Our Precurser to the Blog Return next week.

It's been a long hot summer from  several angles. When things get quiet, look out. and that was an understatement.  Never-the-less, we got a lot of house cleaning done (even saved a little money, too). The legal beagle's sniffing has turned up some interesting things about hackers and those that scam. I am not unsatisfied with their results, either. Now, we can set the rat trap under their directions and catch a few rats.

On the horizon coming for the re-start, we've actually been hard at work, too. A lots of changes to help us make some better presentations of images, but that part (sorry to say) is still lurking in the shadows of being ready for hopefully by Christmas, but you should notice some changes for those that follow us regularly.

I was searching one evening for things that could make my travel better. The shoulder straps on the back pack and the 45-pound weigh was causing a bit of a problem with my pace make. After checking things out from all corners, I made the purchase. Yesterday was the Maiden Trip and today was the confirmation that I should have been using this things a long time ago. It can fit my folding stool, camera bag, insulated bag for my water bottles. It fits perfect and out of the way on the buses and  the trains. Ironically, yesterday, trying to get home earlier, I  hopped a sister route bus that left the transit center sooner. We were about a mile and half from the train station when this loud pop and bag brought the bus to a stop. As it turned out, I was the only passenger at that point and the driver I had ridden  with before, said he was hit. I got off the bus, because I didn't want to be on the bus after an  accident not knowing if the fuel, or gas could explode. As it turned out, I had to walk about three quarters of a mile up hill to catch  a bus to the station. With a supervisor on scene, she could have notified the follow up  bus to make a  stop to pick up any passengers. She didn't. While waiting to hear what the cops might need, I started out walking up the hill. Three stops on the opposite direction...none til the top of the hill on my side. Either way, I still got over 8k worth of step in for the day. 

Having said that: here are  some images from yesterday and today. Enjoy. On a sidebar, I have long known the name of a muralist but had never met him as I have several  others.  Today, by timing coming together, I got to meet and chat with the artist (JR). Thank you buddy. It was my pleasure to finally meet you. Thanks for the great work, too. 

Yesterday I noticed a high number of Monarch butterflies while I was at Addison. The count per 5-10 minutes grids  was enough to take note that most likely, they rode the cold front in over the passage of the front. Today, I was still seeing a nigh number and while looking at some of JR's work along a trail, a fence was draped with morning glories. The  big Monarchs were having a super boost of energy replacement with the nector being so abundant.            

Monarch's are here!!

                        The strike line at Stellantis uaw facility in Carrollton's Chrysler Parts facility.
 

The Scouting Party of American White Pelicans have arrived on time

The weather has been slow to move toward Fall even hitting the first couple of days of October. Our first real fall cold front is due this weekend with temps falling into the 70s. A welcomed relief from the 55 days of record breaking heat from August 16th. It was an early Sunday morning when I arrived at the lake. The trip was to confirm that the scouting party for the pelicans had arrived. They had. Numbering a few more than in years past, at 22-24 birds. I was talking to Northern Illinois this morning and it is still warm there. Once that cold front hits, no doubt, the birds will be on wing for sure.                                       

As Fall Gets Underway, Hail stones the size of Golfballs ----

--- were bouncing off my sidewalk onto my porch last night. A tornado clipped the edge east of my brother's and was moving southeast toward old Louisiana. The alligators will be ducking down to the bottom of those lakes.

Both the National Weather Service and its Parent, NOAA, have said don't expect the cooling off in September to be very fast this year. Well, the first day of fall was setting new records again. 101 back to back again making it the 55th time this season to have temps over 100°F. Oh, the cold front that brought the Tornado and all the hail last night will string us out with low end 90s the rest of the week. Our normal highs for this time of year is low to mid 80s. Boy, that's one the National Weather Service hit on the head. I wonder if I can find the guy who bid the high bid for my snow shovel in the Great Lakes. I might want to buy it back for old times sake. 

