Tag Archives: leisure

Wilderness State Park – 2024

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As the title would imply, I’m at Wilderness State Park in Petosky, MI, this week. I arrived yesterday afternoon, late enough to take everything out of the car, put it in my cabin (the Sturgeon Cabin), drink some bourbon, and go to bed.

This morning, after a breakfast of granola and berries (I’m hillbilly like that), I drove to the Walmart in Cheboygan and picked up 3 new lanterns. The cabin is DARK. Got back, got things organized, and I guess my vacation can now REALLY begin. On Election Day, no less.

Wilderness State Park? I found this place last year, when I was trying to book a week at Pictured Rocks and discovered that Michigan is now closing a lot of its parks (yes, Pictured Rocks is a national park, but I group them all together) on October 15th. This did not sit well with me, since I like for my Michigan sojourns to be at least a bit chilly, so I went on the hunt for the northern-most park in Michigan that I could reserve in November. I found Wilderness. And I spent a week last November living at the park in a tent.

It was glorious.

On one of my walks last year, I stumbled upon the Sturgeon Cabin, and instantly fell in love with it. It’s a log cabin that’s about 3 miles from anywhere, right on the shore of Lake Michigan. No power. Hand-pumped (tannin-filled) water out front. A vault toilet about 100 yards away. Wood crib that holds about a two cords of wood. So secluded that you almost don’t see it if you drive past on the “road” (literally a couple of dirt ruts) that goes past it. When I saw that I could reserve it for the second week of November, it was a no-brainer to grab it. I’ll have some pictures up in a future post.

This is smaller than the cabins I’ve stayed in at Cheboygan State Park. It’s probably 18×22 inside, with two bunk beds and another single bed, a table and benches, a counter with two shelves, and a wonderful little wood stove. Behind the stove is a stonework that looks like it may have been an actual fireplace at one time, but it is now just a great place to store wood – and whoever was here before me left me a good supply, so I probably won’t have to go to the wood crib before I leave.

Behind the cabin is a short path through some trees and shrubs to a private beach on Lake Michigan. I say “private” because – due to the way the land lies – you’d have to REALLY want to get to this beach from anyplace other than the cabin. On the other three sides of the cabin are fairly thick woods. This is the type of place that I’ve fantasized about retiring to for the last 30 years. I may never (let’s face it, I’ll never) get to realize that dream, but I can live it a couple of weeks every year.

So that’s a description of where I am. Over the next week, I’ll try to get daily entries in – with photos – so I can remember what I did this week in November of 2024.

Wilmington Trip

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Sandie and I took a long weekend and drove up/over to Wilmington, NC, last Friday. She lived there for about 14 years and wanted to show me around a bit and reconnect with some old friends.

We tried to go to a seafood place at Wrightsville Beach for dinner Friday, but the line to get is was so long that we bailed on the idea and got Mexican food instead.

Saturday, we went to the historic district, took a walking tour, and got some seafood at a bar and grill (which was actually really good). Saturday night, we drove past Sandie’s old house and she spotted a neighbor “kid” (now with two kids of his own) that she recognized from her time there, so we wound up spending an hour at their house. Not overly thrilling for ME (shoot, I didn’t know anybody), but she had a good time.

Sandie and one of her old buddies pose in front of a giant basket of French fries

That evening, we went to one of her old hangs – a pool/dart bar – and hung out with some of her old friends while being filled with bourbon by one of her old bartenders.

Fortunately, we got an Uber driver for that last, because the bourbon was pretty freaking good.

Wilmington has an extraordinary history as one of the earliest, largest, and most influential towns in North Carolina – Cornelius Harnett, for example, was a signer of the Articles of Confederation and a native Wilmingtonian – but it also has a pretty dark period which was nearly forgotten until just the last 10 years or so. I’m speaking, of course, about the Wilmington Massacre of 1989. During a few days in November of that year, a group of White Supremacist Democrats not only completed the only successful coup d’etat in American history, but also exiled the majority of the city’s prominent blacks (and a good number of sympathetic whites), and murdered between 10 and 200 other blacks (nobody seems to have a good grasp on the actual number). As a result, huge numbers of blacks fled the city, flipping it from majority black to majority white literally overnight, draining it of skilled and unskilled labor, and pretty much handcuffing it economically.

The massacre can in some ways be considered to be the spark that spread Jim Crow throughout the south, as it became a blueprint for Southern Democrats on how to disenfranchise blacks without also losing the poor/illiterate whites. One enduring legacy – in 1898, blacks made up 56% of the population in Wilmington. Today, that number is 16%. This is not a spurious relationship – Wilmington today is still seen by many blacks as somewhat of a sundown town.

If you’d like to learn more about this, check out Wilmington’s Lie – a well-told and well-researched tome covering the event itself, the political causes of it, and the political fallout from it. I found it to be eye-opening, depressing, and fascinating – and quite relevant to today’s political and racial climate.

Grave of Cornelius Harnett

The Doldrums

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It has been extraordinarily hot for the last couple of weeks. I entertained the thought (briefly) of pressure washing parts of the driveway over the weekend, but with the mercury hitting the 90s by 8:30 in the morning, the idea just didn’t appeal to me once it was late enough to get out there with 1}a leaf blower and 2}a pressure washer. Yeah, I could start at 7AM, but I think the neighbors might take issue with that.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in the shop (air conditioner blasting) over the last couple of weeks putting together a workstation for my table saw. For the most part, I finished it up on Saturday, although I’m still waiting on a couple of parts to complete the crosscut sled that will be an accessory for it. The workstation itself consists of a box that holds the saw (a Dewalt contractor saw), a foldable extension wing on the left, retractable infeed and outfeed support, and a fairly substantial drawer for extra blades, jigs, etc. It also has open slots for a crosscut sled and the braces for the extension (or extensions if I decide to make one for the right side (which I might do if I decide to also use it as a temporary workbench).

When fully opened, the extensions allow me to safely cut a full 4’x8’ sheet of plywood (although those puppies are HEAVY, and getting them started is kind of a bear), but when everything is retracted, the whole thing has a footprint of about 2’x2’ and sits on casters, allowing me to move the thing out of the way when I’m not using it. It’s probably the most complex thing I’ve built, and I like it a lot. In truth, I’ve been meaning to build something like this for years, but never thought I could do it. When I saw an ad for birch plywood sheets for $25 each about a month ago, I jumped at the price, had 8 of them delivered, and figured, “What the heck. No excuse not to build it now.”

