Archive 13 - 3/15/2009 to 12/6/2010

12/06/10 - Thanksgiving Plus Stuff.

Well I finally got some photos downloaded from my camera. Most are from Thanksgiving (at Brad and Andis house in Cashton Wis.) but there are a few others that I threw in for extra credit too.

We had an excellent feast at Brad and Andis. I didn't get a huge amount of photos so sorry if I missed people in the photos but at least I got a some. I also stole one photo (of me) from Aris Facebook photos. I hope I don't get sued for a copyright violation! I also threw in a few photos that I took of Corinne at Halloween and some photos of the squirrels frying to break into my attic again! They are really persistent but I think that we have them blocked off now.

In other news (before I post the link to the photos)... It looks like my bike riding season is over now. I officially ended the season at 1400 miles on my odometer. I also got in better shape by speeding up my rides this year.

And for some good news, my contract at DHL is being extended for 6 more months!!! Also, being Christmas season, my websites are doing pretty good at the moment too.

As for some bummer news, our brand new microwave that we just bought bite the dust! That sucked, but on the positive side I was able to uninstall it, return and replace it at Sears and reinstall it yesterday! I could not get that song "Money for Nothin" out of my head as I was delivering and installing the microwave oven (no refrigerators or color TVs though).

OK, enough updates and yakin... Here are the 2010 Thanksgiving (plus) Photos!

11/14/10 - Squirrels, Repairs, etc.

We have been getting a lot done with the house. Some things planned, others not. The siding and stuff is almost done now. They also painted the garage door, did the gutters and gables and stuff, fixed a few screens... lots of stuff and it is almost done now. The actual siding was done in a few days but all of these other odd jobs are being done at different times.

The only problem so far is that there was a place where a squirrel or squirrels got in the attic (through a break in the old wood facia) and even though we blocked off access, they started eating away at the new (vinal) siding to get back in!!! The siding people put a temporary piece of aluminim siding up to block where they are tyying to get in and they said that they would replace the siding that the squirrels ate once they give up.

So far the little **** are still tyying to get in! They are not making any progress anymore though. I also had some trees that were too close to the house trimmed back to so that might help also.

Well our new dishwasher has been great! Except when I couldn't use it since our water heater went out! Yea, I wasn't expecting that one but there are always unexpected house and car repairs to deal with. That set me back a little but like that old 60s song goes "you don't know what you got till it's gone". I think that song might have been about water heaters!

I am trying to get another 12 miles on my bike just to crack the 1400 bike mile marker this year, but the weather has just not been cooperating. I haven't given up yet. Next up, walking and running season!

Good sports weekend. Bears win, Bulls win! I'm especially likin da Bulls this year.

More later... Gotta git! See ya!

10/23/10 - The Homecoming Photos! New appliances.

Corinne and Steven went to Palatine's Homecoming dance a few weeks ago and I just got around to going through all of the photos to put together a homecoming dance photo page! Sorry for the delay...

Dara took a lot of photos and I think some of them came out really well. There were so many though that it took a while to pick out the best... and then I added my little captions to the photo page :-)

Well, enough yackin Here are the Homecoming Photos! <--- Click on the link or the photo -->

BTW: Corinnes boyfriend, Steven, also installed our new above-the-oven microwave that we just got with the Sears and Illinois stimulus discounts. That was a really nice surprise!

That just reminded me that I didn't mention our new appliances yet. The State of Illinois was offering 15% discounts (stimulus incentives) on appliances and the stores were offering sales to go along with that in order to get people in the store (for both). Well, we were in desperate need of new appliances so we ended up getting a new fridge, new above-the-oven microwave, new dishwasher and garbage disposal.

We got about 40% off of the price of this stuff so it ended up being a really good deal. Also, out of all of the appliances that we got, the only one that we had that still worked was the fridge (and our old one had broken shelves, broken drawers, broken water dispenser, etc.) Like I said, we really needed this stuff. (Now if we could just get new kitchen cabinets, we would be doin a lot better).

10/16/10 - New Siding, Under Construction! , Dara's Botanic Art

(Click on the photo for a few more of the construction shots)

Our new siding project, that we signed up for back in the spring, is now Under Construction! We had hail damage (in addition to plenty of other damage) to our old siding and I knew that it was possible to get insurance to pay for that. When the Korean construction people stopped by our house with the sales pitch I already knew that it was a good deal so I went for it. I also really like this construction company (it's called "My Home Remodeling"). We made an insurance claim and they agreed to pay for the hail damage.

The construction company is doing the new siding (vinyl) with a layer of insulation and Tyvek. They are also covering all of the gables and most of the other wood trim with aluminum. They are installing some new outdoor lights that I got and are fixing some screens too in addition to covering the front window frames with aluminum. They are also doing new gutters and down spouts and painting the garage door too!

They also took down our basketball net :-(. I was sad to see that go but it did cause a lot of damage where it was. I'll be mounting that back on it's stand (which I still have) if I can find all of the additional parts (I think that I still have everything for that).

They have a crew of at least 1/2 dozen guys here and expect to finish most of it today (they started late yesterday). The gutters will be done a week or so later.

I was going to do some before and after photos but I missed the opportunity for the before (except for the before shots that I took before! :-) ) I thought that the construction shots might be more interesting anyway. I'll probably do some "after shots" after all is done.

Well, the insurance company (Travelers) is paying for all of this (mostly). The whole job will be paid for by the insurance but I will lose my "no claim" deduction of $400 for a few years so it will end up costing me a little in the long run but still WAY less than the actual cost of this project.

OK that's it fer the construction news!

A few days ago, Dara went to the Botanic Gardens and got all artsy-fartsy with her camera and took a shitload bunch of photos. For some reason (?) I found this batch of photos to be pretty good (in an artsy way) so I went through them and picked some of myfavorites to add to a little photo page so see Daras Botanic Art HERE

10/9/10 - Thanks John!

Well, it's Saturday 10/9/10 and Karen just reminded me that it's John Lennon's 70th birthday! I was just doing a quick check of John some stuff on the confuser but had to take a moment to remember John and I watched a few of the videos and happy birthday messages that they put on YouTube for John.

In my opinion John was THE original and main Beatle. OK, we needed all of them to change the world and music as they did but I believe that it really started with John (sorry Paul and gang). Well, the Beatles inspired me as much (or more) than anyone else in our generation (and many to follow) so I have to say Happy Birthday John!

Please forget the name of the guy that shot him! :-( He has shamed all of us but I really wish he had a different last name! Wow, John would have been 70!

9/29/2010 - Check out the Way of the Wilds!

Finally a webpage update! Sorry for the delay again (I'm sure that Facebook gives a lot of you enough to keep up on).

Anyway, I do have one thing that I wanted to post for everyone to check out. Way back in the end of July a lady that is starting up a new magazine asked if I would contribute a biking article (on the Fox River Trail) to the magazine for an article that we would co-write. Well, that seemed like a cool thing to do and I figured that I could get a little extra PR (and hopefully a link) from the project so I wrote an article and sent it to her (with a few photos too).

I was never notified that the magazine was published but I guess it was! I need to see if I can find a hardcopy somewhere now. It's supposed to be available at Forest Preserves, Park Districts, Health Clubs, etc.

Anyway, even though I don't know where to get a hardcopy, they did post the Autumn 2010 Issue online (it is supposed to be a quarterly magazine). My (our) article is on Page 9 and there is a link to my bike site but I don't know if the link will count (for Google) since it's embedded in a PDF file.

So check out "our" article on Page 9 of Autumn Issue of Way of the Wilds Magazine. Hint: you may want to reduce the display size of the PDF just above the picture and you can also just jump to page 9 right away there too. NOTE: They changed the pages that I linked to to the current issue so I had to add my own PDF file (with just my article) so it would not disappear. Here's a link to the current Way of the Wilds Magazine site. (updated 5/7/11)

The article says that it's by Rob Chapman, but it was heavily edited and includes a lot of other stuff that I didn't write. For example: I didn't even know what "riotously" meant in the first paragraph (until I thought about it a little).

So if you want to compare my article to the magazine article, here is a copy of my original article. There are pieces of what I wrote but it was definitely edited a lot.

Another little benefit of writing this article is that we were invited to this thing at Bill Curtis's house this weekend (He's a news reporter for CBS in the Chicago area). Dara wants to go but I'm not that excited about it.

Well, that's it for my latest (second hardcopy) magazine article.

OK, back to Facebook... :-)

8/22/2010 - Latest Photos, Back to School, Trimmin, Bike News

It's been really busy the last few weeks and I'm too tired to do any real work right now so I thought that this is a good time for a website update. I also put together a page of the latest photos (below) with pictures of KCs new apartment at WIU and some other misc photos from the last few weeks.

