The Hounds Stayed Cool Inside

I never did sleep last night. I tried but it wasn't going to happen. Even the hounds woke up earlier then normal when they heard me pouring their breakfast kibble into their stainless steel bowls.

I shut the computer off as planned at 5am with some confusion about Google Photos. I have yet to find the answer on their help forum, although I have learned a lot of good information from that help forum.

Today was one of those days where the winds are higher but they are blowing warm air, humidity was thicker than butter and the energy level for the hounds and I started out low for the month. Yes, I did finally sleep about 5 hours and feel great.

Earlier in the day and afternoon, with a few chances to take off on a walk, Sadie and Stella did not do much more than these two photos show and before they knew it, the day was almost over.

By 6pm the temps were about the same, wind the same but it felt cooler as we stepped outside. We headed out for a walk after all.

There was a lot of butterfly activity today and I'll scatter those photos and of the hounds out in my discussion of Google Photos.

The migration to Google Photos is moving right along but at times I have some real 'head scratching' questions ... just weird stuff. It was a few minutes after midnight when I started the upload of Sadie's folder the had 4, 775 photos. It finished in 2 hours and 40 minutes but that was when the confusion for the night started. The Google program cut out about 800 duplicates it recognized that were already in the system.

Normally after the upload is complete, it would ask whether I wanted to add the photos to a folder but since there were too many it just had an arrow on the small box to view all of the uploaded photos. When I clicked that arrow I arrived at a blank white screen with a spinning arrow telling me it was loading the photos.

With that many I knew it might take a while. After an hour ... no photos. As a test I did a small upload of 65 photos and it worked, they showed up and I moved them into their new album. Two hours later, no photos of the 4,000 that I had uploaded.

Yet, when I clicked a link in the uploader box "view uploaded photos" they were there and I was able to move them into Sadie's album. It didn't go that smooth though due to my lack of knowledge that each album has a limit of 2,000 photos. I guess that is why it kept telling me "trouble with adding photos to album" as I tried time and time again.

Google Search proved to be my best friend sometime around 4am, telling me ... nope ... you have hit the limit of 2,000 and need a new album.

The confusion didn't stop there. Over on my blog I had taken the "RVs" out of my blog title and noticed while reading some blogs on my list that my blog no longer showed up on their list. Strange. Did the blog title change do that ... it shouldn't.

Then I looked at my blog list and noticed something weird that is still there today .... a lot of the blogs I follow were moved to the very bottom of the list, without that little snippet telling us how long ago that blog's post was written. So I went back to the three blogs I looked at, scrolled to the bottom and there I was along with other blogs with current posts, no date of our last post anywhere. Even my WordPress blog was moved to the very bottom of my own blog list and I made a post just last night.

I continued to load smaller files into Google Photos. Those images showed up as they should and were moved into their own album. So I basically have all of those updated and set up the way I want. Stella's upload is tonight with over 6,000 photos and should take less than 4 hours.

You might be asking "what's the rush"???  There isn't one but I'm not wired like that. When I start a project my "workaholic" tendencies come out, along with some other crazy issues I don't know about ... and I work until it is finished. Almost in an obsessed state of mind.

I will say the Google Photo automatic update worked like magic today. I have found a pretty simple way of getting my daily photos from my camera card, through Apple Photos on my hard drive, exported to a folder on my desktop. As soon as 14 photos hit that folder on my computer desktop by my manual effort ... Google Photos updated those 14 photos to my saved data base "in the cloud".

It does not take that much time to move them to albums on Google Photos and is the same process I use on Apple Photos on the computer.

I confused someone and myself on using Flickr. I mentioned that I had read they were now requiring a paid membership to use their desktop uploader. What I failed to see when I read that info was the words "auto uploader". (I know the period needs to be inside the quotation but it looks better the way I do it ... lol)

So I could have used Flickr for all of this backup but that is not the main reason I started using Google Photos. It works with my iPhone and will with any smart phone, automatically uploading photos from your phone and then deleting them on the phone to free up hard drive space.

I have also noticed some processes are easier to do on Google Photos compared to Flickr.

