Archive 20 - 8/11/2020 to 3/31/2021
3/31/2021 -The Shame
Well I am on track for my worst to second worst season total Walking Miles distance this year since I started keeping track of this (around 2007). I am so ashamed. Well, not really, but it is interesting and I wish that I had done better this year. My main excuses are that we had a pretty bad winter for walking outdoors and the Covid disaster really limited my walking indoors (which I now prefer in the winter).
Of course, I track everything these days (it's just something that I do) and I had started tracking my walking and running around 2007. I think I tracked walk-runs because I had various tracking devices (my bike odometer to check routes, then GPS on phones, my Apple watch, etc). Unfortunately, I was not as meticulous when I first started tracking this stuff as I am now.
The worst season that I have on file was 2010/2011 when my total miles was 60 (always 2 calendar years since walking season is in the winter) but I wasn't sure if I tracked all my miles all that carefully. At that time though I was also running when I walked. I used to call my workouts walk-runs back then and those 60 miles were a better workout. I actually tracked walking and running miles separately too but don't worry I wont bore you with all those stats!
My next worst walking (only) mileage was 96 and I'm sure I will not get to that this year. It's riding season! I hope that I stayed in good enough shape to make my usual bike riding season goal of 1,500 miles. BTW: My best walking season miles was in 2017/2018 when I did 229 miles!
Why do I bother rambling on about this stuff so much? Well partially because that is what I do but also because staying healthy is the most important thing to me. I don't always do it all that well and many times wish that I had done better but it is on the top of the list. Also, I don't mind the idea of dying nearly as much as the idea of being really sick and unhealthy for a long time before dying.
There are a lot of other really important things in life and it may even sound selfish to put your own fitness routines at the top of the list but if you are not healthy you can't do most of the other things that you want to do (or do them well at least) and you may not be much use to other people when your own health is a problem.
Ooo Ooo Ooo Ooo ♫ Stayin Alive ♫ Stayin Alive!
In other news...
According to the news I should be around 80% to 85% protected from Covid now (2 weeks after my first shot) and I did not have any bad reactions to it the next day. I really feel good (less stressed) about being partially protected!
Corinne had Lasik (actually PRK) surgery this week. PRK is more painful for a while afterwards and she was in a lot of pain but she should be good now (or soon). No more contacts or glasses!
Casey is starting his Mosquito Abatement job this month. Well, in April but I am jumping ahead just a little like I did with the ca lander photo above.
I think that's about it fer now... Later!
.
3/18/2021 -Got My Covid Vax!
Yep, I fInally got my Covid Vax (Vaccine) today! OK, well shot 1 of 2 (Pfizer version). I managed to get this selfie at just the right time! 😊 .
OK, I had too much time on my hands when I had the idea for this PhotoChop photo a few days ago when I created it. My friends and colleagues from DEC (and possibly even other nerds that really know their computer history) will get the hidden message about my vaccine abbreviation (vax) and block letters.
There is a pretty long story about my journey to vaccination but I will try to do the really quick version.
I waited a little while before attempting to get a vaccination hoping that it would be easier after the initial rush of people that wanted to be first on the block to get it (or maybe that just really wanted to stay alive). Well, that didn't work. It still wasn't easy!
So for me in Illinois, my doctors did not just send me a notice although I did call both of them about it and they said they would let me know when that had some available but that I should try to get it on my own if I could. So at first I was just trying the Walgreens website. No luck. Later, I started checking the Jewel, Marianos and Cook County Websites (in addition to Walgreens). I also asked people and did a Facebook post to see who else got it and how. I found that other people were getting vaccinated but I would just get teased on the websites (appointments showing as available then disappearing when I tried to book one).
I was getting pretty frustrated with all of this after a few weeks and I finally got my appointment. Here's how that happened, My Online Tecky Skills Failed me! I had to go Old School and use a telephone, like for an old fashioned phone call!
I knew of a couple of people that got their Vaxes through Cook County and finally got a good phone number for them that worked. Once I got the magic phone number, I got through with 1 call and got an appointment for the next day in Des Plaines (only 20 minutes from here)!
The thing is, they do not advertise this phone number and I was not able to find it with online searches. I finally got it in a very indirect way (through Dara through an email that her brother got and forwarded).
So for those of you in Illinois and in Cook County that are trying to get the vaccine here is what works at this time. Call 833-308-1988. Here is my Disclaimer: This phone number works today. Who knows what will work tomorrow or at a later time... Also, you may need to live in Cook County for this service, if so, the other Illinois counties may have similar services but I can't help with that, sorry.
Wow! What an adventure! Well, I feel better already (mentally), I have also had no bad vaccine effects yet (so far so good...) although I know of 4 people now that have had problems after getting the Moderna vaccine.
.
3/6/2021 -Just about Walking... and Meditation
Yea, since the weather finally broke and is actually pretty nice now I have been able to get outside for more of my Fitness Walks again. I've mentioned this a little below but usually kind of gloss over it so I wanted to just write a little blurb about it.
Fitness Walks, along with bike riding of course, are some the most important things to me. I think staying in shape and staying healthy should be for everyone. Unfortunately, with Covid and the hard winter that we had I have not been able to do much this year as you can see by my walking miles above. I had 81 miles at this time last year.
I liked walking in Woodfield (in the terrible weather) but this year, with Covid, the mall was closed for a while, then xmas crowds then I really was not crazy about walking with a mask on and even being exposed more by being there. Then we had a hard winter with extreme cold and a lot of snow which really makes it difficult to walk outside. Well, some of the snow is still here so the trails aren't great yet but the weather is good and I can do it outside. Yay!!! 😎 I can tell how out of shape I became now.
Well I have been doing Mindfulness Meditation for over a year now and have meditated over a hundred times. Obviously, I find it beneficial. Of course, it is not necessary to track how many times one meditates but it's my thing to track crap and write it down (in spreadsheets) since I don't have a real physical memory anymore!😞
I have re-read many parts of my book, Mindfulness In Plain English, many times now. It's hard to comprehend everything with just one pass (for me anyway). As I practice meditation more, many parts of the book become clearer and more helpful. One chapter that I really appreciate more now (and may not even have been ready for it before) is one of the last ones called Meditation in Everyday Life.
