Monthly Archives: January 2018

My Apps — Chapter 11
Affinity Photo

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Affinity Photo is a Serif product. Serif’s PhotoPlus had been my photo editor of choice since 2001 when I started using Version 4.0. More than a dozen releases later, at Version 6X, I was still using it although I sensed the end of our relationship was near. In the My Apps PhotoPlus post I wrote of feeling like a Beta Max user in a VHS world. (Younger readers may have to Google that.) Most people I knew used PhotoShop. Not one of them used PhotoPlus. But what really got me to thinking about moving on was that PhotoPlus seemed to have reached an odd sort of dead-end. I had no wish list of features, so it didn’t bother me that new releases added very few. What did bother me was the tweaking for tweaking’s sake of existing features. Someone must have thought the tweaks were good but I found some actually detrimental to the way I worked. I wasn’t about to spend big bucks on Adobe’s full featured PhotoShop Creative Suite but their Elements product was only a few dollars more than PhotoPlus and seemed to have everything I needed and most of what I merely wanted. I started thinking it was about time to jump ship.

An opportunity to do just that came along in 2016 with the purchase of a new computer. Switching computers means transferring existing software or acquiring new, and I did a little of both. For my photo editing needs, I planned to acquire PhotoShop Elements rather than transferring PhotoPlus 6X but Serif came up with some news and an offer that resulted in me doing neither. The news also offered a little insight into the “odd sort of dead-end” behavior I’d noted with PhotoPlus. Affinity was an entirely new-from-the-ground-up product. It was initially developed for Apple’s macOS and had been shipping for that platform for a year or more. The news was that it was now available for MS Windows. Apparently PhotoPlus for Windows really had been a dead ended product for some time.

The offer was much like those I’d seen with each new PhotoPlus release. Current owners could get the new software at a heavily discounted price. I’d long before decided that I wouldn’t spend any more money on Serif’s PhotoPlus and I didn’t. Instead, I spent money on Serif’s Affinity.

I have no regrets. The Apple version of Affinity had some very positive reviews and had even received an award or two. It was at least as powerful as PhotoPlus and both were more powerful than I needed. From the start Affinity Photo for Windows was fully featured with few problems. I’ve a hunch that the Apple version being around for a while had something to do with that. In addition, a nice collection of video tutorials was available. Those came in really handy in getting up to speed on the new product.

For me, up to speed isn’t all that fast. I’m basically a resize, rotate, and crop sort of guy. I was nearly at speed once those were mastered. I do, on occasion, dabble with tone a bit and do a little touch-up work. About as fancy as I ever get is the rare collage or the slightly less rare HDR. Accomplishing these with Affinity is quite different than with PhotoPlus but I eventually figured it out. I’m a long way from being a master of the software but I manage to do what I need.

Is Affinity better than PhotoPlus? Yes, if for no other reason than it gets a nice clean start without the baggage and limits of a product that has been tweaked and twisted for many years. Is it better than PhotoShop Elements? Probably, but I’m no expert on either so can’t say for sure or even explain how it might be. Is it better than the full PhotoShop? I’m guessing not although some people who demand a lot more from their photo editor than I do consider it a worthy competitor. Even if that’s a stretch, and I’m not saying it is, I’m thinking that Affinity is worth a look from anyone not tied to PhotoShop by corporate decree or something similar. Maybe the truly discerning can see differences in output quality or maybe there’s something missing that real photographers depend on. I don’t know. I do know that it does what I need for about half the price of PhotoShop Elements or a little bit less than two monthly payments on a PhotoShop Creative Cloud annual subscription.

My Apps – Chapter 10 — Garmin BaseCamp

Book Review
Darlene’s Silver Streak
John G. Butte

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I first heard of Darlene Dorgan and her friends from a presentation on early female travelers at the Lincoln Highway Association in June. Then they were part of a similar presentation at a Route 66 conference in October. This book may have been mentioned in either or both of those presentations but, if so, it didn’t register. What finally got me interested in Darlene’s Silver Streak and The Bradford Model T Girls was when a blog I follow, Curbside Classics, ran a three part story in November that was akin to a condensed version of the book. Those posts also made me aware of a website, Gypsy Coeds, created by the book’s author and the fact that the car was currently on loan to the Model T Museum in nearby Richmond, Indiana. I headed over, checked out the car, and bought the book.

By then, I knew the basics of the story. In a deal that had his daughter give up her dreams of college, Bill Dorgan gave her a car and dreams of college turned into dreams of travel. Over the next several years, Bill’s daughter Darlene used that car to carry her and her friends to the USA’s east and west coasts, its northern and southern borders, and even into Canada. That would not seem particularly unusual if it happened today and only slightly more so if it happened a few decades ago. But it happened in the 1930s when groups of young women typically didn’t undertake anything of the sort without males at their side.

