2017 Summer June 30 Friday

77 degrees this morning, walk 34;32 miles

Overall enjoyable walk this morning, no forecast of rain, but lightning moved in as I ended my walk and I felt a few drops of rain.  

However, after my weights and shower etc., I am sitting out on the patio and it is not raining and I don’t see any signs of lightning.

Pace this morning was 3 seconds slower than my goal, so the past few days I think I have been within 10 seconds of my goal most of the time.  

I am trying to decide if I should change my goal to make it more challenging, but if I never meet it, it eventually wouldn’t make a lot of sense.  On the other hand, it may be that my present goal is too slow, and I own’t improve until I set a more difficult goal.

Of course, then the question is, if I never meet it, do I need to make a slower goal?  Anyway, I’ll think some more on it.  

Working on the picture project.  I again learn hat the way to learn something is to do it.  Having a reason to learn a computer program or app is a good way to sharpen my mind and concentrate and I learn fast then.  Of course, that assumes I don’t run into any roadblocks.

I learned a long time ago I learn faster if I try something and then take a course or instruction on it, not the other way around.  

It is fascinating to hold pictures in my hand dated 1900!  I look at it and think of how they couldn’t really envision their lives and the world to come, any more than we can envision our future world.  

I just noticed the Crepe Myrtle may be “blooming”, if that is the correct word.  I like it because Crepe Myrtles are one of my favorites, and it means Summer is here. I don’t like it because it means Summer is fading slowly but surely, if ever so much in the far distant future!  I may be wrong, it is dark and it may just be the way the light shines, but it sure looks like they are blooming, I’ll find out later today!

Three years ago, we were living in a rental house without any furniture, waiting for our furniture etc. to be moved.  Oddly enough, it is something you adjust to relatively fast.

Still listening to “Desert Solitaire”, still holding my attention.  He is now in the middle of describing some of his trips.  It i quite  book. 

He made a comment about innovation that was interesting, that creativity can’t thrive where everything is the same.  Now you would say no diversity.  

Abbey was writing in the 60’s on something that happen in the 50’s.  I really wonder what he would think now, with the cars, technology, and perhaps worst, the invasion of the natural areas by both 4 wheelers etc., and also by energy companies wanting to pillage the land to rip off a few more dollars from taxpayer land. 

Glad Friday is here.  While this isn’t a 3 day weekend, the holiday Tuesday will be nice.  It does signify that Summer is half over theoretically, although around here Summer normally lasts until at least   late September, frequently with nice weather until Thanksgiving.

However, I”m not even going to think about the of Summer, I will just enjoy the hot weather and the long days of sunshine!

That’s it for now, Friday, June 30, 2017.     

2017 Summer June 29 Thursday

77 degrees this morning, no walk due to schedule.

Very windy this morning almost a coldness in the air from the wind.  Didn’t walk this morning.

Still having problems connecting to one of the wifi accounts, appears to be intermittent.  Of course the old “shut it off and restart” and “may be a compatibility problem” “solutions” were trotted out like always, the words of incompetence and not wanting to mess with your problem (that they created but suddenly their incompetence is YOUR problem).

The new iMac came yesterday.  The packaging is so beautiful and useful, I feel I should have taken a movie of  unpacking it!  I just have to feel that a company that takes the time to package everything right probably takes the time to do other things right.  

Get it going, like always with Apple, it was easy and very intuitive.  Everything hooked up almost immediately and even somewhat automatically.  

It will be a lot faster for for the picture scanning project and for a lot of other projects for that matter.  

I plan on using the “old” iMac as kind of an “always on” note taker, calendar and reminder (so I don’t have to fire up my laptop or mess with the phone to do it.  

More important, I am planning on using it with my keyboard to compose music again.  While I enjoyed composing music and make slide shows several years ago (I would make a slide show and compose music to go along with it), there just didn’t seem to be much point to it.  However I enjoyed doing it and perhaps that is the point of it.  Of course finding the time may be difficult.

