Category: Hiking

  • ODDS and ENDS: KBJ, Anti-Rent Protests, Tottenham, and Hiking

    (I drink coffee and know things.)

    Ketanji Brown Jackson will be on the Supreme Court. That’s a pretty big fucking deal. I like it when American institutions start looking more like America. The process was pretty disgraceful, but I want to focus on the fact that we are a step closer to getting to RBG’s dream, which was an all-woman Supreme Court. Come this Summer, there will be four women on the Court. I think the next Justice should also be a woman, and this way one of the three Branches of Government will be Woman majority. But, I do digress. What I keep thinking about is how representation matters. My daughter is seeing more women in leadership roles in the nation. And I also know, there are a bunch of little girls that are going to school today, and their teachers are going to show them a picture of Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, and those little girls are going to see someone who looks like them, doing important and great things. That matters. That’s huge.

    I just found this out today, but in upstate New York, back in the 1840’s, there was an Anti-Rent War. It had to do with back rent being owed under the manor system that traced back to the old Dutch Colony days of New Amsterdam. Reading up on it, I had two thoughts. First, early America really didn’t like the rule of law, and took up arms pretty quick. Second, if you protest enough, you can get the law changed in your favor. Basically, people broke a 200-year-old system of land ownership and leasing because the rent was too damn high. It happened in the past, so what’s to say that it can’t happen again.

    Tottenham has found a way to get to fourth place in the Premiere League. There is no way they will catch Man City or Liverpool, but if things got really crazy, they could pass Chelsea for third by the end of the season. But, this is Tottenham we are talking about. They do have problems closing out. They need to beat Aston Villa if they want to keep ahead of Arsenal. I will say this, if the Spurs can stay up and qualify for the Champions League, there is a chance Harry Kane might stick around. Just saying.

    Anyone want to go hiking? I know I do.

  • ODDS and ENDS: Ginni Thomas, The Kid has a Cold, and Spring

    Oh, I love it when the curtain is pulled back on “important” people. If you don’t know, Ginni Thomas is the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas. Ginni Thomas has been playing a role in many conservative issues that have, or are, coming to the SCOTUS docket, as reported by The New Yorker. Then, she started playing a role in helping organize the January 6th rally for Trump, as reported by The New York Times. Now, turns out that she was texting Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff, some crazy ass QAnon shit right after the election, according to CBS/The Washington Post. The issue here is if Ginni’s efforts to overturn the 2020 Election have created a conflict of interest for Justice Thomas, when it comes to cases that may come to the Court in regard to the January 6th Commission law suits. That all is very important, and does raise some important questions that should be answered. What I find interesting is that Ginni Thomas, who works in the highest echelons of political advocacy, and who moves in most dignified intellectual circles of D.C, is basically just your crazy-ass conspiracy minded aunt that you have to put up with at the Holidays.

    Yup, the kid has a cold. She is sitting next to me on the couch, drawing and watching tv, while I write this. It almost feels like this is, well, normal. I have this feeling that I want to be outside all the time now. I have started looking up hiking trails further upstate, that are longer and a little more rugged. Not sure that the wife and kid will agree with this, but I’ll see if I can convince them. I kind’a feel like a little kid again when I think about getting out in nature. Like when I was a Cub Scout, learning how to camp, and identify leaves to trees. I guess I’m ready for Spring.

  • Ideas for 2022

    I don’t make New Year’s Resolutions. Mainly because, they always fail.

    I, on the other hand, try out new ideas to see if they stick.

    As you can see, two totally different things.

    This first thing I will try out is not drinking. Not total sobriety, but taking a break. It comes down to two things; health and finances. On the health front; I am twenty pounds overweight. I have the middle age man belly, which isn’t really surprising, as I am middle aged. The alcohol isn’t helping with the gut, and I think it’s adding to my depression as well. I don’t feel as positive of a person as I used to be. I don’t think I have a problem with drinking, but I feel like if I don’t start making steps to take my health seriously, that I could have a problem. The other thing is financial. Not that the wife and I are spending a huge amount of money on alcohol, but looking at our year-end review, we spent, on average, $100 a month. I think we can say that we know of a better ways to use that money.

    The next thing is that I will, oh god, start going to a gym for 30 minutes at a time. You might have heard that I am about twenty pounds overweight. Though I would like to say that it was all alcohol and sugary drink’s fault, it’s also inactivity’s fault. Yes, we were hiking most weekends this summer and fall, but one day every two weeks just isn’t enough. (We will pick up hiking again in the Spring.) It’s also the mental health benefits that comes with exercise that I am missing. In the past year, I have been harder on myself than usual. I know everyone has that nagging self-sabotage voice in their head, but most people work through it. For me, this past year, it has been harder and tougher for me to forgive myself, or even have the energy to follow through on a project. That’s not who I am. I was the guy who followed through and got shit done.

