Log 2015031801

I purchased a Roughneck plastic container for my truing stand.  It's twice as big for what I need it for and I'm not sure about where I'm store it yet?

Recently, I've had my lower back problem reemerge.  But I've noticed that it gets better when I hike or workout.  It's bizarre that this is the effect considering the stress that I have to put on it to do this.   My guess is that that my entire body has not been getting adequate exercise when I'm at home and I'm loosing muscle mass unevenly, causing some of the lessening strands to stretch around others that have yet to compensate.  All I know is that it works better than 800mg Tylenol.

On the 15th & 16th, I made my initial inspection of Whipple Section - Buckeye Trail's off-road (North Country National Scenic Trail concurrent).  I wanted to do it early next month, but I monitor the severe weather conditions from the desk and weeks of areal flood watches and warnings, coupled with National Forest Service (NFS) campground closures prompted me to do it early.

Whipple's low point is at 604ft along the Little Muskingum River at a position that is roughly 7 miles north of the Ohio River.  The river's level near the SE tip of Buckley Island is 584ft above sea level there and at the mouth of the Little Muskingum in Marietta of Washington County as well.  I wish that I knew how many miles upstream our low point it, but it could be about 7 or 8?  Considering how far in land the Little Muskingum goes before it reaches BT/ NCT, I'm surprised at just how little it gains in that short amount of distance.

The good news is that while along the Little Muskingum, Whipple's sand surface was on a top of a ledge, some 5 to 7ft from the bloated river.  And it would really take a lot for a flooded river to overtake it, like a 200 year flood or more.

Whipple is passable at the moment, in fact, most people can reach average speeds on it.  With that being said, I accounted for 145 deficiencies in Whipple's 13.59 miles of off-road in the Marietta Unit of the Wayne National Forest.  Most of them are downed trees of 18" of less that are resting entirely on the trail's surface.  We have a sawyer course coming up in May and I intend to be there.  But without a sawyer, it would take over 24 days per person to clear those obstructions with a hand saw.  However, my experience with a chainsaw suggests that it won't get much faster.

Log 2014111901

This is a picture of me in my "Virginia is for Lovers" tuff guy shirt.  I secured my smartphone to my goose neck windshield mount and told the folks on Facebook that I was taking a "selfie with no hands."  What you can see somewhat in the back is my 2008 Chevy HHR LS with the back seats removed.  Taking them out was very simple, it only involves removing four nuts.  Since the car hauls "The Cramper," or my improvised pop-out camper, regardless of whether it's assembled or collapsed in transport mode, I removed the back seats for extra luggage capacity.

For those of you who navigated here from a search engine, The Cramper employs a 20ft tarp that I place over the outer shell in the back.  With bungee cords and 45° like folds going downward folds towards the back seat doors, I'm able secure it to the holes in my rear rims and the bars in my after market roof rack.  The roof bars have unused holes that pertain to different width roofs that the product can mount to.  I looped some paracord through outermost available holes so I'd have something to hook a bungee cord to that wouldn't slide across the bar in high winds, which is unlike looping the bungee cord around the pole and hooking it to itself.

Each side uses three bungees and then another 3 in the back.  I use two short red bungee cords and secure them to my trailer hitch.  Then I use a long yellow one with a red plastic end to secure the tarp from side to side under The Cramper's expansion floor.  It's a bungee cord where one end passes through a circular opening in the red plastic on the other end, then fits into a narrow channel along it, grips the cord and secures it in it's hold.  Most tarps looping holes will buckle and tear under the stress.  They need to be repaired from time to time and you can find replacements at a home improvement store, maybe even a hardware store (I haven't tried to find this there yet).

Log 2014051201

I drove my car down to the Cuyahoga National Forest today to acquire a free map at Happy Days Camp.  On my way back, I stopped at a local gas station and just before I got out of the car, the emergency sound played on my smartphone Weatherbug Elite app, alerting me that I was in an area declared to be in a tornado warning.  The gas station clerks quickly shut down the station and reluctantly, I had to drive another 3 miles in to the nearby City of Hudson.  I stopped at a local McDonald's to prepare to take shelter.

The point that I want to make is that I was rather impressed with the way that app worked under the circumstances.  My AM/FM head unit wasn't on at the time.  Also, I got emergency text alerts from Verizon Wireless as well.  Weatherbug played the emergency weather sound again when the app changed over to another county.  That's something that the text alerts didn't do, but they probably work on a much wider area, whereas, the app goes from the nearest weather station to the next one based on my GPS position.

They are probably more frequent, but I'm not sure if that makes the text alerts inferior?  Right now, I'm going to reserve judgment on that.  Weatherbug is inferior to the text in the way that I won't get its updates if I don't have any data signal.  But the texts will come in if I have so much as one unstable bar of roaming.  As for today, it's good to see this get a test.  It wasn't even on my list of things to experiment with and I'm glad it happened.

My back sprain continues to become more minor

Log 2014031801

I experienced a little bit of the same lower back pain for the first two hours that I was up today. But all in all, it's still subsiding. Other than that, I purchased a laptop stand on an arm that mounts to the desk at Micro Center in Mayfield Heights of Cuyahoga County. I'm not sure how I'm going to configure my desk around it yet? I originally wanted to just get a platform for a wireless keyboard that I already have.