Neighbors wind chimes may be pretty, but they are very intrusive and starts to wear on me when I am out on the patio.  Especially when it is very windy like today.  It isn’t even a close neighbor, so I am sure the noise affects the entire area.  

I am becoming more and more aware of the deterioration of “brick and mortar” retail which is getting literally destroyed by the internet sales.  More and more retail stores are declaring bankruptcy or going out of business since the traffic simply isn’t there.  

I realize “progress is progress” and hopefully the change is for the better, but it is sure hurting a lot of people in the process.  

Three years ago we were in the process of moving.  In fact, I just checked and 3 year ago we had just moved and apparently did not have any AC in the house or any furniture, waiting for furniture to arrive etc.  

It was Sunday and we had just eaten breakfast at “First Watch”.

Hard to believe, I had forgotten about no AC when we first moved here! 

Strangely, I rarely look at my past posts.  I always think I do it so I can look back, but I very rarely do, except like today, just to verify an event etc.

I'm not sure what our hopes and dreams were three years ago, probably just to get unpacked and into somewhat of a normal  existence!

That’s it for now, Thursday, June 29, 2017.

2017 Summer June 28 Wednesday

75 degrees this morning, walk 34:59 minutes

A little windy this morning, but still a nice walking morning.  Five seconds slower than my goal, which is close enough to meeting my goal.

Of course that is my current goal, not the pace I feel I should be walking, but….

Goals are something like that, if you set them too high, you never meet them, if you set them too low, they are meaningless.  I would say I have my goal too low, except that I only meet it about one-half the time, if that.  Maybe that makes it a true goal.

All of my years with cities, I usually basically felt that “growth was good” within reason.  My other experience and some comments in “Desert Solitaire” have made me rethink that. 

I think I would change my thinking to say “Change is good” because change is going to happen no matter what, so you need to adjust to change, anticipate it and deal with it.  

On the other hand, while growth is certainly change, it is not necessarily good.  

The area around here has certainly demonstrated that, part of the problem is shoddy growth.  

Technology strikes again.  In order to adequately use my new printer, which was supposed to be the ultimate in technology, work since it was too far from the router.  Frankly I have to wonder about a printer is so weak it can’t pick up signals from a router.

Anyway, the cable company had been advertising a “whole house” wifi.  The technician was here for 3 hours and was never able to get the modem installed correctly (not his fault, he  tried hard).  

I found out it was brand new and this was the first one he had installed.  It ended up with a “extender modem” installed directly next to the printer, one of my wifi’s still doesn’t work and my “nest” thermostats aren’t working right (or at least the wifi part).  

It seems that overtime I try something, technology overpromises and under delivers making things worse instead of better.  

Being basically a positive person, I am sure everything will work out in the long run.  At least I can keep calling the cable company until they get it right! 

I am trying to develop some kind of approach to taking pictures of my Hot Wheels.  I am going to keep proceeding no matter what and not retake any pictures right now.  Looking back, I can see some errors I made and right now I am going to keep going ahead rather than looking back.

So far I have  taken close to 70 pictures and i haven’t even made a noticeable dent in my collection (I take the one’s I have taken a picture of and put them aside so I know I have taken a picture of them).

My other project, sorting through t-shorts and weeding out t-shirts to make a “t shirt quilt” is progressing, maybe a little slowly, but at least progressing.  It is difficult to decide not only what shirts I will never wear again, but, perhaps more important, what t shirts I want to include in the “t shirt quilt”.  

I thought first I would make the quilt “tell a story”, but I am not moving towards just letting it be a large number of random memories of my life.  Life it somewhat like that anyway, assorted random events leading the some kind of coherent  pattern.   

I always liked Carole King’s song “Tapestry”, that life is a tapestry of events, people and experiences.  

That’s it for now, Wednesday, June 28, 2017.

2017 Summer June 27 Tuesday

74 degrees this morning, 34:02 minute walk, weights etc.

