Russia Visits The Hounds

I noticed yesterday afternoon that Blogger Dashboard had a huge sudden spike in page views. The counter was showing the number of views to be 100's of times more than my normal count. I knew exactly what had happened, I just wondered what country it was from. With the 'new' blog being about a month old it has been indexed enough by the Google spiders so the spam/hack hits are expected. In a 24 hour period visitors from Russia outnumbered my blog visitors from the USA.

For those readers that don't have a blog, this is common activity whether you have a blog on Google's Blogger like this one is or on Wordpress like my older one was. Each platform gives the blog owner a 'dashboard' where they can work on their site behind the scenes. Not only does that include the ability to change designs, change fonts/colors, add sidebars, edit the photo library .... we get blog traffic reports.

Years ago when I was in the online selling business from home, full-time, one of my traffic stats programs was showing me someone spending almost all night on my website for only 3 straight days. That visitor never came back to the blog after that final day.

I could see what pages he was looking at and thought based on his time, it was very suspicious. Luckily that "exit link" gave me my answer. I clicked that exit link under his visit and that led me to his website on Esty. He was copying and pasting all of my content on his new sales site. The dead give away was when he copied my page explaining the process of authenticated sports memorabilia and quoted "a mom and pop shop" ... not many online will use the exact words like that.

I contacted Esty and furnished proof this guy in Ft Wayne Indiana had stolen my website information. Obvious he had also been approved to use the same suppliers I had (normal in drop shipping). To cut into my market share he was offering the  same autographed sports memorabilia 33% cheaper than I was offering it. He made up that difference profit by have very high shipping costs paid by each of his customers.

He also had an eBay store selling the same products just like I was at those discounted prices. After contacting Esty and eBay, they both shut down his site an hour after I emailed them. I checked a month later on eBay and he was no longer a registered seller. His Esty website was gone.

That story saved my business in a way and after that I was sold on those traffic reports that were furnished for free. Blogger's dashboard also showed me the two trouble makers I had last summer with my old 6 year old blog that I closed in September. They were downloading photos of Heidi. My photos are for any reader to use as they wish but I could see they were downloading only photos of her terrible skin conditions over the years. Combine that with their email threats of reporting me for animal abuse, I thought I might have a problem.

Again, I was happy to have those traffic reports available.

I am not sure how they do it, no matter what country they come from. I am pretty literate about computers but not the hacking aspect of it. As they did Sunday night through the early morning hours of Monday, it is usually an older blog that is used in some way to attack the blog. The blog that is uses normally has not had a post published for years. In this case it was a blog that had last posted in 2011. That year 2011 also showed up in my Top 10 posts viewed during that 24 hour period, taking the bottom 5 spots with one hit each ... all posts that I had written here in 2011.

It will be interesting to see how long it will take before I start getting spam email on the email account I use on my blog 'Contact' page. This same type of attack was common on my 6 year old blog and eventually that email was being spammed between 100-200 emails per day ... luckily sent to my junk folder automatically. I deleted that email account in September when I deleted the blog.

I assume that all business that require an email for one reason or another, will sell that email address because it is another form of income to them ... even when they say they do not sell emails addresses. So I have one email address I use for all types of subscriptions or purchases online. After deleting that older 'houndsnrvs' account, that I was also using for a spam collector ... I decided to use another email account I had but rarely used ... it took only a week before I started getting spam emails in my junk folder sent to that email account.

So with this blog being only a month old, approximately, those pesky Ruskies have paid the hounds a visit just to let us know they tried, may try again and who knows what they grabbed while they were here.

The weather here changed a little this morning just like the iPhone weather showed. Cold and rainy with a NE wind for once is never a good combination. I started sneezing ... which for some wild/weird reason makes Stella whine when she hears it. She will even wake up from a deep sleep if she hears me sneezing ... and start to whine until I stop.

I am hoping to see the UPS or FedEx truck back up my driveway with new OEM BMW parts for my repair, some time this week. ECS Tuning had free shipping. I've used them a little in the past for a Mini Cooper and liked everything about them, from pricing, customer service and shipping.

