Prepared For The Next Thunderstorm

I thought it was pretty cool to wake up to some fog around 8am. A little later than normal but the past couple of nights I've been up way past midnight playing an old game of Gran Turismo on my Sony PlayStation 3.

Rain was forecasted for Saturday, starting a little past midnight tonight but looking at the radar at 5:50pm there is plenty of rain nearby ... maybe within the hour.

With a late start I was still able to fit in my two cups of coffee while the hounds slept. Maybe this weather is heating up enough that it's zapping their energy also. Besides reactivating my Facebook account this morning I looked around at the internet browser Opera. I like it and have been using it for the past couple of days. I'll not go into the details but you can read about it on the net. It's an older browser company actually .. since 1997.

After the hounds demanded an early lunch, not caring that they just had breakfast a little more than 3 hours earlier ... we headed outside and touching the grass told me it was too wet to mow. The sun was out but not what I would call blazing hot, which is what I needed to dry the yard out. I decided heck with it ... time for a hound walk.

I added a 2nd shoe to the "wet field" walk. A pair of Nike's that I bought too small, but are still comfortable. As soon as we hit the shaded areas of the field I was soaked again.

Stella had hung back on her new favorite corner by the burn pile. She then realized that Sadie and I were already gone. It didn't take her long to catch up.

Just like that both hounds disappeared into the hay, while I continued to walk at my pace.

Sadie was after birds again. She never catches them but loves chasing them. That's good for her to get her running in to keep her weight down. Notice her ears are wet.

Stella is gradually heading over to her favorite corner. I let her roam today at her own pace.

She is almost invisible in this shot.

This is taken along the back edge of the field. You can see how in just a couple of days, the hay has really gotten taller in this area and maybe thicker.

Stella has seemed to have forgotten about her 'no fly zone' area, she has little if any interest now. Her new point of interest is over toward the woods by the neighbor's house, where the deer were a couple of months ago.

Once again Stella is hard to see in the tall grass. You can barely see her in the center of the photo.

The new "wet field" shoes worked out okay.

After leaving the car cover off of the Z4 a few days when it was sunny I decided to put it back on anytime that I am not driving it. It collects too much dust from the fields or highway in front of the house, plus a little of what I call "yellow pollen" power. Plus these spot storms that come out of nowhere are a pain if you want to keep your car clean.

Friends have not only suggested but one has offered to come over and enclose that side of the carport, making it a garage. I'd rather have the carport. It's open, I can see out from the inside of my house and I'm not sure I want that "closed" feeling blocking one of my better views from inside the house. So, I'll keep the carport and use the car cover.

The backyard grass was so tall after a week of not mowing, and then adding in the rain, that I raised my mower one notch. That worked out well because I had very little grass clippings left on the yard as I mowed. The interesting thing was, I started to remember that this was my normal blade level in the past ... still I wasn't sure.

The two banks of grass looked better cut at this height and that was what got me thinking that this level use to be my normal cutting level. A quick measure of grass showed me I'll stay with this new raised level.

You may remember me talking about the sharpness of my blog photos in previous blog posts. In January when I moved my blog back to blogger from Wordpress, I signed up in the box on the upper left "Follow By Email", to see if it was working for those that had signed up. There is a distinct difference in photo quality in that emailed blog post compared to the photos on the blog. The email version is much sharper.

Gran Turismo 5 is a racing game, played on your tv via a Sony PlayStation. In my case this game is 6 years old and the PS3 is about the same age. It's been sitting off to the side for the past 4 years but from 2002 - 2010 it was pure addiction. Not only was I addicted but many co-workers were also and many a day started at work with GT discussions.

It's pretty detailed, hard to do for some, and a ton of fun. I'll not explain all the details but will tell you one funny story to give you an idea. You have to pass different levels of driving tests to be eligible to drive in certain races. As you improve in racing there are higher levels of competition.

In "my prime" of this game I was at the top level. I was racing this German road coarse for the first time, a ton of fun ... but the race was never ending. I thought something was wrong but I kept driving at a high rate of speed and noticed I had already a solid hour at the handheld controls ... where you can feel the road vibration in the controls. Since I had to get to a football game I stopped racing, saving where I was.

I later read that the race was a 4-hour endurance race in REAL TIME!!!

Since you can go from one race to another you would be shocked how fast time flies playing that game, one race after another. It's fun, addicting and enough untapped levels that I will not have to upgrade for many years if I do at all. I've never had the interest to play this game online.

