Category: Deep Thoughts
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2023 October Checkup – UA Family Weekend, 20K Days, and more
Events
First big event of the month was family weekend at the University of Akron. Grace took us around the university before heading to the Summit Mall and eating at The Rail.
On the 11th I went to a company event at Bolton field. Last year I went up in the bomber, this year I admired it from the ground.
It was time to give blood this month. Since I’m O- I do the Power Red donation. Instead of getting 1 pint of blood from me, they get two pints. To do this, they take out a pint and separate the red blood cells from the plasma and platelets. The plasma & platelets are then pumped back in and the process repeats one more time. It knocks me down a peg for the day, but it’s not that bad.
The KHS Class of ’88 asked me to DJ their reunion, so I started the day with a tour for the alumni of the high school and middle school. Both buildings will cease to exist by the time the class holds their next reunion due to the new MSHS being built.
On October 17th I turned 20,000 days old! Here’s to another 20,000!
I did get to present to Mrs. Clark’s class about running 15 marathons. They were studying ancient Greece and the history of marathons. This is the first time I used Canva’s Magic Create too. I told it that I’m presenting to 2nd graders about running marathons, and it spit out a decent headline over 7 slides.
They broke ground on the new Scooter’s coffee location!
Rochelle performed stand up at the Crescent lounge at the end of the month. The set was really good!
Mom had her three month checkup at a new Ohio State hospital facility. Everything looks good for her, and the view was spectacular.
Tragedy struck when were moving Mom and Dad at the end of the month. I would like to find someone to blame, but this was all on me. I lifted the back of the oven to check the power cord without thinking. The door opened and came crashing down. Literally, crashing.
Geek stuff
Started the month getting re-acquainted with an old friend.
I learned that you can add phonetic spellings to contacts on the iPhone, so now I can use Siri to call En Lai without her getting confused!
For the house I installed a new Amazon Alexa smart thermostat. It was an interesting challenge getting it interface with the ancient furnace we have, but YouTube came to the rescue. And, I also know more about furnaces than I need to. We tried to use the smart scheduling feature, but that lasted about a month until I set a fixed schedule. Maybe we’ll try it again in the future.
MySQL would randomly fall over on my WordPress site, and I got tired of manually restarting it so I searched and found a solution. Add a cron job to run every five minutes with the following command fixed the issue:
/usr/sbin/service mysql status > /dev/null || /usr/sbin/service mysql startI attended a Cybersecurity conference in Columbus near the end of the month. When it comes to cybersecurity, it gets depressing. The biggest issue is people, and they are also a very difficult problem to solve.
My journal takes is a text file which allows me to easily add to it with different programs. To make it easier to add entries from my phone I created a Telegram bot. I message the bot and it adds the message to the journal. This month I stepped it up a notch and added the ability to share a pic to the bot which is then added to the journal. Now I can make entries such as this:
2023/10/31 20:58 – Me and my pop from Caseyās!
ChatGPT really helped with writing the code, it allowed me to add the feature in a third of the time it would have taken me.My Scion XB is now 18 1/2 years old. My main keyfob’s keyring holder wore out years ago, and now the second one wore out. I was planning on figuring out how to 3-D print new holders and I had the idea of checking the internet. Lo and behold, a company sells the plastic shells, two for $8! So now I’m good for another 15-20 years.
Photos
Sunrise over Kenton High SchoolMovies
- Mean Girls: “On October 3rd, he asked me what day it was.”
- Totally Killer: A time traveling horror movie to the 80s? Sign me up. Very enjoyable, I would have loved to see it on the big screen.
- The Creator: Wondering where we’re going with AI? The Creator is a look at one possible future. I liked it, but it may not be everyone’s cup of tea. It is now streaming on Hulu.
- Blue Giant: Anime about a kid wanting to be a Jazz musician, and it was excellent.
- Eurotrip: OMG, this is one of my comfort movies. Scotty Doesn’t Know is such a banger.
- Back to the Future: October 25th is Back to the Future Day, so of course Tara and I had to go see it. The movie was one of our first dates too.
TV
- Ahsoka (1) – Great ending to the show, can’t wait to see what happens next!
- Loki (2) – Seems like a lot of wasted time, like this could be a 2 hour movie instead.
