Bits and Pieces on a Hot Day

• It's HOT! It is still morning as I write this. The temperature is already in the low 90s. Tonight's temps are supposed to be in the 70s. I was going to run some errands. Since they don't have to be done today, I changed my mind after I walked to the mailbox. Instead, I will enjoy the cool AC and the ceiling fan. Some icy cherry lemonade sits close by.


• I saw one male tiger swallowtail on my walk to the mailbox. I hope he finds a female out there somewhere.


• The buck struck the flowers once again. This time he ate the black-eyed susans (Rudbeckia), leaves and all. This is the first time in 10 years that they have been eaten. The leaves and stems are fuzzy, which usually discourages the deer. But not this guy. I passed him grazing in a patch of kudzu down along the highway as I went out a couple of days ago. He made eye contact with me and just kept chewing. I wish he would make that his permanent dining area. There is certainly enough kudzu to supply him for the rest of the summer. Unfortunately, he likes variety in his diet.


• Goldfinger was in my Netflix queue recently. I can remember seeing it in the theater when it first came out. All the techy stuff seemed farfetched then. In the rewatching, it seemed kind of tame. I did enjoy Sean Connery, who will always be Bond to me. (I was a senior in high school when Goldfinger came out. It is an oldy.)


• The new search engine, Bing, from Microsoft is turning up more and more in my blog statistics. Google still leads, but Microsoft may finally have something. I have even used it myself a few times.


• Internet over the powerlines seems to have a problem when there is a heavy demand for electricity on a very hot day. I am only guessing at this from my experience the last two days. I couldn't connect yesterday during the hottest part of the day, but things were zipping along last night and early this morning. I couldn't connect again for this session. I am using dial-up. I guess the lines just can't carry all of it. But given a choice, today I will gladly give up the faster internet connection if it means keeping the electricity to run my AC.


• If you are in the sweltering southeastern US today, keep cool!