Where have you been, Google knows

If you saw my post about camping this past weekend, you know I used a couple of screen caps from the Google Maps from my phone to show the campground.  Well, one night I was playing on my phone while everyone was sleeping and while I was on Google Maps, I noticed an option in the menu.

See that?

Right over there,

to the left.

Down there,

a little further.

Yeah,

right

there.

<<<<<<<

 

 

Location History, hmmm!  So I clicked on it.  And it’s exactly what it says it is.  Remember when I took the kids to the Sox game?

My phone is freaking tracking me.  Now I personally don’t care, it’s not like I’m out on a killing spree or anything.  If the cops ever come knocking on my door wanting me, it’ll probably be of the false arrest variety so maybe my phone can be my alibi.

You see up above, last Thursday.  It tells me what time I left home (6:38 am), what time I arrived at work (6:47 am) and how long I stayed (7:06 pm) and that I drove over to Baugo to watch the end of my son’s game.  How long I was there (7:37 pm – 8:15 pm) and what time I arrived back at home (8:21 pm).

To be honest, I think this is cool as hell.  But as you can tell above, the red lines show I was all over the place.  Although those lines don’t show my route, just a direct line between stops.  On this day (my birthday actually), I traveled 26 miles but it says the only places I were was home with some travel time in between.  What I was doing was running errands, but everywhere I went probably has never been “checked in” before so they didn’t register.  Some of them, I probably wasn’t there long enough to register that I stopped.

I zoomed in on the map.  The bottom right corner is my home.  What I do remember from this day is first I went to the top red line which was the post office, then the little triangle to the left of that is the bank, but neither of those lines go directly to where those places are on the map.  I think I went back home after that so I don’t know where the 1 hour, 50 minutes comes in.

Later in the day, the big loop at the bottom, we drove out to IHOP for lunch and hit Kmart to pick up a White Sox shirt for Samantha to wear to the game.  None of those showed up on the travel, nor do the red lines correspond to exactly where we were at.  I also noticed on the days I go to work and back and nowhere else, sometimes it says I traveled a mile, some days less, some days a little more.  Considering I only travel one route to and from work, I’m not sure why that’s different.  So maybe it’s not as cool as I thought.

I wonder if the NSA receives these reports from everybody’s phones.

Music Mondays #2

Welcome to the next edition of Music Mondays.  It’s pretty basic, I take a playlist and put it on random, and post what comes up.

• Playlist – “Anything & Everything”
• Description – Anything from Christian to Rock, Rap to Country, Classical to 80’s.  Pretty much anything and everything that I like.
• Number of songs on the playlist – 1,210 songs

 

1. Prayer (Disturbed)
2. New Jack Hustler (Ice-T)
3. This Kiss (Faith Hill)
4. Wonderama (Randy Stonehill)
5. Farther On (Russ Taff)
6. Why Do Fools Fall in Love (Frankie Lymon)
7. With A Little Help With My Friends (Joe Cocker)
8. Everything to Everyone (Everclear)
9. You’re Going Down (Sick Puppies)
10. People Everyday (Arrested Development)
11. Sad Songs (Say So Much) (Elton John)
12. Green River (Creedence Clearwater Revival)
13. Clean (Petra)
14. Come As You Are (Nirvana)
15. Run to You (Bryan Adams)
16. Who’s in the House (Carman)
17. Rockstar (Nickelback)
18. So Hott (Kid Rock)
19. A Matter of Trust (Billy Joel)
20. Toxicity (System of a Down)

Father’s Day Weekend

For those who don’t know, our tradition for Father’s Day weekend is to take the whole family camping.  My family, my brother’s family and my mom’s family and anyone else who want’s to go.  I was going to blog a little bit here and there and put it on one post.  That worked for Friday, not so much the rest of the weekend.  Cheri didn’t go this weekend because of her ruptured disk.  She never would have lasted sleeping or being awake.

Friday

6:30 pm

Samantha got stuck riding with me on the way to the park so she got an education in music. We listened to Johnny Cash, the Beatles, and Tommy James along with some more modem tunes such as Skillet, Carrie Underwood, and Linkin Park. She text grandma and complained about Johnny Cash, my mom told me I was cruel.

9:30 pm

On the picture to the left, I circled our 3 sites that we reserved for this year.  It was nice being that close to the restrooms (which you can also see on the pic)  Typical evening once we got there, put up tents and prepped everything then grilled up some burgers for supper.  We had bought a new tent for this year after last years debacle where Cheri and I spent the night trying to keep out all the water. This tent isn't nearly as big as we thought. So we are letting Samantha and her cousin sleep in their own tent, we'll see how well that goes. If they are up giggling all night, it might be the last time.  Glad they are sleeping next to my brothers tent.

All the kids helped me with my tent with my niece being the biggest help.  It was like having a project with the kids, it was nice.  Actually, all the kids were very helpful this year.  Must be a sign of them growing up.

11:30 pm

The wood we bought from the general store here sucked ass.  We couldn't get any kind of a fire going so most everyone crashed early.  My brother and I stayed up a little while later but he went to bed about 20 minutes ago. We had to chase off a raccoon when it came within 10 feet from us and was eating the dog food out of the bowl we left out.  I'm not really tired, probably because I slept in till 11 this morning.  I got ready and crawled into bed, or air mattress in my pjs and hoodie.  It's quite chilly tonight which is good sleeping weather.  The bad part is going to be my air mattress has already lost some air, I have a feeling I'll be on the ground in the morning and considering I've been living off ibuprofen for the last couple of weeks because of my back, I'm not going too be able to move.  Guess we'll see tomorrow.

Saturday

9:30 am

Sure enough, I woke up on the ground. The worst part was I did that at 6:30 this morning, and it was raining.  Didn’t stop Trevor from snoozing away (pic above).

We've been people watching this morning while eating our Amish crack for breakfast. The guy beside us showed up last night with his kids, set up a small tent and turned around and left this morning.  But we only saw one kid with him this morning and he didn't start a fire or anything.  We had people on the other side who brought out their crying toddlers outside in the rain, to change them.  Then across the street we watched as a fairly heavy woman changed her shirt right next too the road.  Of course after we crack on all our neighbors, my stepdad comes out wearing this.

Could be an interesting day.

11:30 & on

We got hit with some more rain this morning.  But we saw the weather coming and got prepared.  You can see the red dot where we were located and just a little bit of rain coming in the picture to the left.  We put up 2 gazebo like tents right next to my moms porch on their pop-up camper.

As you can see we were well protected from the rain that was dropping on and off all morning.  Eventually it let off and we headed for the beach.

         

The first picture shows you how far we had to walk to the lake.  I guess I’m getting my use out of the Google maps on my phone (found something else too but you’ll have to wait a few days to see that).  It’s not a real bad walk because there is a path that pretty much leads right to the beach area.  As you can tell, it was pretty chilly.  But that didn’t stop the kids from swimming.  Last we heard, the water was around 60°.  It was a little breezy but certainly not cold.  We stayed there just under 2 hours before heading back to the campsite.

Cheri came up to spend some time with us and she got there not long after we got back.  We sat around and my brother and I kicked all challengers ass in cornhole.  Then we got down to our father’s day supper.  Steaks on the grill, potatoes and mac and cheese.  All the father’s got steaks while everybody else got marinated chicken off the grill.  It was very good.  Cheri hung out for as long as she could before driving back home and we got a fire going (the wood actually burned this time) and we had some smores.  About 10:30 or so, we happened to check the radar and another storm was going to come close but we weren’t sure if we were actually going to get hit.  There was a huge storm to the north and south but a little gap between the two that we might be able to skate free but just to play it safe.  We cleaned up and headed for bed just to be on the safe side.

I took the trash over to the dumpster and when I lifted the lid, a freaking raccoon jumped towards me trying to get out before he realized I was standing there and he jumped back.  Scared the crap out of me, that was the last thing I was expecting when lifting the lid.  I threw my bag of trash at him then slammed the lid back down and headed for bed.  I figured I would be in bed awhile before I fell asleep but I crashed about when the storm was hitting.  All we ended up getting was some high winds, I don’t think we got a drop of rain from that storm.

Sunday

I forgot to mention that I switched mattresses to more of a bed sized mattress so I slept much better Saturday night.  Although it was a little warmer out than I would have liked.  I prefer to bundle up when I’m sleeping.

We sat down to our breakfast of pancakes, sausage and bacon this morning then just hung around and chilled.  Father’s day cards were handed out and then we got to work tearing down.  The kids again were a big help with getting things together and taking down the tent.  We ate a quick lunch before finishing the last of the packing and headed out on the roads.

All in all, it was another great camping weekend.  I always enjoy the weekends, even when we have to battle the elements, which is a good thing because we always seem to have to.  We are talking about extending it another day next year and making it a 3 day weekend.  Which tells you that we all have a good time.

WWW Wednesdays #17

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

101 Things to do Before the Apocalypse

This was a fellow bloggers book so I bought it in support of him.  It’s a humorous look at some things to do before the impending apocalypse.

What did you recently finish reading?

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #1)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #2)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #3)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #4)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #5)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #6)

This was a great read.  As I mentioned before, these were released in 6 (approximate) 100 page books which is why I waited until I finished them all to give my sort of a review.

At 2:15 am most everyone disappears and these books are what the survivors do afterwards.  From finding out what happened to everyone else to battling the forces that are still trying to finish the job of ridding the world of humans.  There are still plenty of questions that you want answered, such as why are the bodies stacked in certain places, who is really causing all this, what are the creatures walking the streets, and is our government involved?  I will be adding the rest of the series to my Amazon wishlist.

Gehenna (West of Hell #1)

A zombie apocalypse in the old west, I looked forward to this one.  The author did a good job with everyone not having a clue what was going on.  If zombie’s appeared now a days, most of us have an idea what it takes to put them down.  You figure back in the old west, they had never heard of zombies so he does a good job of explaining how they figured out to kill them.  Some of the minor characters do some really stupid things, but you have to think, they had no idea what was happening.  It was a pretty good read, I liked a couple of the main characters.  My only real complaint was the length but considering I didn’t pay for it, I can’t really complain about that.  It even ended with a thriller ending that leaves it open for the next book which I will be adding to my Amazon wishlist.

What do you think you’ll read next?

Inheritance by Joe McKinney

This book sounds like a supernatural thrill ride.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go to http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.

Sundays Big Game

Sunday was a big day for me, I took my kids to their first Chicago White Sox game.  If you know me, then you know I try to get to at least a couple a year, some years more than others but I usually at least make 1 game a year.  Since our money is tight, I purchased the tickets in February when we got our tax money.  I purchased us 4 tickets in the handicap section so Cheri could go with us and prepaid for a parking pass.  With the majority of the cost taken care, it made it a lot easier to take the family this month.  All I had to pay for was gas ($35 for half a tank, freaking ridiculous), tolls and food.  Normally when I go to a game, I save money by eating before I go since the cost of food and drink is outrageous but since the kids had never been there, we ate there.

After a quick hour and a half drive to the stadium, we pulled up to US Cellular field.  The reasoning behind the handicap section was mainly for 2 reasons, too much walking to get to your seats and back out to the car, and a more comfortable seat for Cheri to sit in.  While she probably could walk it and sit in the stadium seats, she also would be in pain for a few days afterwards.  But it ended up being better for the rest of us to.  We went through a special gate with very little line (once we figured out where it was), got to ride in an elevator to our level, and our seats were more or less, a row of our own.  The section is essentially the last row in the lower level.  There is a railing around it (with cup holders attached) so we wheeled Cheri up and they brought the kids and I fold up chairs.  Since all the assigned spots are wheelchair accessible, which means they are wider than normal seats.  So our seats of 4 end up being in a section big enough for 6 seats.  Plus since our seats aren’t attached like the rest of the stadium, you can sit back a bit and have lots of leg room.  Plus you can kick back and put your feet on the railing around the sections.  Basically, it’s sort of like your own box section.  We could stand if we wanted to, lean back, stretch, pretty much whatever we wanted without disturbing anybody else.  It was nice to not be confined to your 1 little seat, especially when your fat ass barely fits in that 1 seat.

You can kind of see the section in the picture above.  Lots of room, right behind the nachos in a helmet stand.  When we first got there I tweeted this.

You can see their free jerseys that they got at the gate.  I took them down to the field to get a close up view and took that picture.  But just a few minutes after I tweeted that, I got this response.

Sweet!  So the kids and I headed off to find the the Guest Relations booth.  It ended up being behind home plate so after we grabbed their certificates (and a calendar), I figured I’d take them around the rest of the stadium and circle back to our seats.

On our way back around, we ran into these 2 signing autographs.  That would be Tony LaRussa and LaMarr Hoyt.  LaRussa was the manager of the 1983 team and Hoyt was a Cy Young winner that year for the same team.  The White Sox are celebrating the 1983 season every Sunday by wearing the throwback jerseys that you see above and on the kids.  The line was huge so I wasn’t about to stand in it but I did cut the line just to take the picture.

Here’s the kids in the outfield, showing off their certificates and calendar.  Just for all the smart asses out there, this was an hour before the game started, that would be why the seats are empty.  I don’t want any stupid Chicago Cubs fan making snide remarks, like this idiot did after I tweeted the following.

I don’t know who that is and he doesn’t even follow me.  We weren’t even playing the Cubs (I checked his account, he’s a Cubs fan) so he had to have either been following the @WhiteSox Twitter feed or the hashtag #GoSox.  So he was specifically look to start crap with someone.  I’m tweeting about the great day with my kids and then this idiot steps in.  Luckily, I don’t let anyone goad me into an argument on the internet, I know that’s what they want, so I ignore them.  People are idiots.

Anyways, anytime Cheri and I do something memorable, we always take a selfie.  Plus I took one to use as a profile picture on Viggle.

         

All in all, I had a great day.  The White Sox won, the kids got to see 3 home runs (1 by the A’s, 2 by the Sox) and they got to see the stadium.  I got to see a great game, some action on offense and a couple of great defensive plays.  I think the kids had a great time but they didn’t really seem very interested in the game itself.  So it might be awhile before I drop that kind of money on taking them to a game again.  Then again, it would make a nice family tradition to do a game every year.  We’ll see next tax season.

Here’s a picture taken by the Sox staff that you have to pay to get developed.  Hence the watermark.

Music Monday’s #1

Welcome to the first edition of Music Monday’s.  It’s pretty basic, I take a playlist and put it on random, and post what comes up.

• Playlist – “Anything & Everything”
• Description – Anything from Christian to Rock, Rap to Country, Classical to 80’s.  Pretty much anything and everything that I like.
• Number of songs on the playlist – 1,202 songs

 

1. Eye of the Tiger (Survivor)
2. Johnny Fencerider – Fresh Fish (Say What?)
3. I Write the Songs (Barry Manilow)
4. People Get Ready (Rod Stewart)
5. Alive (Pearl Jam)
6. Magic Carpet Ride (Steppenwolf)
7. Control (Puddle of Mudd)
8. The Best of My Love (Eagles)
9. This Love is Strong (Russ Taff)
10. Don’t Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
11. Weathered (Creed)
12. Love in the First Degree (Alabama)
13. Mine (Taylor Swift)
14. Let’s Begin Again (Ray Boltz)
15. Feel Like Makin’ Love (Bad Company)
16. Undo It (Carrie Underwood)
17. Indian Outlaw (Tim McGraw)
18. For Those About to Rock (We Salute You) (AC/DC)
19. Underneath the Blood (Petra)
20. No Se Tu (Luis Miguel)

Seems that this list is more classic than anything.  If you gave me an option to listen to a radio station, I would turn on the local rock station.  You wouldn’t know that by the above list.  Oh well, it is what it is.  We’ll see what comes up next Monday.

Flashback Friday–Driving Record

I recently applied for a different job at work and one of the qualifications was to have a clean driving record.  It got me thinking about my record.  If you remember, awhile back, I created this in reference to my oldest daughter who was now driving.

She’s had multiple things happen to her car, all while parked, according to her.  Maybe she’s not lying, but I remember my driving when I was her age.  My car was unlucky too, if it works for her, I’m using too.  Although now that I think about it, I recall getting rear ended in the high school parking lot (not my fault), I was the victim of road rage outside Indianapolis (not my fault), you also may remember this (not my fault.)  I even got rear ended at a stop light by work (not my fault) but I left the scene because I didn’t have insurance (my fault).

My BMV has a nice little feature online where you can actually view your record.  The bad news is, it only goes back to 1991.  I started driving in 1989, and those first few years were rough ones.  I know at one point I had 5 or 6 tickets, but I only got them half the time I got pulled over.  They were all for speeding (which was my one negative mark in driving school as well, go figure).

But let’s take a look from 1991 to current.

• Feb. 1991 – Speeding
• Sep. 1991 – Speeding (55 mph in a 30 mph)
• Dec. 1991 – Speeding (43 mph in a 25 mph)
• Nov. 1992 – Speeding (56 mph in a 30 mph)
• Sep. 1993 – Speeding (50 mph in a 30 mph)

I’m thinking if they would just raise all the speed limits over 30, I’d probably be ok.  30 is just too slow.  Now you’ll notice a 3 year gap between the last one above and the first one below.  That would be because of the 2nd violation listed below.

• Apr. 1996 – Speeding (58 mph in a 40 mph)
• Apr. 1996 – Failure to show insurance.
• Jul. 1996 – License suspended

Yeah, I didn’t have insurance for a lot of years.  It’s amazing how much better you drive when your driving illegally.  I certainly don’t condone what I did, it is what it is.

• Nov. 1996 – Driving while suspended.
• May 1997 – License suspended, failure to pay.
• Jan. 1999 – License suspended, failure to prove insurance.
• Jan. 2006 – Expired license plate.

You’ll notice a 7 year difference between the last 2, that’s because I pretty much drove without insurance most of that time.  The good news is, that 2006 pull over was the last time I’ve received a ticket.  Not because I don’t have insurance, I’ve grown up since then.  I’ve had insurance for quite awhile now.

Have I really become a better driver?  Yes.  Do I still speed a lot?  Oh yes.  Difference is, I pay a lot more attention to what is around me.  Not only watching for cops, but also, watching other drivers.  I tried to teach that to Skyler when I was teaching her how to drive.  The greatest thing you can do is drive defensively, always expect that car to pull out in front of you, always be aware of what is around you.  There has been multiple times when I was sitting at a light, it turns green, and I sit there while someone runs the red light.  I look both ways before crossing at a green light and it has prevented me from getting hit.

A lot of it has that I’ve matured as well, I’ll wait till your done laughing.  I don’t gun it at red lights, or race others.  When someone is riding my ass, I just let go of the gas till they pass, even if I end up doing 10 mph.  I didn’t say I still wasn’t an asshole.

I try to remember all the stupid things I’ve done in a car (drove out on a highway with a friend on the hood, drove under the influence, steal my mom’s car when I was 15) when dealing with my daughter and her stupid driving.  I try, it doesn’t always work out.  I guess that makes me a hypocrite, but we all want our children to be better than we were.  You hope they would learn from their mistakes.  I have trouble remembering that they have to make their own mistakes in order for them to learn.

I just hope she learns A LOT quicker than I did.  I was a dumb ass.

Randomness #14

Last week I got all caught up on my Feedly, this week I have fallen way behind again.  I’ve gotten in the habit of skipping a lot of the card blogs, I have more or less stopped blogging on My Sports Obsession anyways so I haven’t been in the mood to read about other cards.  I still love cards, but since we are trying to buy a house, I haven’t been purchasing any, which leads to the lack of blogging there.

My stepdad and I went to see this, it was pretty bad ass.  I love these new Star Trek movies because they have reminded me of my love for the series.  If you’re a regular follower here then you know that I am currently watching the original series (TOS) on Netflix.  I really had forgotten how much I liked the characters until they released the new prequel Star Trek back in 2009.  Yeah, I get the timeline doesn’t always match up with the originals, and I’m not a huge fan of the whole Spock/Uhura relationship (just feels weird) but I think they do a pretty good job with the characterization of the characters and that’s what I love.  I also like all the action compared to the originals.  Don’t get me wrong, I love the originals but I certainly can’t complain about more action.  I will watch this again when it comes out on DVD, so my wife can see it, of course.

I’m thinking about doing a Music Mondays, that’ll give me something on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.  That also leaves me 4 other days to post other stuff.  I think for the Music Monday’s it will be something like random songs off playlists or something.  I really should use my Track of the Day’s more often too, I still have some saved, I just always forget to post them.

Samantha’s team has been great to watch (except their last game).  They were undefeated but Samantha is growing up and really looking like a ball player.  I’ve been working with her on her swing and she’s been hitting the ball consistently and consistently hard.  She’s gradually starting to hit past the outfielders.  She’s gotten a few stand up double’s and has  had a few 3 RBI games.  Her name has been in the paper a couple of times as well.

Those are off the website for the paper since I hadn’t realized her name was in the actual paper so I didn’t get copies of it.  I asked for help from friends on Facebook but as usual, they aren’t any.  I have a feeling since I only post about once a week, that Facebook doesn’t actually show most of my friends my posts.

Regardless, I love watching her play and I hate it when I have to miss games for work.

I went and played basketball with my brother and some of his friends last Sunday.  I wasn’t great (it’s been years) but I wasn’t horrible either.  But I’ve been feeling it ever since.  I’m gradually feeling better but walking up stairs has been kicking my ass, which considering I live on the 2nd floor, has been rough.  But like I said, I’m getting better. 

It was really great to get out there and play again.  I used to play almost daily growing up in the neighborhood.  I used to be pretty good, I used to beat players who played for our high school all the time in gym class.  I used to love to play.  I would love to play again, but I need to get in better shape and it’s hard to get enough people together to play consistently.  It would help if I had some friends.

Oh yeah!  Today is my birthday.  The big 4-0.  I don’t do much for my birthday and that’s by my choice.  To me, it’s just another day.  I spend most of my day “liking” all the birthday wishes on my Facebook anymore.  I got a little cash from my mother-in-law, I spent it on taking the family out for lunch at IHOP and my mom and stepdad are coming over to have supper with us.  Cheri kept asking me what I wanted for my birthday dinner, I told her I didn’t care.  She is making my favorite dessert though, and it’s something I don’t get enough of.  CHEESECAKE!  That’s what I’m looking forward to.

How can you not look forward to some of that.

WWW Wednesday’s #16

To play along, I’m supposed to answer 3 easy questions.

What are you currently reading?

 

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #1)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #2)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #3)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #4)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #5)

Yesterday’s Gone (Episode #6)

I read somewhere where the authors released these short books every 3 weeks until 6 were released.  Sort of like how Stephen King released the Green Mile if you remember that.  I purchased the first box set so I’ll wait and review all of them after I’ve finished the first set.  Each book was approximately 100 pages.  I believe there are 2 other sets of 6 books but I don’t have those yet.

 

What did you recently finish reading?

Into The Woods by Kim Harrison

You can read my review here for this.

 

What do you think you’ll read next?

Gehenna (West of Hell #1)

A zombie book, set in the old west.  Sounds very interesting if you ask me.  I’m looking forward to this one, hope it doesn’t disappoint.

If you want to join on WWW Wednesdays, click the logo on top or go to http://shouldbereading.wordpress.com/ and leave a comment.