The car was a 1926 Ford Model T that was painted silver and eventually given the name “Silver Streak”. Between 1934 and 1942, Darlene made eight major outings in the car along with four or five friends. John Butte’s mother was on one of those trips and his aunt on another. Having read that Butte had done considerable research, I expected the book to include details of those trips and it does. For each of the journeys Butte identifies the participants, the dates, and the general route. Among his sources are newspaper articles, conversations with Gypsy Coed descendants, some Gypsy Coed diaries, and even conversations with a couple of the Coeds themselves. He documents his findings with reproductions of articles and various communications, excerpts from diaries and interviews, and plenty of photographs. Even though, as I said, I expected details of that sort to be there, I was a little surprised at the amount of detail presented.

The “Bradford”, in the title is Bradford, Illinois. It’s the small town about thirty miles north of Peoria that Darlene called home. Butte begins his book by talking about the town and the Dorgan family’s role there. To some extent it’s a familiar tale of small town America and the changes brought on by the automobile and other developments, but Butte mixes general observations about the period with details of the Dorgans and Bradford to paint a solid picture of the world from which the young women launched their adventures.

Those adventures — and adventure seems exactly the right word — included seeing two World Fairs, the Dionne Quintuplets, and Henry Ford. Of those, the Quints came first, on the third big trip in 1937. After driving to Callander, Canada, the girls weren’t about to settle for a few orchestrated peeks at the children. They also managed to meet Dr. Dafoe who had delivered the quintuplets. That was not a common occurrence at all. The next year, they spontaneously interrupted a Wisconsin camping trip to drive to Detroit to wish Henry Ford a happy birthday. They managed to meet him, too.

The meeting with Ford proved quite valuable to the girls, particularly on their next two trips. In 1939 they attended the World Fair in New York and in 1940 drove to the one in San Francisco. On both trips, the girls and the car benefited greatly from special attention from the Ford Motor Company.

There are two parts to Darlene’s Silver Streak. The first, called “Creating the Legacy”, consists of what I’ve described so far. Part two, “Continuing the Legacy”, is John Butte’s own story. Following the passing of his parents, he and his siblings reminisced about the stories their mother told of her experience as a Gypsy Coed in 1939. One thing led to another and John ended up finding and buying the Silver Streak in 2012. At times it seems that too much of this second part involves things that have nothing to do with the car but it does provide a picture of someone who is not a “car guy” becoming the owner and caretaker of a unique piece of automotive history. He hasn’t suddenly turned into what most think of as a “car guy” but he does seem to enjoy his stewardship role and clearly takes it seriously. Part of being a good steward can be learning and sharing everything you can about your charge. John Butte earns high marks in that department with Darlene’s Silver Streak.

Darlene’s Silver Streak and The Bradford Model T Girls, John G. Butte, John Butte Publishing (August 25, 2015), 8 x 10 inches, 304 pages, ISBN 978-0692491201
Available through Amazon.

I mentioned in the review that I saw the Silver Streak at the Model T Museum in Richmond, Indiana. Here are some pictures from that visit. The car is on loan to the museum until August, 2018.

Trip Peek #66
Trip #137
Sixty-Six and More

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This picture is from my 2016 Sixty-Six and More trip. It was my fourth and most recent end-to-end drive of Historic Route 66 although it wasn’t conceived as such. This trip just kept growing from first seed until I got home. In the beginning there was a decision to attend the Route 66 Conference in Los Angeles with a visit to my son in San Diego tacked on. I could fly to that but didn’t want to. A decision to drive was accompanied by a decision to follow Sixty-Six all the way. Before long I’d added a 5K walk in Tulsa and a Dirk Hamilton concert in San Pedro. Logistics for the concert gave me a chance to stay on the Queen Mary for a night. My route home was mostly on US-50 which allowed me to visit a cousin in Colorado and stop at the two Madonna of the Trail Monuments I hadn’t seen previously. Throw in a Super Moon and the LA protests following the presidential election and the justification for “More” in the title quickly becomes apparent. The picture is of the Palace Theater in the middle of what was the most western block of the original US-66 alignment. Trip Peeks really are selected randomly and it is pure coincidence that the 66th Peek involves Route 66.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

Trip Peek #65
Trip #121
Faux Fight at Franklin

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This picture is from my 2014 Faux Fight at Franklin trip. The city of Franklin, Tennessee, was the destination and watching a reenactment of the 1864 Battle of Franklin was the purpose. I would reach my destination but not accomplish my purpose. The picture is of the main house at Carnton Plantation. It was used as a field hospital when the battle began nearby. The reenactment was also to take place nearby but a night of solid rain left the ground unsuitable and the faux fight was called off. I made do with an extended tour of the house and museum. Although the battle cancellation was something of a disappointment, the overall trip was not. I’d spent the previous day in Nashville with lots of music and a visit to the newly opened Johnny Cash Museum. On the way home, l stopped by the Horseshoe Camp Cabins for the first time since the April fire that left them essentially destroyed.

Trip Peeks are short articles published when my world is too busy or too boring for a current events piece to be completed in time for the Sunday posting. In addition to a photo thumbnail from a completed road trip, each Peek includes a brief description of that photo plus links to the full sized photo and the associated trip journal.

