The Blog Is Backing Away From Chaos

With a new week starting with another change in weather, different internet browsers tried, and thoughts racing through my brain cells along with a delay in our morning schedule ... why not make some blogging changes also? No, not the design but the focus.
As you can see the weather yesterday was borderline freezing and neither hound wanted any part of it. At no time yesterday afternoon did they spend any time wandering and exploring in the yard. In fact by the time Stella and I headed out for a late afternoon walk, she was led by the retractable leash and our pace was swift. In out ... walk finished.

After a terrible night of sleep, getting in my normal 6 or so hours, I woke up dazed and confused. It seemed later than my watch was showing, I didn't feel good and Stella was standing by the bed whining ... in that tone where I know she needs to get outside. She's a good house dog, as is Heidi.

Backing up to the start of the walk this morning. Remember that Stella prefers to keep her paws dry if at all possible. She is not a fan of walking through water puddles and a path that has water rising to above ground with each step I was taking. So she walked along the edge of that wet path to stay out of the water. All through the walk she sidestepped the path or headed to the heavy grass to walk through, all her thoughts were keeping her feet dry.

The small screen on the back of my Canon G9 X was showing a light sprinkling of rain. It looks like those sprinkles are supposed to be going non-stop for the next three days. Just enough to dampen my coat and Stella's. Again I kept wondering where is all this water going to go.

Too wet for her ...

I want you to know that the late start of the day, the bad dreams, or the lack of excitement that it was Monday played no part in my change in direction for the blog. It's not really a change in direction but a step back ... backing away from all the chaos and noise in today's world. We all know what it's like. We all have different opinions on what to do, what's the cause or possible solutions. I don't need to drag you through that crap on this blog.

I know personally I follow blogs to get away from all the crap I see on tv news or see online. I DO read a few blogs that do a much more professional job commenting on today's political environment or news events here in the USA ... so I'll let THEM be the ones to do it ... I don't want to.

Just like Stella stepping away from the very wet and heavy saturated path I am going to step away from the daily comments about what is screwed up in this world. I am going back to being boring to some readers. I am going back to seeing my blog traffic decrease around 66% because I am not talking about chaos or politics.

Why should I care about how many readers I have when I am not into e-commerce or affiliate marking with embedded links all over my blog? Crisis, chaos, or bad news brings much more blog traffic just like slowed traffic passing a bad car accident. I just don't want to go and this blog, to go in that direction.

So the "Other Stuff" on the blog title is going back to the relaxed lifestyle here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana, owned and directed by two hounds and any excitement they generate in their daily life. Like the old blog I'll go back to posting photos from my house projects or house maintenance I will be doing in better and warmer weather.

For the fans of my "rambling" and going off track on occasion, posting my thoughts about anything in general ... I will keep doing that but like the 'old blog', I'll not touch the subjects of politics or religion. Readers that want that type of commentary will have to go somewhere else after today

When 9/11 happened they did tell us from that day forward our world would change. It has all over the globe but maybe not so much here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana where we are tucked in the middle of corn and soybean fields. About the only changes we have seen here the last 18 years since 9/11 are local business closing forever and leaving empty buildings, or the major repair work on the US Highway in front of the house.

Winston loved sitting out on the SW corner of the carport during that time and watching the road crew tear out the highway asphalt down to the bare dirt. He was really interested when they installed new rebar and then poured new asphalt a little bit further into our yard to widen the shoulder of the road.

The only other thing that has changed around here of any importance ... was me retiring in April 2014 and becoming a full-time professional doorman for the hounds. The could come and go as they pleased as they requested I let them out and back inside a million times per day. With only two hounds now instead of four, I am down to around 500,000 times per day instead of a million.  :)

9/11 did change my personal enjoyment of flying. I went from loving to fly to "I'll never fly again, screw this" .... when I retired from work, I didn't have to fly again unless I wanted to ... and I haven't.

What I did not realize at the time was that all the wars overseas would push people out of their home countries, and in some cases head to the USA from all directions. I didn't realize the effect it would have along the border south of California, a border that I use to cross every day sometimes as I would head downtown Tijuana to 'the book' to bet on any horse race track in America. Or the times friends and I would cross that same San Diego border to spend the weekend at the Rosarita Beach Hotel in Rosarita Beach or go further south for a beer at Husong's in Ensenada, Baja Mx.

We've had little change here in this small town based on all of that movement of people looking for a better life than what they had. Even in this small rural redneck town we have had a little diversity in our population. An Iranian family owns the Subway, an Indian family now owns the 'infamous' gas/mini mart, a Chinese family owns a great small restaurant downtown providing me with that buffet I blogged about in December.

