A Blizzard Is On The Way!!!

The weather experts will have their chance to shine this weekend, actually starting later tonight. Wunderground AND my local tv weatherman is warning us that snow is on the way. There is not only a 100% chance of it starting to snow tonight but we will get 4" and another 2" on Saturday. Living here in 'the tropics' I usually cut their amounts in half or should I cut that 100% chance in half? We will find out tonight and Saturday I guess. Stella and I took off for the walk about five minutes before 7am. It was really cold but not much difference in the digital temperature from yesterday ... 19°. It was going to be 'a big chance' for the Canon G9 X Mark II camera. I found something interesting this morning ... see if you can tell the difference in the pictures in this post.

Last night I went to the Manual mode on the Canon, moving all of the settings for sharpness, contrast, color, etc ... back to the default settings. With those changes I still started our walk in "auto mode". A reader told me yesterday they thought in today's world, that cameras were made to be used in "auto mode." (that period still doesn't look like inside the quotation mark) :) The only adjustments I did to these photos this morning were clicking the "definition" and nothing else. If they were good pictures in either mode I did not click for more 'definition'. What I found out surprised me, see if you notice any differences.

The zoom feature is a negative to me. Compared to my Nikon D3200 with the Tamron 18-200mm lens, there is no comparison. Yes, this Canon model was suppose to take clear zoom pictures but I have not found that to be true once I cross into that yellow and light blue on the progress bar. I reread the owners manual for that exact process and it still did not help. You will see what I mean later.

Here is my first example. Normally this would be a clear picture when my Tamron lens was set at 200mm. Stretching the Canon into that light blue and out as far as possible does not work, like this picture shows. Yesterday I tried changing the setting of the digital zoom from Standard to 2x ... no difference.

The weather forecast shows these arctic winds later tonight and the snow it will bring, is suppose to come from the South and Southeast ... so abnormal. Most of the time our blizzards are blown in from the Northeast not the Southeast. Most of our daily wind comes from the Southwest to West ... rarely do we get winds from the Southeast that bring bad weather.

I did not know if I caught him or not but the Canon did a pretty good job stopping this hawk in the sky ... I am still not happy with the clarity and color in this picture.

She was right at one of the deer entrances into the woods but I saw nothing, heard nothing but obviously she smelled something very important. Too dark and the color is off. I continue to walk and become dissatisfied later when I download all the pictures into my computer.

As she trotted way out in front of me ... I didn't move. I wanted to max out the zoom and see how it would turn out. The owners manual tells me to go into the light blue on the progress bar, stop, then keep expanding the zoom out as far as possible for the Digital Zoom. This is a poor result.

As I looked through the 47 pictures from this morning's walk, the less I liked this camera.

No comment !!!

Stella was not eating deer scat this morning but she was very interested in tracking scent and trying to identify who it was and when it was there. I found out about that process in a book I have read more than a few times ... "Inside Of A Dog" by Alexandra Horowitz ... "What dogs see, smell and know"

She is following a heavily traveled deer path. In the past I've seen 7-10 deer moving along this area, making a right turn about where the brush starts up ahead, jumping over an old mashed fence, running into the field behind this one.

Deer scat??? No. I walked over to her expecting to see something dangling from her jowls as she raised her head but I saw nothing but a dirt smudge on her nose. Sometimes to get more accurate information she will press her nose into the ground, my car door, my car window, or my hand if I have been eating food. She will also poke me with her nose to let me know she likes me, instead of licking my face. She is not a licker.

Can you tell which picture was taken under the automatic mode and the manual mode with default settings?

Looking back with some 'wishful thinking' as if she would like to jump that fence just like the deer do.

Before I could capture her running, Stella ran by me and then as usual she slowed down to a slow walk. You can see the hoof prints from deer just left of our path

Trotting home ... but it's not because she is cold. She is trying to get ahead of me as far as possible so she can spend more time than normal checking out deer scent near the backyard. She is smarter than you might think she is.

Same point in the path where she always enters the backyard.

What has caught her attention?

Nothing I could see or hear ... what is it?

This is where all the gibberish you read comes from. I cannot tell you how many hours I have sat in this location since 1998 but a LOT. How about a little tour? From left to right ... yes that is a printer but is rarely used anymore. I use it as a scanner most of the time. Those are stacks of pictures to scan. I was going to scan everyone last year but decided I would only scan some of the best ones. That process seems to be working much better. The Bose speakers sound fantastic when I'm playing music through iTunes. I do NOT buy music from the Apple Store. Last year I downloaded all of my CD's into iTunes, plus my friend out in Phoenix sends me parts of his huge music library through Dropbox. I tend to play my music very very loud at times.

