Chapman Text History V8

10/24/2003 - Bike Site Sales! Regular job too! sleazy mileage competition...

Wow, I just had to drop a line about this because it is so amazing to me what people buy and how much they spend (probably because I am so cheap myself :-) )... October has been slow for my web sites, but all of a sudden I had a record day yesterday (mostly due to the competition of a Sat TV sale) and a fantastic day on the bike site today already!... I sold (referred actually) $1,300.00 worth of bike stuff yesterday! (Probably while I was out riding myself :-) ) So I had to check out what people are buying... Guess what? Now I just sold a bike light for $500.00!!!!!! and a heart rate cycle computer power system for $350.00!!!!! I think that is incredible! (I'm sure glad they found my site first :-) )

In other news, I got another regular day job too! Unfortunately (or fortunately in some ways), it is just another 3 month contract. This is at the same place that I worked last year at this time. Danzas, right next to Ohare. Even though I have thrown in the towel on the old programming career, I always thought that if anything came up that I was qualified for (even a short term contract) that would be great to help us get a long until we got something else going (i.e. the websites, of course). It is going to be hard to shift my focus and get back into the 9 to 5 routine again, but I am looking forward to it (mostly :-) )

...and the last item, with the bike season coming to an end (for me anyway), I am approaching 1,300 miles on my bike for this year... I have easily beat my record from last year (being out of work helped, of course) and was just coasting along finishing up the season. I have taken a few rides with my friend Dale, who has never been much of a hard core biker until this year (he did the I&M trail with me and also wrote up 2 other bike articles for my bike site (Peninsula State Park Trail and Ahnapee Bike Trail)). Well, he intentionally did not tell me that he passed my seasons mileage record this year because he didn't want me to get all competitive (which I would have, and then would have had to at least tried to beat his mileage!). So, now with me starting work (and him still unemployed for now) it is actually impossible to beat his record... OK, congratulations to him for doing so many miles... but it was still sleazy not to tell me so I could try to beat his record! :-) :-) Now, I understand his gesture in this famous photo... No they didn't really kill him...

Just a quick update... It's been fantastic fall weather here today. I just got some haloween decorations out front, so I thought I would put some up on the old page too... I also wanted to post the kids class pictures (above also)...

Well, I guess maybe we need to wait another 58 years for da Cubs to get in the world series!! :-( :-( So close... but then they are still the Cubs of course!

Well Casey did a lot of airplane painting work this weekend (and seemed to enjoy it too! (at his uncle's house (Larry's))). Photography compliments Larry Chapman, Plano, Illinois.

Wow, what a beautiful October day today is! Sunny and in the 60s... I just did my afternoon ride and just passed another "mile stone". How many miles is that now? 1,200! Yes, that's Twelve hundred or One thousand and Two hundred miles (in one bike season). It's gonna be hard to beat next year... I may have to do that cross country trip after all! :-)

Yes, I am a Fair Weather Fan... Hey, the Cubs could be in the Super Bowl or something like that!

Casey had a tooth ache problem yesterday, so we were planning on taking him in to have it checked out. Corinne heard about this and was complaining that Casey had 2 eye appointments AND a dentist appointment... and she just had 1 eye appointment!!! It just isn't fair! :-) I guess we all need a little equality...

Corinne and I went out yesterday to pick some wild flowers (for Dara... and for fun). We walked over to Harper where I spotted a bunch of wild flowers... On the way, we came across way cooler flowers at various locations at the college... it almost looked like they were planted there by someone... :-)... Well, we ended up saving a bunch of these from a torturous death from the cold of winter by adding them to our "wild flower" collection... It really looked nice! Then, I was just wondering... how much trouble can flower thieves get into? :-) One of my other ideas was to cross the street and get some of those nice flowers from the cemetery... but Corinne reminded me how wrong that was... (and that I could get haunted)... :-)

Well, it seems that I am pathetic at video games (like Halo). Whenever I play Casey (or almost any kid that plays them) I just get massacred... OK, I guess I can live with that... Casey also beats me regularly at basketball now too... It seems like the only thing that I can still win at is chess (we did 2 games yesterday)... and I even got sloppy at that and lost one of them too! You know, I am just not good at games! (I also think that is part of the reason that I am self/unemployed too :-) )

... so much for what I intended to be a really quick update... I wish I could write this much, this easy on my money pages...

Not really a lot new right now... Dara and I had a great 14'th anniversary. We didn't do that much different, but we had a great fancy dinner... I thought my bike site would be slowing down, but it appears that all the hard core bikers (or should I say cyclists) need new fall wardrobes! :-) (that's fine with me...)... and, as you see above I'm still adding to the new record for this year...

I guess it can happen to anyone... After over 1,000 miles this year, I wipe out... for no good reason, just clumsiness and a miscalculation...

So, I'm doing my usual ride...about to cross Euclid (a busy road by us) and there are cars comming... So I do a tight loop in a company driveway that goes out to the road (to give the cars time to pass)... I don't make my loop quite tight enough and just nick a high curb on the other side... BAM! it throws me! OUCH! My bike is all bent up (nothing permanent thankfully) and I got a few cuts and scratches and am bleeding a little... I access the situation, wipe off the blood and decide I am OK to continue... Rode off and completed another 12 miles... :-)

Well... the orange bat and I did it today! I now have a new bike season mileage record! (I always report that here of course). My bike is a Batavus (It's Dutch, I believe) and it is orange (probably a popular bike color back in the 70s when I got it!) so there you have it! Even though I have had the bat-bike for 25 years now (since I was 25 myself! ($57.75 in 1978)) it could very well be the bats' last season... (we'll see). At least it is hanging in there for this season.

