2018 Venture Vermont: visit a (state) park that is new to you

whoa.

i was thinking that i would have a look at the park finder and pick one i'd never been to, but i was up on thetford hill and apparently there's a state park there.

i did not even know that was a thing.

so i went.

thetford hill state park.

who knew?

ze frank

recently i watched this video:



maybe you're already a fan of ze frank; maybe not. i am. i have run across his games and videos and projects of different sorts from a lot of corners of the internets.

then last month i saw his 2010 TED talk, which i recommend you watch right to the end.

so

so then because he talked about it in his TED talk, i went back to his website and played with some of his toys. here are some of the ones i like especially:

animated kaleidoscope
string spin
memory game

and if you like, here's his whole catalog. go ahead, dive deep.

are you sure you're registered?

i'm generally a fan of the supremes, but sometimes their latest thing is a flop.

like that whole "states can go ahead and purge voter rolls of people they wish weren't registered" thing.

there's a piece of crap.

do yourself a favor. do me a favor. do the whole planet a solid: check if you are registered to vote. you cannot count on being registered even if you OUGHT to be. you can use this tool if you don't mind them sending you emails.

me, i LOVE being on political mailing lists, because it gives me great pleasure to ask democratic leaning organizations to take me off of their lists because as a progressive i'm not having any of their neo-liberal shit, but that's just me.

lifeguard

ok, so my scout troop decided in the spring that in early summer we should go on a two night campout. TWO NIGHTS! this is a big deal in the life of a scout troop.

the campground we chose has a pool. the girls were SO EXCITED ABOUT THAT.

but it is a swim at your own risk pool.

concurrently, i started going to trainings because even though i have a boatload of outdoor skills and knowledge, i lacked appropriate certifications to take girl scouts out to do things because someone at the council has to put a stamp of approval on you which i do not think is a bad thing.

when leaders just make up safety stuff, you get wide variations and conflicting procedures and that's just begging for trouble.

anyway, if you have a lot of skills, the training are more of a skill check and a making sure you're on the same procedural page.

but there is a little bit of a bottleneck since the MERGER (nope, not going into it here) and there are not enough opportunities for adult training in my area which is a problem because nobody ever starts taking a hatful of outdoor trainings to get certified to take scouts out on activities they haven't asked to do yet.

what is more likely to happen is the girls learn that a thing is possible, ask to do it, the adults check into the needed certifications, and then learn that not only do they not have the requisite training, but they can't get it right away.

and i was at one of these trainings shooting my mouth off about this training bottleneck, and there are two kinds of people who complain: people who complain about things, and people who complain and offer to be part of the solution.

so all of a sudden i'm piling on certs which can be expensive, but if you're an INSTRUCTOR at a week of training you can take any courses being offered for free in return for your work, which is how i could afford to become a lifeguard just because my troop wanted to go swimming.

it was mentally and physically taxing and i came away from the in pool training with the worst sunburn i have had since my youth on account of usually i swim in long sleeves and long pants and SHOES because i get sunburned through clothes but you can't afford to be wearing all that much stuff during your lifeguard training.

and then during our camping trip everybody could go in the pool except me, because why yes, that would have required a lifeguard and i was the only one.

ten year olds do not really have an appreciation for what you go through so they can have an awesome weekend.

totally worth it.

totally.

bourdain

i keep crying a little over anthony bourdain.

i'm not sure why. i am not usually this sad over celebrity deaths, even celebrity suicides.

i wasn't even that huge a fan; i don't watch much teevee anymore but i used to like to watch him sometimes.

you've probably seen a lot of travel shows and food shows and food travel shows, just like i have. there was a trend for a while of being kind of snarky, and bourdain certainly had snark. he sort of WAS snark.

but when he was offered hospitality, when people made him food or showed him their lives, he was grateful and respectful.

world class restaurants, holes in the wall, waffle house.

he loved what he loved.

the world is sadder and poorer without him.

current events

in  a couple of weeks i'm going to try to be lifeguard certified.

i've always been a strong swimmer, if not a stylish one.

so i thought tonight i would go down and swim in the river against the current for a little while. first off, that water is COLD. it might be uncomfortably warm out, but the river is still cold.

also, the water has been high even though may was a little drier than usual.

and tonight there were scattered heavy rains.

none fell on me, but in the hour i was in the river i felt definite fluctuations of current strength.

near the end i became frightened because it was too strong to maintain footing against, and then i got out and then when i could see up the road i could see a locally heavy downpour maybe a half mile upstream.

grackle crisis

today i was trying to sit on my porch to work on a carving, but there was a grackle crisis.

it seems there is a grackle nest in the tree in front of my house.

because a little one, not yet ready to fly, seems to have stepped out of the nest and was hiding in my bushes.

and crying piteously for food.