I mentioned yesterday that I had noticed what I was thought was less data usage with slower data internet speeds. This morning I found out that was not true. Today I had something running/updating in the background that was clicking off megabytes like dripping water. I couldn't find the culprit. My computer never started acting strange and Bitdefender scans gave my hard drive a clean bill of health after the Russian visitors.

Stella decided to end her morning walk with a path she had not tried before. She felt it was her job not to walk into the yard with Sadie but to head through the field past my property pole and our entry point from the 'alternate' path. The section of field that goes toward the highway is a pretty good hill that was not baled last June. Yet the dead hay/weeds is not much taller than the weeds/hay they cut last June. Still she felt it was her job to check out that area.

The further she went the louder I yelled her name. She finally stopped, stared at the highway and then turned around to head back to me. This is one reason I cannot and will not let her roam the field on her own like I do sometimes with Sadie. It would take only one scent or something curious, for Stella to head to the highway not knowing just how fast those cars and trucks are traveling.

The hounds have adapted to the time change. They are no longer surrounding me at the computer wanting to be fed lunch. The normal routine was easy with it not raining today. They never stay outside long once we are in cooler temps. Heidi takes the exact same path to the front yard.

Stella is ready for her afternoon nap.

Sadie shows no desire to go on a walk. That's good because I always like to wait a while after I feed the bloodhounds before they do any kind of activity. That reduces the chance of bloating.

With all the recent rain it looks like I will have to mow the yard one more time for the last time in 2017.  In the meantime Heidi was looking for the perfect spot that all dogs hunt for.

Then it's the slow trek to the driveway and never the shortest distance to get inside.

Once she finally arrives at the driveway she gets her daily hill climbing in for exercise. I don' see her out in the field walking with use until next spring. She has already written the year off for any kind of exuberant efforts.

As we do with every ice cream container, cottage cheese container or peanut butter jar ... Stella gets first try to clean out some of what's left. Without letting Stella take all that is left I will toss the container or hold it for Sadie to grab with her mouth. She will then letdown, hold the container or jar with per paws and lick it completely clean. I toss them into the recycling bin after that.

Her treat today was Ben&Jerry's ice cream.

I bought Heidi a couple of fleece blankets last night at Walmart. They went straight in the wash machine for cleaning before she used them. She was more than happy to dive into those warm blankets from the dryer, scratching them with her paw to get them just in the right position. Luckily neither bloodhound is into blankets so they didn't try to take ownership.

Nothing exciting happened during the walk this afternoon so I'll let the photos tell the story.

Up on the left side of the blog I have added a link to my Flickr photos. I have over 25,000 on that site as an online backup. The link shows the 975 that I have shared with the public. Most of them are the same photos I have posted here, a few aren't. One thing you will notice is the quality of the photos on Flickr are much better and the original settings from the camera. They do not compress the photos after I upload them. You can check them out here if you want.

The replacement parts for my Z4 have been shipped. I am pretty sure I can tear everything apart and install the new parts in one day. I want to get back on the road with that car.

Things were pretty quiet today here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Spoof Site - Tim Horton's Coffee - RVs

I'm not sure but early this morning, last night to me, I had three tabs open with my blog, facebook and twitter. I refreshed my blog website and my monitor fills up with a screen from my internet provider Exede!!

Strange ... too strange.

It was welcoming me to their internet service and had a button to click labeled 'activate service'. I've been using the service since June 2014 and practically live on the internet daily. My account was already active.

So I called the Exede customer service rep. I am not sure but I swear they work from home and the few times I've called them it sounds like I have woke them up in the middle of the night. Is that possible? They are really some of the best customer service people I have talked to.

She checked things out on her side of the desk and said all was fine. The url I gave her proved to be something that was not an Exede website. I noticed in my traffic reports this morning I had a huge number of visits from everybody's favorite country ... Russia.

It would seem they would keep focused buzzing US Navy ships instead of trying to break into a computer in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. So just to make sure I ran a deep scan on all my computer files with Bitfinder Anti-Virus and Malware scan. The computer was clean.

The hounds were nice enough to let me sleep until 7:55am this morning. I remember shutting down my computer around 3:20am so I had a good night of sleep. We woke up to the sound of rain. Rain that was forecasted to start this afternoon. It's good that I mowed the yard yesterday instead of waiting until this morning.

