Text Archive Version 4
7/15/01 to 12/8/01

12/8/01 - Some Pictures...

I just downladed some camcorder pictures, so I decided to upload a few...

---> CONCERTS and SKATEBOARDING <---

Corinne had a REAL entertaining Christmas concert and Casey had a really nice band concert (Major improvement over last year).

I also had some camcorder shots from earlier in the fall...

This just in: Casey's Basketball team won today. They are undefeated so far (2 games...). Casey is a major player on the team this year! He got many major scores today!

11/29/01 - Snowhouse...

I just did the house snow picture above for therapy during a quite time yesterday... It's not snowing here yet, but I expect it wont be long now...

11/8/01 - We are RobandDara.com

I have been meaning to register an easy to remember name for this site for a while now and, as you see, finally did it. I

wanted something that you didn't need to write down (like http://home.att.net/~chapmandara ) and since Dara's name is unique (unlike "rob") it was real easy to get the domain name!

Other than that... it's been Beautiful Fall Weather this week (other than today which is just a little cloudy) and I have been trying to get outside a lot and enjoy it!

Gotta go, more later...

10/28/01 - Pumpkin Carving Time!!!

Check out Casey and Corinnes pumpkins at the top! I think they really came out great. They really pretty much did it all them selves.

Other than that, it was another great fall day and tomorrow (Sunday) is supposed to be nice too (I think). I did some outside work (branch trimmin) and we just had a real nice dinner with Daras mom at the RainForest place at woodfield... We had a table right next to one of the aquariums... Wow Cool Fish...

Well, I better go (it's almost 2am... (I just had to get those pumpkin pictures uploaded!)) I gotta get some sleep so I can enjoy tomorrow... I'll do another quick update, if I get a chance...

** Oh wait... It's really only 1 am now!!! Time Change!!! I still gotta go... and I'm NOT changing my time! Since I don't go to work anyway, it don't matter none now do it? :-) aahh well... I still don't like the shorter days and the darker evenings even if we do get an extra hour... :-( :-(

See ya all later...

10/21/01 - Another Beautiful Fall Weekend!

Wow, what a beautiful weekend!!! I didn't do anything particularly exciting, but it was a fantastic fall weekend.

Nadia (our neice) and Karen (Dara's sister) were in from Minn., and Daras mom treated us to a nice dinner when they got here. The kids spent a lot of time at Dara's moms so I just enjoyed the fantastic weather (not as much as I should have though...). Everyone had a great time, and Nadia had 2 sleep overs here also.

I got some really good weed this weekend!!! Of course, you all know that I am talking about the pictures that I did today with the camcorder... :-) :-) (the display at the top). I just had a great time camcording scenery today... Not the most exciting, but it was nice...

Great Review! I finally got my "Spare a Little Love" review back from NSAI this weekend. The reviewer (published songwriter) really liked the song and gave it a great review... Even the singing and production! I have had very mixed reviews on this one... It seems like people really like it, or don't like it at all and, for the most part aren't afraid to say so.

In this case, the professionals seem to like it more than the general public... (critics vs box office).

I don't have my next song under construction yet and was actually getting pretty discouraged with moderate to crappy reviews and comments and general apathy... so I really needed this good review... maybe I will do another song after all... (OK, I heard that groan!!! :-) :-) ).

Oh yea, I think that I am going to redesign the ol song page pretty soon, when I get a chance. I have some cool ideas that I can probably do now to make it more creative and interesting (hopefully).

I guess that's enough for now... Stay tuned...

10/16/01 - Late Weekend Update.

Not much real exciting to report for the weekend, but we got a pretty good draft of my first official customer web site done

and set up under their official domain name. See Jbdecorating.com. We have a good start on the pages, design and pictures but do not have much text yet (that will be next). Check it out once in a while... and if you need some painting, wallpapering, etc. Give them a call...:-)

Other than that, I'm still learning web tricks and stuff and applying for "real" jobs in my spare time :-) :-)

I'm teaching Casey and Corinne Guitar (and ucklele (sp?)). I am totally unorganized in my approach (very informal) and am not (and have never been a teacher) but Casey especially is picking up the leads and melodies pretty well... He is still doing Clarinet also...

stay tuned... more later...

10/10/01 - Cheap web tricks...

Did you know that:

(Sorry, I have been so busy with my other pages that I been a little negligent on this one)

Did you all hear about the crazy stuff happening on the airliners flying into Chicago? Well, Casey and Corinne and their friends were out fishing at the lake Monday and I was working on page stuff. I decided to go check on them.

I hopped on my bike and start riding and WAM BOOM!!!! I don't know if any of you that live around here heard it, but we all did! We were all wondering what it was...