I was just wondering how many miles I have on the bat so I checked the bat-records that I had on file... (I am missing 1998 and 1999 for some reason...) and "holy 10 speeds batbike!" so far, I have over 4,000 miles on the bat (for 5 years) and who knows how many before that (I didn't have an odometer back then...)... and still going... Here are my old season mileage records:

Year	Mileage
1997	537
2000	681
2001	801
2002	1,048
2003	1,055	...and still going!
5 year total	4,122	At this rate... I should be doing about 8,000 miles a year on my bike by the time I am 65! :-) :-)

I just remembered tonight when I was riding that last year I was trying to get to 911 miles by 9/11 (the date)... Just a symbolic thing... I was close but didn't quite make it... Well, it is 9/11 tomorrow (kind of an interesting, sad, nervous and patriotic day...) and I am way past 911 miles... I almost like to kick back a little after I make a new record, so it won't be too hard to break it again next year! Unfortunately, there is still a lot of great biking weather left, and I still love riding... so...

(OK, I wasted a little time doing my silly animated gif above... but I needed a little break and it was nice and relaxing...)

I just had to drop a line about this beautiful late summer, early fall weather we've been having. Yesterday, I had the most peaceful and plesant ride in Inverness, but then it is hard to capture a feeling in words... BTW: I love riding in Inverness because of the beautiful homes and fancy landscaping and quiet winding roads... but... I really would not want to live there! It is just way too uptight looking... I don't want to "have to" drive a Mercedes and have to have a landscaping service and have to "keep up" with everything to fit in... (of course, I wouldn't mind having the money that I am sure the people that live there have :-) )... Just a thought... OK, I'm rambling on about that...

The websites took a dive on the holiday weekend, but they are making a good comeback now... I am also making some significant improvements to the existing sites (again)... Anyway what I really wanted to mention is that, as I was reviewing my website logs, I just happened to notice that a handful of people are finding my bicycle site using the term "Bicycle GPS", so I went out and checked G, and I discovered that I am Number 1 for the term "Bicycle GPS"! (unfortunately, I've dropped one position for "Bicycle Speedometers"... but that's OK for now... number 2 and 3 are still OK)

I haven't sold any of these gizmos (yet), but I think that it could have some good potential and they are getting popular! BTW: If you don't know what these are (I didn't know about them a while ago) check out my page for a description: http://www.about-bicycles.com/bicycle-gps.htm

I just had a really nice ride tonight... and cracked the 1,000 mile mark for this year! (as you can see above)... 40 more miles to a new seasons record... It was kind of cloudy today and got dark early but it was really pretty nice... I could see and hear all of the Labor Day vacationeers rushing back home... I just thought it was nice to be on a bike...

If you hadn't heard, Dara's sister and family (Karen, Daryoosh and Nadia) just got back from about a month in Iran. I got a copy of Nadias Iran pictures (from her digital camera (like Corinnes)) when we saw everyone this weekend. She got a lot of great pictures and I have posted them here: Nadia's Iran 2003 Photos! I have been running out of space in the Family page hosting area so I put these out in my www.homeKat.com space (since that space is virtually unlimited). I actually posted quite a few photos (77), so enjoy the tour if you wish... (there isnt much text because it wasn't us that went there, of course, so I'm just the photo poster :-)) We also got a quick viewing of some of the camcorder tapes, which really came out great!

Yea, we kind of do Half Birthdays and it was Corinne's today... we had a nice half cake :-) :-) (just kidding we had a whole cake!)

Sales have been terrible (kind of like I expected) over the Labor Day weekend, so I hope things pick up tomorrow when we all get back on a regular schedule again...

Just a quick one... Labor Day Weekend is here! I have a whole different perspective with my new business (and not being an employee)... For me it means, sales will probably be slower than usual (and they have been a little bit) and lots of people will be rushing around more... I noticed a lot of crowds on Friday, but today (Saturday) it seems like everyone is already out of town or something...

Corinne's garden has lots of tomatoes! It's taken a while, but we have a lot of them now... and they are really good... I've always loved home grown tomaters... :-)

The latest update in the Web Site News is pretty good, although I haven't seen any results from it yet... I just discovered that ALL of my sites got a pagerank upgrade from Google! If you haven't heard me ramble on about this, there is some info on my web site page about it... It is a VERY good thing to have higher pageranks from Google. Pageranks go from 0 to 10 and only some of the most popular sites on the internet are 6 or above. A Pagerank of 5 is VERY good... Well, All of my sites (main pages anyway) now have pageranks of 4 (most were 3 or lower before)! The songwriter site is even a 5! The bottom line will be if/when this actually translates into better sales and commissions (which, as I have mentioned, hasn't happened yet, anyway...maybe soon... hopefully...)

8/26/2003 - School Started, Late Season Bike Problems, The New Site, Who would pay $350 for a light anyway?

(Don't forget to check out www.LarryandPatty.com once in a while... I see the bro has been pretty active on the updates... (competition))

I just finished the main pages to my Satellite TV site and wanted to list it on these pages (although I don't think this site gets points anymore after Googles latest changes), and I thought I would do a quick update while I am at it...

The kids started school today. They were looking forward to that... NOT!... It went pretty smoothly I guess... I am so close to a new bike mileage record and now my bike is having some more mechanical problems :-( I meant to ride today, but never got out...

I usually have a hard time prying open my wallet for luxuries (like a new bike) and now that my wallet is so empty it is even harder... So here I am trying to justify a few hundred bucks for a new bike and I check the sales on my bike site... I made some pretty good commissions today (from Performance bike) so I went in to check what is was that sold... Someone just bought a "bike light system" for $350.00!!! That's more than I would probably spend on a bike! Ahh well, if you got it... might as well spend it... (at least they found it by going through my site first!). The bike site is going pretty strong again... I don't know how long the season will last...?

OK, anyway here is the link to my new site: www.101-Satellite-TV.com (I'm in my "101" prefix phase now, I guess... There are some good reasons to use 101, so that may be my new trade mark... I don't know). The main pages are pretty much done (maybe a little tweaking here and there (and I don't know if I'll keep that picture (graphic))... Comments... Suggestions?

Next, I start the 20 to 30 or more supporting pages... So many pages... so little time...