Well, I took KC Back to School yesterday and Corinne starts her senior year on Wednesday. KCs apartment is nice and I took some photos when I was helping to move him in yesterday. The biggest news on moving him in was the bed that we bought (and had delivered to the Macomb WalMart) for his apartment. I had no idea what a huge project assembling this bed would be! It took me and KC over 3 hours to put this thing together! So that actually took a majority of the limited time that I had in Macomb (WIU) yesterday.

The photos of KCs apartment that I got were right after he moved in (and after we assembled the bed and desk chair) so not much was really setup or cleaned up yet, but I wanted to get a few photos anyway. Also it was dark by the time I took the photos so you could not see the view out the window. I also got a few photos of KC and his roommate, Tyler.

OK the other photos had to do with the projects that robbed my last 2 or 3 weekends. Trimmin and getting our new dryer. The photos of the trimming were not that great and didn't even show how massive this project was but since I took the photos, I thought that I would add them to the photo page as part of the ongoing story of our lives... :-) I also took a few shots of our dogs (Kitty and Shadow) while I was out doing the pictures in the backyard.

OK, enough yakin about the stories and photos, here are the photos:

August Photos - KCs New Apartment at WIU, Trimming, Dogs, New Dryer...

Also, in the latest Bike News, I have cracked the 1,000 mile mark for this season. Yippie! I don't think that I'll make 2,000 this year, but my job scene (at DHL) is totally up in the air so you never know... Also I have been working on getting a better workout while riding and have a new average high mph for an 11 mile ride. I averaged 15.6 for 11 miles. That's not a top speed but an average for the whole ride. It was quite a workout for me (and felt good).

8/8/2010 - What's worse - the heat or the skeeters?!? New Dryer.

It's been a pretty grueling weekend for me. First we were scheduled to get our new dryer on Saturday and I had to clean out our laundry room (which was a little worse than a "normal" laundry room) to make room for it. Then I had to trim my forest which has been getting totally out of control. I am totally physically exhausted! Thank god tomorrow is Monday! :-)

It was pretty hot and humid this weekend also so that made the forest trimming even more exhausting. I did the trimming yesterday and left the branches all over the yard to bundle and bag today (it was about 8 to 10 bundles for this round (and there is more left (maybe next weekend)).

Anyway, for bundling the branches today, I tried to work in the shade but I was getting eaten alive by skeeters!!! So then I would work in the sun which was incredibly hot and uncomfortable (it was also really humid today). So that was when the famous "what's worse - the heat or the skeeters?" question hit me.

Well, both were bad but I still wanted to get the job done so I rode my bike up to Walgreens (both of our cars were gone) and picked up some Deep Woods Off. I got the non-aerosol spray bottle which worked really well (just short bursts of skeeter repellent in a fine mist). In the old days I probably would have been more concerned about spraying "poison chemicals" all over myself, but these days I just don't ~~give a sh~~ care. :-) The stuff worked pretty well and I was able to work in the shade (mostly) and get the job done. I had to take a shower after that anyway, so let's hear it for bug spray! Yea!

Oh and the New Dryer works great too, especially since our old one just wasn't working anymore. Like that old Joni Mitchell song goes "don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you got till it's gone". Ah, nice warm dryer heat and laundry done in a short amount of time without cloths hangin all over the place.

I took a few photos of the forest trimming and the dryer but I'm just too tired to post them right now. I guess you'll just have to settle for the story. Sorry. :-(

7/31/2010 - August, Casey and Corinne, Apartment, Bike Scene

Well, here we are in late summer and we've had some really nice days recently. I've updated the logo on the top of the page to August already. I liked that photo which was from our Daytona Florida trip in 2008 (August of course).

Casey and Corinne have both finished summer school now but both are still working. KC will be quitting Wally World soon to have a little break before heading up to Western for his junior year. Corinne should still be able to work, part time, at Hair Cuttery even after she goes back to school (for her last year at Fremd). She makes really good money for a part time job. I guess that beauty school is paying off already. :-)

KC has moved a few things into his new apartment at WIU for next year. His roommate already had a lot of furniture from the apartment that he was in last year so KC didn't need a lot other than his bedrooms stuff. The apt. is on the first floor (a little lower than ground level) and they have a nice couch, big screen TV and washer and dryer! Hey, I never had anything like that in college! - Dara has some pictures of the apartment but can't find the camera right now. I'll try to post some soon.

As for me, I'm still workin away at DHL (which is good). My website profits dropped off some in July (which is bad). I am hoping that DHL goes on for a while and if not, I'm hoping to get those website profits up again.

On the bike scene, as you can see from my mileage above, I am getting close to 1,000 bike miles for this year already. If I continue working (at DHL) it may be hard to crack 2,000 miles but not impossible. Tonight was an excellent night for a ride and I ended up doing 30 miles. I was wanting to get a good workout too so I started pushing myself (for speed).

I ended up doing 30 miles at an average of 14.2 mph for the ride! My usual rides are anywhere from 11 to 20 miles so I went further tonight and I usually average more like 12 mph or so. This was really hard (for an old dude in his upper 50s!) and the last 10 miles sucked because I was pushing myself so hard that I wasn't really enjoying the ride as much as I usually do. I was glad to get a good workout but I can see why those racing bike riders are never smiling!

Well, dats it fer now. Catch cha all later!

7/13/2010 - July!Kenosha Bike Ride, Robmark Theft?!

Just a quick update since it's July already! We had a nice 4th of July weekend and there was a ton of stuff going on. The 'kids" were out doing lots of stuff and I was over to Daras moms house a few times and also had a nice bike ride around Kenosha.

Dale and I had a great bike ride (a little over 30 miles) on the Kenosha bike trail and along lake michigan on the 4th. I've never been on this route and I always like riding along Lake Michigan. I took a lot of photos that I was going to post on my bike site but I haven't had a chance to do the updates. I probably have better ones than the one on the right but that one shows a little of the lake, a light house and part of the path.

I also became aware that one of my Robmark Cards got lost or stolen in the mail! They say not to include cash in letters but I've sent my Robmark birthdat gift packs for years now without a problem. Well Blairs card did not make it to her and I did send it! She just turned 19 so that would have been a good amount and I think it got ripped off by someone at the post office.

So anyway, if anyone is missing a card (I have not missed a family birthday in years) please call our hot line immediately! Missing Robmark Hotline: 1-847-991-OurHouse!

6/26/2010 - Family Time Magazine Article.

Just a quick update on a magazine article that I interviewed for a while back that just got published for a local freebie magazine. The author of the article "Bicycling, Just You and Your Family", on Page 20 , asked me if I would share my vast expertise and knowledge of biking and bike trails with her for the article a while back and they just published the article. Unfortunately, they did not publish the article online (which has a lot of references to my bike site) even though they have a website. Here's the page on the June Edition of Family Time Magazine.

I'm going to call them and see if I can an electronic copy of the article and permission to post it on my bike site. In the mean time, all I have is a scanned copy of the article which I don't mind posting on this site, but not on my bike site.

The article has 2 of my photos and my part of the article starts in the second column of the second page. Click on My Magazine Article and blow up the photo with the little plus sign so you can read it. Don't forget to check out the Section in orange at the bottom of the article. That is mostly all my input too.

OK, that's it for my 15 minutes of fame in the freebie magazine!

6/24/2010 - Wisconsin Trip and Pics! Racing Odyssey, Corinne and Hair Cuttery

We had a GREAT (but short) trip to Wisconsin last weekend. Jake and Ashley had a really nice engagement party and bon fire and Steve was home from the Navy and Nick was home from the Marine Corps. I had a camcorder and camera but didn't get all that many photos (and I haven't seen the camcorder tape yet).

Here are just a few photos from Jake and Ashleys party and a group of pictures of the entire Oium Family (Brads chapter, that is. not the whole family (of course)).

Wisconsin Party and Oium Family Pics

I also got pulled over for speeding on the way back home! Almost ruined my record (no tickets in a lot of years). Fortunately, I guess I sweet talked him enough and he only gave me a warning.

and this just in... Corinne got a job at Hair Cuttery (in N. Hoffman Estates) and just started today!

6/12/2010 - The Big News, Birthday Updates! Bike Site Updates

There's been some major stuff goin on here so I'm thinkin that it's time for an update. First off, for those of you who have not heard yet, I am Back at DHL for another round! They called me back (for 60 to 90 days) and I started yesterday, so that was my first birthday present. My guess would be that this will go at least 90 days and if I get lucky it could go a little longer.

