New House

I've moved into my new house.  The van is running.  The Robot (my media center computer) is up temporarily.  By that, I mean that my office needs 2 - 25ft black extension cords and conduits.  they have to get from the desk, over the windows and outside door to the wall opposite of the desk to access the 120V electrical outlets on the wall opposite of the desk.  But so far, I have everything powered with one extension cord that is hooked up to The Robot's battery back-up.  That needs to change. There's a surge protector mounted under the desk that powers all non-essential equipment, such as my printer.  During a power outage, the more load that you put on the battery back-up, the less time I'll have to save what I'm working on before it shuts down.

I had trouble locating my Map Repository on The Robot.  I wonder if before I left 2 years ago that I cut and pasted it into the laptop's hard drive instead of copied?

I have a smartphone mount on a large spring loaded arm.  Instead of using it's clamp, I drilled a hole in the surface of the desk and mounted it that way.  But it looks like it's smartphone bracket is missing?  It has four plastic hooks on it and it looks like a Bracketron model, or perhaps something from a dollar store?  I know my smartphone and tablet mounts as I've been working with them for years.  Those mounting brackets have to be replaced every so often.

I'm surprised that The Robot booted up at all.  Upon moving it from up north, it was the last thing that was loaded in the moving trailer.  When we opened the door, the moving trailer was at a slight back pitch and it tumbled over.  I was afraid that the needles in the hard disk drives crashed into their platters.  But, it booted up alright.  It was the first time in two years and has no unusual auditory sounds coming from the case.

I custom built my desk. It's 99 inches long.  I'm 6'6 (198cm), to the height was adjusted for me and that's at about 36 inches.  Just like my previous desk, I mounted wheels on this as well.  I'm missing an office chair, so I'm using one from the dining room right now, but it's not at the correct ergonomic height.  For that, I plan to get an old office chair.  One that isn't too comfortable anymore.  I got a set of two bench and two captains chairs from an old Dodge Caravan for $40 last year.  With the wheels, pole and mounting surface from the old chair, I plan to mount one of the captains chairs to it and that should get me the correct height?  And that Caravan captain's chair will take much longer for the seat to wear out.  I'll just have to create an adapter out of wood and some hardware to make it possible.

Distance Hiking Trails and Multi-purpose Rights of Way (Bike Trails)

So distance hiking trails take place on what some hikers call bicycle trails. They're usually gravel and asphalt.  And some developing distance trails call this off-road.  I'm here to shed some light on the topic.

By government declaration, these are often categorized as "multi-purpose trails" as per the record.  The North Country National Scenic Trail, which I'm more familiar with, certifies these segments.  And even of they're not, there's still "political correctness" to consider.  Hikers of an Appalachian Trail origin will state that these aren't off-road.  But if the distance trail agency didn't classify these as off-road, then somebody will pop up and argue that it is.  On the internal side, I can easily see a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type of situation.

Mid-west distance trails sometimes take place in urban areas and surburban counties.  Going off-road in those vicinities would be very costly because properties are smaller and cost more.

I know a lot of this is observation and opinion, but disrance trails go from Point A to Point B repeatedly for a reason.  That much is certain.  You could come out of college with $100,000 in student loan debts and be very book smart.  But more often than not, that barely holds a candle to experience.

Its hard to name them all.  There could be internal commitments involved?  I have to admit that I know a lot and have done great things, but I'm not on top of everything simultaneously.  Basically, I'm not always good at delivering "instant gratification."

Oil Change, Exhaust, Transmission Fluid

The engine oil in my 1987 Chevrolet G20 Sportvan was changed today at 144,702 miles on the odometer.  I switched the engine oil from 5W-30 to 10W-30 today.

Also, I installed a cuff on the right bank exhaust tube in front of the rear axle and moved the resonator pipe so that it was further away from a nearby brake line. 

It appears that the transmission fluid is low?

Radiator Burped

I filled the radiator in my 1987 Chevy G-20 Sportvan with Car Quest All Vehicle 50/50 antifreeze at 144,528.0 miles on the odometer and I burped the system.  Before, the van's engine was heating up rapidly.  Now, it appears that the engine temperature is stable.

Geo Photo Catalog Update 04/19/2020

I spent the day sewing trail patches on my straw cowboy hat. And I repaired a tear in one of my pair of jeans and put a replacement button on another.  Right now, the weather report for tomorrow (Monday 04/20/2020) is showing 5 hours of favorable skies for geo photo cataloging the Road Fork Section, Points 26 - 25 (07/2011 BTA map) round trip.  It's not as far as I'd like to go, but I can't just stop in the middle of a segment.  They have to be photographed whole.  But Wednesday is looking like I'll get another 5 hours, but  on the Whipple Section?  Points 03-W to 05 (10/2010 BTA map) have priority there.  I need to see it anyways because I have yet to give it an unofficial, but special segment name.

