Scattered Thoughts . . .

Today was an action packed day at the lake house! The grandchildren arrived today with their great-grandparents in tow.  They were supposed to be here on Monday but a last minute appointment near home kept them from visiting us until today.  After Monday's appointment, they had school on Tuesday and they have their last day of school tomorrow so that left today open for a quick day trip and they'll be back on Friday to stay for close to a week. After canceling their visit to us on Monday they were itching to get here today! The weather was rather chilly and windy this morning so we decided it was a perfect day for hiking to the summit of Owl's Head Mountain overlooking our lake. It was sunny and clear but a bit too chilly for swimming on the beach. This worked out well because when we arrived back at the house after hiking it was definitely warm enough for swimming and a little kayaking. The hike was great! The views were spectacular and, although we (the adults)

Up until this afternoon, we've had some brutally hot and humid weather with temperatures nearing triple digits and the same for the humidity. Since my health does not do well in warm/hot environments, it is fortunate that the weather changed this afternoon. Now we are experiencing rather cool weather with some scattered showers.  The skies appear to be clearing up again and the warmth is returning but it is significantly cooler than we've experienced thus far. I think we are supposed to have some clear skies through the night tonight so, if the biting flying insects are a bit more mellow tonight, perhaps I can capture some photos of the starry night sky. This morning we arose at 5:30am and were out on the kayaks by around 6:15am. The lake was placid and the temperature was comfortable for a change.   By mid-morning, the wind had whipped up to be perfect for sailing. Adam spent a little time on the sailboat skimming through the white caps. I haven't found the energy to

It has been brutally hot today (I'm still sweating and it is now dark outside) and there were swarms of tiny biting flies whenever the wind died down but we had a really nice day... The view from behind the house as the setting sun reflects off the boats in the yard... I stepped out onto the deck to shoot this shot...  I wasn't out there longer than three minutes before I was completely covered in biting flies...  that wasn't too pleasant!

All packed up and ready to go... We made the big summer move to the lake house yesterday. We managed to tie five kayaks on the roof of Sheila's car and the sailboat on the top of my car.  Both cars were loaded to capacity inside. Actually, Sheila's car bottomed out on the private road to the lake house.   Wow...  I was not ready for this move and it took a lot out of me! My spine is screaming, my feet are unhappy and my legs are uncooperative. I'm bent over like I'm 90 years old and I'm moving very slowly. The house, however, is now ready for guests and some fun times! Oh...  we planned to be out of the house and on the road to the lake house earlier than usual... one last visit to the bathroom... then dumped some Rid-X into the toilet to let some bacteria do its thing to the septic tank...  flush our new toilet... the Rid-X clumped up into a solid clump and clogged the toilet.   Ugggg....   On the road to the lake house... That's what I get

I recently registered as a UAS (otherwise erroneously known as 'drones' but I can't bring myself to use that term incorrectly) pilot with the FAA. I've been spending the past few weeks educating myself in unmanned aircraft systems and flight control after decades of being certified in manned aircraft systems and air traffic control. Yesterday, I finally had an opportunity to practice and test out some of what I've recently learned. My interests in UAS flight is related to family video. Simply put, I want to add some interest to my family videos by adding a new perspective. I purposely chose an exceptionally small UAV (the Yuneec Breeze). I don't want to attract attention with a big UAV nor do I want to attract attention with a noisy UAV. This particular one is quite small and relatively quiet while still providing "fair" video quality (not great but not bad either). This UAV comes in a small case the size of a small personal first aid kit. So far,

This past Friday night, we had the grandchildren because Liza had a meeting... or so we were told...  When she returned to the house after her "meeting", she informed us that she had a surprise for the kids so Sheila and I pulled the kids into the bedroom until Liza brought the surprise into the house... within a minute or two, she called to us saying we could come out of the bedroom...  and Adam was standing in the living room! It was a very nice surprise!  And, it was a loud, screaming, tearful surprise for Sheila! Adam arranged to have some time off so he could come to the lake house with us again. This is a good sign that we made the right choice in choosing the lake house as our summer vacation each year since Adam was starting high school. Of course, Sheila and I enjoy it as well.  Needless to say, it has been a rather busy weekend while catching up with Adam and trying to get ready for our move to the lake house.  Yesterday, I shot some photos when we decided

I've been residing here and on the couch for the past five months. Another week has passed and it has been similar to weeks over the past five months... lousy, miserable and a complete waste of time. I've been sick with a lousy cold which has aggravated my mast cells. The cold has been bad enough to keep me in bed and on the couch but, worse yet, these sorts of things always aggravate my mast cell illness too resulting in many more problems than just a flu-like cold.  I've done nothing this past week other than sleep, blow my nose, watch movies until I fall asleep, blow my nose, take medications, blow my nose some more, and take more medications. My bone pain has been far worse lately. Everything hurts. Then today... we lost water in the house early this morning. Fun times.  I overheard one of our neighbors saying that they were working on a water main down the block. We didn't have water until almost 6:30pm...  and, even then, it was just brown, muddy wate

We had a mild dusting today of yellow... pollen!   Actually, we've never seen pollen this thick and heavy here before...

I was down and, for the most part, relegated to the couch for about a month recently due to some significant foot problems. I visited the doctor... we did some x-rays... and came to some conclusions about tendonitis, arthritis and subsequent swelling. The swelling was significant enough that I could not walk on it nor could I fit into any of my shoes. After about a month of hobbling around with a cane and a lot of pain, my foot slowly felt more like "normal" again.  Then, after about a week of "relatively normal" activity on my foot, I suddenly began having problems again! The recurring tendonitis (Achilles tendon) was making it difficult and painful to walk again and I was feeling some swelling in my heel (as opposed to my entire foot last time around). Although there is no doubt that after decades of extreme sports and a physically demanding career that my feet are a weak point and prone to injury, I've been feeling as though something other than activit

I admit that I am 'hard' on my computers. That is a plain and simple fact.  The work I do on my desktop computer constantly keeps my processors crunching numbers, spinning my hard drives and heating up. Additionally, as my cameras (both stills and video) improve each year, I find that my computer has great difficulty keeping up while getting bogged down very quickly. Because of all this graphics processing, my computers rarely last more than three years before biting the dust. Now that 4K video is becoming more mainstream and 6K cameras are available (and 8K is right around the corner), the average computers from three years ago are not at all equipped to handle streaming video of this resolution. Even trying to edit multiple 'Full HD' video clips is enough to bog down an average three year old computer. As technology moves forward, all your tools must move forward and the computer is an important tool. My current desktop computer is now more than three years old