Radio Check
05:41 Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Current Wx: Temp: 89.71°F Pressure: 1010hPa Humidity: 54% Wind: 16.11mph
Words: 284
Mitzi and I hit the road this morning and we're in Smithfield, North Carolina this evening. Got the marmot up and running on the 13" M1 MBP running a beta of MacOS Ventura. Forklift is logged into the server and I should be able to do everything here that I do at home. I have to set up the sync feature on Forklift, but I think that's doable.
I'm hoping to stay off Twitter for the next few weeks. I'll have to satisfy my craving for novelty with RSS feeds, DP Review forums and Apple News.
I think I'm easing into the acceptance stage of becoming an old man. The adaptive cruise control on the RAV4 was a help. I set it at the speed limit and just stayed in the right lane until I got behind a semi going uphill. Mitzi subscribes to Sirius, so we set it on a Motown station and I just cruised along and let traffic pass me.
Georgia Patrol was out in force though. I think I saw more cops on 95 in Georgia than I have in years, and they were pulling people over left and right. Fine with me.
We stopped at a rest area in South Carolina, had a nice picnic lunch.
Tomorrow we're stopping in the Tidewater area to visit an attraction or two, and a Naval Academy classmate's nonprofit. He runs a shop where at-risk youth learn to build and sail wooden boats. Pretty cool, looking forward to seeing it.
Then over the 20-mile bridge and up the DELMARVA peninsula on our way to Ocean City for another pit stop.
Well, let's see if this thing really works... More to follow.
✍️ Reply by emailWeather Recording Will Be Unreliable
18:02 Wednesday, 22 June 2022
Current Wx: Temp: 89.17°F Pressure: 1008hPa Humidity: 56% Wind: 5.99mph
Words: 41
The marmot is set up to report weather conditions at its permanent woodchuck hole. So while these posts may be from on the road, the weather conditions reflect Ponte Vedra.
I may, or may not (probably not), look into changing that.
✍️ Reply by emailSighted
05:24 Thursday, 22 June 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 69.71°F Pressure: 1009hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 62
I did see the Delta 4 Heavy, about two minutes after launch. Bright orange dot in the sky. Took some shots, but really very little to see. Didn't set up for a live composite, "long exposure" image because of the rain. It was only visible for about 20 seconds or so, in a layer of clear air I guess below the clouds.
✍️ Reply by emailEarly Bird
16:33 Thursday, 22 June 2023
Current Wx: Temp: 75.24°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 92% Wind: 8.05mph
Words: 673
There used to be a news clipping service for the U.S. government, or maybe just the military, called the Early Bird. It was fax'ed to whoever and then copied and distributed. I wonder if that's still a thing in the digital era.
Anyway, woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. Decided to see if ULA's Delta 4 Heavy went up and found out it's scheduled for launch at 0518. I probably can't see it from here because of cloud cover. It's been raining every morning for the past few days. But I've got the launch coverage going in a tab. I'll pop out and take a look if it goes up.
The map project is still alive, though it threatens to become an atlas. Still feels foolish more often than not. This normally would be an ideal time to work on it, but I'm in the foolish mode at the moment.
Watched the season finale of High Desert last night. Seemed like a more satisfactory episode than many of the previous ones. Perhaps because the pace kept me from dwelling on the sadness. Do I want another season? Not sure.
Started watching Netflix' The Diplomat and that's entertaining. Kind of like Madame Secretary meets The West Wing in Downton Abbey. Absurd and frenetic, but it's entertaining and London photographs well.
Also started watching the limited series Collateral, and that just seems depressing. I think we're being beaten over the head and shoulders about migrants, which seems unnecessary these days. Or at least, it doesn't seem to do any good. To wit: A missing submersible filled with ultra-wealthy thrill-seekers rallies extraordinary rescue efforts and news coverage, while 800 migrants drowning off Greece would be totally invisible were it not for the absurdity of rescuing rich people.
We'll probably never know the names of many of the migrants who drowned, but I'm just a mouse-click away from getting the bios on each of the morons who got on that sub. They won't have "funerals," they'll have "celebrations of life." "They died doing what they loved best." Living their "best lives."
Meanwhile, the migrants will remain anonymous, likely not even receive funerals, and died just trying to get a better life.
So it goes.
"No matter where you go, there you are." And drama follows.
Meta, (née Facebook) has plans to roll out a product that uses ActivityPub and the "fediverse" is all "a-twitter." (Heh.) Jesus, this stuff just keeps repeating itself. The internet sucks.
Future historians, should civilization endure at a level that permits the study of history, will have a hard time pinning down the "worst invention ever," the automobile, the internet or "smart" phones. Capitalism might be a winner. Forgot about that one for a moment.
(You can see why this is not a good moment to be working on a guide to "going placidly amidst the noise and haste.")
DP Review is only "mostly dead," which means it's "partly alive," and has met it's Miracle Max, so the forum fights can continue. The "gear" aspect of photography has finally left me. If dopamine mediates desire rather than pleasure, it's not inducing any bouts of GAS (gear acquisition syndrome) in me as I glance at photography news, which all seems boring and repetitive.
