Lake Greenwood

As I pulled into the parking lot of the marina I had an unexpected welcoming party. They totally caught me off guard as the two adults and one fawn walked slowly in front of my car. I forgot I had my glasses on. I never take photos with my glasses on. I didn't know whether to grab the iPhone or the Nikon D3200 that I had brought with me. Luckily they were not afraid of me nor were they in a hurry ... I still acted fast, too fast so I could catch them on camera before they ran away.

I grabbed the Nikon, while forgetting to roll down the passenger side window. The window was dirty but not bad photos considering I was rushing around, a little panic, excited and my ballcap bill in the way when I tried to use the viewfinder.

I wasn't able to catch the three of them with one photo but I did catch the last two.

They stood and watched as I drove slowly away to park my car in a vacant parking lot.

One last glance to see who and what I am. Stella and Heidi would have loved this. It's one reason I never bring them down to this area. These mule deer are very common at all hours of the day or night. They fear nothing.

By the time I parked my car down by the boat ramp, walked across the parking lot and up to the restrooms (locked), they were within arms reach it seemed as I glanced out from behind the building.

They finally realized I was standing there taking photos of them and took off

Some of you have seen photos of this lake before. I've taken photos here and posted pictures on my other blog in May 2015. Click here to see more photos of the lake and area in Spring.  I also came back in October 2016 to take more photos. You will have to scroll much lower in the article to see the fall colors surrounding the lake. Click here for that article.

Today all the rental boats, canoes, kayaks are put away for the winter. Offices are locked and basically I had the whole 800 acre lake to myself. It is a man-made lake, surrounded by 108 square miles of some of the prettiest land in Southern Indiana.

At 38° there were a few still around but it was totally silent, no cars, no people, no traffic, no jet noise ... nothing ... just quiet.

This is my poor attempt at a panoramic photo moving from right to left in the next four photos.

That land is full of campgrounds, mostly tent camping. There are buildings for cookouts and if you have 4-wheel or all-wheel drive you can take single track dirt/gravel roads back into those woods as deep as you want to camp.

When I was writing the post this morning I knew I was going to have to go to the grocery store for fruit and almonds if nothing else. It dawned on me that if I went a different direction not only could I shop but also visit Lake Greenwood and take some photos. I've never been down there in the month of January before.

One thing that is very nice about this facility, is that it is semi-private. Unless you have a government employee badge or a military ID card (active or retired), you will not get inside the 108 square miles. I might be wrong on that ... it changes depending what the security level is, so at times a government employee or military personnel can bring civilians on base. As far as coming alone, not going to happen without a government ID.

This government facility is the 3rd largest Naval installation in the world ... not the USA. Yet, there isn't a naval ship anchored anywhere near this land locked base. In fact, five years ago it had less than 80 active duty military personnel out of 6,000 - 8,000 employees.

Over the past 50 years it has evolved from being the largest bomb producer in the Viet Nam War, to high-tech development for all branches of service, ships or aircraft. Only government employees or government contractors work at this facility.

So you are probably asking yourself the same question I asked myself before leaving this morning ... would this facility be open during the current government shutdown? I thought the grocery store might be closed but the lake area would be accessible. I'd take that chance.

As I stopped at the gate to show my ID card, to my surprise, the security officer told me the base was not closed. In fact this facility for some reason was not affected by the government shutdown that is currently going on. I remember when I worked here in 2013 I was sent home between 10-14 days during a shutdown. (can't remember) But not now??? Interesting.

I admit I did a little editing to make the sky bluer and that automatically helped with the color of the water in the panoramic photos. Otherwise you wouldn't see much color, even with the sunshine.

I've sailed, paddled a canoe and a kayak on this lake for as far as the eye can see ... then further. The shelter is nice for cook-outs and it's always quiet due to the accessibility or lack there of, to the general public.

It was nice to get out on such a bright sunny day. No signs that Stella attempted any escapes today while I was gone. Heidi must have kept a tight leash on Stella and well under control.  :)

I felt much better when I got back. It's a nice drive to and from. Perfect weather for the month of January. While the hounds slept their afternoon away after they ate lunch, I answered some emails, replied to comments, added a border around all the images and listened to an old favorite band of mine ... Jethro Tull.  LOL ... I know.

