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8/31/2022 Stop and Hear the Roses

Here's my daughter Corinne(R) and her new friend Danielle(L) at the Sacred Roses Concert in Chicago last weekend.

So Corinne sent me a short video clip from her phone of a "Jam Band", as she said, and I said "wow, that sounds like the Grateful Dead". Turns out that was kind of right. It was a band with Phil Lesh (Grateful Dead bass player) and his friends!

OK so you can still stop and smell the roses too but this one was about something to hear. Corinne really loved the concert and sent some other good photos and videos too including some cool photos from inside a tent at the event.

Later I looked up Phil Lesh and found out that he is also a Chapman! They sometimes refer to him as Phil Chapman Lesh. I'm not sure how the marriages and names worked out but he could even be a relative of mine. Good Ol' cousin Phil.

OK I gotta update some other stuff now and I am planning on putting some of this on Facebook too...

Later

8/28/2022 Quality of Life vs Time

OK, I am going to try to limit the medical condition updates (as much as I can) after this one but I think that this one is kind of important.

After looking into the details of the Lung Transplant (LT) I will probably not have the lung transplant after all.

My reasons include:
• The Pre-Transplant Rehab
• The Pre-Transplant Testing and Evaluation
• The Surgery itself and the long difficult Hospitalization after surgery
• The Caregiver Requirements
• The Likely Ongoing Hospitalizations each year
• The Immunosuppressant side-effects
• I am Less Likely to do well at My Age
• The Average Life Expectancy after transplant vs. the Average Life Expectancy on my own terms with IPF
• I believe that a Regular Exercise Routine (on my own) and getting back to my OFEV prescription could buy me more time too

Basically, I don’t think that the potential, not guaranteed, extra Life Expectancy is worth the degraded Quality of Life (QOL) needed to get there.

I could actually have more quality and out-of-hospital time with everyone by living life (however long that is) on my own terms with IPF (Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis) and my own lungs.

Here are some of the Details taken from the Lung Transplant documentation that I got from the LT support team.

7/28/2022 Captain we need New Propellers! - UPDATED 8/2 (below)

I wanted to find an analogy for my pending Lung Transplant (LT) to simplify what it might be like. The best I came up with was that it seems kind of like having some bad propellers on a twin engine plane that need to be replaced to keep the plane in the air! Oh yea, and you have to stay in the air (i.e. stay alive) while changing them 😊!

Well that is the best I could do for an analogy but what I really wanted to do was to post the link below, which is from the medical group that will be doing my LT, Northwest Medicine. I had an initial consultation with one of the doctors on the transplant team (not one of the 5 surgeons) and I am supposed to find out tomorrow (Friday) if I made it past the first level of screening (to be strong enough to survive the operation).

If I make it past that then I have to do a weeks worth of additional tests and some strength therapy and other things. Oh boy, what fun!

OK anyway, here is the link that I wanted to post:

The Lung Transplant Process at Northwest Medicine

Note:

There are 4 web pages for this article so choose the "Next:" options near the middle of the page (before the ads) for the next page in the series.

Also, if I get more significant news tomorrow I may post it here rather than in another new post.

---- OK here is the 8/2/2022 update that I talked about (it took a little longer than I expected for them to call).

I found out that I will need to go to rehab 2 times a week to build up strength for the LT. My weeks worth of testing will probably be near the end of September.

There are tests that I can do ahead of time including: a Colonoscopy, Dental clearance and Total Body Skin scan from a Dermatologist.

Well it just worked out that I had a Dermatologist appointment yesterday (for the growth (horn) on the top of my head) and he was able to do the Body Scan then also. the growth was Squamous cell carcinoma (I think) which is a form of shin cancer. So now I have the Little "C" too!

As long as you deal with the issue (as I am) the skin cancer is not the kind of thing that would kill you which is why I call it the Little "C" instead of the Big "C". So now I am dealing with that. Sheesh!

7/18/2022 MainStay Rock Fest, Nadia's Wedding - Photos of Both

I was expecting a visit from my niece, Andi, and her Posse (Brad, Steve and Audy and Rupert) but I wasn't really expecting the MainStay Rock Fest. That just happened through a series of events on a nice summer day.

My niece and posse were here on the weekend and we had some good food but just hung out in my room Saturday which I did not think would be much fun but it was great to see everyone (and we had a good Lou Malnati's pizza).

Then everyone stopped by on Sunday before their trip back to Wisco and it just happened. I'll spare all the details but we ended up in the pavilion that MainStay has with some picnic tables on the side of the building and it was comfortable with a nice breeze.

Brad has been playing/learning guitar and likes to play to relax so he got his Yamaha guitar and played a little. Of course we traded off and I played a little too. The guitar sounded great and my singing was as bad as usual which I proved by scaring away people that sat down next to us as soon as I started singing 😊!

It was still a lot of fun for the dying old man (OK, I just write it that way to sound dramatic, we are all closer to dying everyday). I have not had this much fun since my pneumonia episode.

OK, before I reveal the photos, I am going to mention that I added a few photos that Dara took at Nadia's Wedding this past weekend also. I was not there so I can't write a lot of detail about that anyway other than the second hand stories that I've heard. It sounds like all went very well and it was a very nice wedding.

So the time has come for the photo gallery! I did this with my old photo display software since this is more that just a few random photos.

Here's the

MainStay Rock Festival and Selected Nadia Wedding Photos

7/9/2022 Power Update, Stair Chair, KCBD

A power outage used to be no big deal and I even liked watching thunderstorms. Well, now that I need power for oxygen it's a little trickier.

I had a Power Outage a few weeks ago and I made a plan for what to do when my power ran out. Fortunately it was only about 3 hours and just before I was going to call 911 it came back and I still had power left in my portable oxygen unit.

Well it happened again this week and this time it was out for 6 hours! I had to balance the oxygen saturation in my body with the oxygen setting and the power remaining in my portable unit. It's a balancing act.

Well, when my unit got to about 33% I had to call 911 since there is no elevator either when there is no power. All I needed to do was get to my van and use my car battery cable (or find and AC outlet somewhere else that had power).

So Dara called (so I could save my oxygen for when it was really needed) and they got here in about 5 minutes. I found out that they use a Stair Chair to get us disabled people down the staircase to the first floor. That was Fun!

Then I kicked my oxygen up again to get into the van, made it there and plugged in! It all worked out OK from there. Had to hang out in the car, went a few places and kept checking the hotel for power and eventually it came back and it was a happy ending 😊.

In other news it was Casey's Birthday (KCBD) on the 1st and I think that he enjoyed his birthday. First Dara took him to TGI Fridays for a BD dinner. I was glad that they were able to do that. Later they came over here and Corinne joined us too and he opened gifts and we had some food and BD treats. Another happy ending 😊.

I also included one of my favorite July photos above with Casey on the Jet Ski in Michigan. And now that is up-to-date too...

Later,

6/18/2022 Women to Bodies!

I will attempt to be quick on this update again. This update is not nearly as sexy (or sexist) as the heading may sound. That is really just to get your attention and draw you in of course 😊.

This is actually a health update but I had a slightly modified saying that I wanted to use. I took the liberty of changing the first word in a famous saying from Women to Bodies So my new version is:

"Bodies, Can't live with em, Can't live without em!"

Anyway, I've just completed a bunch of medical tests as step one for the lung transplant (LT). I had to have a Covid test first - I still don't have covid. Then I had another CT Scan, a Pulmonary Function Test (PFT) which really Sucks! (and Blows!) and some blood work done.

So far it looks like I am bad enough to need the transplant and good enough to survive it. There are only 2 places that do the LTs around here. Northwestern University and Loyola University. I requested Northwestern of course.

My Pulmonologist is sending my test results to them and then I guess I get a team of medical people from there for any additional tests and stuff to qualify.

So just because my lungs suck doesn't mean that I am immune to other problems! I have also had a bad tooth ache and went in last week for step one of a Root Canal! I also have a dermatologist appointment coming up for a growth on the top of my head. Sheesh enough already! And that's why have the modified saying above.

6/7/2022 Beautiful Chillin

I just wanted to post the latest photo of our Beautiful Chillin (Casey and Corinne) from a photo that Dara took at Ross and Melissa's wedding this last weekend.

I couldn't make the wedding but Dara sent me some photos. I thought it was a great idea to get a photo of the kids together and all dressed up. How often does that happen?!? (hint: not a lot) 😊.

There are 3 family weddings this year (all Casey and Corinne's cousins) and I don't think it will be possible for me to make it to any of them so I really appreciate the photos and I may get a chance to post some more of these guys all dressed up again.

And now, the moment you have all been waiting for: Rob's Commentary on Modern Weddings! Wow, I learned a lot about what young people are doing for their weddings these days.

It seems like most of them are Destination Weddings (out of state or out of country) and they also have a lot more than just bachelor and bachelorette parties, it seems like there are wedding events for a dozen other things too (and some are also Destination Events).

I also just found out that you don't just wrap up a gift, bring it to the wedding and put it on the table next to the Bundt cake. I guess now, with all the online registries and stuff you order online and the stuff is delivered before the wedding even begins.

What ever happened to the Ol' grab your shotgun and walk to the church or courthouse and get er done option??? And if you really need a Destination Wedding how about the Ol' drive to Vegas and have Elvis marry you option???

OK, well I guess things change, I'll leave it at that fer now.

