Archive 18 - 8/1/2018 to 7/27/2019
7/27/2019 - Ohio Bike Trip - with Photos
Last week I took a trip to Ohio to ride the Little Miami Scenic Trail (LMST). I have been wanting to do some 1 night stand bike trips ever since I retired and finally got around to taking one! I just packed up and went on this trip by myself and stayed in Xenia, Ohio which is right on the LMST. I am pretty familiar with the drive into Ohio because this is not very far from where Corinne went to school at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Anyway, the Little Miami Scenic Trail mostly runs alongside the Little Miami River and I had heard that this was a really nice trail from some online websites and information. The trail is flat, shady in most places, all paved and in great shape so it was great to ride on. I ended up riding the trail the day that I got there (evening really) and the day that I drove back (almost a 5 1/2 hour drive each way).
I had perfect weather for my trip and I rode 28 miles on day 1 and 43 miles on day2 for a total of 71 bike miles on this trail. Yea, I was pretty worn out but I survived.
OK, enough yik-yak-yappin! Here are a few photos from my ride on the LMST. I only included 6 pictures here but I included a trail-selfie (if you are brave enough to check that out).
Little Miami Scenic Trail - Ohio Bike Trip Photos
Update 8/7/2019 - As I mentioned in this original post, now that I have just finished the bike site update here is a link to the Little Miami Ohio Scenic Trail pages on my bike site. There are quite a few more photos of the ride on those pages (but not the selfie :-().
If you are interested the GPS Maps of where I rode (from my bike computer) here they are...
LMST Ohio Day 1 - 28 mile Ride GPS Map on Garmin website.
LMST Ohio Day 2 - 43 mile ride Ride GPS Map on Garmin website.
6/28/2019 - Missed a Birthday 
Dam*! I missed a birthday. Yep, my mini-van, Hondo, just had his 200th birthday! I was watching the odometer for a while and wanted to catch it right when it changed over to 200k but then I glanced down at it yesterday and saw that I had already missed it 82 miles ago. :-(
Well the odometer is digital so I couldn't actually watch it or get a photo of it as the digits were rolling over anyway like the old cars (but then again they never lasted as long).
I have never had a car (or mini-van) make it past 200,000 miles before so I think this is great! Also, it is still running well and still in pretty good shape! :-)
Unfortunately, I had a problem with the paint job from the factory and they had a recall on that but I only had part of the van repainted with the recall reimbursement check and did some maintenance and repairs with the rest of the money. So the paint is chipping off in places and that kind of sucks. The light for my clock is burned out and one of the side doors has some problems once it a while. Other than that, it really does not have any major problems (that I am aware of right now) other than wear and tear and old age (like me!).
Well, I am planning on keeping it for a while still (go for 300k?). I'll have to see how it holds together in the next few years.
Well Happy 200th Birthday Hondo!
6/24/2019 - Strawberry Fields and My Model Daughter
Corinne texted me this photo today that they took at a Strawberry Picking farm in McHenry and the more I looked at it, the more I liked it. Corinne looks good (as usual) but I also liked the creativity of the photo too. I asked her who took it and she said her friend Rina had the idea and took the photo. I told Corinne to pass on my compliments to Rina and I also got permission to post it on Facebook which I was going to do next.
I have emailed this to a few people but then decided to post it here and on Facebook.
OK, here's my Facebook comments (same title as this page and with the photo of course):
OK, my daughter is not really a model but a lot of times I think that she could be. Corinne texted me this photo that her friend Rina took of her at a Strawberry Picking farm last weekend. I loved the photo and just had to post it! Very Creative Rina! I think she could send it to some strawberry company to use in their ads, right? :-)
OK, I know it's upside-down but I can overlook that :-)
6/23/2019 - Longest Ride!
All the conditions were right so I decided to go for it! It was a really nice day yesterday, it was one of the longest daylight days of the year, I got a fairly early start and was feeling pretty good. So I went out to the the Fox River Trail (FRT), the trail that I have done some of my longest 1 day rides on, and planned out a route.
My original ride was going to be in the 20 or 30 mile range but I kept deciding to extend the ride. In the end I rode the section from Crystal Lake to Elgin but I did parts of that ride multiple times (since I really like that part of the trail and I would never be too far from where I parked in Algonquin).
I was pretty tired by the end of 40 miles but I pushed a little harder to do 50 because I kind of wanted to see if I could still do it and I really haven't ridden over 50 a lot of times (maybe around 8 to 12 times) So yesterday I rode 50.2 miles! My longest ride since 2015 (when I was a 62 year old kid!)
OK, my longest ride (that I did with Casey (with Dara and Dale for part of it)) still stands at 105 miles which I did in 2007 (when I was a 54 year old baby). I have also done some rides in the 60 and 70 mile range but not that many.
Well I can tell you that it was really hard! Mostly around the last 10 miles when the fatigue really kicked in. OK, well I was able to ride 50 miles and could probably do that again on a good day (maybe even more if I was in really good shape) but I seriously doubt that I will ever do another 100 miler again.
OK, I was kinda thinkin about (and inspired by) Sally O'Malley (SNL) on my ride... Just replace the words "I'm 50!" with "I Rode 50!" (it was actually easier just being 50 rather than riding 50. :-) Yea, I can stretch and I can kick!... (but it is kind of hard at the moment :-)
6/18/2019 - Birthday and FD Stuff and BDRide®
I had a lot of real nice Birthday and Father's Day stuff going on recently. June is kind of like "my month" since I have my birthday and Father's Day both! Well first, on my actual birthday we had a nice family dinner at Outback Steakhouse. We had a good meal and the family was all together so I enjoyed that. Next, I had a combination Birthday and Father's Day dinner at Corine's apartment in Uptown. It was a great dinner or actually more like 2 dinners because Corine made Steak and Lobster (with a bunch of extras) and homemade Chili and brownies too! Now, I have left over homemade Chili and brownies to last quite a while. :-)
Then Yesterday Dale and I had a nice long BDRide® (Birthday Ride, 36 miles) on the Old Plank Road Trail (aka Old Skank Trail) west and a little south of Joliet (pronounced like Toilet with a J :-)). Then I got another BD Dinner out of that trip too (I wonder why I am gaining weight now instead of losing it :-)).
For anyone interested in the ride details, here is the GPS Map of our 36 mile ride yesterday on the Garmin site and here is the trail page with photos (from a previous ride) on the Old Skank Trail on my bike site.
OK, that's it for my BD and FD stuff. Coming up next is Casey's birthday and the 4th of course.
6/7/2019 - Oops, it's June!, Wisco!
I just noticed that my photo above was still on May. OK, fixed. Also, I just got back from a trip to Wisconsin to visit with my family there. It was a short trip (2 days) but I had a nice time and saw - Andi, Brad, (Phoebe and Rupert), Nick and his friend, Larry, Patty, Val, Jasson, Jackson and Jen's mom Lisa! Not bad for 2 days, right.
I also got my wheel fixed (slow leak) by the master mechanic (Brad) and drove to a hot rod show in my brothers hot rod! That was fun and I met a lot of his HR friends and saw tons of interesting cars. I like the ones that I could relate to most which were the old cars that I had (like my 62 Nova, 64 Impala and 66 Chevelle). There was a Chevelle that was kind of like mine but was a 72 (I think) so different in a lot of ways too.
