{"id":3614,"date":"2020-05-29T08:08:35","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T13:08:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/?p=3614"},"modified":"2020-05-29T08:09:37","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T13:09:37","slug":"a-songbird-app-notes-while-largely-sheltering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/a-songbird-app-notes-while-largely-sheltering\/","title":{"rendered":"A Songbird App &#038; Notes While Largely Sheltering"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"wpf_wrapper\"><a class=\"print_link\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Print this entry<\/a><\/p><!-- .wpf_wrapper --><p><em>Further notes while largely sheltering in place:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>I ventured out of town last week to interview someone for an upcoming magazine article. Except for a brief visit to my brother-in-law\u2019s yard outside Gilmer, it was the first time I have left the city limits since March 8. That\u2019s when I made a quick trip to Austin just as things were starting to feel a bit shaky. This time I headed to San Augustine, about 90 miles away. The subject of my interview graciously agreed to host me in her beautiful backyard, at a safe distance. I showed up and went straight to the backyard \u2014 laptop, recorder and mask at the ready.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I felt perfectly safe but had one worry. What if I needed to use the restroom on this trip? The notion of going into a convenience store to use the facilities does not appeal to me. I wasn\u2019t exactly crazy about doing so <em>before<\/em> the pandemic, but now? Nope. So I kept my coffee and La Croix consumption to a minimum and prayed for the best. Being a guy, I wasn\u2019t terribly concerned. All I needed was a country road and some trees to shield me if the need arose. As it turned out, the call to nature came just outside San Augustine. After the interview, I visited briefly, again at a safe distance, with some dear friends in the otherwise empty courthouse. (It was lunch hour.) I managed to make it home without another pit stop.<\/p>\n<p>As things open up, much more quickly for some folks than it will by choice for my Beautiful Mystery Companion and me, figuring out the restroom conundrum will be a major consideration before we hit the road.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-3615 alignleft\" src=\"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-298x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"298\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-298x300.jpg 298w, https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-600x604.jpg 600w, https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-100x100.jpg 100w, https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-145x145.jpg 145w, https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-768x774.jpg 768w, https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-1016x1024.jpg 1016w, https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth-680x685.jpg 680w, https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/Song-sleuth.jpg 1067w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 298px) 100vw, 298px\" \/>It took a while to get used to wearing a mask with hearing aids. These high-tech devices consist of a small plastic piece wedged behind my ear, and a thin filament attached to the tiny cone that goes inside the ear canal. I kept snagging the aid on the mask\u2019s elastic and ripping it out of my ear when I took it off once back inside my vehicle. Once, the hearing aid fell between the seat and the console. It took about 5 minutes and a steady round of under-my-breath curses to extract it. Since each hearing aid costs more than two thousand bucks, I\u2019m a bit paranoid about losing one and having to go through the rigamarole of filing an insurance claim. I\u2019m getting the hang of taking the mask off, but it took a while.<\/li>\n<li>Occasionally, I physically go to work at the LeTourneau library, which is still closed, to empty the book drop or look something up for a patron in the archives. It\u2019s an eerie feeling being on a largely empty campus, inside the darkened library. Not scary, just different. I imagine a library version of <em>Night at the Museum<\/em>. The books start whispering to me; those on the \u201cjust arrived\u201d kiosks open their covers and start flipping pages.<\/li>\n<li>Back at home, the dogs when not sleeping watch our every move. Sam and Rosie come running every time they hear the ice maker in the refrigerator rumbling, as either I or my BMC refill our tumblers with water or iced tea. They love to chomp on an ice cube, and sit expectantly our feet, awaiting one. I call them Pavlov\u2019s dogs.<\/li>\n<li>I downloaded a new app the other day that allows me to identify bird songs while sitting outside. There are several, but I am using Song Sleuth. You record the call by holding down the phone button. Song Sleuth, to which I have already provided my location and time of year, gives the top three possible choices, along with a screen shot of a painting of the birds by renowned bird illustrator David Sibley. I recorded a bird trilling late one afternoon while sitting in the gazebo. Song Sleuth identified it as most likely a Northern Cardinal. This is a pretty slick app, well worth $9.99 when one spends a lot more time on the deck reading. And yes, it was the male cardinal who has taken up residence in our backyard with his partner.<\/li>\n<li>I was talking to a longtime friend on the phone recently. He\u2019s been retired about a dozen years. He said he told one of his sons, \u201cWell, I walk every morning. Other than that, I just stay home and read.\u201d His son replied, \u201cDad, that\u2019s what you were doing <em>before<\/em> the pandemic.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Stay safe, my friends.<\/p>\n<p class=\"wpf_wrapper\"><a class=\"print_link\" href=\"\" target=\"_blank\">Print this entry<\/a><\/p><!-- .wpf_wrapper -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Print this entryFurther notes while largely sheltering in place: I ventured out of town last week to interview someone for an upcoming magazine article. Except for a brief visit to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[73,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3614","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-73","category-columns"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3614"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3617,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3614\/revisions\/3617"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3614"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3614"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/garyborders.com\/pages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3614"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}