%%USERNAME%%    %%ACCWORDS%% %%ONOFF%% |
 |  An attempt at creating a daily blog. |
| I'm hoping I can turn this into a daily repository of random and not so random musings of my daily activities. Perhaps it will gel into a common thread that I may be able to work towards creating something interesting. |
| Oops, missed a day... I never got around to this yesterday. With my wife on vacation my routine is all messed up...and another week to go. Squirrels are testing my patience. I let them get access to part of my bird feeders but they are GREEDY! They destroy the feeders. I just got a "squirrel proof" feeder. It has a cage around it so the squirrels can't reach the seed...so one sits on top of the cage and reaches through to pick at the plastic tube. Apparently it thinks if it destroys the tube the seed will all drain out and it can eat it. That is true, but it would be a one shot deal. Once the seed is gone, nowhere to put more. I guess squirrels don't think long term. I have a baffle on the feeder pole and it is rare that a squirrel can get up above it...but it has happened. I felt sorry for them so I put a chair so they could go ahead and jump up. Enough is enough. I've been buying expensive feeders only for them to be destroyed in a week. The chair has now been moved. No more free lunch. Out air still has a slight haze from the Canadian smoke drifting down. I would think we are far enough south but apparently the upper winds carry it down here. It makes for increased difficulty in getting quality images with my camera. I'm critical enough about my photos without having additional haze added in. I can remove with software but, any alterations with a computer always come with tradeoffs. I strive to have the best image I can get straight out of the camera but often there is something that can be enhanced with a computer. I'll be scanning many of my 45 year old photos from when I was on the island of Guam while in the Navy (best move I ever did was joining up). They were taken with a cheap camera but the camera doesn't make the photo, the person behind the viewfinder does. Many of them are worthwhile but have some fading after this many years and the color can be improved. That's my project when the wife returns. I hope I'll have my reorganization complete by then but it hasn't been moving very fast. I'll try to get to it today and get my speakers set back up and rewired. I upgraded my internet service and it requires I put a different interface card in my computer. If I can get that done today and shift the computer to a stand on the floor, that would be a major step. Then I can reroute the video cables to it. I had to get a faster network switch and I hope I can get that installed today as well. Many things to do, little motivation to do them. I am still watching this series on streaming video. There are 9 seasons, 22 episodes per season. I just started season 5 yesterday. I feel guilty since each episode is 40 minutes and I'm not really gaining anything, well, actually i am paying attention to the writing so I guess it isn't a total waste. It would make for a good "who done it" style of mystery writing. Maybe that isn't really accurate but it is mystery themed. It makes you want to keep coming back Apparently a guy I was in school with has watched the whole thing. And another is a season behind me. I'll watch more today since I like to stay downstairs with the dogs. Usually the wife is with them and with the loss of one of their siblings, I've been giving them more attention. Frequent trips outside, bathroom and just trips to go bark. I spoil them rotten. What else are dogs for? I've done some minor cleaning but the dust is thick. Little by little I'm working at it. The lampshades I put in the dishwasher look much better. I washed the blankets the now gone dog used. Hmmm, I think one is still in the washer...I should probably go get it in the dryer. I made up fresh juice for the hummingbird feeders this morning. One of these trips outside I'll go ahead and grab the feeders and refill them. This is the first year that I haven't had mold issues with them. The weather has been extremely warm though but apparently I'm changing often enough that the mix doesn't get sour. I better go get that blanket into the dryer. Tim |
| Three in a row! I hope I'm getting back to my original routine. With wife still gone for over a week, i probably won't settle back in until she's back. It will be a omewhat busy week this coming week. Pain management folks tomorrow morning and then dentist on Wednesday. Finally, they will pull a back tooth that has been a problem for way too many years. The tooth in front was removed long ago and it always leaves a gap to collect "stuff". It's had multiple crowns to help fill the gap but it always shifts over time. It has no mate on the top but I haven't been able to get anyone to pull it...finally, I got a dentist to agree with me and it will be gone by the end of the week. Small things that matter. Pain management for ongoing back pain issues. Since they have prescribed opioids in the past, you have to sign a contract saying you won't get meds elsewhere, I guess to cut down abuse. I rarely take