Well, as you see (above) I am within 100 miles of a new all time season bike mileage record... and it is only mid-August (this will be easy) It was a beautiful night tonight and I did a nice easy 11 miles... that was pretty relaxing after that 70 mile ride (and another one in pouring rain, that I didn't mention...). We just came out of some dog days of summer (hot and humid) so the cool evening ride was really nice...

I forgot that I didn't mention the new bike trail pages on my bike site... These are the Long Prairie Bike Trail and the I&M Canal Bike Trail south of here... (I guess it is technically "northern" illinois) but it always seems way south to me... The trails were really nice and the pages have quite a few pictures and are in the format that I have used for my other trail pages... (my trademark format, I guess you could say :-) )

I just had 2 terrible days for sales with my web sites (Friday and Saturday) and it just occured to me that there may be a relationship to the BlackOut out east... I am just speculating, but who knows... get the rest of the story Here at Web Site Story

8/14/2003 - CD Players for School? New Record! Back Logged (bored at home?)...

I just had to do a quick update here before I get to work... Casey had a "school supplies" list laying on my dresser this morning. Most of this list seemed OK, but I just happened to notice that he had a CD Player on his list. This just cracked me up... I didn't know that CD players were required for school these days... :-) I guess they must get some of their homework on CDs now...

I just discovered and rode 2 new bike trails and broke a new 1 day distance record on the 2'nd one! The first trail is called the "Long Prairie Trail" and is north and west of us (around Harvard, Il.) and the other one is the I&M trail south of us along the Illinois river and canal. My friend Bob and I did 35 miles on the Long Prairie trail and my friend Dale and I did 70 miles on the I&M trail! Beating my old 1 day record of 64 miles... This is also Casey's 1 day record (we did that one together) and he wants a rematch now... sheesh, I don't know if I can do that again... let alone MORE...

I also camcorded both of the new trails, but have not yet downloaded the photos or done the official bike site trail pages. I will do this, of course, to keep adding content and value to my site, so I guess I was mixing a little pleasure with work... or was I mixing work with pleasure... or was it just exercise... :-)

I have also learned a little bit about bike GPS (Global Positioning Systems) units from a couple of friends that have them for their bikes, so I was researching them to write about them and sell them on the bike site. This has taken longer than I expected and I still have the trails to write about, in addition to some more contact lens pages that I have on my list in addition to getting going on the Satelite TV site let alone fixing some screens, a bike tire, getting some trees trimmed, etc. etc. I am totally back logged!

I guess that would lead me right into my "how can people get bored at home" speeches, but I'll hold off and just leave it at that... I do intend to do a "UN to thy SELF be employed" article soon, but I haven't decided when yet... it is a frame of mind... I currently have a legitimate business with taxable income (not much, but some). So at what point do I actually declare my self as SELF-employed rather than UN-employed?

I just got these film prints back (among others)... I also found another great bike trail in northern Ill. (I did 35 miles with my friend Bob from AiC). I got a lot of the trail camcorded but haven't had a chance to download the photos or write it up yet... I also just got a bunch of books on contacts and vision and just reviewed all of them for more content for my contact lens site so I don't know when I'll get the bike pages up... So many web sites and photos... so little time...

Just a photo note: I really think that digital photography has done a lot to drive down the prices of film developing... As far as hardcopies go, I think that I do like photo paper prints better than all but the best PC printer prints... But for online pictures... either one will do just fine...

8/4/2003 - Luxurious Summer Vacation (on a budget)... Working, Riding, Writing...

We just had a fantastic trip up to my nieces house in Wisconsin... The accommodations were particularly luxurious this visit, as you can see by the Pace Arrow links above. It really was nice, the kids had a great time (as usual) and I even got out to the Ellroy-Sparta bike trail for some bike site work (I love my job!).

It has taken me quite a bit of time to download all of those bike trail pictures and write the bike trail pages, in addition to downloading the pictures here... But then, I ended up with 16 new, quality bike site pages which will help improve my sites overall standing (the bike site sales have been fantastic and the other sites are picking up a little too).

Brad also had a nice little laptop setup that I where I could log in (the "working vacation" part) and check up on my sites...

Well, since I've spent so much time on the pictures, I guess I don't need to write a chapter here... I'll just let the pictures do the talkin...

I don't really have a lot of family news to report, but I just did a quick Web Site Story update so I thought I would put a notification here...

Im pretty beat from doing a bunch of bush and tree trimming the last few days. Almost sawed off my finger too! (It's OK). Good thing I had Casey helping...

Oh yea, my (freshly unemployed) friend Dale and I did a nice Deer Grove, Palatine Trail ride a few days ago... It's nice to have another programmer out of work in the summer and available for rides... actually there are quite a few us in the club now (and it's really only nice in some ways, but stressful in others... (ooppss, gotta stay positive! :-) ))

This is actually turning out to be a regular family tradition! And one that I really like too! This time it was Corinne's idea to do the ride. Casey and Dara were really wanting to go too and I wasn't sure if we would actually "go the distance" again... but the next thing you know... We made it to Genoa City Wisconsin once again! (the ride is actually 32 miles, but we did 7 more back tracking a little). (the bike mileages above are not 100% accurate but close (aside from mine))

I really love doing this ride with the family. It is some real nice quality time and we all seem to like it pretty well (that's a hard thing to find sometimes!) I did feel a little guilty about taking the day off (from my currently low-paying startup business) but I was able to justify my day off a little better by bringing along Corinne's digital camera and photographing the trails to document for my bike site.

It truely does add value to my bike site, in some maybe less obvious or less tangible ways, but it does count. Therefore, I was mixing work with pleasure! It was a little more difficult stopping all the time and taking pictures, but now that I've put the pages together, I think that it really was worth it and will be a some very nice content for my bike site visitors (currently at over 400 per day!) Here are the links to my new bike trail pages with the photos!