Table saw workstation, retracted
Table saw workstation, extended

It works well, and I just need to put the rail on the back fence of a crosscut sled that I built for it before I can pretty much call it done. One really nice thing about it is that the board that the saw actually sits on is micro-adjustable by means of four bolts under it – so I can always make sure that the top of the saw is exactly even with all of the extensions.

The Rise of the iPad

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About 6 months ago, my favorite laptop – a Surface Book that I bought in 2015 – finally got to the point where it was unusable. The screen had been heated up and forced out from the frame by an expanding battery to the point that it was just pointless to continue using it for as much as I had been. I bought a replacement battery and screen, but have not yet attempted the repair (it’s a very delicate and tedious process and I’m waiting to be in just the right mood before I get started on it).

I have other machines, so things like databases and email and games and whatnot were not a huge problem. The biggest issue was that I had been using the Surface Book for several years as my de facto sheet music repository. GBB music, gig music, wind symphony music, tuba and horn etudes….all of my sheet music was on the Surface Book and there was no way I was going back to using paper music. So I needed a solution.

At first, I tried using my phone. Bad plan. I’m almost 60 and my eyes have been shot for 25 years. In a pinch, I can read off the phone, but it’s strictly for emergencies at this point. After determining that the phone wasn’t going to work, I tried using a small (6”) Android tablet that Sandie had no further use for. It was a definite improvement, but the screen real estate was so limited that doing markup on the music was difficult and nearly impossible. Also, the software options for music display and markup available for Android is/was pretty limited. There’s basically one program for it, and it just doesn’t work that well. Apple, however, has an excellent piece of software for musicians called forScore, and so I finally took the plunge and bought myself an iPad – something that I’ve been swearing was a pointless thing to do since the iPad was first released.

To a large extent, I still believe that. I use my iPad almost exclusively as a sheet music organizer/editor/displayer; but I’ve started to play around with the little thing more and more trying to figure out just how much I can actually use it for. And, much to my surprise, I’m finding that I do indeed have uses for it.

For years, I kept the GBB library updated and organized using Microsoft Access. I like doing it that way because…well…because I was an Access Developer for many years and I’m comfortable building and customizing programs to do exactly what I want them to do in Access. The biggest problem with that is that if I don’t have the machine with the database on it, I can’t use the data in it. If I want to check to see if the band has a particular chart while I’m at rehearsal, for example, I can’t do it unless I’ve got a computer with Access installed. When I was using my Surface Book, that was not a problem.

With the iPad, however, using Access isn’t an option. And there really isn’t a decent alternative, short of putting everything online in MySQL or something and building a front end that I can use on the iPad. I actually tried this, but the MySQL clients that I could find for iPad absolutely suck and weren’t worth my time.

Next, I built a Power BI application on my work laptop and pointed it to a OneDrive copy of my GBB database, and it worked great! Power BI is available for iPad and I can fire it up and search the DB easily. Unfortunately, I can’t UPDATE data with Power BI, and I also can’t use it unless I’ve got a corporate license (that’s why I did this on my work machine), and nobody’s got the time or money for that.*

So I started looking into “database” applications built specifically for the iPad and found one that isn’t too terrible called MyStuff2. In spite of the ridiculous name, and in spite of the fact that there’s no way to do any real programming with it, MS2 has done a pretty good job for me in helping to organize and build out the GBB music library, and it allows me to have a to-the-minute reference of the library with me when I’m at rehearsal. I had to do quite a bit of initial setup to get things like I needed them and to export the information from my original Access DB into MS2, but having done that, things are looking good.

As I start building more advanced stuff in the woodshop, I’ve also been able to use the iPad to help with that.

Table saw workstation in construction
Adding a wing to my table saw workstation

One of those tools is called Moblo 3D, which is a kind of limited CAD and allows me to model what I want to build, calculate measurements, and build shopping and cut lists. For example, Sandie wants some very specific shelving units build for the master closet. So I used Moblo to start sketching those out. Works pretty good, although I really haven’t spent enough time with it to understand all that it can (or cannot) do for me. It wasn’t totally free, but I can’t complain about $8 for this thing.

Moblo 3D rendering of a couple of closet organizers. The nicest part of this for me is that I can design what I want and then export a list of the wood that I need and a cut list for it

Another tool that I’ve been using in the shop is the iPad version of X-Tool Creative Space, which connects to my laser engraver and lets me design stuff for it. The engraver is still very much of a toy, but I’ve been able to use it for branding wooden creations (rather than using my physical metal brand), and most recently did some engraving on a baton box for a gift that the band gave to our founder/music director on the occasion of his stepping down after 25 years.

The concert, by the way – the finale of our 25th season – went really well. Joe, the director, pulled out all the stops and included a couple of championship-level test pieces near the end. A severe chops buster, but the crowd seemed to enjoy it, and it was an exhausting but exhilarating set list.

Creation screen of X-Tools Creative Space

I guess the most recent tool I’ve added to the iPad is what I’m typing this on – the WordPress editor. I installed it a few days ago after realizing that – having purchased a mouse and keyboard for the iPad (specifically to use with the GBB library database) – I could probably do a lot more with the iPad than I had been previously. Restarting the blog entries seemed like a logical place to start, so that’s what I’m doing. Since the iPad is so portable, and since it’s so much easier to use as an editor than my phone is, I should be able to do updates from campsites (or anywhere else outside of my office) a lot easier than I’ve been able to previously. I’ll put that to the test in Canada (next month) and Michigan (in November).

For today, however, this has been enough.

*Actually, the GBB may be able to get a full-blown O365 license, including PBI, for a reasonable price by using our non-profit status. That is being investigated.

Still Alive!

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So it’s been a while. Figured I’d try to catch up on things while I’m sitting at Tires Plus waiting for new tires. Also testing out a WordPress app on my phone, which may allow me to post more often and, hopefully, will work well enough so that I can use it when I’m in Michigan in a few weeks.

I guess that’s the big news for now. I rented a cabin at Cheboygan State Park again this year, and I’m planning to stay there from November 9th to the 16th. It’s a lovely spot and I’m really looking forward to having a week by myself in the middle of nowhere to decompress and think about things. That week will come immediately on the heels of a week in Toledo, where I’ll be on a project for work. Not looking as forward to that, but it works nicely financially, as I’ll be reimbursed for mileage for around 1300 miles out of my entire trip.