them, aspirin works just as well, if not better, and has no lingering effects. They used to take a urine sample to make sure I was taking them but haven't for quite some time, maybe it is to make sure I haven't been selling them...some people apparently do that type of stuff. It's going to be hot today, looking at eh forecast, it looks like it will be quite warm for the rest of the month. It is August though, and in the southeast. It's to be expected. All too soon I'll be complaining it's too cold...but my electric bill is the highest it has ever been...and they tacked on an extra 5.5% due to increased costs of getting the electricity. Strange though, my rate has been slightly less than back in Washington where they have the dams which have been in place for ages...that should be cheap power...but I'm sure other states buy the power which drives the cost up. I was going to go trim the grass around my fledgling lilac bushes but I haven't found my grass shears. They should only be in one of three places but with my eye condition, I could stare right at them and not see them. I'll have to keep looking or replace them. They didn't seem to work very well for me, probably operator error. meanwhile, I took the shades off the pole lamp and the ceiling fan and put them in the dishwasher to clean the dust off. My wife has never been a good housekeeper. I guess while I have the shades off I shoudl go ahead and update the bulbs to LEDs since incandescent bulbs are no longer available. I'm also doing some light dusting while I'm at it. I won't mention it so my wife probably won't notice...but I will. With 3 dogs that go outside then run back in we do collect dust. Now only 2 dogs after the older collie crossed the rainbow bridge last week (I do miss her) but she wasn't very active in her later years with a spinal issue that impacted her rear legs. It's always sad to lose a pet. We did have her for over 11 years though...within the normal lifespan of the breed. I ordered a small sprayer, electric powered and it should arrive tomorrow. I'll spray my redbuds with a fungicide and with the systemic fungicide I put on yesterday, I'll keep my fingers crossed. It looks like the second one is showing symptoms of the disease as well. The odds are against recovery but I'll try. I think that's going to be a wrap for today. Now I need to get back to bicycling. I could go out now but it is already 87 degrees and high humidity...My body isn't ready for that yet. Maybe next year. Tim |
| Up and at 'em! I woke up early this morning, not sure why. I was cold though even though the room was plenty warm. My body is strange sometimes. I have an eastern redbud I planted early this year. I purchased 2 of them. Both seemed to thrive but one was a month behind the other when they bloomed. Now, the early bloomer has some type of disease, leaves are dying and have holes in them. I don't see any bugs on them. From what I've been able to research, it appears to be a untreatable fungus. The second one, about 40 feet away, is thriving. I put some of that systemic fungicide/fertilizer on this morning and I'm giving it a very deep watering. I'll keep my fingers crossed. These were planted basically to fill empty spots of the yard that are shaded and as perches for the birds. An added benefit is they provide seed pods which I've read birds enjoy in winter. I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I picked up a board for my upstairs project and some speaker wire yesterday. I also got clips for the wires to keep them up and off the floor, hopefully out of range of my feet and anything that might get stashed under the table. Since I was able to cut the grass yesterday, it means the only outside project I have is pressure washing of the front porch. I think today will be an upstairs day until I get tired/bored, then maybe I can fire up the pressure washer and get started. I picked up my back brace at the VA yesterday, maybe I'll be able to stand longer and get more done. I still didn't manage to get out and ride my bike. I started out so well but then the bronchitis made me lay off, now I'm struggling to get back into the groove. All I can do is keep trying to convince myself to get out and do it. I put on almost 6 pounds when I started riding again and it is not dropping back off. Frustrating. I don't seem to have much to say of interest today. Perhaps tomorrow will be better...hope springs eternal. Tim |
