Writing
- Aura Mason WiFi Digital Picture Frame - My favorite gift in ages. All my kids have rights to add photos to is and that's where they share new images of my grandkids. I probably ask my wife to look at the currently displayed picture 50 times a day.
- Plustek Photo Scanner ePhoto Z300 - Our new scanner processes a standard photo in two seconds and automatically straightens any that go through crooked. It was a breeze to set up and configure.
- VENA vCommuteX for iPhone 15 Pro Max Wallet Case (MagSafe Compatible) - I've never used mag safe charging because I like using a case on my phone where I can keep credit cards. This case lets me do both.
- Magnetic Wireless Mag-Safe Charging Station - Cable management and device charging has been a pain in the butt since forever. This is a single stand using one cord and it will charge my iPhone, Apple Watch and AirPods.
- Anker USB C Cable, 4 ft 2-in-1 USB C to USB C Cable 140W Max - I've never been let down by Anker products and this two-headed cord will let me charge my laptop and phone from a charger with a single USB-C out port.
- Macally Wireless Bluetooth Keyboard for Mac - I prefer a full sized keyboard when using my iMac. The legacy Apple keyboard I've been using has an oddly placed Fn key and req1uires a USB-A connection. This MacAlly keyboard moves the FN key. It's wiress and it can connect to up to three devices at a time, useful to me since I often set up new laptops for customers while sitting at my desk.
- Wurkkos FC11 EDC Flashlight 1300Lumen Rechargeable - I've been wanting a pocket flashlight to add to my EDC and this one was recommended by several Internet friends. It recharges with a USB-C cable and is remarkably bright and useful for working in dim switch closets and when crawling under desks.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - Albert Einstein
- Bob Dylan
- Martin Luther King Jr.
- Richard Branson
- John Lennon (with Yoko Ono)
- Buckminster Fuller
- Thomas Edison
- Muhammad Ali
- Ted Turner
- Maria Callas
- Mahatma Gandhi
- Amelia Earhart
- Alfred Hitchcock
- Martha Graham
- Jim Henson (with Kermit the Frog)
- Frank Lloyd Wright
- Pablo Picasso.
- Unions
- Israel/Palestine
- US Military Policy
- Criminal justice
- White privilege
- Affirmative action
- LGBT rights
- Patriarchy
- Apple technology
- 📷 Photography - I love street photography the most
- 🇮🇪 🇬🇧Northen Ireland, its history and politics
- 🏃♀️Ultrarunning (as a spectator and crew member)
- 📺 British police procedurals, like Endeavour or Broadchurch
- No, Mr. Paywall, I do not have to pay to read. I haz skillz.
- Pay TV with commercials is an oxymoron
- I don’t want to upsize, super-size or biggie size. Bruh, have you seen my waist?
- Person at my door, I don’t want to buy magazines, home security or anything else
- I want gas, not a carwash for my rusted out 2005 Camry
- Eat dinner in New Orleans
- See assault rifles banned again
- Palestine
- Go to my Mom’s 100th birthday party
- See a woman elected US president
- Starbucks for supposedly Satanic coffee cups
- Nike because they made a Colin Kaepernick commercial
- Carhartt because they required their workers to get COVID-19
Winning with the Kiddos
Aren't Saturday's amazing? I don't work on Saturdays. I get up whenever I want, usually early and spend my morning writing and doing the kind of tech chores I enjoy: curating photographs, adding entries to Day One Journal, perusing my saved articles on Pocket and via RSS and scrolling through the feeds of my favorite people on Mastodon and Bluesky.
After a couple of hours of that this morning, Wonder Woman and I made a drive across town to pick up the only three of our grandchildren who live close by: 12-year-old Forrest, 10-year-old Harper and 7-year-old Tristen. Despite their age, we still collectively refer to them as "The Babies." When we arrived, they came busting out the front door before our car even came to a complete stop. Obviously, all three of them were standing by the front window just waiting for us to get there. Their Mom came out to say goodbye and then the rest of us were off.
The first stop was Zorba's, our neighborhood diner, which the kids call "The Pancakes," after one of their favorite breakfast choices. Tristen is mostly just a little carnivore, though. When the waitress asked him what he wanted, he looked here in the eye and said "Sausage." She asked if he wanted any grits or eggs to go with it. He thought for a minute and said, "Bacon." That's what he got, too.
We only live a couple of blocks away, so we were home immediately after we ate.Forrest teases me because my preferred perch on the couch is well-worn and obvious. All my electronic gear is on the table beside where I sit, along with coffee cups, screen wipes, and other items he relates to me. Every once in a while, he will jokingly try to climb into my spot, which generally prompts me to ask him if he's lost his mind.
We all just hung out in the living room and talked for a few hours. They told us about school, their Dad's new puppy, and who had been mean to who lately. All of them aspire to be Internet superstars and content creators. Harper already has a private TikTok channel which is shared with just us and a couple of friends. She makes videos of herself doing random things. She disappeared for a while later in the day, and we all assumed she was off in another room making a video.
In a couple of hours they were hungry again, wanting Mexican for lunch, which I was delighted to oblige. I have to work a little on Tristen's cultural sensitivity. Not only does he order chicken fingers and fries, he also complained today because the music was in Spanish and he couldn't understand it. He likes the Latino kids he goes to school with and can correctly use the Spanish pronunciation of their names, so I don't think he has ant budding MAGA tendencies, thank God.
After lunch, we went to see Mufasa: the Lion King, as promised. You have to pass a huge candy store on the way to the theater's front door, and we did not even try to skip past it. We let them get a grab bag and put it in the car before the movie started. We still got popcorn too! The kids all tease me about my proclivity for frequent naps, which I take any time at any place. I didn't know that today they'd already told their Mom they thought I'd fall asleep in the theater with it's soft reclining seats. They were right, or course. Wonder Woman punched me so many times for snoring that my shoulder is sore.
By the time the movie was over, they were ready to go back and see their Mom, who they all adore. We do too. As we pulled into their neighborhood, they pointed to houses for sale and suggested point-blank that we buy one of them because obviously, we want to live closer to them, right? Wonder Woman and I have only been back home for a couple of hours, and I am already looking forward to the next time we can go see The Babies again.
