Goodbye to Drupal

I started learning Drupal about 8 years ago when I decided to update our Parish website from a Dreamweaver Solution to something that I or others could update without having to have a proprietary program on their computer.  Drupal has a rather steep learning curve but it is rather powerful and has a pretty great community of supporters that help develop it and make it better.  I am saying goodbye to Drupal as I will no longer have time to develop the Parish Website and the people that they are looking to develop a new site for us plan to use Wordpress for the new site.  I can't say that I blame them.  Wordpress has a huge market share and there are many more developers that work with Wordpress and in turn the sites are usually less expensive to develop.  I had switched my blog from Drupal to Wordpress sometime back because I had less time and was looking for something simple to allow me to blog when I felt like it and add a couple of other pages.  Wordpress makes this very easy for us amateurs.  I enjoyed the platform and the community but now it's time for me to move on.

10 Weeks

It has now been 10 weeks since I started exercising every day and watching what I eat.  I feel better when I get a chance to start the day with exercise but I have been making sure that even when I need to catch up late in the day I am doing that.  I have hit my 10K steps each day for these 70 days.  I have also been tracking my food each day with an app on my phone and I am down 12 lbs in those 70 days.  I do need to start working on adding some flexibility and strength training as I drop weight.

Still At It

It has now been over 7 weeks since I started walking every day and tracking my food in MyFitnessPal. It's not always easy to find time to exercise but it's important and I have been sticking to it. Getting results helps to find the time. When I started this my weight was starting to to het away from me again and I was back up to 190. I am now almost to my first goal of 180. I decided to set my goals at 10 pounds at a time. When I started I was walking about 30 minutes a day and I am now up to at least an hour a day. I feel a lot better now than when I started. I can't wait to set a new goal when the first is behind me.

 

First Milestone

For the last year or more I have been trying to get into a routine of getting more exercise and watching what I eat to lose weight and be healthier.  I have had limited success.  Last week I signed up for a membership at the South Milwaukee Fitness Center to have a place to workout and for my daughter to practice for baton.  I have found that I much prefer their walking track to my treadmill.  I will still use my treadmill when I can't get over there or I need some extra steps in a day but I am going to try to get over there for at least an hour of walking each day.  Today marks my seventh day in a row of both walking at least 10k steps and logging my food with MyFitnessPal so that I can watch what I eat.  It's not a huge deal but it's a first step in the right direction.

3-Day Year 9 Postponed

In October I was scheduled to walk in Philadelphia for my ninth year walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  I  won't be able to do that this year however because of a battle with Anemia that I had earlier in the year.  I did not really recover from the Anemia until the beginning of June and between that and a very hectic work and home schedule I am just not going to have time to train to get ready for my walk this year.  I did contact the Coaches and will be able to roll my fundraising into 2016 so that I can walk next year for my ninth year.  I was looking forward to walking in Philadelphia as a new city for me this year and will miss my teammates but I will be back next year.  I just don't know in which city yet.  Once again thanks to all of my supporters that continue to believe in this fight.

AYOP 2015 - A New Start

This past week I spent the week with my daughter at Notre Dame University for America's Youth on Parade (AYOP).  We had been to AYOP four years previously but this was a year of firsts us anyway.  In past years I had attended with both daughters but now my older daughter is getting ready for College and had to work this week.  This was also the first year that we attended with our new Twirling Family, Revolutions Twirling Club.  My daughter joined their Competition Team last September and had spent many hours preparing for this.  It was a new challenge for her as it involved much more work than previous years.  In the past she had been part of a Corps that concentrated mostly on Flag Corps so that and Solo were where most of her practice time went.  This year she was part of teams that competed in Half Time, Twirl, Poms, and Dance.  There was a lot more to remember and prepare for but the girls did an amazing job.

The non competition side of the week was different too since we were the new family to the Club.  Most of the other girls had been here for several years together.  We had spent time with the other families at other competitions and practices all year but this was different since we would all be together for the week.  Things worked out just fine.  My daughter got to spend time with her teammates and they got to know each other a little better and that is always good for a team.  I spent time with other parents and got to know them better also.  We have a great bunch of families in the Club and I hope we can continue to add to that to help the Studio grow.

All in all the week was pretty successful. The team placed in the Top Ten in most of the events that they entered.  The highlight of the week for teams was the 2nd place finish in Junior Dance Line.  They did a Contemporary Dance piece that was much different than any of the other routines and the judges seemed to like it.  It was much slower and more somber than the other routines because it was based on the song the Via Dolorosa.  We had a number of positive comments after the performance.  The link to the video is below.