Work has been somewhat exhausting as of late. The X-Company really built up the numbers in L1 support staff this year, and I’ve now got 10 direct reports and am expecting 1 or 2 more by the end of the year. Having been back in the management gig for nearly a year now (the last time I had directs was around 2006), I’ve sort of settled in to it. Managing people is, for me at least, much more stressful than just dealing with misbehaving computers. I get particularly annoyed when one of my people feels the need to take an emergency day off because, “My kid threw up,” but I guess I’m not allowed to admit that. I also have a few scenarios every day when I’m deep in the heart of working a problem which has been escalated to me and I get interrupted by someone who needs help with something that, to me, seems incredibly obvious. Maybe not the solution, but definitely the troubleshooting steps required to find it.

I haven’t gotten to get out much this year. Did go up to Whigg Meadow two more times since that weekend when Brett and I discovered it. Both trips were really nice (I hiked up both times, rather than subjecting my car to the terrible drive), though I did get absolutely soaked the first time – caught on the trail in a downpour with no rain gear.

I’m still looking for the perfect place to buy some land for a tiny cabin to live in in my old age. Have not found it yet, and I’m again wondering when I’ll be able to actually do this. I looked at my 401k yesterday and see that in the last 2 weeks I’ve lost everything that I gained during the first nine months of the year. Wouldn’t call it depressing, but it’s certainly not encouraging.

…

And now it’s the next day. I did get my tires put on, and had the front end aligned, which makes my car feel like a new car. Very nice. Jenny and I went to a Gladiators hockey game last night. Once again, we saw them playing the Orlando Sun Bears, which I think is the team that we’ve seen play every time we’ve gone. And once again, the Gladiators lost. We have a bad hockey team.

After I got home last night, I saw that I had an email from Dad. It had been written while I was sitting at the tires place, and it mentioned that he misses seeing updates to my blog. Well, here you go, Dad!

I guess the last little bit of news is that I’ve got a concert with the Gwinnett Wind Symphony later this afternoon. We’re performing the Suite from West Side Story, the Candice Suite and something else that I don’t recall right now. The band has been sounding pretty good for the rehearsals, which is different for this group.

So, we’ll call this test over. This app appears to do a pretty good job of allowing me to update my blog on-the-fly. The Voice Control isn’t all that great, but it’s faster than typing on the little phone keyboard. I do have to go back and correct things fairly often.

I don’t know how it will do with inserting pictures, which will be important when I’m in Michigan, but I’ll try that out later.

A Day Away

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My buddy Brett and I decided last week that we had to get away from Atlanta, so he sent me a text saying, “How about the Chatooga?”   That was pretty much all of the planning.  I knew it wouldn’t give me a chance to try out my new car-camping setup, but I honestly thought we might go canoeing.  After a day or so, I figured out that he meant he wanted to go to Burrell’s Ford, near Walhalla, SC.

That was good enough.

I brought along my digital audio recorder, as I’ve done on a few other camping trips (with some half-assed plan about putting together a ridiculous podcast), and we had a great time recording ourselves getting rather cronked in five-minute segments. I also recorded some stuff on my phone. I’ve discovered that I tend to lapse into a somewhat idiotic southern drawl when I record myself on these camping trips – see for yourself (video will take a while to load):  Southern Camping Podcast

It was a quite short, but enjoyable trip.  I arrived about an hour before Brett at around 9:00 Saturday morning.  Took a hike down the river looking for (and finding) a nice spot to pitch a couple of tents, but when Brett got there I learned that he’d brought a cooler with him and didn’t want to walk very far.  So we set up pretty close to the parking lot in a site next to one that we’ve used many times (there was already a group in our “regular” spot).

Saturday afternoon and evening were absolutely gorgeous.  Sunny, warm, quiet.  The water in the river was pretty cold, but I had no intention of swimming in it.  I just used it to keep my beer cold.

Hit the sack fairly early and slept until nearly 7 Sunday morning, when I packed up in a drizzle (Brett had already left) and came home.

At some point, I’ll do some (heavy) editing of the audio that recorded and upload it.  I listened to it at home on Sunday morning and cackled to myself.

 

Post-vacation wrap

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So I’ve been back in Atlanta for a couple of weeks – the second of which I was the on-call guy for work, which sucked – and I suppose it’s a good time to catch up on all the news that is or isn’t fit to print.

The featured image for this post is one of Lake Huron that I took a couple of weeks ago as a storm was rolling in.  It was mainly bluster – not a great deal of rain – but it was chilly and raw.  I loved it.

I’m currently sitting at Tires Plus, waiting for my oil to get changed and my tires to get rotated and my wheels to get balanced and all of that other fun stuff that I do every few months.  Decided this morning that I’d bring my original Surface Pro with me and do something productive while I sit here.  I’m beginning to really appreciate this machine again.  Bought it several years ago, but it’s so small that I used it basically as a novelty.  Real work got done on one of my other laptops.  But, due in large part to it’s small size, I brought it with me to Michigan and took some notes on what was going on.  Those will be pasted, in their unedited entirety, later in this post.

The vacation was a wonderful respite from life.  I started out (and finished, actually) at the Cheboygan State Park in Cheboygan, MI.  This park – I think it’s around 800 acres – sits on Cheboygan Point on the Straits of Mackinac, and it is a lovely place.  I’m pretty sure that I’ll be going back.  I chose the park mainly because it’s a few hours closer to home than is Pictured Rocks on Lake Superior and – for the same price that I’d pay at Pictured Rocks for a basic campsite – I got a basic campsite plus electricity, showers, flushing toilets…all the good stuff.  My site itself was a fairly secluded area on the southern side of the point, sitting on the shores of Duncan Bay, which is a marsh and not at all what I had in mind for a great lakes vacation, although the breeze coming off of the bay was extremely pleasant.  I set up my car tent and a hiker’s tarp.  Bed in the car, various helpful things (camp drawers, table, stove, firewood, etc) in the tent, picnic table under the tarp.