The hounds are out for the count so to speak ... I'm going back to racing ... here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Facebook Deletion Didn't Last Long

When I went on that rant last night about Zuckerberg and Facebook taking over the inside of smart phones, televisions, computers and I wasn't going to put up with it ... deep inside I didn't think my absence from Facebook would last long.

Before I reactivated my Facebook account, I looked at all the questions therapists ask to make sure I wasn't addicted ... believe it or not, I'm not based on their questions.

It's convenient. Let me explain.


Unlike most of the 200 million Facebook users, I lead a pretty boring life when it comes to Facebook. I only have 35 friends listed, not thousands and really pick and choose who makes the list. I follow groups and those on my friends list. It's handy, it's convenient to keep in touch with them when 99% of them live a good distance from me.

Emails have been replaced mostly by texting now. Still we keep in touch by Facebook more than anything. Yet, there are a few on that friends list where we actually hold conversations on my flip phone and we have occasional in-person visits while living hundreds of miles away from each other.

I also am not a Facebook user that posts everywhere I am or what I am doing ... about all I post post are a few photos of the hounds for those to see that don't follow my blog. Those photos are only sent to my friends list, the basset hound group or the bloodhound group.

I have had my Facebook account locked down as much as they allow wth their security settings.

THE FACTS ARE ....

All of us lost our privacy when we started doing things on the internet ... from surfing websites, shopping, banking, taking photos and yes ... even blogging. So if I were to quit Facebook and was really concerned about a "footprint' being left on the internet ... then I should just cancel my Exede Account for internet service and stick to doing only Excel spreadsheets on my computer.

Mark Zuckerberg and I will never meet in person. I'll never see the huge wall around his property nor will I see all the houses of his neighbors being demolished because he bought them out for more open land so he can expand his fence. We don't have to agree for me to use his site for what I want to use it for. So all of that means nothing.

I am a very very very small drop in the ocean in all of this Facebook, Internet and Blogging stuff. After all my last employer (government) was hacked so all of my personal stuff was breached ... every bit of information that was filled out on their forms to process a security clearance ... they not only sent me a letter last year or so to confirm it but also gave me 3 free years of Identity Theft Protection and Monitoring.

So really, what does it matter?

If you are on the internet anywhere, you are being tracked, poked, purged, whatever ... all for profit and by every company that has a website. All my hound photos are on Google images in a matter of minutes after I post a blog post. I don't own them, Google does, Facebook owns them when I post there ... it's their site. They do whatever they want with those photos or what groups or sites I like on Facebook, all to make money. That's the object isn't, making a profit?

I use Facebook for similar reasons why I blog publicly ... people enjoy seeing the photos of the hounds and they feel the same way on Facebook when I post a few there every once in a while. I also enjoy seeing photos of friends along with the blogs I follow.

So this morning without a lot of in depth thinking, I logged back into my Facebook account and just like that the hounds were famous once again ... the account was active.

It always happens ... a string of bad weather makes me want to change things ... from blog templates, blog designs, what internet browser I use (now Opera) and even canceling social media accounts. I'll chalk up my "craziness" to the amount of time it has been since I last visited Nick's in Bloomington for one of their great stroms.

Or maybe it's time to put the top down on the Z4 and take a trip to 5Guys for a great cheese burger. After either one of those my blood counts will be back to normal and my thought process will be also.

A light fog this morning with hopes of a lot of sunshine to dry the yard enough for me to mow late this afternoon before the thunderstorms hit on Saturday. The hounds have been fed and are sleeping but they will be happy to know their photos are back on Facebook.

All is back to normal here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

The Hounds Quit Facebook

I'll get to the Facebook story later, but the hounds are no longer on Facebook.

The past two days here in 'the tropics' have been about the same ... overcast skies, then dark with rain and a little bit of sunshine.

Basically if Sadie had not talked me into a walk this afternoon I probably would not be blogging again today ... that is just how slow life in 'the tropics' has been this week.

So I decided this afternoon we were going for a walk no matter how wet, nor how muddy the field might be. The field was pretty dry yesterday before the rains came.

By this afternoon that freshly planted field has multiple spots of standing water. One good thing about the rain ... the high 80's turn into the mid 70's. One bad thing about the rain ... I can't keep up mowing the yard. I don't like to rake after mowing and I don't like to see clumps of mowed grass laying around after mowing ... so I guess there is a decision to be made.

I'm not sure what is here but this has been Stella's favorite spot for the past two days ... over by the burn pile. Really with the weather being the way it's been the past two days, she hasn't gone out into the field except to dump her tanks.