I wonder how much cheaper my iPhone 6S would have been today if I had waited a week or so? With Apple releasing their new iPhone 7 today, I hate to see what the 6S is selling for and will not look. It was also announced today that the  6S model is the most popular smart phone in the world.

As I started to stepped inside the house after our walk, I thought I saw a little movement in the small nest in the corner of the carport. It looks like I am going to have to back the Z4 out of his parking space, shake my can of wasp killer and let'er rip.

A pretty enjoyable day today. I uploaded some photos, tested some stuff on Google Photos and saw more features as I played around. With over 10,000 photos loaded into my account, I did a search for "chevy", hoping to see photos of my 1994 and then I could move it into it's own album. The Google Photos search was so detailed that it pulled up every photo I had with a Chevy in it.

What was interesting, there were photos of my Toyota FJ show up but they were photos I had downloaded from the car dealer when I was thinking about buying it in 2014 ... but in the background were Chevy trucks parked on the car lot for sale.

How's that for a search?

Rain is predicted for the next three days here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Tamron 18-200mm Lens Arrived & A UFO??

I guess staying up until 5am three nights in a row caught up with me. I did NOT miss feeding the hounds breakfast on 'their' time, around 7am ... but after that the day was a fog.

By the time I woke up, glanced at the iPhone clock, I instantly remembered my days centuries ago of working 3rd shift and sleeping through most of the day. I guess I finally knew what it was like for Sadie and Heidi during my days of working a job. Stella did not arrive until after I was a 'full-time doorman'.

As I let the hounds outside there was a very exciting surprise sitting on my door step. My Tamron 18-200mm lens had shown up a day early and my brain cells suddenly charged. It now felt like I had been up all day. I fed the hounds their late lunch as I put on my shoes and socks ... because a late afternoon walk was going to take place with the new lens mounted on my Nikon D3200.

Before I go into details of the walk I will just say how nice it was to have a lens focus and shoot, first time every time. It didn't matter what the light was, or the distance, nor the camera setting ... it worked instantly every time.

Another cool thing was being able to get shots from a distance (200mm) and when the hounds were too close to me in the past to get a shot in (18mm). It was also nice not having to switch lens for different times of the day where I would shoot different type of photos.

I could tell as soon as I took the lens out of the box how much different it was than the two Nikon lenses that came with my camera. It was heavier, moved more smoothly. It just felt like a better built lens.

The hounds were as excited about their walk today as I was about my new lens. Right from the start they were both out ahead of me and at times pretty far ahead of me. When Stella took off running fast enough that her ears were in the "wing back" mode I didn't think it could be a deer in that location nor direction ... what was it?

After a intense inspection with nothing showing up, the only thing I could think of was a rabbit ... but she had never reacted that way before to a scent of a rabbit. In the meantime Sadie is wondering if I am ever going to catch up and walk with them ... or am I going to lay back and take photos?

You can tell that the process of fall weather is in action even with the temperature at 88° during our walk after 5pm.

As I walked along the path, the hounds went back to their exploration and eating. The word eating makes you think that it must taste that good but the book I just finished said their eating was a way they identify what has been in the area. I don't seem to think that same way when I am chomping down one or two large borritos.

Stella looked up from a long distance away just to let me know she was not leaving just yet and was going to have Sadie join her for some help in identifying whatever she found. Which was probably nothing more than deer droppings.

I was almost at the point to turn left and head home when I took this shot. I mention it because for many months I have not been able to get this shot at times due to the lens not focusing.

The BEST thing was being able to catch them running the full length of their run instead of just part of it due to the Nikon lens not focusing all the time. I should have clicked my camera faster because they were both running as fast as they could.

Notice Stella's ears to gauge their speed.

The final trot up next to me.

I knew since they had ran too hard in very hot weather (88°), they would be walking slowly the last half of the walk. Neither of them veered off the path I take very much and of course since Stella was walking right in front of me most of the way ... she walked as slow as possible.

With tall grass, weeds or flowers one thing is always easy to see ... where the deer sleep. Someone had done some work to get their bed comfortable ... or was it one of those small UFO's that land on occasion?

