Text Archive Version 11
10/17/2005 to 10/22/2007

10/22/2007 So Close... I've been a bad boy...

What a beautiful weekend here in Chicagoland! I managed to ride 30 miles on Saturday and am now within 33 bike miles of my goal for this year (1,000 miles)... I should have it made easy as long as we don't all of a sudden get 4 feet of snow or something! (you never know around here...)

I had an Oracle class, for work, last week in downtown Chicago... It's always an adventure commuting into the city (an adventure that I am glad to only do once in a great while!). I haven't taken the train downtown for quite a while... and have never parked in the new parking garage at our train station...  so first, I did a “dry run” to find the train station parking, ticket booth, etc… so I would be all set… I could not figure out where you pay the $2.00 parking fee though… I thought that maybe they would charge when I drove into the lot in the morning… They didn’t and I never found where to pay and then forgot about it…

After my class downtown, I came back and had 2 tickets on my windsheild!!!!

I looked around for the place to pay to see if someone was there that I could complain to… I still could not find it!!! Saw a confusing sign and finally had to ask someone… After a while I finally found where you pay… I was so enraged that I got a ticket for not paying when it was so hard to find that I speed right on over to the cop station!!! I started whining and bitchin to the first cop behind the wall and the big bad cop had to step in and handcuff me!!! (OK, it was just getting to be such a good story that I thought that I would throw the hardcuff part in for fun…) Anyway, the big ol cop had sympathy, after I gave him the story, and said that he would convert it to a warning… so I got out of that one (-$20.00 (plus the $2.00 parking fee!!!)). 

The other ticket??? Well, while they were writing up the first one, they must have called in my plates and had my address, so they checked the windshield and saw that I didn’t have a Palatine Village Sticker!!! (I have never had one since I lived in Palatine!). So, I can’t get out of that one… I think that is a $25.00 fine and a $35.00 sticker that I still gotta get!

10/15/2007 - Hunnert Car Pile Up!

We certainly did something different this weekend! My brother talked us into going to the Hunnert Car Pile Up in Morris, Il... It was really something different than I was expecting and turned to be a huge amount of fun!!! I enjoyed seeing all of the hot rods and weird cars and trucks, the "interesting" people in the crowd, the rock-a-billy band and had a great time taking the pictures (below)! Casey and Dara also had a great time!

Hunnert Car Pile Up - Photo Page 1

Hunnert Car Pile Up - Photo Page 2

I can't really explain it completely and pictures just give you an idea... you really need to go there to experience it! Well, check out the pictures to try to get the idea anyway... It is definitely entertaining!

10/5/2007 - Homecoming Dance, Bike Miles...

Well, last weekend was Corinnes first homecoming game and dance... Here are the pictures! click here >   (Fremd won too!)

Also, last weekend Dale and I did a pretty major bike ride (in honor of Dales birthday...) on the Illinois Prairie Path and Fox River Trail... I have a ton of pictures which I will be posting on the bike site soon, but it's going to take some time to filter through them... Maybe I'll put some here first if I get some time... We did 50 mile!!! So I am getting much closer to my 1,000 bike miles goal for the year! (I think it is in reach now...)

9/25/2007 - Lake Geneva 2007

I was just experimenting with some new web page formats (in PhotoShop) and wanted to post some of the Artsy pictures that I took when Dara and I went to Lake Geneva for our Anniversary... Here they are:  Lake Geneva Artsy  Let le know if this works...

...and in bike news... I've cracked 800 for this year! (not much compared to 2005, but still a decent number of miles). So maybe I have a chance at making my goal of over 1000 miles this year... I don't know... The days are getting awful short already :-( and I don't have that much riding time after work...

Oh Yea... I am becomming a Cubs fan again! (so far..)

9/3/2007 - September...

Well, here we are in September! I'm taking a week off of work, this week,... to work!  It's not much fun but I have so much to get done and I really need the time to do it... I haven't played too much more on the new confuser, but I did make a DVD movie from out vacation video and pictures... I love that I can do that now... I think I like the slide show (still pics) with music in the background the best...

Karen and Nadia have just sent me all of their vacation pics, so I should make a new DVD and I'll try to put together some more photo pages too... Now that I have all of these great pictures... my printer broke!!! I am going to check repair costs tomorrow, but I know that most of the times these days it's more cost effective just to replace rather than repair... I'll have to see... I really miss my printer though! (we still have the old HP on KCs PC for a backup anyway...)

Well, I hated to take my mountain background down, but since it's September I had to update the month logo...

In bike news... I wanted to have 700 miles by September and be able to have over 1,000 for the year... I just missed my September goal (not by much though)... but I think the 1K is still pretty likely (if I have enough riding time...)

8/17/2007 - Vacation Pics, At Last!!!

Alright! I finally got our vacation pictures selected, organized and uploaded!!! For those of you who don't know, I also got a new PC and it's been hard getting

everything up and running and to get the photos organized and uploaded too!!! I have some new web page software, but I had to use the old software, in this case, just to "gert er done"! I'll try to branch out into the new stuff soon though...

Here's the real brief summary of our vacation (I've added comments to most of the photos, on the photo pages, so that can give you a pretty good story when you go through them...). We planned a Yellowstone and Grand Teton vacation on pretty short notice (around the 4th of July) and we were there by the end of July!!! We drove about 3,600 miles (round trip) and took 2 Honda Odysseys - The Tirandazi van (Daras sisters family) and the Chapman van (us).

We started with a brief visit to Wisconsin (my family) and Minnesota (Daras sisters family) then headed out to: The Badlands (S. Dakota), The Grand Tetons and Jackson Hole, Wyoming and then on to Yellowstone! I had so many pictures that, first of all, it took a while to find a good collection and next I had to split the photo pages into 6 photo pages... Hey we haven't taken major vacations like this very often!

OK, enough yappin!!! The rest of the story is included in the photo pages! We had a fansastic time! HERE ARE THE PICTURES!

The Grand Tetons and Jackson, Wyoming!

The WhiteWater Adventure on the Snake River!

Yellowstone!

Yellowstone (continued)

The BadLands

Wisconsin and Minnesota!

Stop by again soon!!!

7/3/2007 - Chillin in Da Basement... 17!

Right now I am just enjoyin the cool of the basement! Casey and I did some trimmin today and it is just really nice to chill out in the basement... I hope to get my last batch of pictures loaded to the PC today too, but I might just post this update first and get back to it... (so this could change soon)...

The other usual big news for the beginning of July is that Casey has just turned 17! He had a very nice birthday and was very grateful for all of his cards and presents...

I've had a few days off now and it has been fantastic! No big plans... I considered a quick trip to Wisconsin, but wasn't able to swing it (sorry Wisconsinites...). I have enjoyed just having a little bit of free time though... I've done some bike riding and caught up on some chors (and am doing a website update)...

Well, I better check those pictures now... I may do another update soon... If not, well... ya'all come back soon now anyway... later, Rob&co

6/23/2007 -  The Big Ride Adventure Story - Over 100 Bike Miles in a Day! Geneva Il, to Genoa City Wis.

Note: This story got pretty long so if you are in a hurry you might want to stop back when you have some time to enjoy it fully (if you actually enjoy this stuff! :-) ). I considered putting it on a seperate page, but these days I like to keep all of my ramblings on the main page...

Well, I certainly have an adventure story for today... Casey had decided, a few weeks ago, that he wanted to break the previous bike miles in one day record (70 miles, by Dale and Me on the I&M trail (back in 2003 then I was only 50!)) and that he wanted to do over 100 miles in one day!

Well, we knew from the past that you could go 64 miles (round trip) going from Dundee to Genoa city Wis. on the Fox River and Prairie trails. I also knew that the Fox and Prairie trails were 70 miles total one way (140 both ways)... so we did some calculations and figured that if we started in Geneva it would be about 50 miles to the Wisconsin border (Genoa City)... We also knew that, since we got stuck riding the trail at night (without a light) the last time that we would have to leave early and go when we had the most daylight available (this part of June). OK, so the basic plan in place...

No Photos - Sorry... :-(

Before I get into the 100 miler story I have to apologize that I don't really have any pictures... I had my cell phone with me and could have gotten some shots of the distance riders (Casey, Me, Dara and Dale) but I was so focused on the ride and everything else that I didn't hardly get any shots... I only thought about this later and was very mad at myself for not getting at least a few... I got one picture of a dam when we first started...)

The Planning and Last Minute Adjustments...

We knew that Casey and I were going... We weren't sure if Corinne wanted to go (it turned out that she did not) and we knew that Dara wanted to go but we didn't know if she could "go the distance"... I took Friday off of work because I don't like the Fox and Prairie trails nearly as much on the weekends because of the crowds... (and I also wanted the weekend to recover) I told Dale that we were going to do the ride on Friday and it turned out that he had planned that day off anyway and we agreed to meet up with him too... (although we weren't sure exactly where and when, etc.)... We finally convinced Dara to meet up with us in Dundee (where we usually started our trips in the past) and Dale ended up starting in Crystal Lake (heading south, at first)...

The Trip Starts Early (yawn...)

Those of you who know me, know that I rarely ever plan anything that involves me getting up early on a day that I don't have to get up early... Well, in order to get the most daylight for this trip I ended up getting up earlier than I would for a regular work day!!! Showered, ate, had my coffee and drove to Geneva and we were on the trail a little after 8:00 am! (still missed over 2 and 1/2 hours of daylight)

Casey and I had a few little start up problems, but got it under control and headed north... We did the first 10 miles before we ran into this peculiar recumbent rider... Dale! It turns out that Dale started in Crystal Lake (earlier than we did) and headed south (about 17 miles) before meeting up with us...

There were a few stories in the next stretch, but I see now that I'm going to have to limit this to the major highlights since this is getting pretty long and I still have a lot to go!!!

We Meet up with Dara in Dundee

I had talked to Dara on phone a few times and we agreed to meet in Dundee but I wasn't really sure about our timing... then just as we get to Dundee, Dara has her bike unpacked and ready to ride! Perfect timing!

We take a few more breaks along the way and Dara agrees that she is going to try for the Wisconsin and back trip. (64 miles!)

Genoa City Wisconsin and Linner at Kellers!

OK, I may have skipped some other key events, but I must move on... We got to Genoa City Wisconsin and had our Linner (Lunch/Dinner) at our usual place, Kellers Restaurant at around 2:30... A little later than I anticipated, but still on a decent schedule (I thought)... Now we are 1/2 way (almost 50 miles on Casey and my speedometers).

The Ride Back

The ride back is where things get really interesting... Mostly at the very end though... So we started back at maybe 3:30 or 4:00 (I can't really remember exactly...) and Dale takes off to do some independent freelance riding (on his own without us draggin him down...)... Dara is really havin a hard time now (with 32 miles left to go!) and she is talkin about havin us (Casey and me) go ahead and let her get back at her slower pace... Well, we considered it, but we hung back with her and she pushed on to keep up and we ended up ending Daras 64 mile ride together! (I can't believe that she did 64 miles!)