The good thing so far that is coming with this fall is that my TXU bill (that's known as the Edison bill  in the Great Lakes) is 17% lower than my neighbors and with one day left on the billing cycle this period, I'm coming in right at last months bill and maybe a buck or two lower, and that's with all the excessive heat. Come to think about it, I've been revamping all my new security measures today and have not heard the AC come on once. The angle of the sun has already shifted away from my door and that allows the cool buildup in the house to remain. Tomorrow is our Equinox of 12 hours light and 12 hours dark to  occurs. There is a lag around the globe for that depending were you are in relationship to the Equator. Last week I was telling my brother that normally when I heat water in the microwave, I set it for 3-minutes. A couple of days ago, the water boiled in 2:21 seconds. That shows that the heat in the lake where Dallas gets our water has cooled off already. Amazing. Even climate change messes with the time it takes to heat water for tea or coffee. 

I am planning to go to the Arboretum----the half million pumpkins are ready to be displayed in the landscapes of the Arboretum for its annual display. With the new camera working out pretty well this year so far, I should have some fantastic shots to up date my high jacked images Microsoft messed  up while   trying to get me to take a subscription in the cloud. They lost all my indexing in the ones that I was able to track down and recover. It now takes me the better part of an hour to locate what I could do in the past in less than 2-3 minutes. Yes, I am mad. It's the principal, not so much the images that were being sorted out anyway with expiring copyrights. If those didn't sell, I would not renew the copyrights. Crazy how our wild-do-nothing- congress talks about security and extending copyright to a lifetime and yet, they only complain when it happens to them. A pretty sad bunch on the hill right now, if you ask me. Of course, only a few  do that anymore! Ha Ha. 

             The PAN 2023 Color of the year--Viva Magenta--shows up in a fantastic Lighting Store.

 

The  Move toward Native Plants that can take heat and use little water is showing up in Landscape Architecture scene throughout the area in all areas of living and working.

                            Most likely in town because of Texas Motor Speedway Season Opening.

My first day out since August 16th.

 It was 83°F when I left the house today. The comfort index (when you add the Humidity % and the Dew Point °F together and it is less than 120 you don't sweat by just standing still) It also closely rivals the phantom temp thereafter named Heat Index. Yes, sports fans, your photographer must also be a weatherman, a biologist, zoologist, Arborist, among other things: navigator, explorer.   

 I got to my bus stop and sat down on my little folding stool when I saw my bus rounding the corner. My ticket purchase completed just as the driver opened the door.  It then became a health walk more than capturing images. At one point, while resting in a shady area re-hydrating, I could hear the chatter of parrots. There are several large colonies in the Dallas Area. Looking up, I see  one of the largest of a species on Monk Parrots on  a wire above  the Dart train tracks. Then the parrot flew into the tree above me. The chatter was becoming louder. Suddenly, the birds flew off as I tried to get a count before I lost sign of them. This colony  was about 10 birds and obviously,  a new colony was developing.

 Walking over the top of a large garage that I had watched being constructed some 12-13 years ago. In  fact, I had taken a picture of a sun set striking the iron work as the buildings grew to their 16 floors topping out. I had just come out of the old Sam's Club Park Lane Store walking to my car with my cart, unlocked the door and  grabbed my camera making the shot before it setting sun faded. 

It was abstracted and  I look at it at this writing remembering that day. In fact. I recall  about 90 % of the  day when I shot an image when I look at it. Later, I came across two young men talking a picture of the very building that I had seen in raw steel as it rose to it height. Their image had captured the sun light angle almost identical with my original image. Maybe, if I run into them again, I can tell them  how great there image really was. Things have a much wider perception with other eyes.  I  will look for that image and hopefully be able to post it later on. (Thanks Microsoft).

                             

                                                            New glass in downtown Dallas.
                                                                           

Another New Record 110°F yesterday

 

                                    From the Earth Day Celebration at Fair Park this year (2023)

Three days of 109°F in a row. Day 40 of the summer season over 100

 Friday tied the record of 109.Yesterday it was broken for that day and today  it  was just 109 again.

Update while we are down.

Yesterday was the hottest day this year with a temp of 109°F. Today, will break another record forecast to hit between 110-112. To borrow a line from an old stage play, "It's been a long hot summer".

I am sick that the big two think that they can  randomly select pictures in whole or in part. Yes, they say that they have permission when you agree to their terms and conditions. That's a half truth. Microsoft and Google are the two biggest offenders. They are building assets portfolios of all our pictures, and when I say "our pictures"  I  am not speaking totally of this blogs copyrighted images, files, but  yours as well;  just waiting for the copyrights to run out and then they have a very, very large collection of images they can now use for more profit or to boost their overall net worth, It's sickening. It's thievery sanctioned by our own government because they do not set copyrights for life and transferring to family to do as they wish. They have quiet frankly, taken my rights that I worked hard to build and bypassed my families or some selected university or trust from having that use. Oh! they will argue that point to no end with the least bit of what is right.