5/27/2019 - The Weight is Over
I just update my latest bike mileage above (cracked 300 for this year, so far) and decided to throw in some other minor updates. First, I need to make a correction to something that I mentioned before which was that I had lost like 33 pounds since 2018 and was at my lowest weight that I have on record (30 years worth). Well I did lose 27 pounds but did not break my overall light-weight record because it turns out that the lowest readings that I had were off. I had my scale on carpeting and it messed up the readings. I gained 5 pounds by moving the scale back on to the floor!
So I have lost a lot of weight recently but now The Weight Loss is Over OK I left the word "Loss" out of the post title :-) I have now gained back about 7 pounds since my recent lowest. Well I am happy to still be healthy but what a bummer that I have to watch what I eat again. :-( It was fun when I thought that I needed to gain weight and just ate all the fattening stuff that I wanted to! :-)
Also my chronic cough is about 90-95% better now. I still have a little cough but it is really much better now. I also still have my pulmonologist appointment on 6/3 for a follow-up and I still have a lot of questions for him.
Well Happy Memorial Day to you all! Especially you veterans out there!
5/8/2019 - Prince Casey!
I've been seeing this guy in the news a lot lately and trying to figure out who he looks like :-).
Then Casey was over the other day and even had a little bit of a beard and I think that I figured it out. Casey doesn't have the beard in these photos but I think there might still be a little similarity. 
Does anyone else see the similarity???
Well Corinne and Meghan have a similar look but maybe like a negative image in this photo.
OK, I gotta put this one out on Facebook...
5/4/2019 - Big Winnings! Food, etc
Yep, it was more Big Winnings for me at opening day at Arlington Park! I like to look at the positive side, like any good obsessive gambler, and just say that I won $23.00! Why focus on the fact that I bet $32 to win that amount. :-) (OK, so I paid $9 for a fun day at the races - and that is kind of a Big Win too, so there you have it).
Dara found out about opening day at AP and you can get into the park for free if you sign up for an account with them online and print the tickets. Well, I already went through the process of setting up the account last year so I just logged in and printed some tickets this year.
We had no idea who was going for sure at first. I was just a stand by myself. Dara's long time friend, Denise, was going to go with some people and Dara and maybe our kids were going to go. In the end it ended up being Denise, Dara, Casey, KC's girlfriend Jess and Me. I was going to at least take a phone pic but I must have been too obsessed with my gambling and forgot! :-(
So today is Derby Day, of course. We could have bet on the KenDerby at AP but I had no idea who was in it or about the horses or anything. I usually only know about that after I see some of it on TV. It was also Great Fun those times that I went to the Derby back in the 80s! It was so much fun that I can't remember if I went once or twice! :-)
OK the other page 2 story is that I made a really good meal last week and became one of "those people" that take pictures of their food and post them! OK, well I didn't post my photo (until now) but texted it to a few people. For me, it's not so exciting what I had but the fact that I can actually make food and a fresh salad in my new (hotel) kitchen area (with a full size fridge and freezer).
My meal was a frozen Lasagna from Costco - Dara actually got that for me cause she has the card and I have had that back at the house too - and a salad with a lot of fresh veggies that I made (like a big boy!), plus some extras and a nice ice cream dessert (not in the photo). Anyway it was nice that I could do that and have a fairly easy, nice meal.
So here's my Goofy Food Picture that I took and sent out (and now have posted).
4/24/2019 - Bikin, etc
Just a quick update. As you can see from the bike miles above (135) that I am getting in some Bike Miles now this year. Not a lot yet but I am still ahead of where I was last year at this time. Only 1,365 left to reach my goal! That seems like a lot at this point, I wonder if I'll just have to settle for the original 1,000 mile goal...
In other news, most of you probably already know this but some may not. Dara and I are separated for now. I am still thinking that this is temporary but it may last for a while. I don't like to dwell on stuff like that (on R&D.com) but I think it is newsworthy for anyone that may not be aware of that.
Regarding my Makeover (below), so far, most people that I asked about it seemed to like the pony tail idea but many were not into the no beard look. I think 1 person did not care for the pony tail and two others liked the no beard look (out of about 5 or 6 people). I am also kind of favoring the odds with keeping the tail and maybe bringin the beard back. I have not decided yet though. At least I got some sun on my chinney chin chin already! :-)
4/7/2019 - Makeover (and new photo)
Yea, I got a 2 part makeover recently. I have been contemplating these changes for a while and just went for it. Part 1 is that I decided just to let my hair (what I have left) grow and tie back the back in a pony tail. OK, it is pretty short and skimpy so far but I think it will work better as it gets longer. Part 2 is that I ditched my goatee/beard look that I have had for years.
I'm not sure if I'll keep the beardless chin but I usually kept it short anyway so it would not take long to grow it back if I change my mind. I wanted to do this in the spring before I got some color (from riding) and had a 2 tone face (white chin, dark face).
I like the pony tail idea so far cause I don't have to keep getting haircuts and worrying about it curling up in the back. I think it's a cleaner look and really low maintenance. :-)
You can click on the photo if you dare to see it larger. Of course, I kept my redneck toupee (cap) for the facial pic (and to reduce glare). Yea, it's really not a great pic of me since, for one thing I have no color yet (not like that is going to cure everything :-)). The tail pic Dara took (before I shaved).
In other news, I just got our taxes done. This is my first full year of retirement and the overall tax bill goes down pretty good when you are not paying FICA.
4/8/2019 Update on the photo
OK, I didn't like that original photo cause it made me look like an old man in a shady hotel room (cause it was!) so, being so vain, I replaced the left photo with a better, sunshiney selfie of me outside on my bike ride today (I let my hair back down for that one though).
3/20/2019 - First Ride!
Just a quick update to confirm that spring is really here. Yep, I just did my First Ride for 2019. It was in the 50s here in Chi land and it was a nice day for a ride. I took kind of a short ride today, as you can see from the new 2019 season miles above (10). When I started the 2019 log in my spreadsheet I saw that my first ride last year was April 11th so even though it was only 10 miles, I am still ahead of last year. :-) OK, 10 down 1,490 to go to make my minimum milage goal!
3/20/2019 - Hawaii Photos!
OK, I haven't done anything all that exciting lately myself but at least Corinne has! Back in February Corinne and Will went to Hawaii! I thought that this was awesome since Hawaii is one of my favorite places on earth (of the places that I have been to). Corinne and Will had a great time too and eventually Corinne gave me a copy of the photos that they had taken (she also gave me permission to post some here).
Well I got a pretty good update on most of the stuff that they did in Hawaii so I will try to just do a brief summary before I get to the photos. Amazing to me but they actually planned to go there to see an Eminem concert (Will is a big Eminem fan)! Well, regardless of the catalyst to get them there I thought it was great that they went. They only stayed on the island of Oahu (where Honolulu and Pearl Harbor are located) but that's OK because they still found a lot of awesome stuff to see and do there (as you will see in the photos).
