I recently had the fortune of going to Switzerland to visit with my friend in and around Bern. Using my friend’s place as a home base, we did several bike loops out of Bern, including a few train assisted sections and an overnight trip. There was also several miles of hiking and one day of kayaking down the river Aare. The weather was near perfect (end of May, beginning of June) and my friend was able to double as my translator and the itinerary was light on the touristy sightseeing. On my way back home through Chicago, my wife and kids picked me up and we spent a night downtown near the loop where we introduced the kids to the city before heading home. ...

The web has had some harsh words for this phone before it even shipped. Now Apple is scaling back production based on weak demand. I had pre-ordered new iPhone SE the morning of March 11th and it was shipped to my home on March 18th. Previously, I had been a pretty happy Android user. I first switched over with the Samsung Galaxy SIII way back when and then bought the Google Pixel 2. Both phones treated me well for several years. However, the Pixel 2 was starting to struggle in terms of battery life. Normal old phone stuff. I had been thinking it was time to start looking for a replacement, but I procrastinated as it was still performing relatively well and I was never far from an outlet or my battery bank. ...

With this post, I can say that I have successfully completed moving my website from GatsbyJS to Hugo and in the process did some neat things with it. First off, a quick note about why Gatsby wasn’t quite right for this website. The last move was from Jekyll to Gatsby and a lot of what originally drove that transition was getting away from Ruby and starting to investigate decoupled websites as it related to Drupal which I use for work. Well, though I got away from Ruby when it came to this website, I still maintain other Jekyll sites and old Drupal themes built on top of Ruby, so it is still a part of my life. When it came to investigating decoupled websites, I learned that I shouldn’t bring my work home. At least for the short term, that kind of work and investigation has been postponed at work and without the need at home, I wasn’t motivated to dive into it on my own time. Gatsby is a very versatile tool, but this website doesn’t need all of that. ...

I just got back from another year of RAGBRAI. Wasn’t sure if it would actually happen because of the new wave of COVID-19 cases. It was cancelled last year. I only did three and a half days of riding from Parkersburg to Clinton. Originally, I was going to bike out to the route and back and meet up with my team, but when my friend Mike said he was going to come all the way over from Switzerland, I adjusted my plans so that I could help him get to the route/team and share any gear with him that he may have needed. ...

At the beginning of June this year, I went on a five-night canoe camping trip with family members in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), specifically the Shell Lake area off entry point 14. This was my first canoe trip and my first time visiting the BWCA. Because of that, I had a lot of questions going into the trip. Normally, on canoe trips, folks have a tendency to pack more similar to a car camping trip because the hikes, or portages, are short and the canoes instead carry most of the weight. ...