Stella was more than interested in finding out who it was, when it was and why were they so close to her house at night. With the bedroom windows open at night you would think she or Sadie would have heard this going on.

I took this next photo just to show how close to the house the deer sleep .. unless it was just a very small UFO.

Needless to say, by the time I completed this walk today I can say I was in love with the new lens. In just the short time it took us, the lens had done everything I wanted plus it had the range to take photos when the hounds were too close or too far away.

For those not interested ... from this point forward I am only discussing Google Photos that I am backing up all my photos with online ... but ... there is some news announced in there somewhere.

I am almost finished with my Google Photos migration. I had a very productive night last night. I am down to just two groups of folders to upload with a total of 11,013 photos of Sadie and Stella. That count does not count the yesterday and today's ... but I will load those first.

Along the way I learned some of the new features Google Photos has. Each folder I uploaded has the ability for the user to choose the image they want for the "album cover". Yet there's one disadvantage that showed it's ugly self ... you cannot load more than 500 photos at a time INTO A FOLDER but can upload 1,000's at a time into the program itself.

So my plan of adding tonights 11,013 photos into Sadie's folder and Stella's folder and getting to bed a little earlier ... isn't going to work. The process turns out to be a little longer than just uploading the group of photos from the specific folder on my computer, letting Google Photos make that folder while I type in the folder name.

I have to wait for those 6,238 photos to load, then open them up and select no more than 500 photos at a time before I can add them to the folder. Luckily that selection process is easy .. click the first photo, then hold down the shift key as you move your cursor down the end of each row ... choosing the photos in that row, then clicking the last photos when the counter reaches 500. The lifesaver in this is in the upper left corner there is a selection counter working as you go so you can see when you hit 500.

There is not a way to click the edit menu, then "select all" in Google Photos within the group of photos you are working with. There is in Apple Photos.

I have all of my 60 individual folders loaded and labeled with that cover photo chosen. After Sadie and Stella's photos are loaded tonight I will be able to set the program up to work automatically. Meaning after a couple of changes to my settings, every new photo will be added automatically into Google Photos whether the photo is taken with my camera or iPhone. All the photos in Google Photos can be seen by whatever device you are using plus it does not matter if you are on a Mac or a Windows PC.

Of course a long time blog reader made a comment last night after Sunday's post about this whole process ... his comment made me second guess my decision AGAIN !! For long time blog readers you know how I love to change my mind in the midstream of the thought process.

He had a point and one I had thought of many times before deciding to do anything "in the cloud". I'll not go into the plus and minuses of what to do but I am happy using Google Photos and the more I use it the better I like it.

Yet ..... I had to try his suggestion. He had reminded me what I was going to do last year and didn't. I moved my whole photo library, about 22.4 Gb's to an external hard drive in 2 hours and 47 minutes while I was watching the Florida State vs Ole Miss football game.

Pretty nice eh? No staying up all hours of the night ... just 3 short hours all of my photos were neatly tucked into a desk drawer waiting for the next update that will not take as long.

Still ... I really like what Google Photos does. One thing I caught myself doing last night while waiting for photos to upload .. was looking at photos and seeing them just as good if not better than when I look at them on my iMac in Apple Photos. I like the format.

I also like viewing them in my Flickr account but not all of my photos are there ... the two programs are very similar. I have found that Google Photos is easier to work with than Flickr when editing photos and organizing them.

So one more night of 3rd shift work ...

If you have read this far through all of this rambling I'll let you in on a little secret change I did right before posting tonight ... I took the "RV" out of my blog title.  :)  Many hours later while reading a blog that normally has my blog on their blog roll ... it wasn't there. So I checked another blog and my blog wasn't on their blog list either. I looked at a third blog and my blog was gone on their list. So until further notice ... I have put the RVs back in my blog title.

A great day today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Get An Unexpected Walk

It wasn't 5 minutes after I published today's post where I said the walk was cancelled today -- that I decided to go. Even with a short heavy rain earlier it could not be that wet ... plus the sun was out. I pulled too many photos to add to the earlier post today, so here they are ... just photos.