- Parks and Recreation (4)
- Rules of Engagement (5)
- Ted Lasso (1) – Finally getting around to this, and we’re liking what we’re seeing so far.
- The IT Crowd (3)
- The King of Queens (8)
- The Neighborhood (1)
- The Office (1)
- The Office Superfan (4)
- Three’s Company (1)
- Trek Strange New Worlds (1) – Still on Season 1, but I really like it.
- Wings (17)
Health
- Average Steps/day: 14,446
- Most steps in a day: 22,849
- Min steps in a day: 12,107
- Resting Heart Rate: 54
- Average Time Asleep: 6 hours 49 minutes
- Miles walked: 147.9
- Miles ran: 47.5
Potpourri
Words of wisdom:
You should also prioritize people who are ākindā over people who are ānice,ā Lubetzky says. āNice doesnāt require much. You can be passive and be nice. But kind requires the strength of being earnest,ā he explains. āThere are some cases where people are absolute jerks, but there are far more cases where people are too meek and too afraid to share feedback and they cause far more damage because of how common it is.ā – Daniel Lubetzky
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2023 August Checkup – Lake Day, college, tornado warnings, and a little more
August is usually a pretty boring but stressful month. For some reasons, things at work that haven’t been touched in months just start breaking. Everyone wants everything yesterday, and managing over 2,000 user accounts can be quite tedious.
August is usually a pretty boring but stressful month. For some reasons, things at work that haven’t been touched in months just start breaking. Everyone wants everything yesterday, and managing 1,850 user accounts can be quite tedious.
Events
The first weekend of August is usually Lake Day, the day Ken, Jason, Todd, and I relax down at Indian Lake. This year was good, especially since there weren’t any injuries like last year.
I finally finished my upgrade to my treadmill desk frame and mounted a TV. It’s great when I run in the morning now, so much nicer than trying to watch TV and movies on an 11″ laptop.
Running in the rain
One of my most interesting runs ever happened on the 12th. I headed out on my run at 11am, and the weather was pretty nice.
After about an hour, I could see a storm rolling in, so I messaged Tara that I may need a pick up.She drove by, but it was only starting to rain so I decided I was going to finish my run in the rain.
However, about 5 minutes after I posted that, I got the tornado warning message. I only had about 2 miles to go, so I was going for it.
Tara had other ideas and made me get in the car. The tornado caused a little damage in town, but we didn’t get much out our way.
And then, an hour later it looked like this:
Ohio weather is the best!
Finishing out the month
The sad news was that Jason’s dad passed away. We went to the visitation and got caught up with Jason, Aaron, Courtney, and others.
On the 19th we moved Grace in to college to start her sophomore year. Everything went smoothly, except for dealing with the couch. That thing is a pain, and we couldn’t fit it in the elevator so we had to carry it up 4 flights of stairs.
Finally, the first day of school arrived, starting Tara’s 32nd year and my 27th year.
Movies
- Antitrust: I have no idea why I decided to watch this one, but it is a favorite.
- Beverly Hills Cop: It was a classic when it was released, and it’s still a classic today.
- Mission Impossible 3: This is the movie that saved the Mission Impossible franchise. RIP Philip Seymour Hoffman, you were amazing in this.
- Back to School: My go to movie for getting pumped about a new school year started. Rodney Dangerfield’s best role!
- American Pie 2: And then when I want to think about care free summers I watch American Pie 2
- Dirty Dancing: RIP Jerry Orbach. This movie always reminds me of my first week or so at college. I knew basically no one. Two girls that I had met at a freshamn mixer were heading uptown to see it when they passed me as I was heading back to my dorm. They asked if I wanted to go see it. I don’t remember knowing anything about it, but I did go see it with them. I wonder what happened to them in the intervening years?
- Ready Player One: I enjoyed the book, but the movie not so much. But hey, it’s got the 80s in it so I have to watch it.
- Oppenheimer (70mm): Finally got to see Oppenheimer, what a great movie!
TV watched
Number of episodes in parentheses.
- Ahsoka (1) – I was hoping this would be Rebels season 5 and I haven’t been disappointed. And if you are a Star Wars fans and haven’t watched any of the animated shows you’re doing yourself a disservice.