The purpose of the catalog right now is volunteer procurement.  As far as getting new trail adopters, group activities are suspended until further notice.  We can get new trail adopters (our primary volunteer maintenance crew), but can't give them the necessary in-person indoctrination until COVID-19 restrictions are relaxed.  To sum it up, we can still get them on the record, but not working yet.  Anyways, we need those photos for an Adventurer's Project volunteer procurement/ trail promotion campaign that should be had sometime after the COVID-19 restrictions are lifted to a more favorable point.

I didn't jump on the bandwagon and advocate the use of the trail in our region because I thought it would precipitate a public health problem.  When cataloged Whipple 06 - 05, it was it's usual, tranquil self out there.  The nearest person was 150 yards away from me and they were across a river on a dirt bike.

Our photos for Road Fork 27 - 29 are done and that accounts for the popular Archer's Fork Loop concurrency where I think people are going to be?  I've got a good lead on an adopter for Whipple 01 - 02.

New adopters or not, I want to upgrade all of Whipple's off-road blazes myself.  It's just to get them up to the Maintenance Guide's recommended standards.

We have permission to move as many North Country Trail NFS tack on markers as needed to our road intersections.  They're needed at the intersections because they're shapes and color are what's on NFS's maps.  If they see the shapes at the intersections, then Buckeye's blazes can take over from there.

Geo Photo Catalog

It might be 9 days before I can continue Adventurer's Project's "Geo Photo Catalog."  It has several applications.

Application #1: A photographic record of the trail to educate Buckeye Trail Association volunteers and a reference for future maintenance needs.

Application #2: Produce photos for trail adopter procurement.

Application #3: Social media content.  The photos will be released about 3 at a time in between other posts and help with fresh content during the cold days.

Application #4: Photos for Adventurer's Project's website.

Application #5: Pictures for trail promotion and volunteer procurement.

Application #6: Determine where we need to take pictures with better cameras.  Those photos can be used for trail promotion, the website and social media.

Adventurer's Project supports the Road Fork and Whipple Sections of the Buckeye Trail (North Country concurrent) in Noble, Monroe, Washington and Morgan Counties of Ohio.  The photos are taken about every 50yds or less in both directions.  Currently, the photos are being taken at my smartphone's highest possible quality.  As this region's off-road total is about 40 miles, it should produce over 2,600 photos.  That's far more than Buckeye and North Country's hikers have produced at the moment. 

On-road portions have been recorded via video with spoken locations from an automobile.  Aside from that, Google Street View covers some of this area.  So at this point, it's mostly about photographing about 40 miles of off-road paths on foot.  And I'm earning my 2020 North Country Trail 100 Mile Challenge, which I've missed other challenges like this in previous years.

The "geo" part pertains to enabling my smartphone camera's "locator" to produce geotags.  This process embeds the location of where the photo was taken into the properties of the file.  From there, software can be used to extract their coordinates and then embed them into placemarks into a Google KML/ KMZ file.  In terms of the maintenance record, volunteer users can follow the photos, particularly with the GIS/ GPS track of the Road Fork and Whipple Sections.  So, this is to see the trail's line with the photos on an application like Google Earth and probably ArcGIS products?

In previous years, the camera locator was on by default.  But I like to refer to geotags as "creeper tags."  It's unfortunate because people were physically followed by others when they downloaded their pictures and had the geotags extracted.  They could tell by the days of the week when they took their kids to karate class for instance.

But recently, to enable the geotag feature, there are two safeties.  One is that the phone's locator must be enabled.  When it is, this is what enables the smartphone's mapping and navigation.  The second step is to enable the locator a second time, but in the camera app's settings.  I find it to be a wonderful tool for the trail, but I tend to use it wisely.  As of the time of this post, geotags are automatically stripped by Facebook, but not by every social media company.  Presently, Adventurer's Project is only on Facebook and no other social media service due to insufficient manpower to admin more.

At last count, it takes about 1 hour to photograph 2 miles of off-road footpath here in what I call "Far SE Ohio," which is in the Appalachian Foothills.  That's that's about 4 times faster than it takes to initially blaze (painted navigational markers) one.  But still, the "stop and go" is harder on my body and I haven't scheduled this photographing over 7 round trip miles yet.

So, that just about sums up Adventurer's Project's Geo Photo Catalog.

Replaced Air Conditioner/ Heater Filter

The filters in my 1988 Itsaca Sundancer motorhome's roof air conditioner/ heater was changed today.  They were easy to do.  I used 15 x 24 Kwik Kut Model "Foam/ KK500."