Jan 6, 2015 | blog, featured
A nifty gift my wife got me for Christmas last year was a mobile power pack. This one has an integrated solar charging grid along with a plethora of charging options for multiple devices. You see, I’ve been looking for a mobile power solution for the last couple months, and had thought of one of the larger LimeFuel devices in the 24K mAh range. My wife got me two gifts, they are getting a post each, after reading Josh Cullen’s extensive guide she knew exactly what to get me, tune into my next post!
There are a number of these kinds of mobile power packs out on the market. Some more expensive than others, and I was looking for a quality device, with a few charging options for multiple devices. Apparently, my wife was picking up on this and found one with a twist that I hadn’t even thought of: Solar charging!
Enter the PowerAdd Apollo Pro
The beauty of this power pack is two-fold. First is the obvious feature that covers the front of the device. The solar panel incorporated in the Apollo Pro is a great feature to have. However, this small panel doesn’t make for speedy solar charging. Rather, it merely supplements a trickle charge to the existing reserve on the power pack. It really needs to be charged from an AC outlet before being used. It can charge from the solar panel, but it would take over 48 hours to top it off, so supplemental trickle charging is the key aspect to that feature.
The second feature is the multiple charging options. This power pack not only charges standard USB devices a single port, but also includes a set of multiple charging tips with a selectable high-output 12/16/19 volt port designed for charging laptops. Yeah, that’s right – laptops.
The battery in this unit stores 23,000 mAh worth of power. Compare that to your average 3,000 mAh smartphone or 5,600 mAh tablet battery, and figure out how many charges you have from a fully charged unit! Figure that you can ‘top off’ the charge on the unit itself from the solar panel, and you’ll have multiple charges for several of your mobile devices while away from a power outlet.
In any case, there are a number of options for mobile power supplies these days, and I’m looking forward to being able to using this unit for some adventures throughout 2015 the rest of the year.
Dec 12, 2014 | blog
A few months ago I shared a playlist called Darker Shade of Lunacy, and I said I’d share a few more playlists as I finished putting them together. The truth is that I get them done when I damn well feel like it.
So this one for live U2 tracks has been done for several weeks, but I finally made time to share it with you. Frankly, with U2 you can’t go wrong with arranging them in whatever order you like. In this case, I’ve attempted to arrange them chronologically. You can judge how well I’ve done. Also, since U2 doesn’t have a lot of live albums out there, they tend to be from a handful, and mostly follow how they’re laid out on those albums.
In any case, I’ve tweaked the arrangement to my liking and thought I’d share them with you. I happen to use Google Play Music, and that’s where the following links to.
Title: U2 Live!
Description: My favorite U2 live tracks arranged mostly chronologically to my liking. Enjoy!
Sep 17, 2014 | blog
So like pretty much like everyone, I’ve got a few favorite playlists that I’ve been perfecting for awhile and I wanted to share them with anyone interested. Be forewarned, I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s, so much of my music taste runs to classic rock, 80’s pop, and a bit of hair metal.
This is the first playlist I’ll share, though I have several more. After creating this one a couple years ago, I recently began refining it to fit the overall theme that I originally had for it.
Title: Darker Shade of Lunacy
Description: A collection of moody, heavy, sometimes dark but rocking tunes that, though they cover the better part of four decades, seem to meld together with a constant theme.
Sep 15, 2014 | blog, featured
That’s all I really need.
To travel the world and experience new places.
See the countryside, and breath deep the fresh air.
Grow in knowledge as well as hope.
To dream and to live out my dreams.
That’s all I really need.
A motorcycle and a tent.
Jul 4, 2014 | blog, featured, happiness, photo blog
Happy 4th of July!
I absolutely love finding versions of our flag that exist all around the country. I’ve seen this picture many times, but thought I’d share it this year. Finding truthfully represented versions of our flag painted on barns and shops or signs is pretty cool to see. Especially the one’s that have a little age on them. Not sure why, but it makes them even more endearing to me. Maybe it’s because everything on the Internet is just a little to precise, a little to perfect. We all look better with a little age on us.
Happy Birthday America!
Apr 27, 2014 | blog, featured
Well, I finally made a move and bought a motorcycle this spring. This is something that I’ve wanted to do for several years, and I guess it took me a while to decide on what bike I wanted.
A couple of years ago when I had started looking into which bike I would get, I found that the Yamaha FJR 1300 really stood out among the crowd of models. However, after a year or so of drooling aver the FJR, I found myself not so enthusiastic about the “sport bike” aspect, and started taking a close look at cruisers.
It didn’t happen overnight, but I have found that I really, really love the classic lines and sound of a cruiser V twin over the revy whine of a sport bike. As I looked into what was available from both domestic and metric cruisers, I liked what I saw more and more.
In the end, I fell in love with the new 2014 Indian Chief models that Polaris brought out late last summer. These new Indians brought a lot of new technology, with traditional Indian styling. Just what I really want!
Trouble is, it just didn’t make sense to buy what ends up being a $21K for a first bike. So then I started looking at something a little more “affordable” for a first bike, a Victory Gunner, which at $13K was a lot less. Since I’ve been thinking and planning about this for quite some time, my “sensible” side kicked in. I realized that I should take some of the great advice from friends, coworkers and many folks online and go with a used bike to begin with. So that’s what I’ve done.
Not that I haven’t ridden before, it’s been about 25 years since I was in the saddle, and it was a much smaller bike. Back in my youth, I had a mini-bike, and then later, an on/off-road metric bike (we called it an “enduro” back in the late ’70s) that I road through high school and a little beyond.
So with that in mind, I felt pretty comfortable picking up a used 2009 V Star 1300 Tourer for my first bike. So far I haven’t been disappointed. My thinking on it was that I really needed a reliable bike that was easy to handle, but had a little “growing room” that I feared a smaller bike wouldn’t have. I didn’t want to buy a bike this spring and be looking for something bigger by the end of summer.
So, I’m back on a motorcycle and with a little good weather this weekend, I’ve been able to rack up a little north of 200 miles. It feels good to be be riding again, and I’ve got a few plans for some weekend trips, including some camping ones with it as well.
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