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

Weirdness Starts The Day

It's nothing really, just a time where I feel somewhat 'weirded out.' It makes me wonder sometimes if this is part of the process of getting older. I don't feel old physically, nor do I think I am old mentally ... I've discussed that somewhere before. Yet, this feeling I've had  so far today (2.5hrs) is something I've felt only in retirement. That might happen only because I am not so busy this time of day where I use to be getting ready for work or at work ... so that's understandable.

It's not a feeling of anxiousness nor paranoia, just strangeness.

I feel warm in my clothes yet the indoor thermometer tells me I shouldn't feel warm, just comfortable. The weather forecast tells me it's going to be another great day but I don't feel that way. Maybe it's a letdown after all the energy and thinking I did the past few days changing the design of the blog. I have nothing to do here. The dishes are done, house is clean, no urge to keep reading the Steve Jobs book. No urge to grocery shop while I need fruit and salmon. I've been hungry for days but for nothing that is in my kitchen.

I couldn't help but try to put this mental puzzle together while on the walk this morning. Was I feeling regret about buying a camera when I have a good one in my hand? No. Do I need to go on a mini-roadtrip, get out of the house more than just 25 miles away? No. Is the simple lifestyle routine getting to me? No.

It may have started within seconds of opening my eyes, and taping my Garmin to see the time. Stella and Heidi were both whining as they normally do when they are awake and ready to get another day started. My Garmin's bright white background, brighter than any nightlight was showing 5:03am ... I got up anyway. I was ready to get up. I wanted to get up with a feeling that I needed to do something. There was nothing I needed to do.

While the hounds inhaled their kibble for breakfast I was making coffee like every morning when I glanced at the clock and it says 6:39am. What ??? I've only been up 10 minutes at the most and it's 6:39am ... how did that happen? So I glance at the Garmin on my wrist and sure enough, it also says it's 6:39am. I misread the time seconds after opening my eyes. It wasn't even close to 5:03am when I glanced at the Garmin.

That is not where the weirdness came from.

That feeling started somewhere during my first cup of coffee. Different day same routine. Nothing needed to get done. The 'Reminder' program Apple gave me, shows nothing is a high priority. My mind is restless. Ah ha .... restless? It's like anything else when I design a blog, drive cross country, research my next car or truck trade, or plan a camping trip (only a few years ago) ... it's the normal excitement of 'the chase' and the big mental 'letdown' after it has been accomplished.

After the blog design is decided upon and finished ... now what? After that car or truck is bought and sitting in the driveway ... now what? After driving 1,800 miles sitting in the middle of nowhere with the most beautiful countryside around ... now what?

It's always the same. So maybe that is the weirdness I feel this morning.

My dad told me soon after his retirement, that he would feel anxious every morning unless he had planned things he needed to do that day. Just knowing he needed to mow the yard (large, acres) would be enough to take away that anxious feeling. Washing the cars? That did it also. Sitting around ... made him anxious. He had to be doing something.

You'll notice the deer decided to follow our return path sometime last night or early morning. Those hoof prints are fresh, within the previous couple of hours?

Normally I would have written about these feelings on my private blog just to log as reference, this weirdness. Still, I said last month that I would going to be more open, transparent on this blog. So here it is. Not a big announcement I'm sure but it is what it is I guess. It all stems from asking myself if this type of feeling is just me or is it something I should expect as normal as I get older.

Anyone out there over 66 years of age ... do you have feelings like this at times? Spaced out? Weird? A little lost?

There is more to this, I just remembered what else ... a feeling of being lost. No plans are nice in retirement, no schedules, but maybe they really are needed in this life of leisure. I do have some plans for this spring but nothing is firm yet and they are really dependent on someone else's health if they happen or not. I can still do it solo.

I also don't mind this simple lifestyle the hounds and I lead. We have for years. I'm content, no worries, no crisis that needs a fix. We just are, day after day. (I have just thought of something I can do today, doing two things in one trip and I'll add photos and blog about it later.)

Right now I feel distracted again, as usual. I have forgotten some things I wanted to write about the 'weird feeling' I've had this morning. In fact my mind is just blank about that right now.

