Anne and I took the canoe out for a short paddle the first day we arrived, but later in the week we went out on the lake “for real,” in kayaks with Laura also in a kayak, and Joe & Alex in the canoe. We had a good time exploring the pond and the lake, but I really don’t have much to say about it so here are a bunch of pictures.
I was looking at the towpath amenities project in the week before we went on vacation, mainly to play with database reporting software, and I noticed that my amenities all were pretty closely grouped together. This stands to reason, since the data is a ready-made cluster — it’s composed of amenities within a kilometer of Sand Island, so the clustering may just be an artifact of that search criterium — but also because the data set encompasses the compact Main Street restaurant district. Continuing on with my reporting experiments, I looked at all amenities within a mile of Sand Island, and now found myself looking at two distinct groups of amenities, the one around Main Street, and another on the south side of the Lehigh. This also stands to reason — Chamber-of-Commerce types like to joke that we’re the city with two downtowns — but again I wondered if it was some artifact of the analysis, or even if I was seeing patterns that didn’t really exist, and that got me thinking of what I actually thought I meant by “cluster.”
Turns out, it’s a fairly big subject, with different ways of describing what “cluster” might mean — usually (and intuitively), it’s a subset of similar items within a larger data set, but then what does “similar” mean, and how similar do the members of a cluster have to be, especially compared to the rest of the set? For each way of understanding what a cluster is, there are various ways of finding the clusters within a data set. This whole subject is apparently a big deal, a subject of ongoing research, and an important tool in the fields of machine learning and big data.
My problem was spatial, so for me “similar” meant “close together in terms of location.” Some Googling found that there were plenty of GIS solutions to clustering problems, and in fact PostGIS contains several functions implementing the more common and important clustering algorithms, including DBSCAN, the algorithm that comes closest to what I think “clustering” should mean for my situation.
And here is where things became complicated…
The clustering functions are not available in the version of PostGIS that I had installed. So I decided to upgrade PostGIS, did a bit of research and found many articles with titles like “How to Brick Your Database By Updating PostGIS.” The process itself is not difficult, it uses old-school “make” rather than a package manager, and the pitfalls are easily avoided, but now I was scared and I thought I’d better back up my whole database system before continuing. What this meant though, was that first I had to make room on my hard drive, which has one (small, overcrowded) main partition and a (large, empty) secondary area. First thing would be to back up the secondary partition to the NAS drive — something I’ve been remiss on ever since I installed Mint — then I’d move both my music (35 GB) and my photos (12 GB) over to the secondary drive, and then update the music and photo software so it knew where all the files went — it was starting to sound like that song about the hole in the bucket…
I got through the first part, backing up the drive (which took hours), before we went on vacation. There was no Internet at our cabin, and I didn’t bring my computer anyway, so the rest had to await my return. The remainder of the hard drive cleanup (music and photos) also took some time but went smoothly enough, and I did a full backup of my databases.
From here the process was a bit anticlimactic: I downloaded the new version, ran make and typed a few things into the database, and I was done without bricking a damn thing. I needed to lay on my fainting couch and rest for a day after that, but when I finally got around to using the new functions they were a breeze.
I found some clusters and drew polygons around them — the subjects of another post — but I have more to do to figure out what these things are actually telling me.
*Hat tip to Achewood, still my favorite Internet thing ever.
We brought four bikes on vacation: my road bike, my mountain bike, Anne’s road bike, and Anne’s mountain bike in case Holly wanted to go for a ride. Anne and I did a road ride together, and I also got in a mountain bike ride.
On the Road
The Adirondacks have some pretty big hills, but there is also a lot of flat ground — there are a lot of lakes and swamps and slow meandering rivers — and the roads, the paved main roads at least, mostly traverse the flatter areas. We found a really nice loop that was paved the whole way, had very few cars, and (for the most part) had the most gentle of rolling grades. Some areas were pretty remote — on one road, for a few hot seconds, we even had a bear running along with us, just a few yards away in the woods — and all of it was really scenic, with rivers, and waterfalls, and vistas everywhere you looked.
In the Woods
This area is a bit of a singletrack desert, which may just mean that no one posts their rides online, but there are a lot of dirt roads and ATV trails, and I found what looked like a promising area a little south, near where we hiked. I drove down to a place called Mountain Pond Road, parked at an “equestrian/snowmobile staging area” (aka “dirt parking lot in the woods”), and rode towards something called Slush Pond Road, another dirt road across the main street from Mountain Pond Road, which seemed like my most likely chance to find a trail.
