A Slight Change Of Direction

I will probably end up getting back to writing what's going on, or a rant etc ... eventually. Right now I am thinking about changing the blog direction a little bit. Like a paragraph of content, then 15-25 photos. I have done that before here. Years ago I had a Wordpress blog where that is all I did. So we will see.

Super Bowl Outrage

I was more in disbelief of the weather Sunday afternoon here in 'the tropics' than the Super Bowl game. This was the temperature around noon but by the end of the day we had broke the all time high record with a 64° day. Winter returns on Friday.

Listening to sports talk radio today, seeing headlines on online sites, reading through my sports Twitter and all the "retweets" ... the general feeling was Super Bowl LIII sucked from the game, the halftime show, the commercials, EVERYTHING !!!!

The hounds sat and thought about what they wanted to do after their Sunday lunch and basically did nothing outside of their normal routine. They sniffed the air, looked around, sat and thought, then turned toward the door to go back inside. I returned to my books and knew by 1pm that I would be watching the game but not turning on my tv until they actually kicked off to start the game.

Since I like a defensive type football game in the NFL or College level, I enjoyed last night's game even if a team I dislike won. The icing on the cake was who was named the MVP of the game. They never mentioned one time during the game, that he was suspended for the first 4 games of the year for PEDs. If he had been in MLB he would not only been suspended but would have been ruled out of any playoff games and the Super Bowl. You can read about it here:

This morning felt like a Spring day. So much that it was almost scary and looked like an overcast April morning with thunderstorms in the afternoon. We will get rain this afternoon but not the spring type thunderstorms. I was back wearing my ballcap instead of a sock hat, no gloves, and a light jacket instead of the down parka. It was beautiful.

One of the local sports talk hosts had seen one of the performers of the halftime show play in Indianapolis last May and said last night it looked as if they couldn't wait to get their show over with and get off the stage. He said last May they were a fantastic show.

One key thing he said about the halftime show was "if you have to bleep out language, why is that guy performing in the Super Bowl?" Different group than the previous paragraph but I can guess which one based on the commercials in the first half of the game. Twitter was on fire during and after the game last night. A lot of hate going around and it's just not all about football either. Some idiots were mad because the game was not political enough !!!!

Needless to say, my tv has been off this morning and will be off all day ... I want 'quiet' around my house and NO WHINING .... I HATE WHINING !!!!! On blogs or tv.

Stella wasn't sure where she was going or what she was going to do on this walk. She ended up following a narrow deer path along the edge of the field in such detail that she was walking around and through the single deep red vines. She followed that path almost to the first turn.

I turned my tv off during the halftime show. Yet I watched not only every play of the game but all the commercials. They didn't seem as good as they did in past years. Maybe it was just me or have the expectations for even those now gone off the charts where companies are in a no win situation no matter how much they pay for 30 seconds? Nothing is ever good enough in this politically correct world.

Since it seems as if I finally have my Canon G9 X camera adjusted correctly on the Manual setting, which took place a few weeks ago, I rarely have to edit the photos now. The Auto setting showed me yesterday with that photo of Heidi above that the colors are too saturated, the lighting is too dark inside or outside. So I shoot most photos, if not all, in Manual mode and Auto-focus.

I ran out of eggs Sunday morning, oatmeal last Friday morning ... a sure sign I needed a grocery store run this morning if possible. So to fit into Stella's nap time and not in the range of eating ... I left right after the morning walk, especially since rain is a 90% chance after 1pm. At Walmart I found 14 cashier aisles available and ONLY ONE OPEN so for a few minutes I was an unpaid Walmart employee, checking out and bagging my own groceries. How soon will it be before Walmart hires robots to check people out?

After I returned home the weather was so nice I opened the storm door screen, opened the computer room window and the bedroom window. How nice to smell some fresh air and the sound of a misty wet highway as the traffic passes the house. I changed from a long sleeve insulated shirt/fleece to a t-shirt/sweatshirt, cotton socks instead of the wool socks. I caught myself counting the days until spring.

