A Little Trip To Tombstone

It is perfect weather this time of year with cold mornings that climb into the 50's by noon and hotter by the afternoons. Sunshine almost every day, not counting the storms last week, storms that we really needed. It will be a few months before Carr Canyon Rd is open again where I can drive the 9,600' climb to the highest peak on the right there. The dogs love it because they can hang out in the backyard for as long as they want without hiding in the shade. Consequently the past few days since my last post I have spent a lot of time out and about the local area with the camera left at home.

It's Friday So Now What?

Today seemed to be identical to Thursday. That happens when you are retired and it happens when you are hermit living outside a small rural town in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. So it's definitely not a bad thing. The hounds don't mind and neither do I. After another late night of reading (~2am) last night while the hounds slept soundly next to me on the couch, we started our Friday about an hour later than normal.

Stella even kept her walk pretty much the same as yesterday, only this time she did not attempt to go down into the gully. With heaps of praise being the focus of my verbal herding, it was one of her best walks in a very long time. She got to do all the exploring she wanted and I didn't feel any frustration like I have with a feeling I was dragging her around the field with words and commands.

I guess it was something I picked up on while reading the book about Hero Dogs. Not only was it good to read that many other people had dog issues just as bad if not worse than Stella's separation anxiety or Sadie's destruction as a puppy, but what they did to either control the problems or train them to be better dogs.

They had trained over 218 dogs to be search and rescue dogs, certified to go worldwide in times of need. Most were labs or golden retrievers with a few border collies but not one was a bloodhound. The breed with the strongest nose of all breeds. I suspect the bloodhound would not pass their agility test that was required. I mean as puppies I have seen the bloodhounds I have had, lose the balance pretty easy and fall over ... just walking, let alone blancing themselves on a moving beam 20' high !!!

Almost all of the dogs they trained over a 24 year period were rescues and it wasn't until the end of the book where the 85-year-old original owner was starting puppy litters to train them in search and rescue at a much earlier age. It's a great story and a good book for any dog lovers out in our blog audience.

With the temps in the 30's it still felt warm this morning, just like Thursday. It will get up to 60° on Saturday but along with that is a 90%-100% chance of thunderstorms. Sounds to me it will be another day of reading books inside, maybe a siesta or a movie. I'm pretty flexible so who knows what might happen.

After our walk this morning, I told Stella "I'm going to the library" and she walked into the bedroom and laid down, waiting for me to close the door. I was tempted to just shut the door to see if she would try to break out but I reverted back to my cord system that I have used every time I leave. She has shown no signs of attempted escapes for the past few months.

The trip to the library was a little disappointing. I can usually find 2-3 new books to read, but not today. I spent extra time looking through the Non-Fiction aisles for other things to read. The books with the "new" label attached to the cover, move fast. If they are there a few days ago, they will not be there today. That is consistent year round, where weather nor time of year does not play a factor.

Yet there is one book that has been sitting on the shelves main display, out in the open for anyone to grab it. Other books written by government people who have retired, part of the deep state, or current political dreamers have come and gone the past few weeks I have made regular trips. This book is still sitting there and I have not seen it move.

Andrew McCabe's new book.  I wonder why?

I ended up checking out a book written in 2018, "The Future of Capitalism" by Paul Collier. With the subtitle "facing the new anxieties", maybe it will give me some reassurance that the idiots of the far-left cannot win in November 2020. Can there be 60 million people stupid enough to think that socialism is better than capitalism?

Since I could not find a second or third book to bring home with me today, I will continue reading the in-depth book about Steve Jobs, written a few years ago, with almost 600 pages of small print.

You can tell that Stella was having fun, prancing through the field back and forth across the path. I could  barely keep up with her this morning after she got past the first turn.

Some of the tv financial experts on the tv business stations are questioning if the "dingbat AOC" is really that stupid when it comes to economics or is she playing with people's heads? I mean some of the things she says makes you wonder since it proves she does not know the difference between "funded" and "tax abatements" ... really hard to believe that she has an Economics degree from an Ivy League school.

