Will The Hounds Ride Again?

I knew the job would be a long one for a couple of reasons. The last time I "detailed" my FJ was a year ago August. Even with the hounds taking short local rides in the FJ to stores, DQ, buy dog food, etc ... I knew there was going to be a TON of hound hair hidden in every nook and cranny in the back.

As I pulled the cargo area rubber mat out, my fears were confirmed. Combine the amount of hound hair, dried drool in places you could not imagine, spilled coffee and one spilled vanilla milk shake from a long time ago ... with my "everything has to be clean" mentality ... it was a long long day.

Before I get started with that story I have to add a great sunset from our walk on Monday night. Even Sadie and Stella were impressed enough to stop and look when I took the photo.

After a late night of MLB playoff games, we were still up pretty early Tuesday morning. Sadie thought at first we could fit a walk in before anything but she came trotting to the house when I called her. Stella was already waiting at the door so she could go back inside and finish her morning nap.

While pulling the FJ out into the drive, getting the electrical 100' extension cord plugged into my vacuum, I let the hounds roam the field. I knew that would not last long but I had a plan B for Stella so she could stay outside without roaming off while I worked on the FJ.

With that look at me, plus taking her sweet time getting back to the yard when I called her ... I pulled out the 80' tether that I anchor in the field and connected it to Stella's collar. It had been a long time since she was tethered but she didn't mind it. Plus she could stay outside on a beautiful day while I cleaned and washed the FJ.

I decided to clean the inside before washing it. I figured it would be a good way to get the hard part done first. I started in the back with a vacuum, a rubber dog hair tool that was suppose to collect the dog hair and get it off the felt material the hair had attached to. Along with that I had a pail of warm water and detergent so I could clean the hard rubber windows sills, dashboard, and inside of the windows where the dried drool was along with nose smudges on the windows.

It was a slow process because once that hair from the hounds attaches to any kind of surface it's hard to get off. The attachment on my Oreck vacuum worked great but there were a few times that dog hair removal tool I had bought a long time ago, worked like magic in removing the dog hair from the surface so it would be vacuum.

I spent 3 HOURS just doing the inside !!!!

It took me longer than I thought it would to wash and dry the outside, along with cleaning the windows inside and out plus all of the door jams. By the time I got through it had taken a total of 5 hours to clean the inside and outside of the FJ.

The more I cleaned the more I started wondering if the hounds would ever be allowed to ride again. Granted it had been 14 months since I last cleaned it with detail and I know I could clean it more frequently but even when I did that years ago ... it still took just as long and there was just as much hound hair, drool, and nose smudges on the windows.

It was as clean as any car or truck you would see on a car lot for sale. Later that night I felt all of that bending, wiping, reaching under the seats, under the dash on the floor along with going up and down a step ladder so I could wash and dry the top.

I was sore and tired but the hounds did not have their walk yet for the day so off we went, with me having the retractable leash on Stella.

Today was a different story, even after staying up past 3am to watch the Cubs/Giants game in San Francisco which went 13 innings. We got up fairly early and had that walk in before lunch. We went at the hounds pace, no leashes just roaming.

Stella started to sprint toward me and Sadie but stopped immediately when she found something of interest. She gets distracted easily.

I hope this shows how nice the day was. It's been this way for weeks and about the time I think it's amazing ... my local tv weather shows me it's suppose to be nice this time of year and all the temperatures are close to the high and low averages.

Heidi has been feeling a little more active lately. She goes out by herself a lot and sits in the sunshine and then comes to the door when she has had enough. She is barking again when she wants something or when we get back from the walk.

Yesterday while on a tether, which this photo does not show, Stella walked out in the middle of the field, laid down and slept most of the afternoon in the sunshine. This afternoon without the tether she found another spot to lay in while I moved some of the cut giant ragweed into our burn pile.

While I continued to get as much of the cut ragweed picked up and put onto the pile, both bloodhounds were slowly sneaking further and further away. Sadie saw me. Stella ignored me. Once everything was put back into the shed, I walked out toward them expecting to go all the way to them to get them to come back with me but Sadie started running toward me and then Stella followed her, so I only had to walk about halfway to them.