Well, I tried to keep a low profile on my Birthday as I usually do, but it seems that a lot of people tracked me down this year! I tried to write more out on Facebook, but it told me that I had too much on my first pass (over 800 words or characters or something) and I had to chop it down. Well, one of the nice things about the good old RobAndDara.com page is that I can type as much junk as I want to! So thanks to all of you for my cards, facebook greetings, texts and phone calls!

And in other news... My Bike Site is really starting to pick up some decent sales after all of my work and reviews. I think that I am really moving in the right direction with the bike site but unfortunately (for the website business anyway), my DHL job will make it very difficult to keep up on the bike site.

I will, of course, try to keep improving and maintaining the bike site but I know it will be much harder now. I have a fairly good tolerance for risk but the web site business is still quite unpredictable and although the DHL consulting business is not real predictable either, it is much more predictable than the website. So I'll just have to do the best that I can in both areas... and try to keep up with everything else going on too! Sheesh!

6/5/2010 - Graduations, Prom, Reviews and Riding...

Just a quick update today.

First of all we had a great time at Bryan's graduation party last weekend. I really enjoyed jammin with Bryan and his friends in the garage. It was cool that they liked a lot of Grateful Dead songs and some of the other old songs from the 60s and 70s that I know. Unfortunately, I didn't have all that many photos and the ones that I took weren't all that great so I did not put together a photo page (sorry). I guess that my contribution (if you could call it that) was more audio than visual this time. :-)

Corinne went to the Prom last night and had a good time (that's mostly all the detail that I got, but I'm the father so I probably don't hear about the good stuff. :-) ). She went with a group of friends and may have more photos, but I only got a few before-the-prom shots like the one on the right (click on the photo to enlarge, of course).

Other than that, I've just been doing more bike reviews and bike riding. I just finished my 27th bike review, which is an old person comfort bike that you can see with the link. The bike site is generating pretty good sales now but not good enough to break my current poverty status :-(. I made $114 last Monday and $190 on Wednesday (mostly on bikes, exercise bikes, kid trailers, trainers and GPS units) but the last 3 days have sucked.

I took a break from reviews and played Bike Trail Flower Photographer on Thursday and even wrote a blog entry and added a bike trail daisy page! What a Pansy I must be! :-)

5/27/2010 - a picture is worth...

5/23/2010 - KC and Wally World! Bike Stuff

Wow, I see it's been a while since my last update already! For those of you who don't already know, I drove down to Macomb to pickup Casey from WIU a little over a week ago now (on 5/13) so he is back home for the summer. I enjoyed the trip and it was nice to talk with KC on the way back.

KC is signed up for one summer school class at Harper and also applied for some jobs online. Well, I haven't been able to find a job but KC got a job right away at Wally World! OK, I just heard that term myself as I was writing up bike reviews for some bikes at Wal-Mart (aka Wally World). Anyway, KC will be working the graveyard shift. 10pm to 7am! That would not be good for me, but KC already has a partially shifted schedule anyway. It still might be hard though. His Harper class is during the day so he is still planning on taking that too. I guess he is going to be busy this summer!

As for myself, I've been working quite a bit on the bike site and sales are starting to pick up a little now. The jury is still out as to whether the bike site will generate enough profit to live on but it has potential and I don't seem to have a lot of other options jumping out at me these days anyway (no programming day jobs to be found). I guess my MS certifications and VBA training has not been enough to get me in the door anywhere (yet?)

As for my bike site, I've changed the overall look with a new template and created a separate template for Exercise Bikes and Bike Sales. So if you are shopping for bikes or looking for bike reviews you will see all the bike reviews and related pages in the right, left and upper columns and the same for exercise bikes.

The Bike and Exercise Bike reviews are time consuming but I now have 17 bike sale pages and 24 exercise bike pages and it seems to be starting to work a little. I am only getting a small trickle of bike sales but, as I mentioned, there is potential, which is why I need to get a LOT MORE reviews done.

Anyway, today was a good day and I sold an $1,800 bike and some other stuff and made $120. I have a long way to go but when I sell stuff that I am working on, it's great for the morale! For May, I've sold 4 bikes (I just finished the bike sale template on 5/9) and 7 exercise bikes.

So far I am still struggling with this stuff, but the keyword at this point is Potential!

OK, I'm not gonna realize the potential until I get back to work! So catch cha all later!!!

5/5/2010 - Mayday, Mayday

Happy Cinco de Mayo all... I don't really have any big news today but I wanted to update the month logo and bike miles... more later...

4/24/2010 - Birthday, Public Sevice Announcement, Juz Ridin and Writin...

First off, Dara had a nice Birthday last Tuesday. She got taken out to lunch, dinner and lunch again the next day and got lots of cards, calls and Facebook greetings. There was one problem that leads to the Public Service Announcement below. She lost her cell phone some time after her birthday dinner.

Public Sevice Announcement: Dara has been borrowing my cell phone until hers is found (hopefully) or replaced. So if you need to call her you may want to call my cell phone and also if you call me you may get her... We have to share for now. What a hardship! How did we ever survive in the olden days! :-)

Other than that I've juz been Ridin and Writin. The websites (bike site mostly) are still on track for my projected income this year, but it is still not close to what I would like it (or need it) to be. There is absolutely no news on the regular day job front. We have had some pretty nice bike riding days last week though!

4/16/2010 - I just had to see!

OK, It's been a long time and I just had to see what it might look like. So check out the Before and After Shots! Well, now that I know, I will be going back to the "Before" mode again soon (in maybe about a month). At least I can get a little sun tan before I go back to the original look! :-)

4/11/2010 - Beauty School Graduation.

Well, Corinne finally did it! As I said in our announcement "After years of hard work and hundreds of beautifying services". Corinne thought that the "years of hard work" made her sound old. OK, so it was 2 years of hard work. It was still quite an effort and quite an accomplishment (while still in HS too!)

Corinne is officially now a cosmonaut ...cosmetologist.

OK, without further yakin... Here are the photos of Corinnes Beauty School Graduation

4/1/2010 - 25 degrees and Snow! :-( Sold One. So Much for the Photo Tip.

Yea it was 25 degrees and snowing here in Chicago today. OK, April fools! It was a warm and beautiful Aprils fools day today. I think that it reached 80. I took a nice 22 mile bike ride!

<website shoptalk> I've been doing a lot of updates to the exercise bike page on my bike site (even though the peak season for fitness equipment is over) but I just Sold One (indirectly, via Amazon) today and that really helped my confidence and to keep me motivated. I also did a year to year comparison and if the current trend continues, I should at least have a 5 figure income from the website(s) this year. OK, I think it's still poverty level, but if I could make this kind of thing work, it would still be my dream job... Still lookin for the real world day job too...</website shoptalk>

And finally, So Much for the Photo Tip from my last entry (below). I printed a couple of the badminton photos (below also) at Walgreens and they came out pretty grainy. I think there were a couple of problems with those specific pictures and also, as I mentioned below, my camera is only 5mp. I still think it's a valid technique but it would definitely work better in better conditions and with a better camera.

3/30/2010 - 2010 Badminton Season Begins! Fast Action Photos...

The 2010 badminton season has begun and I just "developed a roll of film" from Corinnes last 2 meets. There's not a lot of pictures but I think that I finally got the hang of doing fast action photos in dimly lit gyms. Unfortunately, the gym that we were in today (Hersey HS) had a really weird yellowish light (that's not just the photos, it was actually like that).

The fast action photo trick that I used is mostly just to not zoom in at all until I load the photos on to my PC and then use cropping to do the zoom. This reduces fast action blurring and allows you to frame the action shots better too. It would be better if there were a little more light and if my camera had a higher pixel setting (it's old and only got to 5mp).

OK, enough yakin! Here are the March 2010 Badminton Meet Photos

3/28/2010 - Website Work and Bike Rides

There isn't a real lot of big news at the moment and I've mostly been workin on my bike site and getting in some nice early season bike rides. March has been very on and off as far as the weather goes (what a surprise, right?) but there have been some days that I've been out riding in shorts and a t-shirt! :-)

I had a real nice day on the bike site on Saturday. I checked my commissions and I made $258! Yikes! I thought it was a mistake but looked into it and it looks legit. Someone passed through my site and bought a $3000 mountain bike at Performance bike. Alright! I don't know why the cheapskate didn't get the 2010 model for $6000 though. :-). Then I also got $100 for a credit card approval.

Unfortunately, I think Saturdays profits were just a fluke. But I did redo the home page and all of the links on the bike site so it would be more focused and to drive traffic to where I want them to go. I also added another photo of Corinne to the home page. Check it out at www.About-Bicycles.com So maybe Corinnes picture helped with the big sales or maybe it was all my work on the site. But like Steve Martin used to say on SNL... "but Naahh!"