One part of this chapter has to do with Walking Meditation which is interesting. It describes a formal process of Walking Meditation, like walking back and forth slowly while concentrating on breathing and all the physical sensations of the process of walking but I can see how it can also apply totally to a more casual form of walking meditation which I kind of do now anyway but I think the formal process could help with this too.
I did not see a chapter or section on Meditation while Bike Riding though! Bummer. I do a practice a casual form of this too (and have for quite a while). Maybe I was not doing the Mindfulness part of it enough last summer when I crashed that one time! 😊
The other sections in this chapter are also very interesting like the part on Posture and Slow Motion Activities. It also made me think about kinesthetic learning or maybe more appropriately Kinesthetic Insight.
.
2/28/2021 -We Got Green and Bike Trail Photos!
So I walked by my window a couple of nights ago and thought that I saw something strange out of the corner of my eye. I wasn't sure what it was so I went for a closer look. I figured it out pretty quickly, it was the ground! I had been so used to seeing nothing but white outside that it caught me by surprise. Of course, the next day I could see some green! Yep, it was grass. Yahoo!
First we had a ton of snow a few weeks back, then we got hit with a deep freeze (below zero days) not that long ago. Well, the deep freeze finally broke with some great weather! I've been kind of hermity lately with the weather and Covid and it's been really nice to get out some more. I am finally getting in some walking miles again (outside) which I have really been slackin off on this year. Bike Riding next!
And that leads me right in to my next topic which is kind of what I wanted to write about. I just finished posting my Fox River Trail photos from last fall. The Fox River Trail (FRT) is one of my favorite bike trails by us and I had "Bike Trail Photo Pages" for many sections of this bike trail on my bike site for years (some from back in 2003!).
The original photos that I had were pretty low quality and lame compared to the quality of photos these days (even from a cell phone). So I have been wanting to do a facelift on these pages for quite a while now and took some photos of the northern end of the trail last fall for a much needed upgrade.
It actually takes some time to go through each batch of photos, select the best ones, touch them up and post them on the website so I didn't want to take all that time while it was still bike riding season so I saved that for these cold ass winter days (like before the deep freeze broke).
This was actually a great plan because it was really nice to work on bike trail photos and reminisce about nice weather and bike riding during the deep freeze.
So here are the updated bike trail photo pages from last fall. I think the pages document the trail pretty well and there are some nice photos in there too.
FRT North Photos1 - Algonquin and Prairie Trail
FRT North Photos2 - Prairie Trail to Dundee
FRT North Photos3 -Dundee, Otto Engineering Park
FRT North Photos4 - Thru Downtown Dundee
FRT North Photos5 - I90 Underpass, Pratt's Castle, Elgin
A few website notes: OK, I cheated a little on my calendar month photo above and posted it 1 day early (as long as I was "under the hood" here.
Also, if you do go to my Bike Site from the links above and get drawn in an interested in the stuff out there (who wouldn't :-)) and want to check out the Bike Blog. It is currently not working. I had a problem with the latest Wordpress update and it broke the whole blog. I have my hosting service working on it but it may be out of service for a little bit.
.
2/3/2021 -New KN95 Mask
FB Post from Today: I Just got my new KN95 Masks today. 
I have worn a mask since the beginning of the pandemic (indoors in public places (not on my bike rides)) but I've upgraded my masks a few times and am getting even more serious now. Oh yea, I had to include my new redneck toupee in the photo too! More details on www.robanddara.com of course.
And more... At the beginning of the pandemic (when I thought it was being sensationalized in the media and hoping that it would not last that long) I started wearing bandanas over my nose and mouth when I went to public places indoors). Later I updated to the Blue/Green masks (surgical masks?) and now I just got my 5 new KN95s ($13 on Amazon).
I actually really like the ear-loops way better than having something all the way around my head (like a bandana). I learned that the "K" in KN95s mean that it is the kind that loop around your ears but have the same material protection as regular N95s.
More on my Redneck Toupee. Well, I just took a quick selfie (no hat) to show Corinne my new mask (that she ordered through her Prime account). As usual, I didn't look that great in the selfie so I decided to make myself look a little better and I took another one with my new hat on (well, it's from xmas but still kind of new). Much better! 
.
So to be fair, Here is My First Mask Selfie - with no hat. This is why I wear my Redneck Toupees... Yes, my "bald spot" is starting to show a little more now 😊... Why not look better when you can? Women get to use make-up and often dye their hair (OK, some men do that too - both of those things actually).
.
.
1/25/2021 -Experimenting with Marijuana! 
OK, brace yourselves (no wait that was another post) It's true, I have been Experimenting with Marijuana! Of course, I have been known to take a toke or two of marijuana in the past like in the late 60s, 70s and even early 80s but then I never inhaled 😊. At some point I actually just got bored with it and just stopped doing it. I can't say I've missed it much, if at all, but then there was always alcohol which was legal and you got more bang for the buck.
I can probably count the times that I have actually smoked pot in recent decades on one hand now (maybe 2 hands...). Since I have retired I tried it again a few times and really have a terrible time smoking it because of my cough. Well, these days edibles are very popular and I have experimented with them a little. Edibles are a little more tricky because it takes a while to hit you and then lasts for quite a while too. They also have the exact Mgs written on the edibles packages so you can actually know how much THC you are getting and to control it better (assuming that the Mgs are correct on the illegal stuff (and that it is really just marijuana!)). 
Well, now that marijuana is legal in Illinois I decided to try some actual store-bought pot (does it feel any different being legally high???)! I actually wanted to try legal and theoretically more controlled pot in specific amounts (MGS) that I can control to see what the effects are on me. So even though the taxes are ridiculous, I just bought some legal pot today.
The dispensary experience was really interesting! There are a lot of rules and security at the dispensary. It's hard to say which rules are Covid related and which are pot sale related. You are supposed to order online before going into the store but I found out that they will let you in the store to talk to someone and even browse a little (with a sales person as a baby sitter).
