Another year goes by….

And just like that, over a year goes by without my posted a thing to this blog. Not surprising. My life’s been pretty busy and — to be honest — pretty rotten up until November of this year. But, things have turned around significantly with the landing of a great new job. I’m really looking forward to next year for the first time in a long time.

So, there’s going to be some changes around here. Yes, I know, I say that about, oh, once a year. But, this time, I really believe it myself. I’m going to be doing some intensive WordPress work at the new job, which will hopefully bleed over into this joint (on the backend, anyway). I doubt I’ll blog that stuff unless I think others would find it really useful. But, I have found a re-focus for this blog to document some things I’ve gotten interested in over the last year or so (or my whole lifetime, depending on how you look at it), and I’m going to focus on that. But I’m going to stop with that tease right now. I’ll launch that new focus content on January 1, 2012.

In the meantime, I’ll maybe post up some (hopefully modest) new year’s resolutions and some other cobweb cleaning things.

Stay tuned…

Losing and Finding

I am not, historically, one who loses things, especially when I’m in the outdoors hiking, camping, fishing, canoeing. That changed when we joined Cub Scouts last year, though. On every big campout, I have left behind something major. The weird thing is that I’ve recovered — eventually — everything I’ve left behind.

At our first Cub Scouts campount (Fall Cub Adventure 2009), we left behind our camp chairs. Luckily, someone grabbed them, and I got them back a couple of weeks later. At last summer’s Withrow Springs State Park campout, I again left the chairs behind. I managed to get them back, though they were picked up by two different people, and it took me a while to finally get the second one back (totally my fault, though).

More importantly, I “lost” the pocketknife (a Benchmade Mini Griptillian with a combo blade) I’d carried for the last four or five years. I looked through all my camping gear at least three times, but it never turned up. I kept putting off replacing it, thinking it would turn up eventually. About three days before the next camping trip, I finally broke down and bought another knife, a nearly identical Mini Griptillian (this time with the plain edge). At the campout (Fall Family Camp 2010), I was setting up my tent when I saw there was something in the inside tent pocket: my pocket knife! (There was also a headlamp I didn’t realize I had lost, too.)

Well, the latest installment of the saga played out this morning. At this year’s Fall Cub Adventure, I lost my multi-tool (a Leatherman Wave). Again, I tore through all my camping gear and my truck — multiple times — but never found it. This morning, Daniel found it when looking for some YuGiOh cards in a bag we had taken to the campout. I remembered putting it in there as soon as he told me where he found it.

I need to get better organized with my stuff when camping. I know I need to take less stuff camping. I’ve been reading “Woodcraft and Camping” by George W. “Nessmuk” Sears recently. He was an early advocate for carrying less gear when camping, and I think it’s sinking in a little bit, especially after losing those two important tools recently.

Nessmuk had a great many insightful things to say in that slim volume (and I’ll be writing about more of them in the days and weeks ahead), but this one really hits home with me and some changes I’ve been making lately:

We do not go to the green woods and crystal waters to rough it, we go to smooth it. We get it rough enough at home; in towns and cities; in shops, offices, stores, banks anywhere that we may be placed—with the necessity always present of being on time and up to our work; of providing for the dependent ones; of keeping up, catching up, or getting left.

More to come. It’s good to be back.

Apple iPad Lands

The reaction to Apple’s iPad has been extremely polarized. It’s either the Jesus Tablet or a waste of time and effort. My friend Jack called me right after Jobs’ presentation to say why he was so disappointed in it.

“You can spend $299 on a Windows 7 netbook and do all that AND have a camera,” he said (or words pretty much to that effect).

“So,” I said. “That’s Windows and crappy netbook hardware.”

“Well, I guess they’re selling the ‘Apple Experience,’” he said, finally making sense.

The iPad is not, in a feature-wise sense, the be-all, end-all computer for everyone. It DOESN’T have a camera for video conferencing, etc. That’s not a big issue to me, as I don’t do that much, and I have a camera on my desktop if I need to. But, for people like Jack who do video chats, it’s a deal. I wonder if we’ll be able to get a webcam that will attach to the iPad for people like him?

But Jack is a geek (me, too). On the MacBreak Weekly podcast, they talked about whether it’ll appeal to the mainstream, with mixed opinions. But, I got a good taste of how it’ll appeal to the mainstream last night.

As soon as I got home, I pulled up the iPad video on the Apple website and cajoled my wife into watching it. The Wife isn’t a Luddite, but she’s not far off. She reads the newspaper every morning to get her news, she doesn’t read blogs or even know what an RSS feed is. She doesn’t Twitter or, if you can believe, even use Facebook. Her cellphone makes phone calls. It can send and receive text messages, but she won’t send them because it “takes too long to type them out on that keypad.” So, if I want to text her from my iPhone, I have to pretty much send messages that don’t require a response or can be answered with “yes” or “no” (usually typed as “y” or “n”).

But, when watching the iPad video, she said “wow!” no less than six times. More importantly, when it was over, she said, “That’s exactly how I use the laptop now, only it’s more comfortable.” Then I told her about the iWork apps for the iPad and she said, “That would be the perfect computer for me.”

So, selling her on eBaying the MacBook to get an iPad was easy-peasy (as she would say).

I think the only question now is how I’m going to afford a second one, since it’s going to be difficult to get the first one away from her.

We’ve moved

After nine years in our great little mid-century modern, we’ve moved a few miles east. We’re still in Fayetteville, though, and plan to stay here forever. We wanted a few more amenities (garage, mudroom, more space, etc.) and a neighborhood with more kids that are The Boy’s age.

Packing almost the entire house in three days was exhausting — I had NO idea we had that much crap packed into that little house — and unpacking has been extremely tedious. Not only do you have to unpack it, but then you have to decide where to put it! We’re getting there, though. We’ve only got about 30 or so boxes to unpack, and much of that is just stuff we don’t use all that often (holiday decorations, etc.).

I’ll post some pics once I get some taken. The last three weeks have been a whirlwind, but I want to get some taken while the trees are in their full fall drag.

Daniel’s first Cub Scout badge

Tonight was the Pack 46 Pack meeting, and Daniel received the first badge he’s earned: his Bobcat. He is very proud of himself, and we’re proud of the work he did to earn it. He also earned his Collecting and Languages and Cultures belt loops. Hallie taught the Tigers a short German lesson at the last den meeting to help them get that belt loop.

Daniel also got a hiking patch for going on his first hike with the pack last weekend. He’ll get a special patch after he’s hiked 25 miles, and at 50 miles they’re presented with a hiking stick. He REALLY wants that stick! And he loves hiking, so I’ll bet he gets it sooner rather than later.