Day 3729

I'm starting to feel like I live here. Life has settled into a routine. You don't miss meals at the Astronomer's Lodge. The food is excellent and it's the one time during the day where you can relax and chat with people. Today was Taco Tuesday. Need I say more? This afternoon was my first work day at the 107" telescope. I did three tours today. Usually there are about twenty to thirty people per tour. The tours are interesting and everyone seems to enjoy them. An observatory staff member gives a presentation describing the telescope and demonstrating how it moves. My duties as his assistant are mostly insuring that people don't get into trouble or hurt themselves. I escort visitors to the restrooms and make sure the children don't try to climb dangerous ladders or venture into restricted areas. The observatory can be a very dangerous place with lots of places to fall and buttons that could do a lot of damage if pressed at the wrong time. I make sure that nobody has a heart attack going up the long flight of stairs leading to the telescope on the fifth floor of the building. Since the observatory is at a fairly high altitude, people have passed out climbing these stairs.

Between tours I stay at the observatory until the next tour arrives. It's kind of a weird feeling to be alone in this huge building at the top of a remote mounting. Inside the building you hear the rumble of air conditioning and filtration equipment. Outside all you hear is the wind. It is absolutely silent. You are on your feet a lot during tour duty and at the end of the day all you want to do is soak your feet in some warm water. If I do this again I definitely need to find some more comfortable shoes.

The skies were clear for tonight's star party. It was absolutely beautiful. As the sky grew dark you could see the faint triangular glow of the zodiacal light. This light is caused by sunlight hitting interplanetary dust and is hard to see unless the sky is clear and dark. The Winter Milky Way was clearly visible as well, along with thousands of stars that are never visible in a city like Dallas. I was assigned M-41, the same telescope target I was looking at last night.  This time, thanks to a quick Google search in my room before breakfast,  I knew more about it. I told people that they were looking at something 2300 light years away that was probably discovered by Aristotle. Open star clusters can be quite beautiful. All my telescope visitors seemed to enjoy what they saw tonight.

After the star party was over the staff and volunteers had a meeting about the coronavirus. It may rain tomorrow and when  this happens the star party usually moves indoors and staff members give presentations in the visitor center theater instead. Since Spring Break star parties are large and the theater is small, the observatory decided that it was too risky to pack the theater with people during a coronavirus pandemic. If it rains everything will be canceled. This was probably a wise precaution, but I think the cat is already out of the bag. We've already had close proximity to hundreds of strangers ever since the Spring Break festivities began.

I'm glad my tour guide duties don't start until afternoon. Writing the blog after star parties have concluded and I've had time to drive up the mountain without my lights on keeps me up very late. I set the blog to post just before midnight on Tuesday, but I'm really writing this in the wee hours of Wednesday morning. Luckily I can sleep late tomorrow. I'm not going to set an alarm and will just try to sleep as long as I can. The room is certainly dark enough to get a good night's sleep.

Ely is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1576

It was hard to remember what day it was. It was supposed to be Dash's radiation day, but it turned out to be Dot's acupuncture day instead. I drove to one vet to get Dash's thyroid medication renewed and to another vet for Dot's physical therapy. Dash still took his Paladia chemo pills tonight, but won't be going in for radiation treatment tomorrow, because the radiation machine is still broken. I try to keep all this straight, but I never had a good grasp on what day it was anyway. I'll be glad when all this is over. The longer the treatment continues, the more I worry about side effects. I'm one of those fools who reads all the fine print that comes with pharmaceuticals these days. There is almost always something dire hidden away in the tiny type on these product description and warning sheets that will make you wonder how these new miracle drugs ever got approved in the first place. All that being said, Dash is still doing very, very well.

There weren't many website revisions today, but there was plenty of writing work to catch up on. I finished two articles and started on a third. The writing will never win a Pulitzer Prize, but it does make the day go quickly. With several articles to write and several dogs to transport various places, I never have much idle time on my hands. I always try to make time to fix myself a decent breakfast every morning, but I'm starting to fall behind on a host of other things that used to be part of my daily routine. The house hasn't been vacuumed in a while and I'm sure there's still water on the roof from last week's rain. That's the way it is these days. I take care of the dog's needs, do enough work to pay the bills, eat as healthy as I can, and spend the remaining five hours sleeping.

I wish I had a better camera with me this morning. We walked earlier than usual and there was a fine mist on everything. I'm fascinated by the way water droplets tend to form on some plants and not on others. This morning all the while and yellow Primrose flowers has miniscule water droplets all over their petals. Other nearby flowers were completely dry. I only managed to grab a few quick shots with my phone however, because the dogs had plans of their own.

I suspect that tomorrow will be a lot like today. One of these days I need to go have lunch with some of my old work friends again. It's been at least six months since I've met anyone for lunch. Basically, I don't even eat lunch anymore. I'm never that hungry during the day and I find that it's a lot easier to keep my weight under control if I just skip lunch entirely. Essentially, no lunch equals no social life, but I don't really feel like I'm missing much. It's kind of like those cable channels I eliminated yesterday. If I'm not actively looking for the missing channels, I don't even realize they're gone.

Livy is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1386

Today didn't get of to a good start. I got up late. The dogs were exceptionally slow on their morning walk. Even though I rushed through my normally tranquil breakfast, I felt like the day was half over before I began to immerse myself in a long list of projects with immediate deadlines. It might have been brain fog, but the articles on my plate today seemed more difficult than usual. Then there was that troublesome Wordpress site I'm developing. Even though I'm learning more and more about Wordpress with each passing day, it is still a thorn in my side. Today, I learned that my favorite Javascript applets don't work in Wordpress. I haven't really mastered the art of editing Wordpress themes in Dreamweaver either. I guess you're just supposed to buy a theme and leave it alone.