Nice coolish walk this morning but not cold.  While 74 degrees may not seem cold, remember this is early morning, so cold is colder than it is during the day.  Vey pleasant this morning.

Pace was 10 seconds faster than my goal.  While I’m glad i was 10 seconds below my goal, I feel like I should be doing a faster pace.  As I mentioned before, my goal is so slow I am embarrassed to disclose it. 

On the other hand, maybe I need to change my goal to, say, 30 seconds faster?  Since I would rarely meet it (or never), it could be a true “goal” since I never reach it.  It I changed it to a minute faster, it may be a true “goal” because the chances are I never would meet it, so it would be a true “goal”.

On the other hand, maybe my current  goal for “pace” is about right, since sometimes I exceed it and sometimes I don't.  As a “daily” goal, it may be good to have something I can achieve!

What the heck, I’ll think about it, tomorrow is another day or something like that as Scarlett O’Hara said in “Gone With the Wind”.  

I actually have an Audio Book of “Gone With the Wind”, I believe it is 49 hours.  It would be the longest book I have listened to other than “War and Peace” which is 60 hours.  

I actually started listening to War and Peace, but it got garbled  and somehow the story line got interchanged and, as I was already about 30 hours into it, I never started it again.  To my surprise, I actually enjoyed it.  With the new App I could, and probably will listen to it without any problem.  

Based on an average of 3 hours per week of listening, it would take me 20 weeks to listen to War and Peace or about 16 weeks to listen to Gone With the Wind.  

I’ll see.  Right now I am about 10 books behind on my listening.  I only listen to non-fiction on my walk and fiction in the car. Not a solid rule, just the way it turns out, although several years ago I did listen to a fiction book while walking and enjoyed it.  I believe it was “Lonesome Dove”.  I also listened to the trilogy “Edge of Eternity”  while walking.  (The wonders of computers and how easy it is to access your records!

Sometime I will listen to Stephen King’s “It”, but I doubt that I should listen to it while I walk in the dark!  As I previously noted, I read it when I was by myself (and in the stage of reading most of the night) and I actually got hip to check the drains.  (You have to read the book to know what I mean!)

I was able to successfully (I think) “pair” my iPhone 5 we use as an audio player to the car.  Success over technology (I hope and we’ll see today!)

That’s it for now, Tuesday, June 27, 2017.

2017 Summer June 26 Monday

74 degrees this morning, no walk (schedule)

A beautiful 74 degrees this morning.  Early morning event so I didn’t walk. 

My electronic assistants seem to be going faintly awry.  My Macbook Air started acting strange, not the hardware, but the software. 

It all started when my post last week wouldn’t “copy and paste” until I reset the computer.  However, after I reset it, a completely different “on procedure” came up.  Than it started asking of my “keychain password”, and just a lot of other stuff. 

I finally got it working again this morning, but I’m kind looking at it with a worried eye. Probably will take it in to be evaluated, it is too much of a part of my life to be creating problems.  

Fortunately I have the iPhone and iPad backups, plus my desktop.  It is just that I depend on my laptop so much.  I really need it to last another couple of years, hopefully until Apple gets smart and has a touch screen, or I can just use an iPad as a laptop substitute. 

I’m waiting for the next upgrade of the “iPad Pro 12”” before I do anything about an iPad.

Then my personal iPhone started acting a little strange, but a reset seemed to take care of it.  It is over two years old, but should easily last until the iPhone 8 (or whatever they are calling it) comes out and even then I don’t know if I will upgrade, it just is an option.  

To top it off, the player we use in the car for audio books is starting to randomly disconnect from “bluetooth”.  Very frustrating if you are into a book. Not sure if it is the car or the player (an iPhone that is being 

While finally reading the instruction book (without any success), I did find out that I can get text messages over my car system, which may not be a good idea!

Should be getting the new desktop iMac soon.  Scheduled for the 28th, may get here sooner.  

