Some Evening Rambling Or Ranting

I guess if I can start the day really weird at 2:05am, then I can end the "blogging day" just as strange with some evening rambling. It's one of those times where I have a lot of stuff swirling in those brain cells of mine that need to come out on paper. Regular or past readers will recognize that as 'my rambling', with a lot of topics talked about and none of them in any kind of order.

Let's cover that first picture. That is my summary of the food I have eaten today. Those rusty color bars are really bright red on my screen, showing me that I am getting way too much and to make some adjustments. It also shows me that I probably need to take a multi-vitamin to make up for all the vitamins I don't get through food. I've known that for a year or so.

I get all of this information on the Cronometer FREE app on my phone, tablet, plus I can go to their webpage and see all of this on my large monitor as well as log the food I eat.


Do I plan on doing this forever, no I don't. Right now I am at what I consider a 'crossroads' to either get serious about my eating habits or screw it and eat everything I want in the quantities I want then feel like crap, feel guilty, feel frustrated and feel bloated. This will help me fine tune my eating habits.

My choice.

I almost returned my Canon G9 X camera again this morning. I had nothing planned and had plenty of time to make the trip to Best Buy. I have only a couple of days left to use their 15-day return policy ... but ... like I said the other day. This is a good camera that probably deals with more user error or lack of knowledge compared to my Nikon D3200. I also said the other day that I was keeping it because it did to some good things, even better than the Nikon D3200 or my iPhone camera. Plus I was going to learn more about the camera, getting to the point that it was taking the type of pictures I wanted.

The pictures from this afternoon were with the Canon G9 and NONE of them were edited in any way!!! I did use the flash for the first two pictures as a test on an overcast day. I could tell a slight difference. I have played with the color, contrast and sharpness settings and finally have them set where the pictures look like they do to my eyes.

I know that if I plan to take a lot of pictures on the walk from a distance, where I would use the 200mm zoom lens, then I should take the Nikon D3200 with me instead of the Canon.

The Canon G9 did survive another drop test. This time it wasn't the soft grass of the field that caught it ... it was that hard concrete floor of the carport. With the wrist strap on, as I slid off my right glove so I could touch my Apple Watch face to stop the timer for the walk ... the strap came off with the glove and the camera bounced on the concrete. So it now has some 'use marks' but still works perfectly.

The Canon G9 X is a keeper.

Back in October I was finally able to shut out all the news on tv, the headlines from online news websites completely out of my life. I LOVED IT!!! I felt much better, less stressed out, less pissed off and I enjoyed not hearing all the bullshit. Then on December 13th when I wanted to be more open, more energized with my blog writing, I returned to the tv news and started reading those online headlines. I added a few new tweeters that would give me political news you don't see on tv.

In a way ... a bad move on my part ... a very bad move.

I've said it a million times on this blog and my old blog ... there is no in-between with me. It's all or nothing. Mow all the yard or not at all. Track food intake or eat non-stop. Blog multiple times per day or quit. On and on and on. So .... with that in mind ....

My mind has been very active with those same concerns I have had for the past 3 years, even before the 2016 Presidential Election. Some would call it being paranoid but I call it being aware. I hate shit happening in the background to our country that is not covered by mainstream media online, tv or otherwise. It takes certain people to spend their time tracking the 'background' stuff and then putting it out in pubic for all to see.

How many really see it though?

I can assure you that if the general public knew some of this stuff there is no way they would be happy with what is going on. You and I might not be living when the final results are in, but your children and grandchildren will. My niece and nephew will, along with their kids. The children of my friends will be affected. What is happening right under our eyes is real.

What I am talking about is the underground movement of the Muslim 20-year plan of taking over the USA. Yes, I believe that plan when I saw it.
I'll even go find it and link it here. I found the link but it would not let me copy the full url, just the website dot com url. It's a movement that is working just as they planned, right on schedule.

It's just not a religion/politics thing.

This isn't the old days when the media argued that a Catholic was going to be elected President when John F. Kennedy was winning. This isn't going through Congress and listing each with their religion beliefs next to their name. This is a planned movement with dates and milestones that have been reached. The Catholics didn't want to take over the country if he was elected. Nor did the Protestants when other presidents were elected. But the Muslim Movement does and say they will.

