A Cool And Drizzly Day

Heidi may have been feeling better this morning but that doesn't mean she wanted her photo taken. She had just moved from the dog bed in the bedroom out to the living room to join Stella and I about the time I was getting ready to take the morning walk. More rain was predicted within the next hour right after I published this morning's blog post.

She had no problems eating her morning kibble, even with missing teeth. Of course most of those small bits of kibble are swallowed whole, just some of them are chewed. Either way, after having to skip two meals due to surgery yesterday she was very hungry this morning and told me loud and clear she was hungry as did Stella.

This is one of two blankets scattered on the living room floor. Just yesterday afternoon I had folded them into nice shaped beds only to see her scratch and paw them into the perfect sleeping position.

When Stella and I returned from our short 14 minute walk ... Heidi had moved to blanket #2 and was in the deep sleep mode until lunch was served.

The first sign of rain were drops on the six red blocks we call "Winston's Patio". He would spend a lot of time laying on those blocks enjoying the warm sun, the scenery and thinking about everything during that day. I could barely hear rain drops but didn't see new ones on my arm nor the camera ... we decided the walk would go for as long as it didn't start raining.

Stella started the walk normal ... slower than slow.

Rarely did she move off the path.

In a lot of the field we cannot see our worn path as we have in past summers or falls but she will follow the path catching every slight step around a flower or weed.

Most of the time she will walk without stopping, even stepping on your foot as she walks around you ... IF, you are in her way.

This is her idea of tracking ... entirely different from Sadie.

The neighbor behind us picked his corn last week without telling us nor making a sound. I heard nothing while the field was cleared last week.

For once she is looking around at me to see if I am coming or not. I think these pictures show just how slow she moves.

For as long as I remember since she arrived in August 2015, this is their normal position while I watching tv or reading a book. They might flip positions depending who gets on the couch first or who might get up for water.

I've had my Garmin VivoSmart 3 for 15 months, wearing it all the time except when taking a shower. I cannot think of anything I would have done to cause this but just like that, the band broke. A search on DuckDuckGo, my new search engine since last June, showed me that I wasn't the only one with this problem. Due to the design of the watch, a replacement band is impossible.

So with the attitude of what could I lose if I contacted their support via their email address, I sent them a nice email stating the problem and letting them know that I have loved the performance of the Garmin. Yet I would hate to move to a new Fitbit or even the Apple Watch Series 4 as a replacement.

Within 48 hours after sending that email I had a reply asking for the serial number of the watch, my mailing address and where did the band break in relation to the hardware. The following morning I had an email giving me a shipping number for my new replacement at no cost. Disposing my watch at a qualified electronics recycling center or store was recommended.
 

I took this photo with my iPhone the other night while I was waiting for Stella to decide if she came outside to pee or just stand and sniff the air. A few minutes later as she turned to go back to the house I found out she just wanted to get some fresh air.

With the temps at 60° and intermittent light rain today ... it's was a day of reading books, and watching part of an 8 hour movie I picked up a the library yesterday called 'The Looming Tower', a new limited series. It reminded me of a book I read in 2002 named 'The Cell' by John Miller & Michael Stone. Although there is a book out by the same name 'The Looming Tower'.

For Mac users ... I have both the latest version of the new macOS Mojave and iOS12 on my computers, phone and table. It is very stable, fast and some nice new features. It will take about 6Gb of date to upload so I did my update during my free data period between 2am-8am. It did not take that long, that is just the time period I have free 50Gb of data that I don't pay for.

I will never use all the new features on the phone but it does seem to make my iPhone 8 Plus run faster when I am on the internet. It will be a phone that I keep for quite a while because it has a great camera for low light situations with hardly any editing needed.

I also got tired of the newer Safari version not blocking advertisements even after adding the updated Ad Blocker Plus ... so I moved my default browser back to Firefox. Over the pats couple of months they have worked out their bugs where it run much faster and also works well with the new Mac OS.

I want to say thanks to all that made blog comments or sent emails of support since Sadie's passing.

Not as warm as I like but it was a good day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Start Day Late After The Rain

The day may have started a lot later than normal but as you can see we have another thunderstorm headed our way that is about 30 miles west of us while I start this post. When I woke up this morning to let the hounds outside and feed them breakfast, it was pouring  rain hard outside so I wasn't sure if the hounds would go out for their first trip of the day. Heidi stood by the door barking for food while the bloodhounds had to go bad enough they sprinted to and from the field. They were at the door waiting for me by the time the breakfast kibble had been poured.

What better time than to catch up on some sleep with it raining that hard. I was up past 2am just to start the latest macOS beta update. It will download and install after I click the button for it to start, so I no longer have to stay up through the night to click the different screens for it to continue. Between 2am to 8am the update can use that free batch of data HughesGen gives me every month. With the update for the iMac and my laptop computer, it took a little over 6Gb of data for both computers. Besides that it was a restless night of sleep filled with the strangest dreams. My Garmin VivaSmart watch told me I was awake for a total of 20 minutes during the night. That's a lot of tossing and turning.