And I had a great few days there.  Arrived in the early afternoon on Thursday, October 12 and had pretty good weather (until Saturday night).  By then, after walking around all over the park, I’d decided to rent a cabin on the northern edge of the park, right on The Straits.  Gave up the electricity and the running water, and paid triple what I’d been paying for the campsite, but gained a fantastically cozy, warm, dry, spacious domicile with easy access to Lake Huron, trails, various critters, and – of course – the ubiquitous fall houseflies of Michigan (see my writeup from last year).  If you refer back to the featured image, I actually took that between the time that I checked out of my campsite (at around noon) and the time that I entered Poe Reef Cabin (at around 2:30).  I spent the time in between just walking around on the point – on the beach, into the woods, back onto the beach, in the off-beach dunes, out on the point, etc. – and getting very cold and a bit wet and playing my wind game (hiding behind trees, under bushes, near rocks…I love my wind game).  Finally, I decided I’d waited long enough to get into the cabin, which I technically wasn’t supposed to do before 3:00.  Whoever had been in it before me, leaving by 1:00, had left a birch log slowly burning in the wood stove, and walking into that dry, warm, wonderful room was probably in the top 5 greatest experiences in my life.  It.  Felt.  So.  Good.

Stayed until the following Thursday morning, then drove home in one shot, arriving at sometime around 1:00 AM Friday.

Back at work, the first week was fine.  The second week, as I mentioned, I was on call.  Got very little sleep (I do not understand why CPAs feel the need to work – and call the help desk – at all hours of the night and on weekends), but survived until yesterday morning, when my on-call shift ended.

Learned on Thursday that the X-Company has been acquired by Right Networks in Hudson, NH, under an umbrella of a venture firm in Boston.  Not sure what that means at this point, but it doesn’t have the same stress level of the other mergers I’ve gone through.

Still looking for another job, but I’m finally starting to settle in and accept the fact that I might be stuck doing what I’m doing for a while.  With that in mind, I accepted an offer to go on a project in Memphis during the last week of November and first of December.  Sounds like I’ll drove over there on Sunday the 26th, come back on the 30th, then go back on the 3rd and return on the 6th or 7th.  Lots of driving, but at least it’s something different to do.

Mary informed me yesterday that she may be moving out at about that same time.  Not sure why, but it’s all good.  I’ve been redesigning my house in my mind since she told me.  Getting my office back (currently her bedroom) and the second guest room (currently unusable because of the boxes in it) will be nice.  I’ll also be able to drop one or two of the paid streaming services that I’m paying for, since I only picked two of them up so that she wouldn’t complain when I dumped DirecTV.

And that’s about that.  The remainder of this post consists of what I wrote while in Michigan.

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6:27 AM 10/14/2017

Saturday morning, day three (or four, if you count Wednesday) of my 2017 vacation. Cheboygan (MI) State Park, site 27. It is a brisk October morning and the sun hasn’t even though about coming up yet, but I had to pee (did so in my trusty pee jar), and then figured I’d take advantage of the bathroom building before they shut it down – I’m told that that might happen tomorrow – so I got up, got dressed, walked over to the loo, and did my business. Being up and dressed, I figured I’d go ahead and start the day, so just made some coffee and pulled out the old Surface Pro to catch up on things.

My vacation actually started on Monday. The idea when I asked for the time off was to head out for the great unwashed north (probably Pictured Rocks) on last Saturday morning and arrive sometime Sunday afternoon. As so often seems to happen to me these days, life got in the way of those plans. Found out that I had a concert on Sunday, so leaving on the weekend was out. Then the GBB set up a very agressive schedule, giving us a minimum of rehearsals between concerts; I decided that it would piss people off if I missed two rehearsals in a row, so I hung around Atlanta until Tuesday and left on Wednesday morning.

While all that was going on, Dad and Diane went to Myrtle Beach last week with plans to stay for a couple of weeks. Drove over to see them on Saturday, and also reserved a spot at the state park there for this past week in hopes of spending some more time with them. Unfortunately, Dad had some medical issues and cut the trip short. I say, “Unfortunately,” because of course I don’t want him to be sick. It did have an upside, though: Myrtle Beach was (and is) incredibly hot and humid this year, and I’ve got to admit that I was not looking forward to camping there for a week. My recent purchase of a Kelty 20-degree bag was definitely not made with hot weather in mind. So once Dad let me know that he was leaving early, I started looking for places to stay in the Upper Pennisula.

Having prepared for Myrtle Beach in my head, I had pretty much wrapped my head around the idea of having electricity, so my normal spots at Pictured Rockes were out. I looked around at other places near Grand Marais, but all of them looked kind of boring: close, tight, campsites with little direct water access. So I started to just look at other parks under the Michigan DNR umbrella. And I found this one, settled in on the Straits of Mackinac on a little jut of land that provides a marsh on one side, the Straits on the other, and an all-day breeze that is amazing. The website said that the bathroom building (showers,toilets, running water) would be shut off on October 4, but all sites have electricity – and it’s cheaper than my Pictured Rocks places! So far, I’m pleased.

photo of Duncan Bay

Duncan Bay

So what’s happened? Well, I left on Wednesday morning and drove to Lima, OH (imagine that), where I spent the night at the Country Inns and Suites – pretty much my go-to plan when heading north to either Michigan or Canada. Hit the road by about 8 Thursday morning and made it here at around 1:30. Checked in via a dedicated telephone (haven’t seen an actual ranger yet), got to my site, and got everything set up. The rest of the day was spent doing basically nothing. Sat in my chair, drank beer, took a couple of pictures of Duncan Bay (the marshy area that is my backyard), and eating an Arby’s beef sandwich leftover from Wednesday night. Went to bed at probably 8:30 (well after dark) and slept until sometime between 7:00 and 7:30 yesterday. Slept like a brick.

For much of the day yesterday, I explored the trails in the area. I walked a total of about 10 miles all over Cheboygan Point, which is nearly all park land. Discovered a couple of beautiful little cabins on the north shore that I’m going to have to check out online (with an eye toward renting next year) and also bushwhacked to the extreme northern tip of Cheboygan. Took a few pictures of Mackinaw City, Grand Mackinac Island, and “The Mighty Mac” (bridge) – although it’s quite difficult to see it on a cellphone camera (I opted not to bring any real cameras with me).

