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September 19, 2016
Time for Catskill peak #2. This weekend, my plan was to hike to the summit of Panther Mountain and camp overnight at the primitive camp by Giant Ledge.

I left work on Friday around 5:15pm and rode my trusty BMW R1200GS up to the NY DEC’s Woodland Valley campground in Phoenicia, NY. I arrived at 7:45pm, checked in, and set up in the dark. The Hilleberg Unna coupled with my red LED headlamp made for very easy pitching. Sleep came easy but so did the cold. It dropped to 50¨ degrees overnight and made for a chilly slumber.

Up bright and early the next morning, I packed up and rode over to the Giant Ledge trailhead. Here I would park overnight while I backpacked up to Panther Mountain and back.

September 10, 2016
After dipping my toes last weekend in the Catskill Mountains, I had to go back again this weekend, this time for something a little more challenging. I loaded up the overnight backpack (base weight – 22 lbs/10 kilos) Thursday night. My plan was to take off directly from work on Friday. I reserved a Friday night spot at one of the “remote” hike-in sites at the DEC’s Little Pond campground. From there, the next morning, I would ride to the overnight trailhead lot for Balsam Lake Mountain, backpack up to the peak, camp overnight at the lean-to, and then hike back down to the bike on Sunday and ride back to NYC, ready for a new work week.

Aside from having to suffer the miserable 17 leaving New Jersey, the ride up was uneventful. I arrived at Little Pond before dark, hiked in a lengthy 0.1 mile, and set up camp right on the shore. The remote sites are brilliant in this regard. None of the drive-in sites allow this sort of access. It’s a beautiful sight to wake up and look directly out across a pristine body of water.

The next morning I departed for the Balsam Lake Mountain access lot. From there the hike to the top of the mountain would be approximately 3 miles. However, because my GPS truncates the titles of my waypoints, I mistakenly rode to the southern lot. From this lot the hike to the peak is 1.85 miles, in other words much steeper inclines. (An FYI, the final leg of the access road there, Beaverkill, is a groomed dirt road that is unmaintained during the winter. You’ll need a snowmobile or snowshoes when it snows.)

The first leg on the yellow-blazed Dry Brook Ridge trail was fairly easy, a very gradual incline. At the 0.9 mile mark, I veered onto the blue-blazed Balsam Lake trail. The ascent instantly became steeper, running from 2,900 feet up to 3,650 feet over the next 0.6 miles, a grade incline of 24%. The final 1/4 mile to the peak allowed for a much needed respite as it covered the final 73 feet or so, an almost level incline compared to what came right before it.

Highlights of the trip?
1. Passing the 3,500 foot elevation marker. Boy, did that cause a surge of happy juice.
2. Drinking from a natural spring at 3,600 feet. Wow, was it cold and delicious.
3. Seeing the base of the Balsam Lake Mountain fire tower through the trees.

I was briefly disappointed that there was no view from the summit, however the fire tower was open. Unfortunately, my timing couldn’t have been worse. The day was overcast and peak was enveloped in misty clouds. I was escorted up into the cab by a volunteer but, as you can see in the photos, I wasn’t able to see beyond a few hundred feet.

Heading back down, I stopped by the lean-to. I was planning on camping out here for the night but I was warned that a major thunderstorm was expected and I didn’t feel experienced enough to hike back down a steep incline the next day on slippery rocks the entire way. Call me a woose.

Well, my first Catskill 3500. It was exhilarating, to say the least. I’m going to have to look into Catskill 3500 membership, a much worthier accomplishment than completing a Bernie’s Bagels/Distillery Passport of round-the-world beers.

I missed out on the view, so I’m going to have to go back. I was told that camping is allowed on the peak during the winter schedule when camping is allow above 3,500 feet. I’m doing it! (As long as I’m able to ride my motorcycle there.)

Next up: Panther Mountain. 🙂

Watch this space. I’ll be detailing my recent trip to Montreal and Ottawa and Lake Placid very soon with lots ‘o pics. Below are just some quick fillers.

