I live and work in an urbanized area. For most of week, I get on a bus or walk from place to place, go to work, go to the library, and otherwise interact with others in an urbanized fashion. People from Albany are pretty urban, by no means is Albany a farm town — although there are certainly many rural areas around Albany.
Yet, despite all the time I spend in Albany, the city really is just a little dot on the map compared to vast lands around it. Drive less then 20 miles in any direction, and chances are you’ll be in a mountain town, a farm town, or some kind of national or state forest.
Albany is a large enough of a metro-area to have a very urban feel to it. It’s cities have all of the regular urban problems, from drugs to gang violence. But your never very far from the rural hinderlands, and truly rural areas that are largely independent from the city’s regular activities.
With the cold weather of the past two months, I’ve spent much too much time in city. But getting back up to Vermont I’ve come to realize all I’ve missed, outside the 2%.
Today marks the second day of the winter when we’ve had snow. That’s good, because until this point it’s been largely a snowless winter, and last year was pretty snowless.
But snow is both essential to the economy, the environment, and way of life in New York State. It provides a surface for skiers, snowmobilers, and snowshoers to get back into the woods.
It refreshes the natural environment, by insulating the ground, while killing off excessive deer, mice, and ticks.
Handy bash script I wrote, or actually adapted, for switching between your HDMI monitor and your laptop screen — you just run this when you log-in (also opens or closes gkrellm, which doesn’t fit on the tiny laptop screen) …
#!/bin/bash
# roughly based on:
# http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/4489/a-tool-for-automatically-applying-randr-configuration-when-external-display-is-p
# laptop screen is LVDS1
# 1080p large-screen is HDMI1
# default monitor is LVDS1
MONITOR=LVDS1
# functions to switch from LVDS1 to HDMI and vice versa,
# give 5 seconds to detect modelines for HDMI monitor or fails
# as it takes a little while for modelines to be auto detected
function ActivateHDMI {
echo "Switching to 1080p monitor, HDMI1 in 5 seconds ..."
sleep 5;
xrandr --output HDMI1 --auto --output HDMI1 --primary --output LVDS1 --off
gkrellm -g -0+25 &
MONITOR=HDMI1
}
function DeactivateHDMI {
echo "Switching to laptop screen, LVDS1 now ..."
killall gkrellm
xrandr --output LVDS1 --auto --output LVDS1 --primary --output HDMI1 --off
MONITOR=LVDS1
}
# functions to check if HDMI is connected and in use
function HDMIActive {
[ $MONITOR = "HDMI1" ]
}
Yesterday, when you opened Twitter and Facebook up, it seemed like one post or another was calling for people to “do something” about the “menace of guns” in our country, or improve the accessibility of mental health in our county.
I don’t oppose some of the those suggestions. Indeed, certainly we could probably do more ensure affordable and stigma free counseling was available to all. The President’s health law that passed in 2009, with Mental Health parity and a requirement for all to subscribe to a basic health care plan.
We could also consider some gun control restrictions — but the restrictions have to be reasonable in effort, and need to provide a very high standard against someone owning or possessing a firearm. It would have to require a judge, a jury, and a beyond reasonable doubt standard — as does any restriction of a constitutional right. We can’t just have government officials, on a whim, restricting people’s rights, because they don’t like their politics.
We also can’t just start stigmatizing or persecuting individuals just because we don’t like their views. We saw too much of that after September 11th. Rather then embracing conformity, we should embrace diversity, and encourage people of diverse backgrounds to be active and engaged members of our society. We have to stand up against political persecution. They may not be coming after you today, but your in line next.
What I fear, and already see is the worst coming out of people. People want to do something — regardless of what it means for our civil liberties. They want to stop violence, even if they really can not do anything. Even if it means hurting regular folks, they feel they must do something. This is plain scary.
Day is Done – Peter, Paul and Mary.
I think it’s time to step back, and put an end to this madness — the madness of saying we must do something now.
One of the things you have to consider about camping in November is how short the days are so darn short. Literally, you get up to darkness, and by 4 PM, you have to get camp set before the impeading darkness.
Literally, you won’t see the sun most mornings until 6:45-7 AM, so you wake in darkness. And total darkness overtakes the landscape by no later then 5 pm. While artificial light can help make the nights a little shorter, it really cuts down on time for the day’s adventures.
I’ve found the best way to handle the long nights is to get up early. Set up the alarm clock and be up prior to dawn. Cook breakfast under the camp lights and wait for morning to come.
Then at the break of dawn, get on to the day’s activities. Try to make the best out of your limited hours prior to dusk appearing once again at 4:30. It’s just the nature of this time of year.
This past October has been one of the rainest and cloudest months in recent memory. I can’t seem to remember such awful weather in a long, long time. Maybe it will break eventually, but for now this dreary weather pattern seems unending.
It just seems to rain and rain. The 7 day forecast just says more rain. No chance to get out and walk, as it’s always pouring. And when it’s not raining, it’s cloudy and damp out.
Normally, I like the October weather, but this year has been awful.