Oh yea, the forecast was lookin like we could have storms the whole day or at any time... It turned out that we had absolutely perfect whether almost the whole trip, although it was lookin like we could get soaked at any time! We did get a few light sprinkles here and there but it never amounted to much... It was a nice temperature and the fact that it was cloudy (and we didn't have the sun burning us fair skinned red haired people to a crisp) was a real advantage.

Flat Tires are Bad!

I was also worried about mechanical breakdowns... and so far we had been lucky (although Caseys and Daras bikes had some problems... none were total breakdowns...)... I had been trading bikes with Casey occasionally to give him a break (my bike is much easier to ride on a long trip than his mountian bike) and just before we got back to Dundee, Casey and I traded and I discovered that his tire was extremely low... Shorly after that, it went completely flat!!! I rode it just long enough to get to an opening where we were accessing our situation... We were only a mile or so from Daras car so we were really lucky there... We thought about dropping off Caseys bike in Daras car and having him finish the trip on Daras bike, but casey really wanted his own bike and (since I was having a few odometer problems) we wanted to have his odometer available...

Just as we are working this out... Dale comes up the path (this is many hours later)... Perfect timing again!!! Dale has a tire pump!!! So we pump up the tire and it holds air... We consider the situation and Dale offers to let us take the pump with us (we are still heading south at this point and Dale heading north (back to his car) on the final leg of his trip).

Dale Heads North, Dara Heads Home...

We take Dale up on his offer to borrow the tire pump (which we really needed later) and he heads back north and we drop Dara off at her car in Dundee and she heads home... Congratulations to Dara on a 64 mile ride!!! Even though Casey, Dale and I are going for the triple digit miles, I know what it is like to ride that kind of distance in one day and it is quite an accomplishment!

So Casey and I head south from Dundee to Geneva for our last 18 miles or so... (so we think...)

We had a little bit of daylight left and I estimated that we would get back around 9:00 or so (just starting to get dark)... We tried to make some good time but the tire was loosing air and we had to stop to pump it up quite a few times... Then it happened...

Ooopps!

We are trying to make good time and just speed past a very important fork in the path! We just went off to the left (which looked right :-)) and there was another path to the right, which just looked like it went down to the river... We cruised on for quite a bit longer and pumped up the tire 2 more times before we went by an opening and I realized that we could not see the river anywhere! ...and it is really pretty dark by now (it must have been about 9:00)... Aarrrggh!!! We took the wrong path and are lost on a dark trail after dark and totally exhaused (after 90 or so miles)!!!

When I was doing my original planning (remember that part...) I packed some lights ("just in case") but I almost thought that it was just extra weight and that I shouldn't bring them because "we will be back way before dark...". Well, we REALLY needed them almost as much as we needed the tire pump!

The Correction...

So Casey and I turn back to find where we f... messed up... it turns out that we went about 3 miles down the Illinois Prairie Trail (6 miles both ways)... Which would not be terrible by itself or at the beginning of the ride or in daylight... but it was a pretty bad thing at this hour and at this time... We got back on the regular trail and I hit a bump and my light flys off my handle bars (it never was attached well...) I lost the light clip so we were down to one light now...

Dark Winding Trails... Fire Flys... Kissin the Sign... Fishing Line...

The good news is that we are back on the right trail again... the bad news is it's totally dark we have one bad tire and we are still quite a ways away... (you can not ride nearly as fast on a dark trail at night)

So I am following Casey (with the light) through these dark, heavily wooded, hilly and winding trails... It took a lot of concentration, but one thing that I noticed that was really cool were the lightening bugs! There were tons of them and they seemed to hang in one place much longer that what you usually see out in a field or something and they seemed to "stay light" much longer too...  All I can say is it was really cool! Maybe you have to force yourself into crazy situations like that to see some of the amazing things that are out there on this planet!

After a few more miles Casey was really exhausted and frustrated and tired of being in the woods and just wanted to be back a the car... We finally got out of the woods at one point and saw a sign for the city of St Charles (which is very close to our new destination... Yes, I always say that "the ride is the destination" but we had had enough of that destination and our new destination was just the car!!!) Anyway Casey was so glad to be so close that he dropped his bike and kissed the sign! (you gotta know that I am not makin this up because I really don't have that good of an imagination!)

Then as we are ridin by some fishermen close to the river Casey  gets snagged by some fishing line! Apparently they set a pole down on the other side of the path (up high) with the line in the river!!!

Sheesh! What next! Fortunately... not much... basically we made it back to the van at around 11:00pm. A little 15 hour bike ride and adventure!

Finale - Summary

So there you have it... Casey and I made it back and we reached our goal of riding over 100 miles in one day (our final bike miles for the day was 105). Dale also joined the over 100 bike miles in a day club and Dara hung in there for 64 miles!

We had quite an adventure... Some fantastic scenery, some exhilarating parts of the trails and some difficult parts of the trails... Some good times and some difficult times (typical life stuff...)... All in all it really was fantastic and I am thinking that we have created another one of those lifetime memories (who knows... my memory isn't always so good, but I think this one will stick!)

It took quite an effort for the 4 of us to set these new one day mileage records and I'd have to congratulate those of you who may have broken a new record yourselves by making it through the entire Big Ride Adventure Story!

That's it...

6/18/2007 -  Da Grill! (updated with photo...)

Here's a quick newsworthy and summertimeish blog update... This weekend (Father's Day) I finally did something that I have been wanting to do for many years now... and just had never gotten around to... I went out and bought a New Gas Grill! I've intended to do that ever since our old one (that we had at the old house in Palatine (over 9 years ago)) bit the dust!

For whatever reasons, I never got it replaced and we have limped along with a regular charcoal grill, which I ended up not using all that often, since it was so much more work than the gas one that I had already gotten used to...

Well, I finally got tired of the charcoal and lighter fluid and waiting around for the thing to get going and went to WalMart and got one... Here are a grill pic (with the cook)...

It's bigger than the cheapest kinds (and has the little tables on the side and 3 or 4 burners) but it wasn't like those $400 and $500 ones that I saw at other places... This was only $135 so I hope it is good enough quality to last for a while though... If not, I'll have to replace it with a better one much sooner than after 10 years! I may be too old to even cook by then!

Casey helped me to get it and load it into the van at WalMart and believe it or not Corinne ended up putting most of it together!!! She is really good at reading and understanding all those detailed assembly instructions! Really it was not easy! I worked with her on the first 6 steps then I had to run out for a few things and she finished up to about step 14 or 15... I think it was 16 steps in total... I was glad that she took that on...

Anyway, we've only used it once, but I'm thinking that this is really going to be nice... and my timeing was even right this time and I got it at the beginning of summer not in the middle of winter or something like that!

6/14/2007 -  New Pictures, at last!

Well, I finally got the latest batch of pictures selected, formated and uploaded... I have pics from 3 events... One graduation

party (Sams HS Graduation), One graduation (Corinnes 8th grade graduation) and one set of flooded bike trail pics... I actually did the bike trail pictures with my cell phone, mostly as an experiment... I was really suprised that they came out as well as they did...

Well, no need to ramble on... (I already rambled on with some comments in te photo pages...) Here's the pictures!

Sams Graduation Party

Corinnes Graduation

The Flooded Bike Trail (Phone Pics)

6/12/2007 -  Birthday News and Shoes, Pics still commin, Ridin, etc.

Well, I had a real nice birthday yesterday and thank you all for the cards and letters, calls, emails and all the utter stuff! I had a little of the celebration on Sunday and we had a nice dinner outside, at Daras moms club out by a lake... It was good food and perfect whether so that was real nice! Then on my actual birthday (after I got back from work) I had a pretty long birthday call from my great sailor nephew, Steve... I enjoyed that!

Then, I got my new white loafer shoes for my birthday!!! Finally!!! OK, maybe it sounds silly to those who aren't familiar with my dilemma, but I could not find that style anywhere for a long time and the ones that I was wearing had big holes and were falling apart! I also got a couple of nice shirts, a CD (and some twislers!) and of course lots of nice cards... All in all it was very nice!

OK, I still don't have enough time tonight but I have quite a few pics that I need to get posted! I will try to get to them soon, so stop back again soon...

I guess my leg is 100% again, since Dale and I did a 40 mile ride on Saturday! We did the Des Plaines River Trail and most of the underpasses were closed due to high water... It was quite an adventure! I actually got quite a few fairly good pictures from my Cell Phone! The phone pics are not nearly as good as the camera ones, but they can be OK... I will be posting some of these on my bike site when I get around to the picture updates... (soon I hope!)

OK, it's late and I gotta go for now... At least there's a little light readin for ya...

Ya'all come back soon now! l8r!

5/19/2007 - 99%, New batch of Spring 2007 pictures, ...and other news

Well, we are well into spring now and it was a beautiful day today! I just took a couple of short bike rides (4 miles yesterday and 11 today... The leg is about 99% OK again, but I'm takin it slow for now while I'm rehabin...)... I just really enjoyed being on the bike again! I rode past a row of lilac bushes and they were in full bloom and just smelled great!

I've had a small batch of pictures that I've been wanting to upload for a while now, but my hosting service for most of my websites had some big problems and a bunch of my sites have been down for quite a few days now... (like my bike site! and my homeKat site! (where I upload a lot of photos). Well most of my sites are back, but I don't have FTP access to some of them now... Anyway, I am uploading the latest pictures to a different location for now... These are 3 different batches of pictures...

The Latest Pictures: (Link Below)

The first batch of pictures (and  possibly the most boring) are just some spring nature shots that Dara and I took on the trail behind our house and at Harper... It was just fun getting all artsy-fartsy and takin nature shots... Some might be OK, but I don't think they will make the channel 5 whether picture finals... (I could try to send them in though for fun...)

The next batch (3 pictures) are not that great but I thought it would be fun. I saw on the news that a small plane landed on Northwest Highway (close to where we live) and I decided to check it out and play news photographer... I missed most of the main action and just took some shots while they were doing the news stories... I was going to jump behind the news reporter and do something stupid (like you see on the news once in a while)... but I couldn't think of anything really dumb at the time (any other time I can think of dumb stuff!) so I just took some pics..

The last few are from Arlington Park (the horse races) where we went on Mothers Day... I thought Dara would like that, and she did pretty much, but it was WAY too crowded on Mothers Day... You won't even find me close to the place on Fathers Day...

Spring 2007 - Nature Pics, News Photographer and Arlington Park

In other (no photo) news... I've had 2 big washing machine problems... Damn! I will need a repair or new WM... I don't know how that one is going to go yet... I FINALLY got the hole in our roof fixed!!! We got a new attic fan... I think this will be very nice and I should have repaired this years ago!!! The guy that fixed it kept singin... "I'm fixin a hole... where the rain gets in.. and keeps my mind from wandering... where it will go... ohoo oh..."

