Mood Swings Are Interesting

They come and go unexplained, the mood swings. At least now I can recognized them and hop on for the ride. They don't last long (24-36hrs) and they are not caused by the amount of sleep I get or lack of. The hounds don't upset me to start down that path. TV news isn't watched but I'd love to use that as an excuse. Food? Diet? ... maybe.

So how can one live alone, non social, active mentally and at times physically, go off the rails?

Many years ago I'd be mad the next morning after any one of my teams had lost a basketball game, a baseball game or football. Not anymore as I view it just as a game and I don't have anything to do with the outcome sitting on the couch 8' away. The players have to decide how bad they want to win and performance is key. So ballgame results are not a reason either.

I blame my mother. She was just like this. She could be Mother Theresa one minute and by the afternoon she was Bobby Knight for no apparent reason. For those that don't know who Bobby is, google his name. She fought her disease with pharmaceutical, prescribed meds, and in a way that even made things worse. Let's just say I learned my anger issues from one of the best teachers of all time.

I was never into that prescribed meds thing. Even after my car wreck in March 2010. I left the emergency room that night (6pm) with a had full of prescriptions for more meds than I ever wanted and never asked for ... I had my chance to jump on the opioid addiction train. I had all the famous names right there in my hand and didn't take one of them.

Over the years I have tried many things to combat mood swings and honestly, no matter what the 'experts' say or recommend ... they don't work. This 'thing' is buried deep in the DNA files and just going out running for 20 minutes, riding a bike for an hour or even meditating for 20 minutes twice per day ... they might take the edge off but they don't squash naturally born mood swings.

You probably could tell something was wrong after you read the last two or three posts I had written or through the comment section where I replied. Internally I had declared war on everybody, everything and even the electronics that only sit here. I was on the out of control train and no way to stop it.

No, self talk does not help either.

I had solid sleep last night, the normal 5-6 hours worth. By the time I had made coffee this morning I could tell the 'mental war' was over. I felt great and already knew what my plans were for the day.

In a few minutes, Stella and I will take our daily morning walk in 19° weather. Then something different after that. Instead of downloading photos, editing them and putting a blog post together, the hounds and I are climbing in the Mini for a tour around the local area with cameras (Canon & Nikon) in hand. We are going for a ride and will hopefully grab some nice pictures to blog about later.

Sorry for the lack of pictures tucked in neatly between paragraphs but I thought this type of post should be only words that were quick and easy to read. I'm only adding a feature image so the columns on my blog front page line up right.

Believe me, it's much better this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Canon G9 X Fine Tuned Finally

Canon G9 X No Flash

With the pictures from Stella's Sunday afternoon walk I was pretty sure I had made the corrections to the settings. I also think I inadvertently pushed a small icon when I was on the monitor on back of the camera, changing AF to MF and not knowing it Sunday morning.

Canon G9 X w/Flash

I took these during the commercials of the NFL game. I can say with this picture and the next picture that the Canon G9 X takes better pictures inside at night as long as the flash is used, than the iPhone 8+ which does a great job.

Canon G9 X w/Flash

That white spec on her top of her nose is dried yogurt, from licking out the empty container.

iPhone 8+ No Flash

This is my normal hound pictures from the couch, no flash with the iPhone 8+.

Nikon D3200 w/Flash

Out of curiosity I did something I never do ... I took a 'couch picture' with the Nikon D3200 with the flash. Heidi still wears the dried yogurt on top of her nose.

We started our walk this morning about 45 minutes later than normal. It wasn't the weather nor the hounds, I woke up about an hour later than normal. We don't start the day until I have at least one cup of coffee, hopefully two. So this morning was going to be a big test to see if I corrected the wrong unseen settings from Sunday morning. Sunday afternoon and night looked like I had fixed the problem. The lighting was a little different when you wait an hour before taking the walk, but this morning was slightly overcast. That presented another good test.

I think you will see the camera settings are where they should be. I did not make any editing changes to any of the photos.

You will see toward the end of this post just how warm it was this morning. No down parka was needed, nor any gloves. Stella was happy to get out in front on the walk.

A little off topic before we start. I've been talking to WordPress for the past three days about the problem with their .com site dumping 700-800Mb of data unexpectedly while I have either added photos, put the blog post together or was proof reading it from the blog url. Finally about midnight last night they finally decided to try something, like digging into the problem to see what was going on. I also sent them a screen shot from Google Data Saver showing wordpress .com in a large lead in the list of websites and how much data they were using. As I have said before, paying for only 20Gb per month I keep an eye out on my data use all all times. The screen is on my second monitor and open anytime my computer is on.