I also am scheduled to have a “whole house” wifi router installed in the hopes of having the “dead space” for my printer resolved and any other “dead spaces”.

Technology is such a pain sometimes, as well as being wonderful!

One thing I really like about the Apple system is that literally everything I write on one computer/device is available on every other one.  It really saves a lot of time.

Still trying to get full use out of some of my programs and “apps”.  The “Notes” app on Apple is really wonderful and I am learning more and more to depend on this.  

For some reason I have never been able to really develop any use for “Evernote”, other than as a storage device.  However, I keep trying. I hear of someone doing so much with it, I have to wonder what I am missing!  

I noticed one real defect in Apple yesterday which is there is no really good way to “rotate” a document.  Rather an strange omission, it seems like after all this time, they would have a convenient way to”rotate” a document, much as  a touch screen should be at least an option now.

That’s it for today, Monday, June 26, 2017.

2017 Summer June 25 Sunday

69 degrees this morning, walk 35:15 minutes

Coolish walk this morning, but 69 degrees now, for whatever reason, is not as cold as 69 degrees a month ago!  I don’t know if that is expectations or there is some actual physical reason and it is or seems warmer now.  

Pace was 13 seconds slower than the goal, which is disappointing.  It makes me wonder that my pace would have been if I hadn’t been trying to walk faster!  

Of course the time I spend deliberating trying to walk faster isn’t that much of the walk, I may well slack off more than I realize.  

Actually, I don’t think the pace really matters, it is just a way of measuring, but I really would like to get the pace down.  My goal for the pace is already embarrassedly high.  

However, I realize the real goal is to walk on a regular basis, not how fast I walk it.

After lamenting that I didn’t read anymore yesterday morning, I suddenly started reading a fiction book last night.  Reading what I call  a junk fiction book.  Actually it is a book by an author I have never read before and he is reasonably good.  At least it keeps my attention  and is reasonably clean of violence, excessive profane language etc.  

I never thought I would be saying that, but I got really bored with some writers who basically wrote the same novel over and over again and apparently felt that violence, excessive profanity etc. were necessary to get someone to read their book.  

I don’t really have anything against someone using whatever they feel they need to use, but I reserve my right not to bother or wasting time reading it! 

Actually I am reading an E-book I got free, and it is a reasonably good book.  At least it’s not the same old, same old

New York Times Sunday  edition didn’t come this morning.  While there is no rational reason I like reading it, I get a real pleasure in reading it. It s probably amazing it comes as often as it does on a regular basis.  At least they will refund me for the issue.  Although I still can access the internet NewYourTimes on a daily basis, i no longer get the physical paper. 

I a also reconsidering whether to keep taking the Wall Street Journal  physical paper.  I really don’t see the advantage in continuing the physical paper, although I enjoy it also.  It has an excellent e-edition.                      i

I also am reading a non-fiction newsletter that was sent to me.  The one article I scanned (I just got it) concerning the decline in every-day life for many Americans .  

What really shocked me was the Americans in jail (if the article is correct).  The United States has like 710 persons jailed per 100,000 residents while the average for most civilized countries is 115 persons jailed per 100,000 residents and is as little as 45 per 100,000 residents in Iceland. A real shame that should be the priority for society.  

If the article is correct (and of course I have read this elsewhere) there are a large number of, in this case, especially men in what is consider their “prime working years” are simply not working or even trying to work.  May be a large number of reasons, but it is a fact it a problem. The article also mentions the problem of drug and alcohol abuse are just almost overwhelming.  I have to admit I have a problem understanding what would make someone abuse some of the drugs that are out there when they know it will basically destroy their  lives.  

I have no answers to the problem of drug and alcohol abuse, either the prevention or enforcement.  I just know it is a real tragedy.  

That’s it for now, Sunday, June 25, 2017 

2017 Summer June 24 Saturday

72 degrees this morning,  Walk 34:44 minutes 

Very pleasant walk this morning. Again thought I was “hoofing it”, but my pace was 3 seconds slower than my goal pace.  

