Adventurer's Project - Facebook Promotion Numbers 11/29/2018

I spent $9.88 of my own money to promote Adventurer's Project's Facebook page.  Facebook gave me a rock bottom deal of $1 per day and I took it for 10.  They just reported that I reached 2,124 people and we got at least 1 new like out of it.  Adventurer's Project now has 34 supporters.  All but about 5 of them have unknown intentions still.

If Facebook's numbers were right, then this was probably worth while.  I set the promotion to concentrate over the Moundsville and New Martinsville areas of West Virginia.  New Martinsville is about 25 miles from the Walter Ring House and Mill Site near Graysville of Washington County, Ohio.  Right now, I'm willing to commit $30 a month to Facebook advertising.

Priority 1 Maintenance

While I don't have jurisdiction over much of this, the Road Fork Section, Points 27 (7/2011 map & guide) to 31, perhaps out to Whipple 03 should have the 1st trail maintenance.  And this should take place before June 30th annually.  The reason is that we have an economic cooridor between these points.  I say perhaps Whipple 03 because Points 01 - 03 are not a very popular destination.  And that segment has an adopter who usually comes in July.  I supervise that section, but that segment is something that I shouldn't touch.  Probably the most that I can do is hike through and collect waypoints on downed trees so that my NFS point of contact can cut them?

From the time of the ground thawing to May 31 is the most ideal time for benching.  This is the physical widing of the trail's tread with a mattock axe.  It's typically done on a hillside.  I must say that I have no idea what condition my lower back will be in by that time?

At the moment, I have to get in control of my own finances. I'm projecting that January 1st will the be the first time my budget can properly reset and get straightened out? At the previous board meeting, we're not getting any back up.  But I didn't request any.  The BTA has enough on it's plate and I've decided that we're going to go it alone. And it's becoming imperative that we start becoming more independent locally.

This is where January comes into play.  I'm going to use it for trail promotion, but I'm not ready to publically state where, when or how?

Winter Gear Moved In 11/24/2018

My car is still somewhat packed with gear and items that I brought from Home Port. But I had the opportunity to change out some items in my gear bay.  I dont remember seeing my clothing layers. So far, I switched out my 60 liter frameless backpack for my 90. 

During the cold days, I usually hike fully loaded with the 90 liter pack because there's a few more things to consider. All in all, it comes out to be about 48lbs without water.

One of the things to consider is here in Ohio, we have levels of "snow emergencies." They dont usually clear up too quick.  When a county sheriff declares a Level 3, anyone on the road could face arrest, including pedestrians.  Also, in the winter, there are warm and cold pockets that person could hike into. Then there could simply be a sudden temperature drop.

Preparing for Boy Scouts

Blog posts to Adventurer's Project can not be made from my Android based devices because they're integrated into my personal account. I'd have to switch it in their system settings and that would change every other app while I was at it.  What I wanted to write there was that I was studying Boy Scout hiking requirements and wondered what they needed from Road Fork and Whipple Sections. But I still find that I need some reports and presentations by Boy Scouts themselves in order to know how to really help them? But I do know more about how to point them in the right direction as far as the Buckeye/ North Country National Scenic Trail in the Marietta Unit of The Wayne is concerned?

-ME Edmonds

Laptop Charger and Eastern Communities

Well, I left Home Port with a lot of stuff. But I forgot my laptop's charging cable. I watch movies on it nightly. The laptop probably has 2 hours worth of charge on it and I'm going to have to leave that be in case I need it for something?

My thoughts have been on the eastern communities along The Wilderness Loop of the Buckeye Trail (North Country partially concurrent) and how I'm going to establish Adventurer's Project there?

Computer Diagnostics 11/19/2018

Computer diagnostics on unit #2 is complete

Home Port

I'm back at Home Port until Friday, November 23rd, 2018. The last time I was here, I didn't have enough time to transfer all of my photos, so I'm getting the rest done now. The plan is to do some laundry and pack my semi-formal clothing, one dress shirt, tie, suit and overcoat.

Also, I paid for 10 days of ads for Adventurer's Project's Facebook page for $10.

Adventurer's Project 11/18/2018

I responded to an e-mail from an anonymous person who expressed interest in the Buckeye/ North Country Trail in Far SE Ohio.  But with their being anonymous, I have reservations regarding adding them to the registry of Adventurer's Project's supporters.  I might do it, but it seems incomplete?  I should probably ask if they wanted to be on the list because I'm going to have to add an unsubscribe method to email communications anyways.

How long will it take until Adventurer's Project completes it's current mission?  I'm anticipating that question because I just believe that it will come up somewhere and sometime?  The answer is that Adventurer's Project's objectives are not time based.  That's because there's too many unknowns right now.  The effort is more achievement and evolution based.  Our current volunteer procurement ratio is 100 days to 1 volunteer.  And I think that we need to halve that.  But that's the sort of thing that you learn from year one.  Right now, the more time that I dedicate to trail promotion diverts from maintenance.  And we have to be real careful about that ratio.