For a change of pace I opened up Firefox as a browser late last night and downloaded the latest updates since last April. It has improved so much I have made it my default browser for the time being. I am always going back and forth between Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox. I am finding Firefox is much faster than before, it is loading some websites where I have a user name and password where last spring the sites would not open and it will work with LastPass, my password protection program, where in the past they didn't get along.

I think it might use more data than Google Chrome does and that will be a factor if I continue to use Firefox. Data is key to me.

Speaking of data, being a long time DirecTv customer who was bought out by AT&T I have been getting bombarded with mail offers, email offers to come back to AT&T for my wireless service along with bundling with Directv for some pretty big discounts. They advertise $650 credit which I assumed they would also pay my penalty fee for breaking a Verizon contract.

But that $650 was only a tease ... it is spread out over 30 months of credits for the new phone I would have to buy because Verizon iPhones can't be used on AT&T service. Besides all the money it would cost me to switch from Verizon and Exede to AT&T for UNLIMITED DATA on my phones and computers ... the speed is a factor. With Exede my download speeds are usually 12-19Mbps and most of the time above 15Mbps. AT&T says they will give me "up to 6Mbps" depending on strength of signal.

After googling "AT&T Wireless Reviews" .... I find unhappy customers all over the place and a lot of the complaints are the same ones I had with AT&T over 2 years ago when I made the switch to Verizon after 15 years with AT&T.

It might cost more but I'll stick with Directv, Excede Satellite Internet and Verizon for my phone. It will be interesting these next few years as AT&T gets rid of Directv DISHES and all their tv will be streamed over the internet with unlimited data. Of course it will start with cities and urban areas before it ever reaches us out here in 'the tropics' .... By that time I will probably have other tv options where I can still see all my sports without using Directv satellite dish and not be forced to switch to AT&T.

That's all for today. The hounds are in a deep sleep but will probably be able to wake up when I ask them if they want to go for a walk between the two baseball games tonight.

Fall weather is beautiful here in "the tropics" of Southern Indiana.

One last note about that "will the hounds ride again"???  As usual, today Heidi was in the passenger front seat as she and I took our trip to the local recycling center while Sadie and Stella stay home to watch the house. That's the normal routine for the recycling trip, so I will guess they probably will ride in the FJ again.

I Am An IDIOT !!!!

Okay ... here's the deal. It will not hurt my feelings if you admit it here on the blog, that you have been laughing to the point of almost falling down for the past 12-24 hours after you read me telling you about the $1 iPhone SE (new) that I discussed in my post last night.

Really, it has taken me this long to write this post because I haven't been able to stop laughing about it even after driving the 25 miles home with my new iPhone. It's a funny story that I will describe and it also might help someone getting ready to upgrade their phone.

I knew when I saw these two leaves hanging in midair that my day was going to be an interesting one. I just didn't realize at the time, the $1 iPhone was going to be the answer to the weirdness today.

Before I get started on the phone story, I'll narrate our late afternoon walk but it is still 90° as I write this at 7:10pm. We finished this walk about 10-15 minutes ago.

I am seeing more and more new purple flowers blooming throughout the field. They are everywhere. I have no idea what they are but they look nice.

Sadie and Stella didn't care about the flowers or the heat, all they knew, was they were on their daily walk and that was all that mattered.

While I was taking photos of flowers and the leaves that had turned colors, both of them ran pretty far away from me. They were happy to be outside today after I left them in the house for a little over 3 hours while I was at Best Buy picking up an iPhone.

For some reason today, Stella decided she would join us without any veering away from us nor hanging way back, ignoring my calls. That is always a good walk when that happens.

Lots of new spots for Sadie to check out ... nice fresh, some sort of natural organic nutrition. That's as far as I will go on what they were eating.

Stella trots along the back edge of the field, near both of us.

But she has that "I'm hot" look on her face, so I was pretty sure she would be following me all the way back to the house today.

Stella was the same way ... not many stops on the way home.

