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Nelson's Last Day

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Nelson (above, and about 9 years old) is my mechanics dog. I've been seeing the same mechanic for about 15 years and Nelson has always been there to greet anyone pulling up or retrieving their vehicle. A few years ago, the mechanic adopted another dog, Honey, from a person who was living in their car and could no longer take care of her. He had to put her down in December due to neurological issues.  She was a sweet girl with more gums than teeth, but always happy to say hello. For years I'd bring treats for the marketing department when dropping off or picking up a vehicle. Knowing Honey had passed was sad and the mechanic was obviously hurt by seeing her go. Today I came by for a scheduled inspection and had a chance to meet the mechanics adult daughter and infant granddaughter. The daughter let me know they were taking Nelson to the vet this very day. He would not be coming home.  Again, the mechanic was obviously distraught, as he'd had Nelson for a decade ...

Annual Check-In, Apparently

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Turns out I check Blogger about once a year. It might be because Google still hasn't made it easy to create posts on-the-go, like other sites have. Sure, there's more control here over the final product, but getting there is much more difficult on a phone or other mobile device. Mastodon has been where I typically "mobile blog" as its quick and easy to get a post typed out and on the interwebz. 

Marines and Christians Both Think They're Special

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So, I'm at a laundry mat. I'm putting my stuff into one of the washers and overhear and existing conversation between a guy (maybe my age, maybe a few years younger) and an older lady. From the gist of what I heard, he's a veteran who goes to a church for his alcoholism program. I kept my mouth shut about. If he believes in the Judeo-Christian God, then why did the God allow him to have alcoholism? Not saying anything, I cotinued to mind my own business. He, and the woman, start talking about "God's plan" and "mysterious ways" and, once I get the washer going and it's locked, I leave to run an errand. About 20 minutes later I return. The woman is gone and the man is sitting in his truck in the parking lot. I'm standing here watching my clothes go in circles and listening to Malicious Compliance stories on YouTube when the dude, who apparently came back in, starts talking to me. Keep in mind, I'm wearing a headset, machines are going, a co...

I Hate Google Maps

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This is feedback I just sent to Google Maps using the "feedback" option. As you can tell, I was (am) a little annoyed that I had to stop and address something so basic it should have been included in the product of a multi-billion dollar company that has hundreds of millions of users every single day.  Google Maps is absolutely atrocious for making custom maps. It was so much easier when the MyTracks app was around, but like all good things, Google canned it years ago (and none of the other Play store offerings are nearly as good).  But, since I'm trying to demonstrate to someone the walking trail I found in when I was visiting Florida, I opened Maps (then had to search why I can't create a custom map only to discover I had to open MyMaps.google.com [which is dumb]). Then, I'm creating a simple walking map: start point? Check. Draw a line for the loop? Nope, not an option. Why? Because Google Maps is atrocious for just about anything that is actually useful (which...

Moms For Liberty - Batshit Crazy Rightwingers

You should really take 15 minutes out of your life to watch this video about #MomsForLiberty to truly understand how batshit crazy they are. https://youtu.be/fXtUGTt4MM4?si=jhfpoz81kxAEtbRX

Hope These Comes Through

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So, I bought the new Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra to replace my S22 Ultra with the broken charging port. Luckily at&t had a trade-in program that made this extremely inexpensive for me.  I was recently watching a YouTube video on camera features trying ro figure out if there are any settings or features I should be using and discovered something I had seen while playing with the phone but didn't really pay attention to while poking around. Specifically, that the camera on this device (which I'm typing on now) can take photos at 12M, 50M or 200 M. That's two-hundred megapixels! So, I've been playing with this feature just to see how much detail I can extract from an image. From what I've looked at, 200M on my phone is still not as detail laden as the 15M on my Pentax K5 (yes, it's old). But, that's digital vs optical for you.  Here are to images I took today with the 200M setting. I was walking my brother's dog on a 6 mile loop I found and we were on the ...

Just Testing Something

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Since my previous post had the photo insert upside down, I wanted to check and see if it happened to all photos or just that one. Dexter, my brother's dog, while we were out for a walk on Dead River Park, Hillsborough County, FL.