5/31/2022 -Retirement ROI, I Need More AutoBiography! Summer Begins!

Today is my Official Retirement Anniversary. I've been retired from the rat race for 5 years now. For a long time I was worried that I would die at my desk at work (yikes!) or get killed in a car accident on the way home from my last day of work (yikes yikes!) and never enjoy my Sweet Retirement. So I really consider every day of retirement as a gift.

As you know, from my posts below, I have hit some rough patches with my health lately but I am still alive and still retired - Yay! and here's my latest Retirement ROI. This is my Years Worked (approximately 40 years ) vs Years Retired (5 now) ROI. So my new Retirement ROI is now 12.5%. I hope to get that a lot higher 😊.

I have also been slowly updating My AutoBiography pages in the My AutoBiography button above. I am planning on keeping the big picture summary mostly as it is but adding links for more detailed information kind of like the links at the bottom of that page (like the places I've lived, places worked, etc.)

I will try to mention it here when I have done any significant updates. Like on the first entry ("Started...") I have included the hospital where I was born with a link to a photo of it now (as a retirement community).

And as I mentioned a while ago, tomorrow is the first day ofMeteorological Summerso Summer Begins!

5/22/2022 - Corinne Doing My Trails, Solo Run, Boosted again, Longing for Normal

OK, I have multiple stories here so I am going to try to keep each one brief. My first story is that Corinne just went out and bought a new bike (yes, she discussed it with me first) and she has been out riding the Chicago Lakefront Trail with her boyfriend Alex. Well I am glad that one of us Chapman's is out there riding the trails while I am laid up.

As for me, I did actually get out for my first Solo Run with my van! Actually it was pretty disappointing because I had a lot of problems with stuff. One problem is where I was parked and that can be fixed. The other problem is my Oxygen-Concentrator (battery) over-heated and would not charge or hold a charge.

Well I might be able to fix this too with a spare battery, which my brother suggested. I haven't decided if I am going to do this yet or if I even want to do many solo runs since it is kind of risky.

When I went out for my latest CT-Scan (a step in the lung transplant process) we also swung by Walgreens and I got my latest Covid Booster. I am still going with what the medical community recommends (not politicians or anyone else) and it was free and easy as usual.

And finally my last little story is that I am really Longing for Normal. OK well not Normal in the "normal person" kind of way since I don't think I ever had that and don't long for it either.

I am really just longing for my health to be more normal like it used to be. I now believe that this will only happen with my Lung Transplant (sure hope I qualify and that it works).

OK, there you have it. 4 quick stories (with some extra bonus info included), probably with less words than most of my rambling posts.

OK, I just added a Facebook teaser too... I haven't posted on FB for a while now.

Later,

5/10/2022 -Doctor Update, Needed a Brake

As some of you know, I had a Doctor Appointment yesterday so here's a little summary from that. I had a lot of questions about my oxygen generator levels, oxygen saturation in my blood and my pneumonia recovery but I'll spare you that level of detail here. I also had some misc questions about Lung Transplants and I guess we are still looking into that as an option and for the most potential years to live.

So as for Lung Transplants, I am doing some initial evaluation tests next and we talked about having it done at Northwestern (one of the places around here that does them). As I mentioned before, this is a major operation with a lot of bad recovery time in the hospital (I hate that idea) but once I get past the grief of the procedure, my health could be really good and I could mostly have my old life back!!! 😊

The doc told us about one of his lung transplant patients that did the Chicago Hancock race to the top of the building (by stairs!) after recovery!!! Maybe I'll try that. OK, maybe not but I would be overjoyed just to be able to ride my bike again and even up some hills. Well, I better not get ahead of myself, I have to qualify first.

The doc also mentioned that he spends most of his time with Covid patients now and we are not at all done with that yet so stay safe out there.

That was a big trip for me yesterday and the preparation was difficult. I had Dara drive me there since I did not feel ready for expressway driving and have not gotten the Student Driver sign for the top of my van yet. Dara also has a ton of expressway driving experience lately with her pet transports. I had my Brakes Fixed on the van and Dara said that they worked well. I'll try that myself soon.

We tried the new way to load the wheelchair into the van and it worked well but I still need a little practice. I think that it will be possible to load my wheelchair myself for my first Solo Run with the van at some point but one step at a time.

Later...

5/5/2022 -Driving with an Attitude

Yep, I got out for my First Drive of the year yesterday! It was great! It was a nice sunny day and, with Casey's help, I finally got out for a drive! Like I said in my last post, my doctor appointment, that is coming up, got me going on stuff. This was a practice run for the appointment (and just for practice) and I loved it.

I started out slow (in parking lots) and only drove a few miles on the roads to get the feel for driving again since I haven't driven for at least 5 months. So with the help of Casey and my Oxygenator (story below also) I had the Freedom to Ride!

As for the "Attitude" in the subject line of this post, I didn't say it was a bad attitude (although that's what saying it like that usually implies) I actually had a great attitude and my little drive also improved my overall attitude. It was great to break out of my little cabin feverish, survival-only existence and get out into the real world doing something normal with other people.

Well I did have a few issues too but I saved that for last since I wanted the overall good experience to be the theme here and the issues are things that can probably be resolved.

First, it was very difficult getting my wheelchair into the van. I think I actually have an easier way to do this now (which I will try next) and I have another option of getting a walker with a seat (more on that later, maybe).

My other issues had to do with the van. I knew that it was not good to have the van parked for a long period of time without driving it and I think that may have caused some of the issues with it.

The main issue has to do with my brakes. When stopping I had to push the pedal almost to the floor and the steering wheel shook. I think this could be low brake fluid (that leaked out) or issues with the rotors or brakes from just sitting in the parking lot. I (or a helper) will have to bring it in for that.

The other issue is just my electric side doors. The one on the drivers side would start to open then close again like something was in the way (and there wasn't anything). We had to force it open then force it closed. The other side has some other issues which it had before. Damn old vehicles!

OK well that's the big news for the day! The good parts totally overruled the bad parts. 😊

5/3/2022 -May Day!

Wow, did I get behind on updates here or what?!? It's May! This will just be quick. Not too much new with me right now. Some things are a little better and a lot of other things are just the about the same.

I have a doctor appointment this Monday, May 9th and that is getting me going on stuff. I still have to get to my car and test out a drive so actually going to the doctor is making me get prepared for that.

That's it fer now. More later...

3/8/2022 -The Oxygenator!

Yep I got my new computer yesterday. OK, this computer condenses and delivers oxygen so I was calling it The Oxygenator! OK all of the above is true but to keep it simple it is really my portable oxygen concentrator. I think this thing is going to set me free! (eventually).

I won't need the oxygen tanks now that I have this but my lungs still need to heal more to be able to get around the way that I would like to. This is called a pulse control unit (as opposed to continuous flow) which is a little hard to get use to but I think I figured that part out.

The battery only lasts a couple of hours but if you are by an ac outlet or car cigarette lighter outlet you can plug it in while using it and recharge it at the same time. I also have a couple of other battery options but I'm going to see how this works first.

I've tried it in my room and even though I need to get my OXY level down it is great to not have to deal with the umbilical chord (the tubes to my in-hotel unit) all the time! I'm gonna go cruise the hotel tomorrow in my wheelchair. What fun!!! I haven't been out of this room for a month and a half - Talk about cabin fever! Oy Vey!

3/4/2022 -Birthday Celebration, First Day of Spring!

Tuesday (the 1st) was Corinne's birthday and everyone was merciful and had a little celebration in my recovery room at my hometel. Spring! I actually got a lot of gifts too! (things that I asked for and needed). We also had Portillos and one of their famous chocolate cakes, yum! So Happy Birthday (again) Corinne!

The 1st was also the first day of spring! Meteorologically speaking that is. I just learned this recently but the seasons that start around the 21st of each month (actual dates vary some) are the Astrological seasons. I am kind of liking the Meteorological season dates better because they are so simple. Spring, March 1st, Summer June 1st, Fall September 1st and Winter December 1st. Much better.

I also got a much better setup for my laptop that I can now use in my recovery EZ chair. It's a custom table tray that works well for this purpose.

So that's it fer now. Still recovering!

Later,

2/23/2022 -Actual Good News!

OK I just got some actual good news from the doctor today (not just makin the best of a bad situation). My Doc said that even though I am over the pneumonia, my lungs have not recovered from that yet and that could take a few more months.

The good news part is that after my lungs recover I should be in just about the same shape as before this whole pneumonia crap started!

So I will require a lot less Oxy and be closer to what was normal before. All I gotta do is wait for the healing to happen!!!

So, of course the whole lung transplant thing is now on hold (I would do that if I was desperate enough but if I don't need to that's OK with me!!!)

I sure hope he is right about this!

One more thing to add (after original post). I am also working on getting a Portable Concentraor. So what is that (one might ask?) A concentrator generates oxygen from the air so you don't need an actual oxygen tank which has a very limited capacity and time limit.

This will allow me to get out and about with some amount of oxygen for an unlimited amount of time and since I won't need so much oxygen soon this is just another big plus!

Can't wait to take a drive in my van!!! Maybe just in time for spring.

2/12/2022 - Breaking News about the New Million Dollar Man!!!

