My Kittie

I had a touching moment with Piper this morning. The normal routine is that I open the garage door, flip on the lights for a bit while I verify there are no predators hanging around, and then let her out.

This morning she waddled down the driveway and headed for the field across the road. As she started to enter the brush I told her to stop, which she did, and then I walked to the field and picked her up.

That field was sprayed for weeds a couple of days age, disregardless that it’s Pipers favorite hunting ground, and if I can keep her out, I will. I carried her back up the driveway and her 15 pounds lay contentedly in my arms. She really trusts me and figures I had her best interest at heart.

As we got to the top of the driveway she wasn’t sure if I was going to take her around to our field, or back inside, so she nudged me with her head to go left, away from the door. I did of course and set her gently on the ground out back at the edge of our lawn.

Have I mentioned I really love my kittie?

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Categorized as Piper

Ready To Navigate

My new GPS is everything I hoped it would be. Her name is Nuvi Girl and is a hands-free marvel of navigational goodness. I can’t wait to take her on the road.

Steph asked for a couple of shots to get a feel for the size. It’s mounted in the same spot as my last GPS and fits perfectly.

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Categorized as Travels

New Nuvi

My sweet little Garmin has arrived. I unpacked her and tried to hook her up to my computer, but the lame one foot USB cable didn’t reach my desktop. Fortunately, I have another cable, and this is the only bad experience so far.

I had already installed the Garmin Express program and as soon as I plugged the GPS in, it started updating the software on the unit. It went quickly and after unplugging, rebooting and then plugging the GPS back in, it started downloading the current Garmin USA maps. It’s updating the maps as I write this post.

I have to say, I’m impressed. I’ve gone through a few GPS setups, TomTom being the most pathetic, and this is how it should be. Great job Garmin!

Update: She’s installed in my truck and almost ready to rock and roll! I still need to give her a name so we can talk, and then hook my cell phone up via Bluetooth for hands-free calling. Did I mention she will access my address book and all I have to do is say “Call Brandi Steph“!

Update: (Thurs) I’ve been bonding with “Nuvi Girl” all morning!

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Categorized as Travels

My Creep

I’ve been batching it for a while and the kitchen counter has been creeped with my stuff. I give Steph grief when her Counter Creep takes over and it appears I’m just as bad! ? Now I don’t know where I’m going to unbox my new GPS at…

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Categorized as House

Garmin 2797

I’ve been traveling around the country during the summer for a few years now. I remember the first trip in my little travel truck down to San Diego and up the coast, without a GPS or a cell phone. I was communicating with a netbook and free wi-fi while navigating with a compass on my dash. As I look back on that trip all I can say is ouch!

My most recent GPS Tomi has been my best friend on the road the last couple of years and an integral part of my cab. Today I stepped up and bought the best Garmin on the market, a 7 inch screen beauty called the 2797LMT (free Lifetime Maps and Traffic).

I’ve been wanting a bigger screen and more features, like elevation, and this unit has it all. It arrives tomorrow and I’ll do an unboxing for you…

I told Steph I bought this and her first words were “Can I Have Tomi?”.

btw: What do I call this one? She is voice activated and needs a wake-up word!

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Categorized as Travels

Sixty9

Researchers identify 69 as the second happiest age of your life. It’s supposedly a time when you’ve gotten past all of your old regrets and you’re finally content with yourself.

The first happiest year of your life is 23. I honestly can’t tell you exactly what I was doing at that age but it is my lucky number and 69 is a triple. Extrapolating, 46 should be a somewhat happy age and at the time I was raising a young Riley, and I was happy.

So what does this all mean? I’m a numerologist so it means a lot! I believe that numbers guide our destiny so if these researchers have it right, my life is peaking.

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Categorized as Various

Syma Flight 2

I took my Syma drone over to the High School this morning. I needed a large grassy space to get a handle on the controls without worrying about trees. My flying abilities are not quite ready for prime-time yet, but I’m getting there:

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Categorized as Cameras

SA Parade 2015

This is the worst photo shoot I’ve ever done. As I left Driggs this morning I keyed St Anthony, ID into my GPS and she told me that because I dilly-dallied around the house, I was going to arrive at 1045 for a 1030 parade. So, when I hit the town I drifted down the parade route for a ways until I found a parking spot and then mingled into the neighborhood. The parade hadn’t started yet, in fact, I stood around for a half an hour looking fine in my Tilly Hat until the damn thing actually started…

I put my poor old camera on Sport Mode because it did such a good job at Tin Cup and it just didn’t work well for the crappy location and lighting I so sloppily selected. In fact this set of photos is so bad I’m not even going to suggest you click the photo below to see this 160 shot mess, much less watch the slideshow

St Anthony also has a cool old functional tank:

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Categorized as Travels

To Missoula

I just drove almost 800 miles in the last twelve hours, and I’m beat… We left the house around 0330 and I drove Steph to Missoula so she could catch a flight to Seattle. We stopped at my favorite little gas station in Dillon for fuel, along with their homemade sausage, egg, and cheese biscuit and got into Missoula mid morning. I could have stayed overnight but, we have a cat. I drove all the way back home and then had to convince Piper to go outside. I’ll be laying over in Missoula on the trip to get Steph back home.?

Tomorrow I’m heading to the St Anthony Pioneer Days Parade and I’ll bring back a bunch of pictures…

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Categorized as Travels

West View

I had the pleasure of driving out to the end of Bates Road today, and hanging a right. We’ve got a new customer living out here that needs our services due to a stroke. He corrected me when I referred to his neck of the woods as the sticks. No sticks here…

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Categorized as The Bus

Birthday

All of my browsers default to the Google search screen and when I brought up my main browser (Chrome) this morning I saw this nice little birthday Google Doodle. I wondered what famous person had the same birthday as me and then it hit me, what if Google is actually saying happy birthday to me?

Chrome is the only browser I stay logged into Google with so I tried the other browsers. Nothing, no birthday doodle! I’ve been a consumer of their services for many years now and I’m very embedded (or should I say in bed) with Google, but I don’t recall telling them my birthday. Obviously I did, somewhere along the road, in the heat of the night…

Also, I had to work today (what the hell!). Karen got swamped so they dragged me in kicking and screaming to do a few rides. When I finally got home I was able to fire up my new Drone and get a first flight out of her. It was heading towards the top of the trees so I got some more altitude and pointed it towards Brians house. I lost sight of it so I killed the power and she landed. Otherwise, it was shaping up to be a cool flight.

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Categorized as House

Syma X5C

My sister and Steph took me out to Mexican food tonight for my thirty-ninth birthday and sis gave me a drone. This thing is sweet! It’s got a built-in camera, a rechargeable battery and I can’t wait to get it flying :-)

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Categorized as Cameras

Garbage Up

The garbage can goes up, it dumps, it goes down. Simple…

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Categorized as House

Tin Cup 2015

The Annual Tin Cup event was markedly different this year. Normally they have the events in Driggs Park and run the race out on Ski Hill Road. This year they blocked off downtown, scattered the events around the Community Center, and ran the race down Bates Road. I have to say, I think they pulled it off brilliantly!

I captured 95 great shots of the start of the race, a walk through of the events, and some runners coming home. Click the photo below to see them all, or dive directly into the SlideShow.

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Categorized as The Valley

Mailbox

Riley created the coolest mailbox in the world from his metal shop at Wyotech in Laramie, years ago. We mounted it proudly and I’m sure it has become well known within letter carrier circles, not to mention the neighborhood.

This thing was so sweet I bet it was even noticed out on Ski Hill Road.

Today? Well, the word character comes to mind… Hey, winters are tough around here!

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Categorized as House