anyway.

I hope there's nothing seriously wrong with my car. Land Rover repairs are always so expensive. The sad thing is that I probably still won't trust the car even after the maintenance work is completed. I doubt that I'll ever have the nerve to drive it out to the observatory.

Sophie is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4167

I'm a terrible shopper. When I went to the grocery store, Janet wanted me to get her some cream cheese and showed me the tub it came in. All I remembered was the tub and came home with a tub of sour cream instead. I actually saw cream cheese on the shelf next to the sour cream, but it came in a little foil wrapped brick. That couldn't possibly be right. I was looking for something in a little plastic tub.

Our rainy weather continues. There were plenty of dry periods between the showers today. I had no trouble finding time to walk, but it's still pretty wet outside. It's actually raining right now. We had been planning on doing some yard work last week so we could throw away the debris on bulky trash day. The trash pickup got delayed, but we never found a dry enough day to trim the bushes and get rid of the rest of the dead Asian Jasmine. Oh, well. There's always next month.

I updated my company website today and then decided that the update didn't make any sense and didn't bother to upload it. Somehow this wasted effort still seemed more productive than editing more Milky Way pictures. I think I'm burned out on astrophotography for a while. Maybe there's gold hidden away in the images I took out at the observatory last week, but it's been very hard mining it. I'll wait a while before  I resume this activity. I should have learned from last time. After my first astrophotography workshop I didn't even look at the pictures for almost a month. I think the wait allowed what I'd learned to slowly seep into my brain, because when I finally opened the files, everything clicked together fairly quickly.

I thought I'd get wet on my long walk today, but the occasional drizzle kept me cool instead. It's been really humid lately and if the sun was out I would have been miserable. It was a nice day for a walk, but there was no spring in my step today. I was really slow. My feet bothered me a little, but that wasn't the real problem. I was just tired. I shouldn't have been tired. I actually got more sleep than usual. I guess I'm just getting old. For every good day there are usually three bad days. 

I still think I need to stay active. Without ongoing activity and a certain amount of effort I probably wouldn't even be able to get out of bed. I hate to think what the aches and pains are going to be like five years from now. We'll see. I wonder how long I can keep walking six miles a day?

Dawn had a good day. Even though the ground is still soggy, she seems to have overcome her fear of getting her paws wet and is walking well. She was very enthusiastic about her little one mile loop this afternoon. Her appetite has definitely returned. For a while we were worried about a hesitancy to eat, but she devours her meals now. Dawn is fine. I think we just worry too much.

I went out and got a pizza for dinner. Even though pizza is absolutely the worst offender in the heartburn department, I still enjoy a slice now and then. All my favorite foods like spaghetti and chili give me heartburn. It's a shame. I try to eat sensibly, but I'd hate to be limited to a bland diet for the rest of my life. Spice is nice. For now, there's always Pepcid, but it's probably not a good idea to take too much famotidine either. 

I hope it's not raining tomorrow. Dawn missed her ice cream outing last Sunday because of rain. It would be a shame to miss this again. Hard to believe that it's been raining almost continually for an entire week, but that's the way it is in May. Pretty soon I'll be complaining about how hot and dry it is.

Rosco is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 4164

I saw the sun again today. This might not be the only reason I managed to get more done but it helped. After breakfast I went and got some new windshield wipers for my car. Instead of going to the Land Rover dealer like I normally do, I just went to the neighborhood Auto Zone store. This saved me a ton of money. I think I paid less than half of what the wiper blades would have cost me at the Land Rover parts department. I should do this more often. I'm tired of paying Land Rover's exorbident prices. I also only bought one wiper blade, since only one was broken. When the other blade goes bad, I'll replace it as well.

I think Dawn had the same response to the sun as I did. She was eager to walk this morning. There was no balking or hesitancy at all. She acted like a normal dog and we had a nice normal walk. I wish we could depend on this type of behavior every day, but I doubt that it's going to happen. Dawn is not a normal dog. Something strange is going on in her head. The vet who suggested that she probably had a traumatic head injury earlier in life was probably right. Dawn does the best she can and that's good enough for us. She's a strange, but very sweet dog.