For those that read my post Sunday (yesterday) I spoke of the deal with Verizon and Best Buy for the iPhone 5SE ... $1 as long as you signed up for a 24 month commitment. Other options showed you would be paying a monthly installment of somewhere around $16 per month for 24 months for the cost of the phone.

I'm not as dumb as I look ... so the difference between those two options for the same brand new phone just didn't add up in my old brain .. circuits were evidently missing as I am trying to process this information over the weekend. I kept asking myself why is that iPhone only $1 ??

To make sure I was  "clear" on how I understood the two options I called customer service at Verizon and Best Buy ... and spoke to real people on each call, not a robot.

I find out today at the store at the time of purchase I was REALLY CONFUSED !!!!

The monthly charges were going to be for the data plan, one smart phone fee, a one time activation fee and the $1 phone.

NEITHER CUSTOMER SERVICE REP that I had called, told me that $1 was NOT the cost of the phone ... even after I told both of them "I just can't believe you are selling an new iPhone 5SE for ONE DOLLAR !!!!

So after a lot of research over the weekend, I was pretty sure I wanted the smaller size iPhone (4"), the same size as my 5S I sold last November. Luckily due to one of the regular Best Buy phone service reps leaving for lunch, someone that did not work in that department started my purchase.

Why was that lucky?

As I was bombarding her with more questions, she called the "Verizon/iPhone EXPERT" to help her with the purchasing process and answer the questions I had.

He had moved from the 5S to the 6S last year and had a lot of knowledge about the few differences between the two phones that I was not able to see when reading about them online. As I put the 6S in one hand and the 5SE in my other hand ... I was starting to change my mind. The slightly larger screen was easy on my eyes and it didn't feel that much bigger in my hand.

Long time blog readers know that I ALWAYS change my mind before the final purchase is done, no matter what I am buying ... RVs, computer, cars, trucks, etc.

As I told him ... "It's almost too hard to pass up a ONE DOLLAR iPhone 5SE for the larger 6S" ... he stopped ... he stared at me ... he had a shocked look on his face .... he started stuttering but the words would not come out !!!!!

And then .................. I was told ..... "it doesn't cost just a dollar ..... didn't they tell you about the $40 per month fee added for 24 months to pay for the phone ?????

I looked back through my hand written, notes ... I didn't see that fee listed.

So there was the REAL COST of the phone.

The interesting thing is, for some strange reason I could pick up the 6S model for $13 less per month and NO 24 month commitment, then after I added another $4 per month my 16Gb iPhone was bumped up to a 64Gb iPhone ... still under that $40 per month fee no one knows about for the ADVERTISED $1 iPhone.

It's only been a couple of hours playing around with it as I been going through the process of setting it and checking all of the settings that comes with it. I've also been downloading free apps that I had before on my other phone, all of this before our daily hound walk ... but after a short time, I can say that I am very very happy to have a smart phone back in my life.

I don't watch movies, nor ballgames and I don't play games on the  phone ... but I love the camera, the Notes program (basically my memory), the Maps that I can use as my GPS, and the free apps that help me track my diet/fat/calories and monitor my activity along with other uses.

Getting phone calls are just secondary ... I bought it for all the things it does besides being a phone.

So ... I hope you didn't spill anything while lauging about how stupid I must be to let the world know that there is a $1 iPhone available. ... it really is a good laugh and one that I enjoyed, even though the joke was on me.   LOL

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

Internet Data Usage & Free Apps

Click Photo to Enlarge

It's been about 6 weeks since I switched my home internet service from DSL Unlimited Internet to Exede Satellite Internet with a 15Gb per month package. I had also switched my cell phone service from AT&T to Verizon for various reasons already explained. This Verizon package gave me 10Gb of data per month, free calls and free texts for $60 per month.

That left me with a total of 25Gb's per month of data, single person household.

I never realized how much free internet data I was getting with my local provider's DSL service. They recently stopped supporting DSL thus passing it off to two other companies for connection issues. I am thrilled with all aspects of the Exede Satellite system. I guess to prepare me for internet service on the road I am now finding new things to do to reduce my data usage to keep under the monthly limit without having to pay more.