Beginning to wonder if that is just my pace and there isn’t a lot I can do about it, at least within the limitations of willingness to make it a major priority.  

Three years ago, we were in the throes of moving from the house we had lived in and loved for about 8 years.  We really had no idea what we were going to do, although we had a house rented.  

Three years has gone by fast.  As I have mentioned many times, it seems like it went fast, but it also seems like forever and the past is some hazy memory.  

There is no way I could have predicted what the past three years (the next three years, three years ago) would bring. 

Probably the one thing I never would have predicted is my unexpected loss of interest in reading fiction.  I do read it, but not nearly as much as when I was working a lot more hours and had a lot less time to read.  Ditto with magazines and non-fiction.  

I am not even sure what has taken it's (reading fiction etc.) place.  I still seem to have almost no discretionary time.  Of course, I do have discretionary time, it is just a matter of how I prioritize how I want to use it.  

For someone who normally was reading 2 to 5 books at the same time, it is rather a shock to suddenly not be reading any.  Maybe it is a pause, I don’t know. 

Sometimes I think the realization that time really is limited and I really can’t “waste” time is a consideration, although it’s not that what I do is all that meaningful or important.  

It may well be a “pause”  (I have had them before) before I start reading again.  I still really enjoy listening to my morning books, but it's not the same.  

Probably the computer and internet take up some of the time, as does writing and other daily tasks, but I still have time to read.  

I almost never watch a movie, but I recently started watching parts of “The Godfather”.  While I only watched a small part of it, I enjoyed it.  I was amazed at how much I remembered about “The Godfather”, since if I recall right, I only read the book once (and that was over 40 years ago,) and saw the movie once, but I remember almost the entire story line etc. and what events would happen.  

When I get on a reading jag, I can really get on a reading jag.  I remember I read “Gone With The Wind” straight through, without any sleep.  (That is, if my memory is correct on that!.)  

Probably getting up early changed my life more than I realized.  I’m not sure when I started getting up early, but it was like I thought sleeping late was wasting the day, so I started getting up early.

It seemed like I would wake up and be wide awake, so instead of just lying there, I would go out and exercise.  I started waking up earlier and earlier until, at the present time I wake up, I decided “enough is enough” and when I started waking up earlier, I just refused to get up that early!  I still wake up earlier frequently, but I just decided I am not getting up before the set time!

That's it for now, Saturday, June 24, 2017.

2017 Summer June 23 Friday

77 degrees this morning, walk 35:18 minutes

Good morning for a walk.  Pace was 9 seconds slower than my goal, which was somewhat disappointing since I thought I was walking reasonably fast. 

After I wrote this yesterday morning, for some reason it wouldn’t “copy and paste”.  I finally resent the computer, but it still acted funny and last night I had some more problems.  Don’t believe it is the computer, something to do with the programs.

The last time this happened Google Chrome was the problem, but this time I had it off the entire time, so I’m sure that wasn’t it.  

Obviously when my main computer is acting up, I get worried about it!  Although it is actually working well now, I will need to take it in for a checkup when I get a chance.  Fortunately I have my backup iPad and desktop.

I always wonder what the difference would have been/is in my blog if I have to write it on another computer.  I’m sure there is a difference, but I will never know for sure! 

Sitting out on the patio, it is ver nice this morning  Listening to the sounds of the night, early morning, including the wheezing motor of the paper carrier’s car.  It has sounded like that for over a year, so I guess it keeps going and does its job.  It does have a unique sound.  At least I know when the paper is delivered!

No birds this morning for some reason.  Usually by now the birds are singing/chirping away, this morning I hear only a silence, with the slight sounds of some kind of bugs.  The sounds of the night.

It is really strange that the birds aren’t singing or chirping yet.  

