NOW

My work week begins today.  Can you tell how excited I am?
Anyway, I have a number of small videos I'm working on - thanks to my GoPro.  There's just one little thing.  For some reason or other their editing software keeps attaching a soundtrack, canned music which has nothing to do with the clip.  I want people to hear what I'm saying - the soundtrack overrides that.  And their help?  It's online, and I keep getting an error message saying "Oops, connection failed."  This is not good.
There's also a bit of an issue with my Tacx software.  During yesterday's ride I got an error message which said "connection lost."  Everything works with Bluetooth.  And I have a Dongle...  a very nice dongle I might add.  I use a Rouvy cycling app rather than the Tacx app, though I do have the Tacx app on my phone, laptop, and PC (I'm a little anal about electronics).  I don't have a dongle for my PC (all I really need is one nice dongle), so that never connects, however I run the app on my phone when I ride.  That's where the disconnect happened.  Instead of registering a 42 minute ride, the app on my phone listed it as 21.09 minutes.  At some point I will send them an email.
Oh, and I ordered the 2020 Warwick Rower's calendar yesterday.  They sell a number of things on their website including an online subscription magazine for only 169 Euros.  Can you hear me laughing?

And, of course, the Idiot Jerk in the White House has chosen to... well, get his attorney's involved in this little impeachment party.  This was to be expected.  He's going to refuse to cooperate.  Couldn't his team think of an alternative action rather than one which makes him look inherently guilty?  Gallup did give him some good news yesterday.  Evidently American give him a higher job approval rating than they do a personal approval rating.  Oh, my... his job approval rating is a crazy 40%.  Only 34% of Americans, however, approve of his personal behavior.  Who gives him good ratings?  Republicans and.... Evangelical Christians.  They don't care how bad he makes them look as long as he gives them the power they so desperately crave.  All the while the numbers for those wanting an impeachment inquiry continue to rise.  A majority of Americans want answers... NOW.

It's a little dark

So, I stopped off at T-Mobile and bought myself a new USB cable for my phone.  Now it charges.  I'm happy.  I don't need to buy a new one.  Though, I checked out Google Pixels while I was there.  Mine is 2.5 years old.  I usually hold on to them for about 4 years.

"So, this is Me" was lamenting about the approach month of October.  This might make him cringe horrifically.  On October 7, our store is getting it's Christmas set.  For 2-3 days little orange elves will putting up Christmas trees, filling shelves with decorations and lights, and setting up hideous, inflatable lawn ornaments.  

I've been playing around with the GoPro making little videos of this and that.  I have to experiment with light to see what looks good, what you can see, and what doesn't work... at all.  Here's a dark shot of me walking the dogs early in the morning.  You can hear me telling the GoPro to stop recording at the end.  We are approaching an apartment building lit by a streetlight.

Isn't this fun!!!

There are a number of things I find amusing about this whole Impeachment process, things that are being said.  One of them is that the Idiot Jerk was blindsided, that he and his sycophants and henchies have no plan on dealing with proceedings.  This makes sense because all he's done is lie to himself (and them) about how popular.  He watches Fox News, which only recently has begun to run stories about his falling behind in the polls.  And he gets mad, that's not what he wants to hear.  He wants praise and glory.  He's a Reality Entertainer with his own Star on the sidewalk in Hollywood.  At least he had a star, I think someone took a jack-hammer to it.  He's been living in a crazy, little world of his own making in which he can do and say whatever he wants.  He goes to rallies which have been finally tuned to appeal to his addled, minority group of white voters.  He's a liar who's been living a lie almost his entire life and everything not catering to those lies is "fake news."  And so he was blindsided, and that's funny.  This man is dumb as a brick.  He's survived this long thanks to his attorneys, all of whom are much smarter  and crooked than he is.  I've said this numerous times, the Idiot Jerk is going to make Richard Nixon look like an alter boy.