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Tech Product Grab Bag
After discussing it for the last 12 years, my wife decided to begin scanning multiple albums of old family photos so that we could some to our new Aura frame and back them all up to the cloud - in three different places: iCloud, Google Photos and Amazon Photos. Our 12-year-old Scan Snap 1300i was not up to the job of scanning hundreds of snapshots. The images had lines in them and the process was slow. It was time to find a new scanner that could handle the assignment without venturing into pro territory, which we didn't need.
I also had some accumulated gift card credit and took the opportunity to cross quite a few things off my wish list.(These are not affiliate links. I'm not trying to make any money, just sharing gear siggestions.)
This Week's Bookmarks - 2025 Books, Beans and Greens, 10 New Museums, 2025 Movies from Books, Trump's MAGA Makeover, Reddit Bans on X, Roman Emperor with Shortest Reign
Thrilling debuts to big-name authors: 40 of the most exciting books to read in 2025 - From the most anticipated literary debuts to the return of heavyweights like Stephen King and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, there's plenty to add to your TBR pile this year.
Barbecue Beans and Greens Recipe | Food Network Kitchen | Food Network - Easy, full-flavored sides are a must for your summer cookout rotation. This side features canned black eyed peas, punched up with spicy barbecue sauce and smoky bacon. Frozen chopped collards are a great convenience product which melt into this saucy side dish.
Ten Must-See Museums Opening Around the World in 2025 | Smithsonian - New institutions dedicated to artificial intelligence, West African art, barbeque and more are expected to welcome visitors this year
The Most Anticipated Book Adaptations of 2025: Movies and TV Shows - The New York Times - Hilary Mantel's "The Mirror and the Light," a new "Bridget Jones" and Michael Bond's Paddington Bear series are some of this year's most anticipated adaptations.
Trump executive orders list: What orders did Trump sign on first day - President Trump is carrying out his pledge to give the U.S. a MAGA makeover by signing a slew of executive actions in his first week that erase progressive policies and fulfill his poisonous campaign promises
More than 50 Reddit communities ban X links to protest Musk - The cascade of link bans came after Musk made a a Nazi salute, which many cited in their protests, among other things.
Which Emperor had the Shortest Reign? - by James Coverley - Over the past few weeks, we've looked at some interesting details about Roman emperors - how old they were, on average, how many of them were assassinated and so on - and today, we're answering a reader's question about which of them ruled for the shortest amount of time.
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Time Travelling
The Remains of Ashmont School Where My Mother Went in the 1950s
If you live in Europe, I'd like for you to read this post without laughing at me or immediately going on social media to mock me. I'm going to talk about old stuff. Yes, I know I live in the United States and that we don't really have any old man-made artifacts here. Many of you in Ireland, England and on the continent live in houses that would be museums and tourist attractions if they were transported here. I was in Leeds in the UK a few years back and my host stopped by Kirkstall Abbey on a whim and didn't make a big deal out of it. The place was built in 11152. It blew my mind, but to him, it was just a place on the edge of town.
I live in North Carolina. The First Nations people who lived here when the first English settlers landed included the Cherokee, Tuscarora, Catawba, Lumbee, and various Siouxan tribes like the Occaneechi, Haliwa-Saponi, Waccamaw Siouan, Meherrin, and Coharie. We still have a sizable Native population. One county over from where I live, there are between 40K-50K members of the Lumbee tribe. There are ancient burial mounds in my county located near the Cape Fear River.
There are no remnants of the state's most famous early settlers, known as the lost colony. A group of 117 English men and women landed on Roanoke Island, a few miles inland from site where several hundred years later the world's first airplane flight would occur. All of these settlers disappeared in a three-year period when the organizers of the colony returned to England. Included in the missing was Virginia Dare, the first child of English descent born in the new world. Today, Roanoke Island is home to the community of Manteo, a nice place to visit on the way to the Outer Banks.
We were one of the 13 colonies that declared independence from Great Britain in 1776. There are historical markers a few miles from my neighborhood where the British Army encamped on the way to get their asses handed to them at the Battle of Moore's Creek Bridge. I could walk to the spot where the state ratified the constitution from my driveway. Because of numerous fires through the years only a couple of pre-revolutionary buildings still exist in town, fittingly, the largest of them was a once a tavern.
My paternal lineage, meaning my ancestors with the same last name that I have, came to the US around 1800. The first of us listed in a US census stated that his father's birthplace was France. I suspect he may have been the son of an English soldier, born to a camp follower. Whatever. I have no real way of knowing the exact story. What I do know that is we've been hanging around this same county now for 225 years.
I am not one of those Southerners with any sort of positive attachment to my heritage connected to the Civil War. Numerous ancestors from all branches of my family were in the Confederate Army, some drafted, some volunteered. One died of disease before ever going into battle at a giant unsanitary recruitment center located on what is now the grounds of the veterinary school for NC State University. Another was wounded at the Battle of the Wilderness in Virginia. My favorite was an extremely reluctant soldier who served at three different times but only for very short periods. He kept trying to get out of it and come back home. Good for him.
Another branch of the family were Quakers. They didn't participate in the economy of enslaved people, nor did they serve in the Army. They farmed and worked in cotton mills and generally minded their own business.
For you Outlander fans, part of my family were Highland Scots who came here after the Battle of Culloden which ended the Jacobite rebellion in Scotland and placed it firmly under English rule. The family name is McFadyen and they were good Presbyterians who farmed the land on southeastern NC into the 20th century. One of them, my grandmother's brother died in Italy fighting Nazis during World War Two.
Even though we are deep into the 21st century now, there are still signs of the past all around, if you know where to look. There are tobacco barns built from logs and chinked with mud on various farms. That type of tobacco production was last practiced in the 70s. I have hiked all the way through the NC mountains from our border with Georgia all the way to Virginia. Some of the trails today's hikers follow are the same routes Native Americans were using when we got here, I am always amazed when I am following a difficult mountain trail and I come to a stone fence or giant stone piles and I realize that at one time the thickly forested Appalachian mountainsides were clearcut and hardscrabble mountain folks planted crops there and plowed the fields with mules.
