The month started off strong with not only Spring Break, but a total solar eclipse!
Kolt took a fantastic picture of the eclipse:
Tara and I rode bikes out to the fairgrounds so we didn’t have to deal with traffic. Although there were a couple hundred people there, traffic wasn’t a problem. It seemed like most of the people there were from out of a town, with a bunch from Virginia for some reason.
It was an amazing experience, a lot longer than The 2017 eclipse we went to in Kentucky.
I also met another Ryan to bring into the Ryan Meetup group.
Standup and Dance
I got the chance to go to two of Rochelle’s stand-up shows, while Tara and I traveled to Akron for Grace’s dance recital.
Geekin’
Created a view scripts on my website to make it easier to share pics and text.
status – I give it the blog and the text of the message and it posts the message to the mentioned blog
sharepic – I pass it a pictures, the name of the blog, and a caption. The script overlays the caption on the picture, publishes it on the mentioned blog, and sends it to me in Telegram so I can post it to Instagram. Next, the script makes an 8 second slow zoom movie of the pic and sends it to me in Telegram so I can post it to TikTok.
I’ve been working on a way to self-host videos, my first set up is using MediaCMS hosted at video.goz2.us. Works well, except that I need to figure out storage of the videos.
Movies
Godzilla X Kong: It was ok, not nearly as good as Godzilla Minus One
RRR: What a great movie. This is my second watch and very well worth the three hour runtime. Unfortunately, the original Telugu language version isn’t on Netflix. I recommend watching it in Hindi with English subtitles.
The Secret of My Success: Always a Classic.
Gone With the Wind 85th Anniversary: This was my first time watching it, and I can see why it’s a classic. Plus I learned that the director also directed Wizard of Oz IN THE SAME YEAR!
Civil War: I went in ready to be blown away and left it pretty meh. You can read more of my thoughts here. It basically boils down to, I saw Gone with the Wind a couple of weeks earlier, and it’s a better movie.
Footloose: Julianne Hough did a good job in the 2011 version, but I watched the far superior original with Kevin Bacon. What is lost in the 2011 version is that the story is about Ariel and her father overcoming loss, not some new kid wanting to dance.
Limitless: I rewatch this every couple of years. Bradley Cooper stumbles onto a wonder drug that changes his life.
TV
Cheers (4)
King of Queens (2)
Krapolis (1)
My Life with the Walter Boys (6)
Rules of Engagement (5)
The Big Bang Theory (1)
The Great North (1)
The King of Queens (1)
The Neighborhood (1)
The Office (1)
The Simpson’s (1)
Tracker (2)
Wings (1)
Health
Average Steps/day: 16,085
Most steps in a day: 26,063
Min steps in a day: 12,037
Resting Heart Rate: 63
Average Time Asleep: 5h 38m
Miles walked: 172
Miles ran: 17
I did a number on my back because of my Heelys. Fell flat on my back in the KES server room, it happened so quickly that I didn’t even try to catch myself.
I lied there for what I think was about ten seconds before I realized I stopped breathing. I took a breath while in intense pain and slowly got up. Took my breath away, literally and not in a good way.
I slept in a recliner for the first couple of weeks, it was the only place where my back didn’t hurt. After awhile my back felt fine while sitting, but not when transitioning in or out of the seated position.
It took about 6 weeks until I felt well enough to run again. At ten weeks I only notice it when I sleep, if I’m on my side there will be a pain.
I was asked if I was going to give up my Heelys, in which I replied with a solid “no way!”. My mom didn’t raise a quitter!
The month of March started out with a bang! I drove down to see Animaniacs in concert with Jeff & Jen at The Murphy Theater. It was a great show, I’m so glad I got a chance to go and catch up with Jeff & Jen.
The next day Tara and I traveled to Teays Valley High School to watch the KHS Top Twenty, KMS Dinensions, and Ada Varsity Singers perform.
Afterwards I talked Tara into going Easton, mainly because I wanted to go to Pins and play some arcade games.