OK, I guess that's enough goofy stuff fer now... Ya'all come back now... ya hear!

5/2/2007 - Famous Photographer

Also my credits were micro-scopic! But... it's still cool to get a photo published in a fairly popular magazine! So I guess I am on my way to becomming a Famous Photographer now!

I actually have many much better pictures than that one.. (bike trails and regular old pictures (including the ones at the Nature center below))... but that one was liked by at least one person and served a good purpose... So... so be it!

4/22/2007 - The Nature Center Birthday Pics!, Still Out of Commission, New Fair Weather fan,

Well, Friday was Daras birthday and we had a fantastic "family day" event at the Spring Valley Nature Center (I think that is the name... We always just call it the Nature Center)... Dara has been wanting to do something with the family for quite a while now and it's pretty hard to get all of us (including the 2 teen agers) to agree to go somewhere...

Well, I talked Casey and Corinne into going to the Nature Center and I took off work a little early... It was a fantastic day and I got quite a few photos... I think these came out pretty well... and for an extra treat, I'm going to include some of the OLD PICS that we took at the same place about 7 years ago... can you find the old ones?

The Nature Center 4/22/2007

I actually thought that a little walking would be good for my wounded leg (article below) and my leg seemed to be getting a little better by Friday... Well, I was wrong... after walking maybe 3 miles at the Nature Center I am Out of Commission even more than before! The old leg is really bad and it really sucks to be handicapped on one of the nicest weekends of the year so far!!! Oh well, on the good side, I was able to get some PC stuff that I have been wanting to do (including this update) done... I am really stretching for something positive out of this thing here!!!

and for my final story tonight... The Bulls beat the Miami Heat yesterday and we are on the way to the Championship!!! Yes, I am jumping on the bandwagon (I hope it's not too soon) and am claiming myself a Bulls (Fair Weather) Fan!!

4/17/2007 -Wisconsin Encore!! Taxing Weekend..., Out of Commission

Well we made it to Wisconsin for a second weekend!!! (that was 2 weeks ago, but I am pretty behind on my updates). We really had a great trip (just Casey and Me this time... But Dara and Corinne changed their minds and wanted to go in the end... and now they want me to go again!)

Well, most of the pics from my camera are the stitched pictures of Larrys place that is on his site (above www.LarryandPatty.com) Which was part of my job too... It was great to see Nick (fresh outta Marine boot camp!) and larry has a good marine picture of Nick on his site... Sorry, I didn't do a big photographer job this time... The other pictures I'll include here:

Wisconsin - Mini Trip, just a few pics - mostly Mr. Brodie...

I was pretty late on getting our taxes done and it was really no fun this year... I also think that I found a bug in the State of Illinois version of Turbo Tax. That was not fun, but at least I got my version fixed with a support call... Then I had to write out a check for 2006 (since we were short), two checks for Q1 2007 and I also did our Roth IRA checks (not mandatory, but this is when I do them...) So much for a tax "return"! It's gonna take some time to catch up from that...

Well, I did a couple of bike rides this weekend (just my usual 11 and 12 mile rides) and after my ride on Sunday, I felt really sore... Then after being home and going up and down the steps a few times, I must have strained something and well... I must  have pulled a muscle in my leg and am having a hard time even walking! Shit! Nice weather comming and I'm Out of Commission and can't even ride!!! Well, it seems to be getting better fairly quick, so hopefully it won't last too long... Actually that is probably why I have time for this update right now!

3/29/2007 -The Dells!! Getting Greener!

Well, we did The Dells last weekend and it was fantastic! This was a totally unplanned trip, which are sometimes the best... It is spring vacation for Casey and Corinne and I agreed to a last minute Dells trip for Corinne... Dara came too and so Casey got the house (and Daras car) to himself for the time we were there (one night and most of the 2 days).  I haven't found any beer cans, roaches or girls underwear anywhere (yet) so I guess he was good... (or careful!)

As for the Dells, we ended up getting a really good price ($150) at Glacier Canyon which is attached to the Wilderness hotels and waterparks... It is just amazing how much they are building and the water parks, etc. It really is quite a vacation land! We were lucky to get the room with no reservations and the girls (Corinne and Eden) had a great time... Dara and I took it a little easier and also had a very nice time...

OK, enough rambling... here's the pics!

The Dells - Spring 2007 Trip!

...and in other news... it's Getting a lot Greener around here!!! ....and of course, that means bike season! I've already got 73 miles this season and it's not even April yet! The extra dayligh savings time is going to extend my usual bike riding season!

I hope to do some bike site updates tonight too, but I'm not sure if I'll get to that...

Gotta Git!!! See ya all soon!

3/23/2007 -Check out my Great Nephew! ...and Support Our Troups!

This video is just too good. I lifted it from Brad and Andis website... Check out Platoon 1007 My nephew Nick is in the 5th row down from the top, fourth one in from the left!

3/13/2007 -Daylight Savings, Bike Season and in the 70s! On To The Championship!

Well, the new daylight savings time is here, which usually coincides with the start of bike riding season... and with the whether in the 70s it seems to have worked out that way!. I got my bike back with the handle bars up a little more... and I think I got it just about perfect now... All I can do now to be more comfortable on 2 wheels would be to get one of those lawn chair bikes like Dales...

Caseys basketball team was not doing all that good this year and we had the first playoff game last week. They played a pretty good team (with a player on the HS team even) and I figured that it was all over... They started out behind and stayed behind a few points for a good part of the game... But they did hang in there... then Casey brought them within 2 points and then they finally pulled ahead... It was a struggle to stay there, but in the end... (yes you can see this one comming...) They Won!!! 60 to 58!

Catch the Playoff game Here! (Sorry I used a little too fast of a shutter speed and couldn't correct it completely on the PC, so the pics are a little dark... I'm still working on getting this stuff right...)

So we are still in the playoffs and are on our way to The Chapionship next week!

3/4/2007 - Corinnes Birthday! Wiper Blades... 13 Year Checkup! Almost Bike Season!

Yep, Corinne is a big 14 now!!! We had a low keyed, but nice little dinner on her birthday. Corinne wanted Walker Brothers food (that breakfast type food place... one of her favorites) but she didn't want to go out and eat in the restaurant... So I went there and got a big doggie bag of food for all of us! It was nice... Good food and no cooking... Dara's mom also brought over a big cake from Costco! (We are still working on that one!) Corinne is still planning a party with her friends (and keeps trying to get us to leave town for it!) but that hasn't happened yet.

I've discovered that over the years I have become almost completely incompetent at mechanical type repairs... It seems that if you don't use it, you lose it!  I used to do major work like changing alternators, carburetors, brakes, radiators (with larrys help) and even a transmission (actually just helping Bob Fortman to change it on my 66 Chevelle). Now, I can't even do my wiper blades without a lot of problems!

Here's the Wiper Blade story:

A few nights ago, I figured that I would stop by Wal-mart on the way home to get some wiper blades because mine were totally falling apart... then I thought that I would slip them on real quick in the parking lot since I don't have access to my garage... I was looking all over for the plain old blades and couldn't find them because most of what they sell is the entire wiper arm for 3 times the price... So I ask this black guy and he shows me where they are but says most people just change the whole thing because the other ones are much harder...

Well, I choose the cheaper blade only option... Then I go out to my car and like and idiot slip off the one on the drivers side... Shit!!! I can't get the new one on... and it is really sloppy on the roads and I don't want to try driving without wipers... I freeze my frickin fingers off out in the cold for 1/2 hour to 45 minutes and go over by the garage doors where there is more light... still can't get it!!! SHIT!!! No tools at all in my car either... not even a cheap screw driver! I start to walk in for some help and run into the black guy again and tell him I got myself into a bad situation and need some help... He was really laughin and got a big kick out of it... He actually cheered me up by laughing at me!

He showed me how the wiper arm slips off pretty easy and I figure that I can at least get the blades on in the car where it's warm... so I mess around working on that for a long time and still can't get it!!! I finally go back in and return the cheap blades ($3) and buy the whole wiper arms ($13)... I go back out and finally get it after messing around for another 5 or 10 minutes while the security car is patrolling around me and staring at me!!!

My lesson: I don't do car work anymore!!! (well maybe I can do the windshield washer fluid...)

OK, I just went in for my 13 Year Checkup. So far everything looks pretty good except the Dr. said that my blood pressure was high... I didn't get the readings from him on the day I went in, but I have borrowed Daras moms blood pressure meter and have just done a couple of checks. One was totally normal and one was a little high (I think I was a little nervous about the machine on that one...) Anyway, I'm going to keep checking for a while now (until I need to give Ellie the BP meter back) and see how it goes...

I also haven't done the blood test yet, which I consider to be a major part of the check up... The Dr. visit I think is just more like a quick visual, check the fluids and kick the tires... (also did an EKG.. which was good). So we'll see what the blood test shows when I get that done... The other thing that he wants me to do is a colonoscopy... That does not sound like fun at all and I am not in a big hurry to do that one... I'm sure it is very important... but I still don't want to do it!

The weather is still terrible here, but we had a few nice days a few weeks ago and I wanted to be sure that my bike is ready to hit the pavement as soon as the weather breaks! I just brought it in to have the handle bars raised up a little more. I need to buy an extension and have it installed to do this... I still like having the road bike and the wrap down handle bars, but I also like them a little higher (like the hybrids). So I am getting it customized to the way I really want it, since I usually spend so many hours on it each year! Can't wait to get it back and hit the road!

Well, that's a pretty good catch up round I guess... I hope some of you made it this far! I have a few pictures from Corinnes birthday dinner but haven't downloaded them yet and I need to get going now so maybe I can do that with the next update...

Catch cha all later!

2/10/2007 - The game... :-( Stuff... The Best of Rob and Kids!!!

Well, the big game and all the hype is over now... I don't know if I'm done being a sports fan yet... It was fun while it lasted though!!! OK, back to regular life... and blogging...

I've been a little lazy with my websites and need to get going on them again, but I have also had a lot of other junk going on too... Here's the latest basketball photo page.... I've started searching for a new PC, but now I have run into a timing problem with Windows Vista timing... Not sure what I'm going to do next...

OK, now for some really good pictures!!! One of my projects that I attempted to do recently was to scan all of our old hard copy pictures... Well, after quite a few hours, I realized that I am not going to be able to do ALL of them... BUT, I did get a hold of a stack of GREAT pictures! These are from a span of different years, but are mostly just me and the kids (more when they were very little)... Personally I think that this group is fantastic... What do ya think?

The Best of Rob, Casey and Corinne!!!

1/14/2007 - Every Pictue tells a Story, The game!

Do you recognize this house???  Click on the photo for the comparisons plus a little extra!

Yes, it is our old house at 431 Crescent Drive... The last time I was driving through Wheeling I cut down our old street (as I sometimes do just to see the old hood) and I was totally surprised when I tried to find our old house! All I could find was this double decker house!!! Yep, they added another story to the old house (like there weren't enough "stories" with that house to begin with!) I was really surprised and thought that those of you that remember the old house would like to see the new version, so I went back (last weekend) to take some pictures of it...