Corinne's camera only holds about 60 pictures (internally) on the lowest setting and that just barely did the job, but I was able to do it with about 60... (then reducing to the best ones while putting together the pages).

Unfortunately, the place where we usually eat, in Genoa City, (Keller's) was closed (on Mondays) so we had to back track to a crummy Mcdonalds (in Richmond) for our after ride meal. The service at this one was absolutely terrible and it wasn't very good, but there were not a lot of choices when you are at the Wisconsin border on bikes...

In other news, we currently have my Great Niece Ari here for some sleepover visits! The girls are having a great time!

Also, check out Larry's page now... It is online once again and my bro is getting a little more active with his page updates... check them out at: www.LarryandPatty.com

... those are my modified words to the song "Summertime" ("cattails" fits Illinois better than "cotton"). Summertime! Wow has it been beautiful the last few days! Warm and low humidity... OK, enough of the weather report... although that is very relevant to how and what we are doing and my own state of mind...

Corinne and I just took a nice walk on the bike path, checked out some new ducklings, picked some flowers... yesterday we picked some fresh rasberrys for our cereal, played some frisbee, (with Casey too), Casey and I did some b-ball, I've been doing my usual bike rides... it's just really been nice out!

In other news... I guess I haven't done an update since the first so, it's been pretty busy on the social calendar too. Casey's birthday was nice, and we had a lot of nice visits with Karen and Nadia and Dara's Aunt and Uncle, Jack and Rosemary and also Dara's other uncle Rick... Then Andi, Ari and Nick were in town and we had a few quick visits with them (at my brother's house) and had Ari and Nick for a sleepover, and that was really nice, as usual... we still have an opening for another Ari visit (she is still in Illinois) although we haven't set up exactly when just yet...

I'm trying to balance summertime activities, family, friends and fun with building my website business. I have been making constant improvements on my sites, and they are doing pretty well and are making pretty consistent profits (I had a few really good days last week and the bike site is just going crazy with sales!).

I almost started to elaborate on my business, but decided to hold off on that... It still seems like it is way more exciting to myself than to most other people at the moment... Many people do have an interest, but I guess I tend to get into it too much since, I am so focused on it... For those of you out there with at least a general interest (without getting into the nitty gritty details too much) the business is looking very good, at the moment, and I am hoping that the current pattern continues!

OK, speaking of business, I need to get back to it... (hey it's Sunday, I get a little break for a Family and Friends page update! :-) :-) )

Yes... We now have a teenager in the house! It was another beautiful day for Casey's birthday... I don't know about Casey, but I kind of missed the Santa's Village thing this year. Yea, Casey finally opted out after an 11 year tradition (of going to SV for his birthday). Casey really likes his traditions and I guess I do too...

We had kind of a low key celebration, but it was pretty nice and I think Casey had a nice time and a nice day...

Karen and Nadia (Dara's sister and our neice) have been in town and Nadia was here for a sleep over last night and they were here for a little birthday cake today too... We also celebrated Dara's moms birthday at Kurt and Robins's house (in Winnetka) Sunday, so it has been a really busy time and a lot of fun for the cousins!

Since Corinne and Nadia got the exact same kind of digital camera this last Christmas, I asked Karen to bring the software CD (Kodak) as a remote possibility that that could fix my PC/camera software problem... I really did not think this would work, but wanted to rule it out as a potential problem... well, amazingly enough it worked!!! Now we have the digital camera software fixed too!!! (what are the chances of that happening? the software CD goes bad (for whatever reason) at exactly the same time that I have a ton of problems with everything else on the confuser (due to the DSL install)). I'm glad to have it back anyway)...

When I had regular day-jobs, I always took the kid's birthdays off. This year, I snuck in a little work here and there, but I took most of the day off... (had a fantastic ride tonight too)... So I really have to get back on track and get some major work done the rest of the week...

Well, I've got DSL now, but not without paying a high price and some casualities! This isn't probably great family site material... but I gotta write about it somewhere... Installing DSL was one of the biggest pains that I have had to deal with on my confuser since I got it... All the computer geeks think that my Win98 system is totally obsolete! (after all... it is 5 years old!)...Anyway, the biggest problems were with the Ethernet Card that they sent me (that doesn't work well with Win98) and some bad drivers on my system (and a few user install errors on my part (not installing the phone filters...).

OK, it has taken me the better part of 3 days to get up and stable (I think). I have probably re-booted this frickin system over 100 times (maybe a couple hundred...(it seems anyway)), spent hours on the phone with the support people, reloaded the OS 2 times, tried an OS upgrade to Win98SE (but failed due to no good product IDs), uninstalled Outlook Express, re-installed it, lost all my emails, upgraded again, recovered emails, and upgraded the BIOS while I was at it too...

The casualities, so far are the Kodak digital camera software, which had to be uninstalled and will not reload (We may have to do the photos on Caseys PC), my Real Player doesn't work anymore and the reload failed and I had to get a new FTP program to upload to THIS site again (will cost me $40 after the evaluation is over)... But at least I can once again get my uploads out here to ya'all!

I'm too frazzled to write too much other stuff... although it has been fantastic weather once again (after a few days of extreme heat and humitity)... and the bike site has been doing great for sales... (the others are still catching up...)

My pet and contact sites finally got listed in Google and my bike site is doing pretty good right now! I just put all of the details in the Google Dancing article on Web Site Story but I thought I would flag the update here...

On a related note, I guess I could mention that I am finally signing up for DSL. I was checking my ISP charges and noticed that, now that I am working on the internet all day and night, I am going over my 150 hour monthly limit. When I go over this limit it costs me $1.00/hr more! So it is actually cheaper for me to have DSL right now than to continue my dial up access and get the extra charges...

Other than that, not too much else to report right now... I've really been enjoying the fantastic bike riding weather this week...