I am pretty computer knowledgeable. I am not a programmer, nor IT support but over the 20 years of using computers I know enough to be dangerous I guess. So what I found out recently as today, a few easy ways to decrease "wasted" usage that was easy to understand. I also found some surprises.

Hopefully some of this information will help those on the road having trouble keeping within their data limits. Also for any people at home that have a data limit, even your smart phones may find something here that can help you out.

I will try to explain this in basic terminology.

Facebook is the number one data sucker due to the way they cache all of the photos and videos from other Facebook users and advertising. This is even if you spend very little time on Facebook and don't watch any videos. After you log into your personal page, the data activity has started and a lot of it in the background that you are unaware of.

Watching videos, movies, or YouTube also is ranked high if not #2 in the data use business. I have learned to watch many of my music videos on YouTube after midnight because between midnight and 5am I get unlimited data. There are are just certain times I like to see my bands live on stage with loud volume coming though those computer external speakers. Now I have to do that after midnight or sacrifice during my other internet activity.

I don't watch movies on my computer nor do I download large files except those system updates. Yes, I had the box checked to not only check for updates daily but also download them automatically and let me give the permission for installing them. I kept the box checked that my system would check for updates daily but I un-checked automatic download. Now I will get a notification that an update is available and I can program that to download and install between my free data hours of midnight to 5am.

I've found some pretty good advice from computer geeks more knowledgeable than I am and have implemented most of what they said.

The first thing I did was go into my browser properties, found the apps page, searched for and installed 2 different apps that prevents all of the news, Facebook, ESPN and any other sites from automatically loading and playing videos at the time you go to their site. Yes you can click on those screens to shut off automatic play but they always seem to come back to auto play after a period of time.

So, I found and installed Flashblock and AdblockPro.  Both of these are free and you can find them as apps whether you use Safari, Google Chrome or Firefox. Since I don't use a PC nor IE I cannot speak for that browser.

Just to make sure Facebook was under control, I logged into my Facebook account, looked to the upper right corner and clicked that "down arrow" then highlighted "settings". On the left side of the screen after that page loaded, I clicked on the Videos icon and made sure that 'AutoPlay' was turned off.

Now with those 3 things you have prevented a lot of what I call "wasted data usage".

My problem was I was always use to having 15-20 tabs open on Google Chrome at times, that uses data. I can only read one screen at a time, so now I am starting a new habit of using one tab at a times. Those multiple tabs being hard to pass up because it's convenient. I also closed my 4-5 Excel spreadsheets I would always leave open....after all I am a known Excel spreadsheet junkie ... but those took up a little data just sitting open all the time. So now I only open them to update or read them.

For Mac users, I went into the Apps folder and clicked open the Utilities folder and brought "Activity Monitor" to my dock. This will do various things such as track all internet network usage since the last time you booted your computer to on. I then moved the columns to the way I wanted to see them such as Recvd Bytes first then Sent Bytes as the 2nd column. I also sorted that column by clicking the down arrow on the column, large to small so I can see what programs are running and using the most data by listing those on top if they are using the most data.

After closing tabs, closing files that were sitting open and not used, I saw that only the required system files were running in the background. I see now, that my two largest users are Google Chrome and my Mail program, just as it should be.

Apple has their own malware program installed where it will monitor your hard drive at all times. People that have PC's that I talked with today recommended two free programs to monitor for malware and delete it. Those were Malwarebytes and Spybot Search and Destroy. Neither of those programs were not for Apple computers.

If you have malware running in the background, it is using your data. A lot of the time you will not know it's even on your computer. Have someone with some knowledge run those malware programs because you have to be careful of not deleting programs by mistake that your computer or operating system needs to run.

The biggest spike in my usage in 6 weeks was the day I connected my TV through my wireless Directv modem to my Exede internet service. I did not even watch a movie on demand, no YouTube, I just made sure the connection worked. I was thrilled that I had connection. I could watch movies On Demand now, or YouTube on a larger TV screen. I then turned off the TV, put my computer in sleep mode and went to bed. The next day while working outside and not having either on, I burned 1.7-1.9Gbs.....I was shocked. I figured it was the constant updating of movies or system upgrades by Directv.