So they were in Honolulu and went to Waikiki Beach of course, They also went to Sea Life Park (where the bird and dolphin photos were taken), went to a Luau, took a difficult (and dangerous) hike in Ka'au Crater (the waterfall photos), saw a surfer competition, went to Pearl Harbor and had a nice scenic dinner cruise (all in addition to the M&M concert :-)). I'm sure there were other things too but this is just my summary from what Corinne told me.
OK, I started out with over 500 photos but wanted to filter it down to a small amount for a nice summary website post so I picked some of my favorites and got the photo tour down to 25 excellent photos!
So without too much more blabbing, here are the photos!
Photo Page - Corinne and Will in Hawaii!
Reminder/Note on the photo format: My new photo format is pretty self explanatory but just some hints that I like. I like to turn off the thumbnails at the bottom (on a PC) so the photos display larger. I think that the landscape photos look best displayed on a PC type screen but since most of these are portrait they look good on a phone (or tablet) where it is turned to fill the screen with the photo. There is also an email button in the top right with my email for quick comments.
Alright, one more quick comment. I love good/great photos - and I had great photos to work with here. I take a lot more photos myself these days too (with digital photography and all) but I guess I was not into photography so much when I was in my 20s. When I went to Hawaii back in the 70s, I didn't even bring a camera with me!!!! I now consider this to be one of the stupidest things that I didn't do!!! :-)
OK, I also just did a Facebook Post using the opening line and photo above...
3/13/2019 - Test Results
Most of you already know that I have had some medical issues (basically chronic cough and weight loss described in in the posts below) and had had a barrage of medical tests lately. I don't want to turn the good ol R&D.com site (that we all love so much) into a medical blog but since I have a lot of results, here's a summary of what I have found out (in my own words):
Good News and Bad News - I think that the good news is way better than the bad news. The good news is that it is safe to say that I don’t have lung cancer or any indication of any other kinds of cancer (that was detected). The bad news is that there is definitely some kind of lung issue but they just don’t know exactly what that is yet.
There is some scarring detected and they also referred to a thing called Bronchiectasis which I believe is treatable if that is determined to be the problem. The PFT (breathing test) just backed up the x-rays and CT-Scan mostly. The TB test was negative too.
Oh I guess the other bad news is more doctor visits (lung specialists) and probably more tests until they zero in on what the actual issue is. What fun!
I have the actual test results in PDF form. If anyone is really bored and wants to see them just let me know and I can forward them. There is probably more info than you would ever want in the written results. :-)
Ah, Ah, Ah, Ah Stayin Alive, Stayin Alive! (OK, sorry 70s flashback! :-) )
Later!
3/10/2019 - I can finally Walk Again!, Hawaii, New Job
OK, I am talking about being able to do my fitness walks outside again (of course). I haven't walked outdoors (for distance) since mid-January, before the first of the big snow storms and terrible cold. I also never got into an indoor walking or fitness routine this year like I often have in other years. It was really nice to get out and walk again.
Corinne and Will went to Hawaii in February and Corinne gave me a bunch of pictures from their trip. The photos are really cool but I wanted to go through them again to pick out my favs before I post any. I hope to do that soon though. I loved Hawaii when I went there (in the 70s) but amazingly I never even brought a camera with me!!! Duh!!!
I went to Wisconsin in February and I enjoyed seeing the family even though I was not able to see everyone on this trip.
Also, Casey just got a New Job. He is now driving a small truck and delivering cheese imported from Italy. He drives to Ohare airport to pickup the cheese on certain days then delivers it to various places in Chicago and the burbs. He is really liking it so far.
In other news, I still have my CT Scan tomorrow and haven't gotten the results from my PFT (breathing test) yet. I did get the results from my latest blood test and everything was good there. Even thought it is only a blood test I am glad that they did not find anything bad with the tests that they did. :-)
I guess that's it fer now. It's almost 6:00 and WHAT, it is still light out! Oh yea, Happy Daylight Savings Time!
2/27/2019 - Wait (weight)! Maybe that's a good thing.
Yea, I’ve lost some more weight unintentionally. I’ve lost 17lbs in about 3 months (about 8.5% of my body weight) and my cough has been really bad. So I saw the doc and he gave me an Rx for one thing to try and requested a blood test, PFT and x-ray. He called back this mornin and said that the chest x-ray showed some “interstitial” something or another and requested me to get a CT-Scan. My Pulmonary test (PFT) is scheduled for Friday (3/8) and I have the CT-Scan scheduled for 3/11.
What fun! Man, they check you out a lot better when you have good insurance (like Medicare)!
2/9/2019 - Quick Follow-Up Chart
OK, just a quick follow-up to my Losing it post below. I am still losing weight (and not trying) but I may have gotten the chronic cough a little better under control so I feel better about the combination of weight loss and cough as not being something really bad.
As for just the weight loss, I was kind of curious how my current weight compared to previous years so I took the spreadsheet that I have with my weight history, summarized the weight data by month and generated a Quick Bar-Chart for the 30 years that I have available.
I think that charts are so much more interesting than just seeing large amounts of data in a spreadsheet and I thought that this one was interesting to look at so I am posting it here. Below is my weight chart for the last 30 years. The horizontal red line is my current weight. I am currently below what my weight has been for about 14 years now and not much higher than my lowest weights in 30 years.
The white gaps are a few times that I strayed from my regular weigh-ins and there are a few typos or errors too (like I never weighed 40 pounds or even 150 in this time frame :-)) but the majority of the graph is pretty clear.
You can't see the actual weight numbers in the graph (and the dates are just the closest ones that could fit in the limited space). My highest weight was 213 in Nov 1996 and my lowest was 175 in May of 1998 and my current weight is 187. I was actually trying to lose weight in 1997 and 1998 and developed better habits and was even jogging a lot back then.
So anyway here is my:
(I had to update the calendar photo above anyway so...)
1/24/2019 - Losing it, New Snow Removal Method, Cousins
I've really been Losing it lately. Weight
that is! I have not been specifically trying to lose weight but I have lost about 18 lbs since spring and 15 since summer and I am at the lowest weight that I have been at since November of 2004 (when I was just a 51 year old kid!!!).
Well, of course, I have my weight records in a spreadsheet! :-) I have kept track of my weight mostly weekly (sometimes more or less often) since somewhere around 1988 (written down, pre-spreadsheet era). Yes, I get a little crazy with detailed stuff sometimes and as most of you know I am pretty fanatical with my spreadsheets too.
Anyway, It was kinda nice to lose the weight but since I haven't tried real hard to do that specifically, it also made me a little nervous. Like I also have the chronic cough (again) and now losing weight?!? I don't actually think it is a bad thing but I did give it some thought.
I always bike ride a lot in the summer and do fitness walks in the winter (as much as possible) so I have been doing that. I think that the other thing contributing to the weight loss is that I have just kind of fallen into a 2 meal a day routine. Like I usually have a late breakfast (or brunch) and then a dinner usually later on. I usually only have 2 meals instead of 3 cause I don't like all the extra work and planning involved in another meal. :-) I still have snacks but I might have cut down a little on that.