Between walks, I cooked up a couple of angus steaks and some corn on the cob – both were amazing – back at my site. Lit a fire last night as the weekend crowd started rolling in. I’ve got a couple with a very whiny daughter to my right now. Still no one on my left. I’m guessing that it’ll be just me and few folks in their motor homes if/when the water is turned off. I’ll cool with that. There’s a pit toilet about 200 yards from me and one shed where the water will remain turned on all winter. So it’s the same as Pictured Rocks would be – plus I’ve got electricity.

Camping at Cheboygan

Planning on doing some more walking on the point today, but we’ll see what the day brings.

9:51 AM 10/16/2017

On Saturday, I woke up fairly early – I’d guess around 7 – and, with no real plan in mind, started walking down the approach road away from the campground. After about a mile, I came upon road labeled “Poe Reef Cabin” and decided it looked like a nice walk. Locked gate, so I wouldn’t have to worry about traffic, and it headed off into the north woods, which I wanted to explore some more anyway.

Very shortly, I came upon the afore-mentioned cabin, which appeared to be bereft of humans, so I walked around it to the beach and sat in the wind for a while, looking across the straits to Makinac Island. Then walked back around the cabin, peered in the windows, availed myself of the outhouse, and made a snap decision to try to rent the place. Pulled out the phone (it’s great to have a couple of bars of coverage up here), and found that Poe Reef Cabin was available from Sunday until Thursday. Then checked my bank account and learned that I’d finally been reimbursed for my trip to Maryland from two months ago. That did it. I immediately tried to reserve the cabin and was immediately rejected because I already had a reservation at the campground. I resigned myself to doing it next year.

After walking some more (saw a porcupine), I ambled back to the campground – it was probably around 10:00 by then – and flagged down a passing ranger, there to clean the restrooms. I told him I still needed to pay him for my Michigan DNR passport (a parking pass necessary for all MI parks) and that I was wondering if I’d be able to get the cabin in spite of my campsite reservation. He told me, “Theresa will be in the ranger station at noon – sometime after noon – and she can probably help you.”

So I went back to my campsite, made some coffee, ate some peanuts, and waited for noon. At noon, went back to the office – no Theresa. Back to campsite. 1:00 rolled around, and Theresa still wasn’t at the office, so I tuned in to the Furman/VMI football game on my phone. I remember, back in the mid-90s, when David Willard and I would plan for days in advance trying to find a bar with a satellite dish that might possibly be able to get the Furman game. I even started a website about Furman football as a way to force myself to keep up with it and to help other people who were looking for places to hear and/or see the games. Now, I can just pull up Tune-In radio on my phone and hear the games live from anywhere in the world that has cellular coverage. Amazing.

Furman won, 42-10, by the way. But back to the story.

About halfway through the first quarter, I walked back to the ranger station and found that Theresa had arrived. We took care of my passport, and then I broached the subject of the cabin. She clicked and clattered away on her computer (complaining all the while about how slow it was, while I was still listening to my football game over the phone), and not only reserved the cabin for me for Sunday-Thursday, but also reimbursed me for those days at the campground. I told her that I’d happily eat the cost of those nights – if I have to give my money to any government entity, it would be the Michigan DNR (I mean that sincerely) – but she was adamant and I didn’t argue the point. The she offered to walk the key and combination for the cabin to my campsite later (which she did), and told me about Saturday night’s Halloween festivities.

The cabin was sounding better all the time. Apparently, the campground had set aside Saturday night as a “local kids don costumes and bother campers for candy” night. Later that night, there was the “Haunted Trail” campaign, during which, for $10, children (and, I assume, their folks) could walk along a few of the trails near the campground after dark and be frightened by various things set up on the trails.

I opted to turn my back on the moochers and drink bourbon while staring at Duncan Bay. Lit a fire somewhere around 5:30, as the wind began to pick up, and hit the sack, I’d guess, at around 8:00.

I have yet to spend any camp time in Michigan that doesn’t end with me tearing down in the rain, and Sunday morning was no exception. A squall came in out of the north shortly after I went to bed, and it more or less raged all night. At some point, one of the bungees holding my tarp up gave up the fight. This allowed my tarp to fold in half and completely expose my table – on which I’d left my lantern, stove, jetboil, and pans – and to soak everything. When I got up, somewhere around 8:00, I fixed that issue and then hoped for a break in the weather during which I could tear down while staying as dry as possible.

It never really happened. While I did get about 20 minutes of non-rain, the wind never let up. Every time a gust hit, rain fell out of the trees and covered everything again. In a nutshell, I did get everything sort of packed into the car, but I had no chance to dry out the tent or the tarp. And I was drenched. I took the opportunity, after packing everything, to use the campground’s shower, and felt much better. Headed out at about 12:45, but couldn’t check in to the cabin before 3:00. So I parked at the trail head, and started walking.

The squall had picked back up by now, so I tried to keep to the internal forest as much as possible. Every time I got within a quarter-mile of the lake, the wind and spray was pelting me and it was getting cold. I’d guess that the actual temp was around 45, but add strong winds and wet and I have no idea how cold things really were. Time went fairly slowly, as I walked probably 8 miles of trails waiting for 3:00. At 2:45, I was back at the trail head and thought, “Screw it. I’m going in.”

So I did. And when I opened the cabin door, I learned that the people who’d left earlier had left a nice birch log roasting in the wood stove. The inside of the cabin was between 75 and 80 degrees. It was the most amazing feeling that I’ve had since….it was just the most amazing feeling ever. I’m trying to compare it to sometime during a Shoreham winter when I came into the kitchen after playing outside, but it went beyond that. I was absolutely worn out and freezing when I opened the cabin door, and the sense of being warm and dry was incredible. I moved all of my stuff (except the tent) into the cabin, crawled into my sleeping bag, and slept for close to 4 hours. Then got up, ate a couple of sandwiches, played in the wind for another hour or so, and got back into bed. Slept until 9 this morning, with one interruption at 4:00 to get up and pee and throw some more wood into the stove. The wind was still howling at that hour, and it was very cold. By 9:00, however, the storm had cleared. The sun is now shining and the wind has died out as much as it can on the shore of a great lake. It’s still chilly – there was frost on my picnic table this morning – but the sun feels good and I’m hoping for temps in the upper 60s today. Inside my cabin as I type this, with some oak smoldering in the stove – flu nearly closed – it’s right at 60 degrees and feels wonderful.

