The other day, I was driving through Greenville, and my gas tank was a little low. I stopped at Cumberland Farms to get a little bit of gasoline to make it home — basically $10 of gas, or 2.7 gallons at the price of $3.61 a gallon. That literally put in … Continue reading →

Over the past two years, I’ve been studying, writing code, and developing concepts for the future blog, to replace that long-in-the-tooth blog with something much more modern, and using a code base that I would not have to maintain entirely myself. The reality is maintaining blog code, all by oneself … Continue reading →

I try to be careful with saving money every week, and putting a little away for a goal. I contribute to my pension plan and a little bit my Roth IRA every week to save towards retirement. That’s fine, but I also like to save a lot more money into … Continue reading →

The other day I was scrubbing down my kitchen for mildew. My apartment and my kitchen has perputual mildew problems, requiring a heavy bleach treatment from time to time. Due to bleach and mildew, the refigerator and stove are starting to rust. The kitchen is always damp due apartment having … Continue reading →

Several years ago, I got a set of LED Christmas lights that I bring almost every time I am roadside camping. I actually have several of the strings now, plus a LED rope light string that I bought this summer, that I don’t like as much although I still use … Continue reading →

In late April, I mentioned I was working on a new version of my blog that would use PostGIS, and later changed my mind to using MySQL GIS Extension. A big part of the blog would be to mix content types together by geographical location – so that pictures, maps, … Continue reading →

I have been toying around in mind what I want to do in mid-November as I take a week off from work to travel. While there is two big ifs in my mind — the exact amount of time I will have off and the cost of gasoline — the … Continue reading →

Recently, I have been posting a whole lot less to my blog. Fewer essays, and I even broke the pratice of posting new content and/or reruns in recent weeks. I keep posting new photos as I go on trips, but I have been doing fewer and few maps. And due … Continue reading →

Mondays seem to come much too frequently. Weekends are much too short. Weekends, something we all look forward to, seem to be just fleeting moments on that calender. Just another day. One could look at it as being only 5 more days until the weekend. 5 days promising to go … Continue reading →

I really like Northwest Pennsylvania. It’s so wild and different then anything in New York State, without all of the restrictions applied on the land and people of a liberal state like New York. All things rugged and back country are vastly different then in Albany. Time seemed unlimited on … Continue reading →

People sometimes ask me why I am so opposed to urbanization, and turning forests and farm fields into strip malls, office parks, and housing developments. Or at the same time, why I am opposed to closing off more public lands to wilderness, or what some call “neccessary reforms” and laws … Continue reading →

The conventional wisdom has it that when people move out of an area for ideological reasons, they become the polar opposite of what they where when they lived in their previous area. People move out to suburbs, from the city, are usually some of the most hard core conservatives, as … Continue reading →

This has been a rough, hard week. Emotionally draining, devoid of little but work and a much to few hours sleep. Lots of emotion, taking things personal that I probably shouldn’t. The only salvation for this week, is I will be up in the woods in 8 hours. Then it … Continue reading →

Last night I was pondering how much I had invested in NY State, not in form of capital as much as knowledge and connections. You know, over 29 years of living in this state, I’ve learned much, and moving away from it, would seem I would loose a lot. Things … Continue reading →

Last night, on my evening walk I was walking on the bike path past the Bethlehem High School, on the outskirts of the developed area of Delmar, looking across Sunnyside Farm and the rural hinderlands beyond it. I looked across the tall grass, and towards the Heldebergs. I saw the … Continue reading →

I spent a little extra when I bought my Coleman lantern and Coleman stove, and went for the dual fuel models over the propane models. Dual fuel appliances can burn either automobile gasoline or Coleman fuel. I like using liquid fuels, primarily gasoline, for a couple of reasons… First off … Continue reading →

First, here is a Google Map of the Income of NY State by Census Tract. View Larger Map And, second a Google Map of percentage of the population with a College Education (greater then a bachelors degree). View Larger Map Data Source: American Community Survey, 5 year averages, 2005-2010.

1) Slowly, but surely been working on the next-generation of the blog, which seems to be more on paper then actually coded into a workable product. It’s a dream of a lot of neat things that haven’t made it to the reality stage. 2) I am too much of an … Continue reading →

For the past couple of months I have been looking at going back to school eventually to some formal training in geographic information systems, or computers more generally. I have a bachelors of arts degree in Political Science, and what I view to be a pretty good liberal arts education. … Continue reading →

The past couple of years, I have gotten out camping either the last weekend of March, or the first or second weekend of April. Now it looks like I won’t be camping for a couple more weeks, waiting for my truck cap to be installed. It’s really not a big … Continue reading →