Fortunately, I did my homework and shopped online before going to the dispensary. I decided to get a 100mg pack (10 pieces) of Indica gummies. Indica is supposed to be more laid back than Sativa so that sounded good to me. You can really learn a lot online (like at the dispensary sites) these days. The store by me is right next to Woodfield Mall and is called Sunnyside. Their website is: https://www.sunnyside.shop/learn (this page has some good Q&A info, you need to enter that you are over 18, etc).
So when I browsed in the store a little there are a lot of different kinds of edibles and I saw that they also had Pot Drinks (drinkables?) which they called "Tonic" lol! I have also heard them referred to as elixirs. These were 12oz bottles of "Tonic" that had 100mg of THC for about $40. For that price and amount of THC, I guess you get one and pass it around, right? Or I guess you could mix it with booze and call it a PotTail. There was also some other interesting stuff but now I forgot what it was (and I haven't even tried the product yet!!!)
Anyway the sales guy working with me took my order then went to the counter and gave them my order. Then I got a receipt and had to wait in a short line to pay. There was also a cop (or security guy, I did not see the patch) watching over the shop. Then when I got to the cashier, they carded me again (they did that before letting me in the store too) and gave me the cost. I got out my credit card but then found out that they only take cash and Debit cards! That was interesting too. So I used my DR card
So the 10 pack (100mg) of Gummies cost was $36.76 then there's the taxes! The total tax for this sale (State and all local taxes) was $13.24 or about 36%. This worked out to a total of $50 even (interesting...) Then I discovered that they charge $3 if you use a DR card. Next time I guess I would bring cash.
As I mentioned above, I have not tried my new pot purchase yet. I plan on trying it later this week. I have a very strict schedule for my recreational drugs (Alcohol and Pot) or maybe I should call this medicinal! I am also careful with the amounts (doses?) and have a good idea about what I can handle. Man, am I old and boring or what! I would let you know how that goes here but I'm not going to get into that kind of thing. Feel free to contact me if you are interested in the follow-up product review.
.
1/21/2021 -I've Been Victimized! Relief...
Yea, this week I became a crime victim 🙁 OK, I know what you might be thinking... Don't worry, I wasn't raped! 😊
So I parked my car in my usual spot on Friday afternoon. I did not go out again on the weekend (I prefer going out on weekdays when the worker bees are in their hives). Then the next time I drove anywhere was Monday afternoon.
I go out to my car and VAROOM!!!! At first I thought something exploded but it was just my engine running... So I figured that my exhaust system has finally fallen apart. The dealer has been telling me for years that the whole exhaust system needed to be replaced (for $5,000!). Well, I would probably go somewhere else for the actual repair but have been putting it off and have been expecting to have issues with that at anytime. 
So Tuesday, I drive up to a Midas repair place and they lift the van up on their handy car lift. The guy comes back to tell me that he knows why my van was so loud. He says "come with me and take a look" and I go into the shop to check it out. Then he tells me (and shows me) that my Catalytic (Kitty Litter) Converter has been stolen!!! So I look and sure enough, the pipes are freshly and evenly cut and no Kitty Litter Converter!
I was totally shocked! I just thought that the exhaust system finally given out. I took the photo that I posted here but didn't think of that right away until they cut a little more off of the front pipe (it still looked about the same though).
Anyway, I reported it to the police and hotel. My van was in a place where the hotel video cameras would have been able to see it so I hope that the video shows something anyway. I guess they steal them for the precious metals and can get around $150 for one. But then, it cost me about $900 to repair my van!!! It sucks in so many ways and it also sucks to be a victim.
OK, I guess that's enough for the local news... Now in the national news I must say that I am just really Relieved that #@%&^@# Trump out of the presidents office! As you may know and that I have posted here too, I really try not to post political crap. It's just too sensitive for some people and I mostly don't want to get into it with people.
I think this particular election was a really significant event (and since I always hated Trump and never voted for him) I couldn't resist, sorry. Just to be clear though I am not a Democrat. But then I am also not a Republican. Yes, I'll admit it, I am Bi-Political (or independent as some people say).
OK, enough of that, I am just glad that we got rid of that particular negative force and tyrant.
.
1/15/2021 -Brace Yourself: Quality of Life Improvement, Malkin Again
Wow, I tried something recently that is improving my Quality of Life (QOL) in a major way!!!! The only problem that I have with this QOL improvement is that I didn't think of it and try it decades ago!!! As most of you that know me already know, I have had back problems for most of my adult life and with age it seems to be getting even worse (or I am just more of a pussy now or maybe am more"mindful" of it).
My insight into this started when I was moving a lot of heavy boxes of books to help Dara clean-up one of her storage units. The first time that I did this I worked on these books for about 4 hours and my back was just killing me. Then when I got home it was even worse and was really terrible for over a week or so. I could not even sleep on my right side. 
Well this is a job that really needs to be done and (since I am so good at this kind of thing) I had to try to figure out how I could help to do it. So, for some reason at this point in time, it crossed my mind to try a Back Brace. Why now? I dunno, just getting smarter I guess... 😊 Maybe my headline above should have been Brace Myself (but that sounds wrong and weird).
OK, time for the big QOL reveal... I finally bought and tried a Back Brace! Just to be sure, I bought the best one out there on Amazon which was $60. I probably have gotten a good one for $25-$35 but as long as I was getting one I decided to go for what I thought was the best one (it would be priceless if it worked... and it did!).
The photo is me in my back brace, of course... I took this photo op to show off my new bucket hat again too.
The best that I hoped for was that, if I was lucky, maybe it would help a little and I could recover from heavy lifting in a day or 2 rather than a week or 2. Well I did the same amount of work yesterday at storage. Moving tons (literally) of books for over 4 hours and my back was not hurting while I was working. Then before I called it a success I figured that it would hit me after I got home or maybe the next day or something.
Well it's "the next day" now and I have zero pain!!! This is a major improvement in my life. Now I can do more physical work (hmmm, maybe that part's not so good). I am just so happy about this. Now, if I can just find another silver bullet to cure my cough problem, I'd feel like I was in my twenties again! OK, well maybe I am exaggerating just a little 😊 but that would be great too.
One thing that I am a little disappointed in is why did the various doctors and chiropractors that I have seen for back problems for so many years not suggest trying a back brace? Especially the chiropractors! OK, well I guess that would not have been good for their businesses, would it?
