cops and communication

link to Snop Dogg video below
Snoop Dogg talks to cops 

Black lives matter. Yes. This expression was meant to say more than what appears on the surface.

pushy wind

The wind was so strong this morning that I had a hard time pushing the front door open when I went to get the paper. Then there was no paper! I searched again later, when there was better light, but couldn't find it. I thought it had blown away. After a couple of hours. it emerged from a bush of hollyhock leaves where the wind had hidden it.

Need more info

This is interesting information, but nowhere near enough to lead me to a decision.

in reference to: What You Need to Know When Buying a Media Streamer | Product Reviews | Wired.com (view on Google Sidewiki)

new experiences

Reinee had a new experience today. At about 6:50 AM, following LaVerkin Creek through Confluence Park as we headed back toward the car during our morning run, she took the opportunity to get up close and personal with a skunk. This skunk crossed the trail ahead of us about a week ago, but Reinee was closer to me that time and I was able to call her to me and keep her a good distance away from the critter, as he "high tailed it" across the trail. This time, I think he was waiting for us to return, and, tail up again, he walked out just as Reinee reached his observation point. I yelled at her to go "back", and she finally obeyed, reluctantly. He followed her! She stopped, he sprayed and he walked into the bushes on the south side of the trail.

Reinee shook and snorted, then trotted to me when I called. Fresh skunk spray smells different than you'd expect, but I had been sprayed once myself and was with Sam when he was sprayed, so I recognized the odor. We walked a short ways, and Reinee started to veer toward the bushes on the right. I was about to call her back when I was relieved to see that she backed off on her own. I shifted to the berm on the north side of the trail. Sure enough, as I passed the spot where Reinee had stopped, I was entertained by the sight of the back end of a skunk, tail straight up and fluffed out. There's not much uglier than the business end of a skunk, even if you aren't aware of just what that business is. That villain had walked along through the bushes parallel to the trail and was waiting to ambush us again. He didn't squirt me, but I didn't get very close.

Because I didn't want Reinee to stink up the car, I sent Terry home to get the pickup. He had a hard time starting it, so I guess it needed a run anyway. It took some doing to coax Reinee into the back with me, but finally we rode the half-mile home in the open air. I think she enjoyed it. Then, after giving her a quick drink of water at the front step, I took her out back and went looking for some tomato juice. When I came back out, she was sliding around in the gravel and getting all covered with dust, especially her face. I doused her with tomato juice, rubbed it in with a rag, and hosed her off. Since she likes to "bite the water", hosing her off wasn't as tough as it might have been. I didn't want to hose off her ears, though, and they had really taken a good squirt from Pepe LePew. I rubbed them with the juice-soaked rag and wiped them off after rinsing the rag.

I toweled Reinee down and washed the towel along with my shoes, shirt and pants and Terry's jacket, scented when he lifted her into the pickup bed.  She didn't smell too bad, but there was an aura wherever she went. Then I made my big mistake. I sprayed some Febreze in her direction. I don't like Febreze; it makes me sneeze, but I figured a couple of small squirts wouldn't be a big deal. Ha! Where it hit Reinee's fur, I guess it cancelled out the tomato juice, because it brought the skunk smell back! So I hosed Reinee off once more. She's drying out, slowly.

wireless mouse

I now have the wireless mouse I need to make the old laptop usable for photo processing. No more excuses. Desert flowers would be a good place to start, because it's been a wonderful year for spring bloom here. I'll put together a scrapbook's worth, and go back and identify the flowers later.

photobucket

I'm still working on procedures to use photobucket pro for photo sharing. I was disappointed to find I couldn't edit my 2 MB originals directly on Photobucket, but I can see that other people wouldn't need to do this, and it does avoid some potential problems. That means I'll be PhotoShopping on the old computer with the dead wireless, and transferring to the wired machine Ihat won't install PhotoShop correctly so that I can upload edited photos to Photobucket. Not an insurmountably obstacle, but annoying.

Woohoo

I've been having so much trouble with this computer that working around it uses up most of my free time. I can't get PhotoShop to work on this computer, and learning new photo programs is mindboggling. I had an old computer repaired and upgraded, hoping to use the old PhotoShop, but when I plugged in my thumnb drive with the camera flash card, the USB ports weren't working (I thought). The wireless doesn't work either. Despair. But yesterday, I tried to use laptop speakers through the USB port. First try failed, but the second port is working. I must have tried the same port twice (ditz!) with the flash card. So I can go back to PhotoShop without the nightmare of copying to hard drive and CD and then to the old hard drive. WOW!
Maybe I'll get back to posting here. I've missed it.