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My Gadsen Flag

As much as horrifies my liberal friends I really love my Gadsden flag.

You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to own my own Don’t Tread on Me Flag but was too embarrassed to spend the $8 to buy it.

I’m a life long liberal Democrat who loves guns and burning things that government is involved in too much in our private lives. I’ve always kind of liked the Tea Party message of defending the second amendment, individual empowerment and less government interference with the lives of private citizens.Government shouldn’t regulate individuals like it does large corporations. You might say my views are closer to Malcom X and Huey Newton then Donald Trump or Paul Ryan but I couldn’t find an inexpensive Black Panther flag that I liked. Moreover, nobody knows what the meaning of the Black Panthers is anymore. The Panthers flag just isn’t that nice color wise, especially next to my Blue Marble Earth Flag or now my Rainbow Flag. I thought about getting a Molon Labe flag but I didn’t like the colors or the military undertones. I’m not a war monger but I believe in citizen empowerment and the right of self-defense and self-reliance.

I’ve long flirted with the Tea Party because I love the Man (lol!) and his aerial highway patrols as much as the next person, but I also think that Obamacare has helped a lot of people even if I think that the subsidies should have been a lot more generous for middle class families. Why can’t government help people get healthcare and an affordable college education without spying on our emails or beating up on the farmers just trying to do their jobs? Animal rights and environmental extremists have gotten much too much control in our society today. People who are ill informed and act only emotion, have no role in our governing. I’m more concerned with air pollution from coal power plants and large landfills then marginal farmers in the mountains grazing cattle and rednecks burning trash and riding quads in the woods. Not every acre of land should be declared wilderness. We can have public lands with great backcountry camping and trails, hunting and fishing but we can also have logging and mineral production to help pay for upkeep of the land.

I believe we can have a government that works for the people and promote the common good without treading on people’s rights.

Breeze

I love all the colors in the rainbow flag. Now I just need to figure out what other flags I must add to my collection.

Taken on Saturday June 10, 2017 at Piseco-Powley Road.

The Photographer Who Captured America’s Dark Side – Mental Floss

On a hot September day in 1957, Jack Kerouac sat on a New York City sidewalk holding America in his hands. At least, that’s how it felt. In reality, he held a book of photographs taken by a Swiss photographer named Robert Frank. Like Kerouac, who had recently released On the Road, Frank had just completed a historic road trip across America. He had driven from New York City to Detroit to New Orleans to Los Angeles, photographing practically every big city and one-horse town along the way. He planned to publish the photos in a book and wanted Kerouac to write an introduction. So the two met outside of a party, plopped down on the sidewalk, and flipped through the pictures.

There were cowboys and cars, jukeboxes and tattered flags, cemeteries and shoe shiners, politicians and proselytizers. And, in one photo, a shining stretch of straight highway in New Mexico, darting like an arrow toward the horizon. Kerouac was sold. To him, the pictures did more than capture America: The black-and-white film had “caught the actual pink juice of human kind.” He agreed to write some text to accompany it. “What a poem this is,” he’d tell Frank. “You got eyes.”

It hadn’t been easy. Frank had driven more than 10,000 miles to capture those photos. Along the way, he used 767 rolls of film, filled uncountable tanks of  gas, and endured two stints in jail. He knew the photographs were good. But he didn’t necessarily think they would change photography—or how people see the country.

What Do I Need for a Night in the Wilderness.

Back when I was in Boy Scouts when we did backpacking, we did often did with about fifty pounds on our backs, and honestly it wasn’t a lot of fun. When I start doing some wilderness camping myself this summer, I want to pack as little as possible, but have the supplies to camp in relative comfort.