I am not a flag waving patriot in the traditional sense. I am not proud to be from where I'm from. I'm not ashamed of it either. We all have a history and I just happen to know mine because I'm curious and sought the information. That information gives me a connection to the past I would not otherwise have.
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Watch People Trying to Do the Right Thing
My people aren't putting up with it, and by my people, I mean those committed to human rights and being active, committed allies to the LGBT community, people of color, women, immigrants and the poor, By "it" I mean the non-stop, relentless attacks by the US government and the people who voted for it. Now is not the time for lukewarm support or just trying to get along. Nope. Now is the time to be more outspoken than ever before. It's time to make your average middle-class liberal friends put up or shut up. It's time to recognize that our society is literally in a war that the right-wing declared on all the people I mentioned above.
The little microcosm of society inhabiting the IndieWeb just went through some growing pains over what supporting marginalized people, in this case, trans people, looks like and what it takes to demonstrate commitment to them. Feelings got hurt. Words got written. Some people experienced growth. Other people exposed their true selves and not always in the best way.
I don't have the forensic skills to unearth every detail, but I would like to share some select and enlightening posts from people involved and on the periphery, so you can see what struggle in the modern era looks like.
The pressure to stay genteel - Coyote Tracks
Let's Try to Always Provide a Dignified Way Forward | Havn
Fuckity fuck fuck - annie's blog
My husband asked me tonight, … | Small Good Things
Adam Newbold: "This is a time to pay close at…" - social.lol
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What A Drag it is Getting Old
Mick and Keef wrote "Mother's Little Helper," a song about a pill addled Mom a whopping fifty-nine years ago. The line that resonates with me is "What a drag it is getting old." For me, the drag is the physical part of aging, much more so than the accumulated years, which in themselves are kind of cool.
Sports scientists estimate that men reach their physical peak somewhere between 26 and 30, That is so patently messed up because it means that you spend the majority of your life slowly deteriorating. In the major spectator sports, it's the rare athlete who can compete past the age of 40. This doesn't mean that you can't be active, though. In my twenties and thirties, my kids were young and I was trying to get established in my career. Sports and hobbies took a back seat. My most physically active year were my 40s. I was 48 when I hiked the AT.
Wonder Woman is 58 and still running ultramarathons. She's a bit of a mutant, though. We have a physical performance lab at the university where we work. They asked her to come in for a study a few years back. In her early fifties, she was tested as having a fitness level compatible to that of a college athlete in their early 20s. During her first year competing in ultras, at age 52, she ran in and won races at the distances of 50K, 50 miles, 100K and 100 miles. Just for a lark, she ran one road marathon with no special training and placed in the top 10 among thousands of entrants. She also completed a 100-mile bike ride after only very light training over a couple of weekends.
My parents were young when I was born, so even though I'm almost 60, I've still got both of them. My mom also has mutant genes, having walked all the way across Scotland in her early 70s and then completing the Camino de Santiago across Spain just a couple of years later. Dad enjoyed a little too much bourbon and Salem cigarettes for too many years to have maintained much fitness, and today walks with a cane.
I feel like I'm kind of wearing out prematurely myself. After dealing with painful arthritis in both knees for years, a drag physically and psychologically, I had them replaced five years ago. Although ai still have my hair, it turned white within the last decade. Wonder Woman insists I need a hearing aid. At least, I think that's what she said. This year, I finally reached the point where I can't function without glasses. Throw in the other aggravations of male aging, like getting up to pee three or four times a night, and it's no wonder that the trope of grumpy old man seems to fit so well on some days.
On the other hand, having lots of life experience is remarkable. I've lived in seven decades and seen 11 US presidents leave office. I'm in the oldest cohort of Generation X so I can be old without suffering the indignity of being a boomer. Not only that, but I've pumped regular gasoline, used a rotary dial phone and bought vinyl records not to be trendy but because there was no other choice. I saw VCRs and DVD players come and go. I had AOL dial up and a fiber connection to the Internet.
I hope to last a few more years. I want to around when Wonder Woman retires. We're probably won't have any more grandchildren. Thirteen is plenty. In a few more years, though, great-grandchildren should start coming along. I definitely want to be here for that. I also would like to see America come to its senses before I'm gone because I bet Jimmy Carter was pissed having to live out his last months after the 2024 election.
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Remembering Apple's Think Different Campaign
I miss the way being an Apple fan used to make me feel.
The CEO of Apple, Tim Cook, recently donated $1 million of his personal funds to the inaugural fund for Donald Trump. He did this after publicly congratulating him for his win. It made me furious to see the powerful out gay man in the US kiss the ring of the leader of the party that seeks to persecute and demonize LGBT people at every turn.
My IT career became heavily Mac focused in 2000. I went to work for a school district where the majority of computers used by students were LC-575s and Power Mac 5500s. Our new purchases were Bondi Blue G3 iMacs with the infamous hockey puck mouses. There were still plenty of Apple IIe desktops in use. Lots of Oregon Trail was played. We bought hundreds of computers at the time and received boxes of promotional material from our Apple rep. It was my first encounter with the iconic black and white posters of the crazy ones the people Apple selected to represent the Think Different campaign. I still have a few hundred of the rainboa Apple stickers that came with new computers in those days. I wish I had some of the posters too. Today they sell for up to $500 apiece.
The name was inspired by a passage from Jack Kerouac's book On the Road
"The only people for me are the mad ones the ones who are mad to live mad to talk mad to be saved desirous of everything at the same time the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing but burn burn burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars and in the middle you see the blue centerlight pop and everybody goes 'Awww!'""
Apple's version was:
"Here's to the crazy ones.
The misfits.
The rebels.
The troublemakers.
The round pegs in the square holes.
The ones who see things differently.
They're not fond of rules.
And they have no respect for the status quo.
You can quote them disagree with them glorify or vilify them.
About the only thing you can't do is ignore them.
Because they change things.
They push the human race forward.
And while some may see them as the crazy ones
We see genius.
Because the people who are crazy enough to think
they can change the world
Are the ones who do."
The people pictured in the ads were by and large heroic figures from the 20th century with a couple of billionaires thrown in because nobody's perfect.