It was getting a little late when I was there and I wanted to do my exercise walk (preferably in the daylight) so I decided to do my walk around the old hood in Wheeling! It was quite a nostalgia trip... I took a lot of photos, but after viewing them, I did not think that they were all that exciting in the end... Except for the house comparisons above...

In the process of doing the "house page" above, I also had to dig through some of my parents old photos... I found a few old house pics as you can see... but I decided that I REALLY must get these pictures scanned!!! The hardcopy pics are OK, but they are stuffed away in a closet... If I had digital copies I can do quite a bit more with them and they are easier to share with people too... Now I just need a little time to do the scanning... Like a couple of weeks with nothing else to do!!!

Well it's just about time for "The game" (I can't believe that I'm saying that, but it is the finals after all, and da Bears might even have a chance!!!

Gotta go... Bear down, Chicago Bears... da, dat, da, daa, dat, da, daa, da, dat, da, da... (those are the words that I remember... I can't remember the trumpet part either after playing at Bears games all through high school...)

12/30/2006 - Christmas Pictures are in! Still Riding...

We had a nice Christmas this year... Karen, Nadia and Daryoosh were here from Minn. and we did the "local" (Glenview and Winnetka) get togethers... Rather than waste a lot of space with words... I'll get right to the pictures!!!! (there are a few comments embedded in the photo pages too).

Christmas 2006 - Photo Page 1 (Ellies, Kurt and Robins)

Christmas 2006 - Photo Page 2 (Ellies on Christmas Day)

Well, here it is the day before New Years Eve and I just did another 24 mile bike ride!!! Incredible! It's in the mid 40s... Maybe this is global warming and a bad thing... but it sure is nice for now anyway...

12/10/2006 - BBall is Back! New Record

The 2006-2007 part district basketball season is back!!! I don't know if I'm going to be the official photographer for every game again this year (self appointed (but appreciated)) but I took photos of the first game and have them uploaded to the usual homeKat basketball site... so stay tuned... We lost the first game by 2 points!!! (Casey fouled out... :-( ) We were missing a number of players for this game though... It was kind of a last minute notification for most of us... Well, we'll se what tomorrows game is like...

OK, so Dale wins the bike mileage record this year... (within the family and friends category)... Congratulations... it's not easy to do over 2,000 miles in a year! (But he used a recumbent, so I still hold the 1 year non-recumbent record!!!)

11/25/2006 - Thanksgiving 2006!

We had a great Thanksgiving weekend up in Wisconsin! It was fantastic weather and I took lots of pics! I met my new great neice Demi (I hope my spelling for the short version is correct... someone let me know if it's spelled Deme..). It was a short trip but was still great... Just a few of the highlights were:

• Meeting my new great niece, Demi...
• Learning about and seeing Brads network media player in action...
• Riding in my brothers hot rod...
• Learning about heating with corn!...
• The Feast (of course)!
• Staying at the Pace Arrow Inn once again (hopefully not for the last time...)

Like I said, there was a lot of new stuff for a short trip! So without further babbling... Here's the photos!!!

Thanksgiving 2006! (photo page 1)

Thanksgiving 2006! (photo page 2)

11/14/2006 - A Great iPod Experience! Bear Weather Fan...

I just had a great iPod experience and had to write another little plug for iPods (and I don't even get a commission on this... Although I might consider an iPod affiliate site!)

I've had my iPod since last xmas and I still love it!!! I think it would be a fantastic xmas gift for anyone that really enjoys music (with a few minor qualifications... You need a confuser with XP and v2 USB and you need a minor level of technical expertise)...

If you remember back to last year, we did have a bunch of problems with KCs original iPods (manufactured by HP)... We went through 3 of them, but then we got the Apple mfg one and the memory stick only ones and haven't had any problems since then... Well, on a very sad note... we did have one MAJOR problem... Corinnes iPod got ripped off at the roller rink! We don't even like to talk about that experience... Maybe she can get another at some point... but enough of that...

My iPod has 60GB of space!!! I currently have about 130 albums and something like 1,600 songs... Actually that's just a rough estimate... There is just so much  music in that little box (that fits easily into my pocket) that it almost doesn't matter anymore... and I still have a ton of space left!

My iPod Style: OK, I mostly only listen to the iPod in my car, through the cassette tape deck converter... (that was the main reason that I wanted it). I mostly like the "Shuffle Songs" option which randomly picks from the 1,600 songs... Then once in a while if I'm really in the mood for an artist or album, I easily switch over and listen to it...

The New iPod Experience: OK, it's not real big news or anything, but now that riding season is over and I am walking for exercise, I decided to try the iPod on my walk... It was fantastic!!! I have always liked my peace and quiet and solitude on my walks, so I haven't really tried music a real lot but I will be listening more now... (I still enjoy the peace and quite sometimes, but this give me some great variety and new experiences...)

In the old days when there were mostly just cassette decks, it was very cumbersome and kind of hard to work the controls... and besides it was a tape and not even a digital recording!!! Then there were portable CD players... They were pretty big and bulky to carry around and then you are still pretty much limited to 1 CD... Then there were the earlier MP3 players... Pretty good... nice and small, but they didn't hold as much music and the controls on the one that we had were very difficult... trying to find the volume, switch songs, etc...

Now, with the iPod and that click wheel and their fantastic interface!!! I  can have all the music that I own (and then some) in my pocket and have totally easy access to all of the controls!!! For those of you who aren't familiar with the click wheel and iPod interface (the software that runs the thing) IT IS FANTASTIC!!!

OK, does anyone get the idea about how much I love this thing... Hey it's music and technology... some of my favorite stuff!!! I have rediscovered a lot of music and gotten turned on to a lot of new stuff that I may not have ever been into before... It's different when you have virtually no limits on space and you can randomly listen to so much music, then if something strikes you, you go to the album and listen to the whole thing... Tonight I just got into Tracy Chapman... I have had the album for a long time, but usually only listened to it once in a great while and would usually not bring the CD out to my car... With the iPod, I found her stuff great for walking, switched over to the album and it was like a totally new musical experience...

OK, I could go on, but it's getting late and I'm sure I've lost most people by now... If you are already into iPods, then I'm sure you know what I am talking about... If you aren't you probably owe it to yourself to check them out! My congratulations to Apple!!!

OK, just one other quick note... As you see by the new Novembear logo above, I am turning into a Bears fan again!!! I fully admit to being a fair Bear Weather Fan and after Sundays game, I'm on the old fair weather Band Wagon again!

11/12/2006 - Workin, Ridin and Sellin CDs...

I don't have any big news for an update, but sometimes I just start bloggin, and I end up writing 1/2 a novel! I've been workin at work (well, I always work a lot but I've been puttin in a few more hours and it's been real hard tryin to keep up lately...). But, that is great for me, because I am still in the programming business! (for now anyway...)

It's been a little on the cold side for bike ridin (I have mostly been walking for exercise the last few weeks), but I have managed to get some extra Rides in on the weekends and I was hoping to beat my 2'nd worst seasons mileage record! That is still about 44 miles away, and it is so late in the season, I don't know if I can do it... but hey, it's a little something to shoot for... The last 2 days were pretty nice for riding... but this is November, so we could be snowed in by next weekend and it could be all over for ridin...

I sold my first CD in the USA last week from my music site! I had a few other requests for my CDs after I started charging $5.00 for them, but they were in other countries and I just didn't have the time or patience to send them out... This one was in Louisiana, so I burned the CD and sent it out... Now the terms on my website are that I send the bill with the CD and they only have to pay after they receive the CD (and if they are satisfied with it) (how easy is that!?!). So the next thing is to see if I actually get paid! Hey, I'm not depending on it for a living or anything (at the moment anyway) so it will be interesting to see what happens... The worst case is that I'll be out about $2.50 (which is about what is costs to make and ship... the other $2.50 is pure profit!!! Yippee!). It is a good experience in a different form of sales (and marketing) and it is always a good ego boost when someone actually wants the songs (and might even pay for them!)

10/15/2006 - Just Foolin Around, Teckie Storie, Corinne at LakeG

I took a picture of some dew on my window, with the fall colors blurred out in the background and I thought that it looked kind of cool, so I made an animated gif that I put behind the "October" above... Just a little need to try something artistic, I guess..

Teckie Storie Alert: Well, I finally got a USB flash card for my PC. I need this to copy files from my PC to Caseys to CDs (mine is broken now) and DVDs). This is something that should really be easy, but... Since I am still in Win98 (note even 98SE), it became a real job... I bought 2 cards that didn't work with my PC (most of the time when stuff says Win98SE it still works on Win98, but these didn't). Anyway, I did end up with a great deal... 1GB for $18.00!!! Wow, is this stuff cheap! ... and the Verbatim one that I got works! I am really considering upgrading my 98 PC now!!! (well, one of these days anyway... :-))

Dara and Corinne went to Lake Geneva on the Columbus Day holiday (schools and govmnt holiday, that is...). Dara played phographer and Corinne played phographee (or model...) Here's just a couple of the pics that they took...

Corinne at Lake Geneva

That's it fer now!

10/4/2006 - Lots of New Pics, Page Links and Updates!

OK, first of all we got Casey and Corinnes school pictures in and I have scanned and uploaded them... I left the old 2005/2006 link at the top of this page also for comparisons (one years difference...). Here are this years class pics:

Casey and Corinne, 2006-2007 Class Pictures

... of course, Corinne doesn't like hers... (and may have a re-take)

Next, Dale completed the Great River Trail (Wisconsin) article for the about-bicycles site... I think that came out great! Here's the link to that one:

The Great RiverTrail

And finally, I did a trip to Deer Grove on my bike ride this weekend and brought my camera... I happend to catch some good RC Plane flying at the RC plane area out there and got a lot of pics... I went over and met the guy flying the plane and told him that I'd post the pics so I put them up on a page... So here they are...

RC Planes at Deer Grove

It's hard to catch the fast action flying shots, but I tried... I also did a short video on the page above..

That's it fer now!

10/1/2006 - New Month Logo, New Bike Miles Record, Great River, PC Stuff, BACKUP YOUR PC FILES

Well, I wanted to update the old Month Logo above (and my bike mileage), so that forces me to do an update... (sorry I haven't been as verbose as usual, but I still try to update the news here and there...

There is a New Bike Miles Record ... unfortunately (for me) it wasn't me who did it... as you could probably tell by my joking around below (about recumbent bikes being excluded from the competition), Dale has beat my mileage record above (2,182  corrected for the odometer error). Yes, that was on the recumbent and I don't know the mileage yet, but I guess he beat my 2005 record... :-( Shit!

Well, I have almost beat my original, and lowest, bike mileage record... 537 miles in 1997!!! It's a beautiful day here today, so I hope to get out and do it... At least I am still beating my mileage records from when I was much younger (I was only 44 when I thought that the 537 mile record was pretty good... Now, it seems pretty low!)