Small external drive on the desk is my backup drive of every picture I take. That smaller external drive sitting on top of my CD/DVD drive ... it only uses Apple's Time Machine, backing up my computer hard drive every hour. The Time Machine has worked every time I've needed it without any problems. What better use for an old Accounting book than a monitor stand. LOL I have not used a mouse in at least 8 years ... switching to that touchpad on the left. I keep that monitor out just in case I need to use it for some weird reason. Those 'smudges' you think you might see just below the IU mouse pad??? That is Stella when she lays her chin on my desk to let me know she either wants to go outside or needs food. On the other side of that desk had the same smudges from my other bloodhounds, Bertha and Sadie.

The desk???  LOL ... you better sit down on this.

Back in 1995 I was reading an article about the 'new' computer geeks working at Yahoo. They too had a desk similar to mine, but they had their's first. I got the idea from them. Yes ... yes it is ... a plain door flipped on it's side sitting on two small 2-drawer file cabinets that are empty. What I liked about it ... it gave me all the room I needed for a hard drive, printer, a couple of monitors etc. Another GREAT THING is after 10 years I flipped the desk over for a brand new clean surface. (A brand new desk!!!) I'm good to go for another 10 years. The 'decor' also fits perfectly in the room that I call my computer room. It's more like a man cave with a mountain bike leaning against the wall, a large recycling can, cabinets that 450 IU basketball games on VCR tapes that still have great picture quality.

The most important ... this is the room the hounds eat in, drink in and sleep in at times when I have been on the computer too long. I almost forgot to mention, actually by myself, built some bookshelves 20 years ago inside a space that use to hold a stand up freezer, that would face out into the kitchen. Those shelves are so strong it holds over 100 Vinyl LP's on one shelf and some of my books. So everything is perfectly placed and this room serves as a great all-purpose room. When you downsize to a smaller house than what you came from ... the storage ideas never stop.  :)

I read this in one of my mailings this morning ...

"Only in politics can the very people who created a problem then be tasked with solving the problem. And they try to solve it with more of what caused it in the first place."

I find that similar to head coaches in any sport whether it be in football, basketball or baseball. It does not matter if it is at the collegiate or professional levels ... You can be fired yesterday and have a new job within weeks, with a different team in the same league while getting a monster pay raise. Where else does that happen?

Before I go ... could you tell in the order of pictures where I changed the camera between "automatic" and "manual w/default" settings. I personally see a big difference and with that change it probably saved the 'life' of the Canon G9 X staying in this household.

There are many things I like about the Canon G9 X but overall I am disappointed in the overall picture quality compared to my older Nikon D3200.  (With the photos added below after this post published --- I'll keep this camera)

Well I need to get prepared for the blizzard that is in the forecast ... food is stocked since my short shopping trip yesterday. A big pot of 15 beans will be cooking by tonight in the crockpot. I pulled the snow shovel out of my shed so it's within an arm's reach if we get buried. Remember, it's not for me, not for Stella or the car ... but Heidi will need a pathway dug out through the snow for her to pee and poop. Nothing like watching a basset hound walking through snow deeper than their stomachs when they need to pee.

Stay tuned ... I have a very interesting post schedule to publish later today, early evening. My local drive article and pictures will be on Saturday morning, scheduled before most of you get up. There is a funny story in that post.  LOL

After their lunch, Heidi wanted back inside within minutes and Stella was 'begging' for a ride.

I forgot to mention in this post this morning about an update to the problems I've been having with WordPress's newER dashboard. Namely being a real DATA HOG!!! Wordpress is aware of it and told me a few days ago to move to wp-admin/dashboard. They did NOT tell me they were redesigning the newER dashboard, as I found that out on my own with an email I received from them, wanting me to check out their new design. Well this morning while I was on FREE data from my internet provider ... I loaded that newER dashboard and clicked on my "media" library which is small in size. It took a little more than 10 minutes to load the photos but only as far back as December 28th.

I closed it because it had already used 107Mb .... I opened wp-admin/dashboard and then clicked on my media library ... it loaded all the photos back to December 28th in less than a minute and only used 32Mb .... "Houston, we have a problem"

It might be cold right now but the sun is trying to shine this morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.