We even have illegals from Mexico that work at the Mexican restaurant with some of the best food I have ever eaten, from Southern California to Ensenada Baja California. We have never seen or experienced terrorist activity yet the huge government facility nearby goes into severe lockdown at times based on what is happening in the world.

So that's the end of my talking and blogging on this blog about what is going on in the world and what I like or don't like in today's society. I am going to try my hardest to crawl back into my hole here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana and let the world decide what it wants to do. That doesn't mean I will not remain vigilant and aware but I will just not blog about it. I don't need the bullshit in my life, just like I no longer needed that from a job.

While the sopping wet sound came from every one of my steps on the path this morning and Stella in her own little world ignoring me when I said "come on" ... I thought about these past 18 years since 9/11 and wondered what would it be like today if the US would just stay out of other countries business and way of life.

Let them live they way they want to and all of those trillions of dollars spent on wars, could have been spent on a new rail system, new bridges, better health care and support for those in need right here in the USA. How many people could be led off the streets into a tiny home or an apartment with those trillions of dollars?

It's a complicated story on how far do we go as a country to help others in need outside of our borders but at the same time there has always been way too much focus on changing their governments to a democracy when they don't want that kind of government or our lifestyle. Why would they? Let them sort out their own problems.

After all, if I reverse the situation and ask myself if I would like a foreign country coming here in 'the tropics' telling me and the hounds we HAVE TO change to their way of life ... the hounds and I would basically tell them to get out of the neighborhood and leave us alone ... maybe not in that kind of nice tone.

So really Stella has it all figured out, as does Heidi .... stay calm, unattached, live in your own little world but keep an eye out for trouble or deer in the field. but be sure to get enough sleep time during hours and hours of sports on tv ... not the noise of the news. All we can control is what we do right here ... that's fine with the hounds and fine with me.

Many new readers don't know about the time I spent a week taking photos and blogging about me pulling every weed out of my gravel driveway and bank, while crawling around on my hands and knees back in August 2015. To read those exciting blog posts, dripping with drama and in a way chaos, you can click here, then scroll down through the different blog posts that are listed in order of the progress.

What I meant to say when I mentioned that ... was to show how weird blogging traffic is ... those four days of blogging about pulling weeds were some of the all-time busiest blog traffic days since it started in October 2011. The number of daily visitors were close to what I was getting just last week talking about politics and chaos in society !!!!

Isn't a story or link like that much better than a link about the refugees problems or the other faction of people trying to take over our country?

So I am going to get back to that type of blogging ... the boring daily life of the hounds and I then let the 'experts' write about the chaos going on.

The hounds, and life as it is in small town rural America with a an opinion from that angle, every once in a while. There is so much more to blog about besides chaos in society whether in our country or their's. Stella and Heidi doesn't care ... neither do I.

Stella spent the whole morning walk looking for something to make it a little more exciting. There wasn't a scent anywhere along the way for her to lock into, so her focus was just to keep her paws as dry as possible and enjoy the warmer temps, sprinkles and all, as she strolled through the field.

She gave the scents one last chance to show themselves but decided the best thing to do was to head back to the house and start her morning siesta that leads to lunch. In the meantime I am going to take the books on politics and government back to the library.

Then pull a couple of books off my self that I bought years ago but never read .. one about Willie Mays and the other about Mickey Mantle. Baseball season is just 43 days away and that is much better than paying attention to who announces they are going to run for President.

The free offer of Showtime over the weekend produced nothing as far as TV watching. It only confirmed why I don't pay the extra $10-$13 per month to get Showtime or HBO all the time. I had more fun watching the new AAF football league which brought in 2.9 million viewers opening night on Saturday, on CBS. It was reported those AAF games had a larger audience than ABC's NBA game that night with LeBron James.

See, I am not the only football addict in America.

I look forward to the 'new' way of blogging and back to the old stuff. I mean what could be more exciting than a good photo of Heidi sleeping through all the chaos not caring what happens. After all, it will not have any affect on her sleeping time or the two times to eat.

The hounds have the correct solution on how to live ... I just have to pay more attention to their suggestions.

It's wet but a bright overcast this morning in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana ... it's all good.

Weirdness & Snow

Here is another way of showing you just how fast the weather can change here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana. Bright and sunny yesterday but cold, it was not a day in April like it looked. Then this morning Stella and I started our walk under the largest snow flakes I had seen in a while. They say we might get an inch of snow by noon. So what about the floods? They will continue to move and eventually recede out of the fields ... maybe.