It was a sonic boom! The next thing we see (being right by an open lake (and close to Ohare)) is a commuter jet and 2 jet fighters diving from the sky... It looked like they were just dropping out of the sky! Wow, Top-Gun stuff... Sound barriers...

... Then the kids continued their fishin... Life goes on...

10/1/01 -

Wow, wonderful fall weather! I took Casey and Corinne to a picnic at their school Friday, but mostly I did a lot of stuff with Corinne this weekend.

First we did the fishing derby. This isn't really my type of thing, but Corinne wanted to go. We don't usually get too serious about fishin, but we were actually using live bait this time and I don't think that Corinne was very excited about me attaching a worm to the hook (I'm not into that either). Well, even in a freshly stocked lake, our luck holds out... We still haven't caught anything.

Next we went to Long Grove for Apple Days. Unfortunately, it wasn't this weekend!!! I was mis-informed (Dara said that the thing that she read had it wrong). Ahh well, it really didn't matter that much. It was a beautiful day and we had a nice time visiting the little shops and stuff. I have lived in this area most of my life and never really went to the shops and things like that in Long Grove. It was kind of fun.

Then yesterday, Sunday, Corinne and I did a little walk(me)/rollerblade(her) adventure. We invented a home-made rigshaw (sp?). I was the slave, of course, pulling Corinne (on rollerblades). It was fun and interesting... Lots of people staring at us... They seemed to enjoy us having fun!!! (or maybe they thought... well... who cares? we had a great time!... :-) :-) ).

Well, I gotta go now... stay tuned...

9/25/01 - Got Music?

Well, while all of you hard working people are out there workin hard..., I am here learning stuff and reporting it to you... FREE of course!!! (that's cause I don't really have a choice... JJ ).

I went to the library today to look up some internet/web page info* and accidently found something else that I was looking for also... The Napster replacements!!! I really didn't think that they could stop this technology (I think that I even wrote that on a page somewhere a while ago).

Anyway here are some of the sites:

• Limewire.com http://www.limewire.com/

• Bearshare.com http://bearshare.com/    

• Musiccity.com http://musiccity.com/  

I am downloading from LIMEWIRE as we speak... (are we speaking? is anyone listening??? JJJ)... I wasn't able to get Bearshare to connect and I didn't try MusicCity...

All of these are P2P, (Peer to Peer) technology and Limewire and Bearshare are Gnutella protocols (this may be the biggest P2P technology for this type of thing). I thought that the story behind the Gnutella protocol was interesting... It was developed by AOLs Nullsoft division, released for a a few hours and then they recalled the product. In the time it was available several thousand downloads took place and it started getting cloned... etc. etc.. Here's a link to the story: http://www.limewire.com/index.jsp/what_gnut (It kinda reminds me a little of the way Bill Gates legally stole MSDOS from IBM...)

*By the way, I don't think that there is a snowballs chance... that I can make traditional freelance web design workout in any profitable way anymore, so I think I will just convert my pagemouse.com pages to informational help and try something else... I will still do page stuff myself, because I like it a lot...

R.I.P. Napster...

Catch ya on da flip flop....

9/22/01 - All work and no play?

Sheesh... sorry for the delay in updates here... I have been doing so much stuff with my work pages (and I use that term very loosely (go figure :-) )) that I haven't taken the time to update this one...

Boring job and freelance stuff coming:
I have been pretty busy with finding a day job and also my website design project...

On the day job front, I had a very interesting experience Thursday. I went to a technical job fair at Kemper Insurance. It didn't seem like a great fit for my particular skill set, but I thought that I would get out in front of people to stay up to date on interviewing stuff, etc... and I didn't have that much to do Thursday anyway...

Wow! What an enlightening situation!!! I found out that there were 15 job openings... My estimate is that there were 300 to 500 people applying for these positions... I think that a lottery ticket may have better odds!! :-)

Well, it wasn't a total loss... I actually had a nice time. I met Norma, from California and Steven from Chicago (both total strangers at first), then I ran into 2 of my old friends from DEC / aka Compaq / aka Hewlett Packard... or whatever!!! Kemper also put out a pretty good spread... cookies, pop, peanuts, coffee, lots of free trinkets... Hey, it was kind of fun... Of course, I am not expecting much in the way of a job there... Oh yea, I did drop off a few resumes and talk to a guy there for about 5 minutes (after about a 2 hour wait...).

On the freelance web site front... I spent some time learning some more web page tricks... I can now do CGI forms, frames and a few other neat little things... I did some more design work and domain name and web hosting research for one of my customers (1 of the 2 that is... a friend and neighbor...).