Mostly I have been workin on the Exercise Bike pages because there is good potential for profit in that area. Unfortunately, it's the off season for exercise bikes so I won't see the results of my work for another 6 months or so now :-(.

I still may buy a Bike GPS unit so I can improve my bike GPS pages. Bike GPS is the next most profitable item after bikes and exercise bikes.

OK, sorry for all the shop talk but I just felt like yakin about it a little bit. Later...

3/12/2010 - The Accident Follow-up... First Ride!

Well, the insurance company totaled our old 1998 Honda :-( but they did give us a real good compensation for it (more than I think we could have gotten by selling it). So, of course we needed a new car... I am not in a position to buy a real "new" car at the moment so we decided to kick in a little extra cash and upgrade a few years anwyway.

So Check out our new car here! What do you think???

OK, just kidding on that. That was our loaner car from the insurance company. It's a Chevy HHR and I think it's really ugly and I did not like that car at all! We were embarrassed to drive it.

What we actually really did get was another black Honda Accord (just like we had!). The difference is our new one is 7 years newer (a 2005 instead of a 1998), has 46k miles, is a 2 door (the 98 was a 4 door), and has black interior (the 98 had gray interior). We got it at CarMax and I think it was a good price. We had to use the insurance money and then kick in the upgrade money ourselves, but in the long run I think it should be a good deal.

So Check out our REAL new car here! What do you think???

Daras old Accord was also totally stripped and did not even have A/C. Well this one has A/C and some other stuff so I think that this pretty much insures that neither of the kids (ages 17 and 19) will want to borrow my mini-van anymore!!! :-) :-(

...and in other news, It's 52 degrees here in Chicagoland and I just did my first bike ride of the year!!! So, I've updated my bike odometer running total at the top of the page as usual. And the season begins!

3/4/2010 - The Accident Report (Honda vs Mercedes), pacing Myself

Well, there's lots of news to report so I better get to it. First of all, Corinne got into a Car Accident last night. Don't worry, she's OK (mostly) and it was not her fault. Corinne just turned on to Palatine road (from NW Hwy) heading west and this 78 year old guy in a Mercedes pulled out from the Walgreens right in front of her. The cops and witnesses all agreed that it was the other guys fault and he did get a ticket.

As for the accident, both airbags worked and Corinne had her seat belt on. She is sore. Her knee is the worst but also her neck and chest were sore in addition to just being sore all over. She was in Daras (98) Honda Accord and that had to be towed away. All in all, it's a bad thing, of course, but it could have been much worse. We are just glad that Corinne (and the other guy) are OK.

(click on photos to enlarge)

Oh yea, as for the Mercedes guy. Don't worry about him. After talking to the insurance company, we found out that he has 2 other Mercedes at home! But this was the 2010 model that he just got last week! I think it was about an $80,000 car!

OK, well on to the second page stories... Ralph I might be driving a bus for pace soon! To the moon Alice!!! Well, OK eventually I might be driving a bus, but for now there is a programming job at Paces's corporate office, in Arlington Heights that is for my very specific programming skill set (Powerhouse) and that I fit very well. I have an interview setup for next week. I know that I can't take anything for granite (except counter tops) so we'll just have to see how that one goes. At least there is some good potential!

As for other news (not even in the headlines (above), I just completed my final project for my VBA class. About 3 months early!!! It's a pretty cool calendar project that I did in Excel. I create a calendar (to hang on the wall), for a specified year, that adds recurring dates (like birthdays, etc.), from a list (within the spreadsheet), to the calendar grid and also calculates the major holidays and prints them. It also allows space for personalized photos at the top of each month and prints on regular 8.5 x 11 paper (in portrait mode). If anyone wants a copy, just let me know and I'll send ya one.

2/21/2010 - I'm Bi! Favicon Tests, Class Stuff

First of all, I am now Bi Bi-Monitored that is (or double monitored). When I was in Wisco last week, I saw that Larry and Brad both had 2 monitors hooked up to their PCs and found out from them that it's a pretty simple process to setup. I was wondering where I could find another monitor so I opened my eyes! and duh, there is one right in front of me on my desk! My ol98 monitor. I also had 2 monitor jacks in the back of my PC. My ol98 monitor was a vga connection and my new PC uses dvi so I had to go get a converter. They were normally $13 at Best Buy but I got one that had been opened and returned and marked down to $4!

So now I am working with the setup shown to the right >>>

It's really nice to have the extra screen space! My ol98 monitor is not as nice as the new one (and is huge too) but it's nice to keep extra windows available on the screen. I can also open a TV window and drag it to the right monitor and watch while surfin, or workin or whatever. Not bad for a $4 investment!

I also learned a little bit about Favicons this week and put one on this page and on my bike site page (sort of, one more step on that one but it should show up in most browsers).

For those who don't know what favicons are, they are the little tiny images that display in the address bar of your browser and in your farorites or bookmarks in your browser. Like the "Y!" for Yahoo or the Star for Mapquest, the "W" for Wikipedia, etc.

I originally had a blue dog foot print (on this page) but changed it to a Blue C and a Redish dog print. The About-Bicycles site has an "AB" type of image. IE (Internet Explorer) is the worst for showing the favicons so even though the new one is out there you might still see the old one (good going Microsoft!). You need to delete your temp internet files and cookies to clear the old one out and there still could be problems in some cases. The other browsers (like Firefox) seem to work better.

The images can only be 16x16 pixels so they are tiny and you can't add much detail. I tried to make the "B" in the About-Bicycles image look like bike wheels but it doesn't even show up at 16 pixels.

Here are the Favicons that I created for the 2 pages that I just described. I am including the 64x64 images so you can see them a little better:

fav1 <This is the one that should show up now (at the very top of this page and on the tabs above).

fav2 < I tried this but the "F"s did not show up well at 16x16.

fav3 < This is the www.About-Bicycles.com favicon, but you can't tell that the "B" has spokes at 16x16.

I am also learning a ton of good ~~crap~~ stuff in my VBA Class! I have a solid A going and am about 8 weeks ahead so I should finish the class next week. :-) It would be nice if I could actually use what I am learning on a job but who knows what will happen there. Even if I don't use this stuff on a job, I am learning stuff that could come in handy at times anyway.

2/15/2010 - Wisconsin Vacation! Certification News

I just had to get away from all the stress of my VBA class :-) so I took a nice little vacation to the scenic winter wonderland of Wisconsin (to see my family). I stayed at my brothers and nieces house and had a very nice trip.

Well no use yakin on and on about that. Let's just get right to the photos!!

Wisconsin Winter Vacation

In some other News, this breaking news is just in (today). I just got a call for a possible interview for an Access job in Long Grove. What is interesting is that all my devious plotting and planning (getting my MS Certifications) is paying off. The guy that I just talked to said that this place is very big on the MS certifications even though I am light in the Access experience area. It looks like I may have squeaked by with my minimal Access experience but if I do get the interview (and/or job) then it will be the certification that got me in the door! Maybe it will not go anywhere but if it does, you know you'll hear about it here.

2/7/2010 - The New Resume, No February Pics, VBA Stuff

Well I just wanted to post a copy of the New Resume. No, it's not mine! That would be boring. It's Corinnes! Corinne is about to graduate from beauty school and she put together a resume to pass out at the solons that they visited on Friday. She still needs to graduate (which will be real soon) and get her license but I was really impressed with the resume that she put together. I never even had a "resume" in high school (or even in college)! OK, well here's Corinnes RESUME (as a web page). (I changed her actual personal info (phone#s and address).

Also, I have been trying to use a collection of my own photos for the month logo that I keep at the top of this page and discovered that I never even had one for February. I used to use the real heart photo with the arrow through it but I didn't feel like using that one this year so I put together a new one. It seems like I don't have many pictures in February. Even when I checked back a few years. I guess it's just not a real inspirational month for photos (for me anyway). The one that I used above isn't all that great but it is from February and current since I just took it one of the last times that I was out on the bike trail behind our house. I'll try to get a better February photo some time this month.

I am currently taking the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) Class at Harper. I love the online format because you can work at your own pace and you don't have to drive over to the college and sit through classes. I am about 7 weeks ahead right now and will probably finish the class in February (instead of May when it actually ends). I am learning a lot of helpful stuff about all of the MS Office products and in an organized way (rather than just trial and error as I often do).

1/24/2010 - Heat Wave, BP, Certifications and Classes (but no work)

Wow, it was in the forties today, a lot of the snow has melted and you can even see the grass in many places! Of course that means that it is real wet and sloppy outside, but at least the Heat Wave is nice.

