So Much Music... What to Pick From!!

 In the world of digital entertainment and digital content, it seems that the choices continue to grow at a pace with which is hard to keep up.  For me, I am continually amazed and befuddled by all the choices that continue to spring up in regard to where to get your music.  Every time I turn around there seems to be 10 or 20 more choices.  I really like to listen to music but I am starting to get confused as to what should be the place where I invest the time creating playlists, favorite artist lists, etc.

In the past it was easy.  You would either just turn on the radio or pop a CD in the CD player and listen to it.  Then things began to change - first you could start turning all of your CD's into MPegs and playing them on an iPod or other MPeg player.  Then Cable TV started adding music channels.  Then along come Sirius and XM Satellite Radio.  Then every radio station started streaming on net and along came Internet Radios and now we have a cornucopia of streaming services that allow you to personalize whatever you want to listen to.  Gees.....  which ones should I use???

Of course, I currently use just about every service I have listed above.  I still use my iPod and the numerous iPod speaker systems throughout my house to listen to music.  On my computer I have at least 4 or 5 different streaming services setup that I use.  These include but are definitely not limited to: Spotify, I Heart Radio, Pandora and 365 Radio.

What I would love to have is one central service that would allow me to stream my iTune library to any device I want and have one consolidated streaming service that offers a ton of good music.

Does anyone have any recommendations as to what is the best way to do all of this?  What services are you all using to listen to music?  Please drop me a line and let me know what you are using as I really want to set something up that will allow me to have a consolidated place for my music and that I can stream anywhere!  I need recommendations!!!

It's the weekend of course and there isn't a whole going on.  We are supposed to get some snow here in Colorado, but nothing like what has happened out east.  Our snow totals for the weekend are supposed to be on the order of 2 - 4 inches here in Denver and maybe a foot in the Mountains.

Zack and I were going to head to the mountains this weekend, but I decided to stay put because I have had a cold most of this week and going to the mountains will only make it worse.  So we are staying at home and just doing a bunch of work.  Zack has a big test on Monday that he needs to study for and I need to get somethings figured out as I have to go to India in the next 2 or 3 weeks and I need to get all the arrangements made for while I am gone.  As a result it is going to be low-key but busy weekend!

That's it for now, but please do drop me a comment with how you stream and listen to your music.

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

An End-to-End Hike of Denver's High Line Canal Trail

Numerous times in the past I have mentioned what I consider to be one of Denver's hidden natural gems - The High Line Canal Trail.  This trail runs from the mountains to the plains and it winds its way through many of Denver's suburbs.

In the past, I have hiked, walked or run on about 1/2 of the distance of this trail.  My wandering has been mainly confined to that section of the trail that is to the west of Interstate 25.  For the last six or so months however, I have frequently driven past sections of the trail that are to the east of Interstate 25.  One of Zack's best friends lives a short distance off the trail on Quebec Street.  In the course of the many times Zack and I have driven to his friend's house we have had the occasion to drive across half a dozen or so street crossings of the trail.  Each time I have driven across the trail, I have thought how cool it would be to start and hike the entire trail from one end to another.

I am not proposing to do that hike all once as it is over approximately 66 miles in distance.  Though I consider myself to be a good hiker, I can't do 66+ miles in one day.  However I can break it up into manageable distances and knock out 10 - 20 miles of the trail per week.

With the beautiful weather we had in Denver today, I decided to start hiking the trail again.  This time my goal is to hike the entire trail from one end to another within the calendar year.  It really shouldn't be that hard of a goal and to be honest it really is not.  The only thing that makes it somewhat difficult is that I have to normally cover twice the distance.  My normal manner of hiking the trail is to take the car, drive to a trail head or a nearby park and then walk out 2 -3 miles.  Then I have to turn around and get back to the car.  Therefore, I have to cover double the distance.  Other than that, hiking the 66+ mile trail isn't that big of a deal.

As you can probably tell by the name of the trail, The Denver High Line Canal Trail, it follows the course of an irrigation canal.  The purpose of the canal is to provide the "plentiful" water of the mountains to the agricultural areas of what is now the Denver Metro area.  The canal was originally conceived a few short years after Denver got it's start as a city.  The idea was first floated in 1870, but construction on the canal didn't begin until 1880.  From start until finish, construction took 3 years, which to me, seems like a very short period of time for work that was done exclusively through manual labor - as there were no mechanical means to build the canal in those days.

From it's completion, the canal has provided a not so steady stream of water to the arid farm lands on the plains.  In it's earlier days, I am quite sure it ran on a much more consistent basis, however in the most recent years the flow of the water in the canal has been restricted quite often due to the extreme droughts that Colorado has faced.  In fact there are very few, if any agricultural customers who still utilize the High Line Canal.  Denver Water now owns and maintains the canal and so the use of the canal is all incorporated into the overall Denver Water management plan.  Additionally the canal, given it is simply an earthen ditch is a very inefficient means of delivering water as it is estimated that between 60 - 80% of the water is lost to evaporation or just drains out of the canal into the nearby ground.

The trail along the canal didn't open for recreational purposes until the 1970's as prior to that it was considered private property.  Even now, sections of the trail are sometimes closed by Denver Water for various reasons.  However, access to the trail is one of the governing principles that Denver Water uses in it's overall management plan.