I'm gettin tired of this lifestyle of bein hooked on OXY and short of breath all the time so I've decided to make a big change (if I am able to). My doc said that I am not too old for a Lung Transplant a while back but the procedure and outcomes did not sound that great to me. Well now they do!

I guess it costs about a Million Dollars but they say that Medicare and supplemental insurance pay most of that (I hope!!!). I have to qualify (more than just by age) and then there is getting on the list and waiting for some new lungs.

So I see this as: living this really crappy lifestyle that I have now for a few more years or gamble it all (bet my life on it) that I'll come out way better for quite a few more years.

Plus I'm hoping that if I order before midnight they will throw in a new set of vocal chords too for my new song recordings!

2/9/2022 - On a Positive Note

Yea, it's time for a positive update. Anyone ready for that? OK, still got a lot of issues but there are positive things and I want to focus on that and not be a Debbie Downer all the time. I've been getting up and walking a bit. I love that! Trying to increase the distance Living room to door multiple times. Been doing good except for Shortness of breath (SOB) and have to take long breaks. But I'm doin it! I also hope to get out to drive a little in the future but hopefully not too long. I am being slightly more self sufficient but still depend on my helpers Dara, Casey and Corinne.

OK one more positive (kinda). I have always struggled to lose weight and if I was lucky I could lose maybe 2 or 3 pounds in a good week. Well, I just lost about 50 pounds in 3 weeks on the IPF/Pneumonia plan!!! - Added to post 2/24/2022

I think there could be more but I'll add stuff later (here) if necessary (sometimes I do post=release updates).

So there you have Polly Positive for a change!

1/27/2022 - Corrections, Updates and Frustrations

The first part of the post below was meant to be funny (the parole part) but I was trying to be more serious about the second part with the Physical Terrorists but made one kinky mistake and just got some updates on some of the other stuff.

My main mistake was that I meant young asian women - not young Asian girls! that sounds very Jeffery Epsteinish and not what I meant. Then I found out from my middle aged Polish terrorist that they send all different terrorists to your home than the people at the therapy place anyway.

Also I think 2/1/2022 is the correct release date but they never got a hold of me directly. Instead they got a hold of the first person that I had as a contact and gave Dara all of the information so I had to get it second hand. Very Frustrating.

More Updates The terrorists will only come about 3 times a week. OK I guess it's my last weekend here. YAY!

1/26/2022 - Homeward Bound

The crowds out there

have been askin so I'm gonna be tellin ya the updates now. It's lookin like I should be paroled on 2/1/2022 if I stay out of trouble. Of course I will have to wear an ankle bracelet and the bail bond agent will come for random drug tests but it looks like it is happenin.

OK getting back to the actual truth, when I get back to my hotel room the physical terrorists will visit me daily and torture me with additional physical therapy daily and help me take a shower and stuff. The terrorists are young Asian women but don't be fooled they are merciless.

So although I am Homeward Bound Its gonna be different. I'm still tryin to get my OXY(gen) habit under control (lower). But it looks like I go home next week.

Questions, comments, you know the email address.

Later,

1/18/2022 - I Guess I am Lutheran Now

Yep, I'm in Rehab now. The name of the place where they are rehabbin me is Lutheran Home in Arlington Heights. Man these Lutherans really eat well. The food is actually pretty good.

There is a lot to get used to but I have a private room and no tubes and IV's hangin on me. Just OXYgen line. Well, so far, so good here. They got a lot of therapy scheduled next. Yee hah!

So I think that's mostly all I have on rehab now.

Later,

1/16/2022 - The Devil is in the Details (in Hospital Hell)

OK here are some of my Hospital Hell (HH) Details. As I mentioned, when this health disaster hit me (1/5/2022) I got weak and could not stand up from a seated position. This was due to my dangerously low sodium level (112, corrected below). when I got to the hospital they assessed the situation and sent me from the ER to ICU where I spent the first 2 or 3 nights. stayin alive

I had an IV for a sodium solution for the sodium and another IV for an antibiotic for the pneumonia infection. plus they were doing 6 blood draws a day for sodium monitoring (vampires all night long!!!) (my poor arms!!!!).

So after they had their way with me I got out of the ICU and went to a regular HH room. Slightly better but still in the woods. Here I began to notice all the caretakers and their differences. Half of the doctors and staff are very helpful in trying to help me. The other half seem to be psycho Nazis trying to torture me!

Well I got the sodium to a safe level (above 130) but it's hard to keep it there and they keep wanting me to drink less water (water torture). Now its all about my OXYgen (OXY) levels. This will take time too. trying to keep my OXY needs controlled while recovering from the pneumonia.

So it sounds like my next step is to beat all you bitches into a nursing home! OK, don't worry it is just for a short term recovery time (max 90 days paid for by Medicare). So after I get good enough there, I'll finally be ready for a new life style at home(tel).

Of course all of this is sponsored by my Pulmonary Fibrosis which makes me more vulnerable to catch this crap and makes it take longer to get over same crap.

OK I've had enough devil details for tonight. How about you???

Later

1/15/2022 - Hospital Hell

I am in the hospital, Northwest community. Been here 10 days! Yuk! It seems that I caught a wee bit of pneumonia which along with other things also led to an extremely low sodium situation mine was 112 gizmo units. That made my body very weak and in the end I couldn’t stand up from a seated position.

So I called a renta-ambulance to take me in for a quick tune up oil change and pressure check. For some goofy reason I thought they would fix me up pretty quick and I’d be back at my little place watching TV and running r&d.com later that night or the next day lol!!!!

Until I got my laptop all I had was my phone for all communications. I was grateful to have my phone.

I just got my laptop so I wanted to get an update out here. I will try to post some more when I get the time.

I'm gonna be here or another place for at least a few weeks now. more later...

12/20/2021 - Happy 100th Birthday Dad!

I just posted this photo and text on FB today:

"Happy 100th Birthday Dad! - My Dad had a Wonderful Like (like George Baily). He drove a tank in WW2 (Marshall Islands), Married the woman he loved for the rest of his life and had a close and loving family, He drove a Race Car (#23) and won many local races and eventually made it to the time trials at Daytona Beach where he flipped his car end over end and my mom made him quit. He worked as a Bank-VP at Golf Mill State Bank, and later drove trucks which he really enjoyed until he retired to Wisconsin. See more on this at www.robanddara.com"

I had actually written more than that ahead of time but I try to keep my text posts on FB short so I don't loose too many people that are looking for quick updates. Below is the rest of what I wrote (a lot of it still with the "It's a Wonderful Life" theme,

"Wow what a life! Oh yea, in addition to his large, loving extended family he also had many close and loyal friends. So like Clarence was telling George at the end of the movie - No man is a failure who has friends! I'm not sure if my dad had to earn his wings or if he had earned them before he left us and they just gave them to him when he got there but I've heard a lot of bells since then."

OK, I actually posted this just after midnight. So technically it was today but at night. I figured that I would sleep pretty late (as I usually do) so I wanted this out there first thing before all the early birds got going and already checked out their FB news for the day.

I have used most of these photos in various ways over the years but this is a new arrangement. I wish I had more new photos to work with but this is what I have for now and I try to make the best of it. Maybe someday I'll go through their old photos again and discover some gems that I missed that last few times that I went through the photos.

Of course, today would be my dad's 100th birthday but I had to include my mom in the photo collection since she was literally his other half and I know he would have liked that I included her. He probably would have wanted me to include even more of her but I had to feature him on this day.

I could go on about this (and probably write a small book) but I'll leave it at that for now. It was wonderful to have him while he was with us on earth. We miss him.

Post-Post update: This just in (12:44pm). I did the FB post just after midnight so I would catch the early morning people and by the time I got up and checked FB (just past the crack of noon) there were already 23 Likes and 6 comments! Holy crap there are a lot of early birds out there! People must really love worms!

12/18/2021 - New Distribution List, Workout Room V2

I completed the new RobandDara.com-Updates Distribution List (DL) this week. I'll be using this DL to notify those on the list to get email updates (spam???) when I post updates here that are at least somewhat interesting or funny and that I do not post a Facebook teaser for since I only use that option for posts of interest to a wider audience (but only FB people, of course).

I have kept the initial list small (not everyone that might visit this site) and of course included an Opt-Out option. No one has used the Opt-Out option yet (I guess my opt-out message worked 😊) but I did actually get one Opt-In. So that made me realize that I should probably at least post something here about this (for the people that make it here) and give other people this wonderful opportunity to receive email spam updates when I do updates to this website.

So to be added to this distribution list just send me an email - You know the address (if not there's a link button at the top of this page).

Next, just a quick update related to the last post. I went downstairs to My Personal Workout Room again today for another therapeutic workout. Once again, it was great! This time I spent less time getting familiar with the machines and experimenting and more time just working out. I walked a mile and that was really nice.

I was also just reading that staying active and exercising is really good at helping with my IPF (as it is for most people anyway). So for my attitude and health I am going to try to get back on track again with my winter-walking routine and summer-riding routine! 😊

12/15/2021 - Walkin the Walk! Better than Mall Walkin!

I wanted to write about this in my last post about my room but I didn't want to Talk the Talk until I Walked the Walk! Well, I have now Walked the Walk and it was great! Yea, I sure am living the life of luxury here in my Hotel Suite (aka hotel room). No bills (utilities, cable, internet, etc), no snow shoveling, or mowing and a Maid (OK, housekeeper) that visits me regularly and cleans my rooms. And now a Personal Workout Room!