If I was still working on my fitness websites I could use this as a blog story or something since it is the season when a lot of people are trying to get in shape. The only thing is, this was kind of accidental for me.
Next: Cold > Snow > Cold > Snow > Cold > Snow! Man January is sucking this year! December was not too bad but this month has really sucked.
Anyway, I haven't had a snowblower for many years now and lately have been shoveling manually. I considered getting a snowblower but now I have a New Snow Removal Method. It's called Get Someone Else to Do it! :-) I've had a bad back most of my life and am 65 now and the shoveling really does a number on me. So the last snow we got a neighborhood kid (17 year old that advertised in our neighborhood directory) to do it. That was great!!! I plan on doing that much more often and may also find a more dependable and permanent snow removal service.
My last story for today is about my long lost 2nd cousin. OK, no one was really lost but since I have my DNA out on the ancestry sites, I got a message on my 23andme site that they found a new 2nd cousin and he had messaged me on that site. My 2nd cousin is Dale Chapman from California and he just sent a short intro message. Since I have all this ancestry information, I tracked down our common relative(s) and the DNA (and 23andme) was 100% correct. He is a 2nd cousin.
So I replied with a 23andme message and sent him some of the family history information that I had. I think it could be interesting to him (or anyone in our family really). I hope to hear something back at some point. It's mostly just for fun but I find it interesting and informative.
OK, that's it fer now.
1/7/2019 - Happy New Year, 2019 is here!, My Inheritance.
Happy New Year All! Yep we are on our way into 2019!
I wanted to mention something that occurred to me recently that I think is an important perspective on things.
At my age, a lot of my friends (and family's) parents have now died and many of my friends and family have inherited various amounts of money and/or assets. When my parents died, I inherited more debts than assets. I used to think that this kind of sucked a little but it was not a big deal. I was doing just fine myself anyway and I was happy for the people that did inherit stuff.
Then a while back it occurred to me that since my dad fought actively in WW2 - He was a Marine, drove a tank and fought the Japanese (in active combat) in the Martial Islands - and that my uncle (my mom's brother) flew as a gunner in numerous missions over Nazi Germany, that what I really inherited from them (as well as the others that sacrificed or risked their lives in this conflict) was Freedom and Our Prosperous Way of Life! What can be a better Inheritance than that?!? And I am very grateful to them (really for so many things).
So that is my new perspective on My Own Inheritance. Of course, after Dara's parents both died we received a nice real material world inheritance from them too and I am also very grateful for that. But then, one more thought, if our country did not survive and prosper as it did after WW2, would that have still been possible?
Feeling grateful for it all!
12/30/2018 - A Few Christmas Photos
OK, here's a quick update with a few xmas photos (my first official Juicebox photo collection display format). I really did not get a lot of xmas photos this year (just a few on my phone) but I thought that I would at least post a few of these.
Our immediate family (Me, Dara, Casey and Corinne) opened our gifts on Christmas-Eve-Eve this year. Yea, we cheated a little but it was really nice to do it then and not have to be so rushed on xmas eve or xmas day. Then we had a great Christmas-Eve dinner at Kurt and Robins house in Winnetka with the extended family (Dara's side of our family) and then opened the remaining gifts with the extended family again on Christmas Day also and had a nice xmas day dinner. Corinne's boyfriend Will even joined us on xmas day which was nice.
I don't have a lot of photos but here are the:
A Few more hints on the new Juicebox Photo Display Format: I included some hints in my last post (below) on the new photo display but here's some more hints (some restated really).
You can make the display larger by closing the thumbnail photos at the bottom with the "Show Thumbnails" button on the upper right (larger box with small boxes under it) I prefer to do this when viewing on a PC (N/A on a phone).
You can view even larger with the "Expand Gallery" button (the 4 arrows pointing out that looks like an X) in the upper right. Also for viewing on a PC (not a phone).
If you want to pinch a photo lager for viewing on a phone (not on a PC) select the "Open in New Window" button (large square (ie. screen) with smaller square behind it in the upper right). This will open the photo in a new window so you can pinch out to expand it on a phone.
Well it looks like this could be my last update for 2018. Here comes the New Year and 2019!
12/08/2018 - Sippin the Juicebox and Pressin the Words
Yep, I've been workin hard for you 'all out there behind the scenes. OK, well workin to make this site nicer for those of you that visit the site and check out the photos that I post. I have been noticing how poorly my photo display software was looking and working on this website compared to current technology and have decided to start using a new format with some new software.
When I first started this website (20 years ago and in the previous century!) I just posted the photos one at a time, manually with some captions. Later, (in 2005) I started using the software that I am currently using for photo uploading and displays because, well it came free with a printer that I had, was real easy to use for large batches of photos and the website display format was even almost up to the technology standards at the time. The software is pretty obsolete now which you can even tell from the name - Film Factory - lol!
OK, so much for the history of photo display on this website. See the Text & Photo Archives to see the old photo display formats if you are interested (I just checked out a little and it was fun to see the old stuff anyway). So this past week I started looking into new website photo display software (photo gallery software is the more common term), tested a few different formats and made my Website Photo Gallery decision. I purchased and will be using Juicebox Image Gallery Software for the photo displays on this website.
There are a ton of photo display software packages out there but actually not that many that did what I wanted. Another option that I looked into and tested was using a photo display template with the Wordpress blogging software. So after my searches and tests I ended up with these 2 software Demo/Test pages to help me to make my decision.
The JuiceBox Demo/Test Photo Gallery - with some more random photos (from an Arlington Park trip that Dara and I did in 2012) and...
The Wordpress Demo/Test Pages - with some random photos (of Casey and Corinne)
Both of these formats are "Responsive" meaning that they automatically adjust to fit all size devices (like full size computer screens, tablets and cell phones, etc.) of course (an obvious requirement for me) and they are both very easy to use (on the developer side and on the website visitor side).
One of the most obvious differences is that the Wordpress software smoothly scrolls up and down where the Juicebox software quickly changes images from side to side. There are quite a few other things that I considered and it was a tough decision but in the end Juicebox won the photo gallery competition.
Some things to note with the Juicebox format: There are some button/icons in the upper right that allow you to 1) Hide the thumbnail photos (I like to use that) 2) Open the photo in a new window. This is good if you want to zoom in or download a photo 3) The is a full screen option - really nice! and 4) There is an email button (with my email coded in it) so you can comment on individual photos or the whole batch via and email to me.
Also the Juicebox photo displays are similar to the way Facebook photo displays work so those of you who use and like Facebook a lot should be very comfortable with this format (and I considered that too).
So from this point on, the next batches of photos that I post on this site will be in the Juicebox format as you see in the link above. I think that I will still use the old manual (time consuming) uploads for my bike site trail photos though for consistency and some other reasons.
One final note on this: There is a good possibility that I will convert the main page on this site (the page that you are reading now) to Wordpress at some point. I have been blogging on this website for 20 years now before it was even called blogging! So the Wordpress Blogging software has some advantages that I might want to use at some point (I'm just not quite ready yet).
The main advantages are that Wordpress automatically archives old posts (which I have to do manually), it has a great Search box and also allows visitors to reply to the posts.
I hope that this did not get too long and boring... (I think maybe it did)
One last note: Since I mentioned archiving, I just archived another year 7/16/2017 to 7/25/2018.
11/28/2018 - Get More Sleep! (but not while reading this...)
Casey texted me a link to a video that I found very interesting and educational. Although I don't usually post public service announcements with links to popular and interesting websites and videos I am going to make an exception in this case.
The link that Casey sent me was to a Joe Rogan YouTube video with a "sleep scientist" (referred to on the internet as the "Sleep Diplomat") Dr. Matt Walker. I have always been a big sleep advocate and often felt like I was not getting enough sleep. Well, with all the research results available now it seems that I was right for the most part :-).
Some of the major points that I got out of this are: We all need about 7-9 hours of sleep each night. People getting less than 7 hours of sleep start to show physical and mental degradation which gets worse with even less sleep. Drowsy driving is as dangerous as drunk driving and actually kills more people. Lack of sleep is also linked strongly to numerous diseases including alzheimer's, cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc. and it shortens your life span. Sleep is as important (or more so) than diet and exercise for your health, Lack of sleep contributes to weight gain, Etc. etc... As you can see the Doc is really a sleep pusher (which I like :-)).
I am going to include a link to the videos on the "Sleep Diplomats" site. The link that Casey sent me of the Joe Rogan interview is the most in depth video but it is almost 2 hours long (without commercials like a tv show so almost 2 full hours). I watched that entire video. The Joe Rogan guy is kind of a regular partying kind of guy but he provides some entertainment value. The other videos on the page are the shorter "Readers Digest" types of videos.
So here's the link:
The Sleep Diplomat, Dr. Matt Walker Videos
Dr. Walker also thinks that doctor residency programs are foolish and if you are going to have an operation you should try to make sure that the doc gets good sleep (for better outcomes and less mistakes).
I think the Sleep Diplomat is very intelligent and I agree with most of his views on the subject but there are a few things that I think may be a little questionable and that I have at least some doubts about.
OK, that's it for this one. Good Night Everybody!
11/23/2018 - Thanksgiving and Photos of Opportunity
We had another really nice Thanksgiving up in Sparta Wisconsin this year. I always love seeing the family on Thanksgiving. I also got to meet the newest member of our family, my great-great nephew Jagger Oium! How great-great is that?! 
Casey and I were the only ones to make it from our Palatine family this year and we did the usual 1 day drive up and back routine. Corinne had Thanksgiving with Will's family in North Carolina and Dara had to play dog-sitter and cat-sitter this year. We also missed Jon and Lily who are living in Arizona now, Ahliana who is living in Texas and Reed who is living in Colorado and also could not make it. :-(
I did not bring my big (DSLR) camera for the best photos because sometimes I prefer to spend more quality time visiting and less time playing paparazzi, but I did manage to get some Photos of Opportunity on my phone though. I call these photos Photos of Opportunity because I did not have any kind of photo plan in mind and I just took some photos that looked like good photo ops when I was prepared to take a photo. Unfortunately, I did not get photos of everyone that was there but I did get a few good shots I think.
So here are the
Thanksgiving 2018 Photos (of Opportunity)!
I also just did a Facebook post using the photo above. One additional thing that I just realized that I really like about that photo (in addition to Jake and Jaggers faces) is their hands. Check out the perspective of their hands! :-)
11/20/2018 - Final Bike Miles, Websites, RMDs, New Buttons
OK, it's been a while since my last update so it's time for one! I just posted what is probably my Final Bike Miles for the year above. 1,636 isn't too bad for the year. I feel like we got cheated on the weather this fall. It seems like it's been way colder, rainier and snowier than usual. Well, now that I am not biking anymore this year I am back to walking again. I can still walk outdoors although it's been pretty chilly.
Now that we are back on daylight wasting time and it's gotten colder, I am transitioning to more indoor stuff. I checked my Affiliate Website profits for this year and they are terrible (only a few hundred dollars compared to the tens of thousands that I made when I worked on them and they were doing well).
I have done almost no work on the sites for about 5 years now so I understand why they are not doing well, of course. I had planned to get back to it when I retired but I have just not been motivated enough to do it. So I believe that I am going to put the affiliate business on hold for now (or forever).
After this peak season I think I will turn off the affiliate links and close the business for the most part. I will still have my bike site, of course, since I like writing the blog posts and the bike trail articles and posting the photos. I will also keep my treadmill site domain and hosting in case me or the kids decide to revive the site.
In other news, I have spent a lot of time on RMDs (Required Minimum Distributions). These are a nasty little thing that the IRS springs on people who have IRAs (and 401ks) when they turn 70. I did a bunch of analysis on converting the regular IRAs to Roth IRAs with lots of spreadsheets but in the end I think I may leave things where there are. I will just start to have huge tax bills when I get older (like in my 80s). The Moral of this story (for you un-retired youngsters out there). Take the tax hit now and put your money into Roth IRAs if at all possible. It will be much better in the long run.
And finally, I have just added some new New Link Buttons to the top of the pages on this site. I think it is handy to have the Site Map link at the top of the page so if you know of something that is on this site but can't find it (and it's not in the Archives by date) then you can check the site map to see if that helps. I also found that I have wanted to get directly to the DNA and Family Tree page pretty often so I added the DNATree link for that.
OK, that's it fer now... Turkey Day is coming...!
11/03/2018 -Trees!
My Facebook post from today:
Trees! OK, the trees outside are nice this time of year but that is not what this post is about. I just wanted to add a photo and I took this one on one of my rides last week.
I really wanted to mention that I did some updates and reformatted our Family Tree document. This may not be interesting to everyone out there but you family relatives on Facebook might find this interesting. See www.robanddara.com for the updates.
Beyond Facebook:
Man, researching relatives and putting together family trees is time consuming but I have done some additional work and research on our ancestors and family trees. The family tree documents that I have posted can be found at the link below.
Before I post that link though here is some information on how the documents have been put together and what my sources were. First of all, the original version of the family tree document that I did was put together for class projects for Casey and Corinne in grade school (I think) so the very start of the tree is Casey and Corinne.
The main source of information that I started with (for the Chapman side) was The Genealogy of the George Chapman Family from 1841 to 1994 by Irene (Chapman) Stearns which is a paper document that Irene gave to me at one of our family reunions (probably around 1994). I believe that she put a lot of work into this and I am very grateful that she shared it with me.
One of my main sources of information for the Rowe side of the family (my moms side) was the headstones at Mt. Olivet cemetery in Aurora. I added the things that I knew and also researched additional information online at Anscestry.com and the Mormon site FamilySearch.org (which is a great free resource (although now you need to have a login account for access)).
The original information that I got for Daras side of the family, the Anstaett, Heuser and related families (for version 1 of the tree) was from Dara and her mom I believe. Just recently I added a lot more information to their side of the tree going all the way back to the 1650 that I got from the information that Nadia Tirandazi shared with us on her Ancestry.com Family Trees. Thank you Nadia!!!
Notes on the Main Family Tree Document and Formatting:
The Chapman, Anstaett Family Tree includes bloodlines only (parents, grandparents, great-grand, etc. only) and for now only includes the family members names and birth and death dates and locations (if known). I have some additional, more interesting information on many family members which I may add later but in order to get this done I have kept it simple to start with.
I did the Chapman, Anstaett Family Tree in Excel (of course!) then I converted that document to fit into a one page PDF document for the website. It will usually come up very small when you first bring up the document but you can easily size it much larger to see what you want to see.
I kept the Chapman side (mine) separate from the Anstaett side (Daras) since this is the way that I started to put the information together and I believe it makes it easier to navigate. The Chapman side is on top and the Anstaett side is below. From there I always have the fathers side above the mothers side (I call this the missionary format. Oh no, I did not just say that!!! :-) ) with the fathers side in black and the mothers side in red.
I used a Top Down format keeping each generation together in one column with lines and brackets to the next generation rather than the usual Flowchart-like format because it seems easier to read and definitely easier to maintain this way.
OK, I think that is all that I need to yak about here (I may tweak this post as I think of other stuff). So here's the main link that you ave all been waiting for (right?)!
The Latest Chapman, Anstaett Family Tree
This link goes to the Family Tree section of the DNA and Family Tree page on this site which has the latest documents.
Some Additional Interesting Stuff:
The Chapman side now goes back to 4 ancestors from the late 1700s in Scotland and the Anstaett side goes back to 2 ancestors from the mid 1600s in Ireland and includes a Duke!
On my side of the family I also have relatives from Pennsylvania (where one has a photo in a Union uniform) and relatives from Tennessee. So I guess my relatives were Rebels and Yankees in the Civil War. I am so Confused!
10/19/2018 - Some Great Casey and Corinne Photos
My Facebook post from today:
We just got some great photos of our beautiful kids, Casey and Corinne. Dara had wanted professional photo session photos of the kids for a while now and they bought her a photo session as a gift for her birthday this year (and they agreed to doing the photo shoot).
We also had DNA tests done for all of us a while ago and Casey and Corinne did come up as our children in the official DNA tests. So see we were actually capable of creating these nice looking humans! :-) (then I included the link to here for more on this and the 1st 3 photos in the photo page below).
Beyond Facebook:
Yes, the photos here are from a photo session that Casey and Corinne purchased for Dara as a birthday gift but I guess I get a little benefit out of this gift too. :-) I think Corinne just found the photographer online and purchased the photo session. The place is called FairyTalePhotography and I believe that they employ photographers all over the country but I don't know all the details. I think the photo session was pretty inexpensive (but the photo copies, Oye Veh!).
I don't think that the photographer had a studio so they obviously had the photo session outside. The photographer got some really good photos of the kids (or course, in my opinion, she had good models to start with). My first choice for a photographer would have been our friend Pam Farr but unfortunately Pam and Jeff moved to North Carolina and we were not able to get that set up so easily :-(.
OK, the DNA line above may be a little odd but I thought that it was funny especially since Dara always used to tease me about if the kids were mine or not! Well now I have it confirmed and she is very disappointed that she can't tease me anymore about that. :-)
OK, enough chattin up that subject. Here's a selection of what I thought were some of the best photos. We purchased the package that included ALL the photos and got over 120 photos but I am only including 20 of the best ones here.
Casey and Corinne's Photo Session Photos from October, 2018
We also asked for the photographer rejects and got 32 more photos. A lot of these shots were with one or the other kids with their eyes closed but some were rejected for other reasons and Dara and I found a few in this collection that we also liked (some are included in my selections).
10/13/2018 - Made My Bike Miles Goal!
My Facebook post from today:
I just made my Bike Miles Goal of 1,500 miles for this year today! My old goal of 1,000 miles was just too easy now that I have more riding time and 2,000 is still a little difficult (maybe save that for another year). More details on www.robanddara.com (of course).
Beyond Facebook:
Yea, I knew I would be making the 1,500 miles for a while now (and it's only October). I actually ended the day with 1,515 after I completed my ride.
My next goal for this year is just really easy. All I need is 10 more mile and I will have a new 3'rd highest mileage year so I should make that on my next ride. After that I'll just ride on the good days and see how many miles I end up with for the year.
I'm sure I won't get close to the 2,000 mile milestone this year but I have ridden over 2,000 miles 2 other years so I will just settle for 3rd best year this year - OR - I could call it my Best Mileage Year (that was under 2,000 miles - and use really small print for that part :-))!
10/12/2018 - Shadow's DNA Results are in! (... or The Dog Lovers Post)
We finally got Shadow's DNA results back so now we have the DNA results for our entire human family and One Dog!!! 
The photo here has our 3 most recent dogs. In the photo (Left to Right) is Kitty, Shadow and Dexter then Kitty again at the bottom (in the snow). If you click on it you will get the larger version as usual.
Although we don't have DNA for Dexter and Kitty passed away last December, I wanted to mention them too regarding the breeds that I was going to talk about so I needed the photo for reference.
OK, here's the main news. We just got Shadow's DNA Results back today! Since all of our recent dogs are Shelter Dogs, we did not know for sure what breeds they were.
Dexter is pretty obviously a Beagle. If there is something else mixed in there, I can't tell (maybe some pit bull). We never knew about Kitty but she was huge and loved laying out in the snow in below zero weather (as shown in the photo)! This made me think that she was some kind of sled dog breed. Some people thought part Flat-Coated Retriever, some though part Chow Chow, others thought Newfoundland(er) dog. I thought there could be some Husky in there too. Well I guess we will never know for sure what breed she was.
As for Shadow, when we got her, Dara said that the people said that she was part Black Lab and Part German Shepard. Well now that the DNA results are in, it has been confirmed what it is:
Here is the PDF with Shadow's DNA Results!
One of the charts in the PDF file is sideways so here a link to the DNA Chart flipped the right way.
So as it turns out, Shadow is Flat-Coated Retriever (50%), Retriever (black) (25%), Border Collie (12.5%) and German Shepherd (12.5%) Note: They did not actually provide the actual percentages but I derived them based on the chart that they provided and that I linked to above.
I am going to add Shadow's DNA test (this post) to Our DNA Results and Family Tree page next (so all of the DNA stuff is in one place).
Corinne gave the DNA test to Dara for her birthday this year and she also gave her a test for Dexter but I do not believe that Dexter's test was actually a DNA test. Shadow's test used a saliva swab and Dexter's test required a bunch of hair. The lab did a different kind of test for Dexter for Allergies, Stress and other health stuff which was also interesting (just not DNA based).
Here is the PDF with Dexter's Lab Test Results!
One last thing... As you can see by my bike miles above (1,499) I will be making my new retirement bike miles goal on my next ride (maybe tomorrow). I was going to do a post here (and on Facebook) for that so I hope this one does not get buried and never read :-(
Well, it's here for the record and for those prolific readers out there... (or it is readers of prolific writers? (or is it readers of pathetic writers?)) 
10/6/2018 - Tomato Surprise!
Earlier this year, in the spring, Dara bought a bunch of garden vegetable plants which we kept inside until the weather got warm and she put then out in the back. I kept waiting for her to plant them but she never did. Eventually, I asked her where she was going to plant them and then I cleaned out the other stuff gowning there, dug up the soil and eventually planted them.