It is happening right in front of us and the US citizens either don't see it, don't understand it or are too lackadaisical to believe it. "That would never happen here!!!!"

Even two hundred or more years ago we were warned:

"If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter." ~ George Washington

As I have said before ... I believe in immigration as long as they are vetted, and follow the legal process to become a citizen. I also understand that poor people want the best for their kids and will risk their lives to get to America for a better lifestyle. But I also understand why the Democrats are not interested in any kind of wall ... they need voters, illegal or not.

I hate people who take advantage of our country's constitution, our country's generosity and our system to live for free. Paid for by the taxpayers and affecting all of us in services provided or not provided because of overwhelming floods of illegal aliens taking over those systems. Do I understand this right ... we will help an illegal alien but not a homeless veteran living on the streets? Don't even get me started on that topic!!

Do not get me started on the argument of homeless US citizens without help or NOT ENOUGH help compared to the open hand and all the free programs and MONEY to give a start to someone who has illegally entered our country. Families or not, I don't care. Follow the damn laws!!!!

It was estimated today that they can account for almost 900,000 voters in the 2018 mid-term elections were NOT US citizens. Something I saw last week, over 463,000 California residents turned down their legal duty for jury duty BECAUSE THEY WERE NOT LEGAL CITIZENS!!!!

They pick the names for jury duty from lists of registered voters!!!! Any ... legal addresses. Yes, that's true, no fake news here.

I have NO problems with families from Syria, Iran, Iraq, Venezuela, Brazil, Mexico, or any other country coming to America to start a new life. I know there are many successful stories and many of those families are happy for the help they received. That is the 'good' side of illegal immigration. I have no problems as long as these people start the process under current law to become citizens.

What I DO have a problem with is:

• 63% of non-citizen illegal aliens are using a welfare program intended for the poor and needy Americans


• 4,684,784 non-citizen households are receiving welfare payments


• These numbers from a 2014 census data ... almost 5 years ago!!!!

Illegal aliens are taught the system before they get to the border. They get free housing, free food-stamps, roughly $1,200 per month to get started, free internet, free cell phones, free medical service. SOME laugh and send their monthly money back home south of the border that totals in the millions of non-taxable income. It's not just non-citizens ... it's the poor "white trash" they call them, in trailer parks (no offense), white people, black people who know how to play the system for free services and money even if fraud is evident.

Does anyone believe the numbers furnished by the Border Patrol on how many with criminal records, members of MS-13 gangs, drug mules or child sex trade are stopped at the border EVERYDAY??? Are those numbers just made up? Is that census just made up numbers? Aren't the numbers shocking to you?

What is it that people don't understand about this immigration mess? What is it that people don't understand about the underground control of Muslim influence in our governments from the state level to Washington DC?

I personally know people of the Muslim faith, others that are immigrants from other countries. Even my small town of less than 2,400 people have residents from China, Iran, Iraq, India, Mexico (some illegal), etc. Some are waiters, waitresses, store owners, small shop owners, or restaurant owners. I have no problems and never had any problems with any of them living in my small town.

I do have a problem with my state electing Muslims to State Government who brag that "their movement" is gaining steam and by 2030 they expect to have 30-35 in Congress. I DO have a problem when these same elected officials have past or current ties to some of the most violent terrorists groups in the Mid Eastern countries. I DO have a problem with Shari Law being mentioned in the state of Indiana. I DO have a problem with what I read in the IndyStar, where US laws are circumvented, so a Muslim organization can build that Mosque or that school where they have been turned down before. It makes me puke to hear or read where laws have been avoided at the request of Muslim Organizations.

These are not the immigrants our grandparents were or their parents were. Those immigrants in the 20's 30's and 40s were not coming to America to take over a country due to their religious belief ... they came to America for a better life and to become American Citizens ... to adapt to American way of life ... not telling us we will conform to their way of life and to their laws.

If you think I am full of bullshit and paranoid as hell concerning what I have written here ... then do your own searches on the Internet and see what you find. It's alarming, I guarantee you. As a search engine I strong urge you to use DuckDuckGo ... throw that Google Search in the trashcan.