Tara and I headed off to Akron to visit Grace and eat out at Panera. A few days later I headed back to the Akron area to present at NEOTech 2024. It was also BAUD DAY, 3/12/24. The next one won’t be until 12/24/48, so I have 24 years to build the excitement.
Near the end of the month I got to go to Camp Ohio for the counselor retreat. It was a lot of fun but I had to leave early for St. Ryans Day in Chicago!
It was a 6 hour drive to Chicago, and without cruise, it wasn’t the most fun, but I didn’t care, it was another Ryan Meetup! I got to catch up with some Ryans I met last September plus meet a whole lot of new Ryans. The meetups are such a surreal event, you just walk up to anyone and say, “Hey Ryan, where you from?” or “Hey Ryan, what do you do?”
My Instagram account is a ton of Ryans now, which is also a whole lot of fun.
I finished out the month heading to Centerville for Emo Revival Night. The genesis of this trip started only a few days before when TikTok showed me a video from a band named Matthew Lee and the Standbys. What made the video stand out was it was a pop punk cover of Defying Gravity. I was intrigued to say the least, and then I came across their cover of Someone like you from Jekyll & Hyde and If ever I would leave you from Camelot. That was my senior song for Cabaret, so I wanted to know more about the band. And then I found out they were playing with four other bands in Centerville a couple of nights later.
Tickets were $15, but VIP tickets were only $30, so I bought one and got in early and meet all of the bands. It was a great night with great music! I wholeheartedly recommend the other three bands:
Page 9 – The headliner and a great group of guys. I was so glad I did the VIP.
Say Goodnight – I about lost it when they came on stage in the hot dog costumes.
Big geekin’ project over the last couple of months is switching to TickTick for my to do lists and other notes. I’m using it for tasks, repeating tasks, and also to hold on to little bits of information that I collect. Yes, I am a digital packrat.
This month I also create a script, ics2journal, which will grab each day’s events and append them to my journal. I also wanted my completed tasks from TickTick put in my journal. I start with trying to learn the TickTick API, but it doesn’t offer me a way to pull completed tasks. What I ended up doing was using IFTTT to put completed tasks into a Google Sheet. I then download the sheet using rclone and parse it to get the day’s completed tasks and append them to my journal.
The coolest thing I did was get nginx working as a reverse proxy for Backblaze b2 storage, which makes allows basically unlimited storage of files for me.
Since I use a lot of screenshots in my work, I wanted to make them look better even with my limited artistic skill. I wrote better-screenshot.sh. It will take a screenshot, round the corners, overlay it on a larger background, and add a slight drop shadow. The result looks like this:
Dune 2: This one snuck up on me, so I didn’t get a chance to rewatch the first one, but it was phenomenal. I’ve gained a lot of respect for Timothee Chalamet.
Josie and the Pussycats: This was a rewatch, and it was a little disappointing. It shared the same creators as Can’t Hardly Wait which is a favorite of mine. Plus how could a cast of Rachael Leigh Cook, Rosaria Dawson, and Tara Reid do wrong? They couldn’t save it either.
Labyrinth: This was my first time watching it, and the imagination of Jim Henson was prevalent. I loved the set design, but it was David Bowie that stole the show.
Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire: So much better than Afterlife, and so many Easter eggs for the first time Ghostbuster movies.
Anyone But You: The sleeper hit of the year, this was a re-watch.
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 start
I 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 Casey’s!
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 School
Movies
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 “kind” over people who are “nice,” Lubetzky says. “Nice doesn’t require much. You can be passive and be nice. But kind requires the strength of being earnest,” he explains. “There 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.” – Daniel Lubetzky
I first read about Ryan Meetups back in March It sounded like the coolest thing, but that meet up was in New York and I had already missed it. It sounded like a fantastic experience. I was curious on how the social dynamics change in the room when you know everyone’s name. As time went on the article faded into the past, that is, until August 4 when this video was shared with me:
Dare I fly to LA for the Ryan Rave? That just sounded so absurd, I mean, who just does something like that. Apparently, I do! I him-hawwed around, half joking/half serious about flying out to LA until I found round trip tickets for $130 which cemented the deal, I was flying to LA for the Ryan Rave!