I saw this morning where Bernie is refusing the requests of the DNC to run as an Independent. He is filling out the paperwork today to run as a Democrat. It will be interesting to see how all that plays out. I still haven't heard a plan from any one on that side of political fence, about helping the middle class American people. I guess free health care for all, free college for all and open borders are their plans.

For you that are against the wall ... I hate to tell you there is a video online of a wall being completed in New Mexico. The continue to build more walls, not fences, as we speak. Believe me, they do not have to wait on funds to start the wall. It will not matter what the Democratic side of the house issues today. They have been building walls along the border for the past year, will continue to build without delays with funding already on hand.

As far as moving government money around from one department to another. This is NOT a new thing. It isn't a Trump invention either. It has gone on all the time, by different Presidents and is very common in government finance. I know because I spent over 20 years working in government finance and at times pretty high on the food chain.

I've had funding pulled back unexpectedly, I've had new funding dumped on me with instructions to spend it by the end of the fiscal year (September 30th) and as a retiree I sat here watching Obama pull 1.7 BILLION from the Veterans and just so happened to use 1.2 Billion for a new program of his for immigration support in his last year in office. A coincidence in the similar dollar values??? Not a chance. He was the best crook of all.

One thing I did notice during those 20+ years of government accounting, many times there was more than enough funding to get the projects done with a lot more funding sitting on the side in the "just in case" mode. Many times that money was never used or given back to those departments that gave it to you.

Believe me, there are millions and millions of appropriates just sitting around gathering dust and are available, without hurting any department projects. It's not a big deal with Trump moving funding around. Find something else to bitch about.

There really is a small old fence between the field behind the field we walk in. I wonder how long that fencing has been there. Stella was sure deer had been in the area.

The sun was trying it's hardest to shine this morning but it was not going to happen. Five hours later it had given up.

I noticed last night that hair IS growing back on both of her ears where she had scratched them down to bare skin. Like I said the other day, it took only one dose of the Wounded Warrior dog ointment to heal those raw spots.

By the time I returned from the library, Heidi was positive it was time for lunch. She started barking non-stop, then Stella followed up with constant howling. It was only 10am local time, about an hour too early for their lunch. We split the different and they basically got their way. I fed them lunch at 10:30am, justifying by telling myself that this spring it would be 11:30am .... She spent a little time outside but not as long as I would have expected.

She went back to sleeping her afternoon away in the big leather chair while Stella was on the couch. See, nothing changes around here.

I can't think of anything else that will happen important enough to blog about. So once again I will post this as soon as I am finished editing it, instead of waiting until the end of the day.

All is good in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana as we move one day close to Spring !!!

A Solution For Frustration

{Comments section is now available, fixed, not sure how that was closed}  This is one of the finer things of retirement. The freedom of time is something I value more than any of the money I made working. It will be five years this April when I walked out of the door and never looked back. I turned into a 'slacker' from a 'workaholic', possibly adding years to my life. I am on my own schedule, after the hounds approval of course and flexibility is the keyword in all of this. So .... some late night blogging.

We didn't know what to expect this afternoon as we enjoyed temperatures in the mid 40's well past noon. Heidi and Stella checked things out after their lunch, with a short minute trip to the mulch for Heidi and Stella wasn't moving. Once back inside I double checked my 'short' shopping list and decided to make a trip to buy groceries

We were suppose to get snow showers late in the afternoon or possibly rain. A few miles west of town it turned into a light rain. The hounds were fed so I thought the chances were pretty good that Stella would a nap while I was gone.

She will always be shut off in the bedroom with Heidi as her supervisor. That room has the least amount of my possessions that can be destroyed if Stella has one of her anxiety attacks. I can repaint or repair any damage she does to the room ... but room damage has not taken place in over two years.

With her recent escapes by opening the round door knob I continue to tie a tight cord from the doorknob to another on a closet door about 12' away and then just in case she does get that door open wide enough to chew that cord (happened early December) I put a baby gate up outside of the door.

Looking at that face how would you ever guess she is an expert in escaping from a closed room and cannot be trusted if I am gone for any length of time??   LOL

As the afternoon passed I didn't see any signs of snow. For one reason, the temperatures were not dropping enough for it to snow. There wasn't really any kind of wind and only light rain. That canceled the afternoon walk for Stella and I.

