Maybe I’ve been reading too much Edward Abbey but I think the solution to the national parks is napalm dropped on the gift shops, interpretive centers, dinning halls and hotels and running a milling machine over the asphalt roads and parking lots and letting the lawns go abandoned thrand revert back to woods. That’s the best way to cut spending on parks.
The best way to destroy a wild land is to turn it into a park. The second best way is to turn it into a legislatively defined wilderness.
Out for a walk this morning at Five Rivers after a quick morning bike ride before the almost certain rain showers later today. Much rain, it’s too be seen but I needed a break from days spent in the wilderness plus we need some rain so it’s safer the next time I head up to the wilderness to have a fire.
Gray and kind of humid this morning out walking at Five Rivers. 🍁 The summer colors are fading fast as we get into the meat of September though some years Labor Day is later then today. But it’s been a cool and dry late summer in the Albany area and we are rapidly losing light in the evenings.
I was so upzst that my data request was denied yesterday 💾 but you have to ask. I get why it was exempt from disclosure but after such a successful run of getting data from state agencies and linking it in the system I was pretty disappointed. I shouldn’t be, you have to ask and if rejected walk on by and don’t linger. I want perfection but that never exists in the world. Maybe that’s why I am so afraid of Facebook dating. ☕ I need to ask potentially interesting girls to coffee house and if they’re interested spend $10 and if not move on to the next one. ♥️ I know I am not going win on everyone and maybe the one that says no never was right in the first place. I’ve done so many neat things with my agency since I took it over and people are noticing but changing slowly. 🐢 Government operates at government speed.
Last night I was at Five Rivers 🐸 after work at the Fisher Boulevard parcel until 7:15 pm with the early sunset 🌇 and not knowing how well charged the lights were on my bike. It was a pretty evening and the full 🌕 moon was impressive and I wish I had spent it in the wilderness 🏕️ but I need a break from the beer 🍻 and weed 🍀 in the woods as I’m getting a bit chubby though riding the bike 🚲 to work every day and not eating processed food 🍲 really helps but I want to get from that 215 lb in the scale ⚖️ back to below 200 lb which is much less than the 260 or 270 lb a few years ago.
I finished up Edward Abbey’s Monkey Works Gang 🛠️ audio book last night and promptly got out another Abbey book, Desert Solitaire. I have so many books 📚 to read though there are so many distractions at home. I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find somewhere to hang a hammock and read 📖 for a while.
It’s been kind of a slow and disappointing day in the office. One of data requests the state agency wouldn’t share for me and then I had some issues linking other data on the server. And it just been tough to fully get back in the groove after two weeks in wilderness, well at least the National Forest overlooking that cow pasture in the deep rural of the Finger Lakes. I was kind of hoping to get away yet again this weekend, but it looks like crap tomorrow. Not even sure if it will be good enough in the morning for a quick ride out to Five Rivers but Sunday should be okay for the oil change.
One of the people I have known over the years has fallen on hard times, and was asking for advice about ideas of places to move to. He said the social services office offered to put him up in a motel for $800 a month. Somehow that struck me as wrong, as that’s what I pay for rent in my dumpy old apartment. Since coming back from vacation, I was really noticing how messed up the building in, and I’m annoyed the landlord didn’t even acknowledge the torn window screen he installed, and none of the upstairs windows have replacement molding installed around the inside of the windows much less paint or fuly plastered in. But I don’t care, but I do realize I should be thinking more about a more permanent place to set down roots, though I guess afer 18 years it has been sema-permanet. The door was snagging again, screw the former landlord tried to fix the rotted out bottom has been sinking and falling out as more of the composite door rots away.
It makes me think more about buying a house, just to have that level of security my dumpy old apartment doesn’t offer. But there are so much more costs to heat and light a big building, not to mention the cost of cleaning and maintaining such a space. Yet, I get sick to my stomach with the endless advertising for roofers, heat pumps, gutters, vinyl siding, and grid-tied solar panels. I just don’t want all that suburbanite toxic disposable crap. Plus if I get land, who is going to feed the goats, pigs and chickens when I travel? Plus I like t burn things and owning lots of guns, but alas it’s New York State. It’s not to say I’ve given upon my dream on the cabin in woods in a freer state. I know such places I exist, I was down in Pennsylvania a week and a half ago and everybody rural there has burn barrels. I was clicking on and trolling those scam recovery ads on Facebook and now all I see on Facebook are ads for such things. The algorithms on the internet are serving me such crap.
I am tired, and so ready to peddle home on my bike. And then spend tomorrow reading and regrouping myself. Hopefully next weekend I can get out of town.
I have always though the craze over avocado toast to be kind of silly. While some of it isn’t real – a meme over thoughtless purchases by some Australian billionaire – avocado toast never struck me as particularly healthy or delicious. It’s not to say I don’t sometimes bake my own bread or buy avocados to eat on their own – they are a very filling snack – but avocado toast seems like your just trying to put a band-aid on something rather bad, processed food known as bread.
Now not all breads are bad. But generally my view is that store-bought bread is generally bad because it’s very tasty, convenient, and loaded with carbs. Convenient food by definition is unhealthy, because it is means you can consume a lot of calories and sugar with ease. But if it’s difficult to cook or time-consuming, then you are much less to consume it. Generally, less cooked, rawer, closer to nature to food is healthier.