I have finally got the first draft of the PAGEMOUSE.com site put together and uploaded (I have taken down most of the "under construction" notices on this one). This is still partially under construction and will evolve as I get the time, but I wanted to have something that would at least be somewhat presentable out there as soon as possible.

OK, well I better get back to work here, so I'll have some time for some fun tomorrow...

More later... Rob.

9/8/01 - I AM the SONGPUPPY and PAGEMOUSE!!! - some technical notes..

It took me quite a while to search out and find some relavent and easy to remember permanent DOMAIN names, but I found a few that seem easy and were not in use. My permanent address for my song page will now be www.songpuppy.com (I can't believe that this one was available).

For my new freelance web site developement, I snagged www.pagemouse.com. It was even more difficult to find UNUSED name relating to "WEB" or "PAGE" anything!!! "pagemouse" and "songpuppy" are both short, easy to remember (and spell!) and don't really have any major bad implications...

Nothing has changed yet! The ol family and song page address remain the same for now and I don't think that the new addresses (above) will work for 24 to 48 hours.

More later... Rob&co

9/7/01 - Updates... Too much to do!!!

As you may have noticed above... I broke my bike milage record for this year!!! Casey and Corinne came with and we all celebrated... (just danced and jumped around and high-fived, etc...)

Well, it's midnight and I'm getting pretty burned out. I'm doing another audition to play at the Squire again (I called and they didn't remember me from 12 years ago, so I have to re-audition :-) :-) ).

I have been practicing doing live sets again (I need the extra loot during my time off)... It's been a log time since I did this type of thing and it is a lot of work! Remembering 50 or so songs... (words, chords, notes, etc.) getting all the equipment set up right (P/A settings, guitar gadgets, etc.)... anyway that is one thing that I'm working on...

I've pretty much completed 3 song writing related books from the library (and have 5 more to go...) and am, of course, working on the next song...

I am trying to get a REAL domain name and server space for my music pages so I started looking around and the options are incredible... It's really hard to choose the best deal/set up... This also relates to the tattoo web site prototype that I am planning to set up for my brothers friend...

In addition to that, I am looking into some small business ideas... and of course, looking for a job in my spare time!!!! (nothing to report yet...)

OK, sorry for rambling but I just feel a little overloaded for an unemployed bum... :-) :-) :-)

Casey just got another real short haircut (he likes it that way... "the times' they are a changin..." (or maybe have already changed a long time ago...) and the purple dye is starting to wash out of Corinnes hair (maybe things aren't changing that much...).

It's been severly nice weather here... Other than that not much else to report right now...

Stay tuned... catch you all later...

9/2/01 - Happy Labor Day Everyone!!!

Wow! what a nice weekend it has been here! Perfect late summer, early fall weather! Actually, I am going to do a quick update and get out of the basement and outside to break my bike odometer record!!! (if Casey and Corinne are ready... They want to come with me for the annual odometer breaking ride...)

Casey and Corinne are back in school (starting last week). They both got good teachers (at least that's the word around town). I was actually able to meet them for the before school orientation thing (since I was home).

Casey decided that he had to have a Sony playstation and kept begging for it "It can be my Christmas present, Birthday present, Graduation... " etc, etc.... Well, we agreed to 'loan' him some of the money and he used his own allowance and lawn mowing money and borrowed more from a friend... Now Casey knows about debt like the rest of us!!! (great, free lawn mows for a long time...). He's happy with his purchase... I must admit that it is pretty cool, and we can also play DVDs on it!!!

We did a little backyard badminton yesterday and had a fun campfire out back..

More later, gotta go...

8/22/01 - Updates...

Sorry once again for the delay... I still don't have enough time to do all the things that I want (and need) to do!

OK, I'll get my shameless self promotion out of the way first:

My latest song has hit the internet! (as most of you probably already know)
This one is a soulful-bluesish-jazz-rock song called "Spare A Little Love" (<-- That's a link to it, of course)
Or just go to My Main Song Pages ...

It seems to be doing well based on the first few comments that I've gotten so far... and it hasn't even hit the famous MP3.COM page yet...

Today... Corinne and I went to the Spring Valley Nature Center. It's a simple little 'adventure', but is always a lot of fun (the picture of Casey and Corinne above (as of this update) is at the nature center last year.

We were going to do some 'net fishing' also but some major thunder storms blew in... They were so intense, that that was actually kind of fun too... Counting the time between the lightning bolts and the sound, etc... Like I said simple... but great...