    And the last thing is that I have to admit that I didn’t meet my writing goals for the last four month, and in essence, for the year. I did okay, but I didn’t make the goal. I wanted to have three short stories completed by the end of the year. I got two finished, and I think they are in good enough shape to submit, but I wanted to have three. Now, I know full well there is nothing stopping me from submitting the two, but, you know, I didn’t complete what I set out to do. I have maintained the blog, though my viewers have dropped by half. So, instead of four people viewing daily, I now only have two. (And I think I know who those two people are. Hey, guys.) Maybe I do need to spend the $100 and get away from the free WordPress site, or might just need to come to terms with the fact that a random blog about one guys thoughts isn’t that dynamic anymore. It’s not 1997 when confessional blogs were all the rage. Anyway, the blog still brings me a level of joy and feeling of accomplishment daily, so I think this will keep going. The other writing? I need to get back to the grindstone. I need to put in the work.

    And I need to read more!

  • Disc Golf

    Last week I was on vacation with my family up in Maine. The wife asked me what I most wanted to do while away, and this first thing I said was napping. But after that I just blurted out, disc golf.

    Am I a disc golfer? No.

    I have done it twice in my life, and the last time was 10 years ago while at my best friend’s wedding. (Here comes a story!) My friend went to grad school in Kansas City, and that was where the wedding was taking place. As such, he invited a good number of his grad school friends. A couple of days before the wedding, the grad school gang all wanted to go disc golfing, and they were a real nice group of people, and invited the wife and I to go along. We were game, and had a great time with them. One guy brought a portable cooler with beer, and another person loaned us discs to play, so everybody got a little tipsy, and it was competitive enough to allow some friendly trash talking.

    Every now and then, disc golf pops into my head, but living in NYC there really isn’t a place to do it here in the City. But, way up in the woods in Maine, I had a feeling that there would be a place.

    About thirty minutes from our house we were staying in, there was a totally rugged, as it took you up the side of a very steep hill, but also a well-maintained course. The baskets and chains were what looked to be new, and tees all were clean, solid slabs of cement. There were discs to borrow, and being that I was there on a Monday, I had to place all to myself. It was like hiking but while playing a game.

    I enjoyed myself, and it was one of the highlights of our vacation. And I am doing the thing I did the last time I disc golfed; I am wondering if I should go and buy a set of discs. You know, just in case I need them in ten years.

  • Hiking Review: Mianus River Gorge Preserve

    It had been a month since we had last been hiking. July was pretty busy with camps and trips and visiting friends, so as this weekend approached, I was pretty adamant that we were going hiking, damn it! Not that I had to coerce my family, but there was a thought that they might not be that into it. So, I went looking for a trail that wasn’t too far from home, which meant finding a place that was only about an hour drive time from the City. That’s how I chose Mianus River Gorge Preserve in Westchester County.

    My go to for trail finding is still the AllTrails app on my phone, and the site has not steered us wrong on our search of hiking spots. The app rated Mianus as “easy,” and I wouldn’t go that far, as there were some ups and downs on the trail for the gorge. “Moderate” might have been a little more accurate.

    That have been said, this place was a jewel. We got there at 11am, an hour later than we normally like to start a hike, but the trails were empty of people. Though we were not too far from a major road and a neighborhood, it was silent out there except for the sounds of the river and the forest. I actually found it hard to believe that a forest this untouched, it is one of the last old growth forests in the area, could exist so close to New York City. The river cutting through the land, and the embankment of the gorge was just beautiful to experience. Sadly, my pictures don’t do the Preserve justice.

    It had all the things we have come to like about hiking; the trails were all well maintained, which was good for the kid, the solitude of the forest was impeccable, and the trail head had plenty of parking.  The kid enjoyed spotting fish in the river, and the diversity of the fungi on the forest floor. For me and the wife, we enjoyed that the trails were rugged enough so that we felt like we were getting a work out.

    When we finished our hike, and had a picnic out of the back of our car. It was a littler after twelve noon, when people started to arrive and began to hike the trail. That lead us to believe that the late afternoon is the popular time there. As we watched other couples and families head out on the trails, we decided that Mianus River Gorge Preserve is trail that we want to do again. Maybe in the Fall.