| Back again... It's Friday! As I mentioned before though, when retired, the Monday - Friday becomes meaningless. Every day is Saturday, if you make it one. Time to do things for one's self, family things, everything that work used to get in the way of. Or, just sit around and be lazy...which I fall victim to way too often. I do manage to get a few things done though, slowly...but mainly due to physical limitations. It would be nice to have the drive and physical ability that I had in my twenties...a desire that I bet a lot of people share. It's getting to be on the warm side but I need to take a can to the garbage recycle place, then run to the Veterans Administration to drop off some paperwork and get fitted for a back brace. I've always been told the brace was conducive to loss of muscle strength but, the surgeon refused to do any further surgery. Not many options available, some days just standing in the shower can become an issue. I need to pressure wash my front porch and sidewalk, some of the driveway...but my standing time is limited. I'm hoping a brace will help...if not I'll just keep a chair handy and take lots of breaks to sit down. My grass dried out enough after the short storm yesterday morning that I could have cut it but, I didn't. Laziness crept up on me. I guess I can't really call it laziness, I did some more reading/studying of the Photoshop course I'm working on. And I managed to get a bit more done on my declutter project upstairs. Maybe I'm too hard on myself. I'll go to the VA after lunch and I hope it won't be too crowded. I know the mornings are always nuts. Being as it is Friday, I'm hoping most people will be done for the week and thinking about the weekend. I know the bulk of us going to the VA are retired but that concept of "weekend" has been burned into our brain for so many years that it is hard to forget about it. I need to swing by Lowes and get a board...it looks like I can put one on top of my apple crate things and put speakers on it as well as my stereo. It looks like it will clear the top of my largest monitor. I did find that the speaker wires for one speaker have apparently been disconnected somehow so I'll have to redo it...I may end up having to redo all the speaker wiring. Having been an electronics geek for a career, I don't think it should be much of an issue. I'm really hoping one of these days I can juggle my time and get back to spending time on my test bench. I have some very nice (and expensive) test equipment and currently it is pretty much just gathering dust. It used to be my camera stuff was gathering dust...I need to settle down and devote time to my various hobbies. Having ADD is problematic with hobbies. I can only sit and do something for so longer before my mind starts to wander. Actually, it is nearly impossible to sit down and keep only one thing in focus but I can usually get something done. For a long time I had real issues with it. As soon as i sat down I was wanting to jump up and do something else. None of my hobbies are boring but my brain is never satisfied, it wants to be moving on to something else. It looks like I am at a slow point of the day, still well over an hour before I go to the VA so I have time to do something productive. Maybe I'll work a bit more on the course I'm doing and maybe get real ambitious and go cut the grass before it gets too hot. Have a nice day! Tim |
| Trying hard... I managed to get a few things done so far today, have plenty more to go. I was going to cut the lawn today but we just had a thunderstorm so I guess that idea is out for the day. I did get started with the declutter project upstairs...but wow, there is a ton of stuff...hopefully I can make a noticeable dent in it today, then maybe a bit more each day. I am going to rearrange my computer monitors (I have 3) and move the tower computer to under the table. I have to figure out how to handle my stereo speakers that are sitting on apple crates on the ends of the table. I think one is actually sitting on a board that is on the table so it is off the end. I'll have to see if I can do that with both. That would allow room to place the monitors side by side. I have 3 due to my photo-editing pursuits. One monitor has video tutorials on it, one has the actual editing software on it, and the third has the browser with email, social media and ability to make quick searches for questions that pop into my mind. I think I'm going to use a TV stand to set my scanner on so it will be to the side, there won't be room on the table. I also need to relocate the stereo. It currently is sitting on the table with one monitor to the side. It is fairly large so it will need to be shifted. Perhaps if I can get the apple crates on a board so they are to the sides, then put another board on top to put the stereo and the speakers on. I'll have to measure and see if it would clear the top of the monitors. My wife is in Ireland for two weeks on a tour. That means I keep an eye on the dogs and get them out to do their poop/pee outside. The collie can be resistant to going out but I think she has found that I will toss her out if she doesn't go out on her own. She seems to have a small bladder and never thinks to go, sometimes coming back in and letting go on the carpet. So far she has been good though and I get her and the son's dog out every 2-3 hours. That has been working and since I've never been a sound sleeper, it's the same thing at night. I think my bronchitis is finally cleared up. I do cough one or two times in a day but only a few coughs, none of the sustained, uncontrolled bouts. Now I just need to get back on the bike. I charged up the headlight and taillight while it was in for it's 30 day tuneup and I need to get them back onto the bike. Then I need to check the tires. I need to pump them up about once a week as they do lose a few pounds of pressure. When I was a kid, the only time we put air in the tires was when we had a flat...and that meant taking the tire off, putting a patch on the tube, then putting it back on and try not to pinch the tube and create another leak. Now, tires don't seem to hold air as well. I believe nitrogen, as used in many care tires now, doesn't leak. I don't know if it is due to the size of the molecules or what. I'm pretty sure it is above my level of understanding. I think this is it for now. I need to go check in the garage and see if the tv stand that I'm thinking of is still out there, then maybe make a quick trip upstairs and find a few more things to toss in the trash. Bit by bit, maybe in a week I'll have things somewhat under control. Tim |
