A CANOE TRIP CANCELLED AND A WARNING ABOUT SAVING PHOTOGRAPHS

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I had previously sold the Mistral 17.5 foot canoe due to its weight.  That canoe, as great as it was, is what contributed to a serious case of sciatica two summers ago.  I was continually lifting it to the top of the truck cap and placing it as above.  During the sciatica recovery I bought a canoe trailer to alleviate the necessity of lifting the heavy boat to such heights.  It worked fine.  I since decided to stick to one canoe after Douglas left me.  The big canoe was bought especially for him.  I kept the kevlar canoe which is only 43 pounds in weight.  That's not bad for a 16 foot canoe.  I can easily lift it to the top of the truck cap.

I had been dying to take a canoe ride on either Chilhowee or Calderwood lake and the weather for tomorrow is going to be perfect.  I mounted the canoe onto the truck and tied it down.  The camera stuff went on the front seat and the paddles in the back with all the other canoe stuff.  Chestnut hound and Happy terrier were hanging out with me while I loaded the stuff up.  Where was Shade?  I called her and she didn't come.  That isn't normal.  She is like velcro on me.  I called and called.  She wasn't upstairs in the computer room or the bed room either.  The garage was empty too.  I went to the dark laundry room and switched on the light.  There she was.  She was sitting in the furthest corner in the dark.  She just sat there.  I knew what the issue was.  I don't take her when I go with the canoe as she isn't trained to sit in the front.  She has to be right where I am sitting in the boat.  This is not a desirable situation.  In short she was crushed.  She knew she wasn't going with me in the morning and she was pouting.  Her heart was breaking.  How perceptive she is!  Its amazing.  When I go to work in the state truck she comes to the door with me and when I say stay she goes back upstairs to the bed room and lays down.  I went over and knelt down in front of her and put my arms around her and pulled her to me snugly and put my cheek against the side of her face. I squeezed her and rubbed her back.  She melted.  I said "treat" and everything was back to normal as we bolted up the stairs together to the kitchen for a biscuit.  I couldn't stand to see her hurt.

She followed me outside and watched while I removed the canoe from the truck and took it inside.  She watched as I took the canoe paddles out of the back and carried them into the house.  And she went nuts with excitement as she watched the red truck back up to the Gheenoe.   She bounced around like a little puppy with excitement.  Guess we'll be taking the motor boat tomorrow.  Yes, I said "we."

I care about her feelings more than anything as you can see.  I can take a canoe ride again next day off.  I'll be more discrete loading the canoe onto the truck.  I hate to do things to fool the dogs.  They offer only honesty and devotion and I just hate to deceive them.  Its my burden I guess.

Anyway - about the issue of saving photographs.  My computer picked up a very bad virus a week ago.  I noticed a email that said Fed X tried to deliver a package and no one was available to sign for it.  It went on to say I would have to pick it up.  I would need to email Fed X to get the pick up number and to find out where I had to go to get the package.  I was expecting a package as a matter of fact.  I clicked on the official looking Fed X email address and that was the click that ended my computer.  A key logger took over everything and a false virus program appeared on the screen that I couldn't remove or control.  I detached the internet cable immediately.  The thing about this is that my virus program caught it in my email.  But, the email looked so official that I felt an error was being made by my virus program, Avast.  Avast is one of the best and I can attest to that.  I didn't trust it and paid the price.  The computer had to be wiped clean and put back to "day one" condition.  I had almost all my files on external hard drives and Carbonite, on line file backup, had the rest.

A long story short - I got the computer back and set Carbonite to replace my files through their download process.  I have satellite internet connection and Hugh's.net is the company.  I can only use 250 megabytes a day.  So, I set my computer to "never sleep" and started the retrieval process with Carbonite.  The satellite communication is so slow that this is taking forever.  My computer has been running for three days and nights and all I have gotten back from Carbonite so far is the file folders and no files.  The constant downloading eats up the allotted usage time on my account.  I have to buy tokens at $5.50 each to gain more usage allowance.  This is going nowhere and I doubt I'll get my pictures back.  Carbonite is not the way to save photographs if you have satellite or Verizon 4G.  The usage allowances will be exceeded and the process a costly one.  The use of external hard drives is the only way to go.  Your photos are in your possession and not out in space somewhere.  I may never get my photos back.  There are over 60,000 of them.  I may take the computer to the office and see if I can hook up to their cable and leave the computer there until the downloads are complete.  I'll ask.

 Carbonite downloads all the file folders first.  Then it fills the folders.  The three orange lines in the snippet represent actual files being downloaded and placed into the folders.  The problem is that those downloads haven't changed in the past two days.  Its going nowhere.  At this rate it will cost a fortune paying for additional time on the satellite.  Satellite internet is the worlds worse and should be investigated by the Better Business Bureau.  I need to hook up to a cable somewhere to get my photos back.  I hope this all makes sense to you.  Its the price one pays for living in the country.  No cable internet.  Trust your virus software and don't open anything you're not familiar with.

The Gheenoe is hooked up and Shade got her way.  Tomorrow will be a nice get away day.  See you then.