I decided if I showed a dirty leather couch with Heidi sleeping once I could again. This is Heidi around 2:30pm today as the bloodhounds and I took our first walk. She never does a lot of tossing and turning when she sleeps, it's all solid sleep with a few dreams of running at times.

For some reason Stella was ready to get the walk started today. She didn't hesitate by sitting at the corner of the house nor did she try to fake me out by heading north instead of east with Sadie and I. She stepped onto the wet grass and marched toward the path, with a purpose, whatever that might be.

With a quick left turn she was heading for the center of the field behind the house looking for that perfect spot like she always does. It has made the walks much easier to do with her following the path and at times leading Sadie and I on the walk. Not a lot of verbal herding has been needed the past week and a half.

The rain did bring cooler temps but not that cool. It's cool enough that the AC does not turn on but hot enough outside that some AC would be nice. That strong wind from the southwest that the tree leaves are showing, is blowing warm air, not cool.

That is northeast up ahead with patches of blue sky. The sky behind us looks like rain is near. While I was waiting for Stella to get on the path, Sadie had already started her own walk. She was obviously happy we were walking when the chances looked slim earlier today.

Stella took her time following her nose through the field to the path but she made it eventually. She then walked as close to me as possible as I tried getting this photo and reminded me she was still in charge but walking on my foot. Nothing like feeling an 80# hound place their paw squarely in the middle of your boot.

Sadie was nose to the ground and out in front of us.

Interesting to see those small pieces of undercoat hair. Not only do I pull that out every day but I brush her daily just because the shedding she is still doing this summer. I've never seen it this bad and she is the only one shedding hair compared to Heidi and Stella.

She got a little trotting in today's walk but not the full speed sprints she normally does.

While I was taking photos of Sadie ... Stella was walking her pace without any stopping and getting way out in front of us.

Once Sadie saw that, she took off trotting to catch up, thinking that Stella must have found something she needed.

After more investigation she found out it was a false alarm.

I did not say a word to Stella but she decided it was time to head home. She started walking without stopping again. I'll say it again, she is the funniest hound I've had in 31 years.

Only one butterfly was seen this afternoon on the walk. As you can see a lot of their food source is used for the year. They might not be around much longer.

Stella walks too slow on the path for me to follow her and then when I stay in front of her she speeds up to be right on my heels, making it hard to take a picture of her.

They still find time to explore even when we get closer to the backyard. The walk is never officially over to them until they step in the backyard. If there is field under their paws, they think they can take all the time they want to complete the walk.

Once they heard that rumble of thunder, they became a little more motivated to get back inside. Rarely are they in front of me at this point of the walk.

This is for the Apple users that read the blog. With each new update even in the beta version I see small changes, all for the better usually. You can tell they are getting close to the official release in a month or two. The system runs faster, files open faster, photos upload to the blog and Flickr faster and the one obvious change I noticed today was the 'transparency' feature brightened things up since I use the 'dark' mode.

I had been using solid colors as my desktop on my iMac. It was between dark gray and black, so my email, iMessage and preference screens were darker than you see. Today I changed my iMac background to the one on the right under 'Dynamic Desktop'. Since the Dynamic Desktop changes colors automatically based on local time, my borders around these darker screens brightened.

Some of the sidebars that had been the same dark color as the menu's of preferences, Apple mail and iMessage changed to a lighter gray color that made things easier to read. Plus not all the fonts were bright white like they were after their last update. Due to privacy, I cannot do screen shots of those because I am not sure my friends would appreciate our conversations or emails to be shown on the blog, if you know what I mean.

For example that lighter gray color you see as a border on the screen shot above was the same color as the darker screen inside around the images and list before last night's update. All of the fonts were bright white. Subtle changes.

My Reds game turned ugly early last night, so I went from watching baseball to watching an old old movie that was being shown on HDnet channel. Some of you may remember this movie from the early 90's or late 80's ... called ... Officer and a Gentleman. I like watching it for the scenery. All very familiar to me because I lived there for ten years. The motel, the bars in the movie are in Port Townsend and the old abandon stone base is at Fort Ebey SP, just around the corner from where I lived. The ferry ride and landscape brought back a lot of good memories.

I'll try baseball again tonight as usual but my patience is running thin again with the Reds while they are in a losing streak since their All-Star Break. Before that break they had been the hottest team in baseball for the previous month. After a hard day all of the hounds will be doing their normal sleeping, with Sadie in her big leather chair with her head on the ottoman, Heidi next to me on the couch and Stella stretched out on the floor near any AC floor vent.

I hope to get back to my tasks at hand after the rains leave us.

A fast day here in 'the tropics' of southern Indiana today.