The problem is there is more rain on the way this afternoon and all night tonight. It's times like these that I am glad we live high on a hill. After all that  really is an 'official' floodplain just across the highway. Of course the site I bookmarked a long time ago, where I could find any floodplain by location, I can't find.

I was going to walk again Saturday afternoon, let Heidi spend more time outside, and blog again but right after these photos were taken the "weirdness" hit me like a ton of bricks. My whole life I have had cold in my eyes when I get them. I had that feeling you might recognize ... it feels like you have a cold coming on but don't want to acknowledge it, hoping it will go away. Yet, you know that what you are feeling is cold symptoms.

It didn't go away at first. I tried to read but my right eye was full of tears and kept running. My sinuses were running full steam ahead. Stella was howling and whining each time I sneezed. It certainly felt like a head cold was coming on. I had not be around people for days, almost a week, so where did I get the germs from?

I did my old stand by when I'm desperate and need relief ... I took my small jar of Vick's Vapor Rub and put that on each side of my nose and under my right eye. That stuff works wonders in times of cold symptoms. Plan B was going to be a hot cup of tea but I wanted to see if the Vick's would work first. Since I was even having a hard time watching the basketball games on tv ... I headed to bed. Maybe a short siesta with a lot of Vick's Vapor Rub would knock out the cold that was trying to overtake my eyes.

A couple of hours later as reality came back into focus ... letting the hounds outside, I noticed that feeling of cold activity around my right eye and my sinuses was gone!! Could it be true? I'd find out within the next few hours it was true. Plus Sunday morning confirmed I did not have a cold nor did I have one attempting to take over my life for the next 5-7 days.

I rarely get sick but when I do, it's not a favorite activity and I can't remember if I blog during those times or not. I'd have to look at my old blog to see what happened last winter when I was really sick for about four days

If you are not a sports fan than this next bit of commentary will not mean much but if you are, what do you think of another 'pro' football league? Their first game was last night and they will play once per week until the end of April. By that time MLB will have finished the first month of their 2019 season.

I looked up the league's website early last night and read about what it was all about. Years ago they tried the XFL but for me there were too many gimmicks and I didn't watch after a few minutes of their first game. Last night I watched the whole game and enjoyed it.

I like the three major rule differences than the NFL although the owner, the coaches and players are all NFL based in some way. Even the announcers were the same as I would see on CBS every Sunday this past NFL season.

For football addicts like me, the new AAF is fantastic. For the players, coaches, or referees that have dreams of playing in or getting back to the NFL, the league is a great idea. So what were the three rules that were different from the NFL besides HOW FAST THE GAME WAS PLAYED ????

No kickoffs ... for safety reasons based on NFL stats. Teams started at their 25 yard line, where they would start in the NFL if a fair catch was signaled.

No extra point kicks ... every point after the TD had to be a two point conversion, there were not any successful in the game I watched.

A shorter play clock ... 35 seconds between plays instead or 40 minutes. OR ... the 15 minute halftime. THE BIGGEST CHANGE .... those damn commercials. This AAF League had no more than two and most of the time only one commercial before getting back to the action. They reached their goal of having the game over in less than three hours instead of the NFL games that come close to 4 and are always longer than 3-1/2 hours.

Anyway, the concept is good. Their 5-10 year goals are good. All the players are paid the exact same salary and not by position or fame. Season tickets are only $75 league wide. You can't even buy a good seat in the NFL games at that price.

They do NOT plan nor want to be a replacement to the NFL like many other old disolved leagues tried. They want to be the NFL minor league system, like MLB has. It's all good and I'll tune in again today and tonight at 4pm and 8pm Eastern to watch more AAF League football.

Once again Stella fooled me. She was "path oriented" this morning. She veered, snooped and sniffed a little but not a lot. I think she was enjoying the snow flakes as she walked. Where Sadie would jump and try to eat snow flakes, Stella showed no signs of doing that. She 'pranced' on the path with the snow in her eyes.

With today's forecast of a mixture of rain/snow that will keep me off the roads. The Mini Countryman is very good in the snow but I have no 'need' to go anywhere and why put the salt/sand base under and on the sides of my car. I just heard another snow plow go by laying down that exact mixture on the highway to get their ice melting base set up.

As we walked back into the yard, the highway already was covered with this light snow mixture but it looked slick.

I'll let the photos tell the story of our walk this morning. Or I could ramble between them I guess.

The dingbat AOC's advisor has already been caught lying online about the Green New Deal. They were trying to backtrack what the deal actually said and attempted to put up a revised version showing economic support instead of tearing it apart. I am still amazed that is what we are looking at for the Democratic agenda prior to the next election.