6/17/2003 A beautiful day for turtle fishin... Misc B-day pics

It was a really fantastic day today (once again) and Corinne and I went out for a little fishin... We didn't catch any fish (as usual) but came back with a turtle! (as you can see above) We both pretty much named her "turd" :-) and Corinne agreed (under protest) to let her go after we brought her home for a while... and we actually did :-)

Sorry it's been a while between updates again... There has just been so much going on that I haven't had a lot of spare time to get to the old family page update... (btw: I think that I am going to rename this site as the Chapman Family and Friends site... since, even though it is mostly about us... it is for and sometimes about friends also and it just seems like a more appropriate name... Of course, I had NO IDEA that I would still be doing this page (site now) 4 years after I started it!!!)

Anyway, I had a really nice birthday celebration! For those of you who may not know (and I don't know why in the world I would post it here... for the whole world), I have made it to my 5'th decade of life! That is a weird thing... I really still feel like a kid (mentally, not so much physically!). My brother, and family caught me off gard and got me with a nice little surprise dinner (/party celebration). It was really very nice and casual and the company was great :-)! I also stretched my celebration a little furthur and had another nice dinner at my friend Dale's place last night (and saw 8 mile (pretty awsome movie!))... and I got lots of nice cards and meaningful phone calls from those who remembred but were not able to make these events. Thank you all very much! (I sure write a lot of stuff here... but sometimes I can't really find the right words :-) )

... and then... to top that off, I had a real nice Father's Day today! The weather has just been so fantastic here recently... We didn't do many major events today... but I got some great cards from the kids and some nice gifts and Corinne talked me into going to the local pool (a little bit on the cold side, but pretty nice).

The kids are really disappointed to be out of school for the summer! :-) :-) I put chicken wire around Corinne's veggie garden... now we need to replace some of the veggies that the pesty wabbits ate!

I had a major bike breakdown a few days ago, and thought that I may end up getting a new bike for my birthday (a necessity really)... but I was able to do the repair (to my 25 year old bike) with $6.00 worth of replacement parts instead... :-) :-( Here's a little update that I threw out on my bike site "blog" (or weblog) http://www.about-bicycles.com/bike-trails-articles.htm

... and finally I did a little update to Web Site Story about the latest Google dance... (I'll spare you that one on the main page here... since this is exactly what this page is for... :-)

6/5/2003 Small talk intro.. Wisconsin and Steve's Graduation! *Pictures below... after my ramblings *

Wow, sorry it's been so long between updates! I've been pretty busy with my web sites and, of course, taking a little time for some bike riding... It has actually been really beautiful weather here (especially if you keep the right frame of mind). It's been a cool spring (highs usually only in the 60's or maybe low 70s) but it is actually really nice if you are outside and a little active (like riding, walking, etc). If you are just sitting there, hangin out... it's a little cool... My point though is... Very soon... I'm sure it will get incredibly hot and humid and we will all be wanting weather just like this! :-)

OK, let's get to the main topic here... We just got back from our trip to my neice's place in Wisconsin for Steve's graduation. We had a great trip and visit (as usual) and there was lots of fun stuff going on and lots of visitors too. In the nice weather we usually camp at my neices house (we keep our (non-road-worthy) camper there specifically for that purpose...) and the old campground was quite busy this weekend. Larry, Patty, Jasson and Heidi (my brother, sister-in-law, nephew and fiance) all camped there (2 tents plus our camper) and Rich and his family (my other nephew) hung out at the old campsite too, but opted for the more luxurious Westby hotel for a pampered refuge. :-)

OK, I need to get to the pictures and get back to work here... The following links have my camcorder still shots and a few pictures from Corinnes digital camera... we haven't gotten the film pictures developed yet (no ETA on that, there are still pictures left to take (I don't think that I got a real lot of film shots anyway, but we'll see when they get developed...)

Since this was Steve's graduation, I uploaded quite a few more pictures than I usually do and I've actually spent quite a bit of time on them... I just tried to get the overall scenes and events going on... I didn't get everyone, because I like to enjoy the visit and don't want to be sticking cameras in peoples faces all the time... (I try to balance that a little)...

Anyway there are a lot of pics to go through and here are the links! I've done a little minor editing on the graduation pics to try to make them look a little nicer (can you tell?)... and most of the graduation ones and one other have blowups when you put your mouse over the pictures... You'll just have to check and see which one...

(5/18 update) It has been just fantastic weather here the last couple of days. We are actually getting some nice spring weather instead of just going from cold and rainy to hot and humid (winter right to summer)! It was a fantastic day for a bike ride (of course... I did another 13 miles today) and a record breaking sales day for the old bike site too!

(original 5/17) The weather has been just beautiful here the last few days... We have all been outside just doing a lot of fun outside stuff. I think I may try to talk Corinne into planting our garden tomorrow (we started some plants from seeds a month or so ago).

We also had our neighbor hood gar(b)age sale this weekend. Dara sold a few things (just a small dent in what we need to do... but every little bit helps!). The neighbor sold a few antiques and made over $400. I should go into that business :-) :-) (just kidding, I am focused)...

I am getting a little bit disappointed about my Google listing updates, but I am still hoping that it won't be much longer for the pet and contact sites... My bike site sales have been pretty consistent but still pretty skimpy (I figure I need about 70 web sites at my current bike site profit level...) More on the old Web Site Updates page

Nothin really exciting to report at the moment ...It was a little cloudy today but still a great day for a bike ride and Casey and I went together and did 19 miles! Not bad for a non-planned, just hop on the ol bike and ride trip!

The other little thing that I wanted to mention is Do You Notice Anything Different About Casey?... (he has begged us for almost a year and we finally gave in... (btw: he was very happy at that moment... but doesnt really like the "smiling" pictures...).

I just had to drop a line about this thought... I just noticed today that Casey is taller than Dara! When did that happen? Yea, of course this stuff happens... but I hadn't really noticed until just now and it just seemed like kind of a big thing to me... I don't know if I am ready for that :-)

OK, snap out of it Rob... OK, I'm back... I got most of my next web site up today... it is www.Discount-Contact-Lenses-Now.com I am still getting approved from the contact merchants so there are no links and I need to write all of the article/content pages next... Of course, I learned a lot about contacts in the proces of doing this page (and will be learning more real soon) and I don't even wear them! Hey, I've almost sold myself on them though, maybe I'll give them another try sometime...