| I fell off the train... I was doing so well, then lost my motivation, trying to find it again. My back has been complaining. I had to lift my dog when I had her put down. She was 70+ pounds and I'm not supposed to lift over 10... I always pay for it when I do things like that...so muscle relaxers and percocet...which always destroys my motivation for several days. I'm trying to get back on the train but I'm starting to try to organize the clutter I have upstairs and that will involve moving some things around...and of course, not all of them are lightweight. It may be a few days until I work my way back out of this funk...but I always do. I changed internet providers today. I switched from Spectrum to Metronet. I've been satisfied with Spectrum but I wasn't happy with the upload speeds. I uploaded the resulting files from all the slide scanning I did to Dropbox for my friend and it was over 40 minutes...I had a 1gb downlink (I never got over 900mb) which was good but the uplink was only 40mb. Now, I have 2gb up and down. And no data caps. Of course, I rarely ever have any need for speeds like this, I started out with a 300 baud acoustic coupled modem in the early 80's. I did a ton of programming courses with that and there wasn't anything faster so it wasn't an issue. The school I was going to had several different programming courses going on but only a small number of terminals in their computer lab. If you were able to sit at home and use a modem, you could write your programs, upload them and let the remote system do the compile and run. I was the only one in my class that always had my programs done. One other guy was also using a modem but apparently didn't grasp the logic as well as I did. I've never been accused of being logical (odd since I'm logical when I do electronics troubleshooting) but I was able to get through my assignments, except for C. I never did get a handle on pointers and pointers to pointers...I think perhaps now I could but I have no need to, no interest in programming and the bulk of programming languages now are based on the OOPS concept, object oriented programming so the use of C is a rarity. Now it would be C++ but as I said, no longer any interest and I still have too many things I'm interested in so I don't really have time to pursue software development. I'm currently focused on using Photoshop and Lightroom. I've rekindled an interest in photo restoration and now have several updated books of which I had older editions years ago. Unfortunately, image editing software is updating at an extremely fast pace so even if a book comes out today, it's at least 18 months behind what the current software is able to do. What used to take several steps can now be fully automatic or only need 1 or 2 steps. The hard part is in the books and working through examples is figuring out to do the same older steps from the publication. It does require one to become more intimate with the software though...and I hope I can become proficient in both Photoshop and Lightroom. They are complementary applications and it is beneficial to have a through understanding of both. Some of these folks have been using Photoshop since day one (early 90s) so they have a tremendous advantage in their skill levels. They started when things were much simpler, much like computers. I had my first computer in 1980 and things were tremendously much simpler than they are today. I'm very thankful I'm not just starting to get involved with computers today. I think this is it for today. I want to go watch some videos on Photoshop. I hope that if I keep going over and over things that more of it will stick in my brain. Learning is not nearly as easy as it was 50 years ago. I do keep trying though. Tim |
View Portfolio
Visit Notebook
Send Gift Points
Awards
Badges
Send Email
Community Newsfeed
General Discussion
Sponsored Items
Book of Trinkets
Static Items
Books
Groups
Interactive Stories
Audio
Campfire Creatives
Community Notes
Crossword Puzzles
Documents
Folders
Images
In & Outs
Madlibs
Photo Albums
Polls
Product Reviews
Quizzes
Survey Forms
Web Pages
Word Searches
It is nice to see someone here with similar background interests. I too like to ride my adult tricycle, spent time on Guam Island in 1968, and held a ham radio license. I was known as The Stork because I was an RN in surgery in charge of the OB/GYN Department. Hubby was known as The Bodyman{/] because he repaired and painted car bodies, and my son was known as 10 Speed. What better way to describe a teenage boy. 