...which nobody would bring it because i was sitting there.

so the parents and assorted other grackles sat in trees making a racket and the little baby sat in my bushes wailing and the other fledglings in the nest heard their sibling and also set to wailing so i decided today was not my day to sit on the porch and apparently now the little one is being fed under my bushes and only occasionally cries to be fed.

that little guy is now MOTIVATED to learn to fly.

hope is that thing with feathers.

stuff to play with

i am done with my sewing project. these days i am also practicing guitar, which is a thing i have not done in a long time.

here's a thing i spent a while playing with this morning. i hope you will like it. headphones recommended, or at least good speakers.

then i wasted some more time taking some intelligence tests. i turns out i'm moderately smart.

and for no particular reason, this:

day twelve

today is day twelve of Sewing The Jacket. it's going to be nice, though, and i will probably not have to do a large scale jacket sewing for the rest of my life. i'm planning on making some adjustments here and there as i may acquire new patches that i like better or are more important, but for the most part, i am not looking to get a lot more patches.


these two are my most recent additons:

they're earned from adult training. i think older scouts can also earn these but the real importance is for adults because you have to be certified in these things to take your scouts camping.

well. that was a nice little break. i have to return to the sewing.

duct tape thimble

i don't own a thimble.

and today is day nine of the sewing project. and by "day nine",  i mean it is my primary activity. this is partly because the fabric is stiff and the patches are hard and partly because i'm fussy and need to do everything so it goes on straight and partly because i am sucky at sewing so it takes me a long time to do simple tasks.

these days i have also been doing laundry, picking up after myself, cooking meals, and doing dishes. also cleaning up after the monumental mess i left myself in the month of april.

and also working out a little.

in short, i am trying to get my stuff together.

and then i will go camping.

and here is my thimble.

closing tabs. again

i was going to write you a real post today, but i just have too many tabs open.

i will tell you that i am on day seven of a sewing project that i mean to tell you about later, but it's camping season, holy honk, so we'll see how that goes.

anyway, while i'm sitting here sewing, i am looking at a lot of interwebs.

and now i have tabs i want to close.

i'm a musician by training and trade, and more specifically a composer, so how we translate different ideas into music is always of interest to me. here's an interesting concept where a guy does this with maps.




i was sick for the month of april and at some point i just needed food i could unwrap and eat without getting out of my hammock. enter bars. there are a lot of bars on the market, but someone gave me an Rx bar and i was like WOW. this thing totally makes me feel like i have eaten food and yet it's not too much trouble to eat and i don't feel sick afterward.

but they're expensive. so i was interested to see a recipe for a facsimile thereof. i haven't tried them yet, but it's on my list, especially because camping food.

i think this here video of what goes on backstage at the met is cool.




here's a map that explains a lot of the hostility for education in red states.

and while we're at it, take a look at an interactive explainer/simulator on the challenges of getting a child an appropriate education in the chicago public schools.


you probably need to be cheered up now.




and if that didn't work, try this:

do. not. yield.

stuff, stuff, and more stuff.

my house looks like some untidy person has been living here but not picking up after themselves. if you look carefully the untidy person can't be bothered to load the dishwasher or pick up random food wrappers, but yet all the camping gear is neatly maintained and stowed.

my excuse of course is that even in my month of sickness i managed to prepare for scout meetings and go camping because dammit, one is a responsibility and the other, well, if all i'm going to do is lie in a hammock and read and cough, i may as well be in a nice quiet forest.

i volunteered to do some girl scout trainings because we need more opportunities for girl scout trainings but that means i have to get some certifications and stuff and all sudden i'm going to be in places where one wears a patch jacket.

this is a thing where as your badges and stuff go out of date on your uniform, you still have attachment to them so you put them on a jacket and wear them around only i am not ever going to fit into the jacket i was wearing in 1976 so i bought a new jacket and am transferring all my badges and patches. even though my badges are all 1963 style, i have decided to place them on my jacket in a way reminiscent of the 1927 uniform, which i think is a cool look.

basically i'm a walking museum of girl scout memorabilia of my era.

i have a patch from the camp i'll be at in june that is older than the camp director. by a significant amount.