Writing these pages (especially the content pages) is a lot like writing term papers. You research and look stuff up and try to write a decent paper/page to get your point across... I love learning new stuff all the time, but I really don't care for the term paper type of thing... I like writing casual stuff like as on this here page hear where ya don't gots to worry about nothin an ya can missspell junk and just right watever ya feel like rightin!!

It was a fantastic spring weekend here in Chicagoland! We all had quite an active weekend and I was actually "between web sites" so I even took the weekend off myself :-). First of all, Corinne went with Dara to the "Take your daughter to work" day last week and they have been having a great time doing badminton, so Corinne talked us into putting up the badminton net in the back (after Casey mowed the lawn).

I did one of my usual bike rides... Dale came over for a BBQ cookout (the weather was perfect and we all did some badminton (see the pics above...)). Then today (Sunday) Dara, Corinne and I went to our favorite nature center place and hung out outside and did some fun stuff there.

I just went out to the garage to check my bike odometer (for this update), and it is actually still beautiful out!!! (but it's 9:30pm so it's a little late to do much... maybe I can do a little walk after I post the news here... :-) )

Then to top off a fantastic day, I logged in to check my web site sales/commissions (I wasn't sure if they would post my web site sales on the weekend) and I had a record day of sales on my bike site today too! As I mentioned below, my commissions are not enough to quit my (non existent) day job, BUT... they are starting to get a little better and a little more consistent... (hey, I've only been listed with Google for 2 weeks now)... It's not much to speak of (yet) but I see potential and at the moment, I am very hopeful!

I thought that I better do a quick update... Not Much new on the job and web site scene. I've made a few sales now on my sites, but not enough to quit my day job... (if I had one :-) ). Speakin of the "j" word, I am still on hold for that one downtown... Now, it is starting to feel like the run around and I have some serious doubts about it... but... it's still a possibility.

My brother brought over his canoe yesterday for us to borrow for a while, so we went out on the lake yesterday and did some exploring... It was really nice having the 2 wheel canoe cart that my brother made for it to easily roll it down to the lake and back. The lake was pretty shallow though, once again I confirmed that this is an extreamly shallow lake. I re-checked where we ice-skated over the winter and even though I am always super careful and a little paranoid (not nearly as much as some people though), the place where we were skating, most of the time, was probably 8 to 12 inches deep...

It's been pretty cool for the end of April, but pretty nice biking weather. As you see by my mileage above, I only need about 900 miles more for another new seasons record! I figure that this is about 150-a-month for the next 6 months (through October). It is actually very do-able. How much riding I can do will probably be very dependent on my job scene and how much extra time I end up having...

I think the board breaking was the best part of the testing. He broke about a 1/2 inch board (one try). Don't worry, I can still kick his A-word! (I think, anyway? :-) ) I was really wishing that I had brought the camcorder though. I could have zoomed in then came back and did my magic freeze-frame as his hand was going through the board! Ahh well, I will know for the next belt testing...

I've been waiting a long time for this... and already had the title (above) planned! As I had mentioned, my web sites have been picked up by Google and I've been getting some pretty good traffic, but until today (yesterday, actually (I just found out today)), no sales.

Well, I just found out that I sold 3 songwriting books (I don't know which ones yet) and a Bike from WalMart! Yea, I can't believe that someone actually bought a bike online. I was really expecting people to get bike accessories from my bike site but I thought that bikes would really be a long shot... I haven't sold any bike accessories yet, but the bike will do just fine...

I just love the idea that I could have been making money (selling that bike yesterday) while I was out enjoying a nice bike ride myself... (or it could have been while I was slaving away in the basement writing and updating web pages... NO, it was probably while I was out riding! :-) ).

Well, of course, it wouldn't be right to disclose the huge amount of commissions that I've made on these sales (or should I say it could be embarrassing....:-) ) BUT... it is encouraging! As I just wrote in an email to Jeff and Fred, it is nice to have a even small amount of good news anyway... maybe the good news will grow! :-)

, I was going crazy driving the kids all over the place, taking Corinne to ice skating, waiting for her there, trying to get back to get Casey to baseball, then bringing Corinne back because she didn't want to stay for his practice, trying to find something that they both would eat, driving back to get Casey again... all while Dara is at her badminton job (you know it is that time of the year when she is a coach).

Then it hit me... Hey, I'm a Stay-at-home-dad! Actually, I've been more of a "work-at-home-dad" but since I can't claim to be making a living at it at the moment, I have to settle for the Stay-at-home-dad or house-husband titles...

4/13/2003 - What a weekend! The Roller Blade story... Job front, I just can't not do it!

Wow, what a beautiful weekend here in Chicagoland! It's still a little wet, but it was really sunny and warm. I always wish that we had gotten out more, but we did do quite a bit, just hangin in the hood... The reality based war news stories on TV have been winding down, so it was good timing for the good weather.

Let's see... we did some hoop outside, some soccer in the back yard (small scale), I did a little riding, as usual, a little digging and gardening and Corinne even made me and Dara go roller blading today.

OK, I'm not much of a roller blader and I was using Casey's skates, which he customized for tricks by removing the break! Well, I was doing OK for the most part (even without breaks) until we were all fooling around going kind of fast down a hill in a parking lot... when all of a sudden, some nasty bug grabbed the toe of my skate, throwing me off balance at the same time that we hit a temporary black hole where gravity plays tricks on you and... BAM!... Ouch! Wow it hurts to hit had pavement! Yea, it's all true (could I make something like that up?). Alright, my jeans were pretty black and I got some minor wounds on my leg, but Corinne said that she would nurse me back to health :-) :-) (and she did tend to my wounds when we got home...).