I’ll do some more hiking today and, perhaps, drive into Cheboygan for a few supplies. Coffee, batteries, maybe some ice. And I’ll continue this tome as time permits.

Poe Reef Cabin

5:15 PM 10/18/2017
Today and yesterday were both phenomenal, weather-wise. Temperature was in the mid-60s and the sky was perfectly blue on both days. I did jump into the lake briefly yesterday (very cold) and considered it again today, but decided not to – though there’s still another hour or so of daylight left. Got a couple of long walks in on both days, and filled out things by sitting at my cabin, listening to podcasts and drinking. Also built a fire outside the cabin today.

During this morning’s walk, I startled an eagle out of a tree by the beach – first time I’ve ever seen one of those in the wild, and it was pretty cool. Other interesting wildlife that I’ve noticed this week are a flock of swans in the straits and a multitude of jet-black squirrels. Also got a couple of close-ups of a pilliated woodpecker over the course of the week. I assume it was the same bird, but it could be that all of them enjoy showering me with wood chips.

If you look closely, you can see a wild eagle in this picture

Planning on leaving before dawn tomorrow, but that really depends on how I sleep tonight. I woke up briefly at around 4 this morning, but convinced myself to go back to bed, where I happily snored until after 9. When I get home really depends on when I leave here. I’d like to get there before Friday night, so am hoping that I can suck it up and do the trip in one shot. Otherwise, I’ll probably end up stopping in Kentucky somewhere, and I hate to spend money in Kentucky. “Don’t support anyplace that supports Mitch McConnell,” is my motto.

As for the rest of today, I have no plans. Had a couple of sandwiches an hour or so ago, so I don’t think I’ll need to eat again. Already boiled some water and put it into my thermos for my morning sponge bath. I’ll probably have some coffee at some point, and I’m still listening to podcasts. Might watch a movie on the Surface Pro before bed. I brought 5 or 6 or them with me, planning to go through them in the campground – where I had electricity – but since moving to the cabin, I’ve had to be stingy with the amount of time that the computer is running. The phone and my iPod are fine – I’ve got a great portable charger – but once the Surface Pro dies, it’s done until I’m home or at a hotel.

To sum up, it’s been a great week – particularly the last four days – and I’m fairly certain that I’ll rent a cabin here again next year. Might try to get one of the other two that are about a mile farther up the point – they have better beaches – but I’ve got nothing negative to say about this one, and I’d take it again in a heartbeat.

Catching Up

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I’ve spent a great deal of time this morning attempting to get the permissions set correctly on this WordPress site, and – so far – have had very little luck in doing so.  I did manage to get a plug-in installed to tell me what’s WRONG; Unfortunately, it has been unsuccessful at actually fixing those things.  Looks like I’ll be doing manual edits for a while.

I perused my latest entry and discovered that I haven’t written anything since going to Annapolis two weeks ago, so here’s a quick rundown on what’s gone on since then.

As mentioned, I spent the week of August 8th in Annapolis, MD, helping to set up a new client for the X Company.  It was pretty straightforward stuff – adding machines to the domain, setting up printers, installing the correct version of the Citrix receiver and antivirus on machines, and then spending a few days working with the people there and showing them how to navigate the cloud, finding fixes for individual problems, etc.  I would have enjoyed myself a lot more if some actual planning had gone into the project, rather than just a basic, “Here’s a domain controller. Knock yourself out,” approach.  The more I work at this company, the more I realize that they talk a really good game about project management, but they actually do very little of it.  If/when I’m ever able to find another gig – and if I get an exit interview – that will be the #1 thing I have to say.  They’re growing too fast, they don’t plan for more than the simplest changes, and it’s eventually going to bite them in the ass.

Maryland itself was fine, I guess.  I didn’t see much of it.  Contrary to the thoughts of a few of my friends, I was not on a vacation.  I was up by 5:30, in the office by 7:30, worked 11-12 hours a day, and returned to my hotel, where I normally ate microwave macaroni and cheese and either watched television or played “Medal of Honor” for an hour before going to bed.

I did go out to dinner one night with my co-worker, Nate.  We found a sushi place across the street from my hotel and gorged on it.  Blew through my entire per diem for that one meal, but it was worth it.  Besides, by eating Mac & Cheese every other night, I made a few hundred bucks on unspent per diem.

I had planned to drive back from MD on Friday morning, but the more I thought about it, the more attractive it became to leave on Thursday night.  I didn’t want to hit morning traffic in D.C.  I wanted to have an extra day to decompress at home before going back to work at the office.  And – seriously – I missed my cats.  So I left at about 7:30 Thursday night.

Had a fairly uneventful drive, although I discovered U.S. 360 West – got on it somewhere around Richmond and took it over to 29 South.  Very pretty drive, although I got confused at one point and ended up on an “ExpressPay” lane for about a half a mile.  Since I don’t have any type of transponder, I’m wondering when I’m going to get a bill for that, and how much that little goof is going to cost me.

I got home at around 5:30 Friday morning, slept for a good part of the day, mowed some lawns, and had a decent weekend before going back to the phones on Monday.

The GBB kicked off rehearsals on Tuesday, so that was a nice diversion.

While in MD, I requested and received paid time off for August 21 & 22 (which is today).  That being the case, I headed for the NC mountains on Saturday, August 19, with an eye towards catching the solar eclipse in both totality and relative seclusion.

As it turned out, there were about a billion other people who had the same idea, and so it was incredible luck that I got lost on the way to my original destination (Big Fat Gap) and ended up driving down an increasingly horrible road that ended at a lovely hunter’s shelter near Deep River Gap.  My friend Brett, who had planned to meet me at BFG, got concerned on Saturday afternoon because 1}BFG was incredibly crowded, and 2}I hadn’t shown up.  So he started randomly driving around the area and actually ended up finding me on the increasingly horrible road.

This is not the first time that we’ve managed to locate each other, without any type of communication, in 20 square miles or more of wilderness.  We started talking about it on Saturday night and determined that we’ve probably done the same thing – him finding me or vice versa – 5 or 6 times in the last 15 years.  It’s uncanny.

Anyway, the increasingly horrible road was a godsend, because we only saw 2 cars and 1 motorcycle at our shelter between Saturday afternoon and Monday afternoon.  People would see the road and just turn around.

I know this, because I damned near did the same thing.  Now that I know where the shelter is, though….gold.