Besides walking, hiking and running the trail is also used for biking and horseback riding.  Pretty much any non-motorized type of recreation is allowed along the trail.  Though due to the rough nature of the trail as it is primarily dirt and gravel - I won't recommend riding a high performance road bicycle on it nor would I recommend skate boarding or inline skating!

To keep track of my progress on the trail I am going to take pictures of each of the mile markers as I pass them.  It might get a little confusing for me at times as there are 4 or 5 different entities that work with Denver Water to maintain the trail.  And through each of their sections they use different mileage equations.  But as I pass each marker I am going to take a picture of it!

If you have any interest in learning more about the trail, here's a link to the Denver Water Website on the trail.  Additionally, you can check out the entire length of the trail on Google Earth.  Just go to Google Earth and type in Denver High Line Canal Trail in the Fly To Box and it will take you to the center point of the trail.

For those of you who read this and live in Denver, if you have interest in hiking this thing with me, please let me know.  As I always say for my hikes and bike rides - the more the merrier!

And here are the pictures of the first two mile markers I passed today!  Mile markers 42 and 43 are now officially complete!

(The hanging sunglasses are someone's attempt to get a lost article back to whom ever lost it.  I wonder if it ever works or if the lost item - sunglasses, hats, gloves, etc - just hang out for a really long time!)

Well that's about it for today.  Nothing else of significance to note!  I hope everyone had a wonderful Tuesday!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.

Rejuvenating A Despot from the Past

Each morning while getting the day started I perform a ritual that I have done almost non-stop for the last 17 years.  And for those of you thinking naughty things - get your minds out of the gutter!  The ritual is that I do a quick scan of news websites to catch up on the happenings of the world for the last day.  The list of websites has continued to evolve over the years and now included websites like Reddit that aggregate news stories that readers think are popular.

This morning in my rounds of the websites I came across articles on both NBCNews.Com and the Guardian (British news paper) that discussed the renaming of the Russian city of Volgograd to Stalingrad.  The city is being renamed Stalingrad in commemoration of the Soviet defeat of the Germans there in World War II.  The German defeat is viewed to be one of the major turning points of the War.

Please see the links below for the stories on NBCNews.Com and the Guardian.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jan/31/stalingrad-russia-war-rename-controversy
http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/02/01/16803786-stalin-gets-his-city-back-as-russians-celebrate-dictators-triumph-over-nazis?lite

For whatever reason I have always taken an interest in the Battle of Stalingrad.  Part of it has been driven by the book written in 1973 by William Craig called the Enemy at the Gates.  This book is a non-fiction account of the intense battle for the city and the one-on-one sniper dual between the Soviet Vasily Zaitsev and German Erwin Konig.  I read this book in the late 1990's shortly before it was turned into a major motion picture starring Jude Law and Rachel Weisz.

The other reason that I have been interested in this is for personal reasons.  My family background is of half German and half Polish heritage.  Given the comparatively recent time that the German side of the family came to the United States -1903, there remained close connections between my grand-parents and my father with members of the family in Germany.  In World War II like most families, all sides of the family were caught up in the war.  In Germany many of my fathers cousins fought for the German army in various battles around Europe and Northern Africa.  Two of my father's cousins, brothers, were in the German 6th Army that was surrounded, captured and destroyed at Stalingrad.  One of the brothers was a dentist and was part of the army support structure.  All that is known of him was that he was killed sometime during the course of the battle. 

The second brother, Erik was in the infantry and somehow managed to live through the hell of the battle and was marched off into captivity along with over 100,000 other German soldiers.  Most of those 100,000 soldiers were never heard from again.  Erik was different.  Despite the horrible conditions and the brutality he experienced he was one of the 5,000 soldiers of the German 6th Army that eventually made it home to Germany in 1949.  In 2005 I had the pleasure to spend some time with Erik in his home town of Boblingen, Germany.  We had an interesting discussion.  He didn't tell too many stories of all that happened during those horrible times.  But he did speak strongly against war as at the time the US was in the middle of its misadventures in Iraq.  He was a decided pacifist after his experiences fighting in one of the most brutal battles in the 20th century.

Therefore whenever I see something in the press that has to do with the Battle of Stalingrad it catches my attention.  The articles today really caught my attention due to the homage that was being paid of Stalin.  Even despite the fact that Stalin was fighting the most evil monster of all times - the Germany nation in the hands of Adolph Hitler, Stalin is a historical figure who should be consigned to the list of the most horrible despots of all time.  There is little that separates him from the ultimate evil of Hitler and Nazism.

Despite the fact that though his brutality he was able to save the Soviet Union from being conquered by the Nazis, the evil of his ways was so extreme he should be forever shunned and not celebrated.  This week a memorial was held in Germany on the 80th anniversary of Hitler's rise to power.  The memorial was to commemorate the millions of people who died because of the evil spawned by Hitler.  At no point will there be (or should there EVER be) any kind of celebration of anything that occurred while the Nazis were in power.  The same should be true of Stalin.  Nothing should be celebrated about his almost 30 year reign of terror upon the people of Russia and the many other countries that were dominated by the Soviet Union at the time.

Praising the acts of tyrants and despots should never be something that is acceptable.

Just a few words for an early Friday morning.

Hope you all have a great day and a wonderful weekend ahead!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.