Tiny

It's day number 4 at work.  For a lot of you out there the day has a name.  For me?  It's number 4.  Interestingly enough, while at work yesterday I got a phone call from a customer who had been set up to have her floor measured.  She needed to change that date, so I did, telling her it was "now going to be on Friday, the 11th."  Her reply: "oh, I don't know what day of the week it is... I'm retired."  My suspicion is that her calendar is not too full.  She needs to become more active.
I made 3 more videos when I walked the dogs yesterday morning.  One is short, of the sunrise.  Now all I have to do is see about syncing them to my computer and editing them.  GoPro provides background scores... blahhh.  Very vanilla.  I suspect I will end up buying a decent editing software.  Hell, I might even pull out the Korg and start recording again.
Speaking of dogs.  There was a couple asking questions about blinds yesterday, mid to upper 20's... oh, and her mother was with and she seemed to be running the show.  At one point I made the comment that blinds "are easy to install."  The wife said "oh, I'm in the medical profession, I'm not at all mechanically inclined." ...   Do I need to repeat that for you?  Anyway, the husband, a good looking man who I have no doubt was also a professional, said nothing.  All he did was stand there holding a leash (not his), and on the end of that leash was a little dog.

It was one of these

A wee little dog, no more than 12 inches high, and just as long, and not really a dog... more of a toy, and very... emasculating.  All I could think of was that this nice looking gentleman has not testicles.
After one day in the headlines, 43 % of Americans no feel the Idiot Jerk should be impeached.  That's a jump of 7%.  Even more interesting, the number of those who said impeachment was wrong dropped as well.  There are still a lot on the fence.  As the days go on, that will change.  While some GOP spokespeople have said they don't need to start pulling their wagons into a circle, many, like Mitch McTurtle are privately showing more concern about their own re-election then they are the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  This is, after all, the type of loyalty he's paid for.

Lies and Extortion

So, Boris Johnson lied to the Queen of England.  My phone's been buzzing with notifications for the past 5 minutes.  You do know she's going to shake her finger at him.  Naughty Boris.  So much desperation trying to create the old empire, so much hatred for change.  He lied to the Queen.  Every media outlet in the world is pointing at him and laughing.  History will remember him not as some noble man who led the UK out of tyrannical EU, but rather as the buffoon who lied to the Queen.  For Boris?  This is a bad day in Bedrock.  This is a very rude awakening to Boris and his Brexiteers:  their shit stinks.
And then there is the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  According to the Wall Street Journal, 10 days before the Idiot Jerk made his now infamous call to the Ukraine our own Moral Degenerate froze $319 million in aid to that country.  These funds had been approved by Congress to help the Ukraine fight Russian aggression.  You know?  Russia?  When the Idiot Jerk's Blow Bro Vlad lives?  Because the Idiot Jerk is terrified he's going to lose the election and go to jail, he wanted dirt on Uncle Joe.  So much so, he resorted to...(are you ready for this?) Extortion.  For those who don't know what the definition of extortion is, this is it:

Extortion is a form of theft that occurs when an offender obtains money, property, or services from another person through coercion. To constitute coercion, the necessary act can be the threat of violence, destruction of property, or improper government action.

The emphasis being on 'improper government action.'  For those who paid any attention to the Idiot Jerk in the White, this type of behavior pattern is pretty much the norm.  That's right, he's an asshole.  They're asking he release the transcripts of that phone call.  My money says he's going to turn into Tricky Dick Nixon and have his personal Rosemary Woods make it disappear.
Did Boris extort the Queen?  Nah, he just lied.
And, finally... my GoPro came yesterday.  It came directly from GoPro.  The price was only $20 more than what I had paid for a model that was 3 years old.

I've already been playing around with it.  I had also bought a number of mounts so I can stick it just about anywhere.  One of those that was included was a strap to attach it to my helmet.  Hhhmm.  I wasn't too wild about that, so I ordered a mount for my handlebars.  This might sound odd, but I want to be able to see where my camera is.  No lie.

Diggin' the Dirt

I slept in till 0500!!  And I slept well, only one bathroom call during the night for me, there were no trips downstairs to let the dogs out.  Sometimes that doesn't happen.  Lily's the one who will sit by the bed and quietly let me know "it's pee time."  That usually happens about an hour and a half after I've turned out the lights.
My GoPro arrives today.  Most like the deliver will occur this morning.  Originally scheduled for between 0800 and 1230, UPS change the time to "by the end of the day."  I just looked, my new toy is listed as being "out for delivery" and it's a little after 0600.
Before I left work yesterday, I picked up bags of moss and perlite to use for wintering my dahlias.  I live in the 5B temperature zone:  winter temps can drop to -5 - 0 (F).  That's cold enough to kill them.  This means storing them in a box in a cool, dry place until early next spring when they will once again be planted outside.  I also picked up a bag of allium bulbs.  Supposedly there are 30 of them in the bag.  More spring and summer flowers!