My eating habits continue to stay improved with 1400-1600 calories per day. No processed food, fewer cravings for chocolate or cookies, all fresh fruit or veggies matched with a steak, chicken or salmon. I shopped the same way today so I might have made the final turn onto a possible permanent path for healthy eating

In my blogging career I have disappeared for a few weeks, even deleted my other blog a few times and came back but I always wonder when a few people I follow disappear for months or years. Just recently after starting this blog, a blogger named "RetroRoxie" helped me out a lot with html code to paste to the CSS editing block. We emailed back and forth about dogs, blog ideas, and the codes for design.

She was my blog leader in making comments for a while and has disappeared. Her blog has not been deleted but her blog domain name shows an error message that says it will not connect to the server. I know she was going on a European vacation so maybe she took a longer one than I assumed. I have never seen an error message like that when a WordPress blog is deleted.

She had a great blog if you grew up in the 60's or 70's, with pages filled with old music, tv shows, products, or people. If anyone out there knows anything I'd appreciate if you could let me know what happened to her blog and if she is okay.

Another blogger that has a couple of labs, lives in Maine, hasn't blogged in many months. Maybe she just got tired of blogging, got busy etc. It just seems strange when people disappear after years of blogging without any kind of announcement for their readers. Is that just me or a general opinion from blog readers?

Again for those that have asked me recently, no ... I don't miss the FJ or the Z4 that I sold and traded for the Mini Countryman. The 4-door Mini, All-Wheel drive is a great multi-purpose car with great gas mileage, room for the hounds, and speed when I need it. It's a versatile car and I am happy with having just one car to maintain and drive.

Stella got in a full body shake on the walk this morning. She did not run in this part of the walk for the second day in a row. I continue to give her the joint supplements but I wonder what her reason is for not trotting or jogging. She has always like to run.

She is in this picture somewhere ... I was letting her do whatever she wanted while I stood near the yard.

I put my old blog in the private setting the other day. Regular traffic had almost completely stopped and instead, all of my traffic over there was spammers all from outside the USA. I guess that is what happens when you quite blogging but keep your site active.

I could feel that Monday was going to be a good day. Stella seemed to think so. Heidi thought so too. As we stepped inside she was barking at us instead of sleeping. I almost forgot ... yesterday afternoon Heidi started on the walk with us but then went her own way once she turned on the path walking along the edge of the field. By the time Stella and I returned she was exploring the southern edge of the yard. She spent a lot of time outside yesterday on her own.

You can tell the difference in the grass by the color. The deeper green grass I planted myself after I cut out, burned and pulled out roots of wild brush that covered that area of the darker green grass.  It shows how much yard I gained after my neighbor had the field surveyed six or seven years ago.

I was able to get a pretty good photo of Stella walking along the side of the house. I have said that has been her new routine the past few weeks and this is a perfect example of what she does. LOL ... don't ask me why ... I have no idea why she does things a certain way but it's always something funny.

I was going to wait to post this at the end of the day after I added some afternoon photos and try to get back to blogging at the end of the day instead of after the walk. I still might try that starting tomorrow.

When I saw I had 31 photos to be uploaded into the blog I decided to make it a published post now instead of waiting. I have a hard time reducing the amount of photos sometimes. We will see what happens.

I have a slight urge to redesign the blog today. That sidebar idea had crept up again.  Will reading books keep that urge to change the blog template in the background for another day?

It's a great February day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.

I Know I Know I Know

Some people say "never say never" ... I need to be one of those people. That saying is perfect for someone who changes their mind a lot, like I do. So ... YES THE BLOG DESIGN HAS CHANGED YET AGAIN!!! I put out a warning the other day that there might be some small changes ... but nothing like this !! While it's almost 2am and the hounds are in a deep sleep, let me explain the why and how.

The all white background I had been using was just too bright for me. When I added a slight bit of color, it didn't look right. Then the more I looked at the theme I was using, the more I didn't like it. (At least today) So before the ballgames started at noon on Tuesday I started playing around a little with some small changes and the same design.

After watching the Rose Bowl, I decided to 'get serious' about making some BIG changes to the way the blog looked. Maybe this idea also started when I changed my computer settings back to the 'dark mode' and also went into Firefox settings to change their theme to the 'dark mode.' It's easier on the eyes for the amount of time I spend in front of this computer.

Using the same design that I had for the past week, I made the background black but the post background was white and that clashed too much with the black background I wanted. I could have changed the white background by adding some CSS code but even if I did that, I still did not like that design.