Alright, the back brace is such a wonderful discovery for me that I just had to ramble on about that a lot... In other news, really just a side story, I was able to Start Malkin Again. Mall Walkin that is of course. I wasn't really sure if malls would be open in Illinois again but now that the holidays are over I decided to check it out and do some malkin if that was an option.
To my surprise, Woodfield was open. It's a different world now, of course, and there have been a lot of changes but it was open. Well, of course, I have something to say about the changes at the mall...
I think that the changes that the people-in-charge make "to keep us safe" are often like shooting themselves in the foot (as they say) and make things worse. For example, they took away a lot of the seats in the mall where you could take a break. Some were more permanent I guess and so there were just less places to sit so there were more people huddled into those places than if they left the seats alone so people could spread out better!
Then they have limits on how many people can be in the individual stores at the same time, so they have corrals in front of the popular stores for people to wait until there is an opening. So there are more people huddled together in the corrals for longer periods of time.
Also one of Dara's observations early on in the pandemic, that I agree with, is when they limit store hours (to allegedly deep clean more after hours) this also forces more people to go into the stores at the same time because there are less hours available to go to them.
Reminds me of the old saying... "if it aint broke, fix it until it is!"
OK I gotta go load some more tons... "You load sixteen tons ♫ what do ya get... ♫ 😊" Not back pain anymore, for me!
.
12/26/2020 -Christmas 2020 Style, New Redneck Toupee, Cold-Covid-Crazy Xmas Day
I put together a little photo collection of our Christmas 2020 activities. Yea, we were pretty socially distant and covid safe mostly. We did get together on xmas eve at Corinne's apartment with Corinne, Will, Dara, Me and Casey (plus cats). So that was just 5 of us that had mostly been exposed to each other before that anyway.
I only took a couple of phone photos at Corinne's place on xmas eve and I extracted a photo from a video that Dara took. Then I took a selfie after christmas of my New Redneck Toupee! Next I included a few photos that we got from Robin of the Cold-Covid-Safe Xmas Day get together and then finally I included Corinne and Dara's xmas card photos and artwork.
Yea, Dara's brother and sis-in-law (Kurt and Robin) had the Cold-Covid-Safe and Crazy get together outside on xmas day (when we had high temps in the 20s!!!) I stayed "socially distant" and opted out of that one completely. Yea, that one was not for me as you might have guessed.
As for my New Redneck Toupee, I wanted to try out bucket hats (as they call them) because it looked like a good casual style hat that would work out for me and that I could wear indoors or outdoors. I told Corinne I was looking for one and she got me one for xmas. I love it! I think that this will be a good new look (and toupee style) for me. I still have and will still wear my usual baseball cap style toupees but I think this style will work out better in some situations.
OK, I think that's enough yakin on that subject fer now... Here's the Christmas 2020 Photo Collection:
Christmas 2020 Photo Collection
.
12/8/2020 -Website Work, Electric Bike Revolution, and Walkin...
Just a late fall update. Now that it the colder weather is here (and that I made my final bike miles goal for this year), I have started doing some Website Work again. OK, sometimes when I do fun stuff on my websites (like here or my bike trail pages), I call it "work" but it's not really work. In this case, it is much closer to work but not like anything terrible.
I'll try to keep this brief because I am aware that a lot of people find this b-o-r-i-n-g. I have been wanting to do a facelift on my bike site and update and add stuff to my treadmill site since I never really got very far on that one.
Well I finished the initial facelift on my bike site and streamlined it quite a bit. A lot of the really old content is still out there but I changed the links on most of the sidebars to only include the latest things that I have been working on. I have updated some stuff on the treadmill site but have not added the new stuff yet.
One of the things that I have been wanting to work on and got a start on (only a start), is to add some Electric BIke (or E-Bike) information to my bike site. Basically I just included a very general summary of the stuff that I learned from internet searches (here) and I added a blog to the site about the Electric Bike Revolution (here) as I called it.
And finally, I have finally started a little bit of an outdoor Walking Routine. It's been pretty cold but the weather has been at least reasonable enough to walk outside and I don't even want to think about going to a mall this time of year! I don't really even know it the malls are open now. They were a few weeks ago but the Gov. has been shutting more and more stuff all the time for covid. I'll look into that again after the holidays are over.
I almost forgot how important my Walking Routine is for exercise and fitness in the bike riding off season. I have gained over 3 pounds since I stopped riding and started doing nothing and was feeling really out of shape when I did my first few walks.
Oh yea, one more thing. Just for kix (I really like Kix cereal but it just keeps getting ♫ harder to find ♫ 😊), I added my walking mileage log to the top of the page under my Bike Mileage stats.
11/29/2020 -Ridin, Walkin, Websites and Encore!
Mostly I just wanted to post that I made my latest bike miles goal of 1,700 miles! It's been pretty cold for ridin but since I was so close to the 1,700 mark I just did a couple of short rides for that. Now I have a nice easy number to remember for this year (and for my 3rd place mileage). I'm done ridin for this year.
I guess it's fitness walkin season now. I haven't really gotten into that yet but need to do it. I was likin walkin in the mall last year but I don't want to go near one of those places until after the holiday season is over. I'll have to start my outdoor walkin routine. It's definitely been good enough weather for that so far...
After watchin all the news stories about the billions of dollar$ being spent on the internet I was thinking, "hey, that was a good idea back when I used to work at that" and that I wanna get me some of them there billion$!
Well, since I have 2 websites already setup for that, I decided to put at least a little effort into getting them more up-to-update with the affiliate stuff. So decided to do some updates to my affiliate websites. I do not intend to get all crazy with this and if it doesn't hardly make any money that is OK but I might as well at least make it possible.
I have been wanting to give my bike site a facelift anyway and I also want to add some Electric Bike articles and links to give that a shot so I might as well get the other affiliate stuff up-to-date too. I have some ideas for a new simple and honest approach to the affiliate sales that may or may not work but hey, it's just an experiment anyway. Before I do that I am at least going to fix all the bad affiliate links and stuff.
One more thing that I wanted to mention. I did have a Thanksgiving Dinner Encore to my turkey pot pie. Corinne cooked a yummy traditional Thanksgiving dinner and delivered dinner packages to us unsociably safe family members yesterday (as I described in an earlier post). It was great and I had 2 more Thanksgiving dinners!