- Cheers (9)
- King of Queens (2)
- Parks and Recreation (7)
- Star Trek Deep Space Nine (1)
- The Office Superfan (2)
- Three’s Company (1)
- Wings (6)
Health
- Average Steps/day: 14,850
- Most steps in a day: 20,869
- Min steps in a day: 12,128
- Resting Heart Rate: 53
- Average Time Asleep: 7hr 10min
- Miles walked: 97.4
- Miles ran: 125.2
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2023 June Checkup
Events
First up for the month was my niece Rachel’s wedding! It was held at the Perry Community Center, a very cool place. The wedding was great, from the ceremony and violinist to the reception and DJ. And by DJ, that was me and I turned that mother out.
I presented at the CREATE conference on the 8th at Maumee High School. It was great catching up with people that I haven’t had a chance to talk to in real life for over 3 years.
My BIL Craig was in town on the tenth, and we took him out to 101 Smokehouse. Three days later was Tara’s and my 25th Anniversary dinner with Tara at Ralphies. I know, such a romantic spot.
This summer I decided to dye my hair purple. Why? It’s all about no regrets. I don’t want to be bald in my 80s thinking, “I should have dyed my hair in my 50s”.
If I had know the Barbie movie was going to be so popular I would have gone with pink, but there’s always next summer.
Mom had a check up at The James. Everything is looking good, and we got Culver’s!
In sad news, Jeff Rickenbacher passed away. I have such great memories of 4-H club meetings at his house, along with our many video game sessions throughout HS. He was able to do one last trip with the family.
4-H Chicago Trip
I am very thankful I was asked to help chaperone the 4-H trip to Chicago. It was a fantastic trip. The bus drive seemed to fly by, and we started our outings in Chicago with some Chicago deep dish pizza at Lou Malnati’s Pizzeria. The next day was a trip to 360 Chicago and some spectacular views of the city. There was also The Tilt, a “ride” which tilts you over the side of a skyscraper. It didn’t agree with some people, but I thought it needed to tilt out farther!
Afterwards we all went to Ed Debevic’s. The name sounded familiar, and then I remembered I ate their when I came to Chicago from college for a Music Conference.
Our waiter was not impressed That afternoon we had a fantastic tour of Chinatown, taking the train down and getting a walking tour. We painted kites and ate authentic Chinese food.
In the evening was our river cruise around Chicago. The cruise was very cool, although the fireworks were a little underwhelming.
The next day was a trip to The Bean. I’ve seen it a couple of times, so it’s lost a little of it’s luster to me, but the kids really liked it.
After the bean was a Chicago Cubs game at Wrigley field! Although they lost against the Orioles, 6-3, the first hit of the game was a home run by the Cubs! We had awesome patio seats with free food. My only negative for the day was troubleshooting some network issues back home, but luckily Kolt was available to run up to the high school and get everything working.That evening was the “walking ghost tour” of Chicago, which I wasn’t too psyched about, but once we got there it was amazing.
Our guide, Baylor, was amazing. What I learned was that a lot of people died in rather senseless ways, usually in a fire. I also learned that Al Capone did more by the end of his thirties then I have done now!
Out last day was some shopping, a visit to the Lincoln Park Zoo, and then off to the Chicago School of Shoemaking. I made an awesome leather belt!
Colorado Trip
We flew out to Colorado to see Delaney and one of the productions she worked on at the opera house in Central City. Unfortunately, we got going a day late do to a ton of travel delays. Our flight was supposed to leave from Columbus and return to Columbus, but due to the issues we switched to flying out of Cleveland. This was going to be a pain except weāre grateful that Joel offered to drive us to Cleveland. This meant that we could take the Pilot down to Rochelleās before we left, and when we returned she could pick us up at the airport and we could drive home from her place. Anything to save on parking!
Our hotel was in Georgetown, a really cool town a little over 30 minutes west of Denver. However, the airport is on the extreme east side of Denver, so we had over an hour drive to get there. Picking up the rental car from Thrifty was an experience. Basically, they just point you to a car and register you on the way out. The funny thing was this huge barricade that comes up out of the ground to stop you from just driving away with a car. I donāt know if people steal from rental places a lot, but they act like it does.
The rental car was a Kia Forte, which was a pretty nice car. It had lane assist, which was cool. I assumed it also had adaptive cruise, but I couldnāt figure it out and I was too lazy to look it up.
