The Most’est of the Post’est – Page 3

Friday, January 17th, 2025 – Happy New Year!

Hello Gutenberg! This is definitely different. I didn’t think that I installed this plug-in but I’m glad I did and that it’s working now. I remember it crashing my site and having to disable it.

In any event, Happy New Year 2025 readers!

Update: I hit the 100K point mark in Duo Lingo for Russian! Making it my most studied language. However, I have to start furthering myself in the Russian language and not just working on points ;p. I am also going to start to try and learn Hindi. I have a new goal – keep my Russian up and learn Hindi at the same time. I can try and practice with Vikash and Pooja.

Update: I had a doctors appt on Jan 3rd and I got the directive that I have to lose some weight, and my doctor recommended that I start limiting my carbs. So, that is what I am doing. I did some keto stuff last year and although it wasn’t sustainable, I used a pretty good app on the iPhone (Carb Manager). I am using the same app this time but adjusting my carbs to the recommended amount. I mentioned trying to diet last year and was using the “Lumen” to try and get my body into fat burning mode. While I could never get it there, I could only burn carbs or glucose. I got frustrated and ditched the Lumen after 2 or 3 months and figured that I was metabolically inflexible and had no idea how to combat it. Well, this time I have a strategy. This time, I am trying to be “Ideologically Flexible” (flexible in thought) so, I will see what I can do to adjust my diet and exercise this time. Anyway, the last time was a stupid time to diet – right before a 12-day cruise to the “ABC Islands”. Yeah, I know – stupid. I haven’t busted out the Lumen yet. I had a bunch of concerns for the doctor on resting heart rate and metabolic inflexibility – since diabetes runs in the family. I am taking 6 weeks off from watercolor painting and trying to get a jump start on exercise (my art teacher was not feeling well and is taking the first 6 weeks of this year off – at night). Hopefully, he is feeling better and will resume night teaching. I retired my old weight bench and bought a new one – it is much safer. I don’t have to worry about weights crushing my larynx.

Update: After almost a year of audio frustration, I rewired my Klipsch speakers I got from my brother and decided to bi-amp them. My theory is that the crossovers are fried so I will use the receiver’s crossover to bypass the speaker’s crossover. That should increase the speaker’s performance as well as cut out the distortion and attenuation. I went to a record show and bought 2 new albums (vinyl) – Evanescence – Fallen (2003) , Triumph – Just A Game (1979) and some record cover sleaves. I also found some replacement needles for my turntable. Around Christmas, I purchased an audio streamer so I can rip all my CD’s to it. Currently, they are all in the cloud (Apple). I also have a NAD streamer, but I lost all the data someway, So I am not very keen on re-burning my CD’s. The cloud is bullet proof, but you are beholden to apple forever. I was also looking at ROON. I love the MAC mini. I may try something like that – if I can ever figure out how ROON works.

-Rat

Thursday, October 10th 2024… trying something new…

So, I’m using the Gutenberg block editor with a standard/legacy theme to see if I want to change my theme to a block supported theme. Not sure yet.

Drew picture and did wet into wet on sky

Did some negative painting and pinks on the buildings then added some basic greens

Did some basic greens on the other side and added some greys in the buildings

-Rat

Monday, October 1st 2024…honest to Christ, if it’s not one thing, it’s another…

Now that all my WordPress woes are somewhat behind me for the time being, my music components are giving me grief now! You would think it would be easy, plug and play – nope, plug and prey! In this technological world, everything is inter-connected. From the musical perspective, I have a new school setup, feeding an old school setup. Well, albeit a somewhat new school setup. I have vintage 70’s stereo components being fed by late 2016’s technological stereo components. In otherwards, I have a 2015 NAD M50 streamer with an external DAC feeding CARVER components (PT-1250 Amps and a 4000t Pre-Amp) and a current Node 2i BLUESOUND streamer with external DAC. I was ripping all my music via the NAD and something happened that reset the auto CD setting to play and not rip a CD to a drive. I have an external drive attached to the NAD. Which pisses me off because everything is buried in a “simple” app. Upstairs, I have a Pioneer Elite SC-07 receiver powering a pair of Klipsch RF16s and a Klipsch sub. The speakers sound like shit, no treble (seems blown or crossovers are crap) I was thinking that I would pair the Elite with a Node Vault 2i which would allow me to rip upstairs and play downstairs and use the Node in the living room and keep the NAD downstairs. While I’m upstairs, I have to repair the Klipsch speakers (pull them apart and check the wiring and crossovers) and configure the receiver. I think I may even try a CARVER TFM-25 amp and use the Pioneer as just a preamp (as a check for the output signal in case It’s the Pioneer that has a problem and not the speakers). Always something…

-Rat

Wednesday, September 11th 2024… for whom the bell tolls…

I was reminded on the way in to work about the 9/11 attacks in 2001. I kind of forgot about that, but while in the car – all the memories came flooding back. What an interesting and somber morning that was. I remember my mom walking on the treadmill and I was getting ready for work, seeing the fire in the singular tower on the news and trying to figure out how in the hell that could have happened. Multiple floor fires, across the whole tower, and floors above and below not touched. Someone on the news mentioned that someone else (a bystander) saw a plane hit the tower. That made perfect sense as to what I was seeing. Sometime later, my stomach dropped when the news cameras were focused on the tower showing the damage and another plane hit the second tower. I was like, “oh shit”.