So last night they wanted me to move to the 'old' Wordpress Dashboard that all bloggers have ... "wp-admin/. That makes writing this post a little different. I will not be able to see until I post this, if the line spacing is correct. I don't see anywhere on this screen where I can "preview" ... so I might have to finish it, then save it first and access the preview function that way. {FOUND IT}

Rain is in the forecast by this afternoon with winds in the 20mph-30mph range. Hard to believe we will get more rain since the field is still very saturated with unground water. As we climb a few feet in elevation and get closer to the top or the back of the field, the path gets wetter. Water rises up along the sides of my boots with each step. How will that be after today's rain, IF it shows up. I always say if you want rain or snow I just have to do one of two things ... wash my car ... or mop my kitchen floor. I mopped the floor last night. It will be nice and clean for the first hound paw prints this afternoon or tonight. I guess I could keep a towel outside to wipe their paws before they come in ... sounds like a good idea.

I also saw something on my camera's monitor that is used without a viewfinder to take the pictures. The status bar turns yellow after a certain amount of zoom, then a light blue when it's maxed out. Yesterday morning I could not even move that bar code to the far right, but that setting must have cleared itself when I took the camera back to it's 'default' settings. I did do a couple of pictures in this post with the yellow and light blue colors showing as I zoomed in on Stella. See if you can find them.

It's good to see she has a thick winter coat but more important that she has some weight on her. Two years ago in February she had lost almost 20 pounds. Blood work and different vets could not find any health issues that would cause that weight loss over a six month period. It was in February 2017 I changed dog food brands and haven't changed their food since.

She followed the small narrow deer path into the edge of the woods. Another six to ten feet in, there is a huge drop off that can barely be walked ... falling down into the gully is a real possibility.

I did not change anything editing these because really they looked just like I was seeing ... a dark overcast sky. This picture looks drab but I'd say it's 99% accurate.

She kept me on my toes this morning. She ignored me as much as possible. She did only what she wanted to do. Let's just say we had many 'discussions' on this walk ... but she would just wag her tail and take off in a slow trot, letting me know that I was just along for the ride, and she was making all the decisions today.  LOL

Yes, I should have made this picture lighter but I wanted to keep all the pictures the same to continue my test ...

Almost to the backyard, looking east back into the wooded area. Again I could have brightened this picture up but didn't. I don't know what those to white spots are in the lower right area. I just noticed them while I was typing this sentence. They might be from the house that is located on the opposite side of the gully, tucked in the woods.

That was the real temperature at 8:55am this morning ... in January?? in the Midwest??? ... I'll take it

I followed the steps on the Apple website yesterday to take a screen shot with my watch but all that did was reboot the watch. So this morning I took the best picture I could with the camera, within a minute after we finished the walk. I can choose the design and apps I want on the watch face. There are many different watch faces to choose from. All the adjustments are done on the iPhone and are transferred to the watch in less than a minute. Basically what I have there is all I want. Starting in the upper left and going clockwise ... that BPM translates to the reading "Now", Time and Day of course, lower left is the actual temperature with the range for today, middle is my workout app, with me taping that gives me over 10 different types, ranging from walking inside, outside, riding a bicycle inside or outside, swimming, running etc and that "54" is what percentage of the watch battery is left.

I will write a post reviewing the Apple Watch soon. I will say it does more than I expected and again, one of if not the best Apple product I have ever bought in the last 10 years.

As I glance over at my Activity Monitor I do NOT see a big 'data dump'. For three days in a row, all around 10am, with me on the 'newer' blog dashboard, I'd lose 800Mb within minutes. It could have been more had I not closed Google Chrome and the one time I tried it with Firefox.

About the time I thought I was finished with football games until next weekend, I just remembered tonight is the College Football Championship game. Since that is played on the west coast, kickoff probably won't be until 9:20pm local time. They need 20 minutes of commercials before they can start the game. I'm tired of too many commercials in ALL sports that I watch on tv. But, they pay the bills as they say.

Okay ... I can't think of anything else I wanted to say. I think I am pretty well set with the camera settings. I'll do a little editing when needed, from now on. Thanks for hanging with me through some bad photos and giving me your feedback on what you were seeing on your side of the computer. It was helpful.

I just found the 'Preview' button ...