So far so good, but about a mile into the woods I ran into a roadblock: two Park Rangers standing in front of their vehicle told me that there was a search going on and I had to turn around. Search and Rescue? Manhunt? I didn’t ask, but we’d been seeing Park Ranger vehicles and rescue teams on the roads, and saw a few “missing person” flyers here and there… I looked it up when I got back to our cabin: a sad situation, and I was basically trying to ride into Ground Zero for the search.
The Rangers told me the Mountain Pond side was OK, so I went back over there and eventually found some really pleasant, though not particularly challenging, singletrack leading to an equestrian campsite, and I took a bunch of photos of this side.
This was our first full day on vacation. Joe and Alex and I were on our own, so we decided to do a moderately difficult hike, maybe four miles or so up to the top of Saint Regis Mountain, just outside the nearby town of Paul Smiths. We took off in the morning and arrived at the trailhead not long after, and started on our way. This map shows the gist of our hike — my GPS didn’t start recording position until we were maybe a half mile in:
The trail was easy to follow, fairly well maintained, and kept to an easy grade as it slowly ascended over rolling terrain, until we got to the halfway point and started the real climb. Even this was pretty doable, and the views at the top were well worth it. There was a fire tower at the summit, and we climbed that too. Some photos from the top:
So we’re back from our vacation trip — a little over a week in the Adirondacks with a part of Anne’s extended family (Lorraine & Ray, Joe & Laura with Alex, and Holly who came up with us), plus a few days in Montpelier for Ben’s graduation. All in all a great vacation: hiking, biking, canoes and kayaks, and a whole lot of reading or just hanging out, and the weather was beautiful the whole time. More stories and photos are coming, but for now here’s a shot of the cabin’s yard:
I think that’s Holly in the hammock, but we all got our fair share…
The return to reality was a bit abrupt though, hot humid weather and thunderstorms all the way back, followed by more of the same once we were home. We got home Monday night, and Tuesday morning we went to the funeral for Kris’s father Frank. Ninety years old, a fun and just plain decent guy — he helped on the PPRAC rides, driving support vehicles — with a love of life and a great sense of humor. (It sounds cliché but he really was all that.) Kris’s sister and Mom also passed away over the last year or so, so this was especially rough for her and her siblings. Rest in peace, Frank.
We’re now back long enough to get into the groove of things: I was at the museum yesterday and did a Trail Patrol ride today on the towpath, and Anne is now at orchestra. Tomorrow we go picking blueberries with Renee.
We had a few chilly days this week, including a rainy day or two, but the past two days have been in the upper nineties. Sunny and hot, classic summer weather — like the weather at the Battle of Monmouth, whose anniversary just passed. Anne and I went to Mauch Chunk Lake yesterday and rented kayaks, and spent the day along the shady lake shore, but today will be a bike day: she went to the Hellertown Farmer’s Market by bike (to hang with her spinning group), and I’ll be joining her there later for the ride home. Ugggh — maybe we can take a dip in Saucon Creek on the way home.
I helped Scott S with his Road Scholar rides this week, but only biked two days: I helped with a towpath ride on Monday, and with a road ride on Wednesday from Cherry Valley Vineyards to Delaware Water Gap — in the rain. (It felt awesome; I wish I was there in the rain right now.) Interesting crew of people, ranging in age from about 50 up into the 80’s, and ranging in skill from neophyte to fairly experienced.
After a period of not riding as much as I’d like, I think I hit a stride… I got out this week and did about 46 miles on the towpath on Tuesday, then (after exorcising my bike squeaks), I did a Jacobsburg ride starting from home. About 12 miles there, 10 miles riding and 13 miles home. While I was there I ran into Greg H and we rode together until I had to head back; not to be all judgey but his bike was pretty squeaky…
Yesterday, Anne and I drove to Norristown and took the Schuylkill River Trail into Philly. My GPS became a bit wonky — it turned itself off, at the same place out and back, and I lost a mile or two each way — but I think I got about 37 miles or so. We rode into town and met Ben, a friend of his, and his college advisor for lunch at Dock Street Tavern. It was just on the verge of raining the whole day, a sprinkle here and there but very pleasant — we ate outside despite the sprinkles, and were kept cool the whole way home.
Today is Anne’s orchestra’s annual picnic; we are probably going to ride there with some friends. Another 30 miles I’d guess, bringing the week’s total to about 150. That would be nice, but I am pretty tired right now and trying to gird my loins for the ride.
Next week: I offered to help Scott S with his bike touring gig, so next week, for most of the week, I’ll be doing something or other — riding sweep?) — on the towpath. Summer is here.
I had a pedal-induced creak building in the 5010 over the past week or so. The last time I had anything like this it was one of the pivot bushings, so a few days ago I tightened them — no fix, and the creak was worse than ever yesterday. I did the pivots again today, and the creak remained.