Finally with a restless Sadie I decided to take the walk no matter how wet it was. With my Merrell's shoes smelling like new since they were washed yesterday ... they have been retired from doing any walking in the field when there is the possibility for them to become soaked. I moved my "yard shoes" into "wet field shoes" where it doesn't matter what happens to them.

Both hounds were happy to get out of the house knowing we were going for a walk and not just to stand around in the backyard. Can't you see the excitement??

With all the rain and wind blowing the tall hay in different directions, our path was once again barely visible.

The rain and a little sun though is great for the wild flowers growing in the field.

With the hay being the tallest near the yard, my shoes and legs were soaked by the time we finished the short distance to the shorter hay. Water was squishing between my toes, my shorts were wet but with the camera held high ... we continued on as promised.

Neither hound cared about getting wet ... they just wanted to explore the field.

Sadie and Stella get some running in.

This field looks like they will be getting a bumper crop of hay this year, it's the best I've seen for a while but not as good as ten years ago when it was almost all grass with no weeds.

I am going to have to find and download a free bird book so I can start identifying what I am seeing taking off from ground level driving the hounds insane. The bird is small, not a bluejay but a very solid dark blue color.

I walked again today giving them both free reign where they could go where they wanted and at their own pace.  During this time the only time I am stopping is to take a photo.

This is their same favorite spot they had a few days ago when they refused to move. Today I told them to "come on" and they both took off running for the house.

Here are the New Balance running shoe that was designated my "yard shoes" 2-3 years ago. I didn't buy them at the time to run in, I bought them for comfort. I found out later that the sole design was perfect for yard work, where I would not slide on wet grass, could keep stable on the side of the bank and were ... comfortable.

Now for some ranting.

I've never been a fan of Mark Zuckerberg, the founder of Facebook, but I found his site convenient over the years. It was a good way to keep in touch with some old friends far away. It was also a good way to keep up to date with my interests in sports, bloodhound groups and basset hound groups. It was even fun sharing photos.

Yet the guy has been nothing more than a greedy prick.

I've deactivated and even deleted my Facebook account more than once over the years. The 14 day period gives everyone a chance to log back in and keep their old account intact but once that 15th day appears your account is permanently deleted.

I started getting a little ticked off when last winter he, Microsoft, Google, were all bashing the government on their "spying" on US citizens ... while it was known by their own admissions they did the same thing ... only they were doing for setting up advertising and generating billions of dollars in profit for themselves.

Yes ... they pay taxes, and they donate millions of dollars to charities but that's not my point.

Zuckerberg liked making comments about the wall being built on the Mexican border yet the asshole has a huge wall around his property and in the past week it has been announced that not only is he buying his neighbors out for their land but a few will get a new house built on his dime.

If you don't like walls, don't build them. But I let that go and kept reminding myself why I used Facebook. A couple of days ago news hit airwaves that Facebook was doing more than just spying on what their clients did on Facebook ...

They are in your smart phone as long as it's turned on and you have not changed any of the default settings. They are in your tv if you have the internet connected. They are everywhere in your life because Mark decided a long time ago that he would share your life all over the world so it can be more open and connected, then we can all be friends, a nice globe full of "safe spaces" and the skies will fill up with rainbows and unicorns.

One big happy family. You didn't even have to ask, Mark decided to do it for you!!

Now for me personally, Facebook is probably not in my life too much, besides what groups I 'liked' or the photos I posted of the hounds and the few comments I made on Facebook. Deleting my Facebook account is a good start of getting that creep away from me and the hounds.

Why??? Because I haven't had a smart phone since November 2015 and I don't have the internet hooked up to my large screen tv. When you pay for limited monthly internet data ... internet on the tv is a huge waste of data and I'll not pay for it.

So, for me deleting my Facebook account is mostly on "principal".

Don't shout to the world that Trump is wrong with his idea of building a wall on the Mexican border when you have a huge wall around your private residence. Don't shout to the world that it's terrible and unfair that NSA is "spying" on everyone via their phone and computer ... when you are doing the same thing plus more at Facebook.

They are even into the Google game of tracking the websites you go to even when you are not logged into Facebook so they can gear specific advertising to your interests ... even if you are not on Facebook.

I got finally tired of Mark Zuckerberg's bullshit and will do the least amount possible for him to play his game with me and the hounds. I know it's far fetched but all of what's going on now was far fetched 5 years ago ... so ask yourself what is next ... if Facebook can access your smart phone, your tv and listen in on phone conversations and read all of your Facebook messenges, what keeps them from getting into your bank accounts later on ... then claiming it's all their part to make the world a smaller, safer, likable place.

I've said enough here in the sunny 'tropics' of Southern Indiana ... I'm going to hide in my "safe space".