“Something is going around” as they say (that is, a very nasty virus or germ, where you just feel miserable and “go from both ends” as they say.  I am washing my hands all the time, but probably if I am going to get it, I have  already gotten the  germ.  

No apparent reason or cause, just one of those things, either you catch it or you don’t.  

Checked my weight this morning for the first time in a longtime.  “Not as bad as I feared or as good as I hoped”.  However it indicates a call for action so to speak to make sure I don’t gain  anymore and hopefully lose some weight.  

Couldn’t wait to listen to “Desert Solitaire”, the stories about the area around Moab etc. during my walk. He not only writes about  the desert and the rocks, planets, sky etc., he also write about the people

I don’t know if the episode this morning was true or not, I hope it wasn’t literally true, but it certainly held my attention.  It concerned what I think is an attempt by one person to cheat another.  but I’m actually not sure.  It is a strange story, but Abbey has the skills to write it. 

It basically concerns the age-old story of the newcomer with $ for eyes who gets cheated, but it has a lot of twists and turns.  A rather strange story even for fiction.  

He really has a descriptive and excellent writing flow, and keeps my attention whether he is talking about rocks or people.

That’s it for now, Friday, June 23, 2017. 

2017 Summer June 22 Thursday

71 degrees this morning. walk 34:52 minutes

Wonderful morning for a walk, not too cool or hot.  

Strange, even though I felt like I was walking fast, my pace was 14 seconds per mile slower than my goal.  Of course, part of it probably is the I am aware of my pace only a minute amount of time and probably just aren’t concentrating on it.

Still 14 seconds slower than my goal is a little hard to take when I feel like I was walking faster.

The book I am listening too, “Desert Solitaire” is one of those that I look forward to listening each morning and shut it down with regret a the end of my walk.  It is a  wonderful book, even though part of it is filled with anger (righteous anger of course), but also with wonderful descriptions and the words just seem to flow.  

Perhaps it is a good book because of the righteous anger, it is good to see someone feel righteous anger and not the political belly flopping you see so much.  Probably saw it back them also.  

What surprises me is that it was written almost 50 years ago, based on experiences 60 years ago, and I expect he could almost write the  same thing today.  Obviously with modifications for the “improvements” he hated to see coming, as well as the 4-wheelers etc. that didn’t exist when he was writing.  

Maybe I will make a journey to where he wrote about and see for myself what has happened in the the past 60 years and, perhaps more to the point, what hasn’t happened and see if I can see any ghosts of what he wrote about.  I assume somewhere someone has mapped where he was and what he was talking about.  

The “digitalization” of our pictures etc. is moving along.  Kali and Katherine are proceeding fast on the scanning and are finding new ways of working with it to speed up the process and make it a better project.  

Currently they are using the old iMac, hopefully the new one will be coming in soon, although I have a feeling this time they are going to ship it when they promised and not early like they normally do!  Can’t complain, but it is nice when it comes early.  

Computers are strange.  All of that power and originally sitting there and you (specifically I) don’t know how to even begin to use the capacity that is sitting there, just waiting for me to put it to use.

I think I will start “small bites”, by learning something every day (maybe every week) that will somehow save me time or benefit me.  For example, I know I set reminders that will actually “remind” me when I am at a certain location etc. (leaving, coming home, whatever).  

That (reminders) may be a small thing, but I think once I started using it I would use it all the time and could save time.  Right now, I don’t use it as much as I should because it is such a hassle to put reminders in etc.  However, I actually can orally input them through Siri and it doesn’t make any sense not to use it.  

Ditto with the “calendar” and “alerts” etc. They could save you so much time, especially when you tie it in with the Apple Watch.

Also there are a myriad of programs I have that I don’t really get even a small percentage of the benefit they provide (Evernote comes to mind). ‘

I have learned to use the “contacts” in my phone to advantage for work by having the name phone number, e-mail and the account number in one place so I can easily access it.  

That’s it for now, Thursday, June 22, 2017.