For the first time in years, I have not had the urge to move west. It's January and that urge usually turns into obsessive searching of real estate in Arizona or New Mexico. Not this year. Of course the weather has been fantastic, around normal averages, where we have not dipped into the 20's too many days and have never been in the single digits this year. Maybe that urge to move doesn't happen until it's 20° or lower?

As I move through this post I have realized that all I need to get rid of this feeling is to DO SOMETHING !!!!

Get out of the house, take my camera with me, go for a drive out in the country in the local area ... country is all around me ... with gravel roads, very little traffic on some highways and many paved country roads to choose from that go in all directions.

So already, before finishing this post I have multiple ideas to choose from. Those options were not even a thought a few hours ago. It reminds me of the time now, when I would feel like this in the past, I would take my Z4 out for a drive of 50-60 miles. If the weather was good the top would be down if it was like today the heater would be on.

Those kind of trips decreased to almost nothing last summer for some strange reason. The spring or summer day would be beautiful and I didn't want to drive it. That is one of the reasons I sold it. All it did was sit here month after month, not being driven.

Based on the number of times I was driving it in 2018, I wasn't going to put more than 850 miles on it for the year. The times I did drive it I was beginning to feel that car would either put me in jail or kill me. Yes, speeding was a factor. Not a few miles over the limit ... but enough where they probably would have taken the keys away once they caught me.  :) It was hard not to drive the car the way it was designed to be driven.

I didn't like the color anyway. If I ever buy another, it will be the dark gray color, is it called "slate gray?" (I hate the way that looks with the question mark inside the quotation mark)

In the 'old days' of many years ago, I would have grabbed my tent, sleeping bag and some food ... then went camping locally out in the freezing weather for a few days. That always clears the mind. Sure I could do that now with the hounds but it's not fair to them to make them stay outside in cold weather, freezing weather just because I have a bug up my ass to go camping. That will only stay as a good memory.

What animal would be this tall to have Stella so interested????

No, I think what I have planned for this morning is going to be a good idea. An enjoyable idea. I'll take off within minutes of publishing this post. I'll post photos and a short blog later this afternoon or early tonight. I have an IU basketball game to watch at 7pm, so the post will take place in the late afternoon unless I schedule it for a later time.

Speaking of blog posts ... with the plan I set for this blog almost a month ago ... there will be occasional posts that is nothing but content. There will not be any photos while I ramble on those posts. I had one the other day and a few readers let me know they liked and wanted photos. Well in the story telling or rambling posts where I have to get something on paper and out of my mind ... photos aren't going to happen in those.

I also like the way the blog looks. I was able to figure out myself how to change the code that would change the colors of the fonts, the size of the fonts, different colors for links, post titles, etc. I did find out that I was wrong about the thumbnail size on the front page. Those small photos are 400x400 and will automatically adjust the height accordingly.

I could spend most of the day trying to figure out how to make them all 400x400 no matter what size they are when I upload them. Not today ... I want to get out of the house and away from this computer. The sun is out and it's not even 10am yet. That's a good thing.

My data leak is also mysterious. I spent weeks burning over a gig per day as I spent most of the day on the computer looking through WordPress themes, changing designs plus my normal internet surfing. Yesterday after seven straight hours I had only burned 358Mb of data.

That is extremely low for what I was doing. Almost half the amount I had last week after the same amount of time. What happened? Who or what was using my data? I looked through my Activity Monitor and found nothing to be soaking up data. Automatic updates were turned off years ago.

Well I hate to end this so abruptly but I have to get out of here ... like right now.

It's another good morning here in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

Retirement Life Is Easy !!!

I can get use to this great weather very easily. Just like retirement, it's another great day not to jump in that line of traffic 'flying' by the driveway and join them for another day at work. That is probably one thing I have never gotten tired of as I approach my 5th year ... FREEDOM !!! It is so much different to wake and start your day not having to follow a schedule. I can do what I want like the hounds do. Heidi and Stella basically dictate most of my schedule.

Even though the weather was great this morning for Stella and I on the walk, Heidi needed some extra sleep time. She did get up like we all do, had her breakfast kibble and then went back to bed. She likes to scratch the sleeping bag and blankets into the perfect spot before circling three times and laying down. She slept late today because I was up too late last night (2:36am) changing and fine tuning the blog.