I have an open mind on presidential candidates and always have but I'll tell you, as each one announces their candidacy I just shake my head and wonder "is that the best you can come up with?"

Will society ever get back to normal or what I think of as normal ... or do we just bury our heads in the sand with hopes it will get better or go away, like my head cold?

Trump haters have to hate this headline this morning:  "The AOC-ization of the democrats boots Trump in 2020." I couldn't agree more. Will they give Howard Schultz a chance? Will Bernie's followers make it happen this time? Will Hillary crawl out of her vodka bottle soon enough to declare she is running again? Can you tell me a legitimate Democratic candidate for 2020 .... give me some names.

That light glove has kept my hands warm all winter, even when the temps dropped to the low teens. Last year I have worn ski gloves when it got that cold but with ski gloves on I cannot use the smaller Canon G9 X but can use the Nikon D3200.

While Stella sat and scratched in the same place she does every morning on the walk, I got as far in front of her as I could, hoping I could catch her running. She almost started running hard to catch me but stopped as fast as she started.

I just had that strange numbness feeling across my left collarbone happen again. The same feeling as if you would hit your crazy bone near your elbow. Then it goes away, never lasting too long. Glancing at my Apple Watch during those times, my pulse is 58 bpm. I think all I need is a good chiropractic neck adjustment.

This was about as close as I could get to show you just how a bloodhound tracks scent on the ground. She does not make the sound with her jowls like Sadie and Bertha did but she keeps her nose as close to the ground as possible while she walks.

I saw no deer tracks this morning of any kind.

With having clear eyes and sinuses this morning I will be able to get a little reading in today. The book titled The Deep State is a really good book. It does NOT lean toward a Trump supporter type of book but has opened the vaults showing just how corrupt the government is as a whole. Many things I've read I already knew. It confirms Obama's administration was the most corrupt in history, beating Nixon.

I am thinking of lighting my burn pile on fire this winter instead of waiting until spring. I normally do it in the fall but this year my second 50' water hose had a hole in it so I could not extend the hose system long enough to reach the burn pile to use as a safety measure. This time of year there might be less of a chance of the fire spreading into the woods with the ground covered by dead leaves.

I see where AT&T is trying to move in front of the 5G movement with false advertising. Sprint is now suing them for that exact thing. I was told by a phone sales store rep in December that my iPhone 8+ will not work with 5G capability. I've read a little about it but no matter what I am not going to upgrade my phone just for 5G capability.

(Heidi's up and awake)

With all that the Apple Watch does, and does well, in my short 5 weeks of using it I would get rid of my iPhone if I did not need it to work with the Watch for updates and my wifi connection. With the Canon G9 X taking the same high quality photos in low light like the iPhone does, I rarely take photos with the phone anymore.

I plan on keeping the 8+ until Apple no longer supports it with iOS updates years from now ... but ... never say never.  :)

It was just announced online that "border talks have broken down" with just a few days to go before Congress passes a signed bill to the President. Why is that not a surprise? Congress is about as worthless as a soup sandwich. For so many intelligent men and women, elected by the people ... most are dumbasses with political agendas.

The word 'compromise' is not in either party's dictionary.

When I heard it was snowing in the Seattle area the other day I was reminded of my first or second November living on Whidbey Island. Normally they might get an inch or two of snow annually, sometimes never, sometimes just a dusting. But that one November day it started snowing and didn't stop until 24 hours later, ending up with 27" on the ground.

The Island Country transportation department did not have one snow plow to clear the roads. They never needed one. So to my friends out in Seattle ... enjoy it ... drive safe ... and head for the ski slopes at Stevens Pass and have fun ... call in sick to work and keep skiing. Based on personal experience you will survive doing that. :)

Well my train of thought is gone .. typical crap.

The snow has stopped, the highway is clear, it's a quiet Sunday and another great winter day here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Headline News & Questions

"You want me to go out on the morning walk????? .... LOL ... No Way!!!!" Heidi might make a short trip outside late morning but she isn't going to join me and Stella this early in the morning. I was surprised she was awake when I checked on her before leaving. Is Saturday morning a day of nothing, with words hard to find for the blog today??? Not sure.

It did look a little different across the highway this morning Is the water receding?

I think it is. If you look closely you can see two newly formed islands, a sure sign that the excess water is slowly but surely receding. It will be interesting to see how long it takes with the temperatures below freezing. Speaking of weather ... is it possible to write a post without any mention of weather or temperature, or what a meal was? It's an interesting observation.