I had caught up watching my two shows the DVR taped on Sunday. Nothing on tv was an interest to me. Mahjong? No. ... It seemed like a perfect time for a siesta. It was not quite 5:30pm. A strange time for a normal siesta but like I said, when you are retired anything is possible. Time means nothing.

While the groceries were being moved from the car to the kitchen, Heidi not only relieved herself but explored the edge of the property to make sure all the rain and melting snow had not washed away our bank. (joke) That was about all the aerobic exercise she got today outside.

I admit I lost track of what day it was while I was driving to the store 12 miles away. It all started at a stop light downtown, where I couldn't tell if the normally bright orange 'open' light was on in the window of the Chinese restaurant. That activated the word buffet from my memory and I remembered the buffet is not served on Monday's. So what day was it?

A quick glance to my watch told me it was Monday, 45° and cloudy and my pulse rate was 62 bpm, even with a sheriff pulled along side of me in the right hand lane.  :)

Just because I have all this time on my hands, not working, no meetings to attend anymore, that does not mean the word frustration has been erased from my dictionary. It all started when a car pulled out in front of me as I had just made my left hand turn downtown. This town is loaded with old people and those old people always drive ultra slow, even through town.

I passed her in a legal passing zone just as I was leaving town with the speed limit 35 mph. ... Those same slow ass drivers were waiting for me up ahead and my 12 mile trip to the store seemed like a cross-country drive. It did not stop there ... oh no.

With the forecast that our location would be coming to an end within 48 hours with a winter storm from hell, everybody and their mother was at the Super Walmart Store, the best grocery store available within a 20 mile radius of my house.

Not only do they drive slow, they shop slow. They block aisles while stopping to talk. Some don't know if they are going left or right so they stay in the middle of the aisle, dazed and confused. I only needed a few things, like coffee, eggs, butter, chicken, veggies and fruit. It would have been quicker if I would have shopped and bought one thing from every aisle in the store ... it was that clogged with people and slower than slow.

I might think I am flexible being retired until I am in this situation ... then I'm claustrophobic. It's not that I have to get out of there because walls are closing in ... no ... I have to get out of here to get away from people who irritate the hell out of me.

I don't deal with stupidity well. Never have.

To top it off ... slow cashiers and backed up checkout lines was the icing on the cake. I finally excused myself to the lady behind me and the lady behind her, so they could back up and I could get out of line ... then go through the self checkout.

LOL ... NO !!!!!!

It didn't get better .... I have all my food checked out and sacked with no problem. But the machine would not read my debit card. Finally the lady that works that department when trouble arises came over but she couldn't get my card to work either. Something was wrong with the reader.

Luckily after she tried for the 4th time and was about ready to call someone ... it decided to work, while she did nothing different from the four previous attempts.

I was able to get out of the parking lot without anyone backing into me, pulling out in front of me, all those crazy things that can happen in parking lots. So that was a good thing. Did this mean I had a clear shot home? A short 12 mile drive at 60-65mph ???

Not today.

Oncoming traffic was spaced out just enough that even if I punched the accelerator I still would not have been able to slide in front of someone. Right before my eyes I saw my 12 mile trip was going to take longer than I did driving over. The 'lead' car would be an old beatup pickup truck with a Confederate liscense plate on the front ... how did I know I was screwed on the drive home??  LOL

So I kicked back, knew I was going to go slower than slow, five cars behind the leader (that truck) of the 45mph caravan. Sports talk AM radio saved the day.

It's always an encouraging sign as I pull into the driveway that Stella is not outside waiting for me to pull up the driveway. I know that sounds weird and surely impossible but it did happen right after I first got her in August 2015. She broke out of the house that day because I made the mistake of leaving my screened windows open, the bottom of that window she tore through was 4' off the ground. So the thought of that might happening is always there.

I glance inside the door window as I unlock the door and see the door, the baby gate and cord are all as I left it a couple of hours ago. That's a good thing to see. Some 'short' shopping trip that was. People panic when the news is blasting scare tactics on winter storms.