I thought I had found a pretty good theme (template), with page wide images and the columns of old posts on the front page but I ran into the same problem ... the background of the post was white and that is not what I wanted. I wanted the page to be black or dark gray, completely around my photos

I have always known that photos look better against a black or dark gray background. Why would Apple changed their Photos program a few years ago to that same idea? Or when I would look at other blogs that had a black background, their photos looked really good. They stood out with the darker background surrounding them, compared to a light or white background.

So I thought I had it ... but again, I would have had to find some code or get the code from the WordPress CSS forums to change the white background.

I kept looking through templates.


I set three requirements in the WordPress theme search ... (1) Style: Clean (2) page wide images (3) Background: Black

Then I saw it. I clicked on a theme I had used two weeks ago based on the notes I had written in my 5x8 notebook next to my keyboard. It had everything I wanted. LARGE PHOTOS, a 'footer' sidebar and a front page that would show past post in date order, newest on down, with the date or time I had written the post.

I grabbed my iPhone and iPad Mini to see what the new design would look like. It looked great on each. There was one adjustment I had to do with the header image. I had to hide it and go with the plain color header because on the phone, the title could not be seen and there was a menu bar cutting right through the middle of the picture. Besides, a header image is too small on a phone to see it.

I might have to lighten this font color for the blog post. As promised I did keep the font the same as the previous two weeks. I had a few people let me know that it was easier to read, after I changed it. The fonts are the exact same font and the same size as before.

I will have to live with the three columns of past posts on the front page not being exactly even due to the slight difference in the size of the photos. I also have to insert a space between each photo where I have listed them one after another, without content.

I can live with both of those differences to have the most important stuff.

IF you have problems reading the blog or just don't like it ... let me know and tell me what device you use to read the blog. IE: phone, tablet or computer.

That was my thought process for changing the blog. I have always thought since the blog seemed to be about the hounds more than anything else, that the photos needed to be the main focus and they needed to be large for me and the readers that use computers.

In the meantime I am headed for bed. It's 2:32am and I need to get a few hours of sleep before Stella, then Heidi wake me up to serve them breakfast. Since retirement I have never used an alarm clock to get up, but why would I need one since the hounds always whine loud enough to wake me up.

It's been a good weekend of football in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Sadie Only Wanted To Track Scent

Once again the sunshine in the morning forgot to mention just how cold it was outside this morning. That didn't matter to Sadie who was back behind my burn pile checking out recent deer scent and she never stopped tracking the rest of the walk. Stella on the other hand had no interest in taking a walk, nor tracking scent.

I wish the camera could capture Sadie's quick movements in different directions, instead of still shots of her stopped in action. She was darting all over the place with excitement.

The wind was much stronger than normal out of the SW this morning ... and colder. When I checked my 10 day forecast this morning, I saw 4 small icons in the next 10 days ... snow. So just because we are in warmer days, everything is possible in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana when it comes to weather.

Since I feel the blog is boring most of the time, I may change it up a little. I like the template, plus it's kinda the 'brand' of the blog ... recognizable. So I'll not change that but I might do less story telling and just a short intro before listing the same number of photos. Then possibly multiple posts per day where there may not be more than just 1 photo and a paragraph of content that goes with the photo.

So here we go ...

It's going to be another good day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Still Get Two Walks Around A Thunderstorm

Stella decided to protest this morning when I caught her veering off in the direction of the neighbor's field. When I yelled her name, she stopped walking and stared at me. When I said "over here", words that she has been responding to very well these past few weeks ... she sat down and wouldn't move.

You may have noticed my front page to the blog has changed a little. Instead of one page with the latest post and 18-27 pictures all included ... I have manually added a page break. Then I changed my settings back to 7 posts per page.

I like the look of it and I am getting favorable feedback from a few readers that not only like the format but also tell me my blog loads faster and uses less data. 

I really think I will stay with this new format. I just wish there was a different way to add the page break to pasts post all at once instead of one at a time. With that process I have done 21 posts or 3 pages worth and may not do any more previous posts. The current or future posts will slowly push the older format further back in the blog.

I also think with the new format, it will be easier to see when I make more than one post per day. Sometimes there are more pictures in a day that can fit on one post or more topics floating in my head than can fit in one post. So be sure to check for multiple posts per day sometimes.