Have you ever heard leaves being described as rocks? Well this morning every leaf I walked on or every clump dirt I tripped on, felt like a rock. The leaves could be flat on the ground with just a corner turned up and that felt like a rock. I am not sure they even broke off when I stepped on them. That is how hard the ground is frozen this morning.

Stella was acting about the way I felt when I sat down to write this morning. Not much going on. She wasn't eating deer scat and actually spent little time tracking scent. Had the frozen ground affected her walk or nose also?

That is a look of lack of interest and looking for something to do or to eat. She did not even attempt to veer away from me, making me wonder what was going on this morning. It was a beautiful morning with bright skies and sun. Yet, something felt different about it. Something that I could not put my finger on.

When she stopped suddenly and looked in the direction of the field behind us, I quickly looked in the same direction. In the past on mornings like this I would see deer standing in that field staring right back at us. They would be a fair distance away but they could hear or smell us and stared right at us.

Maybe out of boredom, or an urge to change things, or maybe she was getting cold ... she came running at me and passed me before I could get a second photo of her running.

Very little movement in the tall grass today, unlike the past two mornings. Yet what little wind there was, it was from the North and freezing cold.

There must have been little animal traffic last night while we slept. For the first time in a very long time she did not follow the tree line smelling possible scent left behind. This day has a feel of being different in some way. Of course after last weeks excitement with rain, floods, freezing temps, political discussions and any other 'crisis' in the news, it was hard to find things to write about today.

returned from the walk to a hot bowl of oatmeal, around 40 photos to look at, editing only a few, while scratching my head for ideas on what to blog about. The IRS was kind enough to send my refund electronically only four calendar days after I had a notice they had officially received it. Some of that will pay for my state taxes.

I found nothing worth watching on my free weekend preview of Showtime last night. Plus the two movies I was interested in paying to watch had come and gone. I could synchronize my DVR to my internet connection and watch any movie "On Demand" but I don't have a spare 2Gb of data to throw away doing it.

Today might turn into a day of College Basketball on tv. There are a few good match-ups today and tonight. I can squeeze in some book reading also. The hounds will not do much different from any other day .... eat lunch ... sleep, change spots and sleep some more. Stella and I will take the afternoon walk.

Do I even dare look at tv news or online news to find something to write about?

I saw before I headed outside this morning that ALL Performance Bicycle Shops will close March 1st. That is where I bought my mountain bike a few years ago. Besides the one mechanic, and one store manager, I was the only other person in the store. I wondered then "how long will they last", with a great location and ample parking. They had everything you need for a successful business ... except customers.

I resisted a very strong urge for fast food yesterday. I ran through the list of possibilities in my head and could come up with nothing. That's a good sign. Just a few months ago I would have been out the door and down the highway figuring out on the go on where I was going to eat. Now I hesitated and nothing sounded good.

Is it possible to have a successful campaign when you may have 20-30 candidates declaring for the Democratic nominee? I know the Republicans had 17 the last election. Will it make a different with the additional candidates? I thought 17 was too many a few years ago. I will say right now, way in advance, there is no one on that side of the fence that I will consider. I will take a look at the Starbuck's owner but I'm not sure he will get the chance either.

What makes people drive around road closed barricades like I saw yesterday. I am assuming and hoping they were only needing to get to their house between the barricades and flooded area. Yet, when I see photos in the Bloomington paper of a car with water up past the bottom of their door .... what were they thinking? Are people really that stupid?

Here is some good stuff for you:

Netflix made a PROFIT of $245M in 2018 .... paid ZERO in taxes.

Is Cory Booker really stable enough to run for President? He compared the Green New Deal with the Moon Landing and Fighting The Nazis. Only a few months ago he declared himself "Spartacus."

I saw this past week that Adidas pulled one of their new shoes off the market because .... drum rolllllllllllllll ... it was an all white shoe, during Black History Month. Really? That's the best excuse you can come up with?

How would people and the media respond to a White History Month????

Will any bill be passed in Congress between now and January 2021? (That's my own question)

Is it bad to refuse to stand up when my Apple Watch tells me it is time to do just that?  (Me again)

Apple and Google approve App from Saudi Arabia that tracks movements of women.  (Can you believe this?)

And the highlight of some of the craziness I listed ... 2020 Democrats who back the Green New Deal -- spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on air travel include private jets.

... so being the smart ass that I am I have to ask "Will they take the trains after all the planes will be gone in 12 years after this deal is approved?"

No worries ... the hounds and I are still sane here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana this morning!!