Last Week: Dale and I did a little bike trip (I think it was about 25 miles) on the Fox River Trail between South Elgin and St Charles... It was a great, late summer, fallish type day and a really nice scenic ride!!!

Day Job Business: Yes, I have been looking for day jobs also... like I said, not having a job (especialy this time of year) is great, but it comes with that price (uncertainty). I have an interview tomorrow afternoon... I'll let ya all know (one way or the other) how it goes...

I guess that's about it for now...

Talk to ya all later... Rob & co...

8/11/01 - Weekend Update... At Last! Vacation, Reunion...

Sorry for the delay. We've been really busy during my little unplanned "vacation"!

Vacation:
Well, first of all, as some of you already know, we just completed our Wis./Minn. family vacation. We had a GREAT time! It's not anything exotic (or expensive) or anything, but it is a great time. The kids really have a great time with the cousins (Steve, Jake, Nick, Ari and Nadia) and it's a nice trip for us adults to get together also.

It was a very HOT trip this year, but it was very nice swimming and at the beach! My camper (at my nieces house in Wis) needed some maintenance and is aging a little (like the rest of us) but we had a pretty intense storm one night and four of us slept very well in it.

My niece (Andi) followed up our trip up north with a trip down here. So we had a nice encore yesterday.

You know, I wasn't as diligent about photos (or cam-tape) this trip and didn't get a real lot of pictures. We did get some though, so when I get a chance to do the cam tape review I will try to upload what I got...

Zen and Brake Maintenance:
OK, I'll slip the bad news in between the regular stories... I discovered, when we got back that the van is having some major brake problems (pedal to the floor to stop, brake light on, etc). my first repair est was $650. I think that the place that I took it is trying to rip me off, so I am doing another estimate Monday... Ah well, life (and maintenance) goes on...

Reunion Time:
Yesterday I did the old 20 year H.S. Reunion (or is that 30 years??? whatever...). I had already sent in my check for the dinner, so I was committed to go (hey, I can do this once every 10 years). I was actually kind of tired and wasn't real inspired to go at first, but I dragged myself there (after all, I only had to drive 10 minutes away and other people came from around the country).

Dara made an appearance at the 20'th reunion, but opted out for this one (it's more economical and that frees me up to flirt with all the girls that had a crush on me... :-) :-) ). Also, most of my other friends that graduated with me opted out also, so I figured that this could be a little awkward and boring...

Well, it started out a little slow. I got there a little late for dinner and had to find an open table with a bunch of (alleged) strangers. It turns out that I knew the people that I ended up sitting with pretty well (from my previous life) and we had a nice time and a nice dinner.

After dinner, it turns out that it was great to be there solo! I was able to mingle much more than if I just hung with one group of people. I forgot how many people I knew (well or just briefly aquainted)! You know, weather we like it or not we have a real lot in common with this group of people and our lives have have been affected by them (and visa-versa).

It also reminds me of how much I was into music, and the music programs, in H.S. Many of my closest friends and major memories are music related... (I gotta get that next song done... I'm working on it).

I think I'll skip the individual stories and details here, because you would have to have been at WHS or the class of 71 to get the most out of that (not that some of you out there aren't, but I'll fill you guys in later).

Day Job:
Yes, I have been beating the streets for a new day job also... My first few attempts were dead ends... I got once more that I am currently working on and a few other choices in the queue (I am actually doing a pretty logical and planned sequence (of course that is only until the real desperation hits! JKL ). I really like the extra time right now, and it is a great time of year to be off... The only problem is that is comes with a price... uncertainty and worry... (I try to keep that at a minimum and... enjoy the ride... (OK, repeat 3 times...)). But seriously, attitude counts for so much... I am trying to stay optimistic...

OK, enough of that and enough make up news for now...

That's the news for this August 11'th... See ya all soon, stay tuned...

7/25/01 - Mid-Week Update... Freedom's just another word for...

Hey, I guess now that I am pretty much unemployed, it doesn't matter if I do weekend or mid week updates...

Yea, the economy is pretty bad right now and my consulting company turned on me (like a wolf in sheeps clothing) and layed me off the 1'st day that I was between assignments, after working for them non-stop (as an employee) for over 3 years!

OK, I'm not going to dwell on that because I like to keep the ol page on the up side, and I have some pretty good possibilities now anyway (I think). I just couldn't resist at least one commentary on it. Also, I like to keep ya'all up to date.

Really the main thing that I wanted to do tonight was update my bike miles (above) and add the kitty picture (above also).

I am looking forward to the time off for some additional bike riding, song writing and general fun (and some stuff around the house), Of course, I am hoping that this will be a brief break in the action... If not, hey... like the song says "enjoy the ride". Change is good. (really only "good change" is good, but hey, I'm not getting that particular right now :-) :-)).