Warm, windy and gray skies this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Lake Greenwood

As I pulled into the parking lot of the marina I had an unexpected welcoming party. They totally caught me off guard as the two adults and one fawn walked slowly in front of my car. I forgot I had my glasses on. I never take photos with my glasses on. I didn't know whether to grab the iPhone or the Nikon D3200 that I had brought with me. Luckily they were not afraid of me nor were they in a hurry ... I still acted fast, too fast so I could catch them on camera before they ran away.

I grabbed the Nikon, while forgetting to roll down the passenger side window. The window was dirty but not bad photos considering I was rushing around, a little panic, excited and my ballcap bill in the way when I tried to use the viewfinder.

I wasn't able to catch the three of them with one photo but I did catch the last two.

They stood and watched as I drove slowly away to park my car in a vacant parking lot.

One last glance to see who and what I am. Stella and Heidi would have loved this. It's one reason I never bring them down to this area. These mule deer are very common at all hours of the day or night. They fear nothing.

By the time I parked my car down by the boat ramp, walked across the parking lot and up to the restrooms (locked), they were within arms reach it seemed as I glanced out from behind the building.

They finally realized I was standing there taking photos of them and took off

Some of you have seen photos of this lake before. I've taken photos here and posted pictures on my other blog in May 2015. Click here to see more photos of the lake and area in Spring.  I also came back in October 2016 to take more photos. You will have to scroll much lower in the article to see the fall colors surrounding the lake. Click here for that article.

Today all the rental boats, canoes, kayaks are put away for the winter. Offices are locked and basically I had the whole 800 acre lake to myself. It is a man-made lake, surrounded by 108 square miles of some of the prettiest land in Southern Indiana.

At 38° there were a few still around but it was totally silent, no cars, no people, no traffic, no jet noise ... nothing ... just quiet.

This is my poor attempt at a panoramic photo moving from right to left in the next four photos.

That land is full of campgrounds, mostly tent camping. There are buildings for cookouts and if you have 4-wheel or all-wheel drive you can take single track dirt/gravel roads back into those woods as deep as you want to camp.

When I was writing the post this morning I knew I was going to have to go to the grocery store for fruit and almonds if nothing else. It dawned on me that if I went a different direction not only could I shop but also visit Lake Greenwood and take some photos. I've never been down there in the month of January before.

One thing that is very nice about this facility, is that it is semi-private. Unless you have a government employee badge or a military ID card (active or retired), you will not get inside the 108 square miles. I might be wrong on that ... it changes depending what the security level is, so at times a government employee or military personnel can bring civilians on base. As far as coming alone, not going to happen without a government ID.

This government facility is the 3rd largest Naval installation in the world ... not the USA. Yet, there isn't a naval ship anchored anywhere near this land locked base. In fact, five years ago it had less than 80 active duty military personnel out of 6,000 - 8,000 employees.

Over the past 50 years it has evolved from being the largest bomb producer in the Viet Nam War, to high-tech development for all branches of service, ships or aircraft. Only government employees or government contractors work at this facility.

So you are probably asking yourself the same question I asked myself before leaving this morning ... would this facility be open during the current government shutdown? I thought the grocery store might be closed but the lake area would be accessible. I'd take that chance.

As I stopped at the gate to show my ID card, to my surprise, the security officer told me the base was not closed. In fact this facility for some reason was not affected by the government shutdown that is currently going on. I remember when I worked here in 2013 I was sent home between 10-14 days during a shutdown. (can't remember) But not now??? Interesting.

I admit I did a little editing to make the sky bluer and that automatically helped with the color of the water in the panoramic photos. Otherwise you wouldn't see much color, even with the sunshine.

I've sailed, paddled a canoe and a kayak on this lake for as far as the eye can see ... then further. The shelter is nice for cook-outs and it's always quiet due to the accessibility or lack there of, to the general public.

It was nice to get out on such a bright sunny day. No signs that Stella attempted any escapes today while I was gone. Heidi must have kept a tight leash on Stella and well under control.  :)

I felt much better when I got back. It's a nice drive to and from. Perfect weather for the month of January. While the hounds slept their afternoon away after they ate lunch, I answered some emails, replied to comments, added a border around all the images and listened to an old favorite band of mine ... Jethro Tull.  LOL ... I know.

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

Heidi Goes In Field Stella Escapes

It is not often I have enough to say and enough photos to put a blog post together 24 hours before it's published. This will be one of those rare posts and it all happened because of the shocking "historic event" of Heidi taking a walk with Stella and I in the field yesterday afternoon. I was so curious that I scrolled through her photos album and found out the last walk she took in the field was April 20, 2018 ... last spring.