Don't they know they live in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana where you can count on it being much much better than the rest of the nation will get? We don't have a lot of bad weather anymore.

So I am home. I am happy, The hounds are happy and treated with their grain free bacon flavored dog bone. How could I celebrate surviving a couple of hours of frustration?

I fell off my food discipline while shopping. I anxiously took off the lid to a brand new container of Haagan Dazs Strawberry ice cream and started eating. Damn!!! did that taste good.

I'm blaming those 22grams of sugar for my late afternoon siesta ... yes ... I ate the whole container and then basically passed out a few hours later.

LOL

It turned out to be a successful day in 'the tropics' of  Southern Indiana.

Weirdness Starts The Day

It's nothing really, just a time where I feel somewhat 'weirded out.' It makes me wonder sometimes if this is part of the process of getting older. I don't feel old physically, nor do I think I am old mentally ... I've discussed that somewhere before. Yet, this feeling I've had  so far today (2.5hrs) is something I've felt only in retirement. That might happen only because I am not so busy this time of day where I use to be getting ready for work or at work ... so that's understandable.

It's not a feeling of anxiousness nor paranoia, just strangeness.

I feel warm in my clothes yet the indoor thermometer tells me I shouldn't feel warm, just comfortable. The weather forecast tells me it's going to be another great day but I don't feel that way. Maybe it's a letdown after all the energy and thinking I did the past few days changing the design of the blog. I have nothing to do here. The dishes are done, house is clean, no urge to keep reading the Steve Jobs book. No urge to grocery shop while I need fruit and salmon. I've been hungry for days but for nothing that is in my kitchen.

I couldn't help but try to put this mental puzzle together while on the walk this morning. Was I feeling regret about buying a camera when I have a good one in my hand? No. Do I need to go on a mini-roadtrip, get out of the house more than just 25 miles away? No. Is the simple lifestyle routine getting to me? No.

It may have started within seconds of opening my eyes, and taping my Garmin to see the time. Stella and Heidi were both whining as they normally do when they are awake and ready to get another day started. My Garmin's bright white background, brighter than any nightlight was showing 5:03am ... I got up anyway. I was ready to get up. I wanted to get up with a feeling that I needed to do something. There was nothing I needed to do.

While the hounds inhaled their kibble for breakfast I was making coffee like every morning when I glanced at the clock and it says 6:39am. What ??? I've only been up 10 minutes at the most and it's 6:39am ... how did that happen? So I glance at the Garmin on my wrist and sure enough, it also says it's 6:39am. I misread the time seconds after opening my eyes. It wasn't even close to 5:03am when I glanced at the Garmin.

That is not where the weirdness came from.

That feeling started somewhere during my first cup of coffee. Different day same routine. Nothing needed to get done. The 'Reminder' program Apple gave me, shows nothing is a high priority. My mind is restless. Ah ha .... restless? It's like anything else when I design a blog, drive cross country, research my next car or truck trade, or plan a camping trip (only a few years ago) ... it's the normal excitement of 'the chase' and the big mental 'letdown' after it has been accomplished.

After the blog design is decided upon and finished ... now what? After that car or truck is bought and sitting in the driveway ... now what? After driving 1,800 miles sitting in the middle of nowhere with the most beautiful countryside around ... now what?

It's always the same. So maybe that is the weirdness I feel this morning.

My dad told me soon after his retirement, that he would feel anxious every morning unless he had planned things he needed to do that day. Just knowing he needed to mow the yard (large, acres) would be enough to take away that anxious feeling. Washing the cars? That did it also. Sitting around ... made him anxious. He had to be doing something.

You'll notice the deer decided to follow our return path sometime last night or early morning. Those hoof prints are fresh, within the previous couple of hours?

Normally I would have written about these feelings on my private blog just to log as reference, this weirdness. Still, I said last month that I would going to be more open, transparent on this blog. So here it is. Not a big announcement I'm sure but it is what it is I guess. It all stems from asking myself if this type of feeling is just me or is it something I should expect as normal as I get older.

Anyone out there over 66 years of age ... do you have feelings like this at times? Spaced out? Weird? A little lost?