More later...

7/22/01 - Rocket Science, Heat and Campouts.

You know that saying "It's not Rocket Science"... Well, I was putting together one of Casey's birthday presents today, with him, and it was getting pretty detailed... I started to think, Hey, it aint rocket science you know... Well I was WRONG. It was rocket science. Exactly. He got a rocket. With launch pad, battery operated ignition device, some kind of rocket fuel cannister, parachute, etc... yea that's what it was "rocket science". We got it set off (parking lot by the bike trail). It worked perfectly! Went really high, parachute opened and drifted gently into the trees! :-( :-( OK, so we have some science to work out with the return to earth part... I spent an hour or so retriving it from the trees... Got it.

This weekend has been REALLY HOT. So, after the rocket launch, I decide to do a short (hot) bike ride, then go to the "Taste of P..." and get an egg roll. It started out hot... Then just as I past my 500 mile mark (OOD above), I got my wish for a bike ride "in the rain with the lightning" (from my latest song). Well, I found that I actually like the lightning part way more than the rain! It was a total downpour. I got soaked. Cold rain. It was so heavy and windy that it actually hurt. Well, I was soaked anyway and wanted that egg roll at the "Taste of P..." which by now has become the "Sip of P...". The event was basically closed down, so I had a little shelter in a tent for a while then rode back (soaked and egg-roll-less). ah well... past 500 anyway...

Corinne, her friend Christine, Casey and I spent a good part of the afternoon yesterday (Saturday) at the Taste anyway, so we did get to do that this year.

Now going back to Friday (and earlier Saturday), The girls (Dara and Corinne) did a girlscout campout. I got the story when they got back and they had a good time, camp fire and all. It was So Hot Friday and Saturday!!! I was just thankful that Casey and I were in the nice cool Air Conditioning! I thought that they would totally cook on the campout! They survived, and had a nice time.

Well that's the weekend news... RC reporting... (or should I call it 20 minutes (weekly magazine), tick tick tick) Goodnight Chet...

7/15/01 - A Different Kind of Fishin! and more summer fun...

Corinne and I just went of for a little early evening boating. I agreed to go if we didn't do all the fishing gear and stuff (she agreed, eventually). So we are out crusin around and I see something in the lake... Go a little closer... WOW! It's a huge school of fish, skimming the surface (mouths open, dozens of them). We are so close you could almost reach over and grab them! Then as the boat goes over them they dive. Then we find them another 30-50 feet away... (I don't know from fish, so I can't tell ya what kind they were...)

Eventually we go to the shore and I sent Corinne to the house to get a bucket and a net. OK, we are out for the next round... What are the chances that we can find schoold of fish again... that you can spot from the surface? Well, we found them about 4 or 5 times more. Corinne had one in the net, but it jumped out before we had it captured!!! I felt the net bonk one when I tried, but I missed... So close!!!

Yea, that is my kind of fishin... Cruisin the open seas, with a net instead of poles, hooks (in an inflatable boat), slimy bait, etc... I noted the conditions and we will try that again, I'm sure!!!

Yesterday (Saturday), We had our company picnic. That was a good time as usual. Lot's of food, swimming, see a few consulting friends that I haven't seen for a while... Dara and Corinne won $10.00 in Dairy Queen gift certificates, playing Bingo (While Casey and I swam... We are not Bingoers). Then, we did a short bike ride on the Des Plains River trail, since we were close to it and I managed to get 4 bikes in the back of the van (I didn't think that I could do that actually). Our river trail bike ride got cut short when Corinne wiped out going around a sharp turn (it is a gravelish trail, you know). She got scrapped up pretty much and we had to turn around and limp back to the car.

And of course, as you all probably know, Friday night I finally got my latest internet release out. I was up pretty late another night trying to get the final mixes done. I actually get very carried away with the mixing and productions, which I really shouldn't worry about so much, but it drives me crazy until I get at least close to the sounds that I am looking for. (You should really download the MP3 version for the full effect (if you get a chance and/or have the patience) because it is much better quality then the streaming versions).

The song itself is kind of unique and probably not real main stream (as I mention in the "Scoop" section) but I spent the time and did it anyway. I'm sure it won't be for everyone, but I hope that some people like it. Anyway, in case you missed the email (or don't have it handy and would like a link), here's a link to go to the song (lyrics, scoop, etc.):

http://home.att.net/~chapman99/thesongs.htm#etride

That's enough for now... (I thought I would go watch that TV thing for a change and now Casey want's me to play Stratego, so I guess it's a quick game first...)

See ya!

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