I knew that this place had a workout room cause I've seen it and I walk by it on my way to the elevator every time I got out but I haven't had a chance to check it out until tonight. I liked that the hotel had this and also liked that I have never seen anyone use it any time that I have walked by (hence, my own personal workout room).

Well, I love the no hassle privacy and I will be glad to use it (and now I have)!!! Although, for me it is more like a Therapy Room than a Workout Room since I don't have the endurance to go very far or very fast but I do get a really good aerobic workout which is really good for me (like it is for everyone!).

So the room has 4 workout machines. A Treadmill, and Elliptical Trainer, a Fitness Bike and a Weight Lifting Machine. I am mostly interested in the treadmill and fitness bike but the other stuff is nice to have too.

So I tried the treadmill and fitness bike and they were great. They worked well and were really easy to operate. I could set the speed of the treadmill easily and in small increments from granny-speed to olympic runner speed and I could adjust the Fitness Bike resistance easily too. On top of that they both had handle grip heart-rate monitors, distance, workout time, etc. All the necessary basics!

The workout room itself also had a water cooler device, a TV, a nice window to see what it going on outside and to let in plenty of light (although the photos here are at night), towels, hooks for your cloths and sanitizers, etc. I was impressed since this was just an extra-credit thing for me when I got the room.

So much for the details, the real beauty of this is that I can go out my door, take a few steps to and from the elevator and have a nice temperature controlled workout with all the extras for an hour (or what ever I choose) and be done with my workout in just a little more time than the workout time itself! I don't have to drive anywhere, deal with traffic and do not have to deal with bone chilling cold, rain, wind, snow, etc. This definitely beats my recently discovered Mall Walkin and beats the crap out of working out outside in bad weather (I can still choose the great outdoors when it is nice out).

OK, I guess I got a little carried away but as you can see I really love that I have this option now.

12/11/2021 -Settled In, Room Pics, PFT (not Pffft) Test Results

Sheesh, I don't even have my first December post yet. Well, I been perdy busy. I am starting to get used to my new room and new location now so I can almost say that I am Settled In. There are things that I liked better about my old place but a few things that I like better about this place. So it's kind of the usual some good some bad stuff.

I thought that I would post a couple of Room Pics so you all can see what kind of slum my life of luxury looks like. Hey it's a hotel room, but as I mentioned below there are things that I like about this lifestyle.

So I took a couple of Pano photos so you could see more (videos are really best for this but I didn't want to deal with that for this purpose). If you notice my pants on the bed it is not because I "staged" my room for the photo 😊 - It's just because that is where I throw my extra stuff that I wear a lot since it is easier than in the closet.

I took each picture from different places. I think the combination of the 2 photos gives you a good look.

OK, in other news, I got my latest PFT (Pulmonary Function Test) results yesterday so I thought that I would at least post a summary here.

When I looked at the full results it is just couple pages of codes and numbers which are hard to interpret (even when I lookup each term) So I'll just give you my overall take and post the almost English summary that they included at the end of the test results.

My take is that there are a lot of sections that went down or had reduced function which is kind of what I expected based on how I feel when I do anything physical at all (like walking, etc).

So anyway Mouse-over the line below, or just touch (or touch and hold) on a phone browser for the Almost-English Summary of the PFT Results

I was actually trying to get my drop down text (like I included here) to work a little better but I ended up spending too much time on it and just left it the way that I had it before for now.

11/18/2021 -Minimalist Qualifications?

Ever since I moved out of my house in Palatine (April 2019) and eventually into an extended stay hotel (Extended Stay America) I have really liked having very few possessions and have kind of considered myself a Minimalist. I like other parts of "hotel life" as I call it like no yard work, no snow shoveling, weekly housekeeping (no more cleaning the bathroom! (like I actually did that before)😊), no commitment or down payment, etc. so I actually stayed at that hotel for a little over 2 1/2 years.

I have considered renting or buying a more permanent place (like an apartment, townhouse, etc.) but that is actually more expensive (even just to rent and I do not want to buy anything anymore) because of all of the extra expenses like utilities, etc. and you also have to get furniture (I don't know how much of my old stuff would be worth salvaging). So anyway, for now (and maybe the lifetime that I have left) I am still going stick with with "hotel life".

OK, back to the theme of this post, last month the town of Schaumburg (where my hotel was) passed an ordinance that you can no longer stay in hotels in Scumburg (my new name for the town (thanks Jeff)) for over 28 days consecutively and my old hotel is actually enforcing the rule so I had to move out of my hotel home (hometel as I often call it).

OK, attempting to shorten this story a little, I had to move out and found a new place not in Scumburg. My new place is called MainStay and is in Hoffman Estates and yesterday was my moving day! Casey helped me with the first load, which I thought was most of my junk (necessary possessions).

When I say a "load" I mean as much as I can fit onto a hotel moving cart (I used these on both ends). a hotel cart can hold a fair amount of stuff but not that much if it is not in nice suitcases or boxes etc. Mine was some soft material bags and a lot of plastic garbage bags which slide off the card if you try to do too much.

OK, so anyway I was done with the first load and I let Casey go cause I still hadn't packed up the kitchen (including the food), the bathrooms stuff and a few misc items. I thought that this might be 1 more load.

Well I worked for many hours on that load until the cart could not hold anymore and it turns out I needed 3 loads! There was more kitchen stuff, bath stuff and misc for a 3rd full load. I ended up working (hard) until 10:00pm just moving out of Scumburg, then I started to unpack some stuff so I at least had access to some important stuff that i needed. I gave up around 2:00am and then ended up finishing the "move in" all day today and just finished before taking a break to write this post.

OK, really getting back to the subject of this post, after that move I am wondering if I really am a minimalist like I thought I might be. So I guess the main subject comes at the end... What are the Qualifications to be considered a Minimalist?

Still have a few small items to unpack and having an issue with my Roku (streaming TV) setup but that's fer tomorrow.

10/29/2021 -Robbieism, and Other Heavy Stuff

I have been wanting to post my Robbieism doctrine for quite a while now but have been a little hesitant because it is kinda heavy and thought that it could be too much so for this website. I do still want it out here so I am going to post it on a separate page (not here on the main page). Then the people that come here just for the fun, entertaining stuff can just skim past it and for those who are brave enough to dare to read about Robbieism can boldly take a chance and read it.

OK, Robbieism is my philosophy about life and spiritual existence. That's not too heavy right?!? 😊 Well it's really just a summary of the beliefs that I have been formulating for most of my life. These type of thoughts often come up in life especially when someone close to you dies (and/or is born) and when you get old yourself. I often think about life and mortality when I hear about someone close to me that dies or even someone that I relate to in some way dies.

As I said, I have been formulating these thought most of my life but the reason why I have written then down and and posting them is, well, because I can! OK, well that is part of it. Also, now that I am retired I have time for projects like this and to gather my thoughts, write this stuff down and post it but also I am older now and even my meditation routines have inspired me to post this.

I also consider this website as kind of an on-going autobiography (in addition to the specific autobiography on this website) so I might as well have this here too.

OK, so here's the link for the Fun Stuff (that some may consider heavy):

Robbieism - A view of life and spiritual existence *

I will be posting a link to this in the autobiography on this site also for future reference (as if once were not enough!) I am also still hoping to update the autobiography here since I referred to it as "my sound byte auto-biography".

* I reserve the right to change the Robbieism Doctrine at any time as life keeps teaching me more

10/27/2021 -Fall Selfie

Just posting the new Fall Selfie that I took today and also just posted on Facebook as my new profile picture. I included a cropped version of this picture on Facebook so I could move myself (and some of the tree) into the FB profile circle and posted the following text:

"I finally got a new Fall Color Selfie on my bike ride today. I also stuck with the WHS colors."

Yea, and this one only took me 13 tries to get a good one! First I had to find a good colorful tree. It seems like most trees are yellow this year and it doesn't seem like we had really great fall colors this year like I am used to.

So I got a good tree with good sunlight and had my new blue redneck toupee and the rest was not that hard (just getting good light without shadows).

OK, here is the Uncropped Original Photo.

10/22/2021 -Investment Advise (and another teckie note)

Here's the Facebook Post that I just did (with the photo): "I just went to Portillo's tonight. I ordered an Italian Beef, Fries and 5 Shares of Stock." 😊

OK, just kidding, I didn't actually go to Portillo's tonight and the photo is a fake that I did in Photochop (I'm sure that you did not notice that, right?)

But a little more seriously, I just saw a news story that Portillo's just did an IPO so now you can buy stock in the company!!!

Many, many, times over my many years that I have been going there and seeing the masses of people waiting in the lines, I kept thinking Man, I wish I could buy into that company! Well, my wish has come true and I think I may actually do that (for fun (and profit)). So my highly sought after Investment Advise is buy some shares in Portillo's.

I am actually planning on doing that. Normally I am a very conservative investor and my investments are mostly all in Mutual Funds for the diversity, and that is what I would really suggest for serious, long term investment.

I have never actually bought individual shares of stock myself so this will be a new thing for me. I was not going to invest a lot just a little for some gambling fun. I think it is probably a little less risky then going to the track (like Dara and I did a few weeks ago for our last Arlington Park visit, 😞 I lost $20 but losing the park makes me more sad).