And, isn't this whistleblower crisis interesting.  The problem for the Republicans is that they desperately want to hurt Uncle Joe.  They see him as the biggest threat to the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  In fact, can't you just hear that scumbag shrieking "dirt!  I need dirt!"  Yeah, that sounds like him.  Just as we can all see him holding up a $250 million aid package in order to get the new Ukrainian president to give him the dirt he so desperately wants.  How Republican.  No ethics, no values, phony to the very end.  His approval rating never gets above the mid 40 percentile. his disapproval rating meanders from the high 50's to the low 60's.  The only thing a majority of American's give him any credit for is the economy... which is teetering.  Since he has nothing to really show for his first 3 years in office, his only alternative is to dig up the dirt, the same thing he, himself is mired in up to his head.  He's terrified of losing the election.  He's terrified of looking at jail time, not only for him, but for Ivanka Danka, and Donnie the Dorkhead jr.  Eric?  He's just going to pop into his jester outfit and try and earn so coins in Central Park.

Putin's Pants

Welcome to my Friday.  Confused?  That's fine, I don't mind.  Sometimes a little confusion leads to insight, you know?  When the clouds clear?  And you have one of them Holy Shit Moments?
I pulled out my Garmin Fenix 3 and popped it on the charger last evening.  My Suunto Spartan's been acting weird recording my heart rate, not that there 's anything wrong with my heart.  My sitting heart rate is usually in the mid-fifties (thank you cycling), that reading is fine.  However, once I begin cycling that number drops for about  2 - 3 minutes into the mid-40's, and so I'm wondering just how accurate are the readings I'm getting.  The Fenix 3 is an older model now, they're up to Fenix 6 which does so much more...  In other words, the temptation is beginning to grow.
And my, isn't this whistleblower thing spiraling out of control for the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  Did you like the bit about the Idiot Jerk saying the emphasis should be on Biden and his ties to the Ukraine during his time as Vice President... remember this is coming from the Moral Degenerate who's desperately trying to get in Putin's Pants.  What this really does is illustrate how he and his spawn run their businesses.  Corruption is his middle name.  What his base totally fails to understand is that after his ass is locked up and jail, all eyes are going to turn towards them.  Judgement is coming.
My GoPro Hero6 Silver will be arriving tomorrow.  The app is already set up on my phone.  This is what it's supposed to do:

Of course, I don't know if I'm ever going to jump out of a plane, but then I'm not like the Idiot Jerk in the White House.  Given the chance to land in Putin's Pants, his only question would be:  With or without a parachute?

Magic

Well, here it is Thursday and my ass is running late.  Why you ask?
Well, I got home yesterday and my GoPro was waiting for me.  I unpacked it, put in the sim card and battery, and turned it on.  It beeped several times.  I could see the top of my desk on the view screen... and then it turned off.  I looked at the instructions and one of the most prominent things on Page 1 was 'charge the battery.'  So I plugged in the charger.  Fully charged, I tried turning on the camera.  Nothing happened.  I thought, maybe I was wrong and it wasn't fully charged, so I plugged it in again.  And then I turned it on.  It worked well.  And I thought it still needed to be charged a little more.  Wrong.  There's a problem.  It only works when it's plugged in.  The minute I take it off the charger the camera turns off.  Shit.
I contacted Amazon this morning.  Turns out I purchased the camera from a 3rd party vendor, not GoPro.  There's nothing wrong with that... I've bought quite a number of things through 3rd parties.  But sometimes 3rd parties don't always sell you precisely what they advertise, or, if you remember my desk delivery issues, try to provide services on the cheap.  I have no problem dealing with these vendors.  I was given the option to return the camera.  So, this afternoon on my way home from work, I'm stopping by the UPS store.
Funny thing though, I had bought a Hero 5 Black GoPro, which is one of their older models.  This morning, go to the GoPro website, I saw they had a Hero 7 Silver, their newest model for only $20 more than what I had originally paid.  It's ordered and should be here in about 2 days.  The credit for my refund will just about cover the charge.  This is what I should have done in the first place.
In political news:  I saw where Baby's calling for a Unity Coalition government in Israel.  The powerful liberals want that too, but you can bet once it's formed Baby's going to find himself sitting in the room down the hall when ever they meet.  And soon, his corruption trial is going to begin.
And I know people don't understand that when I sit down and write magic happens.  But now I have proof.  Yesterday, as I was sitting in the living room with the morning sun shining in through the front door, I could see it.  I took a pictures.  Now you can see the magic, too.