Winter's Bayou

I found out that there was a great big hiking trail nearby called the Lone Star Trail that runs for more than one hundred miles through the Sam Houston National Forest. I've been wanting to hike one of the legs of the trail for a long time, but have never managed to get out and do it so far. It's only a thirty minute drive to the closest leg, and yet I still haven't checked it out yet.

Well, today that changed. We drove up to Cleveland (not the one in Ohio, there's a town called Cleveland up the freeway from us), and went for a walk on the Winter's Bayou section of the trail.

It was a nice hike. I'm sure the trail is much more beautiful in the spring or summer, when it's more lush and green...or in the autumn when the leaves are a riot of colors. However, the weather wasn't nearly as hot this weekend, so we did have that advantage.

Here's a shot of the best scenery we saw while we were there. I probably should have taken more pictures.

Come spring, it'll be ten times prettier. Rish Outfield challenged me to make a goal of going on at least one hike a month this year, so I'll probably be back for more, and will be able to give you some pictures of that improved scenery. Maybe I'll bring along my big camera to get better shots as well.

I Got Hacked!

The other night, I came home from work. Everyone was in bed, asleep already. I wasn't quite ready to hit the sack myself yet, so I went to my study and sat down at my computer. A weird image was onscreen. It wasn't the usual desktop, but with the kids using my computer on the regular, I often see things that aren't the usual when I get on my computer. I hit the space bar, expecting it go to the log in screen, but instead, I got a message from hackers!

Let me show you what I saw, I have a video of it:

I didn't think that my computer had been hacked for very long, of course, because my son had misspelled the work hack as hak. It was obviously the work of a kid that was only about nine years old. It did make me smile, however. I couldn't help but laugh imagining him setting this ruse up for me.

He'd made a PowerPoint presentation using the Google Slides app (which he learned in school). He found several GIFs that would look like a hack attempt (or at least what they would use in a movie to represent a hack attempt), and then he set that project to present mode, and went to bed. I'm sure he giggled and giggled in bed as he imagined me trying to figure out what was going on when I got home. 

It was just too cute.

Anklecast 44: Active Shooter Training and Date Night

I swore I was going to do it. You didn't think I would. In fact, you warned me not to, but I did it anyways. I made another episode of the Anklecast.

Today's story is "Active Shooter Training." Oh, and I also threw in a little bitty story as an appetizer called "Date Night."

After the stories, I talk a little bit about my goals for the year. I suppose I really ought to do a post where I put them out for all to see and hold me accountable. I guess, watch for that.

Anyhow, here's the Anklecast. The video is really blurry, because there was some kind of schmutz on the lens. I decided that I would just post it as is, because re-doing the episode might take me too long, and it's better to have something rather than nothing. I'll be sure to wipe off any schmutz next time.

Or, if you hate my face...and the blurry picture, you could just listen to the audio of the episode here.

You can download it HERE by right-clicking and choosing "save target".

Or feel free to subscribe to the podcast feed by clicking the button over on the right hand side.

Pictures Of Nature

 Over on Facebook, Marshal reposted a call for people to put their favorite pictures of nature up as a way to combat all of the negativity that we were seeing there instead. Rish reposted it too, and so did I. I really like nature, after all. I much prefer it to negativity.

Then, the other day while I was doing my daily 45 minute walk for #75Hard, I thought it would be a good idea to bring my nice camera with the long zoom lens on my walk and take some pictures of all of the beautiful songbirds that flitted around me as I made my way down the trail.

Of course, each day I forgot to bring my camera with me, and would only remember when the first bird swooped down and parked in front of me. Oh! This would be the perfect time to have that camera!

Today, I finally remembered to bring it. It's big and bulky, and kind of a pain to carry around. Worse yet, today was a very overcast day. I don't know if the clouds had something to do with it, but there seemed to be drastically reduced bird activity.

Also, every single person walking the trails had a dog at their side. I'm sure birds give dogs a wide berth. I even managed to get stuck walking my usual route just about a hundred yards behind someone with a little white dog. I never saw a bird the whole time he was in front of me. I was so glad when he finally turned right when I had to turn left.

Anyhow, I don't have very many pictures to show off from my effort. I found this cardinal very early on in my walk:

That was my best picture of the day. Almost my only picture of the day. I did get another cardinal to pose for me later, but looking at the pictures now, the leaf in front of its head is what's in focus not the bird.

I am, admittedly, not very good at this photography thing. Sometimes I think I wasted my money getting that fancy zoom lens camera.

My one other picture I managed wasn't even of a bird, but rather a squirrel.

I don't know if you can tell, but that is a winter squirrel. He (or she, don't ask me how you can tell) was feasting all autumn, and now he (or she) is ready to pass the lean winter months

Big Anklevich On Health - Week Two

 It was another good week. Check out the video to find out more!

Spider-man No More

I was at Half-price Books yesterday, and I saw this book. This used to totally be me, but not anymore...

It's one of the best parts of going zero carb. My digestion isn't spending all sorts of time trying to encourage bacteria to ferment fiber for me, creating tons and tons of methane. Nowadays, I almost never fart.

I Finished Week One

 And, how do you think I did? Well, find out by watching the video.

Feel The Noize

 Quiet Riot was on the radio. Check out the unfortunate way the display broke up the band and song name.

Halloween Again?

 My neighbors took down their Christmas decorations on New Year's Day, and something weird happened...this guy returned.

I guess he must not just be a Halloween decoration. The tree must just be evil, and once all the Christmas cheer dissipated it was able to reassert its true nature. I'm not complaining. I love that thing, and which I had one of my own.

Big Anklevich On Health: A Restart For 2021

Now that the holidays have passed us by, and all the madness of the end of the year is behind us, I figured it would be the perfect time to get back on the horse, and turn my health back around from the nosedive 2020 put me in. I mean, it's not 2020 anymore. That ought to be enough.

And I don't know if anyone's ever considered this before, but it seems like the turning of the year might be a great time to try making some goals to better myself and putting them into practice. This is virgin territory, though. I hope I don't blow it, though, and make crashing out on new year goals a trend or something.

Happy Happy Joy Joy

I'm so glad that all our problems will go away because it’s no longer 2020.

Happy New Year and all that.

 Now it's time for an old guy like me to go to bed.