On the way to Georgetown we stopped at Red Rocks Park & Amphitheatre. Tara and I had been there before, but Grace hadnāt. After a brief rain, we were all set to go look but unfortunately there was a concert that night and so we werenāt allowed in.
Our first stop at Georgetown was the Georgetown Visitor Center. Your typical visitor center. After that we checked in and headed over to Cabin Creek Brewing for supper.
By this time I was starting to feel lightheaded. Denver is around 5,000 feet and Georgetown is even higher at 8,500. I figured I wouldnāt have an issue with all my running, but I was wrong. The first morning I went out for a run, and the first mile feltā¦ Wrong? Different? I toughed it out, but I didnāt break any speed records. It didnāt really get any easier either.
Next up was a visit to Garden of the Gods and the Visitor Center. We do not have geological formations like this in Ohio. It felt like it could be a planet on Star Trek, I was ready for a Gorn to pop out.
After the Garden of the Gods we bought a timed pass to climb Pikeās Peak. We had some time to kill before we could go, so we stopped at the North Pole, Home of Santa’s Workshop which is on the way up Pikes Peak. If you are under the age of 7 that place is great. It was free admission that day so we walked around. The magic show was way better than you would think. Also, the map hadnāt been updated. It showed an arcade, but the building now looks like it is used for storage. There seemed to be some games inside, but nothing we could play.
Finally, it was time to climb Pikes Peak, and oh boy, what a drive it is. There are no guardrails as you are driving up, and if you went off the road, it was a mile or two straight down. On the way up we saw our first marmoset crossing the road. The temperature on the way up dropped 40 degrees, getting down to the 30s at the top. It was snowing a little bit! The oxygen level at the top is 50% of what it is at sea level, so I was not doing well. We did hear the best conversation though, a man was on the phone and he told the caller ājust here watching a marmoset lick a rockā. It looked like someone had spilled a drink, so the marmoset was cleaning it up.
While we were up there the rangers came in to the center alarmed, telling us that if we drove up that we needed to leave NOW! The weather had totally changed since we got there, with the clouds rolling in and visibility dropping down to 20-30 feet. We started our descent, using the GPS and the lights on the car in front of us to help. They warned us not to ride the brakes, but as we were going down I started to smell them. About four miles down is a stop and the rangers check the temperatures of the brakes. The smell was coming from the car in front of us, their brakes were over 400 degrees! That car had to stop and wait, while our brakes were at a cool 160 and we were allowed to proceed.
We stayed out there into July, so youāre going to want to read the July checkup to see how the rest of the trip went!
Movies
- Spider-Man Across the Spider-Verse: Visually amazing, story is amazing, being part one of two was a bummer.
- The Little Mermaid: Pretty good, I like how they tried to make Ariel more a part of her story. But, having her sing “Part of That World” instead of “Part of your World” because she hadn’t met Eric yet didn’t really work for me.
- Moonfall: I expected this to be more fun and outrageous. It was just ok.
- Date Night: Tina Fey and Steve Carrell, of course it’s good.
- Adventures in Babysitting: Rewatching a classic.
- The A-Team: Better than I remembered.
- The Flash: It was ok. I liked how they just decided to burn down the whole DC movie universe since it’s going to be redone by James Gunn.
- The 40 Year Old Virgin: Another Stever Carrell classic, and it’s pretty good.
- Happy Gilmore: Adam Sandler movies are like comfort food, when you can’t think of something to watch, put one on and veg out for 2 hours.
TV
TV I watched (number of episodes in parenthesis):
- Cheers (11)
- Everybody Loves Raymond (2)
- Family Ties (5)
- The King of Queens (1)
- Wings (2)
Health
- Average Steps/day: 16,705
- Most steps in a day: 28,640
- Min steps in a day: 12,049
- Resting Heart Rate: 58
- Average Time Asleep: 7h 3m
- Miles walked: 171.2
- Miles ran: 31.8
Potpourri
I don’t think I’ve ever traveled more miles in a month then I did in June. There were 2,133 miles driven (which includes the bus ride to Chicago) and 1,199 miles flying, for a total of 3,332 miles traveled.
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Better late than never!
Break dancing gets Olympic status to debut at Paris Games in 2024
The International Olympic Committee’s pursuit of urban events to lure a younger audience saw street dance battles officially added to the medal events program at the 2024 Paris Games.
