Category: The DayBook

That’s all that I am taking. 14 inches x 2 mini KitKat Bars. Weighs in at 8.2 pounds. There is nothing in there for “just in case”. Well except for an extra credit card.

I don’t think I am going to take an iPad. My after-action report from my trip home from Hawai’i included these items”

2. I got along okay for 12 days without a computer or iPad.
3. Must have phone and Kindle.

And, I am only going to be gone for 9 days. So, I should be good to go with just the Kindle and Shamu. Not going to take anything camera-wise. You can only pack so much into little under seat backpack.

Work wrapped up for a while. I really am going to quit someday. I am an old woman. And one thing I hate about being old is that I don’t have as much energy as I did “before”. Before I was old. These days I really need my daily nap. Oh well, for now, being old beats the alternative. That is subject to change.

Don’t think I am going to take any camera gear to Bermuda. But, I will take an iPad and a Kindle. Plus Shamu the phone. I may go crazy with 9 days of doing NOTHING except reading and swimming around off the dock. I can always just get on a bus or ferry and ride around. And by the time I get back to The Asylum, it will be time to start thinking about my annual migration to Kona. And Flu Shot season at the hospital.

Today’s only critter was the small monarch butterfly. How does a butterfly end up small? I am sure that this is a monarch. But, it is only about 75% as big as it should be.

Same (?) eastern tiger swallowtail hanging around today. But, I did catch a sweet little goldfinch.

1 & 1 & out of here. Or one day of work. One day of not work. Then off to Bermuda. Think that I am looking forward to Bermuda more than I looked forward to my great RTW adventure.

RTW was an “adventure”. Hawai’i is where I live in the winter. But Bermuda is nine lovely days of old school do nothing summer vacation at the beach.

That was a couple of hours ago; at this instant, there seems to be a storm to the west.

Nothing exciting here, however. Not even any rain drops.

The five day cyclone map for the Atlantic is very tranquil looking. And, it is “free wine” night.

Those two items belong on my gratitude list!

I think this is a Black Jacket Wasp and not the really nasty Bald Face Wasp. But, just in case, I kept my distance and let the zoom do its thing. (Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II Lens on the Pen-F body like yesterday)

Really hot here today. Don’t this is accurate. Think it is more like 95. But still hot.

So, Bermuda is looking pretty good. Long range forecast indicates that the weather will get really fine here the day I leave for Bermuda and Bermuda will sock into cloudy and rainy. But, my lodging has a covered patio. So, all will be good.

And, that is about it for my 20 minutes of wildlife photography around The Asylum this afternoon.

 

Today I put the Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II Lens on the smaller Pen-F body. And the lens didn’t “feel” as good as it does on the larger OM-D body. Until the other day, I think I always had the lens on the Pen-F body which might be why I was not all that happy with it.

I am traveling very light to Bermuda. The wise choice would be to just take Shamu the Phone and my Kindle and leave all the rest of the technology at home. Wonder if I’ll do that. Or will I sneak in an iPad and a camera?  And chargers. And spare batteries. And so on.

Today’s bug search was a bust. But, it did yield a fine fat chipmunk.

Think I like B/W chipmunk better. Shot these with my rediscovered 14/150 zoom. All the while setting on a nice bench.

Most of the day was spent working on my project for The Employee Gift Fund. The end is in sight. As long as I keep reminding myself that perfection is the enemy of progress. At least for me. Your mileage my vary.

Indeed, there is an hour before dinner, so I think I’ll knock out another few slides. Free wine night-so very little work will get done after dinner.

 

Wondering if I will be able to stand the excitement? Alexa, Play Grateful Dead.

Right before I came back from Hawai’i I picked up a less than stellar used  Olympus 14/150 zoom lens to replace the great Leica 14/150 that suffered a fatal bump in route to Hawai’i. I didn’t really give it a good test. I just put it on the camera and sort of said ho-hum. Then when I got home, I put it in the camera box and there it has stayed until today. (Olympus M.Zuiko Digital ED 14-150mm f/4-5.6 II Lens)

Today, I went bug hunting around the asylum ground with that lens. It does not hunt focus like the really cheap 150/300 mm lens does.

