We’re at home from our family Hawaii trip that I shared photos of HERE and HERE. I’m now in my real life wild kingdom and enjoyed a visit by a squadron of javelina.
I counted three or four babies, two moms and a handful of males. I took photos with my Nikon and telephoto lens, but the best photos and videos were from my iphone. I got amazingly close feeling confident our fence would hold. I had thrown a few handfuls of birdseed out for our quail, but the javelina discovered it and soon took over.
I wouldn’t want to get between these two guys!
Babies. I especially like peewee redhead!
Another look at two babies.
Here’s to a happy and healthy 2026 for all of us and our wildlife friends!
What are your plans for the first weekend of 2026?
I snapped this photo of Red in a tree. I’m happy with it, especially the background, which I have no clue how it turned out this way!
I have noticed now I’m driving myself to Physical Therapy, that the maps app on my phone doesn’t work. Yes, I know the way there, but I like to check for traffic and the best route.
Then I turned on my Hallow App for the drive — and guess what? It didn’t work either!
My phone kept trying to connect with the car. Too much tech for me. So I turned off WiFi on my phone and thought it would use cellular data — and I’d get maps and Hallow. No luck. My phone is a brick when I leave the comforts of home.
Yesterday morning I left the house for a walk, listening to a podcast and the phone went dead once I was out of home WiFi range. I went through settings a million times and finally noticed my SIM was turned off. I entered what I thought was my SIM code. Next message said SIM locked. Enter PUK. What? What’s a PUK?
I called the customer service carrier number and my call failed. My phone was worthless.
What’s a PUK?
A PUK code, or Personal Unblocking Key, is an eight-digit security code that unlocks a SIM card when the PIN has been entered incorrectly too many times.
When you set up a PIN for your SIM card, it acts as a password to protect your phone’s cellular services (calls, texts, data). If you enter the wrong PIN too many times (usually three), your SIM card will lock, and you’ll need the PUK code to unlock it. From AI Overview
I used my husband’s home office phone and got a PUK from the carrier. I reset my SIM code. So far so good. I’ll find out when I’m out and about if my phone is more than a brick. At least the camera works!
What tech issues have you had lately? Do they make you crazy too?
Chipmunks like the birdseed, too. They especially like corn.
While I’m writing this post, the words from my headline are staring at me from my new phone. There’s a gray bar above those words that hasn’t made one iota of progress. It should tell me how much time I have left. But it’s estimating…
I’m not one to get new phones. But, I cracked my screen two haircuts ago getting out of the car at my hair dressers. I could live with it.
Then my husband completely killed his phone. It would ring, but nothing on the screen worked. He couldn’t slide the bar to open the phone. I ordered a new phone for him and set it up. He wanted me to get a new phone, too. I finally agreed, after I bought him the wrong size protective case by mistake. I agreed to buy the phone that would fit the case, so I didn’t have to drive 45 minutes to the Apple store and exchange it!
I went through our phone carrier to order my husband’s phone online. They asked for my ID to verify who I was. I had to sit with my driver’s license in my hand and show it to a camera on the screen. It said it successfully verified me.
Then I got a series of emails and texts telling me the order was going to be cancelled unless I verified myself with an ID. I clicked on the link and it said verification successful! But the website with my order said they were cancelling unless I verified my ID. Such is the new world.
I called a human being at the phone company and told them of my dilemma. While I was explaining the continual loop I was stuck in, I got a text and an email that my husband’s phone order had been cancelled! While I was on the phone with the phone company!
Now I’m patiently waiting. And waiting. And waiting while watching nothing happen on my new phone.
What recent technological or company snafus have you experienced lately?
This is a sunset view from my driveway earlier this week. I took this photo with my iphone.
This photo I took with my Nikon as rain was beginning to sprinkle.
I’m posting photos to celebrate the end of the election. I will be so thankful to never hear another ad for years. Living in a battleground state, it’s been unbearable. It doesn’t matter if my candidates won or lost, or when we’ll find out. I’m just glad it’s over!
Sunday we had clouds, rain, thunder and lightening. The sunsets have been spectacular! The sunrises are gorgeous too. Now the sky is bright blue. Everything looks washed clean and sparkling.
Look at that blue sky!
Sunrise in our back yard.
One more sunset photo. This one is from my husband’s iphone a year ago.
What a difference a real camera makes compared to my iphone! Monday, I posted photos of an owl and hawks in my backyard. Those pics were from my iphone. The owl returned so I had a second chance with my Nikon camera. You can read Monday’s post HERE.
It was a bit of a learning curve to remember how to use my Nikon camera. Fortunately, there are lots of resources online. When I got the camera one Christmas from Costco, it came with a DVD with tips on how to use it. I still have the DVD, but it made me realize how much technology has changed since I got the camera 10 years ago.