I also found out this morning that the actual time on the clock isn't what dictates what Stella wants, such as her walk ... it is based on when she wakes up, and has her breakfast. For example, this morning we didn't start the day until 7:52am, much later than normal. So with her walk set to take place eight minutes after she woke up .... instead she went in the dark bedroom to sleep on the floor right after her breakfast (normal routine) ... an hour later she woke up, drank water to let me know to prepare for our walk.

Starting with this photo here I clicked on the screen in back of the camera to take the photos instead of using my view finder. Three reasons for that. One, I wanted to find out if my hands were really shaking during these morning photos that seem just a tad blurry to me. I wanted to see how hard it might be, since I have rarely taking photos like that. I will discuss the 3rd reason Friday or Saturday. :)

I was surprised actually how well the photos turned out with me not using the view finder. I also found out my hands are not shaking when taking the photos BUT when I pushed the shutter I noticed a few times that I was pushing in a way that my camera would tilt just a little to the lower left. It made me also wonder if my head against the view finder was a factor in moving the camera ever so slightly.

I have also been wondering if Stella's supplement, the VetriScience GlycoFlex Plus, was working or not. She is into her second bag. This morning I found out that the supplement really was working. She was running fast enough that at times I couldn't raise my camera fast enough to catch her running. By the end of the walk as she stepped into the yard, she ran and jumped into me wanting to play like she use to do with Sadie. We wrestled for a short time but there was no way I could take a photo of her with any kind of camera.

Stella was in what I call her tracking mood this morning. She spent a lot of time on the move with her nose to the ground. I let her go on her own and followed her after we made that turn at the corner of the woods.

I soon found out that she was going to lead me diagonally across the field. I had a hard time keeping up with her and for a few seconds I thought she might take off on me and head to the woods to the north. She did that a few years ago and I eventually found her in the woods. Sadie would always find her before I would.

With the 200mm zoom I was able to find her in the tall grass.

You can barely make out the worn path ahead of her made by deer traffic.

As she lagged behind me on the return path home, as I turned to get my camera ready to hopefully take a photo of her running ... she was already passing me on a full-speed run.

It was up to her whether we take the path that ends up at the north property pole by the yard, or take a left and follow the old path used for 20 years back to the house. This morning she headed left ... the scent was just too strong for her to pass up.

Verbal herding was needed here. Then some louder tone to let her know I wasn't a happy camper when she ignored me. She lifted her head to stare at me as if I was crazy, then slowly walked home.

Tuesday afternoon I decided to use only my iPhone 8+ camera. It does well with low light, close-ups and the 2x zoom ... but nothing more than that. I thought I took more photos than these two but college football must have shaded my memory from yesterday. Neither of these photos were edited in any way, straight from the iPhone.

I will be fine tuning the look of the blog today. Barney was nice enough to give me some feedback about the font color, something I wasn't keen on either. I fixed that but there are a few other things I want to fix that will require me to read to find my answer or use the free WordPress chat where their techie will give me the correct answer within minutes.

My priority is finding a way that all of the thumbnail photos on the home page are all the same size. When I inspected the element of the home page it shows the correct size is 200x200. So I have to find a way that any photo I add as a feature photo will be that size. In writing that I just figured out what I need to do, to make that happen.

My brain is on fire today with correct answers ... maybe it's the new year eh?

I signed up for and get the notices from USPS telling me the mail they are delivering that day or within the next few days. It makes a world of difference because in past years I knew I was losing some mail because I was getting too much mail in my mailbox belonging to my neighbors.

Today USPS is reminding me that society thinks I am old. I see the four pieces of mail I am getting today are for hearing aids, life insurance, funeral insurance and joint supplements. All will be thrown into the recycling bin after I take my name and mailing address off.

Since synchronizing my Garmin Connect app with the food MyFitnessPal app ... the food app is now adjusting how many calories I am allowed to eat, plus or minus my 1500 that I manually entered ... if I am not getting the amount of exercise that it believes I should be getting, based on previous activity ... it subtracts a certain number of calories from the 1500 for that day.

Some are reading this and saying "I don't count calories" or "That is not needed" ... but in my case it is. When I don't track the food that I am eating and counting calories I GAIN WEIGHT FASTER THAN EVER !! Plus it's like playing with spreadsheets I guess, in a sick way.