She did stop two different times before she put a paw in the field so there were times she could have changed her mind and went the other way toward the house, but Thursday afternoon she didn't. After sniffing the air toward the field while standing in the middle of the backyard, she walked onto the path around Stella and led the way.

It was a beautiful 55° when we took off. Normally I would let her walk at her own pace and most of those times she would never finish the walk with us. She would spend time wandering in the front part of the field and would be in the yard by the time the bloodhounds and I would return. Not Thursday. I told her I'd wait for her to catch up and she kept walking.

Which camera took this flower photo? The Nikon D3200 or the Canon SX530?

Don't misunderstand Heidi's abilities to walk in the field and track scent. She probably had the second best nose in the house of four hounds at one time. Her specialty is flushing out rabbits. That is what any basset hound is made to do, flush out rabbits from heavy brush. Sadie had the best nose, then Heidi, Winston and Stella in that order.

So she does like taking her time on her field walks and checking things out with her nose.

With the weather being fantastic in the late afternoon I was in no hurry to finish the walk. There wasn't a sign or a bite from a mosquito anywhere, the winds were cool, no humidity and sunny. Perfect weather.

Normally at this point I would have kept walking and she would had veered off to the right toward the woods to snoop around but she kept walking the path and I stood there to wait on her.

I might have been waiting but her nose had found something interesting to check on further.

By this time Stella was rounding the first turn. I wanted to keep her within view today since Heidi and I would be walking further back.

So I have one hound in front of me and another hound behind me, both walking different paces.

Heidi jumped into a galloping trot to catch Stella, moving right past me without a wave.

I zoomed in to get this photo and was still surprised that both hounds were walking close to the same pace. In fact Heidi might have been walking faster than any of us.

Still with a good #2 nose, there are plenty of times she would have to stop and double check what her nose was telling her brain.

That meat at times Heidi and I would fall far behind Stella.

Both cruizin' up the path that runs parallel to the back edge of the field.

Interesting how both hounds make the left turn on their own as they follow the worn path.

At first I thought Stella was going to lead Heidi out to the overgrown ATV path. I wasn't going to stop them UNLESS they both headed toward the woods north of us.

This was the most 'nose exercise' I had seen Heidi get in a long time. It was like she was in a trance.

For a while I was beginning to wonder if she was lost and couldn't see that I was left of her too far to reach but close enough she would hear me calling her name. She kept walking straight ahead as if she heard nothing.

I was coming to a critical area ... I couldn't see Heidi ... you can barely see her in the photo below. This is why basset hounds have white tails on the end ... so they can be seen in fields when hunting. (true fact)

And ... Stella was getting too far ahead of me. I had no doubt that she would take this chance to wander over to the neighbors house. She had been looking in that direction for days, raising her nose to sniff that direction. There was something over there she needed to see or eat.

When I turned back toward Heidi and knew that Stella was going to take off on me, I knew it would be easier to catch Heidi later after I corralled Stella, who wasn't wearing her collar. You can barely see Heidi in the center of the photo.

I looked up ahead and didn't see Stella anywhere, even with the zoom lens.

I looked back toward Heidi and thought I saw something white moving but wasn't for sure.

Once she popped into view ... I took off running after Stella.

I guessed right. Stella had stopped to decide if she was going to cross the hidden ditch in front of her between the field and their yard ... or ...

let me know she was hearing me call her name and saying 'no' ... she kind of flinched trying to decide which way to go.

She decided she would come back to where she was hearing her named called. That was another surprise of the day.

With Stella just a few steps behind me, I turned to look for Heidi. I would walk up the return path toward her direction knowing I would eventually run into her.

But she had been running to catch me. Within a few steps I saw her running through the tall grass, almost hopping to get a higher vantage point as she ran.

Once she saw me she slowed to a normal walking pace as if nothing was happening, everything was normal.

She walked right by Stella, who was looking as if she wanted to go back to the neighbors yard.

It has been a long time since Heidi had to wait on us to finish the walk in the field.

Needless to say, after all of that exercise it didn't take long for her to jump up on the couch with the sunshine coming in the windows from the west for an early evening or late afternoon nap.

Stella was asleep just as fast, with probable dreams of getting next door without being caught.

I would rank this walk of Heidi's right up there with the times that Sadie and Stella would find deer to chase. Quite a surprise, exciting and somewhat shocking.

Some rain today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.