Only three of those people are still alive, Richard Branson,.Yoko Ono and Bob Dylan. Branson may have voted for Trump out of ruling class solidarity, but I doubt Yoko did, and you can god-damned bet your bottom dollar Bob Dylan did not.
Thinking Different about Apple’s "Think Different" Campaign
Think different. • Original Ad
The Legacy of 'Think Different': How Apple's Campaign Continues to Inspire Creatives
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Keeping Secrets Safe
The threat from bad actors who seek to access and exploit user data increases every year. The list includes for-profit gangs, unscrupulous developers, the world's largest social media companies and repressive governments. The information they could potentially use includes, but isn't limited to, financial records, political or social organizing records, medical records, blackmail material, passwords and personal communications. Those who seek to access your data have increasingly sophisticated methods of bypassing weak security.
There are many aspects of making your digital life as secure as possible. The links in today's post are to help you get started with encryption, protecting your data from prying eyes.
A Beginner's Guide to Encryption
Which Files Do You Need to Encrypt?
How to encrypt a flash drive for Windows and macOS
How to Encrypt Email on Gmail, Outlook, iOS, Android, and Other Platforms
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Let's Talk about Some Uncomfortable Topics, Shall We?
Since I became politically active in the 90s, I've dealt with some pretty harsh behavior from people who didn't like my views. I'm not just talking about conservatives, either. When I was organizing veterans and military families against the war in Iraq was the worst. I live beside the most populated military base in the United States and even though I'm a vet with two kids who also served, plenty of people were pissed about anyone here openly opposing the war machine. I got death threats in the mail, my car window was shot out in my driveway, and I got some nasty notes taped to my door at work. Other than that, I've just had to deal with the normal name-calling and harassment many lefties endure. Recently, someone added my name to three moderation lists on Bluesky, labeling me a MAGA troll, a porn spammer and accusing me of some sex thing that I was scared to look up.
On the flip side, if you've never been involved in left politics, you have no idea how people on our side can be vicious to each other in stupid purity tests. I've been accused by people who I wanted to be allies with of being insufficiently supportive of Palestine, women, LGBT rights, the environment, the Iraqi resistance and more. The worst people weren't far-left folks, though. The ugliest, most mean-spirited comments I've ever dealt with came from Blue State liberals who think every person in the south is a MAGA loving moron. I've seen people from NY and California and other places literally celebrate natural disasters in NC, including Hurricane Helene last October. I've been told that if I was a real Democrat, that I would move and never talk to anyone from NC again. These superior types don't even realize we have a Democratic governor and AG or that the state GOP has had more than a dozen voter suppression and gerrymandering laws eventually overturned.
I believe in accountability and responsibility. I don't accept unacceptable behavior from people who think that just a bit of fascism or racism is OK. I'm mad at the state of my country, and I feel like lashing out more than is probably healthy. I also know this stuff is complicated and the practical application of my political values and societies expectations are difficult to balance if I turn off the bravado for a minute.
I fantasize about being able to act on the anger I feel about the political state we are in. I'd like to be able to call out every person who has done anything to enable the hateful policies that (white) people are applauding. I would like to refuse to deal with people with backwards views on gender, race, and immigration status. If they want to take food away from hungry kids or medical care away from sick people, I would like to be able to write them out of my life loudly and publicly because they deserve it.
But let's step back into reality for a minute.
I live in one of the larger cities in North Carolina. It votes reliably blue, as do most of the cities of its size in the state. The surrounding rural areas are as red as can be, including the county that employed me for twenty years. Even here in town., many of the residents are former or retired military and most of the white ones are Republicans. If you tried to gauge elections by yard signs, the GOP would win every time. It is not an echo chamber in any way. Conservatives and liberals live and work side by side.
I am very openly on the progressive side, with the appropriate bumper stickers and snide remarks about Republican policy every once in a while. I don't cross the line at work (anymore) but I walk right up to it. Always have. I try to let me fellow white people know that I am not in their club. I'm not the one you come to complain about diversity hiring or to whine about Joe Biden being responsible for egg prices. I will absolutely get loud when subjected to backwards behavior but correcting every non-woke opinion in others is not my life's mission.
I have someone close to me who is lucky enough to live in Austin, TX. He worked for Samsung for 15 years. When the Tesla Gigafactory was built, which was before the company CEO bought Twitter and revealed himself to be a fascist, recruiters for the EV maker made him an attractive offer which he accepted. It was a great opportunity for someone with no degree to get a job in a green industry, making a sizable six-figure salary with stock options vesting in a few years and potential bonuses to offset the two kids he's single-handedly putting through school. He is 100% aware of the behavior of the man at the head of his company's food chain. He does not defend him.
Most of the people in my family who stay informed about politics and have an opinion, lean left, but both of my parents are Republicans, although Mom isn't a Trump voter. One of my Dad's bothers is also conservative, and he happens to be the person responsible for me reaching adulthood without going into the juvenile justice system or foster care. He's the only person in my family who goes to a multi-racial church. He's just constitutionally incapable of voting for a Democrat because we'll take away his hunting rifle…or something. It makes me sad.
I'd like to boast about having come out of the womb with a natural inclination towards perfect politics, but I didn't. I didn't develop any strong political feelings until I was almost 30. I voted for one of the worst Republicans in history when I was 19 out of pure ignorance. I even skipped a couple of elections. I believe I've done an adequate job in the past 30 years of achieving redemption with the help of committed activists and mentors and my own open mind. Someone had to educate me about the backwardness and ignorance I lived in on a whole list of topics:
I'm not going to confess every sin I've ever committed against the values I hold today, but there were many, from the horrible use of inappropriate language to joining the army and working in a prison. It took what it took to get me where I am today, but, yeah, I wish I'd gotten here sooner and with less baggage. I am not a unique or special case. I know others who've had journeys similar to my own. We made the most of our leaning opportunities and came out better for it. We learned to forgive ourselves, and we didn't defend our former attitudes.