Remember that Stella is the only one that wears a collar.

Now, for some dinner, here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Hounds Take A Day Off

In honor of Labor Day, all the hounds took the day off today. It started as soon as they woke up and continued the rest of the day.

Since they were celebrating a "day off", their routines were the same as every other day ... because they are retired.

Sadie and Stella took an early morning check of the grounds, walking every inch of the yard around the border. After they approved things were okay, I headed inside for my first of two cups of coffee. They slept ... I read more about Google Photos and did some math to find out just how long this was going to take and how much data it was going to use.

Stella let me know by howling that it was time for lunch. Of course she did that while I was on a phone call with the phone speaker on. She was fed as soon as I hung up from the call. I went back to looking at and doing some work on Google Photos while I kept my eye on the iMac Activity Monitor for any large jumps in data usage.

One thing that is funny when it happens, with all breeds of dogs, is after months or years of a daily routine ... they change and do something entirely different ... totally opposite ... with no warning signs. In Heidi's case that means she has decided the past two days and nights NOT to go to the front yard like she has for the 5 years that I have had her ... but head out to the backyard to dump her tanks.

The key word in all of that is "yard" and it doesn't matter where she goes, front or back, my pooper scooper still works. I then walk to the edge of the yard by the burn pile and toss whatever the scooper collects, into the woods.

Sadie liked the after lunch sunshine and you know what she does when she feels the heat beating down on her ... she sleeps. Sadie never stops and is determined that she misses nothing that may have come into her yard or field while she has been inside.

On average I can upload 1,300 photos in an hour. I'll find out if that is accurate tonight after midnight with a larger sample size because I will load Winston's and Heidi's folders which has 1,500 photos in each folder. It will be the largest number of photos I have done at one time. Sadie and Stella are more photogenic so Sadie has 4,775 and Stella has 6,238 photos before today.

Then I'll be able to move that folder of each hound into the Google Photos Uploader preference, where it will automatically upload only new photos from then on.

Heidi came out to the backyard with Sadie and Stella without me asking her too ... the backyard seems to be her place, at least the past few days.

I don't think Stella would ever move if I didn't wake her up to go back inside.

No naps outside for Sadie though ... she is finished with exploring the field and once she gets her drink of water inside ... she will be sleeping the rest of the afternoon.

Today's walk was cancelled. (Walked right after post - photos on new post above this one) We had a rare storm show up out of nowhere and dump a lot of rain in a very short period of time. Or the real reason may be I am feeling pretty lazy today when it comes to walking ... I need a day off.

I understand a lot more about Google Photos today, than I did when I posted yesterday. I had to go to the forum to ask a question since I could not find the answer anywhere ... even with other users asking the same question.

What is the difference between "upload" and "backup". When I think of backup, I picture the whole file, in this case Google Photos being backed up ... it was still using data on my computer to do that. Plus the number of photos that it was backing up never matched the total that I had uploaded.

I thought I had the answer from someone who answered my question on the forum and I understood when they said "upload" is when I do it manually and "backup" is when the system takes over and uploads the new photos that I did not with the uploader.

That seemed logical until I took a folder of 37 photos, uploaded them manually and then saw the installer saying it was "backing up 37 photos" ... I decided to stop right there trying to figure out what was going on.

This concern I have about data is because as I have mentioned many times before ... I only pay for 15Gb per month. I pay too much for that amount. I can buy more when I am running short at the end of my billing period but it's $10 for 1Gb. I think that is an outrageous price for just 1Gb. The past two nights that I have uploaded photos after midnight, the data used is close to 3Gb's each day. With 15Gb per month, that is only 1/2 a Gb per day or 500Mb's.

Once all the photos I have are loaded into Google Photos, only then will it use less data because it will only be updating the new photos that I take each day. I wish there was a way I could schedule a specific time to "backup" or upload those new photos, so I would not have to stay up past midnight to do it.

I want to be as automatic in this process as possible after I am done.

The sunshine is back out here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.