I still have the big urge for pizza and ice cream ... will I "fall off the wagon today?"

I just remembered since the font is now 'bone white' ... I will need to figure out how to change the color of a 'link' so when I do add links into my post you will be able to see them BEFORE you hover your cursor over them.

Well we are a little behind in our normal routine today ... the hounds are still sleeping and not howling or barking for lunch. Based on what I have seen so far, they will not want lunch until around 12:30pm local time, about an hour or so after their normal request.

I TRIED WATCHING SOME TV NEWS THIS MORNING ... 'tried' is the keyword there. By the time it took me to walk from my computer in a different room to the tv remote in the living room I turned it off mumbling to myself "I'm not going to waste my time with that shit."  (noticed how I tucked that period inside the quotation mark)  LOL

Well busy day ahead today in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.

I Know I Know I Know

Some people say "never say never" ... I need to be one of those people. That saying is perfect for someone who changes their mind a lot, like I do. So ... YES THE BLOG DESIGN HAS CHANGED YET AGAIN!!! I put out a warning the other day that there might be some small changes ... but nothing like this !! While it's almost 2am and the hounds are in a deep sleep, let me explain the why and how.

The all white background I had been using was just too bright for me. When I added a slight bit of color, it didn't look right. Then the more I looked at the theme I was using, the more I didn't like it. (At least today) So before the ballgames started at noon on Tuesday I started playing around a little with some small changes and the same design.

After watching the Rose Bowl, I decided to 'get serious' about making some BIG changes to the way the blog looked. Maybe this idea also started when I changed my computer settings back to the 'dark mode' and also went into Firefox settings to change their theme to the 'dark mode.' It's easier on the eyes for the amount of time I spend in front of this computer.

Using the same design that I had for the past week, I made the background black but the post background was white and that clashed too much with the black background I wanted. I could have changed the white background by adding some CSS code but even if I did that, I still did not like that design.

I thought I had found a pretty good theme (template), with page wide images and the columns of old posts on the front page but I ran into the same problem ... the background of the post was white and that is not what I wanted. I wanted the page to be black or dark gray, completely around my photos

I have always known that photos look better against a black or dark gray background. Why would Apple changed their Photos program a few years ago to that same idea? Or when I would look at other blogs that had a black background, their photos looked really good. They stood out with the darker background surrounding them, compared to a light or white background.

So I thought I had it ... but again, I would have had to find some code or get the code from the WordPress CSS forums to change the white background.

I kept looking through templates.


I set three requirements in the WordPress theme search ... (1) Style: Clean (2) page wide images (3) Background: Black

Then I saw it. I clicked on a theme I had used two weeks ago based on the notes I had written in my 5x8 notebook next to my keyboard. It had everything I wanted. LARGE PHOTOS, a 'footer' sidebar and a front page that would show past post in date order, newest on down, with the date or time I had written the post.

I grabbed my iPhone and iPad Mini to see what the new design would look like. It looked great on each. There was one adjustment I had to do with the header image. I had to hide it and go with the plain color header because on the phone, the title could not be seen and there was a menu bar cutting right through the middle of the picture. Besides, a header image is too small on a phone to see it.

I might have to lighten this font color for the blog post. As promised I did keep the font the same as the previous two weeks. I had a few people let me know that it was easier to read, after I changed it. The fonts are the exact same font and the same size as before.

I will have to live with the three columns of past posts on the front page not being exactly even due to the slight difference in the size of the photos. I also have to insert a space between each photo where I have listed them one after another, without content.

I can live with both of those differences to have the most important stuff.

IF you have problems reading the blog or just don't like it ... let me know and tell me what device you use to read the blog. IE: phone, tablet or computer.

That was my thought process for changing the blog. I have always thought since the blog seemed to be about the hounds more than anything else, that the photos needed to be the main focus and they needed to be large for me and the readers that use computers.

In the meantime I am headed for bed. It's 2:32am and I need to get a few hours of sleep before Stella, then Heidi wake me up to serve them breakfast. Since retirement I have never used an alarm clock to get up, but why would I need one since the hounds always whine loud enough to wake me up.

It's been a good weekend of football in 'the tropics' of Southern Indiana.