A Little iMac Hiccup ... Virus???

Yes, there are some eyes under that skin you see. This is the look Stella gives me when she feels I have not given her enough treats or snacks. Last night she wanted more of the grain free dog bones that were flavored with bacon. For a 'cleaner' photo I wiped off the drool on the sides of her jowls before taking the picture. Even after the walking I did to grab the iPhone to take the photo, she never moved.

With the second day of the coldest days this winter, the hounds do a lot of sleeping. Although the room is not cold Heidi knows it is winter and will shiver until I bring out the sleeping bag for her to sleep on or wrap up in on the couch.

This was Friday night ...

I decided to test the quality of sleep for the hounds, so I put a piece of the pumpkin pie crust in front of Stella's nose while she slept. It was funny to see her nostrils twitching while she slept after the crust was placed there but she never woke up.

As I glanced out the window this morning in the computer room, the field was covered with white heavy frost. I did not know at the time it would be a great background for taking photos of Stella and bring out that red coat of hers. These fresh deer prints kept Stella busy this morning. She was active because they were scattered all over the field but not nearly as hyper with excitement as Sadie would have been. Sadie would have been going out of her mind with fresh deer prints like this.

Stella was going to try a different entry point into the ragweed burrs but I was right there and talked her into walking back to the path to start her walk.

It was freezing, crisp, and extremely quiet this morning. The skies were beautiful.

For some reason I keep wanting to buy a smaller camera with a zoom capability. I know the picture sharpness will not come close to what I get with the older Nikon D3200 but for some reason the urge to buy one has been strong the last two days. If I were to buy a new lens for the D3200 I have come to the conclusion I need one with a range of 18mm-135mm. But does it really make a difference if I already have a lens I use every day that is 18mm-200mm ... no it doesn't. I'll keep what I have.

The problem getting up at 6:15am or around that time to start our day ... the hounds are begging for lunch by 10am now. For 31 years I've had hounds, I never fed them more than once per day unless they were puppies ... until Stella showed up in August 2015. She had come from a home that had 'free feeding' ... ate when she wanted.

Yes, on the walk before 8am ... there is that sun again.

I could hear that distinct sound a bloodhound makes when they are sniffing a scent in the tracking mode ... their jowls flap just a little. One year when I left Bertha, Winston and Max at a kennel while I was away on a business trip the kennel owner heard that sound when walking Bertha ... she said in all the years she had hosted different breeds of dogs and walked all of them ... she had never heard a sound like that, only from a bloodhound.

This is about all the intensity Stella shows when tracking.

Of course there is always time for her to have some natural deer protein ... especially when it's frozen.

Freezing cold and crisp.

She knows the deer went that way but we are on our way home and it's getting cold.

When I told her "let's go home" ... she took off trotting.

There were till plenty of things to check out until she got to the backyard.

I was happy to see that the last of the leaves from the Mahogany tree are gone. I can now mow the leaves for the last time this year. I'll do that sometime this week after the temps crawl back up to the mid-40's. That small north side yard has the most leaves as the winds seem to always blow them there, where they get trapped between the house and that small bank.

Once again this morning Stella did not stop at the trees or the fence to smell but she took off along the edge of the field and yard. If she had her way she would have gone back into the field in the middle of all of those burrs.

For the first time since I have bought this iMac in May 2017 it had a 'hiccup' this morning. The computer hard drive locked up as I was moving my morning photos to the external hard drive, something I do everyday without any issues. The Activity Monitor was telling me a system program that moves those files was "not responding".  It did not matter where I put the cursor and clicked ... the computer was locked up. I had to hold the power button to turn it off.

I unplugged the 4-port USB hub, then turned on the computer seeing it boot up with no issues. I then plugged the USB hub back in and tried to export the morning photos to the external drive ... same result and the Activity Monitor telling me that same com.apple.xxxxx program was not responding.I repeated the process to turn off the computer but did something different after I rebooted it.

To find out if it was my hard drive acting up or the external drive I did NOT plug in the 4-port USB hub. I opened my Apple Photos program (like Windows My Pictures) and tried moving the photos I selected for this blog to the Blog Folder on my desktop so Blogger can import the photos to the blog.

Ah ha .... the Activity Monitor had in red "Photos" ... "not responding.