On the job front, I'm still on hold for that job downtown. I was actually hoping that they would not move too fast, because I wanted a little more time to get my web sites going, and for some other stuff, but I really did not think that it would drag on this long. I really hope it still goes through! Last wee they told me that they hope to finalize it this week (again).

OK, as all of you loyal family page readers know... I have been pretty obsessed with my affiliate web sites and since I have been so focused on this, I like to write (and talk) about it a lot. Well, I decided that, since it seems to be more interesting to me than it is to many other people, that I would try not to write so much about it... Well, I just don't think that I can not do it... Especially since there have been some interesting developments recently...

So... I decided I would do it like they do on some of the bulliten boards, by starting a "seperate string" (a different page in this situation) rather than include all the details here... So if you are at all interested:

Actually I don't know how well this will work, because I usually just like writing all of my junk right here on the main page... but I'll give it a try...

ot my camcorder-firewire-still pictures back! I finally got around to doing what my old neighbor said for the firewire fix and I got it working again! I really love this option! The quality is not as good as scanned or digital stills but I love being able to freeze frames from action shots. It is really a big advantage (and crutch). The pictures are mostly just fine for the internet also and they are at least OK for printouts...

OK, enough of the technical details... Here are a few random scenes from Jonathans 5'th Birthday party yesterday...

3/30/2003 - I'm still not a real good photographer, but I have a good camera (which helps :-) ). Here are some pictures from November (mostly, I think) that I just got developed.

Just a quick update... I just did my second ride this season. I was starting to get into my running routine (doing about 2 miles every other day) and as usual, my body gave in to the pressure... (my knee this time). I was disappointed about that, but I can still ride my bike just fine... I did 13 miles today and it was just felt great! (even though it was a little chilly). I just really like riding and I think it is almost a perfect exercise too... (just my opinion).

I have another job on the line and they called last week and said that it looks very likely that I will get it. They are moving very slow though and nothing is definate at this point so, once again, I'll hold off on the details...

I have been working diligently on my web site business also and my next site will be on pets and pet supplies. I believe that I may have learned how to do this type of thing properly now, so I wanted to do an entire site the right way from the beginning. Once I get this one up and functional, I will back track a little and fix what I can on my previous sites... Then, it is really just a waiting game to see how things work out... Although I can still keep improving the sites and the content while I wait for the search engines to find me...

Aside from being very confident that my web sites can be profitable, I was just thinking how I really love doing this type of work also. There is a lot of reasearch and analysis in addition to writing content for the web sites... but I actually really like doing this kind of stuff! OK, I like bike riding and playing guitar more, but as far as work goes, this would probably be one of my favorite types of things to do... Just thought that I'd mention that... Now you know where my head is at...

Well, the kids are on spring break now and I may be going back to work when they go back to school. Nothing is definate (just a good prospect) so I won't get into the details just yet. Even though I have no actual job offer yet, I have mixed emotions about going back to work. Realistically, I have no choice. I will do what I must do (and I still like programming). But I am really learning a lot about the affiliate business that I am working on and would like more time to focus on this and get more sites up (especially since I have learned so much about all of the mistakes that I have made on my initial sites).

Anyway, there should be some interesting stuff goin on this week so stay tuned... For now though, It is an absolutely beautiful spring day here and I need to get outside!

OK, I've reset and added our bike mileage charts for this year so we are ready to ride! (I've reset our odometers, but I haven't actually ridden anywhere yet this year...) Last years record will be really hard to beat. I will probably add this chart to my bicycle site at some point just as a fun special interest thing. I'm not sure if I'll keep it (and maintain it) in both places yet...

I'm not exactly sure why, but I have been feeling very thankful for things recently and felt like writing a little note about it. I just realized that I have been thanking people a lot recently... and for good reasons. It seems like a lot of people have been helping me and the family quite a bit recently.

I was going to mention some of the specifics, but then I was just thinking that there have been quite a few people helping recently (and maybe for longer than I have always realized), some in bigger ways and some in smaller ways so I'll just say that I am grateful to many people right now...

No, I didn't win the lottery, inheirit a lot of money, get a great job, get a song published or anything nearly that "tangible". As a matter of fact, we still have quite a few significant problems or "issues" to deal with... but... people have been helping out a lot and I think we (the family) are going in a good direction and I am very optimistic about some things at the moment...

OK, back to reality... (I was just thinking of those old Steve Martin SNL scetches where he would give a real dramatic speech about how wonderful things could be, etc, etc... the lights would dim and the music would get louder and more dramitic... and then he would just say... "Naaahh"!)

I had to do a quick update since we quickly went from the March lion (zero temps and snow) to the lamb (60s and 70s). Yep we hit the 70s today! Yesterday was in the 60s and we had a great day outside and a nice visit to my Plano Brothers house... That's my brother in Plano, Illinois...

Also, I just wanted to mention that I got my payment for my first CD sale. You may remember that it was to someone in Switzerland and I agreed to accept payment in Swiss Chocolate. That was a great deal! Way better than the $5.00 that I was asking for... I'll have to see what else I can trade for in the next country... :-) :-)

3/8/2003 Snowforts and Igloos (return of the lion), Family Page Sponsors subdued, About-Digital-Cameras,

I guess it's time for my old March cliche... the "in like a lion" part... We are getting another blast of winter...

Casey and Corinne (and their friends) have been into some major snow fort building. I didn't get as good of a picture of Casey's fort, but Corinne's igloo looks pretty cool...

I got (the draft of) my third affiliate site up (as spider bait). The new site is called www.About-Digital-Cameras.com . I've included links for all of these affiliate sites at the bottom of the page... In addition to a little family page house cleaning / rearranging.

I've moved the FamilyPage Sponsors to another page... Like I said I would... It's not really headline news now, but I wanted to keep them out there... so you all can still use them when the time is right.