For some reason this morning I was more anxious to get the morning walk started than even Sadie. I had to asked both of them if they wanted to go for a walk, instead of the norm of Sadie standing and staring at me.

What a change it is to start your morning walk with temperatures in the mid 70's instead of the high 20's. Yes, I know that was months ago but I always remember those freezing walks. I am not a fan of cold weather.

Stella decided to take it slower than normal this morning. I did not bring the 6' leash and in fact it is no longer thought about when we start to go outside. Like I said yesterday, most of the time she has been walking with us instead of her making trips to the neighbor's woods.

Again, Sadie was always too close for pictures. I think I found out why as we made the final turn home.

Parts of the field are growing by the hour it seems, while other parts have grass that is no taller than an inch high. I forget that it's only April and we will still have plenty of time before the hay gets tall enough to where the hounds are hard to see.

When I turned around and didn't see Stella, I assumed that she had gone past her boundary and was either heading down into the gully or close to the edge of the bank. I couldn't see her anywhere until I downloaded the picture, made it larger. Then I could barely see some of that bloodhound red hair dead center in the picture.

I was happy to see when I called her name, she came trotting out of the thick brush.

As we made the final turn home, I noticed a tick on top of her hair on her neck. Then after closer inspection found one digging into her ear. Last April was so much worse for ticks that I had a counter up in the left corner of the blog with a current count of ticks pulled off the hounds and me.

If they were on one hound, Sadie probably had one too. She always acts different when she has multiple ticks on her. I think that is why she kept walking so close to me this morning that I could take pictures of her.

I don't know how I missed these ticks on her ears, but two of them on the outside of her ears had been there long enough to be a little full. The two inside her ears had not even dug in yet. When we got back home and I could use my "tick off" tool, I found 3 ticks on one spot outside of her ear.

She was more than happy after I pulled them off.

I decided to sneak out to Walmart before the hounds started howling for lunch. The rain/storms were not due until around 2pm and I wanted to make sure I was home when they happened so Stella had zero chances of freaking out. She has not made any damages while I have been gone in a little over 4 months !!!!

I made it back in plenty of time. The sun was out and I drove the Z4 over with with the top down. The more west I went the darker the clouds were getting. I was wondering if I was going to make it to the parking lot so I could put the top back up before it rained. I was only in the store long enough to make an exchange but when I came outside it had poured rain.

The further east I went the sun came back out and based on what I was seeing on the roads, it had not rained at all. Radar showed spots of storms in the Midwest. I just happened to hit one.

It was a different story at 1:30pm. The winds picked up, the smell of rain filled the air and Stella moved her sleeping spot over next to the big kitchen island to sleep under cover on the inboard side away from the windows. That seems to be a consistent storm spot for her.

The rain was hard, it came down sideways and was gone within 15 minutes. Cold air followed it and it was cold enough to put on a sweatshirt for a short period of time. It still looked like it was possible for a fairly dry late afternoon walk ... in the meantime I wasted my afternoon away playing Mahjong and enjoying my view from the kitchen table.

With every container of cottage cheese or yogurt, the hounds get to lick out what is left of the container and Sadie always gets the last chance. Sometimes she has to put the container in the prime spot to get the very last drop of cottage cheese.

By late afternoon the sunshine was out and it felt hot outside. The backyard grass didn't see that wet so we took off for our 2nd walk of the day. Sadie took off from the start with all of that added protein she finished an hour earlier.

Stella did many stops to either investigate or to scratch. I am not sure there is anything to scratch and that it might be a habit. I think the habit option might be real because she will stop in the exact same places in the walk to scratch.

She was moving all over the field this afternoon and at no time did I have to give her a verbal command to follow us, catch up with us or move our direction.

She slow trotted into the backyard, stepped on my foot as she ran past me and met me at the door wanting back inside. LOL ... she doesn't realize just how heavy that one foot of hers feels when being stepped on.

I can't see much more happening tonight but a little Cincinnati Reds baseball on FoxSports Ohio/Cin and more cold ice tea. We've had a good thunderstorm, two hound walks, lunches and a short trip to WallyWorld ... quite a day.

Retirement is good here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana.