Cuba Cruise - Day 1

Cruise day started out great. We got up early and then had breakfast an a small empanada restaurant near the hotel. We grabbed our bags and then called an Uber to take us to the port. Once we arrived at the port we had to go through the long line of checking in, which took almost an hour. I was a bit nervous about the whole process because I wasn't quite sure how the visa process for Cuba was supposed to work. Some of the travel documentation stated we needed to obtain the visa 70 days prior, but thankfully it was all taken care of by the cruise company. 

We got our visas and then got onto the ship, or at least we were supposed. We ended up sitting in the terminal for another hour or two and the crowds of people just kept pouring in. At the time we didn't know what was going on and Megan's hangry monster was beginning to show up. We later found out that the port authority had discovered drugs aboard the ship. We don't know if they were from the crew or former passengers. 

The ship finally cast off around 5:30 pm. A little bit late, but everything was good. 

We didn't do much else that night except hang around the ship, goto a few shows and have some dinner. 


Cuba Cruise - Day 0

Megan and I just returned this past Friday from Cuba. Yes, that Cuba!!!!

We left Chicago on July 2nd to fly into Miami. We flew into our cruise the night before this time, because if you remember our last cruise adventure, we missed our flight and almost missed the cruise. No mistakes this time. 

We arrived in Miami late that night, around 8:00 pm. There wasn't much to do, but go grab some dinner. We ate at CVI.CHE 105, which as you may guess, is ceviche! The food was amazing and we of course ordered too much. Megan and I both agreed that we should try and spend some more time in Miami at some point. 


42 Mile Ride on a Whim


Yesterday I decided to go for a quick bicycle ride, which turned out to be a 42 mile trek. I have lamented about the lack of good bicycle routes in Bolingbrook, but did some thinking yesterday about a route to get onto the Centennial Trail right from my house. Well, it totally worked out great and I can even get onto the Cal-Sag trail too if I really wanted to pull an insane day of riding. 

This is also the first ride testing Strava on my Apple Watch. I have done a few rides now with the native fitness app, and I really like that a lot. The interface is great. I do miss Strava a bit though for the social integrations that is has. I'm not a premium user, so we'll have to see how I continue to use it or not. 

Overall it was a brutal, but fun ride. 

I Finally Bought an Apple Watch

About two weeks ago I broke down, after looking at Megan's Apple Watch for six months, and bought one of my own. 

Since the Apple Watch came out I was one of those people in the camp stating "why do I need that?" I never understood the appeal of a smartwatch. I have been a Fitbit user for a long time, close to five years now and I have loved that device for tracking my fitness and sleep habits. There is something about all of that data that I find interesting. The Fitbit app is pretty good, but I have constantly had trouble with my Fitbit devices. I was replacing the bands on them constantly, as often as every three months in some cases. 

I picked up a Fitbit Charge 2 in the fall of last year and for the most part I was pleased with it, but it was not the ideal device that I wanted it to be. It routinely lost my heart rate measurements when I had an elevated heart rate from a workout. 

Watching Megan have her Apple Watch really began to make me jealous. So why did I end up switching to an Apple Watch then? 

Data/Apps 

Apple's Healthkit is perhaps one of the biggest reasons I switched. The integration of my health data across various apps, which allow me to control which data goes where, with a high amount of fidelity is really impressive. Fitbit has integrations through its API to other apps, but that integration just isn't very deep and there are some significant "gaps" in apps supported. External apps do not have good access to heart rate data and there are certain programs, such as mediation which just aren't effectively measured on Fitbit. 

There are also some fantastic apps out there for the Apple Watch which do measure very specific types of workouts. For example, there is an app called Ace Tennis which can measure my tennis serve, the angle and velocity of my racquet. There are a number of third party tools that can also integrate with the system as well for golf clubs and other sports. Using a third party heart rate monitor is easy to do as well.

Accuracy of Heartrate Monitor

Speaking of accuracy, I have found the heart rate monitor on the Apple Watch to be much better. The Charge 2 was pretty good for most exercises, except weight lifting. It would constantly loose my heart rate while weightlifting, which I read online is due to the flexing of my wrist. The Apple Watch has been much more consistent and I have noted it holds my hear rate much better at extremely high rates. My resting heart rate is around 58, but during tennis or running it is not uncommon for my heart rate to get up to 170. The Apple Watch appears to track those numbers much better. 

Build Quality 

The build quality on the Apple Watch appears to be much better than Fitbit. Yes, you are paying at least 2x's as much, but Megan's Apple Watch looks basically brand new after eight months of wear. My Charge 2 had to have the band replaced after just four months of use. The Apple Watch is noticeably more comfortable to wear. That isn't to say that the Charge 2 is uncomfortable, but the silicon band on the Apple Watch is extremely soft and really disappears on the wrist. I thought that the larger and heavier device would be more noticeable than a Fitbit, but it isn't. 

This Smartwatch Thing is Handy

So, this whole smartwatch thing is pretty cool. I bought the Apple Watch primarily as a fitness device, which I still believe is the primary reason someone should get one. The Apple Watch is one of the best fitness trackers out there though, hands down. That being said, there are some pretty neat features for the smartwatch. Quickly viewing texts, declining calls and viewing my calendar appointments is very handy and effective. It does allow me to keep my phone in my pocket and not have to have my eyes on it all the time. 

 


New Music - The Streets of Whiterun


I have just realized that i have not posted some of the music that I have recorded over the past couple of months. I am currently working on an EP of remixes and cover songs. I am covering various film and video game scores that I have always enjoyed. the track here is called "The Streets of Whiterun" and it is from the Skyrim soundtrack, one of my favorite soundtracks of all time. 

I hope you guys enjoy this ambient rendition of the sound as the reverb slowly devours the song as the music progresses. 

Book Review - A Natural History of Dragons

A Natural History of Dragons by Marie Brennan
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Simply put, this was fantastic. Marie Brennan did such an excellent job subtly crafting a "fantasy" world around a 16th or 17th century style English empire. The countries and nationalities are all unfamiliar here, but at the same time completely familiar. The reader is able to suspend their disbelief and is truly convinced that dragons are just a standard animal in this world.

The dragons here are crafted in a wonderful style, purely as animals to be studied as any other. They are not viewed as magical or mystical.

I really loved the characters as well, especially a Isabella Camhurst. She was crafted expertly as an independent and intelligent woman, but she was throughout the book believable because she acted as a "proper lady" of her social status. Modern, 21st century sensibilities were not foisted upon her and her character was crafted as someone, even as a progressive, during her time period.

If you removed the dragons here this definitely has elements similar to Jane Austen or the Master & Commander series, showing fun and convincing characters from a pre-industrial British style empire.

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So how is that D&D gaming going? - May 2017 Edition

So how is that D&D gaming thing going? Well, it is honestly going pretty well, at least for most of us. We have had a turnover in players recently. All of the new players in our group are really cool and easy going individuals. I believe everyone is having a good time, except for one guy who decided to leave. Not just leave our group. He left Meetup.com and I think left playing D&D. 

We had an instance during our game session where our players had the opportunity to help a hill giant they came across. The one player really wanted to help this giant, while the rest of the group was just sort of "meh" on the idea. It probably took our group an hour to discuss what they wanted to do. In the end they chose not to help the giant and the player who wanted to had a meltdown right there at the table. 

I was amazed to be honest. He got up and stormed out of the room after having a bit of a verbal tirade. 

So this resulted in him not only leaving our playing group, but he quite the Meetup entirely. Thing is he was the main oganizer for the entire Meetup.com page. I received an email the next day asking me to take over and what do you know, a couple of weeks later I am not the organizer of the entire Meetup.com group.


GrooveboxSociety.com Officially Launches with its First Podcast

The GrooveboxSociety.com website has officially launched this past week. Our first podcast is officially up on the website and you can find it at the following link: Episode 1 - Welcome to GrooveboxSociety.com.

The podcast is also available on on all of your favorite podcast catchers

iTunes

Google Play

Stitcher

We have a lot of good things lined up for the podcast for the next couple of months, so please take a listen and if you are a musician or know any musicians who might be interested in submitting to the podcast, please feel free to send them to our submission page.



GrooveboxSociety.com - A new Project for GrooveBox Musicians


I am proud to be kicking off a new music project that I hope will be take off over the next several months. The GrooveboxSociety.com will be an online artist collective to showcase music and musicians creating with Grooveboxes and hardware synthesizers. 

Hardware synthesizers have experienced a renaissance over the past several years and there have been more interesting devices released recently than ever before. It is with this in mind that I hope to create a site that educate people on the tools and introduce them to the musicians using these tools. 

Our first major project is to launch a podcast to feature the community's music, establish the artist collective and to get our presence through a medium that can allow people to easily listen to and share our music. The audio podcast will also be a good way to also establish a means to develop interviews with the artists in our community, talk about and share those creative processes with listeners. 

Part of this journey is about the means and methods of production in addition to the music. 

I have attached some of the design sketches for the upcoming website here and you can find the video instructions to submitting to the Podcast at the link below:

I'm really excited that this site could take off. 

Book Review: Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World

Earning the Rockies: How Geography Shapes America's Role in the World by Robert D. Kaplan
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book sure comes away with a lot of quotable one liners.

I liked the concept that Kaplan was going for here, the idea of chronicling America's geography and influence upon its place in the world. The final execution though seems to be all over the place.

The first third of the book comes across as an almost "Ken Burns style" historical discussion on the history of the country. I found this early section the most interesting, with its invocation of the "Great American Frontier". Bernard DeVoto was mentioned several times (which makes me want to go read his books) and there is an almost romanticized portray of America's growth.

The tone shifts, almost suddenly, to a modern day narrative of Kaplan then driving across America from east to west to describe the importance of the rivers, natural resources and the trade impacts of the interstate highway system. The sudden shift was a bit jarring as was the change from a historical narrative to a more modern one.

The final leg of the book then shifts once again to discuss geopolitical conflicts and the U.S. military and U.S. Imperialism. At times Kaplan infers to the impacts of geography on other nations and I think he was trying to illustrate how their geography has influenced their growth compared to the United States'. He doesn't go into enough detail on other nations' geography to bring the message home though. China, India and Russia are only briefly mentioned, their rivers specifically, but there is no deeper discussion about their natural resources, political divides or varying climates to counter against what he states for the U.S.

The final section also comes across with a pro-imperialist message, describing that the world economy, culture, etc, are the way they are because of America's military might and geopolitics. I don't believe his insights are incorrect, but he doesn't take much time to explore any of the counter points on the imperialist agenda. The message again comes across as a bit altruistic.

Each of these three sections were fairly interesting on their own, and should probably be expanded to their own books. I just felt that they didn't quite come together with cohesion as a single unit very effectively.

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