11/27/2020 -When ♫ Black Friday Comes ♫ ...
... I'll collect ♫ all the cars I've ♫ owned... OK, so much for the song lyrics, I tried to make it work. What this post is really about is All of the Cars that I have Owned. Oh yea, and, I guess it's Black Friday.
Something that I've had on my ToDo list for a while now is to put together a list of all the cars that I have owned (before all of my memory is gone 😊) Well, I finally got to that and have posted my updates on this site, of course.
You would not find this real easily but I posted it in the logical place on this site at the bottom of the RoBiography page along with The Places I have Lived and The Places where I have Worked. Of course, I'll just put a link here to after I yak about it a little more.
The list of all my cars was not too difficult (just a memory exercise) but I also wanted to include photos of all of my cars. That was a little harder. Since I am not a real big "car person" I never bothered to get too many photos of my early cars (especially when I had to pay for film and developing). So I don't even have photos of a lot of my early cars but I had digitized copies of 8mm film images that I was able to get screen shots from to at least have something.
So my early car photos are really crappy and I could not find anything at all for one of my cars (my 70 something AMC Hornet). I did put together a photo display of all my cars but I cheated a little and also searched the internet to include good photos of cars that were very similar to mine (but not really my actual cars) and I included both the good photo of the cars "like mine" and my actual cars.
So enough yakin on that, here are the links to:
The page with the List of All of my Cars (Vehicles)
The Photo Display of All My Cars
(There is a link to this on the page above too)
I'll have to remember to update these page with my "Last Car" once I get it...
ANd quickly in other news... I got my bike back from having the repairs done and am still hoping to get those last 15 miles in to make a nice even 1,700 bike miles for this year!
.
11/24/2020 -Unsociably Safe, Really Enlightened, Late Season Encore, Repair
Yep, I got my Unsociably Safe Thanksgivin dinner ready to go!!! I guess I am getting even more serious (paranoid) about the pandemic at this point and I have cancelled my traditional Thanksgiving trip to Wisconsin. 😢 ;
OK, this just in... (since I bought my frozen feast). I've heard a rumor that my wonderful daughter may be delivering Thanksgiving dinners to the dysfunctional this year (us). So I may actually have a healthier and much tastier dinner after all. And home delivered! 😊 ;
I haven't meditated quite as much recently but I am still doing it pretty regularly and I still believe that it is beneficial to me. I also keep track (like I do with so many little things) and I have now meditated over 100 times (OK, 101 now to be exact)! I am just so Enlightened now!
And finally, as you can tell by bike miles above, I am still riding occasionally when we have nice days and have been able to get in some Late Season Encores. I am also closing in on a total of 1,700 miles for the season so I kind of set that as an additional goal for this year. Unfortunately, on my last ride, I broke my back wheel gear cable. Well I have it in for repair but I'm not sure if I'll get it back in time for another decent weather day to ride the final 15 miles for the year.
When I was looking at my bike miles history I just discovered that I am already in 3rd place for my own most bike miles in a riding season! My 2 highest mileage years were 2,182 in 2005 and 2,009 in 2009 (yea, I did that on purpose). I didn't realize that I was in 3rd place already. There is no way I would get over 2k this year to beat one of the top 2 but 1,700 would be a nice number to have for the 3rd highest.
11/11/2020 -Schlocky Van Paint Job! Beautiful, Fall Days Encore, My New Hat
I had mentioned that I might elaborate on my Schlocky Van Paint Job at some point and I guess this is that point. I had a little extra time today and finally got some photos. Unfortunately, I do not have any "Before" photos. I really wish that I took some before my paint job. So all I can do is describe "the before".
There used to be a bunch of paint chipped off from a bad paint job at the factory (Honda did a recall but I used some of the repair money and did not have the whole van painted). So you could see the big areas of light gray primer where the paint chipped off.
Well, as most of you know, I am living in a hotel room so I do not have a place to paint my van or any of the proper tools and accessories to do it "the right way". My van is also pretty old (16 years old and well over 200k miles) so I don't want to put a lot of $ or effort into a superficial face lift or anything but I still wanted it to look a little better.
What I did have, however, was a spray can (rattle can as my brother and the pros call it) with some perfectly matching paint that Dara got many years ago when I was seeing some of the original paint problems. I also had some left over aluminum foil (aka sandpaper) and some cut up cardboard (cereal boxes aka masking tape) to cover the stuff that I didn't want painted. Good enough! 😊
Next I found a real professional painting location (a parking lot for an abandoned office building) and did my first coat in the summer and then another coat in the fall. I accidentally painted a little bit of the bottom of one of my windows so one of these days when I find a good razor blade for the job I'll see if I can scrape that off.
The result... well, it's kind of what I expected and you can totally see it when you are close up but it actually looks a lot better than I thought from a distance! It also looks better in the shade and when it is dirty (so that part's easy, I just don't clean it!).
So the 1st 2 photos below are from a little more of a distance and in a partly shady area but, to be fair, the last 2 photos are closer up and in bright sun so you can see the schlockieness (and how dirty my van actually is (the rain does a pretty good job a lot of times but not always).
Of course you can click on any of these photos for the larger version for closer inspection...
The paint job on the side from a distance |
A little closer version |
The photos below are a little more revealing... |
|
The side shot in brighter sun |
The front in brighter sun (there was only 2 little rust spots on the hood) |
.
Yep, we have had some beautiful days lately for a Nice Fall Encore. I hope it's not the last call just yet. As you can see from the bike mileage above, I have been getting in some final rides for the year and still adding to my mileage total. I also wanted to mention that I did a blog post on my bike site about the major bridge construction that was just completed this fall (with a few photos).
That post may not be too exciting for you non-bikers out there but I wanted to mention it here anyway (in case you really need some extra reading material to pass some time or something. Here's a link to the Prairie Trail Bridge into Algonquin Blog post (on my bike site). 
And finally, one last thing... How do you like My New Hat (toupee)??? I saw someone wearing what I discovered is called a "Bucket Hat" in a Madonna movie that I was watching (called Madonna and the Breakfast Club) and thought it looked like a practical toupee for me. Of course, I don't actually have one yet and this is a photo-chopped photo (using my old photo from the spring that works good for hat tryouts).