This post has been brought over from my discontinued blog, Bonnie Cafe.

Hello. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Rudy. I recently purchased a 2005 BMW R1200GS and man, I gotta tell you, I LOOOOOOVE this bike. I have another blog, bonniecafe.com, where I document all the mods I’ve done to my 2014 Triumph Bonneville T100 Black. This blog, however, is going to be all about exploring the countryside on the BMW. I plan on doing a lot of traveling on it, something that really isn’t viable on the Bonnie.

I plan on having my GoPro taking photos during my excursions, so I’ll be posting lots of pics.

It’s a pleasure to meet you and I hope that you enjoy this blog.

Rudy

Student science experiment finds plants won’t grow near Wi-Fi router
Ninth-graders design science experiment to test the effect of cellphone radiation on plants. The results may surprise you.
Thu, May 23 2013 at 12:40 PM
by Jenn Savedge

Cress science experiment
Photo courtesy of Kim Horsevad, teacher at Hjallerup Skole in Denmark.
Five ninth-grade young women from Denmark recently created a science experiment that is causing a stir in the scientific community.

It started with an observation and a question. The girls noticed that if they slept with their mobile phones near their heads at night, they often had difficulty concentrating at school the next day. They wanted to test the effect of a cellphone’s radiation on humans, but their school, Hjallerup School in Denmark, did not have the equipment to handle such an experiment. So the girls designed an experiment that would test the effect of cellphone radiation on a plant instead.

The students placed six trays filled with Lepidium sativum, a type of garden cress, into a room without radiation, and six trays of the seeds into another room next to two routers that according to the girls’ calculations, emitted about the same type of radiation as an ordinary cellphone.

Over the next 12 days, the girls observed, measured, weighed and photographed their results. By the end of the experiment the results were blatantly obvious — the cress seeds placed near the router had not grown. Many of them were completely dead. Meanwhile, the cress seeds planted in the other room, away from the routers, thrived.

The experiment earned the girls (pictured below) top honors in a regional science competition and the interest of scientists around the world.

Original story here: http://www.mnn.com/health/healthy-spaces/blogs/student-science-experiment-finds-plants-wont-grow-near-wi-fi-router

My guess is that Jonny Ives was strolling through our school basement for design ideas. 🙂

Recently, I used a JavaScript onclick listener to fire off a function when an a tag was clicked. This worked great in Chrome, Firefox, and Safari. But when I tested it, though, in IE9, it failed. IE did not recognize onclick. After a bit of troubleshooting, using onmousedown turned out to be the best solution for all platforms.

Below are my observations. Hopefully, this will help someone else having this issue.

My first go:
<a onclick=”newRequestAlert();”>
Observation: Works on all browsers except IE.

So, I tried:
<a onclick=”newRequestAlert();”>
Observation: Works on IE but not other browsers (i.e., IE-specific)

Which led me to the final solution:
<a onmousedown=”newRequestAlert();”>
Observation: Eureka!!! Works everywhere.

I love my MacBook Air. In fact, it has replaced my desktop computer. Apple laptops are at the point where they are powerful enough to serve my purposes (I don’t do heavy animation and graphics editing like I used to, but I still run Photoshop, Lightroom, InDesign, and, of course, IDEs). And I love, absolutely love, being able to unhook it and take it with me, knowing that all my software is with me and my server is just a wi-fi heartbeat away.

I switched to an Air during the summer of 2011 and then swapped it out for a new one in 2012 as there was a significant speed jump (along with me underestimating my SSD needs the year before).

I was really excited to see the 2013 offering but I’ve got to tell you, I’m really disappointed. Sure, the battery life is longer but that means nothing to me. I wanted to see some ramped up processing specs. Nope. There is a bit more efficiency in the architecture and subsequently a bit faster, and the processor is improved but basically the same. When it comes down to the numbers, the MacBook Air (Summer 2013) is a pretty dismal release with nothing to write home about.

Oh well, there is always next year. Besides, I need to be saving money so perhaps this was a good thing. In that case, thank you Apple.

Click Here for Official Info from Apple’s Website.