Yes, the camera still works. But transferring photos from the camera to my laptop has changed. I’ve been through more than one laptop in the past 10 years! The camera comes with a little wireless device that is supposed to send a signal and connect to my laptop. Right. But first I needed to install the software onto my laptop from a CD disk! Funny thing, my laptop doesn’t have a CD drive. I looked online and the software wasn’t available to download.
The solution was purchasing a $9 card reader that is on a dongle that plugs into the laptop. I removed the memory card from the camera. Popped it into the dongle and BINGO! It worked in a nano second.
Here are husband and wife quail outside the casita.
Friends gave me these Flamingos from Costco for my birthday a few years ago. The flamingos like to hang out with the quail.
My favorite owl hanging out in our backyard.
One of several hawks who made a surprise visit yesterday.
I’ve written about how technology has changed throughout the years. You can read a post about how I began working in PR with a IBM Selectric typewriter HERE.
Do you notice an improvement in my photos with the camera versus iphone?
What technology has changed your day to day life the most?
I was singing Paul Simon’s Kodachrome while I wrote my blog post. Enjoy!
Do you remember when phones looked like this? You might not be old enough, but I do.
I should file this under Public Service Announcement:
An article in the Wall Street Journal caught my attention. It was about iphones and a setting default that is “on.” It’s something I didn’t even know was on my phone. And I looked. Yes, it was on. I turned it off.
Here’s an excerpt:
Apple Turned On a Buried iPhone Setting. You Might Want It Off.
The ‘Discoverable by Others’ switch is on by default. Here’s what it does—and why it isn’t as scary as it sounds. By Joanna Stern
This creepy-sounding setting is leading people to think their name and location are being shared without their knowledge or consent. That’s not the case, says Apple, but you might want to turn it off anyway.
Last year, as a part of iOS 17.2, Apple released the Journal app. You can use it to jot down personal notes about your day, your life, what inspires you. You know, journal-y things.
You can turn on Journaling Suggestions. This recommends topics to write about based on things your phone (but not Apple) knows about you—music you’ve listened to, people you’ve called or messaged, photos you’ve recently taken, places you’ve visited, etc. You decide if you want to turn this on. When you first launch the Journal app, it will prompt you to do that. Those suggestions aren’t ever shared with Apple.
Here’s where it gets weird. When you go into Settings > Privacy & Security > Journaling Suggestions, you’ll see that Discoverable by Others is enabled by default—even if you never turned on suggestions. Under the setting it says, “Allow others to detect you are nearby to help prioritize their suggestions.”
I don’t quite get what this function does. The reporter of this story Stern reached out to Apple. They said it gives more suggestions on what to journal about, but doesn’t share info with others. That’s reassuring, but also confusing. What is Discoverable by Others anyway?
Were you aware of this journaling function? Or Discoverable by Others? Have you used it?
I wrote about weird coincidences on my iphone a few weeks ago HERE.
This is a photo of a diver from Jolyn’s website. Jolyn creates swimsuits designed for athletes.
FIRST THING:
Three coincidences happened over the weekend within one hour.
I was talking to our guests about Jolyn swimsuits after my friend asked about the Jolyn stickers on my Hydroflask.
I explained that when my daughter was in high school, Jolyn hit the scene in Southern California. Jolyn was immediately popular because the suits don’t come off in the ocean or swimming in the pool — yet they added some fashion flair. My daughter said their stickers were popular with her age group. Swimmers put the stickers on their water bottles, placed at the end of their lanes during swim practice. That was great advertising for Jolyn.
The minute that conversation was over, I was pinged a Jolyn ad on my iphone.
(My stickers on my Hydroflask came from birthday swimsuits from daughter. I asked her to order suits with their biggest behind coverage possible. I love my Jolyns.)
Next, my friend was baking my husband a belated birthday cake. We were all four talking about his age (which I won’t disclose.) Ping. My iphone sent me an article on how to celebrate a birthday of that particular age.
The final iphone thing was after I pointed out these two coincidences. The friend’s hubby said, “They are listening to your conversations. You need to turn off certain things on you iphone.”
Ping. Article popped up, “What Apple doesn’t want you to turn off.”
Those three things happened within one hour.
Coincidence? Or Not? What are your thoughts?
SECOND THING:
A text I received from my son. He introduced me to Wordle over a year ago and taught me his formula.
I texted this back at him:
Notice they are identical except my squares are black. It’s not a coincidence. If you want to know the formula, I’ll let you know.
THIRD THING:
This is a potato I discovered this weekend. I wanted to share it with Mama Lava from Mama Lava’s Back Porch.
This month she is posting 28 days of love that include uplifting messages, scripture and hearts she has found in nature. I wanted to post this potato on her blog, but WP wouldn’t let me place an image in her comments.
Do you know how to place images in comments? If so, please share.
What are your thoughts about my things posted above?