My flight was on Spirit, an airline that apparently would charge you to use the bathroom if they could. Luckily, I only had a personal item, my small bag with an iPad, Bluetooth Keyboard, a USB battery, a charger, a toothbrush, and toothpaste. That’s all I needed for my evening trip to LA. They wanted to charge be ~$20 to choose my seat, but I let fate decide where I was sitting. And to my delight, I was sitting by my new best friend Tiffany. She flies out several times a year to visit her sister. For this trip she was going to see Beyonce. I was going to the Ryan Rave, so it was a toss up on who was going to the coolest activity. She made the flight go by really fast, we talked the entire 4 hours!
I hopped off the plane at LAX with a dream and an iPad bag. The Ryan Meetup Discord gave the directions for the best way to get to the Rave, and that was by taking a bus to downtown and then an Uber over to the Rave. The bus was pretty easy to find, and I took it to some bus stop downtown. I had no idea where I was, but I had an address of where I was going, so I ordered an Uber. He drove me to what seemed to be an abandoned warehouse district, a couple of blocks over from Skid Row. The GPS put us a couple of blocks past the Rave, so when the driver said we were there, I looked around and it was like something out of a zombie movie after everyone I left. I hesitate for a second and then got out. The attitude this trip was going to be to take a leap of faith and see what happens. So here I was, somewhere in downtown LA, walking around like the tourist I was. I knew the address of the Rave, so I started walking in the direction of where I thought it was. As I came across an open garage door, someone inside yelled out “Ryan?” and I knew I was home. It was currently 5:00pm PST and the Rave didn’t start until 7, but I had nothing else I could do or place to go, so I started hanging out with a few of the Ryans that were already there.
Jet lag was real, since it was past 8pm my time and I hadn’t eaten since noon, I was ready for some supper. Oh, and travel tip, don’t use the word supper around Californians unless you want to be made fun of. I got them back by making fun of them calling pop soda though.
As the night progressed, every new person was greeted with a loud rambunctious “RYAN!”.
I was pretty jealous I got there so early, I almost left so I could come back and get the royal treatment.
By the end of the night, the rave was a real deal with about 350 people all named Ryan. The youngest was a 6 year old girl who it appeared was a little overwhelmed at the spectacle of it all. Another old Ryan and I talked about the oldest Ryan there, which it turned out to be me. The name didn’t become the popular name it is today until about 5-10 years after I was born. How do I know it wasn’t popular? You know when you go on vacation and they have those racks of license plates with your name? Growing up they never had Ryan. In fact, they never even had a place for Ryan.
At the end I met several Ryan’s I still stay in contact with. There’s Vegas Ryan, with an air of coolness that no one can match. Cleveland Ryan who has this fascination with asking IG every day about a banana that is at different degrees of ripeness. Out in California is City Councilman Ryan, a 20 year old who is on city council of his town. Near the end I met comedian Ryan, who I found out was going to be in Columbus in December so I told him I’d be heading to the show. Did I make it? You’ll have to wait for the December 2023 Checkup!
Uber was hilarious as people were leaving. They would pull up asking for Ryan, and we all had a good laugh. I shared an Uber with Maryland Ryan back to LAX. He was at terminal 2 and I was leaving from terminal 5, so we just had the Uber driver drop us off at 2 and I would just walk to my terminal. I guess I didn’t know the size of LAX because terminal 5 was a 2 mile walk from 2. It was almost 1am PST (4am for me), and my flight didn’t leave for another 5 hours so the walk did give me something to do.
Once I got to my terminal I was flabbergasted to find out that there was nothing open and no vending machines. So I got to sit around and try to nap until things opened at 5am PST.
On my flight back Spirit only wanted $6 to choose my seat, so I went for it and got a window seat. When I boarded the plane, a couple had already shifted over to my seat and they weren’t happy that I arrived to take the window seat. I fell asleep for a little while and when I woke up they were gone, so they must have moved to better accommodations and in the process gave me all three seats to myself.