On Monday morning, Brett said that he wanted to catch the eclipse somewhere along the Cherahola Skyway, but I was in no mood to fight with the crowds and the traffic (I’d heard that Huckleberry Knob – where we’d originally planned to hike up and see the thing – had been outfitted with dumpsters and porta-potties), so I stayed at the shelter and Brett left.  I’d been told that an old, closed, forestry road that continued up the mountain from my shelter eventually ended up at The Hangover, which is a beautiful spot in the Joyce Kilmer forest; so at around 1130, I started hiking up it.

After 3.5 to 4 miles – every motherlovin’ step of it UPHILL – the road-cum-footpath ended up at a clearing in the middle of absolutely nowhere.  By then, it was 1:15, and I decided to head back down and try to make it to my backup plan for the eclipse, which was a nice little hill on one side of the increasingly horrible road that would offer close to a 360-degree view.

While the hike down was much (MUCH) easier than the one going up, it still took a while, and when I found an open spot on the trail at around 2:00, I took out my eclipse glasses just to see if anything was happening.  Good thing I did, because the eclipse was well under way by then.

So I set up my tripod and camera (did I mention that I carried both of those things all the way up that trail?  Auuuuugggghhhh!!), and spend the next 40 minutes trying to get some shots.  I assume that I did.  I haven’t looked at my memory card yet.  I did, however, get a look – with my eyes – during the 2 minutes or so of totality.

Wow!  It really was cool to see the corona.  Very cool.

It was also a fascinating experience in less majestic ways.  Like, for instance, the way that it went from light to dark as if someone had flipped off a switch.  Or the way that the crickets were chirping and birds were singing their twilight songs in the middle of the afternoon.  Or the fact that the temperature dropped about 15 degrees in 60 seconds. Or that I could actually see a few stars.  I’ve seen (that I recall) two other solar eclipses – but never totality.

It was worth the trip, and the increasingly horrible road, and the 3-mile hike uphill to nowhere.

After the meat of it was over, I continued back down the trail to my car at the shelter, packed up, took one last drink of filtered stream water, and headed out.  Within 500 yards, I saw a truck approaching from down the increasingly horrible road, and pulled on to a turn-out to let it by.  It pulled up next to me, and I saw that it was occupied by a family of 5.  The driver, looking very concerned, asked me, “How much longer does this go on?”  I told him he was near the dead-end and that the worst was over, and the kids in the back started celebrating.

So at least one other family no knows the location of my new happy place.  Though, I don’t know if they’ll want to make the trip again.  When I said, “Truck,” earlier, I meant “Minivan-like vehicle.”  I wouldn’t be at all surprised if it had bottomed out at least four times to get as far as it got – and that part about “the worst being over” was a complete lie on my part.  The last 500 yards were the worst on the road.

But I’ll go back.  And I might even hike that stupid trail again, although my calves are SCREAMING at me this morning.

The NC mountains never fail to calm me.

Chillin’

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Today’s featured image was taken on this day one year ago, and is of the Little Santeetlah Creek in the Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest – one of my favorite places in the world for a quick getaway from city life.  My buddy Brett and I had actually planned to go up there a couple of weekends ago, but it was covered in snow, gates were closed, trees were down, and the roads were basically impassible.  We opted instead to hang out at Fires Creek in the Nantahala Wilderness for a one-night campout.  Bing tells me this about the JKMF:

Joyce Kilmer Memorial Forest is an approximately 3,800-acre tract of publicly owned virgin forest in Graham County, North Carolina, named in memory of poet Joyce Kilmer, best known for his poem “Trees”. One of the largest contiguous tracts of old growth forest in the Eastern United States, the area is administered by the U. S. Forest Service.

Oddly enough, Kilmer himself was born, and lived most of his life, in New Jersey.  He was killed in France in WWI.  Why his name is attached to a forest in NC is somewhat of a mystery, excepting, of course, the reference to his “Trees” poem, of which I’m sure that everyone knows at least the first line.

Work was a bit more hectic than usual last week, largely due to the fact that I got another “primary” firm (meaning that I’m their primary consultant), and they’re brand new to The X Company.  McSoley, McCoy & Company is a small CPA firm in South Burlington, VT, and I’ve got to admit that I like taking care of them simply because of their location.  At this early stage, however, they’re pretty needy.  I’m told that it usually takes about 6 months for a new firm to settle into a cloud-based environment, and I’m hopeful that they get used to things a lot faster than that.  I’m spending a lot of time on the phone with them, and I’ve got 5 other primary firms that I’ve somewhat neglected since MMC on-boarded.  They’ve been fun to work with, however.  Nice people.

I tried to get some sleep yesterday – don’t have much time to do so during the week – but I still have things to do at home.  Managed to get a few loads of laundry done and to straighten up my bedroom.  Still need to mow the lawns, but storms rolled in yesterday afternoon and nixed any idea of working outside.  I should also mention that it was about 90 degrees and humid, so outdoor work would have been incredibly uncomfortable.  Took a 3.6-mile walk this morning in a steady drizzle, and the rain is predicted to continue for much of this week, so my lawns are going to be a major pain to mow by next weekend.  I’d hoped to maybe try the mountains again, but it looks like I’ll be stuck at home to mow and do other home-type things.  Still need to fix the toilet in my half-bath.  Been meaning to do that for about 8 months now….

Learned a couple of weeks ago that I will not be able to take a vacation in July, so Ahmic Lake appears to be out this year.  I’m trying to decide if I want to go back to Lake Superior in October (haven’t asked if I can have that time off yet…perhaps I should) or if I can find something acceptable that’s closer to home.  Basically, I don’t want much in a place, but there are some non-negotiables:

  1. It has to be cool, bordering on cold.
  2. It has to have plenty of tree cover.
  3. I have to be alone, or as close to it as possible.
  4. It has to have water into which I can immerse myself.  A decent-sized stream, a lake, an ocean.  No ponds.
  5. It has to have wind.
  6. It has to be secluded enough to allow me to take long walks in the trees.

Superior, of course, has all of those things and is currently at the top of my list.  The drive is the only problem.  Not that it’s boring (it’s beautiful for much of the way) or that it tires me out: It just cuts into my time in the woods.  Figure 1 or 2 days to make the trip each way, and my vacation takes a serious hit.  At AT&T, it wasn’t that big of a deal.  I mean, I got something like 38 days off every year.  At The X Company, I think I get 10.  I’d rather not lose 3-4 of them driving.