There is more to this, I just remembered what else ... a feeling of being lost. No plans are nice in retirement, no schedules, but maybe they really are needed in this life of leisure. I do have some plans for this spring but nothing is firm yet and they are really dependent on someone else's health if they happen or not. I can still do it solo.

I also don't mind this simple lifestyle the hounds and I lead. We have for years. I'm content, no worries, no crisis that needs a fix. We just are, day after day. (I have just thought of something I can do today, doing two things in one trip and I'll add photos and blog about it later.)

Right now I feel distracted again, as usual. I have forgotten some things I wanted to write about the 'weird feeling' I've had this morning. In fact my mind is just blank about that right now.

For the first time in years, I have not had the urge to move west. It's January and that urge usually turns into obsessive searching of real estate in Arizona or New Mexico. Not this year. Of course the weather has been fantastic, around normal averages, where we have not dipped into the 20's too many days and have never been in the single digits this year. Maybe that urge to move doesn't happen until it's 20° or lower?

As I move through this post I have realized that all I need to get rid of this feeling is to DO SOMETHING !!!!

Get out of the house, take my camera with me, go for a drive out in the country in the local area ... country is all around me ... with gravel roads, very little traffic on some highways and many paved country roads to choose from that go in all directions.

So already, before finishing this post I have multiple ideas to choose from. Those options were not even a thought a few hours ago. It reminds me of the time now, when I would feel like this in the past, I would take my Z4 out for a drive of 50-60 miles. If the weather was good the top would be down if it was like today the heater would be on.

Those kind of trips decreased to almost nothing last summer for some strange reason. The spring or summer day would be beautiful and I didn't want to drive it. That is one of the reasons I sold it. All it did was sit here month after month, not being driven.

Based on the number of times I was driving it in 2018, I wasn't going to put more than 850 miles on it for the year. The times I did drive it I was beginning to feel that car would either put me in jail or kill me. Yes, speeding was a factor. Not a few miles over the limit ... but enough where they probably would have taken the keys away once they caught me.  :) It was hard not to drive the car the way it was designed to be driven.

I didn't like the color anyway. If I ever buy another, it will be the dark gray color, is it called "slate gray?" (I hate the way that looks with the question mark inside the quotation mark)

In the 'old days' of many years ago, I would have grabbed my tent, sleeping bag and some food ... then went camping locally out in the freezing weather for a few days. That always clears the mind. Sure I could do that now with the hounds but it's not fair to them to make them stay outside in cold weather, freezing weather just because I have a bug up my ass to go camping. That will only stay as a good memory.

What animal would be this tall to have Stella so interested????

No, I think what I have planned for this morning is going to be a good idea. An enjoyable idea. I'll take off within minutes of publishing this post. I'll post photos and a short blog later this afternoon or early tonight. I have an IU basketball game to watch at 7pm, so the post will take place in the late afternoon unless I schedule it for a later time.

Speaking of blog posts ... with the plan I set for this blog almost a month ago ... there will be occasional posts that is nothing but content. There will not be any photos while I ramble on those posts. I had one the other day and a few readers let me know they liked and wanted photos. Well in the story telling or rambling posts where I have to get something on paper and out of my mind ... photos aren't going to happen in those.

I also like the way the blog looks. I was able to figure out myself how to change the code that would change the colors of the fonts, the size of the fonts, different colors for links, post titles, etc. I did find out that I was wrong about the thumbnail size on the front page. Those small photos are 400x400 and will automatically adjust the height accordingly.

I could spend most of the day trying to figure out how to make them all 400x400 no matter what size they are when I upload them. Not today ... I want to get out of the house and away from this computer. The sun is out and it's not even 10am yet. That's a good thing.

My data leak is also mysterious. I spent weeks burning over a gig per day as I spent most of the day on the computer looking through WordPress themes, changing designs plus my normal internet surfing. Yesterday after seven straight hours I had only burned 358Mb of data.

That is extremely low for what I was doing. Almost half the amount I had last week after the same amount of time. What happened? Who or what was using my data? I looked through my Activity Monitor and found nothing to be soaking up data. Automatic updates were turned off years ago.

Well I hate to end this so abruptly but I have to get out of here ... like right now.

It's another good morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.