Camping hammock – A camping hammock provides a comfortable place to sleep, without having to bring a sleeping pad or tent.
Bug Net and bug spray – I need to get a bug net to use over my camping hammock. This is especially critical during black fly season but throughout the year, mosquito could be obnoxious while sleeping in the wilderness, especially near a lake.
Two or three cigarette lighters – Lighters are important for starting fires, which will provide light, warmth, and a way to cook without bringing a camp-stove back in wilderness.
Trowel – For burying poop, digging out a fire pit,
Rope – For hanging the bear bag, hanging up the tarp.
Water – Sufficent water for hiking, plus at night at camp.
Small pot and frying pan – For boiling water if necessary, cooking on the fire.
Old cloth bag – For storing food in a bear bag.
Map and compass – For navigating. I rarely use a compass, but if I were to get off a trail, I could use it to navigate back onto the trail.
Two or three flashlights – Flashlights break. Batteries go dead. I want to make sure I have light at night in the wilderness.
Camera – For making videos and taking photos of what I’ve seen.
Cellphone – For entertainment, journaling, listening to music and podcast. Might be handy in emergencies, and it’s fun to check out my exact location on the GPS, when I can find a land mark to orient myself on the trail
Additional Battery Pack – To charge my phone at night, so I can have all night entertainment, music, podcasts, journal.
Extra socks, pair of underwear and t-shirt. Wet clothes can be miserable. While I doubt I would need a full change of clothes, I think having a pair of socks, underwear, t-shirt is a good thing.
Toilet paper – Self explanatory, it cleans up better than leaves. I’d burn it, rather then let it become litter, even if it’s burried.
Small first aid kit – Just some bandages, wet wipers in small plastic bag.
Multi-function Knife – For anything I’d need to cut at camp. Maybe also a bigger knife, especially during hunting season
Candles – To provide additional light at camp.
Flags – American flag and Don’t Tread on Me flag for decoration.

Food and meals … I want to keep things as light and simple as possible, not requiring much cooking.

Water – Few things are as critical as having sufficient clean water to drink. I would probably add a shot of cider vinegar to get rid of that nasty off-taste that water sometimes has locally from the minerals.
Frozen Hot Dogs, Beans/Canned Veggies or Soup – Something lightweight that wouldn’t require a lot of wait. Ideally, I’d avoid canned goods, that require the can to be carried out at the end of the trip.
Cookies – Calories for energy, that are tasty for a dessert.
Oatmeal – For breakfast, that is quick and easy. I could boil water for that. I probably would skip coffee for breakfast.

A few other things I might want to think about bringing …

Small Tarp – While I probably wouldn’t back country in rain, it might be handy for a pop up thunderstorm.
Beer – I might bring a can or two of beer to enjoy by the fire at night.
Fishing pole/night crawlers/few bobbers/hooks – For fishing during the summer months to pass time, additional source of food. Not going to bring my full fishing kit. Place in small plastic bags.
.22 rifle – During small game season for harvesting squirrel or rabbit. I would put it on a sling and care over the shoulder.

My goal is simple: have things that can be carried in a small, lightweight backpack that would make exploring the wilderness fun, not too bogged down.

As they say, it’s a wash ☔

At least if you go outside this morning you’ll get washed. Needless to say I’m taking the early express downtown and walking laps on the Concourse before catching the shuttle to the suburbanite office with acres of parking.

Good morning! What day is it? A Rainy Day, of course. Rain and 40 degrees at the Stewart’s. 🌧️ There is a southeast breeze at 11 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 21 mph 💨💨💨. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Monday around 3 am. ☃️

So it’s back to walking 🚶 the Plaza for an hour before work. I wonder how many buckets they’ll have out catching leaks from the roof. Even a two billion dollar building leaks. Still beats walking in the rain. Eggs 🥚 for breakfast with sweet onions 🧅 and Chipotle spices. I hear bird flu is back 🐥 so my favorite source of cheap healthy quick to cook protein is going up in price, like everything in this world today. Paying back for the good times of the pandemic.

Today will rain. 🌧 High of 40 degrees at 7am. 13 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 2nd. East wind 11 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 63 degrees. The record high of 79 was set in 1981. 11.0 inches of snow fell back in 1891.❄

The salmon was good last night 🐟, haven’t had that in a while. It’s good to have some more omega 3s. Not as easy to cook as canned sardines or tuna but it’s good to mix thlngs up. That second loaf 🍞 of bread I made up on Sunday night was exceptionally tasty. Read 📖 for a while and went to bed 🛏 around 8 pm. Just working my way through another week. 👣 One step at a time. I wish it wasn’t raining so I could ride to work more of the week.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:59 pm with sun having an altitude of 52.9° from the due south horizon (-17.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 4.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:47 pm with the sun in the west (272°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (278°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:24 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 55 seconds with dusk around 7:52 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:27 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 38 degrees. There will be a east breeze at 14 mph with gusts up to 26mph. Today will have 12 hours and 54 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 51 seconds over yesterday.