This is not the paragraph where I am going to wrap everything up into a neat package and hand it to you so that you know what to do. I wish I knew. I know that as angry as I am, I also have to practice empathy, understanding, and forgiveness, or I'll just be a shitty excuse for a person. I also have to resist the urge to just get along with people and take the easier and softer way of ignoring things that need to be dealt with. It's a balancing act and a hard one. Just do the best you can and act from a loving place as much as possible,
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One of the mysterious Carolina Bays that lie scattered across the south. - About Carolina Bays
A Few Excerpts From the Story of a Long, Long Walk
This blog is the third version of my life online. The first version only exists in fragments via the Wayback Machine. The second version, was composed exclusively on an iPhone 5, usually right at dark while I lay on my back in my tent or in one of the shelters that dot the path of the Appalachian Trail, a 2,189-mile footpath from Georgia to Maine that I hiked on my honeymoon in 2013. It is still online in it's entirety and covers the period in the weeks leading up to starting the trail, through the 156 days we actually hiked and then a few follow-ups as I reflected on the experience. - Lefty and Hush's 2013 Appalachian Trail Journal (Note: Our hike started in Harper's Ferry, WV on May 6. We summited Mt. Katahdin in Maine on July 31st. We returned to WV and walked south towards Georgia where we climbed Spring Mountain on October 9th)
Day One
I should remember this date. Cinco de Mayo, right? Of course it's also the day Hush and I got married and the day we took our first steps on the Appalachian Trail. Busy much?
We were at home this morning (at Midnight). A train ride brought the night took us to Union Station and after an interminable wait, another train deliver us to Harpers Ferry, WV. Within minutes we'd crossed the Potomac river and we were in Maryland. We hiked along the river and the old C&O Canal before diverting to the Harpers Ferry Hostel, we are camping tonight. Since we've not laid down since yesterday morning, I predict a pretty good nights sleep.
I'll kill he urge to wax on rhapsodically about all of this. We are happy, excited, it's Spring and we are in love. Queue the music.
Last Night in New York
Tonight the white noise machine is set to bird calls and mountain waterfalls. After a delicious dinner of Stovetop Stuffing (minus the butter) and a peanut butter covered Clif Bar I treated myself to a wipe down with my trusty bandana by the aforementioned mountain waterfall.
Lying in the shelter with Hush, Piper and Bright Side we are all trying to figure out a plan for Tuesday. Hush and I are in desperate need of some quality down time but the choices are few. The trail towns are small with limited lodging
Going Above Treeline
Today after a three-hour climb we went above tree line and stayed there for two and a half miles. We experienced the unforgettable sight of the barren 5,000 ft. peaks of Mount Lincoln and Mount Lafayette as we climbed the rock strewn ridge line towards them. In gusting winds but under sunny skies we marveled at the 360 degree views of rock slides, small towns, ski resorts and amazingly, the small lake we'd hiked around yesterday. From that lake, we photographed the mountain where we now stood. In the distance we could see the ominous outline of Mount Washington, the tallest point in the Northeast. Amazingly, we could also see a few of the peaks of Southern Maine.
Anyone who tries to get in big miles in the White Mountains is missing a lot. For one, the hiking here is so physically demanding that pushing it will break down all but the fittest. Secondly, blasting down the trail and ignoring the overlooks is something we all do some times. But if you do that here, you're missing more than just another view of trees from overhead. You're missing something special.
I'm way too tired to write much more.
Climbing Katahdin
Everyone at the thruhiker's campsite was up well before dawn. Hush and I were the first to head up the mountain. About two miles up the Dutchmen passed us as we took a break by the last spring below tree line. Those two are practically professional adventurers so we didn't feel bad to see them disappear.
Katahdin has the capability to break your heart. No other mountain throws so much at you. There are sections that look impossible. In one place, pieces of broken (!) rebar stick out of a boulder at rude angles, pretending to be climbing aides. You can't use hiking poles because you must use your hands (and knees, butt, back and in one case my head) to leverage your way ever upward. Thankfully you can see the summit from nearly two miles down the mountain. Fueled by adrenaline, you don't feel much pain in that long third hour of climbing.
We made it to the northern terminus of the AT at 9:30 AM. The Dutchmen took a few pictures for us as they drank the beer they packed to the top for the occasion. We started back down the 5.2 mile knee jarring descent, wishing we had gloves for the rocks. Three and a half hours later we were done.
The Trail Out of Damascus
Welcome to the Abingdon Gap Shelter, a few miles south of the Virginia line. No one is here tonight other than Hush and I. Entries in the log book repeatedly complain about the noisy shelter mice so i suppose we do have some company. All of our food is hanging from the home made mice proof food bag hangers. So are our packs.
We're deep enough into the woods to hear nothing but nature, bird calls, wind in the trees, the buzz of flies and the whine of stinging noseeums. There's no creek here, just a spring at the bottom of the hill, the long steep hill. This shelter, like many in TN I'm told, has no privy, just lots of mysterious trails into the surrounding woods.
We ate our standard dinners, tuna and peanut butter on (separate) tortillas, salty snacks (gluten free pretzels, Chili Cheese Fritos) and candy (Milk Duds and Whoppers). We had some hot tea as well.
Since its our first night out, we went over our plans for the next few days. Thankfully there aren't any long days coming up. That's good. I'm tired, footsore and just don't have as much energy as usual. After a few mild days, ill be ready to do something crazy,
The Last Mountain
We started hiking today at 6:15 AM. The last time we started that early was Maine. We managed to hike in the dark for well over an hour using our head lamps while still making decent time. The trail leading to Springer goes through several gaps but the tread way is good. We had a little extra motivation to make good time.
After we passed the Hawk Mountain Shelter we stopped for our last creek water coffee break. We started seeing other hikers shortly after that. I told every person I saw that today was the last day of our through hike. I was a little excited.
We had 14.5 miles knocked out by 1:15, putting us in the Springer trail head parking lot. We hung out, talking to other hikers, scoring consumable trail magic and trying to come to terms with it all.
When my Uncle Fred and my Dad arrived we headed up Springer, where I got teary eyed only briefly. We were undefeated in our struggle to become thruhikers. We won.
We took a bunch of pictures. I left a rock from Katahdin up there with a note asking someone to take it back to Maine if they happened to be going that way.
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Some Role Models for Journalists
Journalists aren't getting much respect these days, some with good reason. Others are being constrained by cowardly and sycophantic media companies bowing down to MAGA.