So it was something on the hard drive. I opened the App Bitdefender and updated their latest Malware files, then ran their Critical Locations Scan, something I do weekly. It did not find any malware or viruses. The computer was running normal as I read the internet sports, answered emails and a few texts during the scan.

I decided I'd run their "Deep System Scan". I had not done that since buying the computer. It took 48 minutes to scan everything. I gave it permission to scan my photo library that has over 70,000 photos since I was trying to export photos that froze up the computer. It found 3 files of malware, all from one App that I had personally downloaded before I bought this computer in May 2017. All the apps, photos and document files were uploaded from my Time Machine backup when I was setting up the new computer in May 2017. This app came along for the ride in that transfer.

The app is called DrApp Cleaner. It was an easy fix. Bitdefender had quarantined the files to prevent any harm to my hard drive. All I had to do was go into my Finder folder, then Applications folder and delete the App "DrApp Cleaner. Once the trash was empty, those three files disappeared from the Bitdefender log.

I turned off my computer, plugged in the 4-port USB Hub and then turned on the computer. Everything loaded normal with no issues. I exported 74 photos from this mornings walk to the external hard drive for backup with no issues.

The iMac was and has functioned normal every since I removed that App and those "spy" files as they were called. I jumped back into my Applications Folder in Finder (Windows My Computer Folder) and deleted any app that I had not used. If I could not remember what the app did, then I must have not been using it and deleted those too. Any system app was protected by Apple by not giving me the option "Move to Trash".

In the meantime I am going to try to warm the house up. I am going to 'give-in' to the hound's demands that they want to be fed and feed them. I'll try to grab a few more photos for this post before I post it.  SUCCESS with the after lunch photos !!!

It was the normal after lunch routine. That might show 38° but believe me it feels much much colder than that.
 

Stella stood and sniffed the air putting her plan together. I had a good idea where she was headed if she got the chance.

Heidi could tell by the freezing feeling, she didn't have a lot of time to relieve herself and then get back inside. She had to be quick.

Sure enough ... there goes Stella into the field but luckily behind the area with all the burrs. Once she saw me walking up the path she came running.

By the time I had Stella back inside the carport I see Heidi is sprinting across the front yard and up the driveway. She was cold enough that she was first inside not waiting for Stella to step in front of her. Then it was a fast run through the kitchen and jumping up on the couch for some afternoon sleep.

With all the leaves down from the Mahogany tree and most from the tall Sycamore tree, I'll get some but but not this many leaves after I mow them again. This should take about an hour to do the whole yard and I'll be done for the 2018 Leaf Project. It might snow on Tuesday but will be in the upper 40's for most of the week. I can mow then.

It's a pretty good retirement day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Heidi Makes History

I would have to do some deep digging back through Heidi's folder of pictures to see when the last time she made two complete walks in the field on back to back days. I know my short term memory might be on shaky ground at times but I am positive it's been YEARS since Heidi did two walk in a row. Today she even led the walk.


While I sat in front of my computer most of the day trying to find just the right blog template that I wanted, the skies never changed, it never rained and the best decision of the day was keeping the Reds game on tv in the background. After returning from our afternoon walk, the Reds were behind 13-3 with 3 more innings to go. It took little effort to press the "off" button on my Directv remote.

During the normal trip outside after the hounds had their lunch of kibble, Heidi had moved back to her regular routine of walking along the side of the house where the Yews use to be, then darting or jumping out into the front yard to relieve herself. She was moving so fast the camera barely caught her running from the yard to the driveway.

With the driveway incline that would put me in fantastic shape if I spent time just walking back and forth up the hill a few times daily ... Heidi went from a fast run to a slow walk. She had other plans for her energy that I was not aware of.

By 3pm I had come to a final decision on the blog design, answered some emails and replied to blog comments ... Heidi thought it might be time for our afternoon walk. She stood and thought about her plan before making any abrupt moves.

Within seconds of being outside Sadie was already running through the field chasing butterflies and Stella was slowly walking up the path trying to get the walk started. I think she would have liked to stay inside and sleep.

I could tell soon after stepping into the field it was going to be one of the biggest challenges of my week to keep these three hounds moving in one direction. I think it all has the possibilities for a super bowl commercial some time.