I got Riggs, the new dog, added to the Dalmatian Rescue website and tried to catch up with a bunch of correspondence with my contacts at NASA and the Space Force. I was pleased that I  received a reply from my Space Force contact so quickly. I am good to go for any military launch and they may be able to help me gain access to some NASA launches as well. I am even pre-approved to set remote cameras at the launch pad. I'm not sure I'm ready to lose a camera yet, but it's nice to know that I have that option. There's a Falcon Heavy launch I'd like to cover sometime in June. Hopefully gasoline and rental cars will be available in Florida by then.

It really turned out to be a nice day today, even though there is still rain in the forecast for the rest of the week. We'll see how it goes. When I wake up tomorrow morning the forecast could be completely different. Even though it's been a very wet week, I've still managed to take my long walk every day. You'd never know that rain was forecast for today as well. It was beautiful outside and I had an enjoyable walk. My foot didn't bother me at all. Maybe my foot pain has something to do with the humidity. I really have no idea, but I'm always thankful for a pain free day.

I need to call the appliance repairman and get the ice maker fixed on our refrigerator. I'm not wild about spending the money though. The repair will probably cost several hundred dollars and party ice is cheap. I still have part of the bag I got before I left for the observatory. Ice is ice and the party ice works just fine for my morning smoothies. 

I didn't really accomplish that much today, but it felt like a productive day. Hopefully, I can keep this trend going a few more days. Sunlight makes a huge difference in my mood. On dark, rainy days all I do is worry about roof leaks. It probably helped that I didn't even try to process any astrophotography today. I'll eventually master this, but the learning curve is steep. Maybe processing my star photos is something I should save for a rainy day. I may not succeed, but at least failure won't make me feel any worse.

If the weather is still nice tomorrow I may do a little yard work. The grass is growing rapidly with all this rain. It's definitely time to mow again.

Holly is today's Dalmatian of the Day

Watch of the Day

Day 3963

What a difference a day makes. Yesterday I was wearing a down jacket and a wool hat on our walk with Dawn. Today I wore a t-whirt. The weather changes quickly here and today was exceptionally nice. I didn't even have allergy problems today. Hopefully this nice weather will last a while, but who knows. This is Texas. Tomorrow it could snow.

We don't even bother walking early in the morning anymore. That was mostly to avoid the heat during the Summer and early Fall. Now even the warmest days are cool enough for Dawn. As a result of this change of schedule, I've been sleeping better. My sleep tracking app says I'm getting more deep sleep now and I'm slowly erasing a long standing sleep deficit. Oddly, I sleep more soundly when there's a blanket on the bed. I don't know the reason for this, but I'll take what I can get.

All things considered, today was fairly productive. I got Colt added to the Dalmatian Rescue website and removed all the standing water from the roof. Updating the website was a pleasure, while working on the roof was a tiresome chore. I don't know how long I can continue doing this. It's exhausting. You just don't see many 70 year old men up on their roof in our neighborhood. I guess I could say the same about mowing my own grass.

The bad thing about colder weather is that the water on the roof doesn't evaporate after it rains. The pumps remove a certain amount, but the rest will remain forever until I clear it away. I always complain about the heat in the summer, but the cold isn't so great either.  I have to remember to wear waterproof boots so my feet won't freeze. It took me several hours to dry the roof off today, but the forecast looks good, so maybe I won't have to do this again for a while.

I think I did a good job repairing the furnace. It's still working normally today. I wish I could say the same about our dehumidifier. It's not working normally at all. The condensation coils keep freezing and the dehumidifier spends most of its time in the defrost cycle. I tried to fix our old dehumidifier, but after spending hours disassembling the thing, I discovered that there were no user serviceable parts. The only service center is about forty miles away. It's a lot easier to just buy a new dehumidifier than to fix a defective one. We live in a disposable society and I've learned the hard way that fixing almost anything these days has become very expensive.

My dealer told me that he sold another train from my collection. What remains of the collection is selling very slowly. There used to be sales every month but now I'm lucky if a buyer shows up several times a year. I may need to make a provision for the collection in my will. I kind of doubt that the entire collection can be disposed of in my lifetime. It's always good to hear about a sale though. This will probably pay for my hotel when I go to the Crew-1 launch.

It's time to make a grocery list again. They say we might have shortages again because Covid cases are rising. I hope this isn't true. I don't think the shortages ever stopped. You can find toilet paper easily now, but a lot of things are still in short supply. I wonder what the end game is? Our whole society wasn't designed to work well in a pandemic. You can put things on hold for a while, but you can't do it indefinitely. I think we're starting to see that now. 

Puppies are today's Dalmatians of the Day

Watch of the Day