Next step was to look at the crank and bottom bracket. I’d never taken my crank off this bike, didn’t recognize the system (for the record: it’s a Race Face Aeffect crank with Cinch chainring tech), and tried for about an hour to remove it. This included at least 20 minutes looking through instructional videos, but this information seems to be some kind of secret…
I finally found one that showed how, and here’s the secret: there is a dust cap on the drive side, removable by an 8mm Allen wrench, but you don’t remove it. Instead, use a 7mm Allen wrench inside the dust cap to unscrew an internal connection to the ISIS drive; this pushes against the dust cap and acts as a self-extractor. It came off smooth as silk — live and learn. (Note: take the dust cap off to re-install the crank, the internal screw is kind of finicky to get going.)
I cleaned and lubed the crank parts, then looked at the bottom bracket and found my problem: the drive side had come loose, and that, coupled with the grit that subsequently got into the threads, was the likely cause of my creak. I pulled the BB, cleaned and greased the threads, put it all back together, and took it for a test ride. Perfect! No squeaks and no creaks, and that’s good because I don’t know what I would have needed to do next.
I’m still not sure why, but Monday was a totally wasted day. Maybe it was residual exhaustion, maybe it was the heat or pollen, but I was tired and headachey, unable to concentrate, and just plain out of sorts all day, and I basically did nothing. I got up yesterday and I felt much better (it was also a bit cooler), but I seemed to be on track for another “do nothing” day anyway. Until…
I was out in the backyard putting away some party things when I realized it was a beautiful day, and I really needed to go for a ride. I also wanted to keep up on my D&L Trail patrol obligations, so I saddled up and went off for a long towpath ride — I went first to the end of the Lehigh Towpath at Canal Park in Allentown, then turned around and rode to Easton before coming home, for a total of of 34 miles. I was beat by the time I finished, but I was glad I did it, and not just for the mileage: I managed to find two things to report (a down tree near the train yard, and a missing footbridge in Freemansburg), and also helped two women walking their bikes. One had a flat tire, a slow leak that just needed filling so they could get back to where they parked, but they had no pump. So I pumped it up, and off they went. Finally, some things to put in my trail report!
I also came a across two guys on the Albert Street footbridge (my Allentown turnaround), and we all marveled at the giant fish — easily 30″ long — swimming under us in the canal. We exchanged a few more pleasantries, then they went back to ignoring me and continued their conversation, which sounded a lot like drug-dealer gossip, and I took that opportunity to move on. This interlude did not make it into my report…
Back home, I had just enough time to brown the leftover ground beef and toss it in the crock pot with some beans, before going out again with Anne for her Tuesday Night Ladies Ride. It was just us and one other woman, and we did maybe 12 miles total at a pretty mellow pace, which was just fine by me. I did manage to bump into my old friend Bob R, and we rode together for a bit.
Home, had some homemade pizza and some beer, and we (or I) fell into bed exhausted — but it was the right kind of tired this time.
What a busy weekend! We had an afternoon/evening barbecue on Saturday, which meant that we spent much of last week getting ready, especially in terms of the yard: I dismantled two raised beds — they were under the persimmon trees and didn’t get enough sun — and re-seeded them for grass, then mowed and trimmed and weeded and generally cleaned the yard, bought food and beer, and also did a bunch of indoor, house-cleaning stuff. This meant that by Saturday morning we only had an enormous, as opposed to overwhelming, amount of preparation to do. Got through all that just in time for the first guests…
The party was a success as far as I was concerned, and I think everyone had a good time, but I pretty much forgot to eat I was so busy, and the same was true for Anne. Too bad, because we had pizza from the bread oven, and burgers, and hot dogs, and various salads & desserts brought by our guests. (Luckily, we overdid it on the food shopping and have tons of leftovers, so we won’t miss out.) We fell into bed around 11:00 with just a minimum of cleanup.
Yesterday I did a bit of backyard policing while Anne went to the Hellertown farmer’s market, then we went to Glassboro for her niece’s HS graduation party. That was really pleasant, and the drive was fairly painless despite having to get through/around Philly. We managed to be home before dark, grilled up some chicken kebabs and eggplant, and were in bed fairly early.
It’s stinking hot out, yesterday and today, and it’ll likely continue for the rest of the week. We had water balloons for the kids at our BBQ, and I am thinking of going down to the Monocacy for a dip. I was ready to write off and re-re-seed the newly seeded areas in the back, but the trampling they got Saturday seemed to do them good: the new grass sprung up overnight. A win is a win; I plan to do as much nothing today as I can.
