• Another One Bites The Dust

    Posted on by Don Comment

    So we flew out to Altadena last week, and saw this happen…

    Congratulations Ben and Jenny!

    We flew out early last Wednesday morning, meeting Emmi, Kyle & Iris, and David & Noemi, at the airport for our 6:30 flight. We were all flying together, Allentown to LAX by way of Chicago, followed by an hour or so drive to our hotel in Pasadena. (Anne and I also gave one of Ben’s friends a ride from the airport to where he was staying, but we were still checked in at our own place by around 4:00.) Dinner was at a local salad restaurant, and that’s where Ben and Jenny caught up with us.

    The next few days were sort of a routine: up early and breakfast at a local cafe, then fun time with Iris — we really got to know the local parks and playgrounds. Afternoons were spent doing touristy things: Thursday at the South Pasadena farmer’s market (followed by a dinner party at Ben and Jenny’s), Friday at the Santa Monica Pier, including a trip to the aquarium where I got to pet a shark. (Coming home Friday night was also our first real taste of LA traffic…)

    Saturday started with our typical morning routine, then we were off to the wedding venue, a park near Ben and Jenny’s home in Altadena. We got there a bit early and helped with setup, met more of Jenny’s family etc, and finally the big moment came. The wedding ceremony was lovely, and very personal, a mix of Quaker and Iranian Jewish traditions, with the mountains of the Angeles National Forest as backdrop. Afterward we all went to dinner at one of their favorite local restaurants.

    This was unfortunately where Iris reached her limit. She’d been a real trouper up to this time — on the flights, in the hotel and around town, but she’d finally had enough and started melting down; Emmi and Kyle took her home not long after we arrived. We stuck around quite a bit longer — the food and the company were great, and Jenny’s family were an incredibly fun bunch.

    Sunday morning we were all scheduled to go to the nearby town of Ojai for some sightseeing and a visit to the hot springs, but Anne and I offered to stay back with Iris to give her some chill time (and her parents some grown-up fun time). She got in a three-hour-plus nap, and then we just had fun playing in the hotel lobby and watching cartoons (and eating cookies) in our room. The downtime did her, and us, a world of good.

    Emmi and Kyle came back to the hotel around 7:00, with Ben and a bunch of fun stories about their time in Ojai. We had dinner in our room, then went down to the hotel bar where we met Jenny and some of their friends from the wedding. This was a little bittersweet, our last time all together — we were flying home in the early morning — so we laughed and talked, and stayed up maybe a little later than we should have…

    Monday was a long day, and it was all business: driving to LAX through the leading edge of rush hour, flying to Newark, and finally taking a bus back to Allentown. We were home by 10:00 PM, and we were toast.


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  • Back To That Old New Thing

    Posted on by Don Comment

    I’m slowly digging out, getting back into some of my usual shenanigans: I went for a towpath ride today (and one several days ago), and I’m about to go upstairs to play my cello — first time in a month that I even took it out of the case…

    I also found another computer chew-toy, not so much a new thing as a return to something I was playing with a few years ago: I’m looking at pedestrian crash data using R. This time around, I have my data in a geopackage, and am using a different library to access it, which makes the whole process easier; I’m also limiting myself (mostly) to location data, and keeping the geographic scope limited to Bethlehem, though I am looking at a wider date range: 2013-2023. So far I’m having fun, but who knows when I’ll lose interest?

    We have Iris tomorrow, and Wednesday we’re visiting my Mom — I stop in to help her out with stuff maybe once a week. We’re also doing some backyard cleanup here, in preparation for the kayak storage racks Anne is building. Life goes on.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day tech talk

  • Anabasis 2024

    Posted on by Don Comment

    We did our annual group ride and camping trip last weekend, beautiful Fall weather if not quite peak foliage (it was still pretty good), and some really nice riding.

    Friday: Up To Mauch Chunk Lake

    We started at the CAT office and rode up to where we could pick up the Nor-Bath Trail at Bicentennial Park, which brought us to the D&L at Northampton. We then rode the D&L all the way into Jim Thorpe, stopping for lunch at the Slatington Farmer’s Market, passing the newly repaired/reopened sections near East Penn and Weissport, and grabbing supplies in Jim Thorpe at the grocery store in East Mauch Chunk — the west side of town was a madhouse, the Fall Foliage Fest basically took over downtown. Luckily, we rode through the crowds easily enough and back into relative calm, and finally made it up to our campsites at the lake — we had three next to each other, and all along the lake shore. Sweet!

