It might have started a few minutes or seconds before I opened my eyes this morning but I could tell as soon as they were, my brain was in warp speed mode. Thoughts were coming so fast I couldn't write them down fast enough, even if I had pen and paper next to the bed. So you might want to buckle up on this one. It's Friday and it feels like old times, where I feel just a little off center leaning in the direction of insanity.
Stella started her walk again this morning with some stretching ... better known as scratching.
See this photo? It's times like these I'd like a macro lens. I remember though the times when I first bought the Nikon D3200 that had two lenses in the package, an 18-55mm and the 55-200mm ... I needed both ranges and didn't want to carry and change lens while walking the hounds. There is a solution though and a surprise later for that close-up shot.Stella wasn't going to wait for me this morning ... she had other plans ... I would find out that I would have a lot of verbal herding to do this morning. I'll let the photos explain the walk as I get back to my brain cell activity I talked about. Four hours later that scrambling inside my head is still going on. Luckily the sun is out until noon, when it will start raining for the rest of the day and night.Unless you are a sports fan, you will not understand what I am about to say. It dawned on me that my new blog design had turned into the school colors of my college's biggest rival and a team that I cannot stand. Yes, the word 'hatred' is used without guilt, or apologies. I'll not even mention the name of that piece of shit school ... let's just say the colors hit my thought process before my first cup of coffee .... DO I CHANGED THE BLOG DESIGN AND COLORS AGAIN ?????? :) ... just because of the hatred rival?I really like my blog the way it is ... I mean I really like it ... until I see all of those white backgrounds on sports and news websites. Hmmmmm ... more thinking is needed ... but I'm busy today.I mentioned the other day I had decided after a lot of research that I did not need the Apple Watch Series 4 even with the new features of EKG reading and a fall detection program ... both proven by science and doctors to be very accurate. Both features would be very valuable to a single old man, with two hounds needing attention IF something were to happen to him unexpectedly.
Those two features overwhelmed the early morning thoughts of the blog colors. In fact, if not for the morning walk with Stella and putting this blog post together for a regular morning publishing, I MAY HAVE been already in the Best Buy parking lot waiting for them to open at 10am so I could buy the watch.Add to those two features, other skeptical young techies have been writing positive reviews, very positive in fact ... after they have wore the watch for two weeks or a month. They were all sold on it, claiming it was worth the cost even if you didn't buy the cellular model. I have one reader that bought her's last year, the Series 3. She said she needs it for heart alerts. She has given me a lot of data, good and bad, over the past year.
Personally even at 66 years of age and fairly healthy I never see myself getting extremely ill that surgery or hospital stays are needed. I don't see myself falling down where I am incapacitated, where 911 would be called automatically. I see myself living into my 90's whether I want to or not. So why do I need those two features the watch has???There was the only time, and sober, while on the phone around 1990, where I passed out while standing talking on the phone. JUST LIKE THAT ... I was out. If it had not been for a friend in the house watching a ballgame I am not sure I would have revived myself. A trip to the emergency room and additional tests proved nothing was wrong. But ... it did happen, in a split second.With a family history of heart problems, I have always had that in back of my mind. Not to where it is constant nor do I ever worry about it. Let's just say I am "aware" what could happen. So for most of my last 45 years I have watched my diet, spending many years as a strict vegetarian. I've always had plenty of physical sports activity until these past 10 years. I have a very low resting heart rate today ... but in 1988 my EKG was off after getting a physical for work.
In fact it was so far off the grid that I was called to see a doctor that put me on the 18 minute treadmill test. He told me over the phone that I wasn't going anywhere until I took that treadmill test.
Luckily I maxed it out and during those 18 minutes my heart rate never got above 70% of the capacity. YET ... at that time I was riding a bicycle 5-6 days per week with a 100 mile ride every weekend and 40-50 mile rides after work during the week.
Now those bicycles are leaning against the wall collecting dust and I'm 35 pounds heavier than I was then.So I am aware that ANYTHING CAN HAPPEN AT ANY TIME !!! We don't know.It would be nice to know that if something did, the automatic phone calls would be made, I could get medical emergency care, friends would be automatically called based on the SOS Apple program in my iPhone with the phone numbers I've listed ... and the hounds would be taken care of. That is the most important thing to me ... if something happens to me, Stella and Heidi NEED to be taken care of.
This Apple watch would be like an insurance policy for me ... AND ... an addition to the emergency plan I have in place.>So we will see what happens with that ... but I will say, the thought of buying that watch for medical emergency reasons is stronger than ever today.Yesterday's trip to Lake Greenwood proved to me I NEED TO GET OUT MORE and take photos. Or even take drives just to enjoy the beautiful country that surrounds me. This location is taken for granted by me too much. I have lived here longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life. That includes on Whidbey Island, NW of Seattle and across the street from the Pacific Ocean in Carlsbad California ... on Carlsbad Blvd.I did some changes to the blog yesterday with the help of WordPress Chat and a fellow blogger/reader/friend. They gave me the code I needed to put a border around my images. Does that help the images stand out more with the dark background?
I played with the picture size on the front page late last night, trying to make them the same size so all of those posts would line up evenly. I realized an easier fix for that. Make the feature photos ONLY taken from my regular camera photos ... no photos that were taken with the iPhone and no photos that I have cropped should be a feature photo.I wanted to keep the land dark in this photo for a contrast to the beautiful morning sky.Fresh new deer tracks right on the path again today ... that put Stella's nose in overdrive ... and me increasing my 'verbal herding.With all of this 'great' weather the past December and now into January, I couldn't resist taking a look at the month ahead. I was somewhat surprised that this weather will continue. Meaning, in the 20's at night to the high 30's or low 40's as high temps during the daytime for the rest of January.
There were some snow icons showing the last two weeks of January but nothing predicted more than POINT 2 of an inch. That is roughly 3/16" of snow ... barely ground cover !!!!!
I have yet to wear any thermal underwear this year, but I do wear a thermal shirt and lined jeans almost every day. The house is also feeling almost too warm at 65° to 68°. Will I ever need that nice pair of Carhartt Coveralls my friend sent me as a free gift??So what did I do this morning to kind of head off that urge to change anything on the blog????
I changed the background of my browser and Apple screen back to the 'light mode' ... LOL Then I turned on Google Chrome for my browser today, maybe longer. Yet I had to add the search engine DuckDuckGo to Google Chrome since it wasn't listed as a search engine choice, just to piss them off and make me feel better with some kind of security ... I LOVE that search engine!!!Don't worry ... I like the way the blog looks enough that no changes will be made.Well this post is about to be published. I have about a 45 minute drive from the driveway to the Best Buy front door, with some added heavy traffic on a Friday. I'll get in and out of that mess as fast as possible. I need to get back home before the rains start ... just to make sure that Stella is okay. Heidi can only babysit Stella for so long. :)If you start your daily exercise with scratching why not end your daily exercise with scratching. It's just like stretching isn't it??? Is it just a habit with her since it takes place in the exact spots each day???
For those that are interested in cameras or the Apple Watch ... I will be writing reviews on each within the next few weeks or a month.
Brain cells ... still very active ... perfect time to take a drive so I can think.
Good times here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana today.