I got so tangled up with work problems today that I almost forgot about Dash's vet appointment. Luckily the vet was flexible and I was able to re-schedule his regular 2 PM appointment for 3:30 PM. Sometimes I feel like a full-time dog nanny. Dot has her own vet appointment tomorrow.  Taking care of the dogs takes a lot of time, but it's still the only thing that seems genuinely important. Everything else is basically BS.

Are you guys as tired of Congress as I am? This whole attempt to shut down the government to protest Obamacare is absurd. Hey guys, just leave things alone. If Obamacare works and people end up liking it, so be it. If Obamacare doesn't work and people end up hating it, it's not going to last very long. I've been in business long enough to realize that sometimes things just sink under their own weight. You don't even have to try to sink them.

Tomorrow looks like it will live up to its reputation as the busiest day of the week. I've got my 7 AM business networking breakfast to attend. Dot has her afternoon water therapy appointment. And it looks like I've got at least two new articles to finish. Hopefully, I won't even think about Wordpress tomorrow. At least the weather is nice. October is typically the prettiest month of the year here in Texas and if today is any indication, the month is getting off to a great start.

Tori is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1273

I got my articles written today. I got my June invoices out. I even found time to experiment with a new variation on my morning oatmeal. Despite all the activity, it was basically a boring day. If Dot could talk, she'd tell you that the dog days of Summer are here again. We're going to have to start getting up earlier. By the time we took our morning walk, it was already hot and humid. As the Summer progresses, it's only going to get worse.

The roofers came back today to retrieve their tools and clean up the debris pile on the side of the house. I'm pretty sure they're finished with things now. This means it's time for me to pay for the stupid thing. A flat roof is not a very satisfying purchase. It just sits there. Under normal circumstances, you can't even see it. I would have much rather have spent the money on a new Canon C300 Cinema Camera.

Apple finally announced the long awaited Mac Pro that's been on my wish list for several years now. I'm disappointed. The weird shiny black cylindrically shaped thing reminds me of the ill-fated Powermac G4 Cube. I bought one of those and it never did what I wanted. This new Mac Pro has some of the same failings as the Cube. It's odd shape is not compatible with standard PCIe cards. It's not compatible with standard 2.5 inch solid state drives either. I don't know if it's compatible with anything. Although, this new tech toy looks pretty cool in a retro sci-fi kind of way, I don't think it was what video editors like myself were wanting or expecting. Lord, I just hope that Land Rover does a better job of re-imagining my beloved Defender 90. I hate to wait so long and end up so disappointed.

Another prescription expired today that was supposed to have been renewed for another full year. This is the second one in two days. I'm beginning to think that all my meds were only renewed for three months instead of one year when I had my annual physical this Spring. It's little things like this that really eat up your time. It's easy enough to resolve these types of mistakes, but I shouldn't have too. There are way too many other things on my to-do list already.

The dogs have the right idea. After their morning walk, they slept until is was time for their rice cake for lunch. After a quick trip outside to pee, it was back to sleep until dinner time and their evening walk. I can't tell you how tempted I was to join my lazy dogs today.

Escher is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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Day 1265

It was a beautiful day with clear skies and a light breeze. The dogs got to frolic in the sun at the dog park and I had plenty of time to catch up on some much needed yard work. I mowed the grass, watered the shrubs, and enjoyed one of those brief moments when everything looks nice for a change. I certainly wasn't the only one taking advantage of the nice weather. The park was filled with picnickers and the lake was dotted with small sailboats. I'm always in a better mood when I can see my own shadow, and sunny days where it's still cool enough to open the windows are the best. From the looks of things in the park this afternoon, there appear to be a lot of people who would agree with me.

I thought I'd re-arrange all the partitions in my camera case, based on how I used my equipment in Las Vegas. It would be nice if the things you used the most were right at the top for easy access. After spending an hour or so peeling away the Velcro partitions and re-attaching them somewhere else, I ended up with a configuration much worse than when I started. I guess this just proves that sometimes it's better to leave things well enough alone.

I sure wish I could have left my diet alone. It's much harder than I thought to avoid salt, sugar, and wheat entirely. While we were eating dinner tonight there was this baking competition show on TV and it made me really hungry. The show was basically like Top Chef, except that the contestants just baked pies and other pastries. I love pie. Unfortunately pie is the poster child for things I shouldn't eat. A good pie is chock full of salt, sugar, butter, and flour. I'll just have to learn to enjoy my Kale.

I discovered why there were so many tasty things that actually were on my diet when I was staying at the Wynn. It turns out that Steve Wynn is a vegan and he insists that all his restaurants have choices on the menu that he could eat. I guess that explains why there was such a variety of astoundingly good vegetable dishes. If you're a vegetarian with plenty of money, the Wynn is definitely where you want to go.

I don't want to go back to the regular work routine tomorrow, but there's basically no choice. It's going to be a very busy week with meetings on Monday and Tuesday, along with a big photo shoot on Thursday. Some of my friends tell me that they couldn't imagine not working. I can easily imagine this kind of life. All I have to do is look at the dogs sleeping peacefully on the bed in the next room and visions of the good life start to appear in my head.

Abby is today's Dalmatian of the Day

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