Well, I was wanting to monitor my Blood Pressure so we went out and got a BP monitor. The second reading that I took yesterday was really high so I was pretty disappointed about that but the idea is to be aware and make changes if necessary.

Well, I've been trying to do as good as I can with diet and exercise and I am trying to get better, but it is a constant job. I know that I'm not the only one out there that is trying to improve on that stuff. :-) I also just completed a really cool spreadsheet to keep track of and monitor my BP (isn't that cool? ...and how do you spell geek?)

Well, I finally finished my Microsoft Certifications and I've already put them on my resume. They are not that big of a deal, but it's just one more thing that might help these days. Of course, I liked the classes too. I am currently in a VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) class at Harper. Not much happening in the job market at the moment.

I got an email about the logo for my certifications and Microsoft has all sorts of rules on how you can use the logos and stuff. Shit I hope I am not breaking any of their "Rules" but this is what I got:

MCAS

(I was gonna put a naked lady next to the logo to emphasise my point about the rules, but I guess I'll keep this update PG rated :-) )

1/5/2010 - New Format, The 1960s Movies!

On a technical note, I just converted this page to the New Dreamweaver Format and achieved from 3/5/20009 back... I hope there are no problems with the new format. If so, call our help line in India at 1-800-555-1234. It was a pain to convert this old page format, but in the end it should be easier.

OK now on to the fun stuff! I just converted some old 1960s Family Movies, that I just found on a VCR tape to DVD disks and to a digital format for the internet and burning to DVDs (for archival). I really wanted to get this stuff into a digital format before it degraded even further than it already has. I wish I could find the original 8mm movies (I have no idea where they are).

Anyway, the video that I just made is from an old VCR tape (that has degraded already) which was made from camcording an old 8mm film as it was being played. These movies are from the 50s and 60s and there is no sound so I added a sound track. The sound track is mostly from original songs that were popular at that time (to try and keep it real (compared to what! (that's a song))).

OK, enough yakin here is the: 1960s Racing and Camping Movie Video!!!

1/2/2010! - Happy New Year!, Walkin Hard!

Well, first of all Happy New Year to you all! I hope you all had a nice New Years Eve and Day. Mine was nice and pleasantly boring. We (Dara and I) did not do anything on New Years eve although Casey and Corinne were out all night. We knew where there were though. Corinne was at an all night thing with her church group and Casey went to NIU, in Dekalb (not with a church group, I think... :-) ) Then I went over to Dales on New Years Day Eve and had pizza and watched some movies.

As for today, I just did a pretty Hard Walk in the snow. No snow shoes this time, but I did walk on the bike path which had quite a bit of snow on it and was pretty rugged. I think that walkin in the snow can be almost as hard as walkin in sand (depending on the conditions of each). Actually, even though it was hard, part of my goal is to get a good workout so it's OK for that.

The other factor is that it is about 9 degrees with a brutal wind chill today. The cold did not bother me too much except anything that was exposed (parts of my face) and having to wear so many layers of cloths! Anyway it was a nice 3 mile walk/workout and it reminded me of one of the movies that I saw last night: Walk Hard - The Dewey Cox Story. How appropriate to have a nice Hard Walk after watchin Walk Hard! :-)

As for the Walk Hard movie, it was a really stupid/funny movie (my kind of show). It's kind of along the same line as the Airplane movie but it is a spoof on all of the superstar musician movies where the musicians make it big, get hooked on drugs, lose it all and go to rehab and make a come back. I think it spoofs the Johnny Cash movie, the Temptations one and the Ray Charles movie (and probably others with a similar theme too). Anyway, I liked it, but keep in mind it was as stupid as it was funny. :-)

12/27/2009 - Christmas 2009, and Snow Shoein...

Well, we had a real nice traditional Christmas. Daras sisters family came in from Minnesota, we had a nice xmas eve dinner at Daras brothers house and xmas day at Daras moms house. I was actually trying to get some more camcorder video, since I really haven't taken a lot recently so I was concentrating on that and did not get a lot of photos to post this year :-( Sorry.

I have been wanting to try Snow Shoeing this year and Dale was nice enough to let me borrow his snow shoes to try it today. We brought our cameras and we did manage to get quite a few photos today as we were out snow shoeing and xctry skiing at some forest preserves by the Des Plaines River. Well, without a lot more yaking about it, here are the:

Snow Shoeing By the Des Plaines River Photos

Later, Rob.

12/06/2009 - Thanksgiving 2009 Photos, 2009 in 2009!

Sorry for the delay but the Thanksgiving 2009 photos are in! I didn't really think that I did my best photography work this year, but I picked a selection that I think should capture the feel of Thanksgiving this year. We had an excellent time (except maybe for Larry since he ended up getting very sick). Anyway, here are the photos!

Thanksgiving Friday 2009!

And, I guess that the biking season is officially over for me now since I made my goal of over 2,000 miles for the year. OK, I worked it out so it came out to exactly to 2009 so I could remember it very easily! :-) Of course I've already blogged about my bike mile goals here on my bike site blog (scroll down to the last reply), so no use rewriting all of that here too.

Well, I gotta go see how Da Bears are doing now. I don't see how they could be doing any worse then most of the rest of the season.

11/14/2009 - Chicago Lakefront Path and Photos, Workin, Classes, Ridin

I just uploaded some Chicago photos that I took from the Chicago Lakefront Path Ride that Dale and I took yesterday. We have been trying to do this ride for about 2 months now and yesterday was the first nice Friday that we were able to go. We strayed from the main path quite a bit and I was able see some places and get some photos from places that I had not bean to before. :-)

Here are the Fall Chicago and Lakefront Photos

In other news... It looks like I will be Workin real soon now. They say when it rains it pours. Well, just as I was about to do my interview for the Rhode Island job I got a call from DHL and they have some temporary work for me now too. It looks like I got the Rhode Island job but there are some things that still need to be worked out. I am hoping that I can put off Rhode Island until January and work at DHL until then but all these things still need to be worked out. More later as I find out what the deal is.

In the meantime, I have also been working on my Access and Excel certification Classes at Harper. I am just about done with the Excel class and will need to setup the practice and real certification exam. If I go to RI, I want to get this done before I go. I am only a week or so ahead in the Access class because it took a couple of weeks to get the book for the class. This stuff does take a little time and is keeping me busy on top of everything else.

And finally, I've Ridden quite a few bike miles in order to make my 2k bike miles goal for this year and I would probably not have a problem doing the additional miles if I was still out of work, but I will probably be working as soon as next week and that will really limit my late season miles since there is not much daylight left after working hours and there may not be enough time on the weekends. So close, but still so far! :-)

11/4/2009 - 2000 in 2009? RI?

Well, I wasn't originally going for any major bike mile distance goals this year but it is starting to look like I could possible make the 2000 mile mark this year so I have started pushing myself a little just to see if I can do it. Right now I need 250 more miles in November (and possibly December) to make that goal. It's gonna take some good weather and some work for me but we'll see how it goes...

There has been a job opening in Rhode Island that I qualify pretty well for but have resisted applying to because they are not willing to allow a work from home (telecommuting) option and I didn't really want to work out of state. Well, as time goes by and money starts to run low, I have gone ahead and applied to this job. The pay is pretty good but the working out of state expenses will eat up quite a bit of the pay. Well, if this happens, I'll be sure to let ya'all know!

10/25/2009 - Casey Back for Wedding (Photos Below)

The big news for this week was that Casey was back in town for his friends Tony and Denae's wedding. Casey came back Friday and just left to go back to WIU (after that terrible Bears game!). We were all invited but I hung back (home) for various reasons. So Dara, Casey, Corinne and Casey's friend Nick went to the wedding together.

The wedding was downtown and the wedding gang (mentioned above) went to the Signature Room, at the top of the John Hancock building for lunch before the wedding. I thought that was a nice idea for a special occasion like this and it sounds like they had fun and a good meal. You will see the sights in the photos below.

So here are the wedding pictures (that Dara took mostly) of Casey and Nick (in coats and ties!), the lunch at the Hancock building and the wedding.

The Downtown Wedding Photos

10/13/09 - Back to School

Well, (like Rodney says) I get no respect, I tell ya, no respect. I can't seem to snag a job and my online businesses haven't worked out as well as I hoped for so I guess I'm going Back to School! I decided that I would do a tek skills update with some of the more current and main stream products. I'm takin two classes at Harper for preparation for a few MS certifications (for my resume) and also to be a little more proficient with the products. The two classes are online and are designed to prepare you for MCAS certifications in Excel and Access.