Of coarse that meant Stella would not go in the yard and decided to "hold it" until the rain stopped and she was awake. Heidi scrambled behind the Yews and Sadie tiptoed out into the yard.

To say the least it was a pretty slow morning but nothing outside the norm of our retirement. I am beginning to think my lifestyle is turning into that of the hounds ... I'm not sure I can keep up this pace.

Stella as usual, is not sure if she really wants to get that wet by going in the field. She decided she didn't have to poop that bad.

Sadie is a lot like Winston was ... nothing bothers her too much. A little rain, but she still gets in the field and will even stay out in the rain on occasion. She was anxious to get back inside the house when I turned to leave.

Stella loves it when it is sunny ... doesn't care for rainy days.

It was at least sunny after their lunch. Heidi made her only appearance of the day. Those red spots have been licked on and chewed on a lot the past two days. I am not sure why since she has only be eating dry kibble. I am almost to the point of fixing her the meat and veggies I buy for myself and taking her off dry dog food. At least that would be one more thing to check off the list of possible causes ... dry dog food additives.

Stella and Sadie came out for only a short time after their lunch but had no interest in going anywhere. With the sunshine out I thought maybe by the afternoon the grounds would be dry enough to take an afternoon walk.

Around 12:45pm the hounds woke up from their nap and rushed to the large window barking. A rare visitor was coming up the driveway. It was the mailman which meant only one thing ... my first bag of Tim Horton's Coffee had arrived.

By 12:55pm I was sipping my first hot cup of the infamous Canadian Coffee. I liked the taste of it and now wish I had a Tim Horton's Cafe and Bake Shop nearby. Having it shipped will have to do.

I didn't tell you what I did while enjoying those two cups of coffee ... For the first time in a very long time I went to Craig's List and other websites that had RVs for sale and looked at what was available. I know most of the crowd that visits my blog these days does not know about my obsession a few years back.

All those posts are from May 2015 on back, about 4 years worth of photos, back and forth thinking, and a lot of different options discussed.

Where I thought it was possible to travel with one bloodhound and two basset hounds last year, I am not sure it is possible with two bloodhounds and one basset hound this year. Both bloodhounds immediately jump out the back when the FJ door is open, plus they take up more room and I wouldn't have room to sleep in bad weather days if I were still tent camping.

The two times I let Stella outside and walked her close to the place we buy dog food, she was skittish, hyper, a little afraid of the traffic noise. That noise would have been no different than a gas stop or a stop at a Rest Area when traveling. She acted like she would bolt if she had the chance.

I am not getting rid of the Toyota FJ so there is not a lot of options as far as trailers. I've gone through all of those options in the past over and over so I will not bore you with the details.

There is just something about this time of year ... every year ... that I have thoughts of hitting the road. It was nice to look though different kinds of trailers and RVs with the same thoughts as I've always had.

Since it was still too wet to walk the field, Heidi refused but the Sadie and Stella were just as excited to go for a ride as they are to eat. So they jumped in the back of the FJ and I grabbed my camera. There was only one problem I found after getting a few miles from home. The camera battery was too low to take photos.

We still took a ride out to the country then finished by driving some streets in town I had never been on since living here so many years. I saw some pretty nice neighborhoods that I never knew existed.

After spending most of the day looking at RVs and Trailers, reading news and sports ... before I knew it the time was past 3:30pm and the hounds were restless. I decided unless water came over the top of my shoes ... we were going on a walk. The sky was beautiful and that morning forecast of thunderstorms by 3:15pm today looked like a totally missed prediction.

Whey they both took off this fast I was sure there must be deer up around that corner. I was already preparing myself for the long walk to find them.

When they both look like this it seems almost certain deer is in the area but today that wasn't the case. They searched, sniffed the air but came up empty today for any deer to chase.

Stella had just stepped into the wooded area when I yelled her name ... she came running. She has always been pretty good coming when called.

Their noses always keep my on my toes, not knowing if they have locked into something they are going to chase. If I were traveling with these two they would be on leashes at all times. For some reason I don't feel that is fair to them.

Well I am heading back to look at RV sites, and I may even visit some forums which I have not done in many many months. Maybe a short day trip is in our future.

The rain is gone and was beautiful here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.