After filing my taxes 💰 I was reviewing them and realized that I had made a mistake again on my state forms and swapped a number and will overpay the state by $400. It’s fine, I budgeted $1,600 for taxes as I knew that’s what I would owe due to the dividends and interest due to the higher interest rates. Sucks but I did fairly well with the higher rates last year. So either the tax department will catch my mistake or I’ll file an admemded return later in the year to get my money back.

Tonight will rain, snow, and sleet before 4am, then rain between 4am and 5am, then rain and snow after 5am. 🌧️ Low of 35 degrees at 10pm. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 7th. Northeast wind 10 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow and sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2023, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 45 degrees. The record low of 14 occurred back in 1954.

I was tracing out some code at work yesterday , 🖥 it was just insane. If you were at a certain zip code on a certain street in Westchester, you raise flag 🚩 number 31. Then you shift several digits to a buffer and then other digits from another field and combine it with data from another buffer. It was absolutely insane but after studying it for a half hour I realized it was doing. But much like life, data is messy and often complicated to clean up. But goddammit, use comments in your source code to explain the madness. 🤬 The one upside is I am getting good at reading and writing C code. I might not be a programmer 🤓 but I’m putting my skills to good work.

Cool but with improving conditions this weekend. 🌤️Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 45. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 52. Typical average high for the weekend is 55 degrees. Staying in town this weekend but who knows about future 🔮 weekends. I am thinking I might do the Green Mountains more this year as some ways it’s more convenient from my office. Also thinking about one more trip to the East Branch Sacandaga River before the black flies are out should it warm up this spring. 🌸

Looking ahead, next Wednesday is 8 PM Dusk 🌆 when the sun will be setting at 7:33 pm. On that day in 2023, we had sunny and temperatures between 67 and 30 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 57 degrees. We hit a record high of 86 back in 1922.

Cruising the back roads, studying land, researching 🐐 🧭 🛻

The past few weekends I’ve been cruising the back roads, especially dirt roads, looking for land to build a small or very small off grid home or an abandoned smaller home on sufficient acreage. It’s a lot of fun just driving and exploring – it’s something I haven’t done much since my college and high school years – back then it had more to my interest as a fire bug but I always liked exploring the back roads often overlooked.

It is so much fun to cruise the back roads, especially this time of year when there is lot of mud to sling. I’ve been carefully studying the houses and how people live and relate to their land, at least the best I can from the window of my truck. I’ve been noting abandoned properties, which I then go up and pull the property record from ArcGIS MapServer. The plan is if I like what I see, to do more research into the property – why is it abandoned? I do some Google searches on the owner to see if I can find an obituary or news stories, and also if the property is in the news.

Then I start to look for potential red flags. I do a quick review of online deed filings from the County Clerk. Mostly to see what property transactions have occurred and if there are any noteworthy parties. I will pull LIDAR to look for dumps and cuts and fill, and will pull the list of state environmental remediation nearby. LIDAR also shows the stone walls, ledges and other ground features. Then I analyze the land cover, calculating the acreage of each land cover in the NLCD, pull up new and old aerial photos, if I’m really curious on the history, I can download the aerials from 1952. I also have code I’ve written to tell me the slope of the property and which way it’s sloped – and break it into acreage by percentage classes. I check the soil maps to get an overview of what types of soil cover the land and the acreage of each type. I also will check for the distance to nearby buildings, homes and other potential nuisances like being downwind of a barnyard, farm field or manure storage.

Often GIS data can be quite misleading. It tells part of the story and arms you with facts but it can’t tell you the whole story. This time of year is excellent for roadside surveys of land – the trees are bare allowing you to peer deeply into the woods, and the water table is high. Especially after all the rain we’ve had it gives you good chance to see what commonly floods, is vernal pools and how high swamps and creek beds rise in ordinary spring weather. While such a roadside view is limited – I would insist on a full walk through of the property once the conversation on purchasing has started – it’s one more data point to consider.

My plan is to learn as much as possible about various neighborhoods, locations, and the ways people live rural locally before starting to take the next steps — reaching out to property owners and their real estate agents. I want to have a comprehensive idea what’s out there, the costs, the pros-and-cons. I don’t want to be unduly persuaded by any seller or get a raw deal that won’t work for my homestead because of something I didn’t know about. Once I feel more comfortable with the process, I’ll follow up with owners of potential sites, using certified letter and telling them about my vision for their abandoned property — or in case of properties for sale, with the listed agent or owner. While I know sellers can be misleading, I want to make sure I have a clear vision and make sure what I am buying can work for my homestead, get appropiate permits and access and be built.