I'm not finished yet.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

She graduated from Brown University, an Ivy League school ... so she is smart just not some babbling idiot. She has a BS Degree in Economics ... although some things she has said that she wants to implement make no economic sense. Instead of using that degree she was a waitress then a bartender at a NY bar when she ran for public office. Somehow she was elected to Congress!!!!  Think about that. Sure Trump had no political experience but he had business experience. I'll not go into a rant about Ms. Ocasio-Cortez but I will say she is dangerous to your and my way of life.

This quote says all I need to know about her. She sent this to the Washington Post.

“I’m six days into the term, and you already used all your ammo. So enjoy being exhausted for the next two years while we run train on the progressive agenda”

Many 'normal' people that see that will have no idea what "run train" means. I know I didn't know what it meant when I saw it and some accuse me of not being normal. "Run Train" is a slang term used by MS-13 gangs for violently gang raping women or young girls. How did and why did Alexandria become elected? Democratic readers ... you want to claim her as part of your party?

History shows this is not the first time that US Government has been backstabbed. It isn't the first time the US Government has faced a Socialist charge and people screaming for a change in the way of life. "Rob the rich and give to the poor" ...

I am not rich by any stretch of the imagination but I do have a healthy savings account. I do help people in need with either financial donations or food donations etc. I have no problems giving help to those in need, no matter what their race is or religious beliefs are. I give when I want to give or feel there is someone that needs help.

But if you want tax me, then FORCE me to support those in need ... I'll tell you to fuck off and fight you to the very end for what is mine. I feel sorry for the residents of California. I have a few friends of 45 years or more that live in that state. I in fact lived in that state when things were sane. Their newly elected governor now wants to tax drinking water to support all the illegal aliens coming into their state. Will that change the laws that Governor Brown implemented, fining residents ~$1,000 for watering their lawns or washing their cars due to a lack of water in their state?

Is the whole country going to get taxed so we can support the 22 million illegal aliens living within our borders, eating for free, medical for free, etc? They say 11 million officially but have recently confessed they really don't know and think the true number is closer to 22 million.

Just because the USA is considered a rich nation (IMO it's no longer rich), how can it be considered rich at 20 TRILLION in Debt and a DAILY interest payment of $634 MILLION PER DAY!!!!! do we as a country have an obligation to open our borders up to everyone else in the world so they can live, eat, make more kids, medical help, internet, phones, drivers licenses etc because we have the best way of life anywhere in the world?

Are we that obligated?

I'm losing my train of thought again.

I'm sure there was more I wanted to talk about.

Oh I have a question ... if these government workers not getting paid are having to hit free lunches and food pantries to feed your families .... WHY DIDN'T YOU PUT SOME MONEY IN SAVINGS!!!!!! YOU ALL WERE PAID VERY VERY WELL, ENOUGH TO SAVE SOME!!!!!

I know how much you make because I use to be a government worker and later a contractor. I KNOW how many people making $60K five years ago, sitting in their cubicles doing NOTHING because they had not been assigned a project to work on or were just a natural-born slacker. I KNOW how many on a base of 8,000 really do work and how many don't. I KNOW how many of those salaries are paid by 'overhead' not by 'project money'. BELIEVE ME ... THIS SHUTDOWN IS NOT HURTING AS MANY AS YOU THINK.

"Two weeks from losing my house" ... IMO you should have put some of that overpaid salary in the bank CALLED A SAVINGS ACCOUNT!!!!! Or made some extra house payments and try to pay off your mortgage early.

IMO, Trump will hold out longer than anyone realized and it's only a way of privatizing the TSA, closing down Government Departments that should be shut down and off the payroll, that will naturally 'weed out' the excess workers as they look for other employment or process paperwork for food stamps, welfare, disability, free cell phones, free internet, free medical just like all the other ILLEGAL ALIENS do.

I guess that is about all for tonight ....

Go ahead and say anything you want as a comment ... I know how to take "incoming" :)

LOL

What A STRANGE Morning

For the second day in a row I am up and awake at some ungodly hour, sometime after 2:05am. The first question that came out of my brain was "can I transfer data from my food tracker MyFitnessPal to Cronometer. It was a program I used before and breaks down the food in much more detail. Although today I may have gotten up that early for another reason but I just didn't know it ... Stella. Within 15 minutes that I was up, on the computer to find the answer to my question, she was standing by the entry way of the computer room and her stomach was 'growling' ... not the hunger pain kind of growl but the upset stomach kind of growl.

