Seven Mountains on the left,
Nittany Mountain on the right
I hung a bulletin board and posted some of the sections of map I printed. It seems like a great way to ponder over hikes, and will be good for showing my friends where I’ve been.
I just posted an ancient recording written and recorded by my first band the Ubiquitous Proprietors. We wrote about ten originals between 1999 and 2000, most of which were never were recorded. This is one of the exceptions. Roger can be downloaded from the MP3 goodness page.
The new fuel bottle (in green) is about as tall as a beer can and holds 8.5 fluid oz.
Since getting my new pack and building a soda can stove, I’ve wanted a smaller fuel bottle to go along with the light-weight theme. The new fuel bottle holds 8.5 fluid oz and is more economical for 3-4 day hikes when compared to my MSR bottle which holds 20 fluid oz. This is especially true considering most of my hikes are less than four days and I generally cook only once a day.
A spork was another way to shave away at my pack’s weight. Until now I’ve been using a fork/knife/spoon set (the kind where the knife and fork piggy-back using two hooks on the spoon). I always have a pocket knife on me, so replacing the 3-piece set with a spork lets me ditch the weight of two utensils. The spork will also keep me from having to dig for multiple utensils in my pack (a common headache when the fork and knife dettach from the spoon).
If you’ve seen my first WordPress post, you know that ongoing image-related error messages gave me a boost to the the other side of the fence where WordPress lives. I like WordPress, but as I’d rather not leave my codebase in the dust, I’ve been poking around for solutions to the thumbnail display problem.
Last night I tried logging in to WordPress and was hit with a server error. I was struck out a second time when I attempted accessing the “old” code-base at the root (WordPress is in a sub-folder) – it too was down. This morning I checked both WordPress and the root locations and found both weblogs were again up and running. To my surprise, the Bear Meadows Post (the last post to display images with the home-brewed code) displayed every image without any errors.
I shot en email to my web host and discovered there was an overnight issue with some files controlling PHP, and to resolve it, some files were swapped around and Apache was reinstalled to a newer version. Fortunately for me, the version update on the server seems to have fixed the issues I’ve been seeing. (This explains why I could never reproduce the image errors with Apache on my PC at home.)
I’ve since closed the support case I opened at the SiliSoftware support forums. (This is the part where you yell at me for not upgrading phpThumb() for four years.)
I think it’s time seriously consider packaging the Ralford.net code for release.
Back in 2000, I spent a few days writing music with some software called FruityLoops. The program lets you create layered tracks by adding pre-recorded instrument sounds to beats in a measure. You can fiddle with things like tempo and volume, and it also lets you apply notes to combinations of sounds to generate chords.
Since I wrote the tune (almost 9 years ago!), the software has been through numerous releases (it’s now called FL Studio 8), and probably has all sorts of bells and whistles. Of course, there are many other packages these days that let you do the same thing.
As this is one of the oldest recordings in my music archive, it only seems appropriate that this is the first I post to the MP3 Goodness page. I hope you enjoy it.
The second stove is taller than the first
About three weeks ago I made my first soda can stove using the instructions at YGringas.net. His instructions are thorough, so there’s no reason to rewrite them here.
I first heard of the concept while doing a section hike on the AT (I believe just south of The Pinnacle). A thruhiker I ran into named Badger had just picked one up and explained to me that it could boil water. With my new pack on the way (I had just ordered it), I saw this as an opportunity to whittle away at the ounces I carry on overnight trips.
The taller stove, just after the jets kicked in
I found that the first model I made did not quite boil water. The stove was filled with denatured alcohol and my cooking pot had about 1.5 cups of water and no lid. The jets seemed to be working ok, so the only adjustment made on the second stove was height – I made it about a quarter inch taller to hold more fuel. Filling the second stove to the top (up to the fill-hole) did the trick. After 1.5 – 2 minutes, the jets were going, by 7 minutes water was boiling, and the jets continued burning until about 9 minutes.
This should take care of any oatmeal, tea, or ramen noodles I’ll be cooking in the woods. At some point I want to measure how many ounces of fuel it takes for a single run. With that I can get a good estimate on how much fuel I need per hike.
It’s been some time now since I’ve played with The Jackdaw Boys down at the Red Horse Tavern, and I’m again craving acoustic music. I got my feet wet with the mandolin when I played with The Jackdaw Boys, but this time I’m searching to form an acoustic group where mandolin would be my primary instrument.
So consider this a ‘musicians wanted’ ad:
I’m a mandolin player and hope to find at least a banjo player and guitarist to form a live band that plays bluegrass music. Other instruments and players are also welcome (fiddle, bass). I listen to and would love to play some Old & In the Way tunes, as well as traditional bluegrass songs. As original ideas come up, they would also be incorporated. The short term goal of the group would be to start playing 2-3 hour gigs by the end of July with the hope of playing three gigs a month by fall.
If you live in the State College area, and have similar interests and musical goals, contact me.
My new Deuter ACT Trail 32
A week or two ago I picked up Deuter’s ACT Trail 32. It’s an internal frame backpack that’s a little larger than your typical day hiking pack, yet big enough to carry enough gear to go on an overnighter or possibly a two day hike.
If you want to take a tent and sleeping pad with you this backpack is probably not for you. In my eyes, this pack is ideal for warm weather trips where you’d need no more than a lightweight fleece bag or blanket and a hammock. But to my surprise, I was able to fit my 3 season sleeping bag in the bottom of the pack.
The main compartment of the bag is accessable from both the top and the backside. The top has a draw string with a typical flap that buckles down after you draw it shut. The backside of the pack has a netted pocket (which I’ve been using for quick assess to trail maps) and a bungee mechanism for stashing a sweatshirt or fleece when you need to remove layers as you hike.
The backpack fits firmly against your back and allows you to move without any jiggling whatsoever. It has a belt strap and a second strap across the chest to pull the arm straps closer together. On the inside is a pocket to hold a water pouch, with a hole in the front to route the drinking tube. On the outside at the bottom is a zippered compartment containing a backpack hairnet built to fit the pack. There are also numerous loops for tying down gear or clipping doodads with carabiners.
I’ve taken the pack on two evening hikes so far (both behind Tussey Mountain) but have not yet camped overnight with it. One was two weeks ago around Bear Meadows, and the other was on a smaller loop off Kettle Trail and Shingle Path. I’ll probably do several more night hikes in the upcoming weeks until I can find a full weekend to backpack. And even then, I don’t foresee myself using this pack until June or July for weekend hikes, as I generally like to take my tent when I’m backpacking in colder weather.
It’s now been years since I started coding the interface behind ralford.net (my home-brewed PHP weblog/wiki has been running since 2005), and well, to say the least, I’ve finally given in to WordPress! Really, I think the big factor for me “giving in” is that image support on my home-brewed weblog is lacking a software genius. I ran phpThumb() for a long time, but one day, everything started behaving funny and pictures stopped working. I do not blame phpThumb() for this – if there is fault to put on someone here it is me for not having more patience with the code. I wanted to talk about some recent hikes I went on, and show pictures of where I’ve been, as well as pictures of my new pack and camp-stove. Well, I hiked and ralford.net stayed broken, I traveled and ralford.net stayed broken, and I played music and ralford.net stayed broken. And finally, I gave up on trying to figure out why the pictures weren’t showing up, because at this point in my life, I engineer during the day – not at night.
Tonight, I installed WordPress, and simply speaking, it was a breeze.