This would have been awesome in 1984. I wonder what Ozone and Turbo are up to today?
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Goz Reviews Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse
Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse is the most visually stunning movie I have seen since Spirited Away. Every frame is a gorgeous piece of art. But, there a lots of things that look good that are pieces of crap, so is the movie any good? You bet your Spider-Verse it is.
This is the best Spider-Man movie ever released, and one of the best super hero films ever created.
Just go see it. I give it my highest rating, 6.5 out of 6.5.
And I can’t wait to see Seth Rogen in Hold Your Horses.
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Goz reviews The Grinch
For the first time since July I finally made it to the movies, andĀ The Grinch is a lot different fromĀ Skyscraper. One has The Rock, while the other has Benedict Cumberbatch.
The Grinch channeling his inner Roz. The Grinch, which also stars two American treasures, Keenan Thompson and Rashida Jones, is a cute, short (86 minutes) movie with no new surprises. If you’ve seen the TV special, there won’t be anything new here. I mean, I wasn’t expecting to find out that the Grinch was Cindy Lou Who’s father, but it would have been interesting to see something new that we haven’t seen before. And I want some explanation on why the Grinch is the only one in town who is green.
Anyone under the age of 9 will love the movie, anyone older? It’s hit or miss. The Grinch’s gadgets were awesome, they were some of the best scenes for me. The animation was also gorgeous, although the heavy use of soft focus made some scenes hard to watch. You were constantly battling what the director wanted you to see and what you wanted to see.
All in all, I give the movie 5 out of 6.5 stars.
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Solo is the Star Wars movie you’re looking for
Last Wednesday Tara and I finally got a chance to see Solo, and I came away pretty impressed. It’s not doing very well at the box office for various reasons, but if you have an even modest liking of Star Wars, you need to see it. Solo and Rogue One are the best Star Wars movies since the original trilogy.Solo reminds me about what makes Star Wars great, a movie that is a blast to watch, much like A New Hope and Empire Strikes Back. Tons of humor, a few glimpses of foreshadowing, and above all, no question about who shot first. L3-37 is a great character! Woody Harrelson is about as far away from Boston as you can get and Donald Glover imitates Billy Dee Williams’ voice exactl.
It will wash the bad taste out of your mouth left by The Last Jedi (Ugh, spaceships don’t slow down when you remove propulsion) or The Force Awakens (didn’t I already see this in the original trilogy). And no Jar Jar or senate hearings.
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I finally finished The Office
I finally got around to finishing the last two seasons of the American version of The Office, and I’ve got to say, the finale is probably the one of the best series finale that I’ve seen. It’s a tough call between The Office and the MASH finales. Both are excellent and not the travesties that are the finales of the following series:
- Growing Pains – holy clip show Batman!
- Friends – Ugh, no more with Ross & Rachel!
- Seinfeld – I did laugh at the judge’s name.
If you are a fan of The Office and haven’t finished the series, hop over on to Netflix and watch it!! I don’t know of any other series that managed such a huge cast, it’s a credit to the writers to create such great characters and story lines.
Scott’s tots is still a difficult episode to watch.
My favorite moments of the finale are….
Spoilers ahead…
SPOIlers ahead…
SPOILERS ahead…
SPOILERS AHEAD…
Last chance!
Where to begin… Bringing everyone back for Dwight’s wedding, after the airing of the documentary, lends itself well to finishing off the show. I loved how they were married in their graves.
The second to the last episode contained a mini clip show with Jim’s DVD he made for Pam, but for some reason it worked for me. I was a little worried where the show was going with Pam and Jim’s relationship in the episodes leading up to the finale. I’m glad they didn’t go anywhere with Pam and Brian.
The best moment was the reveal of Michael. It was a perfect moment, I teared up a little. Up to that point I was disappointed that Michael wasn’t going to be there.
I was smiling the entire time the staff had their final dance with Darrell.
The episode did have some weak spots. Ryan and Kelly’s story conclusion was weak, along with Nellie getting Ryan’s baby. And the reveal of Erin’s parents felt a little forced, but I’m assuming the writers were trying to tie up all of the loose ends.
By the way, Phyllis mentioned a one night stand in season 2, was this with Stanley?
Now to rewatch the series and see what other things I missed.