Log 2014031401

My back sprain continues to feel signs of improvement. After I had a cavity filled at the dentist's office today, I stopped by Fitworks in Mentor of Lake County on my way home and used the back machine. This is my second session with that machine. The only problem is that I'm powerful enough to max out the weight stack at 3 sets of 12 repetitions. At the moment, there isn't a free weight equivalent. If there was, I could probably increase that weight.

At the moment, I'm about a working day or two from editing the guide for the Ohio Transit Hiker's Resource. I'm creating a new CSV file that allow my end users to upload the directory onto their smartphones without having to carry the seperate directory file.  It will should also make searching for information easier down trail.

Log 2014030601

-The cell phone number from Sprint was successfully ported to Verizon at about noon today.

-If I don't sleep on my back, it will be sore when I awake. Which is like today and I stretched last night.

Log 2014022201

Today, I've been working today adding content to the OTHR transit points. I got them done, but I realized that there were a few things missing in the transit map. Their replacements were noted in my OTHR re-fit task list.

Last night, I slept in a weird position. When I woke up, my back was in pain.  It's taken me all the way until now to finally get over it.

Log 2014021501

A new windshield was installed on my 2008 Chevy HHR LS at 133,064 miles.  There was a crack in the upper passenger's side corner of the previous one.  I'm not sure how I got it.  This is the 3rd replacement that I've had in this vehicle. It took about 4 hours to install at Glass Doctor on Carnegie Avenue in the Fairfax neighborhood of Cleveland in Cuyahoga County.  I was referred there by a local company in Mentor of Lake County.





Work was done today.  The work order number is 1-217811.  The new windshield, installation and a 12 month warranty plus tax came out to be a total of $367.98.  The warranty will not include parts and labor.  Today that was $139.95 of said total.

As far as leaving for my next recreation trip, this was a big task that needed to be completed and it was in it's way.  I already have the new head gasket, now I have to get a set of all four struts and possible springs.  When I have those installed, I might as well have the mechanic bleed the brake lines, replace that fluid and have them change the transmission fluid (since it's behind the front driver's side wheel) while their at it.

I intended on cycling between Brecksville Station and the Carnegie Bridge on the Ohio-to-Erie Trail, concurrent with the Ohio & Erie Canal Towpath Trail mostly.  But the car needed to be at the shop at 0800hrs and I was late getting up.  So, I didn't have enough time to rack the bicycle on the car.  And my back is still having problems, so hiking it wasn't much of an option.  Instead, I visited the Botanical Gardens on Wade Oval and enjoyed the Costa Rican forest there.

Log 2013120801

My back is healing slowly, but making progress nonetheless.  I might be ready to go to the gym on 13 DEC?  Yesterday, I noticed that I had some numbness on the right side of my right quad.  Today, I had it up the right side of my right hand, but to a lesser extent.  I could have a pinched nerve and for all I know, it all could be related.  So far, in the last month, I've had 800mg of Tylenol about 4 times and nothing's been severe enough to call the 24 hour nurse about.  Healing a back is always slow.

This past week, I had a buddy assisted hamstring stretch while sitting.  And then I had someone walk on my back and both helped.

Log 2013113001

As best as I can tell, my back problem was probably caused by my lack of stretching on the 44 mile hike.  That's a minor problem, one that's can be easily corrected.

Log 2013110801

Ever since I unloaded the expansion floor and folded up the trailer, it seems that my 2008 Chevy HHR sits higher. I must say that I don't understand it because my car should fit 5 grown adults. Regardless, if this is true then the new rear struts are good, but need to be upgraded. I thought I felt that the back end is riding higher, but all I know, it's just my imagination.
Like I mentioned before, I folded the trailer and placed it into storage today. When I got the tool bins down, they might have been 300lbs a piece? And the gear bin wasn't too much lighter than the tools.  Between that, the trailer's dry weight, the 5500 BTU airconditioner and miscellaneous car repair equipment, it's possible that I was over my towing capasity. But, it's hard to tell without using an industrial scale. And if I had one, I think it'd be pretty close.
The trailer, gear, expansion floor & twin size memory foam mattress are in the 10' x 10' storage unit.  The next thing to do with it is see if my belongings will compact to one side so I could free up my uncle's office that I'm using for storage? To be honest, I'm not really sure it will work? There might be insufficent space in the new unit?
Right now, my bicycle is in the new storage unit until I cut enough plywood to block the windows on my parents shed. And my master portable gasoline tank was emptied out into the car today.  As of now, it's empty, but I still have about a gallon of 40:1 mix that I doubt I'll get rid of.  In my chainsaw class that I had at Buckeye Trail Fest 2013, I was informed that 40:1 mixed fuel isn't much good beyond 90 days after it was mixed.
Right now, I still have pain in my back from sleeping awkwardly in The Cramper.  But its getting better by the day with stretching.  Last night, I put a rice filled cold compress on it before I slept for about 42 minutes.  The cold disapated too quickly. I'm really looking forward to working out at the gym again.