Yesterday, I got fed up with Microsoft holding my images hostage until I signed up for cloud storage. I  just average about 7 years on a computer before it goes to happy computer land.  The beginning of August my computer that I used died a happy death.  I went to Micro Center to get a new one with better features and larger display screen---the whole nine yards. Excellent price as the school sales were on. 

My last three computers have images stored on the hard drives.  I had planned to either buy a server or to transfer them to a multi T-storage system larger than the one that I use currently. Martha died before I had gotten to that point. Close. But no cigar. I stopped buying cards and would load to the computer, then reformat the old card and used it again. But, I do have all the old cards that I did not reformat.

Long story short. I had 20 years of indexed images at my fingertips that I used on the blog and in e-mails to friends and family. When I tried to move the images to the new computer, Microsoft kept butting in and I realized early on in the process that they had hijacked my images. Sure enough, after a week of running test and  searches I located about a third of some 50,000 images.  

Yesterday, I amplified the search and found the confirming hijack with all my indexing gone--no more--basically. Without the indexing, the images are worthless to me to use as I had been doing with efficiency. Then, Microsoft popped on the screen with an offer to gain access to my images for a flat fee per year or I could take it on a monthly basis. Since there is methods to my madness (I don't get mad, but I sure as heck do get frustrated at thieves). So, I signed up for the monthly fee that can be refunded in 30 days if I am unhappy---imagine that. Bingo! There came all the new camera images plus some going back to 2014 but a big gap between 2019 and the new camera of this August to date. 

The organization---I should say disorganization---that Microsoft wrecked havoc with---was a nightmare. My numbering system that ID my image  exclusively and the chronological order of date shot was also missing, but later showed up in the side bar of shooting information such as date and time and camera make and model, settings etc.,etc. The problem there is it is with each individual image so to go looking for the day shoot information of that day in history, I would have to look at each individual image to see the  details that I had made of that days shot schedule. The thing with the side bar was that I already had that on my old camera images which I used when and if needed. The indexing was a whole different matter---but also at my fingertips. I have always said. "I don't mind doing work once, but I sure as hell hate having to do it twice, especially when some incompetent fool tries to re-invent the wheel."

Trying to send an email to my brother with an image (just to see how it would differ from others) took a full hour before the email was ready to send. I later said to my brother in another email that I could have sent him 100 of those in the time it took to send that one email using Microsoft's great 365--which I had dumped already my web host had switched to.Their "get more done" mentality is so flawed. 

So, with excessive heat warnings issued by the National Weather Service for Dallas the next 3 days, I plan to be inside trying to save what I can until the weather breaks.

The down side of that is I will loose valuable shoot time to go  see the IT guy and get the images off the hard drives then add the files that I have on chips before 2014. What a mess. 

On a political note. Yesterday, again, I was watching CBS Good Morning or what every it is with Gayle King and the Governor of North Dakota was being interviewed since he is running for President in the over crowded field for 2024. At the end of the interview---which I found interesting and promising, I realized that this is the man that I will support for President. My gut feeling about such things have always been on target except for Trump--I missed that on big time. I  was right about Carter, Clinton-both Bushes- and Obama. Now, I don't have to worry about that anymore until the election unless the guy goes off the cliff with some odd ball thing---which I don't see happening, but as Sophia always said (from the Golden Girls Series---"You never know").

I am going to try to add an image there today, just to see if I can. If  no image appears.....there will be better days ahead.  Thanks for being patient--understanding--and not flooding my mailbox with worthless clutter unrelated to this blog. And to the thieves---you are being watched---or so I hear. Apply the Sophia line here.

 

 What must Mr. Wood Duck be thinking seeing that section of  his tree on the dock and not knowing what to think?

Mr. Wood Duck had just watched his brood of 7 jump from the tree hole nest down to the grown, a distance of about 15 feet.

Momma Wood Duck is collecting the brood at the banks edge under the dock which Pappa has been watching a water snake stirring. He will watch out for the rear  as Momma takes the kiddos for their first swim search for food. That image is in an old format.