It was a great week and we are looking forward to starting a new competition season in September and a return to Notre Dame next July.

More Interesting Reading

I have been reading books by John Ringo for a couple years and I have read just about everything that he has written and I have really enjoyed it.  Recently I have been looking for some new material to read and heard that John was writing some stories in the Monster Hunter Universe that Larry Correia had created.  I picked up the first book in the series a little over a week ago and since then I have gone through five books.  I found the stories to be pretty interesting.  Larry has a writing style similar to John and the material kept me interested.  I think John does a better job of character development but overall the stories were worth the time to read them.  Both have a decent sense of humor and research their material thoroughly.

AlumKnightChoir - Another Chance to Sing

Yesterday was an event that I had been waiting for since last summer.  The Oak Creek High School Choir program had an Alumni Choir event and it was worth every minute of the Saturday that I gave up to participate.  It's the kind second chance to we don't get very often.

I graduated from Oak Creek back in 1984 and the class that I enjoyed the most during High School was Choir.  I was not a musical prodigy and was not even bold enough to do any Solos during High School but I really loved my time as part of that Choir.  We had a Choir Director that was very demanding and had high expectations of us but we all had a great time meeting those expectations and really had some great experiences during those years.  After high school I didn't really take many opportunities to sing or be part of a Choir and I missed that for many years.  Once I got married and settled back in my hometown of Oak Creek I joined my Church Choir and while I enjoy that, our Choir is rather small and the experience is not the same as what I had enjoyed in High School.

When my oldest daughter started High School four years ago and joined the Choir I was exposed to the new Oak Creek High School Choir program and found that things had changed a lot since I had been in Choir.  Some things had change drastically but some things had remained the same.  The styles of music that they performed had expanded quite a bit and the size of the Choir had also expanded a lot.  They had even added after school Show Choir groups to the lineup.  The one thing that had not changed is that the Choir students loved Choir and had the utmost respect and admiration for their Choir Director.  I attended Choir events regularly and really enjoyed being involved when I could.

Now I fast forward to last summer when I first heard Mr. Wulterkens(known to students as Mr. Dubbs), the current choir director, talk about an Alumni Choir event that he wanted to hold in early 2015.  I wanted details and to know how to sign up right away.  By August the date was set for March 7th and Choir Alumni started spreading the word by mouth and social networks to get people interested in the program.  As the date approached the numbers grew slowly at first but then it picked up steam and ended up with a little over 100 alumni registered for the AlumKnightChoir event.

The morning of March 7th we gathered for registration and then had a brief activity to break the ice before we got into the serious rehearsal time.  Most of the Alumni present were Mr. Dubb's students but we also had about 10 from the 80's around my time and also a couple from the 70's.  We had separate men's and women's rehearsals during the morning and then had mostly combined rehearsals during the afternoon.  It was a fairly brisk pace but Mr Dubbs and Miss Pacetti had selected songs that they were confident that we could learn during a day of rehearsals.  They had sent out information to allow us to practice ahead of time but I like many did not have a chance to do much of that.  We had three songs to learn before the concert at 7.  The four current choirs were going to each do two songs and then we were going to do two songs before we finished with a song with all choirs combined.

At 6:00 PM all of the Choirs had to be present to go over the combined song and to practice the movement that they had planned for the song.  This was something new for us choir old farts since during our days we really didn't do much in the way of movement during songs.  It was a lot of fun although I must admit I am not very talented in trying to look like I am moving naturally while singing.  We were also doing the last song without music but since the rest of the Choirs already knew it they would lead and we could fit in pretty easily.

When it came time for showtime we were seated up on the bleachers along with the existing Choirs.  It was again enjoyable to watch the Choirs that performed before we did.  We were the last individual Choir of the night.  My daughters were in two of the other Choirs so I always like to see what they are working on.  Our two songs were very different and I must say that I enjoyed the second more than the first.  Frostiana is a good piece and I remember doing it in High School.  It's just a more restrained song.  Our second song, "He Never Failed Me Yet", was a Gospel song that we could put a lot of energy into and we did.  I still can't decide whether that one or the final with all Choirs together was my favorite.  The big difference between the two was the finale had even more energy since we were going from an Alumni Choir of about 100 to a Combined Choir of about 300.  Wow was that a blast.

Mr. Dubbs has said he would like to make this an annual event and I am all for that.  I would love to be able to come back and sing with a Choir like this again and again.  Next year I will only have one daughter in the program but my other daughter can join me in the Alumni Choir.  I will be watching closely to see when next year gets scheduled.  Mr. Dubbs, Miss Pacetti, and everyone involved in the program did a great job planning the event and I can't wait for next year.