I arrived back in Columbus around 1pm, meaning I did the whole LA trip in 23 hours.
Other events
The Hardin County Fair was the week of September 5-10. I love my fair food, and this year I also had a booth.
Althauser Honey Farm was no longer setting up a booth, so I took it over and set up a bunch of vintage electronics. It was pretty popular, especially for those that wanted to print out posters with PrintShop. Oregon Trail was also pretty popular.
On September 23rd I DJed the KHS Homecoming Dance. There was also an Ohio State game, which I think was almost more popular.
Near the end of the month was the last Sweet Harvest out at Althauser Honey Farms. A full weekend of pumpkin picking, friend greeting, and general merriment.
Tara and I traveled to Marysville for Caylee’s tennis match with Jerry and Joel and ate Culver’s afterwards.
On the 29th Tara, Joel, and I headed over to Kirby to eat at The Blue Room with Amy A. and some work friends.
Also, during the month of September Katie turned 20.
Movies
World War Z: It seems like I watch this movie every couple of months. The movie is at the cusp of being a great movie, but it seems like there were too many committee decisions made in the making of it. I’ve heard the book is better, I probably should read it some time.
Legally Blonde: “Like, is it hard?” is a quote that I like to use from time to time, and after I said it in September I decided to watch Legally Blonde again.
Cannonball Run: We were flipping through one of the free TV streaming services when we caught that this was on. It has been a long time since I’ve seen it, so I was basically watching it for the first time. It feels a lot like an Adam Sandler movie, except in this one Burt Reynolds gets to hang out with his friends and make a movie.
TV
Ahsoka (5) – The previews made me feel like this was going to be another season of Rebels and I wasn’t disappointed.
Airwolf (2) – I just love the absurdity of trying to fit needing a battle helicopter into a scenerio every week.
Cheers (9)
Just Shoot Me (1)
King of Queens (3)
Parks and Recreation (10)
Star Trek The Next Generation (2)
The King of Queens (8)
The Neighborhood (3)
The Office (1)
The Office Superfan (5)
Wednesday (1)
Wings (5)
Health
Average Steps/day: 14,975
Most steps in a day: 18,515
Min steps in a day: 12,830
Resting Heart Rate: 53
Average Time Asleep: 7hr 22min
Miles walked: 99.2
Miles ran: 96.7
Potpourri
You may remember back in July how I said that we traveled more miles that month than ever. Well, my little trip to LA let me travel 4,547 miles in the month of September, 4,005 of those by jet.
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.
The Colorado trip continues with watching a production of Kiss Me Kate at the Central City Opera House. This was one of the productions that Delaney worked on as a costumer. I bought the tickets online before we left, and I messed up paying way too much on them because I was on the wrong website.
Well, even though I spent too much on them, there was a mistake in the tickets and we got moved to the third row, so it sort of worked out. Sort of. The performance was fantastic!
Rocky Mountains
After the performance we went to look at the Rocky Mountains. This was an experience due to us needing to be there early so we could get in to the national park. To make sure we were there early, we slept in the car in Estes Park. This was not fun, but we survived. After a little clean up at McDonalds and some breakfast we were off to the Rocky Mountains!
It’s was a very cool drive, which included a visit to the Alpine Visitor Centre, the highest facility of its kind in the National Park Service.
Afterwards we visits Estes Park, which had a ton of people walking around. So many people that each crosswalk had a police officer directing the walkers. Of course I wasn’t paying attention, so I got yelled out for crossing out of turn.
We ate lunch at The Sandwich Mafia, a little out of the way shop.
Central City Supper
That night we went back to Central City to eat supper with Delaney, Aunt Elia, and Tara’s cousin Rick. The pizza was good at Dostal Alley Brew Pub.
Railroad
On the third we rode the Georgetown Loop Railroad, which was a pretty cool ride. We finished that up with a meal at Cooper’s On The Creek, a fancy restaurant in Georgetown.