I'm somewhat mathematic about the way that I do things.  I think that it confuses some in the hiking community?  But I'm not sure what to do about it.  Somethings about Adventurer's Project are very well considered.  You have to factor in the objectives of the Buckeye Trail Association and weigh them with the conditions surrounding the local area.

There is somewhat of a road map for this kind of thing.  Let's just say that I've seen and heard of a few good examples.  And I know more about some of the nuances of getting a BTA chapter started than my counterparts were probably aware of.

I'd like Adventurer's Project to have a more moderate collective disposition.  And this is one thing that I think my training of others in the months and years to come will be essential?

I worked on Adventurer's Project's website today.  We've been having problems with it and the e-mail systems recently.  I found some parts of it internally that were incomplete.  I just hope with them being fixed now that in the months to come that we get a better reception from the outside world.

A couple days ago, I made a post on the Buckeye Trail Association's Facebook group regarding deer hunting hours and how we could miss the hunters if we hiked at night.  That gave me an idea where I posted on something about that topic.  At that point I realized that I've been one of the most prolific night hikers on the BT and it gave me the idea that I should try some soon for content on Adventurer's Project's Facebook page.

I'm trying to keep what audience we have interested through out the winter.  It's not an easy task because there's less going on in the cold days of the year.  At the moment, I have 965 photos available, but I'm not sure that I'll be able to use all of them?  Just for guesses, I believe that I'll only need about 90 of them?

It's like someone gathering firewood for their one and only heat source in the winter.  During the warm days, instead of firewood, it's pictures and video.  Right now, I'm contemplating starting a YouTube Channel for Adventurer's Project.  Our pictures are hosted on the Facebook page, which is can be seen by those who don't have a profile.  But Facebook will "nag" them to get one.  I'm contemplating having another host for them, but it's got to integrate into the Facebook page to avoid redundancy on the volunteer end for us?  For that, we might need an Instagram account?

Benching

The best trail maintenance to get done from around 3/1 to 6/1 in Far SE Ohio is benching. This is when one uses a mattock axe to widen the trails surface horizontally along the roll of a hillside.  In the Marietta Unit of The Wayne, the Buckeye/ North Country Trail has about 36 miles of nearly continuous off-road trail in the Appalachian Foothills of Ohio. And there's a lot of benching to be done back there.

With a lack of expertise, that had to be learned this year.  And I'm not even on planning for the winter just yet. There is a few personal tasks things to get done around here first.

Verizon Wireless Mobile Hotspot Warning 11/02/2018

Verizon Wireless gave me a warning today on my smartphone stating that I was down to 15% of my 15 gigabyte downstream mobile hotspot allotment and that the next cycle will start on the 3rd.  Well, this happened today on the 2nd and I'm not at all worried about it.  So far, the cloud services via the USB tether cable seems to be working.

Heated Hose Insulation, Motorhome Curtains, Baby Vac Bag

I insulated the heated hose that I purchased on the Facebook Marketplace.  But to my chagrin, I discovered that the hose has double female ends.  I'll have to get something to convert the motorhome's end to make it work.

I installed one of the roller curtains over the breakfast nook table today.  This is my first time doing one of these.  One has to purchase a larger length than they actually need and then have staff at the store cut it down.  Well, I mismeasured it (again), but this time I got fed up.  So I took my razor knife and a hack saw and did it myself.  Now, it's mounts.  But, it needs to be wound up.  The mount is pretty tight and I'm not sure about how well I can get out to do that?  Oh, well.  I like how the sunlight can shine through it.

The roller curtain was installed over the right side master bed area window.  That leaves about 4 more curtains to go.  The good news is that they're all smaller than the breakfast table and right side master bed windows.  Then I have 4 windows around the overhead bunk that I have to use snap fasteners with felt for those.  The good news with that is I can just unsnap them and put them in a washing machine.  Then later down the road, I might get crafty with some tarps, sheet foam insulation and hot glue to make a heat shield around the cab windows?  I'll have to cut the foam plys down to pieces that are about 8 inches wide to get it to form around the outside of the windshield.  Then the ends will employ some strip magnets to try and hold it down.

Yesterday, I purchased a canvas laundry bag for my baby Shopvac.  I was using a compression sack for it before, but it's a bit tight getting the vac and tubes inside of it.

I'm scheduled to be at the BTA's board meeting tomorrow in Shawnee of Perry County.  I thought that I was going to be driving back to Painesville afterwards, but with the water tube needing hardware and me discovering it at about 1900 hours in a town where things close at 1800, it's too risky to leave the motorhome overnight.

I replaced a set of dual 15 amp breaker switches.  The broken one pertained to most of the electrical outlets in the motorhome.  A few weeks ago, I attempted to power something else in addition to my electric space heater and I blew one.

Since my little mountain bike is running well, I purchased a smartphone pouch for it.  Unfortunately, the cables for the bike run along the top frame tube where it's supposed to mount.  So, I'll have to punch come holes inside the case for its other strap to mount to the handle bar with zip ties.  No problem.

Twitter Deactivated

My personal Twitter account was deactivated on this day at about this time.

Verizon Hotspot Allotment

Moving the cloud services over from the laptop to my cellular devices has successfully saved on Verizon Wireless mobile hotspot downstream allotment.