it's a lot of sewing, and activity i am not historically good at.

meanwhile, i was catching up on my rss feed today, and i read this thing, which i think you also should read.

amen and amen.

cough

i have been very, very busy doing something and have not been writing to you.

what thing, you may ask? coughing.

now THAT was a cold. actually, it was two colds, i'm pretty sure because is was just at that point where you think it's maybe over and you go to that festival you were supposed to go to only now in your weakened state you're exposed to the exotic germs of ALL THOSE PEOPLE and within twelve hours of your return home, you're SICK.

so here's my month of april:

sick
one girls scout field trip
sick
a festival weekend
sick
one night camping

and that brings us to the first three days of may, still sick.

ok.

now i can tell you about the interesting things.

inside camping

people keep asking me why, if my hammock is SO COMFORTABLE, i do not sleep in it at home.

well, i was having trouble finding a place to hang it.

was.

because now i am sleeping in it at home.

it is lovely.

blow

it's windy here.

last night three things blew out of the protected area on my porch and went off to try to start new lives on their own: a recycling bin, an expedition sled, and a freaking chest cooler.

i put on boots and went off in pursuit.

they'd had some hours of head start, and there were a couple of inches of ice pellets on the ground, so no tracks to follow.

i figured to go in roughly the direction of the wind until i came to the border of the woods, where surely they would have gotten snagged and come to a stop.

only the wind is strong and variable.

and by strong, let's say that i found myself on top of a glazed pavement on a slight uphill and the wind blew me UP it like some weird uncomfortable people moving sidewalk.

eventually i came across some recyclables that looked like they might have come from my house and i looked off in that direction to where i eventually found my recycling bin on the side of a steep icy hill and beyond that, my sled.

i am not kidding you when i say i had to go on all fours, not because of the terrain, but because the wind was so extreme.

and that was before i had a sled and a recycling bin in my hands.

i was in view of my house and legit feared i was in danger.

it was slow going. four or five steps into the wind, stop, sit, rest. i thought i'd pass out.

eventually i got back to the house.

the whole trip (not more than a few hundred feet) took an hour.

i am ready for my nap.

it's here! it's here!

it's the most wonderful time of the year!

nownownownow NOW.

the VENTURE VERMONT OUTDOOR CHALLENGE BEGINS TODAY.

i have already downloaded and begun fondling my score sheet.

there's so much awesome stuff on it!

and because "go skateboarding" is on it, i am going to see if i can get a friend's children to  take me, fifty-year-old newbie, and teach me to skateboard.

rain hike? i'm all over it.


i love this so much.

well. that was a time.

ok, so i got involved in a really fun project and i know, usually i tell you about all my really fun projects, but it was a really fun project with strategic implications (#ingressresistance!) so i couldn't tell you anything.

suffice it to say that i kicked some serious ass and when it was over i had a little rest.

and then i had a super busy thing about a girl scout thing, and there's not a lot i can tell you about that either.

and then i was sick.

i lost a whole week.

last monday i went to see my doctor finally and she thought i had poor long inflation and thought it would be best for me to go to the ER so there was that and it turns out i don't have either flu or pneumonia, so that's good.

they put a bag of saline in me and gave me some treatments. there were two nebulizer treatments that didn't do squat but made me feel ALL HOPPED UP AND JUMPY but then they did a third with some other drug in it and i have no idea what that other thing was (probably some kind of inhaled steroid?) and within an hour i was breathing again in ways more recognizable as breathing.

i spent a lot of time in my hammock watching youtube videos.

today is day three of getting dressed and sitting up.

so yay.

partyhat.

easter at my mom's house

because of course we have to have an egg hunt even though nobody is younger than fifty, and my mom has been a vegetarian for decades and an atheist since 1963 but we all have to show up to eat an easter ham.

there were these cute little cake pops for dessert.

i never saw the attraction of cake pops.

...until i ate one.

oh my goodness gracious.

citizen flask

are you an american citizen?

have you heard that the president wants to put a question on the next census that requires people to state whether or not they are citizens?

they make it out to be that it's purely informative, but what it's going to do is get immigrants and whole immigrant communities to opt out of being counted, which will skew representation and services to the overwhelmingly white and privileged.

and you know the only thing that's going to stop that shit?

if the white and privileged step up and stop it.

so when the census comes, i am not telling whether or not i am a citizen.

come to think of it, i may decline to give my race, or just call myself "other".

i invite you, too, to gum up the works any way you can. not every action need be large.