My surface thoughts and musings…
I finally got out on a bike last Friday, it was about 70F outside and it was lovely!
I picked my bike up from Richards and they did a really nice job on it! New wheels – yay! Saturday, we went to the outlet mall and walked most of the day and I was beat Saturday night. Sunday, (Easter) was a day of recuperation. I still have to put a new battery in my cadence meter and take my little speedometer magnet from my old wheel. But other than that, I am ready for this season.
-Rat
So, I grabbed the NAD M50 streamer from my buddy for a song (bad pun) and am trying to get it connected to my network. I got it connected and it seems to be working well, except that I cant see any way of ripping CDs since it only seems to play them. In the meantime, I think my old “MyCloud” NAS died. I was planning on using it on the M50 as an external storage device. Now I have to troubleshoot it and see if it’s worth saving, or just buy another replacement NAS drive. Everything’s a flipping project.
Update: So, I get home from work Friday night only to find my small NAS drive dead – I had a sneaking suspicion. I saw that it has a USB 3.0 male plug so I went on Amazon, just for kicks and ordered a male-male USB 3.0 cable. Got it today (Saturday) and got my NAS drive working. My concern is for how long? I am currently copying all of the files off onto a backup drive and ordered a new NAS.
I did get a painter’s diary though from “Jerry’s Art Supplies” for my watercolor paints. I also got some extra paints that I was running out of – cerulean blue, cadmium red, and alizarin crimson. I still need to order burnt umber. I’m fixing 3 of my last 4 pictures. Little changes – fixing things that bugged me. I’m also working on a picture from about 2 years ago that I never finished. As a matter of fact, it was only about 40% done with it. I’m interested to see how it finishes. Looking at it with my current eye, I think I was very timid with my tones and colors when I walked away from it.
-Rat
I can’t believe it’s February and I haven’t posted since September of last year! Holy Crap! Today is supposed to be sunny and nice (50F for a high). There is a grove of interesting trees that I wanted to photograph. I’m going to bust out the hybrid and go for a short ride. There have been some interesting changes and some interesting things going on.
The basement is slowly getting cleaned (-1.0 bummer:very cool). I haven’t done anything with photography (bummer). No Tai Chi (bummerx2), but I have been researching while I’m getting my area cleaned (-0.5 bummers). I hooked up the Ohm’s to the Carver amp (TFM-25) and nixed the old receiver (CT-3) for a “new” Pioneer Elite (SC-72). My bro gave me all his old CD’s so I’m going to throw them in the carousel. That said, I am starting to seriously consider the BlueSound Vault 2i Network Streamer. I’d really like to rip all my CD’s and store them on a NAS and put away all my CD’s for good. Once upon a time back in 2007, I ripped them all up to iTunes. I’d like to get away from that since Microsoft is not developing it anymore and its “iffy” sometimes. It’s all a project. A buddy of mine has a NAD M50 streamer player and is willing to sell it to me for a good price. I’m also considering that direction. I don’t want to be stuck with CD’s with no way to play them or degrading disks. I’ve been keeping up with painting watercolor (fun). Since I’ve posted last, I’ve done 3 watercolor paintings that I can remember – 2 koi (16×20), the Niagra river (16×20), and a sunflower (10×12). I’m also working on fixing/finishing a painting from last year (32×40). I’ve started prepping/training for the upcoming riding season. Losing some weight (a priority) and working on my cardio and strength. Ill post pix’s next time because I’m working this morning, and on my work laptop, so I don’t have my graphics and web tools.
Speaking on working, I’ve been working like a dog. That said… I finally got some help. It’s been a blessing. We moved offices to a new location – closer to my house so my commute is now 15 minutes tops.
-Rat
Last time, As I was saying… I wanted to try and fix some things and try some new things for my web site as well. Well, I haven’t had the time to try new things. With the work on the job piling up and pressure to work more hours and the weekends disappearing due to responsibilities, plans, and work … at least (as of late) I’ve had some leisure time on weekends. Too bad it doesn’t include riding road biking (bummer) though. I’ve also had to take a couple of weeks off due to podiatrist fun and crappy weather.
I did see Garth Brooks in concert at Notre Dame though. Very fun. It least the concert was fun and most of the weekend was relaxing. I will refrain upon saying anything else though. Imagine that, I saw Garth in concert and new most of his songs. Funny how that works. How the hell can you hate Country music and know his catalog? I am at a loss.
-Rat
So, I’ve wanted to do some creative stuff with my blog and websites and have been stymied by things in WordPress that don’t integrate well together. It’s really starting to piss me off. Almost as much as getting my site hacked by people that have nothing better to do. I’ve had this plugin that is supposed to help migrate a site by doing an export. Sounds simple in theory, but it’s been only going so far and then dying. I’ve also wanted to use Elementor and for some reason, it also crashes my site. So the other day, I got a brainstorm and decided to do a parallel site that I really don’t care about, just to experiment. I’m using Bluehost as a provider and domain ratpuke7.net as another site – kind of a developmental site. We shall see…
-Rat
And i didn’t get the bike out! Instead I made soup, went and washed the car, washed the mats and shampooed some spots, and took Anne to Walmart. Came home, had soup and played Rummikub. It was gorgeous out today – a balmy 61 degrees, clear sky and lots of sun.