Dale also did a bike trip up in our part of Wisconsin (Sparta, LaCross, etc.) and has an article and some good pics of the trails that connect to the Sparta trail (Great River Trail , etc.). I'll be adding that to the bike site soon... but I don't have it ready yet... Stay tuned...

In other news... I got some new PC Stuff for Casey's PC recently... 120GB hard disk and a DVD burner... (this stuff is incredibly cheap these days!) In the process of installing the 120GB disk, I accidently reformatted KCs c: drive!!! (don't laugh, it is pretty easy to do...). I was pretty devestated right after I got the grey screen and "insert boot disk" type of message! Fortunately, I had OK, backups and we really didn't loose much of anything important...

In the process of rebuilding KCs PC, I learned a little more about rebuilding Windows (XP, in this case), about the value of good backups and what stuff to backup... I now backup stuff to multiple hard drives, a removable hard drive, CDs, and DVDs... (I like multiple copies on different media). The most important stuff, for us (and probably a lot of other people too) are the photos and movie files... After that, I also have all of our iPod music and files, downloaded software (not on the original distribution disks) and all the other MyDocuments stuff, etc...

I think that this is a good time for a very important public service announcement... BACKUP YOUR PC FILES!  (regularly and to different devices).

Well, like I said, it is beautiful out today, so I'm going to sign off and get out of the basement! If I have anything else, after my adventures today, I'll do another update here...

Later... Rob & co

08/26/2006 - WHS Jazz Band Digital Recordings, Family Reunion Pics (from last weekend)

some "chillin time" today and managed to put together a page with the new The WHS Jazz Band Digital Recording web pages (click here)! This was actually much more work than I was  planning on, but I think the pages came out well and will be really nice for those interested (former band members and even WHS students that were around at that time). I think I'll notify that guy who puts out all the WHS news so he can spread the news... I tried to optimize the pages for keywords so eventually it will show up on the search engines... Well give it a listen (if you get a chance) and enjoy... Also, if anyone wants the CD, just let me know...

Sorry, I haven't had a chance to upload our Chapman Family Reunion pics until now. We also missed (pictures of) quite a few of the people that did make it since I didn't bring the camera and Dara and Corinne arrived late with the other camera... A least we got a few pictures anyway... I think we all had a good time. I would have liked to have seen some more of my cousins on the Chapman side, but I certainly can't complain, since I haven't made it to the reunion for quite a few years too.

It really was nice to see the people that I haven't seen for so long or have not seen very often recently...

Chapman Family Reunion, Sycamore, 2006

Also, special thanks to John Linden (and formerly Irene Steans) who have been keeping up the Chapman geanology information!

08/21/2006 -  New Digital Jazz Recording, Ya Gotta Have Rules... KC Survives High Speed Car Accident!

Well, I had some time for a little project that I was wanting to do for a while now... and I got er done! I recorded one of the the WHS Jazz band albums (Dimensional Sounds) in a digital format so it will live on! I have this classic album in 33.3 record format only and could not find it on the internet... Actually I'm sure it would fade out of existence, in time, if someone (like me) didn't preserve it in a current (digital) format...

I am going to post it on the internet soon (I hope) and try to get it indexed, by Google, so the other fellow jazz band members, and interested parties,  will have access to it. I also want to get some of the other ones too, but I lost the other main one that I was in my senior year... I think I can get that from Dale though... Or maybe one of you have a copy of these albums...

I thought that our HS jazz band was pretty good at the time (we won some major competitions) and I still think it is good... I'll let cha know when it's uploaded and maybe you can give it a listen... (hey, it's better than my singin!)

Well, I'm not going to even get close to my bike mileage seasons record this year, of course, but I do hold the record among the people that I know though, so far... The mileage record above (2,236 (before error corrections)) still stands and just to be clear, I think that I should clarify the official rules... This is the mileage record for road and hybrid bikes (mountain and kids bikes will qualify also, but that would be even harder...). Not allowed in the Competition are any motorized vehicles, unicycles and recumbents... I just thought I would clarify the rules, in case anyone out there is getting close to breaking the record, on a disqualified vehicle, and thinks they can hold the new record!

OK, this is the biggest story in this issue, but I had to save it until last so I didn't loose you after the first story. Yes, KC really did survive a high speed car accident. We are just so thankful right now...

OK, here's a brief description... Casey's friend, Tony, was driving on Route 53 and another car merged into traffic (much slower than the expressway traffic) and crossed 2 lanes and into Tonys lane... He hit the brakes and swerved to miss the guy, but hit a guy and another car in the lane to the left... (all this at about 65mph)... Anyway, Tonys car (that Casey was in) did one 360 on the expressway and ended up on the shoulder... the car to the left did about 3 or 4 360s and lost a wheel in the process and ended up on the shoulder too... the car that started it all (a Saturn) got hit but was OK... Incredibly, no one in any of the 3 cars were hurt... I am very thankful for that!

When I think about what could have been... I am just happy that all it cost me was the better part of one nights sleep... I can handle that! I guess it just shows how fragile and unpredictable life is...

Like I always say on my bike site... Enjoy the Ride! (cause I guess you never know when the ride will be over...)

OK, enough philosophizing and crap like that... If you made it this far, you got all the latest stories for now... If you cheated and missed the first few stories you must go back... :-)

08/05/2006 - Bike Mileage

I just wanted to update my bike mileage (above) and the month gif above (to August)... I just checked my old bike mileage seasons records to see how bad I was doing this year and saw that my lowest season record, since I started keeping track, was 537 miles... So my new (lazy and unambitious) goal is to beat that one... Let's say around 600 miles... That shouldn't be that hard... even this year! Yea, Dale is going to beat me and I think he may be going for the title... (over 2,236 ( less the percentage error that I haven't corrected yet) (I was hoping I could hold the title for a few years anyway...)

Just for kicks, here are my old records: (I can't seem to find 2003...)

1997	537 miles
2000	681 miles
2001	801 miles
2002	1,048 miles
2003	??
2004	1,307 miles
2005	2,236 miles (1341 on hybrid)

Dara asked me to remove the "house" story... So you're not going crazy if you swear it was here and do not see it now...

07/09/2006 - This just in... the Cousins Portraits

I just got a copy of the portraits that we just had taken of all of the cousins... (on the Anstaett, Chapman and Tirandazi side)... so here they are!!!

<Sorry I've removed these from the internet since they are copyrighted>

07/08/2006 - License to Drive! 4'th of July Stuff! Sommer for sharing...

OK, I'm not even going to apologize for the long delay between updates because that it becomming a regular thing... (ok, sorry anyway, I don't want to loose all of our readers)

Well, I just uploaded some new pictures so I wanted to get them out there for everyone...

The first big news is that Casey now has a License to Drive!!! There's a few pictures of his first "solo" drive in the photo pages... He passed on his first try! (unlike some of the rest of us :-(... Well, I went to the hard place... Libertyville!). Daras mom also had a little birthday get together for Casey on his birthday, which was nice since Karen and Nadia were in town also! (also see the page pics).

Then on the 4'th, Dale and I did a last minute bike ride from Libertyville to the festivities in Glenview! The ride actually turned out great (it was a beautiful day) and I took some "trail pics" for my bike site... I also had Dara take some pictures of me and Dale on bikes, since I was wanting a picture of me in one of my natural habitats (on the bike). We made it all the way to Glenview and had a fantastic dinner too!

OK, I have more to write, but before this gets too long and boring... I'll get right to the pictures (there are a bunch of comments with the photo pages too...)

Here are the latest pictures! Sommer for sharing (or is it Summer for sharing...) Well whatever... I hope ya like em...

License to Drive and Caseys Birthday!

July 4'th Bikers Pictures and Bike Ride!

July 4'th Dinner at Ellies!

06/04/2006 - Wisconsin trip pics are here!

Sorry once again for the delay in page updates... Haven't had a lot of page update time... I did upload the pictures fromNick's graduation and our Wisconsin trip though... Patty request that I post "ALL" of the pics this time (instead of a select group, like I usually do...) Well, I did almost all of them this time... good, bad, ugly...etc So there are a LOT here...

Enjoy... Wisconsin Trip - Nicks Graduation - Memorial Day 2006

5/11/2006 - A Cool 11... One Bad Motha

Just did a Cool 11 bike miles today... Yea, it's still pretty cool here (upper 50s) but it was nice to ride a little.

Happy Mothas day to all you good mothas out there - from One Bad Motha!!!

5/6/2006 - Chillin, Nature and Portraits

Well, I'm just chillin (Everyone is out right now) after a beautiful spring day... I did some lawn patchin and stuff and then had a chance to take a bike/photography ride (it was a nice break in the action). I've included the photos that I took (mostly in Inverness) on my ride and some photos of Corinne, Eden and Dara after they went to som "Make Over" place or something...

Oh yea, before all that action, I gave Casey a buzz (hair cut) and I included a picture of his latest haircut too...

I've been feeling like I needed to do some creative stuff and then dale told me that he was getting a new digital camera (a Fuji S9000) and that just pushed me over the edge... I had to go out and do some photos! it was actually nice and very relaxing (which was a great thing at the moment...). The nature shots are probably not that exciting, but I thought that I would post a few anyway...

Well I hope you like the new shots...    May 2006 Nature and Portraits - Click here for the photos!

4/23/2006 - Still Riding, Rollercoaster...

As you see from the old internet bike odometer above, I've got  66 miles logged for this season... the weather has been very nice and it really feels great to get out and ride!! I did 26 miles yesterday!

Not a lot of other news at the moment... Things are a little difficult right now in many ways, but then I was reflecting on how other things are still very good... This made me think about the Rollercoaster ride that we are all on... We all have our ups and downs and in some cases thay can happen at the same time (that doesn't really fit the rollercoaster analogy very well, I guess)... My rollercoaster seems to be having very steep inclines and declines right now,as opposed to the more gradual and gentle slopes of some of the other rides...

OK, enough of that... that's what happens when I don't have a lot of quality content to write about! Maybe I'll get out and take some photos. I still love my new digital camera and I am getting that creative craving feeling, like I need to do something creative... Or maybe I'll start adding to the websites... Oh yea, that reminds me, I haven't checked in on them in a while... It think I'll do that now!

4/15/2006 - Sore Butt... Sore Neck, Daylight Savings... it must be riding season!!

Well, I've done my first couple of rides for the 2006 season (aside from that short mileage check back in January)... and I have a big 40 miles now... (only 2197 left for a new record!)

It is a beautiful day and was a great day for a ride... I was a little bit sore... No big deal. I think I'm just a little out of shape... I still like my crestcycle roadbike... I'll probably stick with this one for a while... Although I am more open for checking out different bikes these days... Also, my bike site more than pays for a few new bikes each year (if I want to rationalize it that way...)

Well, this may not be the most exciting update... but I don't really have a lot more to report right now...

later,

3/26/2006 - End of the season... Bent Ride! A taxing weekend...