Our first song- The Road Not Taken

Our second song - He Never Failed Me Yet

Finale - Tshotsholoza

Back to Fitness Routine

For the last several months I have not been getting nearly enough exercise.  I just didn't have enough energy to do much.  I was diagnosed as anemic in January and have adjusted my stomach meds and am taking iron supplements to address that issue.  I finally feel like I can try to get back into some kind of routine to start working back to shape to walk in the 3-Day in October.  I am going back to tracking my steps with my fitbit and using myfitnesspal to track calories so that I can try to lose weight and get in better shape at the same time.  I started out today with half an hour on the treadmill and hope to work up to an hour within a week or two.

More Macbook

So after a week of stress testing my Macbook and not being able to replicate the failure that I had but noticing that it is still running hot I took my Macbook back to the Applestore and explained the situation to them.  Since it was still under Applecare for a couple weeks they agreed to send it in to their depot to be repaired.  I had it back in 3 days and so far it is running much cooler.  At the depot they replace the logic board as well as both fans.  I am hoping that this will last for sometime since my Applecare runs out in 11 days and I would really like to keep using this Macbook for at least a couple more years. For the most part it has run well for me and I don't want to spend money on a new one for at least another year minimum.

2011 Macbook Pro Failure

This afternoon around lunch time I was checking Facebook on my Macbook Pro when I encountered something entirely new.  As I was scrolling down the screen my screen froze and I could hear the fans on my Macbook Pro kicking into high gear.  After a minute or two my Macbook Pro rebooted but it would not boot back up for me to use it.  It would boot to a gray screen and then sit there with the Fans screaming.  I then disconnected my Macbook Pro from my KVM and tried to boot it connected to nothing but power and it still would not boot beyond that gray screen.  I tried everything I could think of and could not get the system to boot.

Through some patience and trial and error I was able to get my Macbook to boot for a short while but it failed again as soon as I plugged in my external monitor.

After this I decided to do some research and found that I was not alone.  There were many reports of 2011 Macbook Pros failing with issues related to the Discrete Graphics Adapter in them.  I went ahead and made an appointment at the Apple Store for the next time I could make it and did some reading to see how bad it really was.

Here is one of the more active sources of the information that I have found in relation to this issue.

Discussion in Apple Support Forums.  There are over 11K responses in this thread.
https://discussions.apple.com/thread/4766577?start=0&tstart=0

Going to try more tonight to see what I can do.

 

Trying to Get Tickets

It seems like concert tickets are getting harder and harder to get. Rush recently announced their latest tours dates and Chicago is the closet that they are coming to me. I was logged into Ticketmaster at 10:00 when the tickets went on sale this morning and immediately searched for tickets. I tried for 15 minutes and never found any available. There were resale tickets available but no tickets from the venue. The cheapest resale tickets were over $100 and were on the upper level. With tickets getting this expensive I may just stop going to concerts. It's just ridiculous that you can't get a ticket on the main level for under $200.

Posted with Blogsy

2015 3-Day - Fundraising

This afternoon I spent some time printing up sheets for the Super Bowl Pool that I run as a fundraiser for my walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-Day for the Cure.  This is the second year that I have run this as a fundraiser and it really helps a lot.  A full grid nets $1000 towards my $2300 Fundraising minimum.  I am really thankful that I have family that helps me sell the squares.  Now that my fundraising is in decent shape I need to start spending some time on the treadmill getting ready for when the weather gets decent here and I can start walking outdoors.  With only 251 days before the Philadelpha 3-Day I don't have time to waste.

Unintended Consequences

For months I have had occasional issues with being really tired or getting short of breath when I had hardly done anything.  Then last week I went to donate blood and was deferred because my hemoglobin level was too low.  I was anemic.  I had never been deferred  before so that was really weird for me.  I started doing some searching on the Internet and found some articles that suggested that one possible cause of anemia was low stomach acid. I had never heard of this before but it did make sense.  With low stomach acid there issues with absorbing nutrients and that can cause anemia.  I went to the Dr this week and he confirmed that I am indeed mildly anemic.  I had to adjust my stomach meds to a lower dose and start iron supplements.  Not sure how long this will take get my iron levels back to normal but it is nice to have at least a clue on what may have been bothering me for some time.  I still get to see my GI specialist to make sure there is nothing else going on.  Just goes to show you that you need to keep track of your meds and how they affect you because they can cause other issues.