    CAT Riders at Bicentennial Park
    CAT Riders On The D&L
    Repaired Towpath Near Weissport
    Weissport: Foliage on the DL
    Lehigh River, Just South of Jim Thorpe
    Jim Thorpe from the Mansion House Bridge
    My Trusty Steed at the Mansion House Bridge
    Mauch Chunk Lake
    CAT Campers
    At the Campsite

    Saturday: Rockport and Back

    This was our recreational ride, up through the Lehigh Gorge to Buttermilk Falls, just little past the Rockport Trailhead. Our first stop was back in town, where we bought our lunches for later in the day, and from there we continued on to the Glen Onoko Trailhead, where a bunch of other people were joining us for the day’s ride.

    It’s a fairly straightforward ride up through the Gorge, beautiful sights all around and the occasional excursion train passing by. We were traveling at different speeds, and some with children and time constraints turned back early, but the bulk of us regrouped at Penn Haven and continued on to lunch at Rockport. A quick trip to Buttermilk Falls, and we were on our way back down the Gorge, and through town again, and back up the hill to our campsites.

    Some of the Saturday crowd set up camp with us, and others just went home after hanging out for a while, but this was our night around the campfire. The evening was gorgeous and the views of the lake and ridge were spectacular, but I couldn’t tell you more past sunset — I was in bed by 9:30.

    Home Sweet Home
    Meeting At Glen Onoko
    On The Trail
    Lehigh Gorge Trail
    The Crew at Luke’s Falls
    Jim Thorpe From Nesquehoning Bridge
    Nesquehoning Bridge
    Golden Hour at Our Campsite

    Sunday: Homeward Bound

    My Garmin ran out of juice some time before Sunday morning, but Sunday’s ride was mostly just Friday’s in reverse. We stopped at Hug in a Mug in Weissport for breakfast, and at the Slatington Farmer’s Market again for lunch, and when we got to Northampton Anne and I broke off to take the roads more directly home.

    Good Morning Mauch Chunk Lake
    Morning Mist
    Morning, Mauch Chunk Lake
    Lunchtime Bike Parking at Slatington

    And that was our trip!


    📂This entry was posted in the sporting life 📎and tagged

  • Rest In Peace, Dad

    Posted on by Don Comment

    My father passed away last week. I really don’t have much to say about it here, but I think I have to put this much down to clear my mind — I have a more private journal where I wrote the details of his death, and my own thoughts and feelings, but I will not be sharing them, here or elsewhere.

    It was a pretty rough week: he was in the CCU for a few days before he was gone, and we were with him through to the end. His wake was Thursday and his funeral was Friday, and the only bright spot was that he’s now buried in a beautiful place in the iconic, historic cemetery in our old home town, which he loved. (An old school friend was at the funeral, and after the burial he showed us his wife’s grave not far from my dad. My school friend Mike is also buried nearby.)

    I suppose I’d been preparing myself for this for a while, but it still felt like “not yet, not yet,” and I’m sad but mostly OK, but every so often the grief just comes out of nowhere and hits me again full force.

    Goodbye Dad, I didn’t want to say goodbye. I love you, I love you forever.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day

  • I Had A Good Run But I Run Too Slow

    Posted on by Don

    I don’t really know yet if COVID actually, finally, caught up with me, but something laid me low for the past few days. What I have seems mostly like a sinus infection: stuffy nose, chest congestion, slight fever, and just a tired, washed-out feeling. It could be anything really, but Anne just got over COVID and it seems an implausible coincidence that I would come down with something else right now. It feels weird to get it now though, after seeming almost magically immune these past few years, walking fearless through the valley of the shadow…

    I tested negative, for what that’s worth — I will take another test in a day or so before I go back out into the world. Meantime, I took my usual cocktail for sinus (Benadryl, Mucinex-D, and Tylenol), sacked out in bed for a day or so, and I’m already feeling better.

    What have I been up to? Mostly reading: I picked up Starfish where I left off, which is saying something for my boredom levels — I put it down months ago because it was such an unpleasantly weird psychodrama. Now it doesn’t seem all that bad.

    I also have been re-reading SSH: The Definitive Guide, and just got a book on PHP the other day. I’ve been searching for a new tech “sugar high” ever since I got that SSL certification automated. If anything ever makes me a Buddhist, it’ll be the cycle of buzz and crash that defines my relationship with technology.