Which got me thinking about “Daylight Savings Time” that occurred last weekend. Would I rather have it CDT year round, or CST year round? I hate the yearly time changes, but would I want to change? Probably not. I’ve been railing on this for a while now. But now that it’s a possibility, i really hope it doesn’t go. Lets look at the extremes, what would sunrise look on the Winter Solstice day? Currently with things the way they are, sunrise would be at 7:15am CST. If it was CDT, it would be 8:15am. That would kind of suck if I got up early – its cold and dark. On the plus side, that day (the shortest day of the year), the sun sets at 4:24pm CST, would now set at 5:24pm . Not a huge bonus, but id rather have sunrise earlier. Looking at the summer solstice (the longest day of the year) with the same optics, sunrise which is currently at 5:17am CDT, but CST would put it at 4:17am. Sunset which is 8:29pm CDT would now be 7:29pm. The day seems really long if you get up early. Hmm, the jury is out on this…
At least I didn’t have to work today – it’s a good day.
-Rat
We got bikes out today. I rode my hybrid and Vikash rode his road bike. I had put 2 new sensors on. One broke (cadence) in the first 10min forcing me to go back to find it on the street. We carried on though and finished the standard trail (Tinley Creek North) in about an hour and a half. Our normal time is around an hour. There was still a bit of snow in places – not on the trail. Although it hit 72, the water in the ponds and lakes was still frozen over. It was awesome to get out today.
-Rat
Ah, it’s “Fat Tuesday” better known as “Paczki Day” in my Polish household. I almost ran into Ana Balaval this morning from “Channel 9” at the Orland Bakery. She was parked in the car beside me waiting for her segment time. I missed it by about 10min, but I had to get to work. Speaking of work, this celebrates my March First tie to all those “divine” friends I had who were “Xqsite”. You know who you are. What is it, 20 years or so?
Seems to be getting nicer outside and I’m tempted to bust out the hybrid. A much better prospect than riding in the basement. Tomorrow is a high of 54F at 4:00pm.
This is my first post of the new year and I have art class tonight (watercolor with John). Maybe I can enlist him in a leisurely ride tomorrow afternoon.
This Gutenberg editor is what I have been using all along or at least for the past year. Doesn’t seem like much of a change for WordPress. Ill have to dig into my WordPress classes to review the differences. Truth to tell, I don’t remember.
For the first time in over a year, I finally feel like I’m catching up at work. Just in time for audit to knock me down a peg or two. Its been a long, strange, trip. 2 Data Center moves, splitting the AS400 up, upgrading JDE – wow.
My thoughts feel fragmented this afternoon.
-Rat
Ok, so I’m a bit late. I have been busy. Been working like a “dog” lately. I’m taking a watercolor class with John at McCord. I’m reading 2 books [Karma by Sadguru, Yiquan 360 by Ling Seto] and and listening to 3 audio books [The Cyclist’s Training Bible by Joe Friel, Breathing for Warriors by Dr. Belisa Vranich, and The Healthy Mind Toolkit by Alice Boyles]. I’m working out when I can squeeze in a 1.5hr time slot – which is almost never.
This is interesting because I wrote most of this on Jan 19th but only saved it as a draft. I’m posting it now.
-Rat
Lets see… updates… It’s been a while… I got the new Whoop 4.0 which adds a couple of extra metrics to the 3.0 group – skin temperature and blood oxygen level, which reminds me… when I needed the metrics most, I didn’t have them. I got a cold on Monday evening, upgraded my Whoop. Felt like total crap on Tuesday thru Thursday, feel 10 times better today. But, I wanted to check my metrics to see if I had possibly contracted COVID. Don’t think so. I was worried for my wife who as you may or may not know, has a suppressed immune system. It’s Friday and I have no idea where the week went. I felt like the lights were on, but no one was home from a work perspective. I did work from home most of this week and got quite a bit done, but yesterday… I don’t recall most of yesterday – I do know I was listening to music and doing busywork.
Vikash will be heading back home on December 31, which will put quite a bit of pressure on me for most of January. I’ll have to do his stuff, plus my stuff. On the flip side, I am taking the last 2 weeks of this year off – stay-cation. Yay! Ryan is coming home on approximately the 20th. He’s scheduled to stay here. I’m excited to see him and get updates. I really haven’t spoke with him for what seems like forever.
The 4th of December was my last official bike ride of the year (yep, mother nature was kind that Saturday) and rode our typical path – but in the reverse direction. It was like a new path. I knew exactly were we were but the scenery was different! It was kind of weird – I admit. It’s only 13mi but for a weekend warrior, it was enough. I have too get a bike stand so I can change the wheels.
Watercolor class has been fun and interesting. I have done a couple of paintings lately. I’ve been working on smaller paper (8.5″ x 11″), so while color control is difficult, owing to the smaller path on the paper, the paintings are accomplished more quickly.
-Rat