I called Directv and explained my problem, they had no answer. I couldn't find anything on the Exede forums either. So I unplugged the TV modem. I track my usage on a spreadsheet that feeds a graph so I was able to see by day what was happening. After unhooking the Directv modem I was back to normal usage of .4-.6 Gb of use. .5 is right on target for 15Gb's in a month.

I can honestly say with a family of 4 or even just a couple using the internet for normal use, I don't see anyway at all you can stay within a 15Gb to 20Gb monthly limit. That leaves you with 3 options ... control  and watch usage like I am doing, pay more money for more Gbs or shutdown during prime time hours and do your major downloads during your free data periods IF you have one.

Hopefully this rambling has not confused or scared you and there is something here that can help you. Feel free to email me with any questions you may have and I'll try my best to answer them or post them on a forum to get an answer from the experts.

I Love Retirement

Return Path To The House In The Upper Left Corner

I love doing nothing or anything that I choose to do. It is a huge pleasure to be away from the life of a job that turned into nothing but days full of meetings and enough Power Point slide presentations that make me hate the words "Power Point". There is nothing I miss about working. Sad to say, but not even the people. I no longer have the "blues" on Sunday nights and most of the time my iPhone has to show me what day it is because I lose track of the days.

I will admit the days go by extremely fast being retired.

I had no doubts that I would enjoy retirement when I was trying to decide the past year on what to do, but I did think at times I might have second thoughts about the decision but only for financial reasons. A "workaholic" friend of mine that retired a couple of years before me, told me in March 2014 that "You will miss the income but you'll love the freedom you have everyday". Just a day shy of 3 months since my last day at work, I agree with part of his comment.

I haven't really thought about the difference in income because I haven't noticed it. Before leaving work I adjusted my budget, sold some assets and basically the "net" income is about the same because I decreased debt. I also made some adjustments in areas of what I bought on impulse and the number of times I go out to eat. It wasn't hard to do. I do agree with what he said about the new found freedom. There is nothing better.

Since I am basically a 'homebody' I have also noticed that I am spending much less than anticipated in gasoline. Since not doing even a short 25 mile round trip to work 20 times per month, that has made a difference in the gas expense.

So I must say I am very happy with the new freedom I have. I do not miss one thing about my past work experience. Zip, nada.

After my big burst of motivation over the weekend and getting a few things done, I spent Monday recovering some slight soreness and watched one thunderstorm after another. I did a lot of reading but like I mentioned before I am only reading one book at a time. Tuesday was another day of passing thunderstorms but by Tuesday night it was nice, low humidity and temps in the mid-70's. It has really been a nice mild spring and summer in the "tropics" of southern Indiana. I've been kicking back these last three days.

I've had my satellite internet for a couple of weeks now. It is as fast as advertised. It also has NOT dropped offline even during the storms. I didn't think it would but after reading various reviews online by customers you would have thought there was not any kind of a chance to have good consistent and fast internet service with a satellite dish. Maybe it's my location, who knows but at least at this address I would have to give Exede Satellite Internet Service an A+.

I've had my Verizon cell phone service the same amount of time. It's the little things I like about Verizon after being an AT&T customer for 15 years or more. Two things come to mind in the differences between service where I am located (rural area). One is better customer service over the phone or on their online chats. In fact there is no comparison. Verizon customer service wins going away. Second, my calls are much more clear and a stronger signal. Having that stronger signal is strange because in the middle of the second field behind my house is one large AT&T tower.

I am also happy that I did not wait and spend more money than I needed to for the iPhone 6. It will be a nice new toy from what I have read but all I really want is a phone, some email, texting and a little internet but not much. Verizon gave me 10Gb's for their basic plan where AT&T have me 3Gb for data. I rarely came close to that 3Gb's. The extra can be used if i ever get close to the monthly 15Gb allowance on the Exede internet per month.

