Sniff Sniff, Cough Cough, general update

   

We have all been there before … head is stuffed up and your mind is foggy, your ears feel like they are going burst, throat is sore, the cough, the sneeze, the sweating, the hot feeling, the cold feeling.   Started hitting me Tuesday and by Tuesday night I was down and out.  The waves of feeling good followed by feeling bad, followed by feeling good … you wonder if you are ocean beach with so many high and low tides.  Friday night is the first night without medicine, and things are calming down, but then a large wave hits and, well, we have all been there before.

Remember the sinkhole swallowing the car about 8 weeks ago? (800 feet from our front door, by-the-way).  Well, she was able to move back into her house this past week…..AND….

...Hyundai of New Port Richey replaced her car for her as a "gift" for all the "national publicity" that Hyundai got when her old Hyundai was pulled out of the hole.   Well, that’s not what they said, but I am sure that Hyundai Inc. chipped in on this too.  She sure was a happy, happy lady…out of the motel room and back home with a new car to boot.  Where did she park it?  In the exact place her old one was parked.  Oh, and he County is going to start work on the sewer project again starting Monday …. they promise not to pump as much water out this time .... and they still don't agree that the work and massive pumping of water had anything to do with the sinkholes.

Before I got sick I did have a chance to use the new camera a little bit.  Here is a picture of the Anclote River in Tarpon Springs, no photoshop enhancements at all.  Below is a close up of the boat and birds in the center of the picture with minor photoshop to adjust the brightness, and no tripod used either.

Yep, going to like this new camera a lot.  You might also notice the new header picture which is similar to this view, but it is a panoramic view of the area using the panoramic feature.  I really like this camera!

Here is a shot of the motorhome with the solar panel sitting inside the windshield.  It is enough to keep the batteries charged, as long as I don’t have lights on all night like I did a week ago.  Had picked up Bubba and took him there to give him his topical flea, tick & heart-worm medicine and then let it dry before I took him back.  I accidentally left the bathroom lights on …. the only lights that are not LED or florescent …. and there are four or five bulbs.  Well, I caught it early, but the battery did fall below 50% for around 24 hours.  Ran the generator for a few hours and got it back up to near 100%, checked it twice since then and all is fine.

Last Sunday night I took Skruffy to an area she like to frequent not too far from where we live and we saw this terrible situation going on.  Found out there was a wreck with a fatality on the nightly news, which turned into an even more tragic news on Monday morning.  First, there was a DUI wreck, the intoxicated driver was driving the wrong way along Highway 19 causing a three car wreck, the emergency vehicles responded.  As they were cleaning it up, a motorcyclist got into a wreck going the other way on the other side of the highway.  The wife of the tow truck driver, who was riding with him, got out to help the motorcyclist and walked right into the path of a SUV as she was crossing highway 19, and she was the fatality.  We did not hang around very long, and I “think” this picture was taken after the lady was hit crossing highway 19.

   

Friday night we had some good clouds for sunsets…I just wasn’t up to going out to where the view would be better …. just glad I was feeling good enough at that moment to go out and get what I got.

Guess What Santa Brought on December 1st

So, we made a list of items we felt we wanted/needed for our upcoming Alaska Trip in 2015.  Can YOU guess what Santa brought?

Nope, not another car…we are happy with our HHR, and although we had a check engine light come on last week, it went away the next day.  I think it had something to do with the rain, going through a puddle….anyway, if it comes back, then I will have it looked at.

Nope, not another computer.  Although we both have and use laptops, we don’t have a spare.  I might fix the one that broke down this past summer, or I might get one like it …but chances are, we will head out of here with the two laptops that we have.

Nope, not a new HDTV and definitely not a 3D TV, although when I saw my first 3D TV at Sams I was like in WOW shock.  When I saw my first HDTV I was like, yep, that does look better…but did not have the WOW factor the 3D TV had.  Figure in 10-20 years all new TVs will probably be 3D TVs, “IF” the big networks provide a 3D picture.

Nope, not a new scooter, nor a new motorcycle, bicycle, or anything like that.  

So what did Santa pull out of his bag??????

Why, another camera of course!

In April 2013 we bought the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ60K 16.1 MP Digital Camera with 24x Optical Zoom for $290.  A few months ago Marcia and I talked about getting the updated version, the DMC-FZ70.  Tuesday of last week I went on Amazon and I was just curious to see how much the Panasonic LUMIX DMC-FZ70 16.1 MP Digital Camera with 60x Optical Image Stabilized Zoom was going for….and I nearly fell out of my chair! 

Yes, you read that right….only $240!  $50 LESS than what we paid for the older version 19 months earlier.  Told Marcia, and today we got our new FZ70 camera delivered.  Glad we jumped on this when we did because at last check it is now going for $300+!  Also purchased a 32gig card for this camera like we have for the older one for $16 more, and we are now set.  I hated the thought of going to Alaska, having the camera break down and having to rely on our cell phone cameras to record our great adventure.  

So here is the BIG QUESTION……just HOW DID I get the picture of the two cameras above?

  

Now you get the picture!   Just gotta love Photoshop.

Still learning what the new camera can do that the old camera could not do.  Here are two features which I am really going to love.

   

Picture on the left is full zoom on a picture of Bubba that hangs on our wall near the kitchen.  Picture on the right is the same picture, taken from same location, with our new camera’s full zoom.  

The other feature is something that I will need to get outside to fully appreciate what it can do…it is a “Panoramic” feature which the advance manual provides this description:  “You can easily record a panorama picture by panning the camera towards the direction you want to record, and automatically combining the burst of pictures taken during that time.”  And includes the following diagram on how easy it is to do.

I experimented in our living room, but the lighting was not strong enough to get the focus to work well, but otherwise the picture was easy to produce and looked real good. 
One of the big reasons we stayed with the same type of camera is because the learning curve is going to be very short.  Also, the batteries are interchangeable, which means we shouldn’t have to worry about having a low battery, as we have done a few times when I forgot to charge it up the night before we went on a day trip.  Now we can have one being charged using an inverter in the car while the other battery is being used in one of the cameras.  Also, in times of inclement weather, we won’t fear using the older camera knowing the newer, better camera is safe and dry.

My first victim……well, actually my second victim, the first victim threatened that if I didn’t delete the first picture I took that I would be sleeping in a cold motorhome in a storage lot.