I also wanted to take the VBA (Visual Basic for Applications) class, but unfortunately, that is a regular 3 hour lecture/lab and will only be available at the start of the next semester (spring). I may also take the Visual C# class in the spring.

I talked to some people at Harper and was referred to the computer department coordinator, and to my surprise, it is my next door neighbor!!! I knew he worked at Harper and was knowledgeable about computers but never really had an in depth conversation with him (until today). He really knows his shit and was very helpful!

The costs for the classes add up but my neighbor also explained how I can get some great software products as a benefit to being signed up as a Harper student and taking the classes. Like Office Ultimate for $60 and Visual Studio for free (student versions "intended" to be used for classes only).

10/1/2009 - Corinnes Junior Picture.

One more photo update. We just received Corinnes Junior Pictures and here she is! Sorry, they don't do college photos each year for Casey :-( I guess we'll just have to keep going to the studio for those.

(click the photo to enlarge).

9/29/2009 - KC and The Dogs, Powder Puff Game

I just wanted to post a couple of quick photos tonight. First of all, whenever KC is home he is always good at taking the girls (our dogs) for walks on the path behind our house. So I went out back as he was coming back and I got a photo of KC and The Dogs

(click the photo to enlarge).

Also, we just went to the Powder Puff Game tonight. Corinne was a receiver (see the photo) and it was a nice night for the game. It was Juniors vs Seniors and unfortunately the seniors won (Corinne is a Junior, of course). I enjoyed the game but there was one thing missing. They usually have boy cheerleaders for the PP game and they didn't have them this year for some reason. It's all just for fun and that would have added another dimension to the game.

(click the photo to enlarge).

9/23/2009 - Maybe the Drive up Window at MickyDs, New Bike Site Gift Items (via Zazzle), KC This Weekend

Well, I thought that I better do an update since it's been a while and I haven't updated everyone on the MickyD thing. I originally thought that I pretty much had that job wrapped up but it turns out that there were 2 of us that made it to the final interviews. That was still pretty good odds but I guess that I drew the short straw and they took the other guy. So, I guess I may be on my way to a position at the drive up window after all! :-(

Well, it doesn't look like I'll get rich (or even make a living) with the bike site profits, but I still enjoy trying different things and I have been wanting to put Bike Site Gift Items (like t-shirts, hats, coffee mugs, etc.) out on the site for quite a while now, but have not had the time or resources to set that type of thing up. Well, I just discovered the Zazzle.com site which allows me to design and sell these types of things very easily (with most of the profit going to them, of course).

I get quite a bit of bike site traffic to my Chicago area bike trail pages and have discovered that there are no t-shirts, etc. specifically related to these trails. Anyway, I've used the Fox River Trail as my first test and put together a quick t-shirt from one of my photos. You can get to this at the links at the bottom of these pages: http://www.about-bicycles.com/fox-river-bike-trail-north.htm and http://www.about-bicycles.com/fox-river-bike-trail-south.htm .

I'll probably be adding quite a few more items in time, but this is at least a start. I also posted an entry to the About-Bicycles Bike Blog if you are interested in that.

And finally, KC will be coming home this weekend This is his first weekend back since school started so we will be looking forward to seeing him and hearing all of the details of his first weeks back at WIU. OK, well, maybe a summary of how it's going (if we are lucky) :-).

9/6/2009 - More Bike Trail Videos, Exercise Bike pages, Workin at MickyDs!

Wow, I guess I got behind on my updates again. I put a link on Facebook for the last bike trail video that I did but I never added it here. So in case you missed the FB link here's the Chicago Lakerfront Pics and Chicago Lakefront Video that I did a few weeks ago. I went on a really beautiful and and it was a really nice ride, although it was a lot of work doing the pics and video.

I also rode the Des Plaines River Trail (DPRT) last week from Lincolnshire / Half Day to just before the Wisconsin border and back (58 miles) and video taped that trail. I have not had a chance to edit and upload that video yet. The DPRT is the last major bike trail video that I had intended to do this year. There are still plenty more trails to do but this will give me 9 good bike trail videos out on the bike site to see how they do for popularity and links.

Right now I am working on some Exercise Bike pages or Stationary Bike pages on my bike site. This is for the commercial side of the site, of course, which is not nearly as much fun as doing the bike trail pics and videos but if it brings in some cash, I could use it. I hope to have these pages posted later today or tomorrow and that will be in plenty of time to get them listed in Google for peak season. Only time will tell how these pages will do.

It is looking like I may have to resort to workin at a McDonalds!!! I don't know if I'll be flippin burgers, makin fries or workin the drive-up window but I've done 3 phone interviews for a job at the McDonalds corporate headquarters in Oakbrook. OK, so it's the corporate headquarters and I don't think that they have a drive thru (although, I think that the office cafeteria is a... well, what else... a McDonalds)!

I interviewed with one of the main consulting companies that does most of McDonalds IT outsourcing and made it past the first 3 phone interviews. The funny thing is that I did 2 of these phone interviews on my cell phone while I was out on the DPRT bike trail! This job is for a 6 month contract doing MS Excel and MS Access work mostly and does not pay nearly as well as my previous programming jobs but it will bring in some income and could be a good opportunity. I still have one interview left, but it sounds like it's pretty likely that I got it unless I have some problem on this last interview.

Would you like fries with your spreadsheet today sir?

8/23/2009 - Back to School, New Bike Trail Videos

Well we drove Casey Back to School (Western, WIU in Macomb), helped him to move in on Friday (then drove back) and Corinne goes back to school on Wednesday. Caseys new dorm seems pretty nice and he seems to like his new roommate that he just met yesterday too.

I just finished The McHenry County Prairie Trail Video which completes the Fox River and Prairie Trail video set. I had a new idea to upgrade the music for the videos. I am going to find some good musicians on CDBaby.com and email them for permission to use their music in exchange for the exposure that it will get on my website. My current 6 videos average 500 to 600 visitors a month with an average viewing time of about 4 minutes each. That is pretty decent exposure and it may improve over time also. Knowing musicians egos (from first hand experience) I’m sure many of them will allow the use of their music for good free internet exposure. Then I will get much better quality music for the videos for free!

And on to the next video. I have been wanting to ride the Chicago Lakefront Path and get photos and videos all summer now. Well, tomorrow is supposed to be in the 80s and looks like the day! If all goes as planned, I will be driving into the city (to the lakefront) tomorrow and ride the 20 mile (1 way) Chicago Lakefront Path and record video in one direction and take photos in the other direction. That should be an interesting ride and great video and photo pages for the bike site!

Now if I could just start generating an income again... :-(

8/13/2009 - Back from Our Colorado Vacation and the Photos and Video are in!

We got back from Our Colorado trip yesterday (early am) and I just finished filtering down our 717 photos (from 3 cameras) to about 170 for your viewing pleasure! :-)

We flew into Denver and made a loop through a lot of cool mountain areas in Colorado and flew back out from Denver. The photo pages are in order but here's a summary of our trip also:

Wed - Flew into Denver, went to Rocky Mtn Natl Park and Grand Lake
Wed Night - Stayed at Daven Haven Cottages in Grand Lake - We had a live concert outside of our hotel room (until about 11:30pm) by Johnny Sketch and the dirty notes (here's a music video of theirs). I really liked the music even though I was exhausted and there was no way that I could sleep through a live concert a few yards away!
Thu - Rented ATVs in Grand Lake! Then drove to Glenwood Springs
Thu Night - Stayed at AmericInn in Glenwood Springs
Fri - Drove to Winter Park and took Hwy 550 through Ouray, Silverton and into Durango
Fri Night - Stayed at Comfort Inn in Durango
Sat - Went to Vallecito (vi-yeh-SEE-toe) Lake just outside of Durango then drove to Alamosa
Sat Night - Stayed at Comfort Inn in Alamosa
Sun - Went to the Great Sand Dunnes! Drove to Manitou Springs (by Pikes Peak)
Sun Night - Stayed at Comfort Inn in Manitou
Mon - Went to "The Garden of the Gods" in Manitou in the afternoon then to the Cubs/Rockies game in Denver at night (the Cubs shamed us!).
Mon Night - Stayed at Comfort Inn in Manitou
Tues - Went to the garden of the Gods Trading Post in Manitou then to the U.S. Olympic Training Center and U.S. Airforce Acedemy in Colo Spgs on the way to the airport - Flew back late Tuesday.

Wow, I guess that's a summary of most of it anyway! OK, enough yappin, here's the photos that you've all been waiting for!

Our Flight, Boulder, Rocky Mtn Park, Grand Lake

Grand Lake Moose and ATV Adventures!