It has also been a few weeks since I decided AGAIN that I would not do any major traveling over a period of months with 3 hounds and 2 hands. I've had the same response as I did in the past when I made similar decisions. That response being, a feeling of contentment, happy where I am and enjoying things I had forgot about in the daily routines.

I am finding out it's ok if I spend all day and night, look back on it and realize I didn't do a damn thing that day. Much like the lives of my 3 hounds. I can come and go as I please, take siesta's if needed, wash my Mini Cooper now and then, mow the yard once per week and have some ice tea while I see my old comrades flying to work at a high rate of speed on the highway in front of my house that is a 100' down the hill.

My Cincinnati Reds have snuck back near the top of the division, only 3.5 games out of first. Their starting pitching is strong but their lack of a bench may be their downfall by the end of October. Just as in past years, I have noticed anytime I turn them on tv bad things happen. They don't win a lot of the games I watch on tv, so if I see they have the lead online I am hesitant to turn on the tv in the last 3 innings for fear that "I" would be the cause of them losing their lead. Other Red's fans on Twitter state they have the same illness, so it's just not me that had the black cloud hanging over them while watching Reds baseball.

College football is less than 60 days away and Pro football will soon follow a few weeks later. I love those two sports  but it will be interesting to see if my diet goes back to chips, salsa, sandwiches and Pepsi once those games are on my tv screen. I hope not, I want to keep the weight I have lost .. off.

I'm big into watching the Tour de France. Not only the racing but the viewing of the different European landscapes and towns is fantastic from the air. They show the race live every morning but I usually catch the tape at noon. Unless you have raced or know bike racing it is hard to watch. It looks like there are just a bunch of men riding a bike through the country side, when there is so much more going on and at a high rate of speed, 35-50mph. So that will keep me occupied for the next 3 weeks as it does every year at this time.

The hounds are good. Heidi is battling her normal allergy rash where it is bad enough for monthly shots. This month I decided enough is enough. I don't like shooting that many meds into my hounds so i have found a organic supplement from Dinovite.com that I am optimistic about after 6 days of use. I am hoping this organic supplement eliminate the needed allergy shots.

Winston is battling older age and hot weather. He walks are slower than slow, one paw at a time. I've been letting him walk off the leash and as he falls behind us, he is smart enough to break off at the 1/2 way point and then head up the path that we will be returning on. Wagging his tail as the bloodhound, the other basset and I walk down the slight decline. The photo of that path is the background photo of my Google+ account. He seems in great shape but has that lower back flares up at times where its hard for him to get up a couple of steps into the house.

Sadie is just Sadie ... nothing bothers her and she is in a world of her own. She has been more demanding though for a late night session of fetch inside, with her 3 different Kong Balls. She will actually bring the ball back to me and has never been taught how to fetch. When she is done with the fetching, she is soon fast asleep in the deep snoring state for the rest of the night.

Retirement life is good ... and I also do NOT watch the news ... can't do anything about it and it only tics me off when I do watch a couple of minutes of it.

Heading out for the daily hound walk.

Monday - Internet and Phone Deals

You Can Feel the Humidity

I can confirm that summer has arrived in the 'tropics" of southern Indiana. The humidity feels much higher than the percentages I see online, 70% plus. Although I remember last winter when I was shoveling snow at -9 degrees I was willing to trade for days like these. Now the hounds and I find it harder to go outside during the day.

I did get some yard work finished over the weekend and also talk to the farmer on Sunday as he raked the hay before baling it into the big rolls. My fears of damaging his equipment were not warranted. He was just going around the rope metal anchor he knew I had because he didn't wan to cut my rope, that I later cut by accident with my metal blade weed eater. I was able to cut all the hay that he didn't and he was able to pick it up and bale it. I also did a little trimming on my overgrown area where I would like to build a backyard campsite.

I have to admit, there is not a lot going on and I wonder if anyone that reads this blog and is retired ... do you ever get tired of just normal days of activity? Day after day after day? It all goes back to that question, am I in a rut and bored or this is just life and I am low keyed content?