The stock ticker for Portillo's is PTLO and it started selling for the IPO yesterday at $25, today it is up to $37.43! Wish I could have gotten in sooner but it's still not too late, I think. Even if I bought Apple stock a few days after it was introduced I think I would have done OK. Portillo's now has 60 locations (online lookups) and is in a number of states now. The IPO is to raise money to help them expand. Sounds good to me! I expand everytime I go there! 😊

So at $37 per share, I thought that I would just get something like a small number of shares like 5,000 to 10,000 and keep my costs down. LOL! OK, just strip the zeros from those numbers for my potential real investment. I called my investment guy but he is out till Monday. I'm not sure what his charges for buying shares would be so if they are too much I may look into some of the online investment websites.

OK, enough of that fer now. In the teckie news that I mentioned above, I just did a little facelift on this websites links (at the top and bottom of most pages). Originally I was trying to keep the link names short to save on space and keep them to 2 rows (on my laptop). I've decided now to go ahead and expand them so people can actually get around this site and find things easier.

Like I changed "DNATree" to "DNA, Family Trees" and "Robiography" to "My Autobiography" I knew what these things meant but I put it into a little clearer english to help everyone else out there. Then I added a link button for "My Music Site" so you can find that easier than going into "My Other sites" and I rearranged the links a little.

Well, I hope this works out fer y'all!

10/16/2021 -Welcome! I will be your server today! (teckie note)

OK Well, I have been "serving" you exciting stories, photos, audio and video recordings for 22 years now so nothing new there. In the title above, I was actually speaking for my new hosting server that is presenting this content to you now. As is often the case with us teckies, if you haven't noticed anything different then I have been completely successful.

It was actually a lot of work "under the hood" behind the glory and excitement of the on-screen content that you see here. I copied 3 websites from one server to another. This involved a lot of file transfers especially for robanddara.com! There were 10,158 files on this website! My second largest website behind my bike site. The majority of this website were photos! There are quite a few text pages and a small number of videos and audio files but most of it was 22 years worth of photos and yakin.

My audio files are mostly on my music website now and I post most videos on YouTube because it is much easier and they keep up with all the latest software and device upgrades so you can play the videos at various quality settings on PCs, Apples, your cell phone, your big screen TV and everything in between. The button above for "My Other Sites" will take you to a page to easily get to my music site, YouTube videos and other sites.

So anyway... Why did I do all this work for something that is not even noticeable on the websites??? To Save Money! When I originally started creating websites, the hosting services only allowed 1 website or a very few websites for each hosting account. I have changed hosting services at least once I think and this hosting service used to allow 3 websites per account and I just found out recently that you can have an unlimited number of websites on each account now. So this will allow me to close down my last extra website hosting account saving me a yearly fee. It also makes things easier to maintain too.

10/9/2021 - Policy Change, 5 Stages, Weird Side Effect

OK, lots of exciting posts for today (bet you can't wait)! I'm not even going to say that this one will be quick but you come here for the more in-depth, intellectual and thought provoking stuff, right? You can get all the little sound-byte snippets on Facebook anyway.

So, as for the Policy Change I am making a minor change to the guidelines that I have tried to use for updating robanddara.com. In general, I have always tried to post mostly good news, photos, goofy stuff, family and friends stories (of course) and just informational stuff here. Well, don't worry, I am not going to change that drastically but I am going to post more medical and health info here even if it is a little on the depressing or negative side. I'll try not to ramble too much about body and health issues and start to sound like an old person at an old folks convention! 😊

And here we go! As most of you may already know I have some lung issues that are now getting worse and this affects my life, big time, in many ways. I am going to refer to my bike riding issues below for examples since this is the most physical thing that I do on a regular basis and I have meticulous records on this although it really affects everything that I do.

I have gone through a number of stages in dealing with this issue and although I have accepted my condition now and have been trying to adjust to this I am still pissed at this frickin disease and how it has messed up my quality of life. So I was thinking about the various stages that I have gone through dealing with this disease.

So I looked up the 5 Stages of Grief and here is what they usually list for grief: Denial (and isolation), Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance.and here are My 5 Stages in dealing with this disease in order (at least what I think at this point): Denial, Bargaining, Depression, Anger and Acceptance (or maybe Acceptance then Anger).

Here is kind of how I think it worked for me:

I think that I had a little Denial in the beginning, before things got worse. Also my Pulmonologist had kind of focused on the PND (post nasal drip) more in the beginning. My diagnosis now still includes the PND but that is in addition to the Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF). So I was OK with the PND and the cough was just annoying but I did not have the shortness of breath that has messed me up so much now in addition to the cough.

Then for the Bargaining part, I first noticed my big drop in endurance (summer of 2021) when I had a terrible time bike riding 20 miles, which was my mostly normal distance last summer then I thought that a big part of that was because I was really out of shape from the difficult covid winter. So I worked out more doing more bike rides and still had a really hard time doing 20 miles. I only did 20 or more a few times this year and it was so hard that it was not even that much fun. Now the best way for me to do this is on a really good day, low wind and very flat trail. I am also much slower. It turns out that I can NOT work out more to make it better. 😌 I have tried and I think that was kind of like my bargaining phase.

Yes, I have had some Depression about this crap also. Not much more needed to explain that. I try hard to focus on the good things that I still have and all of the good things that I have had so far in my life. So I can beat this sometimes but not always.

As for Anger and Acceptance, I feel like I am kind of going back and forth with these things right now. I do accept my disease and realize that I have to adjust my lifestyle and reduce my physical activity for the things that I am capable of doing now. I can accept this but it also pisses me off a lot (as I mentioned above). I am mostly pissed that, at this time, there is little that I can do to fix this. Maybe they will come up with some miracle cure soon, but for now I can only try to slow it down. I imagine this must be how terminal cancer patients must feel. There are even some kinds of cancers that can be cured, of course, but not all can be.

There is one thing that I can do and that my doctor talked about but it is pretty drastic and sounds pretty terrible and risky in the beginning. My doc says that I could be a good candidate for a lung transplant and that I am not too old for that yet but there is a lot of screening that would need to be done.

Fortunately, other than my lungs, the rest of my body is in pretty good shape (which is amazing considering how badly I have abused the poor thing) and I hate to waste a good body just because of one bad part. Well, I don't really want to do the lung transplant but I have not ruled it out completely yet. I think that I am going to do the screening which would really be a super heavy duty check-up so that would not be bad anyway (no commitment needed for that). More on this later, maybe.

OK, and finally, I believe that I had a really Weird Side Effect to my covid booster shot. I can not say that this was 100% a vaccine side effect but I am about 95% sure that it was. I have had some dental work done lately (on the left side). This side of my mouth was sensitive for a while but it eventually settled down and was not noticeable lately.

Then the day after my Covid Booster the left side of my mouth was really sore but I could not tell which teeth exactly. A day or so later I narrowed it down to 2 teeth on the upper left of my mouth and the tooth pain got much worse! I was seriously in a lot of pain and made a dentist appointment to deal with it. The next day was odd because the pain moved from my top left teeth to a tooth on the bottom left and the pain was not as bad. Then the next day (just before my dental appointment and 1 week after my booster) the pain was gone completely?!?! I cancelled my dental appointment and my teeth have been fine since then.

I Googled Tooth Pain as a Pfizer vaccine side effect and had a hard time finding good information. It kept showing results for all the "usual side effects" even though I was looking for tooth pain specifically (Google can suck sometimes!). Anyway, after I fine tuned my searches and looked down through the listings I finally found a page where many people had discussed this (a bulletin board, chat room style page) and there were quite a few people that said that they had tooth pain after the Pfizer vaccine.

Wow! that was a weird one. I would not dare to mention this on Facebook or the other propaganda sites because I am sure that the anti-vaxers and conspiracy theory people would love to use that to spread more distrust of the vaccines. As for me, I just consider this a relatively harmless Side Effect. It was painful so that sucked and I think it would be better to know more about this so people don't make quick dental appointments and have unnecessary dental work done or teeth pulled or anything.

OK, this post got a wee bit long but wasn't that fun!

Later,

9/27/2021 - Got my Booster Tonight

Here's my FB post from tonoght:

"I just got my Covid Booster tonight! 😊

Reminds me of the lyrics from that old Linda Ronstadt song: It's just so easy, it's so easy, it's so easy, it's so easy... 🎸

Or should I say I got the software update to the chips that they injected last time. 😆 LOL! I feel fine but I'm feeling a little more magnetic though. The arm that I used for my shot keeps sticking to the refrigerator when I walk past it 🙂 LOL!!

OK I'm just being goofy now... I guess just the shot hasn't improved my (lack of) humor!"

9/26/2021 - 50 Year Reunion!

Yep, I went to my high school 50th Year Reunion last night! Yea "only" 50 years since I graduated HS 😊! I just posted this on FB: "I didn't get a lot of photos at the WHS 50th Reunion but I got a few! Actually some people were nice enough to take these photos on my phone so thanks for that." Then I posted the first 2 pictures here there.

Here's Gary McQueen, Jon Brant and me.

Here are some WHS Band representatives. Wynnvan Williams Holleran, me and Cindy Prokof Miaso

And here's a bonus photo of Wynnvan and Cindy that I actually took at the dinner table.