I am all for eating avocados at least occasionally. They are a very filling snack, one of the few sources of omega-3 fats in vegetables. But maybe not so much on toast, even if it is whole-wheat toast.
#!/bin/bash
# To get the source data
# Visit this webpage:
# https://apps.nationalmap.gov/downloader/
# Check Elevation Source Data (3DEP) - Lidar, IfSAR
# Check Lidar Point Cloud (LPC)
# Use the Map and the Area of Interest Tools to Select Files to Download
# Click the Products Tab
# Click the [TXT] icon to download the listing and save in the folder you plan to use
cat data.txt | tr -d '\n' | xargs -d '\r' -I {} wget -c -nc '{}'
# create the pipeline-unclassified.json
cat > pipeline-unclassified.json <<EOF
{
"pipeline": [
{
"type": "readers.las"
},
{
"type": "filters.range",
"limits": "Classification[1:1]"
},
{
"gdaldriver":"GTiff",
"resolution": 1.0,
"output_type": "max",
"type":"writers.gdal"
}
]
}
EOF
ls *.laz | xargs -I {} basename {} .laz | xargs -P3 -I {} pdal pipeline pipeline-unclassified.json --readers.las.filename={}.laz --writers.gdal.filename={}-unclassified.tif
# create the pipeline-ground.json
cat > pipeline-ground.json <<EOF
{
"pipeline": [
{
"type": "readers.las"
},
{
"type": "filters.range",
"limits": "Classification[2:2]"
},
{
"gdaldriver":"GTiff",
"resolution": 1.0,
"output_type": "max",
"type":"writers.gdal"
}
]
}
EOF
ls *.laz | xargs -I {} basename {} .laz | xargs -P3 -I {} pdal pipeline pipeline-ground.json --readers.las.filename={}.laz --writers.gdal.filename={}-ground.tif
gdalbuildvrt unclassified.vrt *-unclassified.tif
gdalbuildvrt ground.vrt *-ground.tif
gdal_fillnodata ground.vrt ground.tif
gdal_fillnodata unclassified.vrt unclassified.tif
gdal_calc -A unclassified.tif --outfile=unclassified.tif --calc="A*3.28084"
gdal_calc -A ground.tif --outfile=ground.tif --calc="A*3.28084"
gdal_calc -A unclassified.tif -B ground.tif --extent=union --outfile=height.tif --calc="A-B"
I feel like that’s probably an accurate fact as I drove in on Tuesday, there was the Farmers Market on Wednesday and I rode down to the park and last night I retired to bed pretty early with the skies dark and rain coming. And most destinctively, it’s going to rain tomorrow which means it’s going to be a Saturday.
How much rain we get tomorrow is very much up in the air, 🌧️ though I Know a lot of people want more then less as they didn’t get the rain here that they got back in Finger Lakes when I was on vacation. Could be an inch, maybe less depending on the models. Still hoping to get out early tomorrow, ride out to Five Rivers 🐦 to look at the birdies and the wildflowers. 🌻 In the evening get to Walmart for oil and a filter so I can get that done on Saturday. Technically I could wait longer on the filter but figuring I probably shouldn’t be changing my oil right after eye surgery and I don’t want to have to stay home just because my oil is due for a change. 🛠️ Plenty of other shit to break on that truck.
At around 5 AM when I started the black beans 🫘 on the stove, I could really smell that pollen on the air. 🌾 That stunk. Didn’t sleep great last night despite early bed time 🛏️, probably too much coffee ☕. As the rain clouds passed by, 🌫️ things weren’t that bad and indeed I did lay back in the bed until around 6 AM when I made cornmeal pancakes with probably too much Stevia but also a lot of zucchuni and onions. So they were good. The beans should be done soon, which I’ll drain them, shower 🚿 then ride on in this morning. 🚲 Even if I was feeling lazy, I don’t really have the option to do that bus thing anymore as it’s no more. 🚍 Riding home on the gorge trail, they were definately manuring one of fields 💩 along the trail before the rain last night, to get that nutrients soaked into hay or maybe silage grounds.
Misplaced my headphones 🎧 this morning and was desperately looking for them but I found them. Days aren’t the same in the office as I code without headphones. Kind of wish I wasn’t so achy but I have to ride in so hopefully soon I’ll be feeling better. No bus anymore!
I guess no COVID shot this year, 💉 though I will get my flu shot in a few weeks before the season is underway. Seems kind of silly that you can’t just get both at the same time, it’s hardly much more pain and there isn’t a lot of evidence that the COVID shot is particularly harmful. I don’t like vaccination mandates, but also getting COVID for Christmas 🎄 last year was hardly fun even if I was fully vaccinated. Whatever, the whole thing is kind of silly in my mind at least.
While I am staying home this weekend, 🏡 one of the next two weekends I do want to get out of town because in three weeks is the big snip 👀 of my eyes. But I’ll be glad to no longer have the irritation in my eyes or be dependent on my contacts or worse glasses 👓 like some kind of addict. Next weekend or maybe the weekend after I’ll do Rennselaerville or maybe the Greens. We will see. Probably Columbus Day Weekend with a few days tacked on in advance I’ll do the St. Regis Canoe Area 🛶. Looking forward to exploring the rail trail 🚲 and getting to that part of the Adirondacks – I haven’t been that far north since the pandemic.