This weekend, I am going to try and work on my current watercolor (Chicago skyline from Lincoln Park lagoon) and begin setting up my desktop photography lab at home. Getting closer to creating my Czech Glass Gallery -photography section!

-Rat

Monday, August 26th 2024… I didn’t get Gumbo, but I did get a classic Ruben…

I wanted to do the Maple Tree Inn for my birthday this year, and while I didn’t get to go… I did get to go to Irish Fest at Galic Park and had a classic Ruben from Ashford House (Flippin’ authentic Irish!) We did the “Guiness Experience” which was an awesome deal and fairly informative. We got to sample a flight of 5 beers – Harp, Smithwick’s (pronounced Smith-ick’s), Guiness Draught (draft – draught is the Gaelic spelling), Guiness Extra Stout, and Guiness Foreign Extra Stout. There were all approximately 6oz pours which I felt was an exceptional deal and a souvenir Guiness pint glass! There was a lot of information to take in and in the end, I felt that I had a better appreciation of the beer and the brew process. I also found out that there is a Guiness Brewery, right here in our Chicago area!! I also heard the wonderful Shannon Rovers and an awesome and extremely talented Abba tribute band! They had an great lineup of talent this year, and I wish I could have attended all the days (Fri, Sat, and Sun). Also, I got a year older. ;(

On a separate note, I ran across a song that I kind of fell in love with – Babylon by David Gray off his album White Ladder. It’s been in my playlist for a long time. It came out in 1998. To funny. I always attributed it to John Mellencamp. Sorry David!

-Rat

Tuesday, August 13th 2024… I don’t ever remember feeling this bad…

I went bike riding with the guys yesterday. To be fair, it was only my second time out this year. But by the time I hit 15 miles, I felt like crap, and I was going to bonk. It took everything I had to get back to the beginning of the trail where we parked. “Old Plank Trail” lived up to its billing. The initial 5 miles were smooth, and the rest was like riding on a metal washboard or wood planks. This trail is in Frankfort IL and runs for about 25mi but we only ride 20mi – Strating at the grain silo – riding West until the end, and then back to the beginning.

A couple of things – first, the cicada mites weren’t that bad for me, (I only got 5 bites) not so for the others. Second, my ass hurt like hell due to a slight seat movement and no amount of padding was gonna change that. Third, the planking was only adding to the hurt. Fourth, my aerobic fitness was sorely lacking (this was the worst part). Usually, I prepare a couple of months before I attempt this. It didn’t help that the second half of the journey was all uphill. I guess I did pretty good compared to the others, I only have 5 bites, some of the other guys have chest welts.

The “Motley Crew”…

You can see the “Grain Silo” behind Rey. Which is where the trail actually is.

-Rat

Monday, July 29th 2024 … just another manic Monday… I wish it was Sunday…

Work, ugh. Some days, I’m really glad I’m not in management. Today is one of those days.

I had purchased some old Carver audio equipment. Carver always impressed me when I was younger, it was some no bullshit audio gear. So now, I have 2 PT-1250’s, 3 – TFM-25’s and a 4000t. I have one of the 1250 driving my Energy Pro-22 speakers – no wonder I blew 2 tweeters! I like listening to my music loud, but I couldn’t understand why I was blowing the tweeters. Looking at the 1250 stats, now I know why – 465 watts/channel RMS, which means almost 800 watts/channel peak. Yeah, I think that those speakers are rated 25o/channel. I feel like they are kind of getting a rough signal from the amp perspective. I called the audio guys to get a price to do a classic refresh or something similar. So, hopefully my amps will last another 30 years if I can have them restored. In the meantime, I think I’ll stick them on one of the TFM-25s.

-Rat

Thursday, June 13th 2024…”the pipes are callin’, from glen-to-glen…

Happy June everyone! Last week was kinda sad, since we laid my mother-in-law to rest. She was the last of my parent-in-laws and was a very spirited Irish woman. She was a hoot! We had the family over on Saturday including one of my wife’s cousins from England. He was wonderful to speak with and get to know a bit, albeit it was a short stay. Love the fam time too. Kevin helped me put up the awnings on Sunday. Thank God for that. It helps keep the temperature down on the west side of the house. Usually, it gets done earlier in the year, but due to the early vacation this year and my mother-in-law on the ropes, it just never happened.

-Rat