Here is one butterfly that ignored Sadie's fast running and jumping at air trying to catch them. She stayed here and enjoyed her meal on the Butterfly Milkweed. (Google Images is a great invention)

I was still in shock that Heidi was not only on the walk but was not lagging back with other interests such as following her nose. She acted as if she was on some sort of mission today, she had a plan.

With the start of the walk is a slight incline almost all the way to the first corner, there was no running involved. That would be using energy that she planned on using later.

While I was looking in both directions you could tell that Sadie and Stella had joined as a team to cut this exploration today into an effort of more coverage in less time. When they are in this kind of pose there is only one thing that will break their concentration ... mention the word 'food' or anything that is food.

As with any basset hound worldwide, anytime you are looking at pictures you can't tell by their legs if they are running ... but their ears are a dead giveaway.

I did not even call her when she was running ... it was just part of her plan.

While I was waiting for her to catch me, I had noticed that Stella was walking away from all of us in a northern direction which would be toward the center of the field. After taking this picture of Heidi I turned my view towards the middle of the field and Stella was nowhere on the horizon. Zip, nada, ... gone!!

Some how in a short period of time Stella had changed direction and went the opposite way, moving behind me either running or trotting and letting me find her not in the field but up in the far right corner and heading into the gully where the deer migrate.

While I am trying to keep Stella and Sadie from going down into the gully through that overgrown brush ... in fact I am running in their direction calling their names for them to stop ... Heidi continues her pace and is way out in front of all of us ... she is leading the walk!

Somehow, some way I was able to get Stella and Sadie out of the brush and headed in the right direction. After all the running I did chasing them, I guess Sadie had to check to see if I was okay and not laying on the ground somewhere.  HA

I don't feed the brand name 'Milk Bone' but one similar that has better ingredients. But I do say the brand name "Milk Bone' because they all respond to those two words and know they will be getting something to eat. Here Stella is asking if she just heard what she thought she heard ... "did you say Milk Bone?"

When Heidi heard those words she took of running, Stella kept walking her slow pace as usual and Sadie was about to fly by my knee in a full-out sprint. They all had a new focus now and it wasn't walk or searching ... it was food.

They still know it doesn't matter what they do, that once I say those two words they will ALWAYS get their treats and it doesn't matter if don't they come as fast as I want them to.

Heidi was wagging her tail headed for the door. She was already barking for her 'Milk Bone' by the time Sadie and Stella reached the house.

How can a hound look so sad when there is food involved?

Some readers in the past have asked me if having three hounds make times noisy around the house. It's just the opposite. Once they get their walk finished or meals, they fall asleep and the only noise I will here will be a ocassional snore or breathing behind my desk chair from Stella.

With the change to this blog I am now posting photos to only one site instead of two blogs and Facebook. It makes it much faster to post and gives me more time away from the computer. I keep finding things to use in the background to use for the blog and as I use this platform more, the easier it is to post.

Like I said at the start of this post, I have finally decided on the blog design. I liked having that header image where the other blog did not have that option. I like the home page where you can still see the 12 previous posts with a clean modern look to it. The pages are where I wanted and once I found out that all the links I used in the sidebar of the previous blog design this morning, would be there once a post was opened ... then I knew this was the template (theme) I wanted to use.

The name of this free Wordpress them is "Baskerville 2".

Speaking of change ... I forgot to mention the change Apple made to their new iMacs has not turned into the hassle I thought it would be for me. When they made the computer thinner, the slot for the SD card moved from the side to in the back. How inconvenient could that be?

I thought I might have to use an older adapter that would take five different SD card sizes but after 3 months from replacing my almost 7 year old iMac, I find having the SD card slot in the back not a problem at all. I do have to lean a little further from my chair to reach the back of the iMac, but not a problem.

Of course there is always something I wanted to say at the end of the post but by the time I get there, a lot of times I forget what it was. For example I've been wanting to talk about that SD card slot for weeks and finally remembered today.

Is is just me or have the first 6 days of August flown by? I don't want summer to end. The other night at 3am when I woke up to shut bedroom windows because the temps had dropped into the 50's ... it hit me that fall was just around the corner.

I'm not ready to put jeans back on, along with a jack or coat.

It's nice to have all the changes finished these past few days. It's been a 'wild' 30 days when it comes to changing stuff.

All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.