Sorry for the long delay in updates agian... Actually, I used most of the spare time that I usually have for the family page updates, for the Basketball Page pics, movies and updates (Check em out if you haven't kept up on the latest basketball pics and movies!) Well the playoffs are over and it was pretty exciting! I believe that we ended up in 3'rd place. regardless of the standings, it was great to watch the games on the weekends and to have the kids (not sure if that term is quite right...) having a good time and involved in the games! I am going to miss the games... until next year maybe...

Well, I took my first last Bent Ride weekend. It was pretty cool! What's a "Bent Ride" some of you may ask? Well, it's short for a Recumbent Bike... You know those weird lookin bikes... chopper style! Well Dale got one! <Check out Dales Bent Here> His is the shorter wheel base (the pedals are above the front wheel).

It was very comfortable - which is one of the big reasons that many people get them - but it was pretty hard to get used to at first... Maybe it's just real hard to teach an old biker (me) new tricks... It was great on the straight away, but I had a hard time getting used to doing tight turns with it... I am sure that I'll give it a much better try out this season... and I'll try to do a little better review... (and I am sure I'll be posting the bent experiances on th famous about-bicycles site too!)

On a boring note... Just finished the taxes! It is very disappointing to be getting a "tax return" but then to have to turn around and pay it right back to the government for the Q1 taxes for the next year... Plus a ot more! Oh well... It's over... and that's what counts fer now!

2/24/2006 - Nikon offers on eBay... Basketball videos... Running...

I guess I finally sold something on eBay! (this is just my second attempt, although it is a much higher ticket item...) I listed the old Nikon at $200 and have 3 bids right now with the highest being $217. Not bad... but from what I understand, tomorrow is the BIG day, since that is when the listing expires and I guess the hold outs come out... It is kind of a shame to sell it for so cheap considering the original cost, but I don't ever see myself using it again and want to get something for it and also like the idea of unloading stuff via eBay... It is kind of fun.. when you get offers... Now if I could just sell some real junk I would really like it! "Hey Dara... where did you put all of those religious molds for the grilled cheese sandwiches!!!"

I was able to put some Basketball videos up on the homeKat/basketball page (link at the top also). I used avi format, which does work, but my versions do not "stream" so you have to wait for the whole thing to load before it plays... It isn't the best setup, but it is better than nothing... I am still working on a better format... Thanks for your help Brad! Brad has quite a few up on the Andi and Brad's Site: and they work very well...

Well, I am still at the 1 mile running mark with the old walk/run scene... My endurance (aerobic) seems OK, but if I push myself too much my back, knee, ankle and other body parts just can't take it... For the time being, the body seems to be at about 100% (for a 65 year old!... (even though I am only 52ish  :-) )) so maybe I can even push for a little farther... What a physical bummer it is getting old! I'm really getting into working out (much more than when I was young) and now I can barely do it! Well, I gotta go search eBay for one of those old-people scooters now!!! later!

2/18/2006 - Nikon for Sale... Need a Vacation and a Bike Ride

Well, I just listed the old obsolete Nikon 35mm FILM camera on eBay. Check Out my eBay Nikon  listing <here>

The camera is really nice and like new... I was just fooling around with it prior to taking the pictures of it (with the Kodak digital, or course) and I realized what a nice piece of machinery it is! Unfortunately, it is big and bulky and it is a film camera and I do not see using the thing again... Ah well... The going prices for these things are around $250 to $300, which is a huge drop in what we paid... But it is better to have something for it then to just have it sitting there gathering dust while until film cameras are totally obsolete... Or maybe they will become more valuable, like antiques! Well, I am placing my bet on the fact that they will just be obsolete and I'll cut my losses while I can...

This is only the second time I have attempted to sell something on eBay. It still takes me quite a bit of time to do a listing, but I think that I can do it a little faster and easier now... We'll see how this listing goes and how the shipping and payment stuff goes if I end up selling the camera...

No running this week... Bad ankle and back... Damn!!! Also, it is just too frickin cold!

Speakin of the cold... I was just thinkin recently how I really need a vacation! It seems that all I have been doing is working and watchin TV... (OK, and goin to the basketball games and doin the pics and a few other things, but mostly just workin it seems...). I am ready for summer and some vacation time!

I was also just thinkin about how I am missing the bike trails too... I think I am comming down with a bad case of Cabin Fever!

2/12/2006 - Walk/Run Stuff...

Well, I guess I need to fill in for some of my summer bike stories, with my winter walk/run adventures... Sorry I don't have much of anything else that is overly exciting at the moment... :-) I work, I work out, I sleep, I eat, etc... (OK there are a few more mildly interesting things... I'll try to think of some as I write... I am also doing this while I am waiting for my software to build the webpages for this weeks basketball game... A frustrating loss... but I got a few good pics, I think).

I have been taking the dog (Kitty, that is) on my walk/runs the last few weeks... She keeps up (OK, I have a hard time keeping up with her)... Anyway, I wasn't sure just exactly how SLOW I was running, so I decided to time myself this week... I was worried that I may not run any faster than I walk!!! It turns out that, although it is not much faster, it is a little... Here's some of the 1 mile stats...

Now... wasn't that exciting!!!

Still lovin my iPod (and it is still working (so far...)). I just ordered an old favorite album (Little Feat, Waiting for Columbus) online (Amazon) to add to my iPod collection. The little device has revived my interest in music once again! I still think it is really cool to have thousands of songs (of my choice) play randomly in a package the size of 1 CD! (OK, fatter, but smaller... if you mushed a CD down to it's width and height it would be close :-) )

OK, the basketball pictures are done and I need to get this stuff uploaded...

2/1/2006 - Just a Mile...

I meant to write this down more as a log of my running than as any big news, and I cant' top the weekend news below... but anyway... I did make my one goal of running 1 mile (in my walk/run routimne) in January (it was actually January 27th), but it was at a little bit of a cost and I am not doing it regularly (yet)... I don't know if it was the run that did my back in or not, but my back got messed up again (I got a chiropractor appointment Friday)... I hope to be back on the running scene again real soon though!

1/29/2006 - What a Weekend... Navy Adventures! A GREAT Game! and Superbowl Sunday!

What and unexpectedly eventfull weekend!!! OK, I knew that Andi&co was coming down to Great Lakes Naval base for Steves Navy Graduation, but I didn't know there would be so much going on!

First of all, there was Andi and Brads unexpected brake problems and Daras rescue! Then they all had a nice dinner on Steve! (I missed that one)... Next we had Nick and Ari over Friday night... Then we drove out to Larrys place in Plano and had a nice visit and dinner on Sunday... then another cross-state trip back to the Navy base in North Chicago... Then we picked up Steve at the base again Sunday... Went to KCs game (which was fantastic!), had our (pre) Superbowl sunday and finished it off with a Lou Malnettis pizza! WOW!

OK, as or KCs sunday basketball game... We had the full paparazzi (me and Brad with cameras and camcorders) out at the game... and a large group of supporters from in 2 states! (and one of the Wisconsin fans, was very "supportive"! Yes, we all know who that is...)  and it was GREAT! Like I say, I always like a close game and it was very close most of the game... Then the real kicker, was with seconds left we were down 2 points... Casey kicks in on offense and we pull ahead by one point!!! With about 5 seconds left, we loose the ball again on the bad guys side! The play... KC stuffs them and the clock runs out! We win by one point!!!

I got tons of pictures for this game... They are from my Camera AND Brads this week! (Thanks Brad!) Check them out:

This Weeks Game (1/29/2006) Pics! - Check em out HERE

OK next... after that great game, we did something that I haven't done for many, many years! We went bowling! I played a game of pool myself (and was a little off) but didn't actually get out on the alley... but, I did get some nice pics of SuperBOWL Sunday

Check out SuperBOWL Sunday Here!!!

1/21/2006 - Stops my Mind... Bathroom Window...

It's like the song says... "I'm fixing a hole... where the rain gets in...and stops my mind from wandering... where it will go... ". Well, that's what I had in mind when I was up in the attic fixing a 16 inch hole in my roof!!! I patched it just before the big snow (the pic above that I just took)  fortunately...

It started about midnight, Thursday night, when I heard a large animal just above me (as I was in my bed). It was pretty creepy. It sounded like a person was up in the attic or something (of course, even a mouse in the walls or ceiling sounds bigger than it really is). I suspect it was actually a squirrel. I didn't want to deal with it at midnight, so I just tried to ignore it and go back to sleep (which I eventually did). Then yesterday   I decided to check it out after work... I went up in the attic and heard a strange noise... an animal??? nope... It sounded like... a leak!!! So I explore a little and... Wa-La! I found where the unidentified beast got into the attic! It was a hole about 16 inches wide! I could see the sky above very clearly! ...and the snow was coming in...

How did I get this hole, you might ask? Well, it was intentional, initially, BUT... there used to be a cap on it. It is the ventilation  hole for my attic fan. The problem is that the cover that used to be on it, somehow was completely gone! You know, you've seen the aluminum vent covers on roofs all over the place (right?). I don't know what happened to it... whether it blew off, or some animal just tried to get in and ripped it off or what... Well, I am going to have to call someone for a repair... I aint going up on the roof to do it myself... I tried a few times and I am too old, fragile and chicken! brock! brock! brock!

Oh yea, as for the new pic (above) and the link above... we got a ton of snow yesterday! Today was nice and sunny and it just looked nice out so I took some pics from my bathroom window! (where I spotted the scene). There is a decent view of the backyard from upstairs (Caseys room actually has the best view) and it just looked "pretty"... so I slid up the screen, grabbed the camera, stuck my head out and took some pics! (the one above is a composite of 3 pics stitched for the wider angle (of course)).

1/15/2006 - The Latest BBall Pics and Experiments... (.8), Expressway

Well a few people (from KCs team) liked the basketball photos, but Im still not sure if I'll be doing them every week... Besides, sometimes it is more fun to just watch the game...

This weeks game I concentrated on the whole team, more than just Casey alone. I think that I got the camera settings much better than last week but I don't think I really got a lot of great compositions... You can only do so much with settings and editing... You still need to get the shots... (oh yea and they lost to a bunch of shrimpy freshmen!)

I also got some links to some info on the Park District teams and posted that on the main basketball page (new also)...

Here are the links:

The Main Basketball Page  - Check it out HERE

This Weeks Game (1/15/2006) Pics! - Check em out HERE

The technical (camera) stuff:

Well, I definitely get clearer pics using the Shutter Priority mode set at 1/125th second, ISO400 and +2 exposure setting. I also found that the pics still come out light enough because the camera automatically sets the widest aperture that it can for the shutter speed. Also, I read on some site that you can always lighten up a picture with a photo editing package, but you can't really make a blurry picture clearer...