Happy Labor Day 🧑‍🏭

It’s a nice morning after that thunderstorm came through earlier this morning. Woke me up, needed to run to the bucket shitter, started the coffee got a few more minutes of shut eye then it was breakfast started by frying onions up, then spinach, tomatoes and garlic in the food processor then eggs. Wanted to make an omelet but things were runnier then expected so it became scrambled eggs. It’s been a nice weekend but like always too short.

Good morning on this Labor Day! Partly sunny 🌞 and 61 degrees at the Perkins Clearing. Calm wind. The dew point is 60 degrees.

Already starting to take down an organize camp ⛺ but I’m waiting for more sun to take down the screen tent 🎪 and other gear like the flags. Also want to cook up a good lunch, I guess I could do that in advance and bring it along on the trail but first some hammock time.

Labor Day will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 83 degrees at 4pm. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around August 13th. Maximum dew point of 63 at 11am. Calm wind becoming west around 6 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. It was sticky. The high last year was 87 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1929.

Today I am heading down to Spectulator 🛶, I’m not sure if I will kayak the Sacandaga River and swim in the beach 🏖 first or do a bike ride 🚵 up through the Long Level past Elm Lake in the Spectulator Tree Farm. Ultimately I want to end the day at the Spectulator Creamery which hopefully won’t be as packed as on Saturday and it much warmer. Then sometime before six o’clock when I head home I’m thinking of parking 🅿 at the lower Old Route 8B bridge 🌉 and riding up along the old road on Blackie, visiting Austin Falls and points along there. Alternatively I could go to Tribes Hill and ride some of the Canalway Trail though I don’t think it’s a good day to do that with the heat which will be worse in the valley. 😰 Maybe come the autumn.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:58 pm with sun having an altitude of 53.7° from the due south horizon (-16.2° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 4.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:52 pm with the sun in the west (274°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (281°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:30 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 59 seconds with dusk around 7:57 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:35 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 77 degrees. The dew point will be 64 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 13 hours and 6 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 54 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have patchy fog after 1am. Otherwise, partly cloudy 🌃, with a low of 58 degrees at 6am. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 2nd. Maximum dew point of 65 at 8pm. Light north wind. In 2022, we had light rain. It was somewhat humid. It got down to 59 degrees. The record low of 37 occurred back in 1974.

After floating for a few hours on a rubber truck tube ⭕ at the swimming hole on Perkins Clearing Road at Jessup River, 🏊‍♂️ rode about 20 miles round trip from the swimming hole to the Spruce Lake Parking Area at the wilderness border. 🚵 It’s a nice ride but a surprising climb to the Spruce Lake parking area. 😰Good scenery, would have visited Spruce Lake if it wasn’t six o’clock and didn’t want to ride back in the dark.🌄 Ironically I made good time back on the return trip, I flew down the down hill and was back only a few minutes after seven.

Wish I had gotten an earlier start spent too much time chewing over my day plans then I fell asleep in the hammock 😴 and made a good lunch of onions, garlic, zucchini, tomatoes and chicken. Dinner was red lentil pancakes topped with cottage cheese with avocado and dessert was watermelon. 🍳 🥑 🥞

Much cooler next weekend, rain showers but some sun. 🌦️ Really almost autumn like. Saturday, showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 72. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Maximum dew point of 63 at 9am. Sunday, a chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 69. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Maximum dew point of 58 at 8am. Typical average high for the weekend is 77 degrees.

Might be a good weekend to go to Thacher Park 🏞 on the Nature Bus 🚍 bright and early, pack a lunch with my mountain bike 🚵 and ride all day, visit Thompsons Lake and even poke around many of the roads up that way. Sunday who knows, could just be a quiet day then go out and see the folks as it’s been two weeks now.

Looking ahead, next Monday is September 11th 🇺🇸 when the sun will be setting at 7:17 pm with dusk at 7:44 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 74 and 64 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 76 degrees. We hit a record high of 98 back in 1931. Can you believe the terrorist attacks were 22 years ago? I was a freshman back in college then. 🎓 That said, I don’t ever want to go back to those days, much less go back to a formal classroom again.

Andy Arthur.org

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