When I was in the third grade, my Mom got married to a newspaper reporter. For the next few years we moved all over the state as the chain he worked for kept promoting him from reporter, to city editor to editor in chief. I learned how much work goes into reporting the news as I watched my step dad work long hours at marathon city council meetings for the Gastonia Gazette. I learned how to keep stats at high school sporting events for the New Bern Sun Journal and how to develop film in the darkroom of the Harnett County News. Our family made a trip to Washington, DC once so he could attend a press conference President Ford held just for the NC press. The biggest story he ever worked on was the return of Robert Garwood, an American Marine captured in Vietnam in 1965. Garwood didn't return to the US until 1979. He was sent to Camp Lejeune adjacent to the city of Jacksonville, NC where lived. My step father covered his court martial where he was found not guilty of desertion, the solicitation of U.S. troops in the field to refuse to fight and to defect and of maltreatment
When people criticize everyone involved in reporting the news of being untrustworthy, or sellouts or downright dishonest, I know better. Journalism can be a low paying, thankless job performed ny incredibly dedicated people. Here are a few examples.
Woodward, Bernstein reflect on Watergate reporting 50 years later - ABC News
How investigative master Seymour Hersh broke the story of the My Lai massacre - Nieman Storyboard
The Panama Papers: Exposing the Rogue Offshore Finance Industry - ICIJ
How the CIA Watched Over the Destruction of Gary Webb - The Intercept
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Slash Page Highlights
Last year, when Robb Knight created the Slash Page website, I spent an afternoon creating a few of my own. Since then, I've periodically updated them as life has continued around me. Robb defines Slash pages as "common pages you can add to your website, usually with a standard, root-level slug like /now, /about, or /uses. They tend to describe the individual behind the site and are distinguishing characteristics of the IndieWeb."
Although some grumpy types rebel at the thought of having the same pages on their blog as others have, as is their God-given right, I happen to enjoy seeing how original different people can be as they riff on the same ideas, If you've created your own Slash pages, feel free to drop a link in the comments so others can check them out.
My Slash Page Home
Check out the links to the individual pages of you want to see the whole thing. These are a few highlights
/Interests
/Nope
/Someday
/Blogroll
/Save
/Feeds
/Subscriptions
| Blogs | |
|---|---|
| Joan Westerberg | $4.17 |
| Jason Kotke | $2.50 |
| Hey Dingus | $1.00 |
| Matt Langford | $1.00 |
| Flohgro | $1.00 |
| Keenan | $1.00 |
| Manuel Moreale | $1.00 |
| Numeric Citizen | $1.00 |
| | $12.67 |
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Strategies for Preserving Digital Memories
I have copies of blog posts I wrote in the 1990s for my first blog posts on GeoCities. I've lost count of how many computers I've accessed them on. I have copies of digital photos I took using a Sony Mavica camera, which used a 3.5 inch floppy to save the images. All of those songs I downloaded using Napster during its brief moment in the sun, I have all of them too. In fact, I have multiple copies of all of those memories. It's not hard to do and if you don't have a system, you should create one.
Tips for Saving Documents
The two best formats for saving text based documents are as plain text/Markdown or as PDFs. Microsoft Word might be ubiquitous, but the format changes and you are never guaranteed to be able to open old Word documents in new versions of the application and across platforms. Luckily, the ability to convert a Word document into a PDF is bulit right into macOS and Windows.
How I do convert a Microsoft Word document to PDF format? - Ask A Librarian
Use Plain Text to Future-Proof Your Writing | Writing Pursuits
Tips for Saving Photos
I have copies of my photos on an external hard drive and on three different cloud services. It's easy to set up a modern computer or phone to automatically save photos to multiple cloud services. If your photos are valuable to you, and I consider mine to be priceless, make an investment in having multiple copies.
Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support
Google Photos: Edit, Organize, Search, and Backup Your Photos
Transfer Photos and Videos to Amazon Photos - Amazon Customer Service
Tips for Saving Music
If you have music your purchased from an artist at a coffee shop or after a bar concert, chances are, it's not going to be on Spotify or Apple Music. If you have bootlegs collected over the years, you want find that on commercial streaming services either. To make sure you keep a copy of those important tunes regardless of what happens to your computer, put a copy of them on an external drive and a cloud drive, like Dropbox, Google Drive or One Drive. If you use Apple Music, you can upload them using a special Apple service and listen to them in the cloud.
Subscribe to iTunes Match - Apple Support
Tips for Saving Memories
If you are a Mac user, I highly recommend the journaling app, Day One. When you pair Day One with the automation service IFTTT, you can use it as a record for your whole life. I save my location history, media consumption, social media entries, blog posts and my own hand written memories in Day One. You can use it to create paper version of your journal and PDF versions.
Day One Is Popular for a Reason | AppAddict
Connect Your Mac Apps with IFTTT | AppAddict
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When You'd Rather Be Somewhere Else
Lots of Americans are wishing they could spend the next four years anywhere but in the United States. Escapist fantasies are the order of the day. We know the old saw is true,"No matter where you go, there you are." There may not actually be a geographic cure for what ails us, but escapism and fantasy are what we have left. We are fully cognizant of the creeping oligarchy and fascist tendencies popping up all over the world, but we still want to get away.
If you live in one of the places I mention, you can be a spoil sport and leave a comment detailing all the things wrong with my fantasy version of your homeland if you'd like to. I know I am dealing with an idealized creation of my own imagination. I am just wishful, not naive.
First Choice - New Zealand
This is about as far away as I can get from Mar-a-Lago. It's attractive because, like most of my fellow countrymen, I only speak one language and what do you know, it happens to be the same one they speak in New Zealand. If photos tell the truth, it is a drop-dead gorgeous country. Like the US, it has a famous and spectacular long distance hiking trail, the Te Araroa, 3,000 KM of rugged beauty. Another positive factor about the culture there is that white people seem to have taken more responsibility for the historic injustices done to the Maori people than what we have. That's a big plus.