I actually did a really quick PS job on that pic and it has "issues" but like my paint job, it was good enough for my purposes at this time (BTW: No photo-chopping at all on the van photos
(except resizing for this page).
.
11/2/2020 -Voted, and some notes from the management.
First, I just wanted to mention that I Voted (a few days ago). I'm definitely not going to get into any political views because that is too much of a hot button topic for a lot of people (especially with this election). Oh yea, as you can see since I live in the Chicago area so I voted twice! 😊 (just kidding, of course) I just accidentally grabbed 2 stickers.
I do want to mention a little about the process that I used though. I voted with a mail-in ballot that I took to a poling place and dropped into a voting box. It all seemed very secure and they even did an initial check to verify that I was me (which was easy because I always am!)
I actually did a mail-in ballot last year too and found that I really prefer that method. I like that you can see everything that you will be voting on ahead of time and can make decisions and do research if necessary before you are standing there in a voting booth.
OK, I will mention one semi-political thing which is that I am happy to consider myself an Independent and, just like in the last election, I voted for some Reds and some Blues... and that's enough on that.
Next, I just got under the hood of the website to archive the older posts from this page to The Archives as I do periodically to help this page to load faster (yes, I still just do it manually).
So now everything from 8/5/2019 to 7/31/2020 is in Archive 19 - which is a lot of last summer and this summer. Yea, I still have just about everything ever written here going back to 1999 😊 (you just may have to search a little to find something specific).
Also, it looks like some decent weather coming this week. So I'll have some More Riding to do!
.
10/25/2020 -Recovery
This is probably not the most entertaining news to post here but I feel like it is good to keep everyone up to date on what is going on in our lives. For those of you who are not yet aware, our divorce was completed on Tuesday (10/20). I originally filed for divorce in September of 2019 and it has just been finalized. It has been a long and stressful time but at least is it now complete. I feel like this is a recovery phase for myself (and I imagine for a lot of my family too).
Once again (as I mentioned in my "Elephant in the Room" post below), I am not going to go into any details here on this website (or any other website) but if anyone wants to know more of the details feel free to contact me.
One noteworthy item that I will probably make references to occasionally is that in the process of working out our divorce agreement, I ended up buying our house in Palatine from Dara. Also, as part of our agreement, I am renting the house back to Dara until the end of August, 2021 so she has time to find a new place and to move her "stuff" out of the house.
Therefore, I will remain in my Extended Stay hotel room until September of 2021. My room is just a hotel room but it is more like a studio apartment (with full size fridge, stove, cabinets, etc.) and is actually a pretty good deal since all utilities are included in the price of the room and I don't have to make a long term commitment for how long I stay.
10/11/2020 -FB Profile pic, van painting
OK, it's late and I am really planning on a quick update (we'll see how that goes...) 
My "Profile Picture" on Facebook was getting kind of old since it was from the spring with flowering trees in the background and I had my scarf hat on (that picture is buried in this page somewhere) and since it was fall, I decided on a whim to do a fall selfie profile picture update. So that is the photo that I have included here.
It turned out to be a really nice fall day here today and what I actually went out to do was paint my van. This is a long story and maybe I will explain that better another time but I just did a quick schlocky, Rattle Can paint job with almost no prep and no real painting supplies (except the spray paint can).
Well I did that and drove my van on some side streets to give it a blow job (blow dry the paint a little of course, what else?) then wanted to leave it parked in some bright sun for a while for a sun treatment.
So I parked by a walking path and just walked a little to kill some time while the paint dried a little. It was pretty sunny and some of the trees were looking really good with their fall colors so I decided to do a photo and rather than just get the trees I did some selfies too.
The selfie that I used on FB (and included here) is the first one that I took! So it's pretty natural and didn't involve a 200 picture photo shoot to get 1 good picture this time 🙂. I did take 4 other photos with a more colorful tree but those actually did not come out as well as my first spontaneous one.
OK, so my profile pic is done for this season (year, decade?) and so is this post.
.
10/07/2020 -1500 Miles and Counting...
I rode past my "1500 Milestone" today. Yep, another year, another 1,500 bike miles!!!
Well, I posted the paragraph above on my Facebook page today (along with the photo and a link to here for more info), but I have to include it here, of course, for the record and for those non-Facebookers.
Somewhere in all the posts below, I mentioned that making my yearly bike riding miles goal of 1,500 miles always seems impossible at the beginning of each year, like when I only have a few miles or even a few hundred miles.
Then as bike riding season goes on into the summer (and I rack up more miles as I usually do) I start to see the stone at the end of the tunnel and by the fall (if I have paid my riding dues in the summer) it usually seems easier to finally get there.
This year I had a lot of summer miles so I hit my goal pretty early and was able to even kick back a little lately. There were other years, however, when it started getting colder and I still had a lot of miles left to ride and it was a lot of work at the end of the season and sometimes involved some pretty cold rides. I even worried a lot about early snows and having to ride in terrible cold weather to reach my goal!
Well, the 1,500 is my yearly goal but that does not mean that riding season is completely over now, of course. As you can see by my mileage count above I already have 1,505 after my goal-making ride. So I will still be out there riding but I don't have to push too hard. I can just do it for the fun and therapeutic value and to stay in shape of course and I can pick the best days and be lazy on the crappy days (as it should be, right?)
Like today, after my goal and after I took the famous 1500 Milestone photo (included here), I took some additional fall bike trail photos. They are just on my phone, of course, for now but some of the trees have some color now so on a nice sunny day like today was, I can get some good photos. I am going to be doing some more photos on my upcoming rides so I am not going to post the other ones from today just yet. I want to get a good batch of fall bike trail photos together and post them in a nicely formatted page (most likely on my bike site with all of the other trail photos).
OK, enough jib-jab-jabberin! That's the good news for today! There is, of course, plenty of other bad news on the TV and other places too but this is just a good news post 🙂
.
9/14/2020 -Pee Spot
OK, I just couldn't resist this quick story and post. When you are out on the bike trails a lot there will, of course, be times that you will have to pee. Well, I really don't like outhouses (when you can find one of those) and it is even harder to find a decent washroom on the trails. So generally I look for a good natural location where I can pee.