Well this ended up being pretty late in the year, like the end of June and I was not real hopeful to get much. But I watered them a lot for a while and I was seeing little baby tomatoes! Then some days later I saw that the tomatoes were gone and the plants were eaten down to the stalks. Damn Wabbits!!! 
So by then I was pretty disappointed and gave up on the vegetable garden. It is not in a place that I see all the time when I am out back but I went over there a few days ago and to my surprise I had a coupla red tomatoes!!! (as you can see in the picture). There may be some other stuff too but all I care about is the tomatoes. I didn't see any peppers and there may be some zucchini but who cares about that? It's zucchini!
It was a lot of work initially planting this stuff and in my opinion it is just much easier just to go to the store and buy the stuff! But it was nice to get something in the end and, of course, the tomatoes tasted way better than store bought ones!
9/30/2018 - Unexpected FRT Ride and Stuff
It's been a while since I've done an update here so I thought I would try to do a quick one (it's hard for me to keep the updates short though) and it's a rainy crappy day here now so this seems like a good time for an update.
My story about the title above is that I needed to get Casey's big screen TV fixed (the one at our house) and it was hard to find a good repair shop. Anyway, I finally found one I liked but it was in Algonquin. Well I decided to go there for the repair and on my way it occurred to me that "hey, I'll be right by the Fox River Trail" and I wanted to try to ride too so I turned around and went back for my bike.
So I dropped off the TV and did my Unexpected FRT Ride from Algonquin south to West Dundee then back to Algonquin then north to Crystal Lake. It was a pretty nice ride but I had to cut it short because there was some bad storms coming (which I was tracking on my iPhone radar). It was really nice to ride that trail again and also to have some more variety in my rides. We did have some major storms and rain less than a half an hour after my ride so, once again, I was really glad to have my radar app with me.
Other than that I have still mostly been riding a lot and avoiding doing all the chores type stuff that I have to do as best as I can :-). I am about to hit my season bike miles goal of 1,500 miles soon. That will be easy this year since I am already almost there and it's not even October. I was considering trying to ride over 2,000 miles since I have only done that twice before but that would be pretty hard and I don't think that I am that motivated. Maybe the weather will be really good and I'll get close or even to it again!
I started updating my affiliate websites but didn't get too far with that. I am really disappointed with their current traffic and sales so I am not really sure if I want to put all the effort that is required into that project to get them going again. Only time will tell on that one.
Dara and I saw The Shape of Water last night (on Comcast On Demand). I thought it was OK but I really did not think that it was all that great based on all the awards that it won. I gave it 
(I guess I'll update the Movie Ratings page with the latest stuff while I am at it).
I guess that's it for now because I don't have any other eventful things to write about... like that has ever stopped me from writing before!
Later...
9/18/2018 - 41 Mile Ride on the Fox River Trail to Visit My Parents
I was going to write a bike blog post about this but am too lazy, I didn't get many trail photos and this ride was also more personal so I wanted to mention it here rather than on my bike site. 
I was getting bored with my normal out-the-door bike ride (around Paul Douglas FP) so I decided to drive to a trail for something different. This was mostly a last minute decision so I had to pick somewhere close since I didn't get on the road until 12:30.
Well I finally decided on the good old Fox River Trail and I decided to start in South Elgin and go south from there because I like that part of the trail a lot and have not been that way for a long time.
I knew that I would go through Geneva so I considered calling my nephew Rich to get together if I had enough time and if the timing was right for both of us. I also considered riding all the way to and through Aurora to visit my mom and dads cemetery and grave but since sunset was around 7:00 I did not think that I would have the time for that.
The ride was really nice on the west side of the river after getting through St. Charles and when I got to North Aurora I had to make a decision to continue on or not. Well, as you can guess I went for it, made it to Aurora and it was really nice to "visit" with mom and dad. I had some old print photos of the headstones but can not find those so I took a new batch of photos of the headstones with my phone when I was there. This is very helpful for getting names and birth and death dates straight for family history stuff since there are 14 relatives there.
So I finished my visit with my parents, got the photos and headed back from there. When I got to Batavia I texted Rich to see if he wanted to have a quick face time (real not electronic) get together and to my surprise he was available and wanted to get together! So we worked that out and I met him along the trail by the river for a little visit.
I haven't seen Rich in quite a while and I really enjoyed our visit. Unfortunately, it was getting late and I was getting really worried about getting stuck on the trail after dark (I've done that before and it is NOT fun). I pushed my time limit a little but had to hit the trail after a half hour or so.
From there I did not fool around and tried to make some good time getting back. Well I made it back to my van in South Elgin around 15 minutes after sunset so I had a little Twilight Zone time at the end but, since it had been a sunny day, twilight still had enough light to get me back OK. But it was close!
So anyway, I had an excellent ride and very eventful day! It seems like some of the really good times and memories are not always planned out ahead of time. It also seems that I just can not tell a short story! :-) Sorry, but I just did not know how to describe all of this in 20 words or less...
One last thing, the photo included above is the GPS map of my ride from the Garmin site and here's the link to it on the Garmin site if you want to zoom in for more details... even though the Garmin site is a little quirky and does not always work real well.
OK one last, last thing, to save space and all, I included a few headstone photos within the map photo. You will need to click on the image for the larger one to see the detail, of course. BTW: Rowe is my mom's maiden name.
OK, one last, last, last thing... As you can see from the subject line, this ended up being my longest ride for this year at 41 miles (a little over 20 each way).
OK, that it!
9/13/2018 - Really Crappy Old Person Subject
I don't usually like getting on the subject of health issues and all the crap that is wrong with my body like old people do a lot but... (there's the but) I recently had a full physical exam which also included a Cologuard test that I sent in and I just got the test results back today. It was NEGATIVE!!!.
Here's the Crappy Part. The doctors have been wanting me to do a colonoscopy at each physical since I was 60 (they probably would have wanted it sooner but I didn't have a physical for a long time before that). Well I never liked the idea of that incredibly invasive test and also heard horror stories about the preparations for the test.
So at my last physical the doc wanted me to do the colonoscopy again and I told him I probably would not do it so he suggested the Cologuard test as the next, better than nothing, option. They prefer the colonoscopy but I chose the backup option and later researched it a little online and they say that it is very reliable.
I won't get into the details, of course, but the Colorguard test is a little gross to do but it only takes a few minutes and beats the shit out of the other option (literally!) I was going to make a joke when I took the box in to UPS and tell them that I had to drop this shit off (or something similar), but I resisted... (at least they have brown uniforms if the box breaks open! :-))
OK, enough of that crap! As for the rest of my physical everything else was pretty much OK. I still have high blood pressure (and have a prescription for that but didn't take it the day of my physical), I am over weight (what a surprise!) and my overall cholesterol number was a few points high but the doc said that it was OK cause I had a good ratio of good guy to bad guy cholesterol levels (sorry for using all these technical, medical terms here).