On the Road to Winter Park and 550 to Ouray , Silverton and Durango!

Vallecito, The Great Sand Dunes and Cubs game

The Garden of the Gods, US Olympic Training Center and US Air Force Academy

I also put together a video from the camcorder and misc camera videos and have uploaded the video to YouTube. It starts a little slow but it gets pretty cool once you get to the ATV part! It's a little less than 6 minutes total, but at least check out the ATV part (that Corinne took on her camera) at about 2 minutes into the video. I added some Joe Satriani music to the background (I hop I don't get in copyright trouble!).

Check out the 2009 Colorado Vacation Video HERE!

8/2/2009 - More Bike Trail Videos, Misc Odd Jobs

I don't have a real lot to report right now because I have been so wrapped up in recording and uploading new Bike Trail Videos to the bike site. Riding the trails is great but recording while you ride is still quite a bit of work and takes some of the fun out of the ride.

Based on my website stats, I see that people are watching these bike trail videos and I have a fairly unique thing out there that will add some more value to my bike site. I wish that I could do a little higher quality but this is the best that I can do with the equipment that I have and the background music that I already have available. If this were my main job or a significant project I would take the time and spend the money to upgrade the things that I could upgrade.

So I have completed the Fox River Trail Southern Region Video and the Fox River Trail Northern Region Video but I haven't completed the McHenry County Prairie Trail editing yet although I did the recording when Casey and I went from Dundee to Wisconsin.

I tried real hard to get the FRT videos to come out good because it is such a popular trail but I’m not sure if it came out that great or if I am just getting more particular. I still kind of think that my Busse Woods one is the best so far. There are a lot of things involved in getting a video to come out good and I think that you need a lot of luck (or maybe some talent) to get them to come out good. If my videos are like my photos then I will need to videotape the FRT about 10 times to get 1 really good video! Let’s see I did about 65 miles one way from Oswego to Wisc, so 10 trips both ways would be 1,300 bike miles to get a really good video of the FRT! I guess I’ll just go with what I already have.

Nothin new on the day job front. I never heard back about the Rhode Island thing, so I don't think that will happen. I've had some other people talk to me about some Misc Odd Jobs but nothing significant has come from that. For example, I got a call for a 1 week Excel and macro job job with PepsiCo in Barrington and I have had a couple of requests for websites and website work but nothing significant in that area. Speakin of websites and website traffic, I had 22,188 visitors to my bike site in July!

7/27/2009 - Demi and Tristins Birthday Party!

We had a great time at Demi and Tristins birthday party in Aurora yesterday! It was an excellent day, the food was great, the location was nice (we could be inside or outside) and I think everyone (especially the kids) had a great time!

Why waste more time yappin? If a picture is worth 1,000 words, here's about 48,000 words worth:

Demi and Tristins Birthday Party Photos!

7/25/2009 - Busse Woods Trail, Wisconsin and Back, Facebook Photos, Rhode Island?

I see by my last update below that I haven't mentioned the Busse Woods Trail. Well I have completed this video and I think that it is possibly my best one yet. You can see it at The Busse Woods Bike Trail Video. Based on my website stats, I see that people have viewed the 4 bike trail videos 274 times and average about 3 to 4 minutes each visit watching them. I think that's pretty decent for people to voluntarily watch these videos for that long when they are not even porn, news or celebrity stuff!

The other news that I have is that Casey and I did another bike trip from Dundee Illinois to Genoa City Wisconsin on the Fox River and Prairie Trails last week (a 64 mile round trip!). We had a nice time and made it back way before dark this time.

I also posted a handful of photos in my Facebook area. I still like doing my updates here but I do surf Facebook occasionally now too.

...and finally it looks like the Kewill job is not going to happen in the short term but I did get a call for a company that needs someone with my exact skill sets in Rhode Island. It's only been one phone call so far but I was trying to see if I could work out a telecommuting setup. That may not work so I might consider working in R.I. for a few months. Interesting, but I'm not sure if that is really going to happen or if I want to deal with the travel hassle. We will see what the future brings...

That's it fer now all...

7/12/2009 - Rides and Videos, Logo and Payoff, Cubs GamePhotos

As you can tell by my (evil) bike mileage number above (666), I have been getting in some good rides recently. I just finished the Bike Trail Videos for these two bike trails

Green Bay and Robert McClory Bike Trail Video and Palatine and Deer Grove Bike Trail Video
(Don't forget to turn your speakers on, there is a sound track too)

I also did a 30 mile ride on the Des Plaines River Trail with Dale yesterday.

Now that I have a few videos done I also put together a page for all the Bike Trail Videos on the website. Also, notice that I now have Corinne as the bike rider on the about-bicycles logo at the top of each page! Also it looks like I am seeing at least a small improvement on my bike site profits from all of the work I did in April and May. My bike site sales have doubled! Of course, it's such a small amount doubling isn't that great. I still need it to double about 4 more times to be significant.

Here's a return of the Cubs game sine I just got the photos downloaded and also did some photo shopping of one of them. Cubs Game Photos.

That's it for now... Later all!

7/4/2009 - Goodbye DHL again, Cubs Game! Portraits

Well, Happy 4th everyone! It's been a pretty busy week and weekend. First of all my DHL project is completed and I am off work (or out of work or whatever) again. It was nice to be back and felt like I never left. Now I am hoping for the Kewill job to come through although it would be best if I had a little time in between. I will follow-up with them but maybe next week.

I had a last minute chance to go to a Cubs Game on Thursday (my last day at DHL) and I decided to go. The trip had been planned by Daras family for months now and I originally opted out but had a second chance to go and took it. That was a great decision! What a game! If your not a Cubs fan you may not know about it but the Cubs won and there were some really exciting moments. It was also a beautiful night for a baseball game! I am so glad that I went!

Dara's sister, Karen, and her family are in town from Minnesota and there has been a lot going on with the family and in Glenview. Another event that has been planned for a while was to have a family Portrait of Daras side of the family done. We went to a place in "The Glenn" called "Portrait Innovations". It was a pretty good deal and we got quite a few photos. I randomly picked a selection of some of the photos from the samples that we got on disk. There are a ton more but these photos should give you a good idea of how they came out. Enjoy and catch ya all later!

Family Portraits from Portrait Innovations

6/13/2009 - Bye bye House, Hello DHL again, and Kewill too... Family News, First Bike Trail Video

Man it's getting hard to keep up on everything! Now I have this page, my bike site blog and Facebook to keep up with. I just realized how out of date I am on everything! OK, well let's get to the news!

First of all bye bye to the "other house" (and good riddance). I started to get a little sick right when we were almost out of there but had to keep moving stuff anyway. Then, right after the move I got called back to DHL again! It was for a short one week project but it has already been extended to almost a month. I am glad to be back at DHL even for a short amount of time.

Then, on top of that, the company that provides the core (brokerage) software to DHL called me for a possible job with them (thank to the referral from my boss at DHL). They still need to finalize some stuff and I will need to interview and work things out but I am a very good fit for that position so I think that job will most likely work out.

All of this after not seeing any improvement on my websites, which I was really hoping for. So basically, things are looking pretty good right now.

I guess those last few paragraphs could have fallen under the <shop talk> tag :-)

My birthday was pretty nice except that I was really sick by then and am still recovering now. We had a nice family dinner at home (which I wanted) a steak and lobster dinner and choco cake! Yumm!

In the Family News, Casey is taking 2 summer classes at Harper (Speech and Philosophy) and Corinne is ramping up again at beauty school. They both have their drivers licenses this year and are enjoying summer and mostly try to borrow Daras car (the Honda Accord) cause it is supposed to be cooler than a mini-van or something :-) but they will take the mini-van if they have to so there are times when Dara and I get stuck at home with no car.

And I finally finished and posted my first bike trail video. I wasn't real happy with the quality of the video itself and may redo it at some point but I wanted to get it completed so I could use the same format and background music on other bike trail videos. I had hoped to do quite a few bike trail videos this summer but with my new work opportunities I may not get that many done. Anyway, this is the bike trail that starts from behind our house. It goes quite a long way now!

Check out the
Algonquin Bike Trail Video
and don't forget to turn on your speakers for the original music!

5/25/2009 - A beautiful Memorial Day weekend, Almost out of the other place.

Well, it's been a really nice Memorial Day weekend here. I've taken a few bike rides but have been a little burned out from clearing out the other house. I'll really be glad when June 1st (closing day) is over.

No change on the job scene or the website traffic scene. I wrote a blog entry about the bike trail videos that I am working on (Here at the Bike Blog).