For this weeks photos, I tried to keep the lens on wide angle (not zoomed) and then tried to zoom, via cropping, after the pics were downloaded. This kind of works OK, but it is way too much work (in the lab). I think I will just try to zoom in and try to catch the fast action shots as best as I can... You still have to allow the camera enough time to focus...

This fast action stuff takes some skill (I still need to work on this, I guess). The camcorder stills are really easy and better for this, but I wanted to try to be able to do it with the camera (and get better quality shots)... but it is just so much work... OK, enough website work fer tonight!

Oh yea, and in other news... I am up to running .8 miles now... (and me and the black beast walked about 4 to 5 miles Sat and Sunday too... Oh and Casey did his first expressway drivin Saturday...

Corinne is excited about bein off for MLJK day tomorrow... and the cat doesn't care!

1/8/2006 - Basket Ball Pics

OK, here are those basketball pictures from today... Caseys team creamed them! I don't have the exact score but I think it was something like 43 to 20 something... Normally, I find a close game more exciting, but it was nice, for a first game, to have a massacre for a start...

The teams don't have names, just colors. KCs is white, so I just call them Palatine White for now... The game was really great! It's nice that we have an alternative to the regular high school teams (since such a small percentage can ever make the team anyway) and it seems a little more relaxed... Not quite totally unruly steetball, but it just looks like a lot of fun!

I am going to send a link to this page to one of the team organizers and she is going to pass it on to a bunch of other people, so if there is any interest, I may be the team web-master-photographer... If no one seems to care, or if I don't have the time (or would rather just watch the games, rather than "working" them) then I won't be doing any more... We'll just see how it goes...

OK, that's quite enough of an intro I guess:

Palatine White 1/8/2006 Basketball Game  Pics! - Check em out HERE

1/7/2006 - Triathlon!!! Got Gas?... BBall

Well, I did a little triathlon today (actually it was really a Cinquathlon, I think (5-athlons that is) but I don't know if that is a word or not! :-) I wonder what an atholon is anyway...). OK, first of all, for those astute (or just very observant) readers, you may have noticed that I actually have my 2006 bike mileage started and posted! Yep, I have 4 miles now for 2006 (1 atholon)and that means that my 2005 mileage is complete (and the current 1 season record, for myself and any other bike riders that I know and whose mileage I am aware of... No, I don't know Lance personally so he doesn't count at all!))

Yes, it was kind of nice in Chi-Town today (the sun came out for a short time and it was almost 40), but my main reason for the bike ride was to check the mileage on the bike path behind our house and around Harper... I have been doing my Walk/Runs in the hoods this year, but I wanted to get out on the bike path now that it is clear enough (no snow) and warm enough (more wind than in the hood) and I wanted to double check where all of the 10'th mile marks were in my running area). So... that is how I got my first 4 bike miles in this year... (now I only have to do 2,233 more for a new record!!! I don't know if I will ever even attempt that one... but only time will tell...)

OK now for the other atholons... after I checked the miles I did my Walk and Run (2 atholons). I walked 3 miles and ran 7/10th  of a mile (the longest this year so far). Before I even did the bike ride I did some digging (1 more atholon). I had to even out the piles of dirt that my favorite plumber left in front of our house... (no problems since the last repair, but I am not very confident that this is the last of it...)... and lastly, I was nice to our 4 legged black beast and took her for a 1 mile atholon after I finished every thing else... (similar to the walking event, but different because of the beast).

Well, they did say that the Gas Bills would be higher this year. I just got ours... $197 for one month! That's pretty ridiculous! How are ya'all doing out there with yer Gas? (OK, I don't want to get a bunch of responses about gastronomical events... I'm talkin gas bills)

Casey has joined a basketball team, loosely related to the park district for kids his age, but not a regular park district team. I think it is great that he got on this team, since such a small number of kids can actually make the high school teams and Casey didn't want to commit to the H.S. teams practice routine anyway. His first game is tomorrow... Maybe I can get some updates or highlights in if I get time for another update after the game...

Not too much else new right now... Corinne was sick yesterday and missed school but seems a little better today... I am still enjoyin the iPod and have well over 1,000 songs (over 4 GBs) on it now... the variety of songs in my car is great!... (but I am not too crazy about the extra wires in the car... I wish it was built in...)

1/4/2006 - Happy 2006!!!

I don't think that I have a real lot to write about but wanted to get a quick update in while I had a chance... (Corinne is not on the confuser at the moment...). We had a pretty nice New Years eve... Nothing overly exciting, but I like it that way... Dale came over and the coolest things that we did were to see what I thought was a real interesting movie (the Island)..., I printed out a nice quality print of Dales Tree Pic...   and I loaded a bunch of really good CDs from Dales collection onto my iPod... (I missed those old Chicago albums that I had back in the late 60s, early 70s...)... and of course, we had quite a few bottles of... you guessed it... Sparkling Grape Juice! Yee ha! We are a wild group!

I also wanted to put in an update about my walk/running status (since this website fills in for my lack of memory quite a bit (and I can look this up later... :-))) I am still doing a combined distance of about 3 miles (3 and 1/2 or so on the weekends) and I am running a little over 1/2 mile now... One of my goals (below) was to be running about a mile by January... Well, I didn't quite make that one. As usual I had one minor injury. But this time I really babied myself before it got bad and until it was better and was able to get back to my routine in about a week... I should get to a mile pretty soon.... but I am not pushin it too hard...

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

12/28/2005 - Merry Ipodomas to All... and a Happy New Year (of course)!

Well, I didn't get a real lot of good xmas pics (part of the reason was a finger smudge on my camera lens... Something everyone should be aware of... keep those lenses clean!), but I did get some pics... and I have to try to keep up a little bit with all the new photos on Andi and Brad's Site So without a lot of additional rambling, here are the:

Christmas 2005 Pics! - Check em out HERE

Oh, and a revision to the earlier offer for picture copies... I can't do the CVS ones yet... and may not want to... It's knid of a delima because CVS uses kodak processing and I think the photos come out better than Walgreens (which uses Fuji)... BUT Walgreens online uploads and processing is just WAY WAY WAY better! (more on that later maybe...)

Now as for the Ipodomas..., that pretty much describes xmas for me this year... I don't usually get much (being such a bad boy and all...) but the family picked up an iPod for me this year, since I was raving about KCs iPod so much! I really do think that they are cool... (I wrote a little about them on my last update 12/18).

Once in a while, someone will erroneously mistake me for a smart person (usually before I open my mouth to speak...), but just to disprove that one... We had 3 bad iPods (Caseys)... So what do we do... Go out and buy 2 more!!! I don't really think that makes much sense, but the concept is just SO COOL! All of your music collection in a tiny portable box! (plus some extras).

Well, to try to keep this kind of short... here's the deal... They got me a 4GB ipod Nano. Dara gave me the prices for all of em: There is only a $50 difference between 4GB Nano and 30GB... but the Nanos do not have disk drives and are much smaller... and supposedly more durable because they are just flash memory cards... I liked the idea of the flash cards instead of the drives a little (which is why they choose the Nano for me anyway) but I really wanted enough space for ALL of my music without having to pick and choose and re-arrange things all the time... For me, that is the true beauty of them... to have every single album that you own in a tiny little box...

In the end, I decided that I wanted the space more than having it be a flash memory card... But wait... Casey thought that they Nanos were cooler than his and didn't mind having less space... So we ended up trading (and I had to pay him off for the difference in the price...)

So I ended up with Caseys old 60GB ipod and he has the Nano (and some cash)... Next, Corinne got some cash for xmas and chipped in some of her own money also and got an iPod Nano herself!

So I just tried this out in my car today, and guess what??? It actually makes my car stereo sound better!!!! Yippie! (I think it is because it acts as a pre-amp....) Now, all I need to do is figure out a good place to put it (in my car).

OK, I really need to get back an continue loading my CDs on to the iPod... I have somewhere around 100 CDs and I have loaded around 1/2 of them so far... It takes about 8 to 10 minutes per CD to convert and load to the ipods...

12/18/2005 -  No News Is... well... just no news... F&#@!N COLD... Driving Permit!

OK, well sorry for the delay again, but... I juz aint got no real news (or new photos) right now... I wanted to at least remove the "November" logo at the top.... now that it is the middle of December already! It is Freezin Frickin cold right now... and there's a Bears game tonight (I hear... maybe I'll check it out later...)

The young'uns are off of school for the rest of the year now... I've heard that it is almost Christmas... I really haven't gotten into it much this year... I've been resisting... but... OK, well here goes... Bah fgrickin Humbug! OK, don't take that too seriously... yea, I have a little bit of the humbugosis, but it isn't acute or anything like that...

Oh, OK, I just thought of a bunch of stuff (all I have to do is start typing and the news just starts to flow... (or maybe it is something else that is flowing :-) ):

• Casey has his driving permit! And I have been learnin him on how to drive! We need to keep a log of his hours and he is at about 6 or 7 hours now... It is a little stressful, but I have an OK temperament for it... most of the time anyway... I hope we make it through this without any accidents! Today we went to an abandon parking lot that had a little snow cover and did some slipping and spinning! What fun! (seriously, I think that is very good training, when done in a controlled environment... and it is a little fun too...)

• Next... We are now on our 4'th iPod (3 bad ones!). Interestingly enough, I still think that they are incredibly cool! (we just need to get one that works for a while). It seems like the first three  that we had were manufactured by HP. We complained a lot and tried to get our money back (really just to buy another model) and to try to make it right, they sent us the latest and greatest 60GB! iPod (made by Apple (not HP). We will see how this one does... The picture on the screen is FANTASTIC... I still want to get one customized for a car though... (more on this later, I'm sure...)

• We also got the plumber out AGAIN and diggin another hole in an attempt to fix the main drain problem... This is warranty work now, so there is no charge... We also sent in a complaint to the Attorney General on this guy and still may need to take him to court if we don't get this frickin thing fixed! (OK, enough of that... that is getting into bummer stuff.)

• Oh yea, and for the real exciting stuff... I just went to the library today and got a book on Copyright Law! I have been interested in this for a while now... (pretty exciting huh?!!) There are a lot of subtle things that I would like to know about, and with all the stuff on the internet (including my own web pages) I want to know how it works... OK, if there is anything interesting to write about in my studies, I'll pass it along...

OK, I guess that's enough fer one nights "bloggin"...

Catch cha all later...

11/29/2005 -  Da Giving of Da Tanks... Get Your Own Copies If you Like... Misc...

OK, I finally got the TDAY pics download (to my PC) and uploaded (to the net fer ya'all out there!). I actually didn't take a lot of pics on the actual t-day (I think the Oiums camera got more on Thursday...), but I got more over at Larrys... Well, we had a great dinner and a very nice weekend all around... I think Ill just let the pictures do most of the talkin...