    UPDATE: Yeah it’s COVID. Just took another test.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day

  • Jasper And Blue Jingles

    Posted on by Don

    This was a short bike tour we took, a loop south along the Delaware, then west and back home by way of Vera Cruz. We took some liberties, but it was at least nominally meant to follow some of the old native paths in the area south of us.

    Day One

    We left Bethlehem, heading cross-country over to Riegelsville, brunched at the Riegelsville Inn (we got there just as it opened), then we continued downriver on the New Jersey side, crossed back into Pennsylvania at Milford, and rode down the towpath to Tinicum Park, our stop for the night.

    Riegelsville Bridge
    Riegelsville Inn
    The Delaware At Riegelsville
    Riegelsville Bridge
    Riegelsville Bridge
    Anne On The Milford Bridge
    Delaware River
    Tinicum: Delaware River
    Tinicum: Delaware River
    Tinicum Park
    Tinicum: Polo Players
    Tinicum: Morning Deer

    Tinicum was fairly primitive as far as campgrounds go, but it was very pleasant, and we got to watch some local equestrians play polo for a while before we crashed for the night.

    Day Two

    This was another beautiful day. We got up and out early, got breakfast at a diner not far from the campsite (again arriving just as it opened), then rode down the towpath and Rt 32 to Point Pleasant.

    Point Pleasant is where Tohicon Creek meets the Delaware, and just above that is where Geddes Run enters Tohicon Creek. This area had a substantial native population once, and the mouth of Geddes Run was once a place where Native Americans worked a local stone called argillite (aka “mudstone,” or “blue jingles” as the local quarries later called it). The actual native quarry site is now on private land, but we could get a view of the general area from the road.

    Tohicon Creek
    Tohicon Creek
    Geddes Run
    Wismer Road At The Bridge
    Anne At The Covered Bridge
    Anne In The Covered Bridge
    In The Covered Bridge

    Our route from there took us west on the Point Pleasant Pike, generally following an old native path to Schwenksville, through scenic little roads, and into more built-up and heavily trafficked areas, until we finally made it to Green Lane Park, our second night’s lodgings.

    Day Three

    From Green Lane we went north, again following the general outline of a native path — this was the path from the Phoenixville area to the jasper quarries at Vera Cruz. The route was a bit of a surprise; I expected it to be fairly flat (something I’d heard was a hallmark of native paths) but it was actually fairly hilly and rolling.

    We got into Vera Cruz, stopped to explore Jasper Park (sorry, no pictures this time), and then we went into Emmaus to get lunch. We came home on our usual route from Emmaus, which was once also a native path. And that was our little holiday!


    📂This entry was posted in looking back the sporting life 📎and tagged

  • Some Bike Love

    Posted on by Don

    I had a slow leak on the Santa Cruz’s rear tire, which turned out to be a stuck valve and relatively easy to fix (disassembled and cleaned it), but then the next day the front brake felt super soft. I got new brake pads, replaced the front brake — fixed! I did the back brake as well the next day, and I also finally got the shifting dialed back in. It feels like a new bike…

    I took it out on the towpath Tuesday after the front brake fix, then again on Wednesday with the rear brake and shifting done as well. Both times were awesome, but on Wednesday I took the little alternate “fisherman’s trail” in Freemansburg. Big mistake!

    The whole trail was completely overgrown with downed trees, sticker bushes and nettles. I fought my way through — it took forever, I had to shorten my ride I took so long — and when I was back on the towpath I got a good look at my arms, which were completely covered in blood. Yikes! It was from the stickers, and it was really just a bit of blood from the tiny sticker scratches, mixed with sweat and looking worse than it really was — the nettles were far more annoying to be honest. But it sure looked dire; I took pictures but I won’t post them here.

    Post-ride shower, and my arms looked like it never happened. Bike is still great.


    📂This entry was posted in tech talk the sporting life 📎and tagged

  • The Eagles of Merrill Creek

    Posted on by Don
    Bald Eagle, Merrill Creek Reservoir

    We went kayaking at Merrill Creek Reservoir on Sunday, with Anne’s brother and his wife. It was a beautiful day for being outside, and a wonderful way to spend the day. Anne and Joe both brought binoculars and were checking out the local birds, I saw a bunch of turtles sunning themselves on a branch, but the best part was when Anne said “Look up there, a bald eagle!”