We have moved a bunch of crap stuff from the other place to a storage unit (not the right solution to the problem, but a quick and workable solution), donated a bunch of stuff and have moved some stuff here. The people that we donated stuff to were really grateful for it which is a total win/win situation! We got rid of stuff and other people got stuff that they needed.

For example (I just checked and my for sale by owner site is still up) on THIS PAGE we donated the bunk bed in the top picture (bedroom #1) and the 5 piece furniture set in the bottom picture (bedroom #3). We have a place coming for the furniture in bedroom #2 next week.

We moved the orange couch and light colored chair from THIS PAGE to our house. Here's a picture of the couch in our basement and the chair in the master bedroom. So as you see I've been pretty busy "moving".

5/19/2009 - Another day another dollar (literally - bike site updates), Other House, Misc News

Well, I've been doing some misc stuff lately so I thought that I would do a quick family and friends update. I am actually very disappointed with the lack of results that I've seen from all of my SEO updates on the bike site. I've put in a couple of months worth of work and my website traffic has only increased a very minor amount which would be normal for the better weather anyway.

There is still a possibility that I'll get a big jump in traffic when the SEs catch up to my updates but it's not enough to depend on right now so I'm not sure how much more effort I'll be putting into this project. I will, however, be doing a lot of bike trail photo and video updates though. This way I'll be improving the site by doing things that I enjoy and would pretty much do anyway (although the photos and videos get to be a fair amount of work too). If worse comes to worse the bike site will end up being more of a "hobby" site that generates a little spare cash.

In the mean time, I have applied to some regular grown up jobs too but no nibbles in that area (yet).

As for this month I have mostly been working on getting the other house emptied out and ready for closing (on 6/1). We have our storage unit and it is almost 1/2 full. I don't see any problems with having enough space but I'm a little concerned with getting rid of the remaining furniture. Well, we're working on that stuff.

And finally in the Misc News category, We picked up Casey from Western last week so he's back now (I wrote a little story about sawing his bike lock of on the Bike Blog). Corinne still has a week or so left to go (to finish her sophomore year).

Well, it looks like another beautiful spring day today so I'm heading out for a ride!

5/10/2009 - Happy Mothers Day to all you Mothers (and Mothas) Out There

Just a real quick Mothers Day update. I mostly wanted to update the month logo and my bike mileage above. I just got some new bike pedal clips Which I wrote about on my bike blog of course) with my (not trying to change the subject) Fathers Day gift (money) from last year! (yes, I saved the envelope and actual cash that I got from Casey).

Not a lot of other real interesting news right at the moment. We'll be goin to Daras moms for Mothers Day. That's it for now.

4/27/2009 - Just Experimenting

I guess you've noticed the new Family & Friends web page format now. After doing on the bike site updates and improvements this page started looking kind of out of date. I'll probably be doing some improvements in my spare time and I may just trash the basic format here and start with something completely different.

Don't worry I'll still have all of the same goofy stories and pictures and all but hopefully it will start evolving into a little better format. Well, that's it for this little mini-update.

4/25/2009 - Summer Home is Sold! Corinnes Out... Driving! KCs Back, Blog and Bike Site Makeover

Lots of BIG news this week. First of all, our Summer Home is Sold! Yep, our "extra" house (summer home, mistake, accident (or other stronger terms that I've used) just sold yesterday. Hopefully everything will go through without any problems. We lost a ****load of money, but in the end, we probably would have lost as much or more if we left the money in the stock market.

Also, Corinne got her Drivers License last week. We haven't seen much of her since then... :-(

KCs Back, just for a quick visit (the weekend). He has a few weeks left now then he'll be back for the summer.

The next few updates have to do with my websites so I guess they would fall under the <shoptalk> category. First of all, I've started a "formal" bike blog page on the bike site. Technically, this page/site is a "blog" that I have been doing for over 10 years now and I have done bike blog entries on the bike site before too but this blog format uses a server side database for the blog entries and allows for people to subscribe to the RSS feed, for the blog, and/or to make blog comments also. I don't have many entries and I'm not sure how it is going to evolve but check out the new Bike Site Blog Here (and sign up for updates with the RSS feed, if you like!)

The other more noticeable changes to the bike site is the Bike Site Makeover. I have made a lot of cosmetic changes (logo, photos, backgrounds, etc.) to the bike site. I wanted a photo of a bike rider with a cool background and didn't have anything in my own photo collection so I had to get a little creative to get one. I had Dara take some photos of me on my bike and then I photo shopped them on to some nice mountain scenes. Now, I'm probably not good looking enough (OK, it's debatable :-) ) to be a "model" for stock photos but I just used my profile and I am off in the distance so it's OK for now. Anyway check out the New Bike Site Look Here.

What I will be doing next is getting some photos of Corinne on/with my bike and with a bike helmet for some good attractive young person photos. I think she'll make a better model than me. Also, with summer coming, I'll try to get some other biker photos when I am out at biking stuff occasionally. I have kept the logo at the top of the site flexible so I can swap changes in or out pretty easily now.

In other news, I've also applied for a few "grown up jobs" too, but I only hear silence in that area. Unfortunately, the bike site is just not doing that well as far as profits go so I may be looking around for other stuff if I don't see some kind of results fairly soon.

I guess that's enough for one update!

4/11/2009 - I see BUDS, #1 for "Bike Sales", KCs back! Bulls in the Playoffs

I am seeing some BUDS on the trees around here! and as we know, where there are buds... leaves will follow (of course, weeds and lawnmowing follow too :-( ). I've been getting in some bike miles but it has still been a little chilly and windy.

I have been really busy but "spinning my wheels" a little because I am a little concerned about the bike site generating a significant income, but I do have some fresh ideas that I'll be working on real soon and I am seeing some improvements in my bike site traffic (and sales since the weather is getting better). One thing that I think is pretty amazing is that my humble little bike site (www.about-bicycles.com) is #1 for on Google for the terms "Bike Sales" (and "Bicycle Sales") against 196,000,000 other pages!!! Go ahead try it in Google. It isn't making me that much money (I do sell a few bike indirectly) but it just blows me away that I am in front of Wal-Mart, Target, REI, Sports Authority, etc.

Yep, KC is back from Western this weekend. He's going to steal Daras car and bring it to Macomb for a week then I am probably going to go there next weekend and retrieve it (or what is left of it :-)) the next weekend.

I have been a pretty big Bulls fan this year (even when they were sucking (beyond my usual "fair weather fan" status) and I just found out that they are in the Playoffs. I'm sure they can't beat the best teams, but it will be fun to see how far they actually get. Well, I gotta go get back to "the game"!

3/15/2009 - Gettin Lamby, Wisco Pics are in!, FaceBook!, Dreamweaver and CSS

Wow, what a beautiful day today!!! I think we have turned the corner and are getting to the lamby part of March! It's in the 50s and I just got out for a nice bike ride in Inverness. Tomorrow is supposed to be real nice again and I am hoping to do the new trail by us.

As some of you know, I just took a solo trip up to Wisconsin last week. It was kind of a quick trip but I really enjoyed my time up there! It was just me and since it was pretty cold we didn't do anything outside, but I really enjoyed the time with the family. Well, rather than yakin about it, here are a few photos:

Wisconsin Trip - March 2009!

Also, I just got myself setup on FaceBook (or was it spacebook or myface!). When I was up in Wisconsin, I found that a lot of the family has Facebook pages and photos that I am missing out on, so I set myself up so I can stay up to date on this stuff. I'll probably be looking for "friends" soon :-( so if any of you are out there, let me know or hook me up as a friend! I still plan on doing all of my ramblings and family stuff on this site, but I'll be out on the Face too!

<shoptalk> Before I update my bike site with a bunch of new changes (I am going to do a gradual redesign), I wanted to get Dreamweaver (which is a web site editing tool) and learn Dreamweaver, Dreamweaver Templates and CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). This involves a learning curve, but in the long run will make my job of updating the web sites much easier.

Well, I got a discounted student version of Dreamweaver at Harper (after a few little problems, but I don't want to write all of that here) and I have learned all of the stuff that I wanted to (Dreamweaver, Templates and basic CSS in order to be able to convert the pages (that took me almost 2 days or marathon studying and testing!). I hope to get the bike site changes done pretty soon.

I also finished pasting all of my old bike stories and comments, from this site (for the last 9 years) to my casual Bike Blog on the bike site. I have decided to to a "casual" bike blog including the biking stuff that I write here (I'll paste bike related stuff from this site to the bike site also (in addition to bike only stuff)) but I am not currently using any official blog software or tools at this time. If your interested the here's the About-Bicycles Bike Blog Link. </shoptalk>