Second Choice - Ireland
I've actually been to the island of Ireland, but not the Republic. I was only able to visit Northern Ireland, the six counties that the UK still holds on to. Still, I know that the Irish Republic has a president who is a gay, half-Indian doctor. I'm giving the country a lot of credit for that. I'm also a fan of the way the Irish police themselves. They don't even call their law enforcement folks "the police." They are referred to as the Garda Síochána and they manage to keep the peace without being armed to the gills and shooting POC every 15 minutes. I don't have Irish heritage, so I hopefully won't annoy anyone with the typical American plastic paddy act. There are a lot of tech companies there, so I'd even be able to contribute to the economy.
Third Choice - Pitcairn Island
My ultimate Fantasy get away is the tiny British Island in the Pacific Ocean where the inhabitants are mostly descendants of nine British HMS Bounty mutineers and twelve Tahitian women. There are about 35 permanent inhabitants. Most of the people who live there are Seventh Day Adventists and while I am not religious, I am well acquainted with the Adventist Church. I like their emphasis on health and I appreciate the way they decided to ignore some of the changes other Christians made to their religion, like arbitrarily changing the day or worship just to make the pagans happy. I'd gladly hang out on a tiny island far away to escape MAGA for four years.
It takes a lot to motivate me to want to leave North Carolina, my lifelong home. We are not looking forward to the continuation of the current timeline. I'm approaching this from a massively privileged position as a straight, white, male, middle-class veteran. My brothers and sisters who are POC, LBGT or poor face all kinds of discrimination, harassment and potentially the loss of health insurance, medical care and the removal of any social safety net. It is going to suck so bad.
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Accountability is the Grown Up Name for Cancel Culture
Well Snoop Dogg has sure gone and pissed of a bunch of people. Including me. I don't know when holding people accountable for their behavior became something that the self-proclaimed moral majority disagreed with. They made up a pejorative for it, because of course they did. Accountability is now known as cancel culture and it is a certified Bad Thing that the meanies on the left do to people who...what? Oh, they hold people accountable for sexual harassment, assault, racism, hypocrisy, lying and general douche-baggery. Why this upsets right-wingers is obvious. They don't like being held accountable. They truly believe there to be some special quality they hold that should let them blithely escape judgment when what they really need more than anything is a great big dose of it.
Oh, do let me remind you that these opponents of cancel culture have a huge list of people and corporations they's tried to cancel for the stupidest of reasons:
It’s Not “Cancel Culture;” It’s “Accountability Culture”
16 White Celebs Who Made The #Canceled List
List of things Conservatives have "canceled" - TheAlmightyGuru
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The Problem With Independent Thinking
In polite company, independent thinking is frowned upon. The people in charge of an organization like to be the ones who define what things mean. Questioning or analyzing those definitions is frowned up. It's akin to insubordination. The larger the organization is, the more entrenched the official version of the truth becomes, and the sin of asking “why” can be considered radical or unpatriotic. Take the role of the US military, for example. You know you've heard that they "fight for our freedom." After all, freedom isn't free, right?
Now, tell me how exactly rice farmers from Vietnam threatened the freedom of the United States in the 60s and early 70s. How they threatened it so much that the US had to sacrifice the lives of 58,220 service members. The majority of them were draftees forced to fight under penalty of law. Or, tell me how Iraq threatened our freedom because 19 Saudi Arabians flew planes into buildings in the US. If you ask those questions out loud, you are going to get labeled. If you teach US history in a public school, you will get fired. The safest thing to do is accept the narrative and wave the flag.
There is a sizable portion of white people in the US who believe we don't need programs to encourage diversity, equity, and inclusion. They believe racism is a thing of the past, that there is no need for the voting rights act and that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. himself would be against affirmative action. They believe this in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In my home state of North Carolina, as soon as part of the voting rights act was overturned by Supreme Court conservatives, the Republican Party crafted a bill. That bill, said the judge who overturned it, was designed with surgical precision to keep as many black people from voting as possible.
We should know, given quantifiable numbers like the achievement gap in public schools, the pay gap between white workers and their non-white counterparts and the incarceration rates for different races, all of which favor white people, harming everyone else, that a problem exists. Unfortunately, most white people, as indicated by the way they vote, believe the issue isn't racism, but that POC are...what? Well, they won't come out and say it unless they know you are a member of their club, but obviously, they think the issue is inferiority, laziness and entitlement. The fault doesn't lie with the in-group who've run this country for over 400 years. It lies with the people who only got something close to equal rights in my lifetime.
Once again, don't go into the company of powerful people, particularly white ones, and point out the obviousness of systemic racism. They have a label for that, “identity politics.” When you think independently of the narrative that people are comfortable with, you make them uncomfortable and based on my experience, that is a grave sin. It's certainly not polite. It's "discussing politics." It's frowned upon. Furthermore, it will get you fired. They'll say it was because of something else, but in the end, speaking truth to power is risky business.
Of course, today's majority reserves a spectacularly evil brand of groupthink to demonize their favorite victims, the people in the LGBT community. It's not a new community. They've been with us for all of recorded history, but only in the past few years have they come close to having the rights they deserve. There is no logic in denying them rights. In fact, society harms itself by persecuting them. One of the greatest minds of the 20th century, Alan Turing, credited with saving 20 million lives in World War Two by cracking Nazi codes that gave the allies the information they needed to defeat Germany, died by suicide. He was chemically castrated by the British government for being homosexual. If you are capable of thinking independently of popular opinion, you see bullshit for what it is.
To be anti-war, anti-racist and anti-hate you have to ask questions that make people uncomfortable because humanity in the 21st century is so warped that being a war - loving hate filled bigot is normal and opposing it is radical.
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The Assassination of Fred Hampton and The Truth in 2025
Because of the abdication of corporate media like the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC News and others, many people fear that the traditional role of the free press in the US to hold the power structure accountable is coming to an end. Additionally, the end of fact checking on the largest social media sites portends a future where the truth is undervalued.Elon Musk and the Heritage Foundation are attacking Wikipedia and even individual contributors. If you have the disk space, I encourage you to download the entire Wikipedia archive before the right wing destroys it.