ThanksGivin 2005 Pics! - Check em out HERE

Oh, by the way... If any of yous want copies of any of the photos that I have out here... just let me know and I will print copies at your local Walgreens or CVS. Of course, you will need to pick them up and pay fer them... but at least you can have copies if ya like... I already have the on-line Walgreens account and sent prints there and I am planning to set up a CVS account next too. Personally I think that the CVS prints are better (CVS uses Kodak and Walgreens uses Fuji (by default anyway))

...now back to the boring Misc Stuff... I'm back into the walkin/runnin routine (as I mentioned) and I am up to a whole 1/4 mile of runnin now (yippie!)... OK, I'm workin up to decent distances slowly... My full "course" is about 3 miles and I am shooting for running about a mile by January and maybe around 2 by Feb or March... OK, there... now I have my winter goal to go for... :-)

Alright, I can't write much more because it's getting late and I need to get all this stuff uploaded...

11/20/2005 -  A few cold miles... Misc Stuff... Grateful...

Well, ya might have noticed that managed to get in a few more bike miles this month (finally)... Man was it COLD though! Unless we have a heat wave all of a sudden, I don't think there is much of a chance that I'll be increasing my (lifetime?) bike mileage record much more... I've actually been getting into the walk/run routine again anyway. It's nice that I don't have to worry about getting going before I run out of daylight for that... I am only starting to run extremely short distances so far (about 1/10th of a mile)... I have finally learned (after over doing it many times) not to try to run a marathon right away and to work up to reasonable distances s-l-o-w-l-y... (especially at my age...)... I do enjoy the running though...

Other Misc Stuff... Corinne is off school now until after T-Day and is currently at the latest Harry Potter movie... Dara, Casey and I just had dinner, with Daras mom, at TGI Fridays (again! Casey always wants to go there...).

It was kind of a low keyed weekend for me... I mostly just worked on my resume... Yes, that's right, my resume. No, it's not because I am loosing my job at DHL (not yet anyway)... Actually, they have made me an offer to stay on full time! (that is why I am updating my resume... they needed a current copy to continue on with the process...). I do not know exactly what they will offer yet (salary) and I don't know, for sure if I want to change my status from consultant to employee... (I have the option to stay on as a consultant, for the usual unspecified amount of time (it could end at any time...)). There are advantages, and disadvantages to both options... The biggest advantage (that I see) to the employee option is the stability. It is very stressful knowing that your job could end at any time... the biggest advantage to consulting is that the salary is usually better than what full time positions offer (although, like I said, I don't even know what the DHL salary would be). Well, only time will tell... for now, things are up in the air (as usual)... I only know that I am very grateful to DHL... (if it ended tomorrow (I hope not...), I would still be grateful...) I guess that makes me one of the Grateful Alive!!! :-)

11/13/2005 -  Geek Update, If you live... philosophy

OK, one of my geek friends (you know who you are...) explained to me how easy it is to cut and paste from online pdfs... (about the Viking Pride article below) (actually it is not always totally easy depending on how the pdf was done). Anyway I cut and pasted the Viking Pride award description (that Casey received, from the Fremd web site) HERE.

I saw some movie, a while ago, that had some deep philosophical wisdom... It was about some lady with a farm and she was talking about her bulls (OK, you can probably see the B.S. coming, by now...). Anyway some were "fixed" and some weren't and I think that one that wasn't just attacked one of the farm hands or something... Anyway... her deep philosophy was that "If it has balls, you are going to have trouble with it"!!!

I can see some of the wisdom in that one, and it kind of stuck in my head... Well, I just created my own take off on that one and have posted it up on the top of the page here (where I used to have my famous Duct Tape and WD40 wisdom....). The philosophy is "If you Live... You are going to have problems). Well, I think I made this up... (Sometimes, you hear something and don't consciously remember that you heard it and repeat it thinking that it is original). Anyway, I think it is true...It seems like when one thing is going good, something else has to start screwing up and go bad... Kind of like the Rosanna-Rosanna-Danna saying the "it is always something...". I don't think anyone gets away without problems... It's kind of like the "death and taxes" sure thing, thing...

OK, bored yet... If not... tune in next time for another visit to the Chapman Zone....

Not much else new... Planted some sod (yea it's late in the year, but it covered a muddy area...) and raked some leaves... I've been lazy this weekend... Maybe that's where the philosophies came from... :-)

11/6/2005 -  New Class Pic, Viking Pride, Tis the Season? iPods and techy stuff...

We just got Corinnes re-take school pics... Well, the second one may be a little better in some ways, but was it worth it? I dunno... She looks good to me in both... I've updated the Class Pics links above and here is an Old-Vs-New link for your own comparison...

Casey was nominated, by one of his teachers (English) for this thing called the Viking Pride award (the Fremd high school mascot is a Viking). This is a pretty impressive award at the high school. It is awarded to about 30 students, weekly during the 2nd and 4th quarters based on nominations from the faculty. It is awarded for "those who achieve a high level of academic excellence consistently, who have turned a  personal setback from a negative to a positive or whose behavior reflects... communicating with others in an empathetic manner, modeling respect for others and the school and valuing differences in everyday relationships" (I had to type that little passage because it was in an Adobe file on the school site!)

Anyway, we are very proud of him, of course! He received a certificate, was announced on the daily school announcements, and got this card that is good for free stuff and discounts at a bunch of places by us... Unless you know where to look, it can be hard to find on the high school website and the pages change daily, so I captured the Viking Pride Recipients page here.  (see Friday, November 4, 2005)

Well, I tried to beat the holiday rush and buy some cloths before the Christmas Rush... I failed! What ever happened to the day after Thanksgiving starting the xmas shopping season??? I can't believe it. Woodfield was totally packed! Couldn't hardly park! they were playing Christmas music! So what, now we go right from Halloween to Christmas?!? fa-la-frickin-la-la-la-la-la!!! (I did manage to get some shirts and a pair of jeans... but it was at a pretty high cost)

We just got Caseys 2'nd iPod replacement. We have had some bad luck with his ipods, BUT... I still think that they really are cool! I think at some point I would like one myself... Casey has a little over 1,000 songs, that take up a little less than 4GB (out of 40GB on his model!) which is almost 3 days worth of music... (OK, it's Casey's stuff, so it's not really music... (rhythmic swearing, I call it)).

... and in other technical news... Dara got a DVD Recorder this week, which after we have checked it out, we are going to return for a better model (not a real well researched purchase). In the process though, I have learned a little about these things and I think the idea is REALLY cool! (This is almost as much fun as digital cameras...) I think VCRs are on the way out... (of course, this will take some time, but soon they will be going the way of 8 track tape decks, vinyl records and film cameras!). If anyone knows about these or has suggestions, let me know...

11/2/2005 -  Daylight Wasting Again, Some New Trails and Flashbacks, The Rest of the Weekend

OK, we're back to daylight wasting time again... and that is "virtually" the end of riding season L Of course there is still the weekends, but it's dark when I get home so that pretty much gets me back into the walking and running routine... Like I did tonight (walk only (so far...).

It is nice having it a light a little earlier... but I still think I like it at the end of the day better...and the long weekend was nice... OK, enough of that...

I had to bring the lawnmower in for some end of season repairs... I was at the south part of Schaumburg, so I decided to do some new trails (I am flashing back to Saturday now...). Well I did the eastern part of the Great Western Trail (in Dupage county) and a little of the Illinois Prairie Path (to the Fox River Trail at the the border of Elgin and South Elgin)...

I started the first trail in Glen Ellyn and I had another Major Flashback! I went right by my Midge & Art and Larry and Pattys houses!!! My brotha (Larry) and family lived at this location for many years and I made lots of visits there... I even remembered riding my Honda 90 motor bike on what is now the Great Western trail (back by the tracks...). Oh yea, and playin Frisbee in the yard with the cottonwood 'snow"... and camping there at Richs Bachelor party... (and a few hundred more memories that I can't list here (without taking all night...)) Well, the houses are gone now... L and it's just a big field now... It was still very interesting to ponder a little...

OK, the first part of the trail was pretty lame, but by the time I was on the Illinois Prairie Path, it was really nice... Had a great ride (absolutely beautiful fall day) and stopped for Dunch at a sleazy McDonalds in Elgin... I was so hungry by then that it was REALLY good! Unfortunately (now anyway), I did not bring the camera because it was a last minute thing and also I wanted to ride more than do photos... I still may write about it (without pics) on my bike site (when I get some more time...)

As for the rest of the weekend... Corinne had a party on Saturday... I thought it was going to be a costume party, but it ended up just being a Halloween (non-costume party). Dara cleaned up the basement and everyone really had a good time... Many of the parents did a "are the parents home" check while dropping off the kids... :-)

OK, I can't catch up on everythin in one night... I have a lot of other things that I should be doing now... Oh well... nothin like a nice relaxing blog session to unwind... :-) Later!

10/23/2005 -  Busse Woods Pages, Karen and Nadias Visit...

Well, I finally finished the Busse Woods Trail Pages! This actually took quite a bit of time, but I think I am getting better at these... You can see the photos here:  http://www.about-bicycles.com/busse-woods-trail.htm. I managed to reduce this to about 66 pictures... Still a lot of work...

On a related subject, I did a little checking on my search engine status for the trail pages and I found that I do very well on Yahoo, for both the text and Images, but I only do well in Google for the Images... (more later). For example, if you search for any of the trails (that are indexed) on my bike site in Google, I don't show up very well in the main listings, but if you click on the "Images" link, our about-bicycles photos are almost always number 1 (or so) and sometimes are most of the photos on the page! this may not be a big commercial advantage (like being #1 for bicycle accessories), but I think it is cool for our photos to have such a big presence on the internet! :-)

In other news... Karen and Nadia (Daras sister and our niece) were in town the last long weekend and we had a great time... Nadia was over here one night and Corinne and Nadia went to the Fremd football game (among other things) and had a nice time. I just tried something new with my photo stitching software. I "stitched" together photos of people (rather than just scenery) into a wide photo... I think it came out OK, check out our Dinner at Ellies!

I am being rushed off the confuser now (by Corinne (chatting is very important, you know...) so I'll try to update some more later...

10/17/2005 -  Ridin and Workin on Busse Woods!!

What a beautiful weekend it was this last weekend!!! I spent most of the day, Saturday, on the Busse Woods Bike Trail riding and mostly taking photos for my bike site trail pages... I actually ended up taking about 275 pictures! I am still working on formating and writing the bike trail pages and so far I have reduced the photos to 74 (but there will probably be a few more that end up on the cutting room fllor before I am done...).

It was such a nice day, that I was really getting into the photos (more so than the ride this time...). I got a little artistic, but fortunately, with digital photography, I can just throw out all of the crap! I think that I did get some nice shots though too... I can't wait to get the bike trail photo pages up, but it is just going to take some time...

One sample is my little fall leave "October" picture at the top of the page... but here's one that I kind of like... It's a slef portrait... the famous about-bicycles.com trail photographer in action!

Oh yea, in other Chicagoland news... Being the true fair-weather fan that I am, I have actually been watching the kick those little Angle fairys asses!

KCs 2006 Basketball Pics Scores and Info  - Check it out HERE