Of course, it can be hard to find a private location where you are not on display and are not likely to be arrested for indecent exposure especially when there a lot of people out. Well, I know of a few of these elusive natural washrooms but some are more risky than others when it comes to "getting caught" or not. Well not long ago I found a really good place to pee on one of my trails. It's VERY private even on nice days when the trail is really crowded!
So... How can you tell when you have found a really good and private place to pee outdoors??? I think that the photo that I took on my last ride is the best way to know that you have found a good private location. OK, be aware, this is an X-Rated photo so it's not for the kids (or more sensitive adults)...
Signs that you have found a Good, Private Place to Pee Outdoors (adults only)
Zoom in to see the detail if you need to.
In other news, yep got 182 bike miles left to make my bike miles season goal (1,500)!
.
9/6/2020 -Just Website Updates
I just updated my Movie Ratings page with the latest movies that I have seen (this is nothing new, I update this one all the time, this list is really long) but I also did a quick update of my Favorite Movies page (which I have not done since 2016 I think). That update was just a quick facelift and enhancement but I also made some minor changes.
The other thing is that, since I check the movie ratings page pretty often (to see if I have seen a movie), I wanted this to be easier to get to and since the Favorite Movies page ( is just so interesting 🙂), I wanted easier access so I added a button for at the top of this page (and most pages on this site) to make it easier to get to this stuff. What fun!
.
8/21/2020 -Just a quick/short update (I promise)
Yep, it's September! I really just got under-the-hood of this website to update the month photo above. I really like the September photo above since you see a lot of these yellow weed/flowers in the fields around here this time of year. That photo is pretty old (as are most of my monthly photos) but they are all my own original photos (except for a very few exceptions which I have been replacing) and I try to use photos from the month in the title (or within a few days usually).
At some point (before I die, maybe) I might do more of a facelift on this site so it looks a little more current but for now it has been my tradition to at least update the Month Photo so you can quickly see if I am awake and doing updates or asleep and letting the website content get old (it has happened in the past). I also hope to get more and better photos to feature each month but we will see how that goes. Sometimes, I recycle an old photo that represents the month to get more mileage out of a good photo (like I did with the July photo of Casey on the Jet Ski).
And the last "quick" thing, as you can see from the mileage above I have 1,248 miles for the bike riding season so far so making my goal (1,500 miles) will be a piece-of-cake now. That is like 126 miles a month for the next 2 months (and most of the time there is some good riding weather after that too). I could do that in my sleep 🙂 but I'll try to stay awake on my rides since I did have that one "reminder" crash recently.
My miles goal often seems impossible at the beginning of the year but gets more realistic after I accumulate some good miles. Then it seems like nothing and like I could increase my goal. I thought of trying for 2,000 miles this year but actually that would be really hard and I don't feel like "working" that hard. I'll keep my goal at 1,500 for now.
Wow, it seems like I can't even keep a quick update all that short. OK, that's it! Later!
.
8/20/2020 - Another Bike Trail "Incident", Just in the nick-of-time
Signs like the one that I have included here are posted all over the bike trails! I think it is pretty obvious - Bees Yield to Bikes! Yea, on the bike trails, us bike riders have the right-of-way over Bees. Well this time of year them bees are gettin pretty crabby and not paying attention to the rules. So I had another Bike Trail "Incident" today.
Yea, I am just riding along, minding my own business and Crash! Bam! again, like last Sunday. This time there is no way it was my fault. A bee just smashed into my face and stuck to my mouth. I felt a large bug hit me and just figured that it would just bounce off but it just stuck there on my mouth so I brushed it off right away (within a second or two). Unfortunately, within that short time it stung me! and Ouch Man, did that hurt! I guess it's a risky month to be out on the bike trails 🙂.
I also rode by the new bridge with the construction where my crash was and where I staged the photos below and the construction guys had just changed the detour and opened up the new path under the bridge (as I was thinking would happen soon). Man, I got out there nick-of-time to do the crash site photo shoot of my accident!
8/18/2020 - The Crash Photos
I couldn't resist and had to get back out to the trail with the crash site today before they made progress with the construction and changed everything. Fortunately, it was all the same as Sunday and I was able to "stage a photo shoot". Sorry no actual re-enactment or staged photo with me in it. I just put my bike in the place that I crashed, knocked down the construction barrel the way it was after my crash and took some photos (yea, I put the barrel back again when I was done).
The photo included here in the post shows my bike where I ended up with it on top of me in the gravel (there is a blow-up version if you click/touch the photo.
This Photo is Zoomed out a little and shows the break in the pavement, the sharp turn and where the detour goes around the new bridge.
This Photo is Zoomed out even more (a pano actually) and shows where the new path (not opened yet) goes under the bridge.
* The rest of the crash story is below (of course).
8/17/2020 - Crash! Bam! Ouch!!! E-Bikes discharge
So I am just coming up to the new bridge that is under construction on the trail like I have dozens of times, being very cautious because there are a couple of breaks in the pavement with gravel fill. Then I was looking behind me (the mistake) to make sure that no one was right behind me as I went around the tight corner then Whoa! Crash! Bam! Ouch!!! Yea, I should have been been more concerned about what was in front of me rather than behind me!
Some guy was coming around the tight corner (faster than he should have I think) and I think I drifted over into his lane a little (it happened really quick so...). Well, I dodged the other rider, hit the brakes but did not quite stop before hitting the cord with the flags that was tied to the construction barrels around the construction. I hit the cord with the flags, pulled a construction barrel down and ended up in a small pile of gravel on the other side.
The other guy was pretty much untouched (just nicked his pedal) and I was saying, "sorry, my fault" (which I kinda thought at the time but was not 100% sure about later) as I was laying in the gravel with my bike on top of me. The guy kept axing if I was OK and I said that I was each time but my butt hurt (what a badge of honor for that crash!). The guy was really friendly, his name was Rob too and we chatted a little then he took off and said bye Rob and I said bye Other Rob.
So I got up and brushed myself off and noticed that I was bleeding a little but it was just a scratch and I wiped off the blood with a napkin and some water from my bottle, had to put my bike chain back on and fix my handlebar tape a little but me and my bike were just fine (mostly). Except that I have a really sore butt today!