So still in a t-shirt and gym shorts, I grabbed my GoLite jacket and put on my snow/rain boots with no socks, grabbed the flashlight and we headed outside. It was really warm at 36° and a light sprinkle of rain. She went right to the field to find tall wet grass to eat. She moved from spot to spot with my small LED flashlight pointed right on her. She never did get sick and after 10 minutes or so, walked calmly back to the yard, peed and came back inside. She wasn't finished though. I'm in the dark house again, on the computer and about the time I think she has gone back to the bedroom to sleep, I hear her stomach again and there she is ... standing in the dark looking in the computer room at me. She wasn't whining but when I got up to go back outside with her, she didn't move. She didn't want outside.

You guessed it ... she wanted to eat.

I thought, why not? That might settle her stomach. I had yogurt or cottage cheese that I could give her but I thought I'd try her normal dog food. It worked. As soon as she finished eating, she was in back in the dark bedroom sound to sleep on the floor, like nothing had happened.

So here I was, still not even 4am yet and I am wide awake. I didn't fix coffee because I had high hopes of going back to bed and sleep longer than the hour and 50 minutes I had accumulated so far today. I found out that Cronometer does not list my Apple Watch as a 'device' like it did with my Garmin VivoSport, but there was another way to do the connection. I did that by connecting it electronically to the app Apple Health, which pulls data from my Apple Watch. As of this morning it is doing exactly that, giving me more details on my food intake than the MyFitnessPal app did. What might those additions be? A breakdown of vitamins, mineral, and micro nutrients. I would have had to buy MyFitnessPal's monthly subscription to do that same breakdown.

Since I was still awake I kept doing my normal reading online that I do every morning plus I had a couple of more questions on my mind. I 'googled' them (with DuckDuckGo) and found out what I needed within two or three clicks. By this time it's 4:45am and I am still wide awake. I wanted to get back to bed for some sleep and not have to rely on a nap this afternoon to catch up. I was needing coffee but knew if I went in that direction, then all hope was lost of getting more sleep this morning. The free app SleepWatch I downloaded for my Apple Watch WILL TRACK the sleep time when you take a siesta. That is something the GarminConnect app would not do.

The hounds?  Both were sleeping soundly where they normally do in a very dark bedroom.

I thought more about waking up so early, extremely early today and what was the cause. Stella was not standing by the side of the bed, whining or nudging my hand with her nose when I woke up, she was sound to sleep. As was Heidi. THEN I REMEMBERED .... I was too hot and my sinuses were plugged!!!!

Late last night I felt it getting much colder when Stella and I stepped outside one final time. I wanted to try something different with the forecasted drop in temperatures. I closed all the mini blinds for each window but did a quarter turn more to close the steel mini blinds tight as possible. That is something I rarely do, not turning a quarter of a turn more to tighten them. I left all of the thermostats the same in each room. To my surprise just less than two hours later when I woke up, the whole house was much warmer than normal that time of night. The temperature outside was the same, low 30's but the thermometers inside were saying no less than 70° (way too hot) and in the living room it was 72°. My sinuses were plugged up too.

THAT was the cause of me waking up at 2:05am !!!!

For some unknown reason, by 5:30am I was tired, sleepy ... a welcomed feeling. With the house still quite dark and the hounds still sleeping, I went back to bed and didn't hear anything the rest of the morning. Finally at 9:05am I was awake, feeling much better but a little confused and wanting coffee. Of course these last seven hours have thrown the daily routines out the window. How would the hounds react?

I fed Heidi immediately ... of course that meant Stella wanted to eat too but she had a normal amount of kibble a little after 2am. I was happy to see she was more than satisfied with the two pieces of GlycoFlex Plus that she gets every morning. THEN we all went outside but with no walks planned. I could hear it raining very lightly. Heidi thought about it and then proceeded as close to the side of the house as possible for a full lap around the house. As you see, Stella took a different path but a familiar one for when she has to dump her tanks and knows the walk of the day has been postponed due to rain.