4th of July
We spent the morning of the 4th of July going to downtown Georgetown’s parade. I rained a little bit, which didn’t really damper the parade.
Later on we went to Kashif and Karen’s house to visit with the family. Grace got to meet her (2nd?) cousins and we all got to catch up on things.
Time to fly home
Alas, all good things must come to an end. We had some time to kill, so we visited the Park Meadows Mall before dropping off the rental car.
Wedding in the Smoky Mountains
The traveling for 2023 continued with a drive to the Smoky Mountains for Kolt’s wedding. The venue was the fantastic Foxwood Manor, and Kolt was married with the Smoky Mountains in the background. After the ceremony, the reception moved inside with some great food and good dancing. The festivities continued a week later with the Hardin County reception out at the community building.
The next morning I ventured out to get some steps in, and downtown Gatlinburg was an interesting place. Tons of places already opening on an early Sunday morning. There are a multitude of activities and food places to take advantage of, a little something for everyone.
On the way home we stopped at a Buc-ee’s in Richmond Kentucky. Our first visit was a little overwhelming! There were a million gas pumps and a million people inside, with some great bathrooms. The service was so quick, I don’t know how they did it.
Buc-ees reminds me of the riots during the zombie apocalypse
Other July activities
New tires on the Fit on the 10th and then a meal at Salsa’s on the 11th.
Unfortunately, we had a funeral visitation on the 13th with Jenny’s dad passing away. But, we also had Jerry’s 80th birthday party, along with a whole family visit at Caesar Creek State Campground. The rain didn’t slow us down.
I ended the month with another great year at 4-H Camp, and the 4-H festivities didn’t end because Grace had her last state 4-H judging at the Ohio State Fair.
On the 27th I got to go see Rochelle’s sketch comedy at the Cafe Kerouac.
Movies
Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny: Solid movie, it just seemed like it was lacking a little charm. I liked it better than the Crystal Skull though.
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising: Underrated movie.
Mission: Impossible – Dead Reckoning Part One: One of the best movies I’ve seen this year!
Barbie: Mattel really went all out with this one, spotlighting failure after failure of the Barbie line. I was quite surprised at how honest they were. The movie is really, really good, you should watch it.
White Chicks: I never watched this when it was first released, and it was surprisingly good.
A very good month for movies!
TV
TV I watched (number of episodes in parenthesis):
Caroline in the City (2) – Phil Lord and Christopher Miller were in one of the episodes. They are the geniuses behind Clone High, The Lego Movie, and more.
Cheers (9)
Freaks and Geeks (1)
King of Queens (1)
Parks and Recreation (2)
Rules of Engagement (1)
Star Trek (1)
Star Trek: The Next Generation (1)
The Neighborhood (2)
The Office (2)
The Office Superfan (5)
Wings (2)
Health
Average Steps/day: 14,906
Most steps in a day: 20,832
Min steps in a day: 12,077
Resting Heart Rate: 53
Average Time Asleep: 7hr 25m
Miles walked: 114.9
Miles ran: 113.3
Potpourri
I don’t think we’ve ever traveled as much as we did in July, 2,251 miles by car and 1,152 miles by air.
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 we’re grateful that Joel offered to drive us to Cleveland. This meant that we could take the Pilot down to Rochelle’s 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 don’t 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 couldn’t 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 hadn’t. After a brief rain, we were all set to go look but unfortunately there was a concert that night and so we weren’t 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 wouldn’t have an issue with all my running, but I was wrong. The first morning I went out for a run, and the first mile felt… Wrong? Different? I toughed it out, but I didn’t break any speed records. It didn’t 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 Pike’s 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 hadn’t 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 “just here watching a marmoset lick a rock”. 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 you’re 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.
Back on the first of May, Tara and I got to haul a trailer to Akron because not only was Grace moving home for the supper, she had then acquired a couch for us to store for the summer. And now that couch has become the cat’s couch in the garage. At least I got Chipotle!