OK, I had to ramble on about this because most of my rides (like most of my waking hours) are pretty uneventful so when something happens I have to take advantage of the story of course! When you ride thousands of miles pretty often crashes are going to happen. I do try to be really safe, don't go that fast and stay in safe riding areas (mostly trails) but once in a while something will happen. I think my last one was really just when I fell trying to get off my bike but did not get my leg up high enough to clear the back of the bike so mine are usually minor but they happen. I was glad this one was not bad and I also think that my maneuver helped keep it from being worse than it was.
On my way back from the crash site I was thinking, Damn! I did not get any photos! Once again I was not thinking about the important stuff (photos and the inevitable story). Well I am hoping to at least take a photo of the crash site so it might make the crash story easier to "picture". Unfortunately, I know that they are finishing the permanent path under the new bridge so I hope it stays under construction long enough for me to get back there for a late photo shoot. OK, well I did and the photos are in the previous post.
One of the funny things is that I had to ride an extra 5 miles to make 1,100 on my odometer (which I was going for) and as you can see from my mileage above I am now at 1,101 so I overshot it by a mile. That extra mile is where the crash happened!!!
OK in other news (sorry bike related again (but not bike-site ready)) I have been paying much more attention to E-Bikes (Electric bikes) now that I am more aware of what they are and what they look like, etc. I spotted at least 5 of them on the trail yesterday (on my 33 mile ride on a nice Sunday with a lot of people on the trail). A lot of times you can tell by the really fat tires but there are some regular mountain bikes with really fat tires too and there are some E-Bikes with not so fat tires (but usually fatter than a most tires. You can also tell, of course if you see the battery which can also look like a fat frame tube on one of the lower frame bars. Anyway 3 of the 5 that I counted I totally saw the e-bike stuff, 2 of the 5 I did not see as well but was 90% sure.
I passed this one middle-aged couple while they were stopped and didn't notice that they had E-Bikes until a short time later when they passed me on a steep hill and I saw the bike frame and battery. This older couple did not look very athletic and looked like real "sunday riders" but they passed me easily on the steep hill and left me eating their dust after that! WTF!
As for the E-Bikes discharge, I still find them really interesting but I am not as into it as before. I do think that I will still add an E-Bike section to my bike site (probably over the winter with the other facelifts to the site) and maybe take one for a test ride (if possible) before that. Then post a few affiliate links (I know Amazon sells them and REI sells Canondale e-bikes on their site). I'll just see if any of them sell online and if they do then maybe I'll make a few bucks doing something that I enjoy anyway and have an interest in (which makes it easy). What can be better than that🙂?
OK, that's it fer now. This one got long but I just had to report on my Crash story since it was one of the biggest things that has happened to me lately with my day-today stuff 🙂. Later!
8/11/2020 - E-Bikes! (and back into the bidness again), 4 digits now..., Puppy Sitting
I just woke up and noticed something that has been going on for a while now! This is nothing new for me since I am usually way late on the latest fads and trends in society 🙂. What I noticed is that there are a lot of these Big Heavy Looking Bikes with Really Fat Tires zipping around on the bike trails lately. Mostly, I just thought that these were a new trend in mountain/off-the-road bikes but I was noticing that the people riding them are usually going pretty fast and pass me a lot. Well, I woke up and realized that they are E-Bikes and I believe that they are really getting popular now.
Well I may have missed the beginning of this new wave in biking but I do think that it is really just taking off now (to my credit though: I did recognize when programming and computers were getting really big at the right time and I got into that (although I was late to the PC, Silly Valley party (fashionably late, idk???)) 🙂 )
I will, of course, try to keep most of my hard core biker stuff on my Bike Site but I am really into this at the moment and have to write a little about it here too (and will probably put some other stuff on it here too (but much more on my bike site)).
As for myself, I am not ready for a cheater bike just yet but I would not rule it out completely for the future when I get old (wait!, am I already there?!?) Yes, the E-Bikes are like cheating but you do still get exercise on them (just not as much) so I see that benefit to them. Also, I see a lot of benefits to them getting other people (not so serious bikers) into a lot more biking and also for people using them as a more ecological form of transportation.
You can just Google E-Bikes and get a lot of info about them but Just for the Basics: They are really like Pedal Assist Bikes. Most of them require you to pedal in order to kick in the motor for the assist. The motors are designed to kick off at specific speeds. The max is 20mpg (class 1) and 28mpg (class 3) so they are classified as "e-bikes" and not "e-motorcycles" (etc) and they can be ridden most places that bikes can with most of the same rules and laws. I will add much more details on my bike site when I get to that.
Aside for having a big interest in the E-Bike wave, I don't think that I will be able to resist getting back into the bidness again to some degree. That is, doing a lot more research and posting affiliate links on my bike site for them. Yes, I am "officially retired" from the rat race and I even gave up on the affiliate sales on my websites because I lost interest and it is still a lot of work to keep on on it. My bike site does still generate some pocket change though (even without workin on it).
I still get an average of about 130 visitors a day to the bike site (in the summer months). That is nothing compared to the 2,300 visitors a day that I used to get at the peak in 2012 but it is still an OK amount of traffic and I still sell some bikes online. Plus I think that E-Bikes would be a great fit for my bike site (more so than exercise bikes although bikes do not sell as well as exercise bikes (fitness equipment) online).
OK, enough of that for now, more on the bike site later... As for the 4 digits heading above, I had to mention that I passed the 1,000 milestone a few days ago (as you can see with the seasons bike mileage number above). I thought that this was a record being the earliest in the season that I hit 1,000 but I looked up my old records and I beat that in 2005 when I was just a (52 year old) kid. Oh well, it's still pretty good and I should be able to make my 1,500 mile goal for the year.
In other news... one of the reasons that I have the time to write this post (on a good riding day) is because I am Puppy Sitting. That is I am watching my "first wife"s dog, Dexter.
I just uploaded a quick iPhone video that I did of Dexter "Talking in his sleep" here. He was "talking" a little more before I was able to grab my phone and start recording but at least I got some of it. I think it's kinda funny.