Yea, I got a little carried away and bought a Royal Blue bucket hat for this and wore it with my gold (yellow) shirt so I was wearing our school colors 😊

Well, I wasn't going to go at first because it is always so expensive but hey, it's our 50th and I still live here so I went for it. In the end I was glad that I did because I did really enjoy it. I went by myself and was not really sure who was going or if I would know anyone! Well, it turned out that I knew a lot more people than I even realized! Many I did not know well but there were some that I did know well and I was able to spend some quality time visiting with them.

And on the Covid Front, when I first signed up it was lookin like we had Covid under control and I was vaccinated so I thought that would be OK. Then the Delta variant hit and there were even break-thru infections so then I wasn't so crazy about going (but I already bought the ticket). I figured masking would be tricky and some people would wear them and some not. Well, with all the socializing, drinking and eating it was a totally non-masking event. Because of my lung issues I was not crazy about that but I guess I rolled the dice. I should know in a few days if I got away with it.

There you have it. I really enjoyed that and I'm glad that I went.

9/8/2021 - Mindfulness without Meditation...

I haven't been practicing Mindful Meditation in the usual seated position, focusing on breathing, etc. as much recently as I did before. My last seated meditation count was 129 times and my last meditation "ride" was on August 20th so I still do it but less now.

But then the seated meditation is just the tool that is used to get you to the more advanced mindfulness and meditation in everything that you do in everyday life.

Anyway, you don't even need to meditate or know anything about it in order to be Mindful in a very beneficial way. Mindfulness, in other words, is really just being aware of the things that are happening to you and around you right now and paying attention to them.

This is not just paying attention to the obvious main events that are going on that you are constantly thinking about but paying attention to all the other things that are going on with your body, mind and in your environment.

It's kind of like you are walking to work or something and you stop to smell the roses. Or actually you don't even need to stop, you can continue with the task at hand but just notice and pay attention to the fact that you are smelling roses (or something else (nice hopefully)), notice and feel the breeze (if any) notice the temperature, notice what you are hearing, what you are seeing, how your body feels (how your arm feels, how your hand feels, how your left foot feels, etc, all of it) and yes... how your mind feels! What is going on upstairs or if nothing is going on there (I can relate to that) then notice that.

And, of course, everything is not always all that rosey! So focus on (be mindful of, pay attention to) the bad stuff too. I am not saying to dwell in these things or obsess over anything, just pay attention to them, appreciate and/or learn from your thoughts and move on.

So be mindful (pay attention to) all of it! The good, the bad and everything in between (especially the things that might seem mundane and that you might usually ignore).

OK, I guess I can't explain it very well but I wanted to try. It can be a very rewarding feeling and very interesting (or enlightening).

BTW: The photo above is one of my own. We had some roses in a vase on the desk in the dining room back when our house was nice.

... and I really just wanted to update my bike miles above but just had to start yakin!

8/23/2021 - Shorter Days, Longest Ride, New Attitude...

Just a quick update on my bike miles progress. Yesterday, I did my Longest Ride of this year (so far)! I'm actually not sure if I will do any longer rides this year since that one was pretty hard for me. OK, I didn't want to advertise this that much but my longest ride this year was 25 miles.

That's pretty low compared to my usual previous longest rides. Like last year I did a 42 mile ride and the year before I did 50 miles. And of course my all time highest in 105 miles back in 2007, when I was just a 54 year old kid!

Also, since I now have 618 total miles for the year, it is still possible to make my new (lower) goal of 1,000 miles but that is still not going to be easy this year.

I am working on a new attitude to accept my current degraded physical condition, try to stay active and in good shape and to accept and plan for my current endurance levels. Of course I am not able to physically do as much as I did before because I am getting older but I think, for me, my degraded physical condition is due more to my lung (and cough) issues. From what I understand that is not reversible so I can't just "get in better shape" which is what I thought before.

So I accept the fact that I really have a hard time with hilly rides now and riding against strong winds. Actually even very small hills are hard now so I just ride the flattest, easiest trails that I know of, take a lot of breaks and don't ride on real windy days. That is a little disappointing but I think that accepting that and making my plans with that in mind is more enjoyable, a good way to go and I believe that this a good attitude for everything else that I do these days too.

So if I make 1,000 miles this year, they are going to be really easy miles on the easiest routes that I can find... but I am hoping that I can still make that goal!

8/10/2021 -Aunt Arlene's Cabin on the Lake, and More Wisco Fun

We did it again! I went up to Cashton Wisconsin, stayed the night at Andis and then brought her with me to Aunt Arlene's Cabin on the Lake for the traditional family and friends get together. Well, we didn't have the best weather this year and there were less cuzins (of mine) but there were still quite a few people and we had a great time anyway.

Unfortunately, due to the weather mostly, we were not able to go boating out on the lake. That would have been nice but it was OK anyway since I still got to see and visit with a lot of old and new family and friends and Andi and I took a walk down to the dock and boat and hung out in the boat for a short time. Andi got some of the pictures here and then she organized and got the photos of Arlene, me, Doreen and her out on the cabin deck.

OK, without a lot of further yakin here are the photos that Andi and Sheri took! (Click to enlarge any)

All photos by Andi except the 4 of us that Sheri took. I did the photo-chopping...

The Photo Descriptions (from the top left to bottom right): Aunt Arlene and myself (I thought the heart worked well based on our pose (lots of photo-chopping), The fab-four (Andi, Arlene, me, Doreen), Me and Andi on the boat (love that one! thanks Andi) and Me on the boat at the dock with ma dog by my side (OK, not really my dog and not by my side but on the dock next to us).

After our visit to the cabin we returned to Cashton for some More Wisco Fun. I got to see most of the family (that is up there) this trip except the J Oiums (maybe next time). Had a great visit with Andi, Brad, Steve, Audi, Nick, and of course the critters, then on my way back I swung by Sparta and saw Jasson, Val, Demi and Tristin (briefly anyway).

I also had a lot of good and healthy food up there and even brought some back. Brad had some fresh Amish cherries, Steven and Audi brought lots of goodies including a fresh fruit tray with yummy watermelon and Nick had a huge garden full of good stuff. I loved the tomaters and I got a to-go bag of fresh tomatoes when I left. Been eatin pretty well since my trip 😊.

8/1/2021 -One More July Birthday

It was my mom's 95th birthday on Thursday and I added this post and photo to my Facebook page. I didn't post an update here but was thinking I really should post it here too. I got (or maybe more appropriately She got) 22 Facebook "Likes" and 11 comments (so far) which was nice so I just had to post it here too.

If you can't read the writing, just click on the photo to see the larger version. I just did this screen shot on my phone last night.

It's a bummer that I have such a limited selection of photos of my mom and even less that have been digitized. So when I need a photo of my mom I often use the favs that I have used before for various things.

This photo was a group photo of my mom and 5 other people and the photo was chopped off at the top so the original version was not that great really. But I thought that my mom looked really good in it so I cropped it down to just her with the flowery dresses as a colorful background. Much better!

So since I liked to include a little extra on my own blog that I don't post on Facebook, here is a link to The Original Photo HERE too.

In Bike Ride News, I didn't quite make my half-way bike miles goal in July but I got VERY close. So if we have good fall weather and it stays warm long enough this year there is still a chance. 😊

7/17/2021 -Distance Record and Speed Record

Just a quick update on my ride today and this seasons stats for me. Today I rode 23 miles which was a Distance Record for me for this season (sad but that used to be closer to my normal ride distance) and my ride today was an Average Speed Record for this season (even more sad). BUT I am actually very happy and encouraged with that. I am making progress!

Yea, I feel like I am shaking off the covid winter and actually getting some of my endurance back. I also coughed way less than I have on most of my recent rides. Very encouraging!

Also I just past 400 miles for the season with 13 days left until the half way mark of the season. So I can still add 100 more to make 500 which is half way to my goal for this season of 1,000 miles. So It is still possible to make my goal after all! 😊 (not easy though)

7/12/2021 - A More Optimistic View

OK, I think that I am a pretty optimistic person most of the time, maybe even a little more so now that I am getting older. I gotta admit that the new name for my lung disease (ILD), Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), and my lookups on the prognosis had me a little concerned and maybe even a little pessimistic.

Well I met with my doc (telephone visit) and mentioned my concern and what I found on many reputable websites which basically said that people with what I have usually have a 3 to 5 year life expectancy after diagnosis. Well, he did not like that they post stuff like that out there and said "I have been treating people (that have what I have) for 15 years!" and no one knows how long you have. Well, yea, of course (duh) but I would like some ideas about what I am up against (I'm not done interrogating him on this yet).

OK, so that is the doc opinion on this stuff. Another thing that I found out and did some analysis on is that the drug that I am taking for this now, OFEV (a very heavy duty and expensive drug) is supposed to reduce the decline in lung function from the disease from 50% to 68% (for the three 1 year studies that I got in this big glossy color booklet that I got with my Rx).

Well, I don't have all the facts (yet and not sure if I will get them) but making the assumption that you could get that much improvement for each year, then even using the 50% number (for easier comparisons) the 3 to 5 year life expectancy (without the drug) becomes 6 to 10 years (most likely even better than that)! Yay! That's closer to the 15 years that the doc says he's been treating people with IPF. And this is what I am going to try to believe for now too! 😊

Back to the pessimistic side (sorry) my symptoms still suck! The main things are that my cough is much worse (and is really annoying) and my endurance is pretty crappy (bike miles and everything else). Well, the nasal sprays and the antihistamine (Rx and otc) that I do helps the post nasal drip (PND) thing that aggravates my cough and I am trying to get in better shape again which is supposed to be really good for my overall prognosis too (the usual common sense on that but I think more important for me now).