So I’m considering places along the Atlantic…North Carolina, Virginia, perhaps Georgia or SC (although I think it’d be too hot and too crowded in those states, not to mention the fact that the beaches in GA and SC have very little tree cover).  Have been looking into the other great lakes that would be closer – Michigan, Erie, Ontario – but I don’t know if they’ve got the tree cover that I’m looking for, either.

One idea that I’ve been pondering is to head to Vermont, somewhere along the Long Trail, and maybe talk The X Company into letting me have a couple of days “on the clock” visiting with McSoley, McCoy.  Not sure if that’d fly or not, but I’d be willing to float the idea if I can find a perfect camping spot in, say, the Northeast Kingdom.

“Why not just go to Joyce Kilmer,” you ask?  That is a possibility, of course.  The only problem with it is that hunters and rednecks abound in that area in the fall.  The “alone” part of my list is pretty important.

One other idea is Unicoi State Park in Georgia.  I’ve never spent much time there, but it’s in the mountains, it’s got a lake, it’s got trails, it’s got cover, and it’d be chilly in October.  Biggest drawback is that, in October, the leaf-peepers will be coming out of the woodwork.  It’s got some walk-in campsites, however, so I might be able to get away from the crowds.  Going to do some more research on the park.  If I could make it work, it’d be fantastic.  It’s only about 3 hours away, and it really is a beautiful park.

And I think that’s about it for now.  Still plugging away, still dreaming about a retirement life in the woods, still a bit pissed off at AT&T (I doubt that I’ll ever get over that, to be honest), but still trying to keep a positive attitude.  A few more years.  I can last a few more years.

TWD

Midwinter Update

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Mea culpa for not realizing that it’d been nearly two weeks since I put anything here….though I have realized in the last week that I should have done so.

The featured image for this post is of me at a game at VMI in (I think) 2014.  If memory serves, it marked the first game in Lexington, VA, since VMI returned to the conference after leaving for 10 years or so.  One of the cheerleaders took it for me – good kids, those.  I missed them more than the games themselves when I took last season off.

Anyway, the job search came (more or less) to an end last week, when I accepted an offer to join The X Company, an an Alpharetta-based cloud services company for CPA firms.  I’m not going to pretend that this is my dream job, but it has good and bad points.  It’s a small company (just over 100 employees), which has been around since 2002, has revenues of about $12 million, a 66% growth rate over the last three years, and has been honored by Inc. 5000 five times.  That information is both good and (potentially) bad, because I’m frankly tired of working for big companies (3M, NYNEX, ComputerLand, BellSouth, AT&T) and much prefer the little ones.  During my interview, for example, the CEO and co-founder was apparently making faces at my interviewers behind my back – I like stuff like that.  A potential drawback, however, is its growth: I learned from my time at Compaid (an Inc. 500 honoree) that small, profitable, companies are ripe for takeover by the big boys.  I am really hoping that I don’t have to go through that garbage again…and the fact that The X Company’s been plugging away by itself for 15 years is heartening.

The job itself (Hosted Services Consultant 1) is a severe jump backward for me.  My paychecks will be just over half of what they were a month ago, I’ll be on the phone for much of the day, and I’m basically at the bottom of the barrel.  I think the “on the phone” part of that scenario is what disheartens me the most, but hopefully I can stay busy and interested enough to either enjoy it or advance out of it.  I still have a few leads with other companies, with jobs more suited to my experience and preferences, and I’ll wait to see if anything pans out with them.

I’ve cleared all the pre-hire hurdles with The X Company, however (background, credit, and urine checks), and am scheduled to start work next Monday morning.  In Alpharetta.  I forgot that part….my commute will go from 5 minutes to probably 45+ minutes.  No more lunches at home.

At least I’ll be doing something.  Unemployment has been, to put it mildly, sort of exhausting.  I’m still getting up at 5:30 – the cats don’t care if I’m going to work or not – but, after my walks, I’ve just been kind of sitting around playing tiddly winks.  No energy to do much of anything, and I’m usually wiped out by 5:00 in the afternoon and in bed by 7:30.

I do have some work to do in the next few days, however: cleaning the house in anticipation of a new roommate.  My friend Mary, who I’ve known for several years, is coming up on the end of her lease in March and will be taking up residence in the guestroom.  She’ll be bringing her adorable little cat, Pretty Princess, with her – which is both very cool and a bit terrifying.  I have no doubt that Joshua and Chamberlain will be quite welcoming, but Boo isn’t the friendliest kitty when it comes to meeting new friends.  It will be a fairly slow and cautious introduction, with alternating days of cats being closed up in different rooms so that everyone can get acquainted without much bloodshed.

Hey, Jenny and I combined four cats.  Hopefully, Mary and I can do the same.

The GBB is back in rehearsals as of last week (although I didn’t start until last night – had a terrible cold/flu last Tuesday night).  The board is being pretty active about looking for funding and additional performance opportunities, which is nice.  Our board has been pretty lethargic for several years, and it’ll be nice to have input and organization from more than just the 2-3 people who’ve been running the show.  We’ve got a mini-tour of GA, AL, and TN coming up in (I think) April, a return engagement to Kennesaw State in March, and a couple of other local gigs scheduled in May.  I wouldn’t mind adding two or three more gigs, but a lot of the band folks are really weird about that.  They don’t want to play more than 5-6 concerts a year.  Not sure why you’d want to be in a band if you don’t want to perform a lot….

The weather in Duluth has been, shall we say, varied as of late.  A week ago, it was 18 degrees during one of my morning walks.  Today, it was pushing 65.  I actually had the A/C on in my car yesterday.  Am still waiting for the “chill” hammer to fall, when we have temps in the 20s for a couple of weeks and I can watch my natural gas bill go through the roof.  But, so far at least, the utilities haven’t been too overwhelming.  Which is good…because I haven’t received my severance check yet, and February is going to be extremely tight, financially speaking.

That should be enough for now.  In a nutshell, it appears that I’ve survived my first layoff; my days of living alone are once again about to come to a halt; the weather is nuts; and my biggest opportunity to hike the Appalachian Trail has, at least for now, eluded me.

But I’m going to do it before I die.