The very next day was something that I had been looking forward for a couple of years, the chance to see the stage production of Spirited Away. The production and filmed and distributed to movie theaters for a limited run. And it was amazing.
We took mom & dad out to an anniversary supper at Salsa’s on the 7th. Katie and Grace L. Joined us.
On the 15th I traveled to Sandusky for the ITIP Ohio Google Summit. It was nice to attend a conference without the pressure of presenting. Stephanie H. remembered me from the February Ohio Educational Technology Conference because of my name tag.
End of year festivities for school took place at the end of the month with Cabaret, Carly’s grad party, the senior cruise, and graduation.
On the 28th we attended church at the Church of the Nazarene for Dave Dooley’s last sermon there. He’s such a great guy, he will be missed.
Movies
The Stage production of Spirited Away!!! – Spirited Away is a fantastic movie, and the stage production is amazing. I loved how they figured out how to portray the larger than life characters on the screen.
Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3 – So much better than 2.
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra – One of my dirty pleasures. Don’t bother with the second one, that one is like they forgot about what makes the first one great: a simplistic plot along with cool gadgets, cool fights, and overall fun scenes.
But I’m a cheerleader – The cast excels in this movie, I mean, how could you doubt RuPaul?!? A great movie about a girl coming out which doesn’t exactly wow her parents.
Eurovision Song Contest: The Story of Fire Saga – I didn’t know what I was getting in to, but this movie was excellent.
Dirty Grandpa – Hilarious movie about getting older and making the most out of what you have now.
Fast X – It was ok, 9 was better. However, it’s only part one! I didn’t know I was getting into a two parter when I went to see it.
TV
TV I watched (number of episodes in parenthesis):
Andor (2)
Beavis and Butt-head (1)
Cheers (9)
Jury Duty (1)
The Neighborhood (1)
The Office (3)
Wings (3)
Health
Average Steps/day: 15,981
Most steps in a day: 31,445
Min steps in a day: 12,045
Resting Heart Rate: 51
Average Time Asleep: 7h 15m
Miles walked: 194.8
Miles ran: 16.6
Potpourri
For my Thursday morning playlist I added I2I from the Goofy Movie, a song that slaps more than you think.
Spring Break 2023, Tara and I checked out an AirBnB in Millersburg. It is a house built out of containers, and the layout shows why you may not want to build a house out of containers. The stay was really cool though.
It was a pretty relaxing stay, although my runs through the hills of Holmes county were pretty tough. Lehman’s was pretty cool too.
A new restaurant came to Kenton, the 101 Smokehouse in the old A. E. Roby building. An extension of their food truck service, the restaurant serves various pulled meat dishes. It was really good, although our waitress was a little stressed.
The last weekend was a whirlwind of activities. On Friday we went to Akron for Grace’s dance recital, and then on Saturday I ran my 6th half-marathon in Columbus with a time of 2:22. Monday was a trip back to Akron, but that’s a story for the May check up.
The half-marathon was a pretty fun run, although the DJ at mile 12 was just plain evil. When you’re getting close to the finish line of these big races, you’ll hear an announcer cheering on the runners. Well, at mile 12, where you take a right to head down to the finish line there was a DJ doing the same thing. You may think this isn’t that big of deal, but when you’re running and you hear that, you think you’re close to the end. In this case, you turned right and found out you have almost a mile to go.
Miles Traveled: 1,102
Geekiness
The Krogers in Dublin had self checkout carts!
As you walked through the store, you scan items before placing them in your cart. It must have a pretty sensitive scale in it or some other mechanism to detect unscanned objects. I tried putting items in the cart without scanning and this just made it angry. The cart turned red and started beeping at me. At the end of the shopping trip I paid at the cart, put my groceries in bags and left the store. Pretty slick, and I didn’t have to talk to anyone at the store. I don’t think they’re used very much, there were probably 20 carts available and I didn’t notice anyone else in the store using them.