I have accomplished things inside though. I have researched new phone and internet service. I am also in the process of uploading my photos to Google's Picasa as a backup. That is a long process.

With the hot temps outside and the hayfield that is now cut ... the hounds and I have completed two daily dog walks in two consecutive days. By the time we finish the 20 minute cruise through the field in the early evening, the hounds are more than ready to get back inside where it is so much cooler. I have also noticed they don't go to the door as much wanting outside with the higher temps now.

Maybe they are not bored but just smart and want to stay inside where it's much cooler.

First issue I needed to get fixed is my internet service. Due to my location I have had two choices. A local company that uses the AT&T phone lines for DSL or  a new provider for Satellite Internet. I have been with the local internet company now for 8 years and have had no complaints, great speed for DSL, until recently. This past January my provider told me they were raising my monthly rate $10, which is their wireless rate without giving me wireless service. Long story short is, after recent discussions with them the real story comes out, wireless is what I pay for but is not offered in my location.

I am now one of their last customers with DSL service. They are no longer the direct company that corresponds with AT&T for connection repair. They now have to call in my request for repair and then that request is passed through TWO DIFFERENT middlemen. The strange thing is and I have told them in those words, that once they raised my rates to wireless service, my DLS has had problems keeping the connection along with a longer time to download webpages or photos. Coincidence? They would never answer that until this past week, when one of the technicians on the phone told me they no longer offer DLS service, they pass it off.

Ah ha ... now I finally got my answer.

Also, due to my location and the amount of trees between their wireless antennas, I cannot get their wireless service that I am paying for. ($39.99/mo). When I discussed their future plans at the luncheon on Friday, it sounds as if I am on my last small thin thread for internet service with them due to available services. There will not be any kind of wireless system installed that can give me a good signal through the trees. They tried a system designed for that with a 50 mile range and had problems due to the barometric pressure.

That leaves me with just one option. Satellite Internet. When I did a search on company names "reviews" ... those reviews vicious! It sounds like nothing works and all the satellite providers do is take your money. Why do I see so many satellite internet dishes around this area then if they are so bad? My neighbor tells me that he has had zero problems with Hughes Net connection and service.

So after some review between Exede and Hughes Net, I have decided to go with Exede (WildBlue) Internet Service. Much faster speed and comes out to the same price as what I am currently paying for an AT&T Land Line and my providers DSL service. They have been voted #1 two years in a row for delivering speeds they advertised. They also have their systems used by the military in field ops.

After 10+ years with AT&T cell phone service I am making the change to Verizon. When cell
phones first came out, in my location AT&T (Cingular) was all that was offered. Yet when I was stuck on I-25 just north of Truth or Consequences NM with a blown VW engine, I couldn't get a signal to call anyone. The only we got a hold of a towing company is that he saw us from the other side of the freeway as he was taking a car to TOC. He came back to get us. It was over 100 degrees that day.

Anyway Verizon is the plan, 4G service in my area and a lot more coverage out west for when I travel. My contract was up with AT&T months ago and I've been going month to month with them with a phone upgrade also due. I was going to wait for the iPhone 6 to come out but after further research the iPhone 5S is all I will need right now. So I decided to change my service now instead of waiting until the fall.

I updated my costs to my financial spreadsheets to see how these two changes would affect my monthly net income before I called to make the changes. Very minimal change for the monthly fee. It's almost a 1 for 1 swap dollar wise and I'll have better service. The only additional fees are for the new phone, new wireless router and activation fees that are paid now.

In closing I will say the past couple of weeks I have felt I need to get more things accomplished each day instead of sitting around reading, internet surfing and napping. It no longer feels like I'm on vacation, like it did the first couple of months I was retired. I keep wondering if this is the life I will have day after day? Sure, it's better than the alternative and much better than having a job you don't like. I just feel at times I need to be doing more.

Can anyone retired that is reading this chime in with some comments? Thanks

Also a bit of financial news here at home ... my monthly costs for groceries have increased a lot since I have added more fruits and veggies in exchange of not buying junk food .... go figure.

Life is good.