One of the articles I'm afraid of losing to the fascists is about Fred Hampton, a 21-year old African-American organizer from Chicago who was assassinated in his bed by the Chicago Police Department, who fired more than 100 unanswered shots into the apartment where Hampton and other so called radicals were sleeping. The police were photographed grinning as they brought his bullet riddled body out to the street.
The raid was encouraged by J. Edgar Hoover, the FBI director who feared that Hampton was so intelligent, so charismatic and such a natural leader that he was capable of organizing a multi-racial movement to overthrow the government of the United States. Remember, this was a 21-year old man. In a 1982 trial, Hampton's family sued the Chicago PD and the FBI. They won the equivalent of a multi-million dollar judgment. It was revealed during the trial from COINTELPRO documents and other sources that Hampton's death at the hands of the police department was a planned assassination at the urging of the FBI.
Fred Hampton considered fascism the greatest threat, saying "nothing is more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all." This is as true in 2025 as it was in 1969. It was revealed this week that the first mass roundup of undocumented immigrants is scheduled to happen the day after Trump in inaugurated. The location is Chicago.
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This Week's Bookmarks: 1000 Greatest Movies, Dinosaurs, An Epic Story, Terms of Service Nightmares, Worst Healthcare Ripoffs, What the Japanese Get Right, Amazing Fire Pictures
TSPDT - The 1,000 Greatest Films (by Ranking 1-1000) - I don't know why this site, They Shoot Pictures Don't They, wasn't on my radar. It is now, but be warned. It's a rabit hole if you like movies.
What Dinosaurs Were Really Like - YouTube - Take it from me, if you have access to any kids between. the ages of 4-10, show them this short video. Get ready for an outraged reaction and a lot of questions.
The Passengers a Norwegian Cruise Ship Left Behind - Do you like epic stories? Read this then. It's an epic story
ToS about - We all just click through those terms of service screens on apps and websites to get to where we want to go, but someone actually read them all and graded them. Unsurprisingly they found that we routinely give up our rights for the sake of convenience.
2024 Shkreli Awards - Welcome to the 8th annual Shkreli Awards, the Lown Institute's top ten list of the worst examples of profiteering and dysfunction in healthcare, named for the infamous "pharma bro" Martin Shkreli.
Lifestyle: 33 Ways To Improve Your Life, Japanese Style | The Journal | MR PORTER - Here, a few Japanese experts (and experts on Japan) divulge some ideas on what we can learn from life in the Japanese capital, and beyond.
Los Angeles wildfires: in pictures - BBC News - I'm not one to watch television news, but I do love to see good photojournalism. I've got nothing but praise for the BBC photographers.
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Would You Change Anything If You Could Live Life Over?
When playing the old parlor game, "Would You Change Anything If You Could Live Life Over," I always emphatically stress that I like the way my life is now, so I wouldn't change a thing. I fear the butterfly effect might get me. It could cause me to miss meeting Wonder Woman or have me choose a career in some other field that I might have loved less than the mostly great time I've had working in technology. That's a pretty boring answer when you are trying to kill time on a camping trip or a long car ride, so for the sake of not being a killjoy, I'll come up with a few "maybes".
That one time I voted for a Republican
When I lived with my Mom and step-dad in the early to mid-70s, politics was discussed with some frequency, mostly registering disgust with Richard Nixon and NC senator Jess Helms. During my freshman years of high school, I moved to my uncle's farm. Politics was never discussed there — ever. We discussed the likelihood of rain, who shot J.R on Dallas and what time the next football game was coming on. I turned 18 in 1983 and the following year I was eligible to vote in the election. I'd joined the military, and although I read the paper, I still didn't have strong political feelings, so when I went to the polls, I cast my ballot carelessly. When I finally did get some political sensibility, I wanted a time machine ride to go recast that vote, but it was too late.
The time I married a woman I met in rehab
I was never a successful drinker. The first time I tried to quit, I was 22. I'd been convicted of drinking and driving and to keep my job working for the state, I volunteered to go to rehab (at a place that is now a funeral home.) While I was there, I met a woman ten years older than me who was also in treatment. She liked me, and I liked being liked. I moved in with her after spending a single weekend together. Look, this woman was so evil, that when we were together, we refinanced our house. She was a legal secretary and did all the paperwork. When we inevitably split up, I found out that while I had signed the mortgage and was responsible for the loan, she'd left my name off the deed to the house. I had no leverage to make her take my name off the mortgage. My name stayed on it for over 20 years — until the bank finally foreclosed and gave me a big old frowny face on my credit report.
School Stuff
Although my mother probably is still holding on to hope, I never went to college. I never wanted to, and I'm not sorry one bit that I didn't. That is my story, and I am sticking to it. For the sake of contributing to the conversation though, I suppose if I had to pick a major, with the benefit of hindsight, I'd have probably gone with journalism. It's a low paying job with long hours. The people who practice it get little respect. Still, I've always loved writing. Crafting informative, well-researched blog posts on subjects I'm passionate about takes me to my happy place. I did work as a technical writer and editor for a few years at the same time my brother and sister, both graduates of our state's flagship university, were doing the same thing. Funny how life works.
Dad Stuff
I raised three kids. I'll spare you the details because it gets confusing, but if you really want to put the puzzle together, read The Fourth Time is a Charm. The kids were all different, as people tend to be. My parents were 17 when I was born. I was 18 when my son was born. My daughter came along less than two years later. Being a teenage parent didn't ruin anyone's life. I wouldn't change that. What I would change is the number of parent-teacher conferences I went to, the number of soccer games and swimming practices attended and things like that. I wish I'd said “maybe” a lot less to them and “yes” a lot more. My youngest daughter, who I raised from age six into adulthood and I have had a difficult time lately. Her mom died of cancer three years after we were divorced, and it has been hard for her. There is no guidebook for complicated relationships like ours. I don't know exactly what I would do differently with her, if given the chance, but I'd come up with something.
So there you have it. Those are my biggest regrets. None of them are the cause of lifelong trauma. Hopefully, I've made up for that errant vote. I'll count that unfortunate marriage as just practice. I live a comfortable life and I get to write all I want these days, so missing school didn't hurt. The great relationships I have with my two oldest kids and Wonder Woman's two daughters are a true source of happiness. The rocky time with my youngest still has time to heal.
Thanks for reading.
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