I am rather liking that lens tonight.

And what was the not good start to the day? Fortunately, no bedbugs. But, I open up my door. The Washington Post has arrived. Without bending over or putting on my glasses I can see that:

1. 1. 1. Trump is still president.
      2. The bond yield curve inverted.
      3. Maine has completely run out of people to care for old folks.

After that things had to get better!

Sort of lazed around today. But, I did decide to give Google Sheets a tryout for my personal current personal spreadsheet requirements.  I needed one of my spreadsheets today and I loaded it into Google Sheets. It wasn’t easy, mostly because it was all new to me, but I did my updating. I renamed the Excel version of that file to get it out of the way. I plan to do that every time I need to call on Excel. It was sort of like going back to 1979 and VisiCalc. Well, maybe a little better. /SQY Think I’ll take that sequence to the grave.

Today there were two bedbug trucks on site. Furiously working on the 8th and 9th floors. One poor woman was getting her second treatment in 6 weeks. She had already invested in one new mattress. And the other woman had only recently moved in. Welcome to The Asylum.

My plan, if I get hit, is to decamp until things get 100% sorted.

Not sure that this is a bee. It might be a hoverfly. I didn’t get that good a look at it. (shot with cheap Olympus M 75-300 zoom lens that hunts focus big time, not ideal for bugs)

Big job at work all done except for some final clean up. I am getting too old to do these things. 5 years ago, I would have slammed 700 new or changed records into my production database without hesitation. This time, I had to check and recheck every step. And what can they do to me? Take my birthday away?

Next, finish up my project at The Asylum. Looking to have it 100% done by October 1. Then maybe I should get on with the serious business of being an old woman. And what exactly would that be?

This big fluffy ball of love is Charlie. She comes to visit the “old” people most Tuesday afternoons.

This might be the same bumblebee and it is definitely the same coneflower as yesterday. That image is uncropped. To get much closer I would need a tripod and some lights. Same image is today’s header.

Still using the Olympus 60mm micro  4/3s macro lens.

What was I so busy with? The hospital, yoga, etc. It isn’t easy being an old woman.

 

But not too busy to sneak out and look for bugs. It was really windy. So, no butterflies. Just bumblebees.

Worked 6 hours today. And, I think I actually got something accomplished. Then raced home in time for Yoga at The Asylum. Since I organized the group that saved that class last summer, I feel that I need to attend every time that I am in residence. It is a nice class. It is hard “enough” and the teacher is 60+ so it is all good.

Think it is time to take Apple’s warnings about my 32-bit applications seriously. I see my beloved itty bitty scanner as the biggest problem. It is absolutely antique but does everything I want it to really well. Never mind that it is 32 bit. I can find a 64-bit driver. But not the 3rd party S/W that makes the magic happen. And it is tiny.

My other 32-bit application is my circa 2009 Microsoft Office Suite. Guess I will just buy a new version. But, buy it. Not, rent it. I rent Lightroom and Photoshop for $10 a month. However, I use that software all the time. Word and Excel – not so much these days. I guess I should try to get what I do done with Google Docs for a while. But, I do like having the ever-powerful Excel in the house.

Or I could just not upgrade the OSX – that is so not going to happen. Talk about first world problems.

Today’s photos were taken with the Olympus 60mm micro  4/3s macro lens.

The unmarked bedbug exterminator truck was on site yesterday. That is 5 cases that I know about. I think it is about to get ugly as more residents hear about the problem. Several years ago we had a rather serious mouse problem. Not sure which is worse.

Sort of a lazy day for me today. Seems like I need at least one “do nothing” day every week. Well, today wasn’t so much a “do nothing” day as it was an “accomplish nothing” day.

I only found skippers today and one small bee.

Today’s photos were taken with the Olympus 60mm micro  4/3s macro lens.