So to wrap this up with some optimism again, I have 363 bike miles for the season right now and since I ride more in the late summer and fall it is still possible that I can still make my new reduced bike miles goal of 1,000 miles for this year! 😊

Based on my latest spreadsheet calcs using my total bike miles and dates for the last 10 years I calculated that the middle of the riding season (based on miles) is July 30th. So if I can do 137 miles in the next 18 days (difficult but possible) I would still be on track for the 1,000 mile goal! (and probably live longer too!)

7/7/2021 - Fourth of July Updates

I had a very nice 4th. Doing very little. My favorite thing!!! What I ended up doing is dog-sitting a dog that Dara is "fostering". The dog is very nice and well trained and well behaved so I didn't have any problems with him. Well, until I brought him out to Dara later that night and there were fireworks still going off! Man, he freaked out about that (poor dog).

I guess they don't actually name foster dogs but leave that to the eventual permanent owners. So you just make-up a temporary name to call them. Dara had been calling him Dovey which is short for Lovey-Dovey (a real Dara name). When I had him I started with that but that morphed into DoveTail! So there you have the photo of DoveTail. He took over my Bed! but at least he matched my bedspread pretty well 😊

What I opted out of was going to Dara's brother's house in Michigan for their traditional get together and boating fun. I have gone there a few times and it is nice but it involves getting up really early then driving in holiday traffic, on the 4th, to Michigan and back. That stuff I don't like. So a laid back Fourth of July dog-sitting was just fine for the old man!

It would have been nice to have met the New Outlaws to Be though. For those of you who haven't heard me use the term "outlaws" like this before, that is what I call my Ex-In-Laws (it's shorter and it's correct, right?)

OK, well that explains the "Outlaw" term the ""To Be" part is because 2 of the cousins are now engaged.

OK so this photo is a photo of the my kids and the Outlaw Cousins that Dara took in Michigan. (OK, I know they don't really look like outlaws!)

They are: (l2r = left to right of course)
(top row, l2r) Casey, Corinne, Ross and Bryan
(front row, l2r) Trell, Nadia, Melissa and Blair.

OK, I am adding one more photo that I really should have added before (since it is from May) but I didn't have the best copy of it until now. This one is my brother and a lot (but not all) of his off-springs just before Larry and Patty headed off to Tennessee (they are in Knoxville for now).

I Love this Photo! Thanks for taking it Andi. It shows the Chapman Side Patriarch and Matriarch (Larry and Patty) their kids, most (but not all) of their kids-kids and even their kids-kids-kids!!!

OK, this is a little tougher than the cousins photo because of the size of this gang but I'll try:

(top row, l2r) Andi, Brad, Rich, Patty, Larry Amy, Nick, Audy, Val and Steve

(middle row, l2r) Jake, Jorey (or a blanket) Jen and Jasson.

(front row, l2r) Jett, Jagger, Jackson, Tristin and Demi. Sorry, I don't know the dogs or horse names.

Well this page is called "Chapman Family and Friends" so I gotta include the extended family with photos and names, right?

Wow, that was a lot of work getting the photos and all that info out there! But you (the masses of visitors that this page gets) are worth it! 😊 Actually, that statement is more meaningful and personal since I actually do NOT get masses of visitors to this website.

7/2/2021 - Birthdays!

Just a quick update with a few photos from the latest birthdays in our family. We all got together yesterday (7/1) for Casey's birthday at Corinne's new apartment (in Chicago). I think that Casey (all of us actually) had a pretty nice time, Corinne's new apartment was really nice and Corinne made us a nice meal.

I should have taken some photos but I just got wrapped up in "being there". How crazy is that?!? Anyway, Dara managed to snap a few photos of Casey with his birthday cakes including the standard blowing out of the candles that I included here.

Also, Casey finally got his first covid vaccine shot this last week. So now we are all vaccinated. Casey with 1 shot and the rest of us fully vaccinated. All with Pfizer.

Going back a little in time to last month and my birthday (and way back in years!) I am including some photos of the bday gifts that I got. I asked for some pretty expensive stuff (bike water bottles and a bucket hat) but the family managed to pull together the funds and make my bday wishes come true.

I took a photo of one of my 3 water bottles (with a Chapman sticker on it that I got from my brother) back around my birthday but I just took the new selfie with the extra-white hat (redneck toupee) today when I was out.

In Other News, I am still way behind on my bike miles for this year but at least I am getting close to 300 now.

I have a few excuses like we have had a lot of rainy days and I have been busy with a lot of other stuff but those are just excuses.

I'm not sure if I will even make my new lower season mileage goal of 1,000 miles for this year at this point.

6/10/2021 - We really don't have that much time on this planet - Do We?

Yea, I have just been contemplating life and that kind of stuff that we sometimes do as we get older and also because of some updates that I got from my last doctors visit. A couple of years ago I posted something about being worried about my health because an x-ray, that I had from a check-up, showed a little blip and I was losing weight unexpectedly.

Then I posted something about that and accidentally got some people very concerned and checking up on me. Later I found out that it looked like nothing terrible, like they confirmed that it was not the Big-C or anything, and I let people know about that. So I try not to post things that might scare people but I also like to keep everyone that reads posts here aware of what is going on. I came up with a saying recently "Make aware but don't scare". So in keeping with that idea...

I have had 3 CT-Scans and 3 PFTs for my chronic cough. The doc kept checking to make sure that nothing was "progressing" and nothing was. Well, until the last ones. Now there is a little progression. Well, I suspected that since my cough is getting worse, I am getting a little short of breath more often and my endurance is pretty crappy (just check my bike miles log!).

The good news is that it is still not the Big-C!!! The not-so good news is that it looks like I have some silly lung disease (SLD) that is getting a little worse. I have learned a LOT of new pulmanoligist terms and abbreviations from checking out all of my tests and doctor notes and they have been referring to what I have as Pulmonary Fibrosis (scarring) and ILD (Interstitial Lung Disease). On my last appointment the doc threw out a couple of new terms like IPF (Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis) and UIP (Usual interstitial pneumonia) and I got a new Rx to treat these. The medication is called OFEV.

Well, feel free to lookup what you like on this stuff - I certainly did, of course! Now, my doc did not say this to me directly but if you lookup what he did say directly (like my condition is most likely IPF/UIP) there is some things that concern me a wee bit. Like the average life expectancy for people with UIP for example (after diagnosed) is 3 to 5 years. Yikes! Of course, that is just an average my results could vary... OK, I really do try to stay positive so on the positive side that is 21-35 Dog Years!!!

So back to the topic of this post We really don't have that much time on this planet, right? I am actually very grateful for the time that I have had so far and that I have had so much more than so many other people. I have even had some retirement time. I hope I get quite a bit more of that!

That also reminds me about something else that I have said many times "So many Bike Trails, Movies and TV Series and So Little Time..."! OK, I combined a few things... I could probably add a lot more to the "So many..." side.

6/9/2021 - In Memory of...

I am a little late on this but I had a sad (but nice) memory of walking our dog Dexter a bunch of times while I was driving down the street that I live on now and decided to write this post (better late than never).

Yes, our 3rd dog Dexter died on April 28th of this year. OK he is really our 5th dog but we had some time between our first generation of dogs (Yuppie and Kujo) and the next generation (Kitty, Shadow and Dexter) so I think of him as our 3rd dog mostly.

I couldn't decide on the photo so included 3 of my favorites...

Dexter Chapman, 5/1/2010 - 4/28/2021. I miss him.

This just in: I just posted a memorial to Kitty too! I just realized that she did not have one and I can not have that! I posted this on Archive #17 under the date 12/30/2017 which is when she died. Here is a link to the New Post with Kitty's Memorial.

And just to have everything together (for our 2nd generation of dogs) here is a Link to Shadow's Memorial.

6/1/2021 - Retirement Anniversary! Miles

Well, I already gave this away in my last post but it is totally official now, I have been Retired for 4 Years Now! Originally when I retired from my contract programming job at DHL I thought that this would be a semi-retirement since I would still work on my websites. Although I have worked on the websites a little (and they still earn some income) I do very little work on them so I just say that I am retired now.

As for Retirement, I still love it! This website (or blog if you prefer) is filled with most of the stuff that I do and have done but here is a quick summary of what I have been doing with my retirement so far:

~ Riding my Bike, in good weather, and doing Fitness Walks in bad weather.
~ Mindful Meditation (I started this at the beginning of 2020 and have found it beneficial to me, like it and still do it).
~ Website Work and Fun, as I mentioned I do a little work on the websites but I also enjoy updating my Bike Trail pages with new photos, videos and stories, bloging about bike stuff and even finding out about Electric Bikes and did some (profit) pages on that.
~ More Quality Time with My Family, I have had more time to visit with my family and especially talk with family and friends on the phone much more (don't underestimate phone visits!).
~ Photos, Videos and PhotoChop Projects, I still enjoy taking and fixing up photos in the lab (even without my DSLR at this time) and posting them on various websites. I have not done as much with videos but I have done some video projects.
~ Taking Trips to Visit Family and Friends, OK, not a real lot of this but a little (mostly Wisconsin but 1 trip down south to Tn. and NC.)
~ Playing and Recording Music, I have only touched on this because I don't have access to my recording stuff now but do hope to get back to it again.
~ Not dealing with the Rat Race and stress of working. This is obvious but it can't be overstated how nice it is go to bed and get up whenever you want to and just to do whatever you want to do whenever you want to do it.