    It was just above us in a tree, a fully-grown (huge) adult watching the water for fish. We watched it watch the water for about ten minutes before it flew off, and Laura told us she’d heard that there were two nesting pairs of eagles living at the lake with their juvenile children.Not long after, we crossed the lake to another area, and saw another, smaller adult bald eagle, watching the water from a dead tree. Bonus!

    After that we paddled back to the boat launch. We were out on the water for about two hours in total, and afterward we got lunch in at a diner Washington, and a beer at a local brewpub before heading home. What a lovely day!


    📂This entry was posted in nature journal the sporting life

  • Fun With Bash

    Posted on by Don

    I got to play with shell scripts a few times over the past few weeks, thought I’d talk about them:

    Wordle Helper

    I have a script I use to help me make my guesses when I play Wordle; it basically generates a list of available words based on my results, analyzes these available words (by checking the overall letter frequency, then scoring the words based on which letters they contain), and returns the word list with their scores, sorted by word score. This is especially helpful as a process of elimination, and most especially in the first rounds — I can confirm or eliminate the most common letters and quickly narrow down my choices (well, usually).

    I decided at a certain point that multi-letter combinations might be even more useful, so I wrote another script to score words based on the frequency of two-letter combinations. This worked well enough that I wrote a three-letter scoring script, and then realized that I should just write something generic that would score based on however many letters I would want in my combinations.

    For some reason I brought my laptop on vacation, and when things got quiet I broke it out and wrote the multiple-letter scoring script — it works like a charm. What I found though, is that there are diminishing returns for the letter combinations: there is no real advantage to use more than two letters. Still, this is a script that I use every day.

    Getting SSL

    Every 90 days I have to get a new SSL certificate for this website, so I can use the more secure “https” rather than plain “http.” This was once a pretty easy process, until my (free) certificate-generating organization got taken over by someone else. I found a much more onerous (but still free) web-based method and have used it for years, but I knew there had to be a better way.

    I eventually found something called getssl, a bash script that automates the process used by that onerous web-based approach. Ufortunately it’s meant to be run on the computer where the website resides, rather than on my local machine which is what I preferred, so I never really messed with it… Then one day I just set it up and ran it, and it basically did 99% of the work, generating the certificates and storing them on my laptop. All I had to do myself was install them manually, which was pretty easy. Awesome! The whole process went from an hour to about a minute, and I’ve been using getssl for almost a year now.

    But it still bothered me that I couldn’t get the whole process automated, and then last week I found an extra feature in getssl that would get me that final one percent; the only problem was that the extra feature would need to be modified to run on my machine rather than remotely. (This modification turned out to be fairly straightforward, which was a bit of a surprise actually.) I managed to make the code change just a few days ago — again, while out of town with my laptop — and my current certificate was installed, fully automatically, using the modified feature.

    Neither of these little projects were hard, but it’s so seldom that I do anything like this anymore that I was pretty proud of my accomplishments.


    📂This entry was posted in day by day tech talk

  • Ant Bait Recipe

    Posted on by Don

    We have an infrequent, but still recurring ant problem: every few years or so, we find ants coming into our kitchen. Now is one of those times, and our go-to solution is to destroy the colony using homemade ant bait — a cotton ball soaked in sugar water (which also contains borax) brings them swarming, they bring the sugar water back to the hive and feed everyone else, and the borax kills them all over a few days. I currently have a cotton ball near their entrance point, and it is literally covered in ants…

    Anyway, when I went to set the bait I found that our previous batch was almost all gone. I couldn’t remember the exact proportions for the recipe so I had to do some Googling, and then I prorated what I found to fit in our container. For my readers, and for my own future self, here is the recipe:

    • 1/4 cup sugar
    • 1 tablespoon borax (we have this for our DIY laundry soap)
    • enough water to make 1 cup of the mixture

    Mix the borax and sugar into the water until it dissolves, then put it in a container and toss in some cotton balls to soak. That’s it!

    I put one cotton ball on the kitchen counter, and one at whatever entry point I can find, and change them every day or so when they dry out. This is a bit harder to do right now, because it takes as long as a week to wipe out the hive, but we can’t leave the bait out when we have Iris over. Still, it seems to be working; the ants are not in the kitchen anymore and I’m sure we’re almost done.


    📂This entry was posted in pioneer arts