I'm just kickin back a little now that I got phase one of those sites done. I'll be updating the content, products, formats and stuff next... Oh yea, the Songwriter's Helper site is now on Google and Yahoo (although not ranked as well as I would like) ...and I am still #1 on MSN for "songwriting tips"!

I guess that's about it for the family AND website news for now... catch ya all later...

Pool Party!
About-Bicycles is up...
Digital Cameras on the way...

(oopss, I've fixed this picture link...)

Corinne's Birthday-Pool Party was real nice and the girls had a great time! I wasn't even sure if I was going at first, and I imagined a small little pool with a few feet around the edge... Well, Corinne wanted me there (of course) and it was fantastic! We may make this a tradition... and make a regular party out of it... (now that I know how this all works!)

One thing that I thought was interesting is that Avril Lavigne didn't win a single grammy (at least I don;t think she did) but it was amazing to see about seven 9 and 10 year old girls singing every single word to "skater boy" when we played the CD!

FYI: www.About-Bicycles.com is up... (the first draft anyway) I haven't added the payola links yet, but I have researched some merchants and signed up for a few and there's some more "sponsors" at the bottom of this page.

My next site will be about digital cameras. I have done a lot of word search analysis and research and will be starting the draft of the site this week...

Related to my research, I have uploaded 15 digital pictures to ShutterBug.com to see how their prints come out (you get 15 for free for a startup promotion thing (+$1.79 for shipping). I was really impressed with the quality of the prints. They look just like film prints and they just send them to your mailbox... the only drawback is that it took over 1 hour to upload the 15 pictures to have them printed... (probably not very practical as a regular thing, but it is nice to know that you can do this if you have a need for it).

Another semi-related story: I got a new firewire board for still pictures from the camcorder (I really miss that option). The only problem is that the board that I got (really cheap) requires Windows 98SE and MS does not support this anymore... Sheesh.... I know that my 91 Caravan is obsolete, but now my 5 year old PC is obsolete!!!

Well, I'm not gonna write all about my Win98SE experiences here... but I did participate in a bulletin board thread to try to get some answers... so if you have some kind of weird interest.... here's that link... Robs-WIN98SE-Stuff (My notes start at the bottom of this section... and continue...)

Sorry I have been neglecting the poor old family page for a few weeks now :-( I have been working so hard on my other sites that I haven't had a chance to do a proper update here.

Let's see, family news first... Corinne is having a pool party this comming weekend for her birthday, and maybe a "sleep over" with a few friends (what's up with sleep overs anyway? I don't remember doing them when I was a kid...). Casey is working pretty hard on his tae-kwon-do and they did a wipe out basketball game last week (I think it was about 48 to 16 (Caseys team won)... and I have replaced bike riding with walk/running again (for the winter) and I've worked up to running about 2 miles now... Hey, that's a lot for me... (I'm almost 50 ya know, and I don't think that I could have run 2 miles when I was 25 even).

Now, as for these web sites that I have been working on. I was just telling Jeff how putting up these sites is a little like when you play music at places (gigs), there is 100s of hours of practice time but the audience only sees maybe a one hour show (for all that work).

What you see at the www.SongwritersHelper.com site and the, soon to be, www.About-Bicycles.com site is just the end result (actually it is really just work-in-progress for these sites). What you don't see is the many hours of work setting up domain names and hosting services, key word tracking and analysis, affiliate merchant research, sign ups and link generation, web site graphics and page creation, search engine research and submissions, marketing research and copy writing time (this is like writing theme papers in school).

OK, I'm not really complaining, I actually like it! I just had to mention that so people don't think I'm just "on vacation" slummin... (again :-) )

Now as for the MSN thing... I've done the first draft of the SongwritersHelper site, and submitted it to a bunch of search engines and directories and figured that I have a month or two before I start showing up in some of the listings... I check it out once in a while (mostly Google, which can be slow), but I actually found my site on LookSmart and MSN today... OK, that's fine... Then I tried some keyword phrases... When I did "Songwriting tips", which gets at least a thousand hits a month, I showed up as the #1 listing in MSN (and #2 in LookSmart)!!!

I don't know what this means at this point, but I think that this is a real nice development... I should have the About-Bicycles site up next week sometime... so stay tuned!

I just thought I would update the old family page, although there is not a real lot to report this week, just the Usual Stuff. Casey's team lost this week :-( , but he played great himself! :-) Oh yea, we also signed Casey up for tie-kwan-do (I have no idea how to spell that) also.

Corinne is REALLY doing well with her ice skating and she has been showing me a lot of the stuff she has been learning in her lessons. Finally, I learn to skate the right way (hmmm... am I too old to get into figure skating?) We have been doing a lot of practicing on the lake, which I still really enjoy. Unfortunately, the reason we are able to do this is because it has been so COLD! That's OK though, the worst is over...

Other than that... I have been working my a-- off nothing to show for it!!! (at least as far as money goes)... Yes, I am still applying for the usual reality-based-day-jobs but I am trying to use this off-time to continue my internet and web site work (as you probably know). As with any start-up business (or get-rich-quick scheme) it is all work and no pay on the front end... but I am hopeful :-) that my efforts will pay off at some point...

Anyway, I have signed up for my second affiliate program (Musicians Friend HomePage) and I have a new webhost for my new sites and one new content based web page (site) and Domain Name.

I am now www.SongwritersHelper.com also! This is a totally songwriter based content page (help and references). But check it out if you want to the start on my latest project...

Oh yea, I also updated the old www.SongPuppy.com site to fit my new project and make it easier to get around. I had to remove the famous mouse-over-keyboard. It was "cute" but not as practical as I wanted at this time and I also did some more cheap sales pitches on my cheap CD sales page (the 2'nd cheap meaning that I don't ask for much, because the production quality is low, but I am continuing with the experimental sales (it's good practice)).

OK, I've been doing enough page updates for now... I gotta go... catch cha later!

Text Archive Version 8 2/8/2002 to 10/24/2003

Text Archive Version 8
2/8/2002 to 10/24/2003