I know that medical companies get all bent out of shape with HIPAA and patient confidentiality and all but these are my own results and I am sharing them freely. Aren't you lucky! :-)
In other news... There aint much other news.. I've been living like Eddi Wabbit and Ridin my Life Away on my bike! OK, I guess he said that he was "Driving" not "Ridin"... Oh well, close enough!
I have also been reading another audio mixing book (ebook, of course). I do not think that this one is as good as the last one but still there is some good information that I have picked up. I think that every little thing that you learn and every little tool that you can use helps...
I have also been trying to keep up to date on Hurricane Florence since my good friends Jeff and Pam are right in it's path! That's a little scary. I hope all is OK with you guys and that you are nice and dry reading this...
9/1/2018 - My Latest YouTube Music Project/Test
OK, this post is about a music thing and I've added the slightly longer, more detailed version on my Music Site Blog here for anyone that wants more detail on this. I am just adding a brief summary here.
What I wanted to do (for a while now) is to check the audio quality of YouTube Videos to see if the new recordings that I have been planning on doing (now that I know much more about audio mixing) sound much better after the audio is recorded to a sound file > then to a video file > and then uploaded to YouTube.
So here's what I did. I took the 2 recordings of the Jim Croce song "Age" that I did a while ago (nothing new) where the first one is the old mix and the second is the new mix that I applied my new mixing knowledge to and loaded them both into a video project. Then I just played a short segment of each version to the video, with a caption saying which one it is which (after going back and forth a few times I just played the last verses with the new mix).
The video doesn't even really have any actual video or even photos (it's just black) cause the goal here was to test the audio quality. The results: Yes, there is a big difference in the audio quality of the 2 mixes on YouTube!
I also played this on various devices (which is part of the mastering process) to check the quality on different devices and the new mix sounds WAY better on most medium to high quality playback devices (that I have anyway). It wasn't all that great on my iPhone speaker without headphones (sounds great with the headphones though) so I need to work a little more on the mastering process for low end devices.
On the surface the new version is louder, of course, which is one of the goals for commercial music recordings but it is also much fatter. You can hear the parts that don't come through in the original mix. Like all the inflections in my voice and even when I take a breath (at times).
OK, this is supposed to be the short quick post about this so here is the YouTube link:
YouTube Audio Mixing Test - Jim Croce Age song.
It's not listed on YouTube since this is a copyrighted song by someone else but I feel safe enough to include it here (as a learning aid :-))
8/30/2018 - New August Record and Fiddler on the Trail (again)!
Just a quick update... I rode 23 bike miles today and just made a New August Record. Well, it's the highest end of August miles that I have stats for anyway. I have only done this level of tracking since 2009 and my best yearly total (2,182) was in 2005 so I don't know where I was by the end of August that year. My previous record (on file) was 1,119 (in 2010). I finished August this year with 1140.
Also, I rode by the Fiddler on the Trail again today. This was a whole new thing for me last time that I saw this but now since I've already seen violin players walking on the bike trail before so it's just old stuff. :-) Anyway, the last time I saw him I had to get a photo to prove what I saw (in case I didn't believe myself too). The last time I saw this was 6/24/2017 (it's in Archive #16 on this site with the photo).
Anyway, this time I just rode by but as I passed him from behind, I was going fairly slow cause I wanted to hear how good (or bad) he was. Then I saw that he had ear buds in and the violin must have been electric cause I could not hear much sound at all. Bummer! I didn't want to disturb him so I didn't stop. I just looked at the 2017 photo and I'm not totally sure it is the same guy. But then, How many violin players are out on that trail anyway?!?!? Next time I hope it's an acoustic violin so I can hear it.
Why do I have all these Fiddler on the Roof songs going thru my head now?!? Tradition!!, Tradition!!!, ♪ Sunrise, Sunset, ♪ If I were a Rich Man da ba ♪♪ da ba da ba da ba da ba doo! Oy Veh!
8/16/2018 - Bike Roundabout and 5 Trails in One Day!
I just posted this on my Facebook-Bike-Page so I thought that I would add it here too:
Bike Roundabout and Riding 5 Trails in One Day! I just wrote about the bike trail roundabout and a bunch of bike trails in and around Madison, Wisconsin on my bike blog at: Bike Roundabout Blog Post. and I included this photo.
See the Blog Link above for more on this stuff if you are interested...
8/15/2018 - Can't Forget Completely 
OK, I mentioned in my last post that my new retirement bike miles goal is 1,500 miles and to forget the 1,000 mile goal. Well, old habits die hard and I just hit 1,000 miles yesterday and had to say something and take a photo. No selfie this time, just my odometer. On to the new goal...
You'll need to click on the photo for the large version to see it. No, I didn't just set it to 1,000, I really rode the miles!
8/10/2018 - Forget the 1,000 mile bike riding goal!
Forget about my usual 1,000 mile bike riding goal for the season. I just can't do it! OK, I lied, it's just the opposite actually. Since I am already at 935 and it's not even the middle of August, I'm just going to skip the 1,000 mile goal and set my goal to 1,500 for this year (and maybe from now on).
Last year I rode a little over 1,500 miles but it was a little harder since I worked full time until June. This year I am not really not even trying for a lot of mile but already have a lot. I think 1,500 will be fairly easy for this year (unless something happens where I can't ride much). I might just have to make my new retirement bike miles goal at least 1,500 since I have more time and seem to be riding more.
Just FYI, I have ridden over 2,000 bike miles per year 2 times. 2,009 in 2009 (yes I did that on purpose) and 2,182 in 2005. I was younger and pushed myself for the 2,182 so I don't know if I can ever beat that one, but who knows?
I wonder how long I can keep doing at least 1,500 bike miles per year (or even 1,000)? hmmm...
8/1/2018 - Thunder and Lightning Ride
My Facebook post from today:
I was at the edge of a thunderstorm on my bike ride today and it was really cool!!! Great thunder and lightning and I barely got wet. It was really fun. Note: I did not take the photo, it is by eberhard grossgasteiger on pexels.com.
Beyond Facebook:
Yea, I just couldn't resist. I really love when that happens and it is pretty rare. First of all I saw the storm coming on the radar app on my phone and I was already out a ways and decided to go ahead and get wet if necessary (I wanted to finish my 20 miles).
So I was braver than usual in that way and then to just see and hear the cool part (the thunder and lightning) and barely get wet, well that was nice!
As for the photo, I just included that for effect, of course and I got it from a free stock photo site that Jeff told me about (pexels.com as I mentioned in the post). I wanted to be sure to mention the photographer (even if he had a really odd name). Actually the photo showed a lot more of the sky but I wanted to zoom in on the lightning so I cropped it for my needs.
And this totally reminded me of that song that I wrote many years ago called "Enjoy the Ride" (the link just goes to my Song Sample page, if interested, you'll need to scroll down a little for that song). I still think that this is a really cool song although the old recording really sucks. I am planning on re-recording this one soon.
Anyway, one of the lines in the song is: "The storm in the distance looks kind of frightening, But I like to ride in the rain and the lightning". I captured the idea and feeling that I had in mind but I think that I'm going to change it to " I like to ride in the thunder and lightning". I mean, I like the thunder and lightning but I really don't like getting soaking wet on rides (lyric honesty?) :-).