It was funny now that I remember it. Earlier when she and I were outside sometime between 2am - 2:30am, when she was finished eating wet grass to settle her stomach, then peed ... she followed the same path you see here and headed back to the side of the house as close as possible for her return back inside. I guess if I didn't mind getting Stella completely wet, we could do the walk this morning. It's not raining that hard but after 16 - 20 minutes of solid drizzle she would be drenched based on how wet she was this morning after the short time she was out in in the field.

All Heidi wanted was to get back inside, jump up on the chair that Sadie gave her, scratch her blankets in a pile, do three circles and lay down to sleep the morning away. I've mentioned it before, but I cannot wait to strip that green paint off the steps and then paint them gray with the floor sealant I am going to apply to the carport floor this spring. I'll have to retrain the hounds for the day or two it will take to dry that application on the concrete floor, and have them go out the front door when we go outside. That will really scramble their braincells as well as mine.

It was just last Sunday that the ~4" of snow was melting with temperatures hovering around 40°. Then today I have light rain all day that started last night and will spend the late afternoon and night into a drizzle, if the forecast is right. Yet by Saturday night we have more snow on the way and a 'front' behind it that will lower the temps into the teens and single digits after midnight. Back and forth. Up and down ... typical weather in Southern Indiana.

Just last Sunday.

And the plans for the next few days.

With the pantry and refrigerator full of good healthy food, a tv schedule of college basketball and NFL Playoff games, a couple of books, and enough coats and thermals ... the hounds and I will make it with no problems. After all it's only for a day or two. The hounds always sleep based on 'outside' temperatures NOT what it feels like inside ... otherwise it looks as if I am freezing them out of their house with them curled tightly in a ball to sleep as well as close to each other.

Can you tell which pictures were taken by each camera I have?

I've added another show about roughing it in Alaska to my DishNetwork DVR Timer ... a schedule of automatic recording of programs, movies or ballgames. A few things I have noticed among the two shows I've been watching about Alaska ... even if the sky is clear above their roof of their small houses or cabins, none of them have any kind of solar panel system to produce electricity. Why not? Also for the few people that have teams of dogs for their dogsled, used to either check traps or race ... they feed their dogs salmon that that they had caught just to feed their dog teams. One team of dogs will eat over 500 salmon during the winter!!!!

Compare that to all the different kinds of expensive dog food on the market, those dog survive in much more extreme living conditions on just the protein of salmon and at times meat organs. There isn't any fruit and veggies added, no added vitamins, no fish or meat meals, no rice, etc ... just straight meat or fish. I also noticed as a family or couple, they don't sit down to a meal type of dinner with everything on the 'food pyramid' ... they might only have some moose or caribou they shot that day or just some cooked salmon they caught that day. They rarely eat fruit because they live in the wilderness and few will grow a garden during the summer months to grow vegetables. I know they live a much different lifestyle but to me it's interesting to see the diets they and their dogs follow while surviving extreme living conditions.

I normally like to have all my window blinds open during the day, even in cold weather ... but after finding out just how much heat is retained with the additional quarter turn to close the blinds tight, I don't want to open them today or any day until it gets warmer. I can open them on sunny days I guess because the western sun really warms up the living room in the afternoons. I've turned the thermostats down and the house is staying at 65°, just like the hounds and I prefer.

I guess the question of the day will be ... do I add the widgets back to my blog footer instead of just showing a couple of bits of information. I am not sure with the current design if many readers get to the bottom to see the list of blogs I follow, or the top posts or pages, maybe click on a category or look through the archives back to November 2017 ... so they may not be needed. A big difference in this theme that I really like and is called the most popular theme on WordPress, is the 'sidebar' on the post page, is NOT on the side but below each post BEFORE the comment section. I don't like that arrangement after testing to see what it looked like a few days ago.

Between now and the end of the day Stella and I will still check on weather conditions to see if we can fit in a quick walk. IF that happens I will write another post like I did yesterday with only a paragraph of content and all pictures of the walk. Do you prefer that style compared to my rambling?

It's warm, foggy, overcast and wet this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.