I watched a comparison of the 15" MacBook Air with the 14" MacBook Pro and spent a few minutes yesterday looking at Apple's refurb store. Noticed that I was feeling some pangs of irrational desire and closed the tab. Suspect that may return, but for the moment I managed to escape. My 13" MacBook Pro is mostly used in the recliner. I don't need "moar power" in the recliner.
My next new Mac will likely be an M3 iMac of some kind, or an M3 MacBook Pro with some external monitor. Go back to the arrangement I had before 2019, where I only had one computer, the 13" MBP Retina.
Okay, let's see if they light this candle. Hope you have a good day.
✍️ Reply by emailFDR Memorial
Current Wx: Temp: 80.29°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 6.91mphWords: 416
Spent time yesterday as tourists before it got super-hot today. Mitzi's daughter took some time off and accompanied us as we visited some of the memorials we didn't visit last time. We were fortunate that the crowds that were present when we were here two weeks ago were absent yesterday.
I wanted to be sure to visit the Lincoln Memorial, having just finished The Demon of Unrest and Union. I'm glad we did. The memorial is undergoing a great deal of renovation, presumably in preparation for the nation's sesquicentennial in 2026. But it's still open, just not as picturesque. I'll post some pics at Flickr later.
Probably because I'm an old man now, I felt very moved as I read the words of Lincoln's second inaugural address. The last time I visited this monument was more than 20 years ago, and I've learned so much since then. I was also affected by watching the other tourists lining up to have their pictures taken in front of Lincoln's statue.
From there, we visited the Martin Luther King Memorial. Also a remarkable experience. It's interesting that King's body is facing the Jefferson Memorial, though his gaze does not. King's memorial falls between Jefferson's and Lincoln's and has something to say about the promise of freedom and equality, and the unfinished work of realizing that promise.
Walking up the tidal basin, past the cherry trees, we went to the FDR memorial and lingered there for a while. I took the opportunity to try some long-exposure shots with the Oly XZ-2, which has a built-in 3-stop ND filter. There's some motion blur as the camera's IBIS isn't quite able to compensate for a hot, tired old man's unsteady grip.
Sherri, Mitzi's daughter, and I talked a bit about how remarkable it was that at two crucial moments for our nation, leaders emerged who seemed uniquely fit to meet that moment, and we wondered where that leader was today. I also wondered how it happened that each was succeeded by a man who was chose on the basis of a political calculation of compromise.
I have to say that as cynical as I can be about partisan politics, I am profoundly affected by the ideals and sacrifices memorialized in our capital city.
(And may I just say that the words "capital" and "capitol" are utterly confusing in usage.)
The beat goes on...
✍️ Reply by emailFather's Day
Current Wx: Temp: 58.69°F Pressure: 1015hPa Humidity: 89% Wind: 2.84mphWords: 519
Had a very nice Father's Day yesterday, beginning with a wonderful brunch at the Stonecat Café. Perfect weather, three guys playing some blues, and an excellent meal.
We stopped at Overlook Coffee in Burdett on the way, so Caitie could get coffee up to her fancy LA standards. I missed the turn into the parking lot, so I parked in the back and it was a fortuitous mistake because I'd never seen the falls the shop is named for! There they were, right behind the place! Very cool.
We came home from brunch and there was a little skid-steer up behind the house in the new driveway. So Ken Carson had been by to drop that off.
We napped a bit after brunch and later in the afternoon headed down into Montour Falls, which Caitie hadn't seen yet. We visited the falls and then stopped into Jerlando's for some garlic knots. From there we went up to Havana Glen Falls, which is a county park with a waterfall and an easy hike.
It was pretty crowded since it was such a beautiful day and on a weekend, so we didn't stay very long. Mitzi read about another, lesser-known, falls nearby, Deckertown Falls, so we went looking for that.
We found them, and that's where this shot was taken. There's not a well maintained trail, and it was a bit wet, muddy and slippery. We hiked up to get a better view, but decided discretion was the better part of valor. My knees can push me up the trail, but they can be tricky coming down.
From there we headed back home and right after I parked the Mav in the new driveway, I heard a loud diesel laboring up the hill. I looked down the hill and saw a dump truck hauling an excavator and knew I had to move the Mav. Ken was bringing the other piece of equipment he needed.
Mitzi had been talking with our neighbor, Lisa, earlier in the morning and she mentioned she'd like to meet Caitie, so we went next door and said hello. Caitie told Lisa how much she loved cows and after we left, Lisa went up into the pasture and called their small herd down. Back over to Lisa's and Caitie got some closeup time with their cows. She loved it. I put a few pics up at Flickr.
When Caitie was here last year, we watched Season 1 of Only Murders in the Building because she doesn't get Hulu. So we started watching Season 2 on Saturday night, and continued last night. It felt serendipitous because I hadn't noticed how much Season 2 was focused on father and child relationships. It took getting hit over the head with Father's Day to see it!
We have two more episodes to go tonight.
Anyway, it was an excellent Father's Day. Lisa and Ray enjoyed meeting Caitie and her fascination with cows earned up some more goodwill with the neighbors. Rain all day today. Caitie wants to bake cookies and Mitzi has some ideas about museums. We'll see what unfolds.
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