OK, of course I also moved out of my house (for now) and have gotten divorced since I retired. I don't like to dwell on this and this is not necessarily a retirement thing but more of a major life event that happened after I retired. I can't imagine the stress of going through this type of thing while working at the same time though.

OK, as for my Miles story this week, this is, of course June first so my official Bike Miles odometer reading for the end of may is 153. This is my second worse May bike mileage that I have on file since I started tracking this stuff and the lowest since I have been retired. 🙁

5/25/2021 - Gypsies! 50 Years! Retirement ROI, Miles

My Brother and Patty are in Tennessee now but as they were driving through Illinois I took this quick photo of them with their new friends. Yep, they sold their house, are homeless and on the road and are now officially Gypsies!

Also, some WHS people got a hold of me for our upcoming 50 Year Reunion! I hadn't really thought about it that much but looked at the old clock and saw that that is correct! Wow! I'm not sure if I am going yet but I might. I would at least like to get together with some of the old gang for some of the more casual events (like the HS tour or something). The actual reunion sounds more foofy and formal than I might like and costs a lot too. More on that later, maybe

On a related note and since Memorial Day is this weekend, I was thinking about the other related event that I really like to celebrate! My Retirement Anniversary! My last day as a contractor at DHL was 5/31/2017 so I officially retired from the Rat Race on 6/1/2017! OK it's a little early to celebrate but why not start now!

So I mostly worked (on and off) for over 40 years and now I have almost reached 4 years of retirement so I guess when you look at it that way I got about a 10% ROI on working so far. (more on this below)

OK, really I only started this post to add a little to my latest Bike Miles update (above). I only have 123 miles so far this year (and my average mph is way slower too) and May is almost over! I am actually not doing very good compared to my previous bike miles in my retirement years. I think the covid winter messed me up a little and I just do not feel healthy or in good shape (yet). I hope I can do better but if I don't I'm sure I will have to downgrade my season bike mileage goal to just 1,000 miles (like I did a lot of years while I was working full time).

Working Years - More than you may want to know: (added this part 5/26/2021)

OK, continuing on the Retirement ROI above with my latest working years spreadsheet, I had a lot of times (in the 40 years above) that I was out of work for various reasons since I first started full time so if you figure maybe 36 years of actual full time slavery then I got over 11% ROI on working so far! That is a little better but I guess I gotta try to live longer to get a better return. 😊

I actually put all of my work history that I could track down (from Soc Sec records, Resumes, notes, etc) into a spreadsheet (of course) by months worked and calculated my actual total time worked. The total of all months worked since 1969 is 40.5 years. My Soc Sec statement shows that I had income every year from 1972-2017 (plus 1 year in 1969) for a total of 47 years with some income (plus website income since retired so about 50 years).

Of course, 1969 and before was as a busboy (paperboy before that) and from 1972 to 1978 was college summer work and on and off work until I fully supported myself from 1978 on.

I fully supported myself (and family later) since 1978 so if you take out my part-time stuff prior to that I had 4 years not working time so a total of 36 years slaving while supporting myself fully. But then I had about 4 years of part-time work (counted by the month) prior to 1978 so if you add that back it is 40 again. OK, there are obviously different ways to count but I am using 40 years! Or you could say 40 years plus or minus 4 years depending on how you count. OK, here's a PDF version of the Work Years Spreadsheetthat I just put together.

Had enough of this?!?!? OK, me too, that's it!

5/1/2021 -MayDay, MayDay! New Spring Selfie!

Yep, it is an official May Day and for the last few years I have been taking new spring selfies when all the trees and flowers start-a-bloomin in the spring. Also, the one that I have on Facebook is from fall so I can't have that! Plus, I never used my bucket hat (latest redneck toupee) in an actual FB profile pic (although I have used it for a lot of other photos here already).

OK, as for the back story (truth in advertising I call it) I took 42 selfies with this background to get the best of the best. But then, when I reviewed the best 3 that I took I ended up using the very first one that I took! Well, at least I had backups for when I reviewed them. It was a little tricky takin the photos with the sun and glare and I take a lot of them because that's what it usually takes for me to get one good one :-).

I actually did not even have to do any photochopping. Usually, I at least do some cropping or fix the lighting and stuff but I just left this one as it originally was. All that extra work for nothing. Well, accidents do happen sometimes.

I took this photo before I took a fitness walk. I had to walk today instead of ride because it was just way too frickin windy (over 20mph wind) and I had a problem with wind on my last ride (as noted below).

OK, time to update the FB profile pic...

4/28/2021 - Just a Pointer...

This is just a pointer to my post on 6/9/2021. I was late posting about Dexter and if I look this up later I may not find it without this pointer...

4/27/2021 - First Ride!!! Normal but yet Not So Normal...

Yep I just did my First Ride for the year today 😊 ! Yea, I am kind of late since the last few years I have always already had some mile accumulated by now, but at least I got started.

We just had one of those crazy warm days and it was 82 degrees! It was GREAT to get out for a ride, well for the first half of my ride anyway but I kinda messed up and really overdid it. I just decided to to do my Normal Ride but I kind of miscalculated a few things. My Normal Ride was normal for last year after I had already ridden quite and bit and was in good riding shape but it did not feel at all Normal on this ride.

I miscalculated that 1) I was out of shape from the covid winter 2) I didn't work up to that "normal" ride until about June of last year and 3) I really underestimated the wind! There was a 15mph wind and I knew that I was going with the wind until I took a break and turned around but I did not realize how that 15mph wind made such a big difference (especially when you are going too far to begin with).

So I accidentally overdid it on this ride and feel more exhausted than just feeling like I had a good workout. Oh well, it was still nice overall and it is good to finally have some bike miles for this year!

Oh yea, some kind of a photo for my first ride and I always have a hard time getting me and my bike into a selfie so I just included kind of a Shady Selie (above).

4/21/2021 - Wisconsin Auction Photos are in!

I took a trip up to Wisco last week to help my brother with his auction and (more importantly really) to see the family! I had a great time with the family and actually saw almost everyone! It was kind of a Family Reunion Auction (no family members were auctioned off though (although someone almost got Demi hiding inside a cabinet!)).

For those of you who don't already know Larry and Patty have sold their house in Sparta, Wisconsin and are moving to Tennessee! The auction was to lighten their load. They are moving somewhere near Knoxville. I might be able to stop in and see Fred and Cyndi more often, depending where they move and how often I make that long trip down south.

So one of the main jobs designated to me for the auction was to pickup breakfast for all the helpers at McDonalds (20 or so McMuffins and assorted stuff for a little over $100 order). Breakfast, great! My favorite. Most of you know how I LOVE to get up bright and early! lol! Well, I succeeded at that and also helped to move a few things for the auction (just old man duty mostly).

We had a great day and the auction was pretty successful. I had an excellent time seeing the family especially since I hadn't seen anyone for quite a while including Thanksgiving. So I had a great time... until the night after the auction which was a terrible time! Yea, a little of both.

It turned out that I got the flu (Novovirus I am told which was going around where Andi worked) and I felt miserable after that and had to stay an extra night to recover. I was glad that it wasn't covid though! Well I made it through that with the help of some really good caretakers there and an excellent therapy dog, Phoebe!

I mostly took still photos (and still do not have my good DSLR camera so just with my phone) and some short video clips of the auction which I appended together and posted in one (2min25sec) video that I posted on YouTube.

So here are:

The Wisconsin Auction Photos and Video!

4/5/2021 -Happy Easter Memory

Although our family (the 4 of us) do not always do that much for Easter these days we did get together yesterday for an Easter Sunday Picnic and I loved it! Dara got us all together on short notice (the day before) and it worked out really well.

It was nothing fancy-dancy, just a casual get together with some pizza, some good Kringles and cookies that Dara picked up. The food really didn't matter much to me (although it was pretty good). What was important was just getting together with the family and I think everyone else enjoyed it too.

It was a perfect spring day and we had a nice location and hadn't had one of our famous Sunday Dinners for a really long time. Since before the whole Covid thing even!

I don't have a lot more to say about our Easter Family Day but I just had to mention it here and post the latest photo of me and my chillin (chillin!). Dara took the photo that I included here.

BTW: Corinne just had PRK (like Lasic) surgery last week so the light was hard on her eyes even with the sunglasses. Her vision is good now and getting better. No more glasses or contacts for her!!!

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My EMAIL address is: ChapmanRob@Comcast.net

Note: If you are looking for the links that used to be here at the bottom of this page See: My Other Sites - Also linked at the top and bottom of this page

I've cleaned up some of the junk that used to be at the bottom of this page now. Of course, I still keep everything for nostalgia so here's a link to what used to be here:

Old Obsolete Stuff Previously at the bottom of this page...

Text Archive Note As of 6/7/2021: I've archived from 3/31/2021 back now. This should speed things up for a little while... (I also cleanup some of the older/bigger files. Sorry, some of the older stuff may be missing). See the "Text & Photo Archives" links for older updates.