Amarand
Social Media Break – Day Four

Well, it’s Day Four of the Social Media Break, and although it’s going to take awhile to re-wire my brain to enjoying normal things, rather than a steady stream of pleasure-center dopamine hits fulfilled by Likes and Retweets and sensational news, at least I can still write a nice, long, compound sentence. I think we used to call them “run-on sentences” back when I was a kid. Maybe English teachers still call them that today? But at least I know when I’ve written one, and I’ve absolutely done so a few times today.

So, Day Four. Besides locating a fun non-sequitur Featured Image for this post, and writing really long, complex sentences, what else did I do? Well, when I went to open the window to let in some fresh air this morning, I noticed Toby – the Outdoor Snake – and he spent a little time grokking me through the window. I took a few pictures. There was no forked tongue this time. Maybe he’s just mellow? Maybe he’s really a she, and is sick of me calling her a boy? I don’t know. But I do know that after I took these pictures, he slithered away, and I could not find him again. He’ll be back, though!

Toby Up Close and Personal

So yes, Toby, captured with my Fuji X-T2 using my longer lens, the Fuji 50-140, which is super fun for far away things. Like Toby! I’m more of a macro person, so I like to get myself physically close to things, but sometimes, you don’t want to scare stuff away, and this lens does a pretty good job. Had I used the X-T3, I would have had more pixels to crop into, but that’s okay. Happy snek is happy!

Toby from a Safe Distance
(They’re all safe distances….)

Speaking of happy, have you met my dog, Lucy? She’s a Shih Tzu, and she’s super cute! She’s getting older, as are we all, but she’s got pep in her step, and a nice loud bark whenever her sister, Annie, gets her riled up. Or, as was the case today, for no reason at all. Sometimes, she just wants to bark and jump up when she barks. It’s super cute….

Lucy doing her Cute Thing

Speaking of cute, Lucy also likes to spend some time in the sun. I believe she has arthritis in some of her joints, so it takes her a little time to sit down like you see below, but I’m sure it felt good. That sunbeam she found was perfectly shaped and it was exactly the thing she needed before she went on to her early morning power nap.

Sometimes, Lucy enjoys a perfectly-shaped sunbeam

Last but not least, I set-up the Raspberry Pi in Motion Capture mode, and, after a bunch of random captures, got a short video of a bluejay with a peanut in its mouth. This is the first video I’ve shared using the WordPress Jetpack system, so I hope it works well for you. I’m going to try and share videos directly through the site, because YouTube is owned by Google and there are a ton of ads for videos served there. Not a fan of ads myself, so I’ll just keep things here when it’s blog-adjacent content.

A Blue Jay on the Shepherd’s Hook

So, for Day Four, I didn’t have much of a chance to watch any WordPress, Jetpack or Divi tutorials, so I’m still posting these as I go, and figuring things out just by fiddling around. I’m hoping any changes will be small and incremental, but I really do need to learn Divi, to see how I can start applying some of the features of that to my blog here. We’ll see how that all works out.

Looking forward to seeing you back here on Day Five, tomorrow!