April 2023 also marked the 40th anniversary of Return of the Jedi!! I had finished the half-marathon that morning when I noticed it being played that day, so of course we had to see it on the big screen. And it was glorious.
Movies
Murder Mystery 2: Adam Sandler and Jennifer Anniston’s attempt at a Knives Out mystery. It didn’t hit that level, but it was better than the first.
Up in the Air: Kind of depressing movie that I knew nothing about. Apparently it had 6 Oscar nominations, including best movie, best actor in a leading role, and 2 for best actress in a supporting role. Who knew?
Cocaine Bear: Did this live up to the premise? Almost… The ambulance scene sold it for me.
Super Mario Bros.: What can I say, one of the best video game movies released so far. I’m not going to say the best, that goes to Mortal Kombat, but it’s up there.
Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves: This was a movie that gave me a throwback to the fun movies of the 80s. Smart, funny, witty, and an exceptional cast. I so hope it gets a sequel!
Return of the Jedi: Except for the CGI crap added, this still holds up as a great, fun movie.
Welcome to my first checkup post. It’s more of an extension of a journal, just more public. And it will be a hoot to check it out in 10 years to see how the early ’20s were going for me.
Running be cold.
The best news of the month came from Taco Bell with the return of the Volcano menu:
“The return reintroduces the Volcano Burrito, Volcano Taco and the option to add Lava Sauce on any item.”
Events
There were a few big events in March, starting with the Anna High School production of The Sound of Music with the talented Carly Rogers in the lead role. We followed that up the next week by traveling to Sheridan High School to watch Top 20 before. Well, that and to see Sheridan’s show choir perform Pac-Man Fever. That day was finished out at Easton, where it was way too cold to be walking around but I still needed to get some arcade gaming in. The next day we were able to go to Ridgeway and see Ridgemont’s production of Once Upon a Mattress with the amazing Jillian Kearns in the lead role.
Tara and I ate out at Ralphies with mom & dad and Jerry & Carole. We also ate at Jalapeno’s in Ada, Ralphies (again), and Pizza Hut.
Mom had a doctor’s appointment at the James, where a robot made me a cafe mocha:
Miles traveled: 839
Geekery
The network card died in my Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh a year or so ago, but I was able to replace it in March.
Now I can listen to 80s on it again!
Movies
Movies I watched:
Down (or The Shaft) (2001) – What do you get when an elevator goes homicidal?
The Big Lebowski – Now I understand all of “The Dude” talk, plus I know the importance on how a rug can tie a room together.
RRR: This was THE BEST EXPERIENCE I’VE HAD IN A THEATER FOR YEARS! The movie is on Netflix, but I don’t think it’s the same thing as seeing it on the big screen. If you do watch it, use the subtitles and not the English audio. There are portions of the movie that just won’t work very well if everyone is talking English. The movie is 3 hours long, but is worth it!
The Breakfast Club: March 23, 2023 marked the 40th anniversary of that fateful day of detention.
TV
TV I watched (number of episodes in parenthesis):
Beavis and Butthead (1)
Cheers (6)
Modern Family (1)
Newsradio (1)
Parks and Recreation (2)
The King of Queens (5)
The Mandalorian (1)
The Office (8)
Wings (19)
Health
Average Steps/day: 14,892
Most steps in a day: 19,943
Min steps in a day: 12,080
Resting Heart Rate: 48bpm
Average Time Asleep: 7hr 14min
Miles walked: 140.2
Miles ran: 58.1
Potpourri
Here are the current songs in my morning commute playlist:
Monday: 9 to 5 (Dolly Parton), Don’t Stop Me Now (Queen), Unskinny Bop (Poison)
Tuesday: Just Like Paradise (David Lee Toth)
Wednesday: Let’s Go Crazy (Prince), What’s My Age Again (Blink-182), American Idiot (Green Day)
Thursday: Don’t Stop Believin’ (Journey), Working for the Weekend (Loverboy)
Friday: Couple Days Off (Huey Lewis and the News), Nothin’ But a Good Time (Poison), Party Hard (Andrew W.K)
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.