2017 in the Rear View

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The year in numbers with 2016 values in parentheses:

  • 9 (7) = Road trips reported
  • 73 (69) = Blog posts
  • 66 (90) = Days on the road
  • 1896 (2418) = Pictures posted — 284 (323) in the blog and 1612 (2095) in Road Trips

Things are more or less back to normal after last year’s extra long (and extra exotic) Alaska trip boosted the days and pictures counts significantly. The number of blog posts was nudged upward by 2017 having 53 Sundays. The regular weekly posts were augmented with links for the nine road trips and eleven reviews. In a flip-flop from last year’s summary, two new-for-2017 blog posts made the top five while no new-for-2017 trip journal entries did. The Hawaii trip was closest at number ten.

Top Blog Posts:

  1. Remembering Timmy
    The most visited post of 2017 was also the saddest. Musician and friend Tim Goshorn died in mid-April just weeks after being diagnosed with cancer. Tim and brothers Larry and Dan put the Goshorn name in the top tier of the Cincinnati music scene and Tim and Larry became nationally known as members of Pure Prairie League. That fame and the fact that he was just such a wonderful person had a lot of people sharing memories on the internet. In this post I shared some of mine.
  2. My Wheels – Chapter 1 1960 J. C. Higgins Flightliner
    The first post in the My Wheel series maintains its perfect top five record with a third second place ranking to go with two firsts. Visitors appear to continue to come through specific searches with no interest in anything else on this site. But I still appreciate them.
  3. Book Review — The World from My Bike
    This is the other 2017 post in the top five. It’s a book review that is here due to the author’s popularity and because she shared the review with her own followers. Anna Grechishkina is not yet a famous author but she is becoming well known as a traveler. This is her first book and it’s filled with photos and thoughts from her not yet complete motorcycle ride around the world. It’s certainly impressive and I’m betting there will be at least one more after she completes her journey and is back home in Ukraine.
  4. Scoring the Dixie
    This post about keeping track of driven sections of the Dixie Highway placed fourth when it was published in 2012, was third in 2015, and is back at fourth for 2017. I’m sensing a slow increase in interest in all old roads including the Dixie Highway. In the year’s closing months, there was even a slight uptick in the popularity of my own Dixie Highway related book, A Decade Driving the Dixie Highway, as sales rose from abysmal to anemic.
  5. Ohio’s Revolutionary War Battle
    This 2012 post appears in the top five for the second time. In 2013, when it ranked fourth, I attributed its popularity to the bicentennial of the War of 1812 and the post’s mention of names associated with that war. This year I have no theory at all.

Top Non-Blog Posts:

  1. Ohio Barn Dance
    Both of this year’s top two non-blog posts are mysteries to me. The most visited journal entry is a rather simple 2007 day trip on some scenic southern Ohio roads. The name comes from the fact that several old barns were passed along the way. In researching 2017 statistics, I discovered a big goof. Trip Peeks are blog posts that I publish when I have nothing better. Each one references the journal of a randomly selected road trip. A Trip Peek for Ohio Barn Dance was published in 2017. In fact it was published twice. First on October 22 and again on November 26. How that happened I don’t know but it did. It’s tempting to say the journal traffic is the result of the double posting but it clearly isn’t. For one thing, Trip Peeks never generate enough interest to account for anything near what this entry saw. Besides, the surge appears to have started back in April long before the first Trip Peek posting.
  2. Bi Byways
    I don’t understand this 2004 two day trip coming in second in in 2017 any more than I understood it coming in second in 2015 or first in 2016. The byways involved are the Miami and Erie Canal Scenic Byway and the Maumee Valley Byway and all of OH-66 is included.
  3. Tadmor
    This is an Oddment page about an Ohio ghost town. After ranking first, second, and first in the first three “Rearview” posts (2011, 2012, 2013), it dropped out of the rankings but reappears for 2017.
  4. Alaska
    T    he journal for that long 2016 trip to Alaska was number three last year and hangs on to number four this year.
  5. Finding It Here
    This was a three day Christmas Escape Run that never left Ohio, but it was the last trip of 2016 so had all year to accumulate enough views to claim fifth place.

Once again, overall traffic numbers were mixed. Visits, which dropped slightly last year, increased from 107,898 to 138,047, while blog views dropped again, going from 8,136 to 7485. Page views were nearly unchanged with 579,110 for 2016 and 578,893 for 2017.

Though it didn’t make the top five, the highest ranked new journal entry, My Fiftieth: Hawaii, marked a significant real word milestone for me. As the title suggests, reaching Hawaii meant I could now claim to have visited all fifty states of the union. It also provided a pretty good reason to write another book. That book, 50 @ 70, celebrates reaching fifty states and seventy years of age at the same time. Unlike my previous two books, 50 @ 70 isn’t associated with a particular road (or any thing else) so doesn’t even get attention from niche road fans. Sales need to increase a bunch to be considered abysmal. Anemic is probably out of range.