dripping glass catches /
a few miles for tomorrow /
last joules of evening /

#haiku #offgrid

So it's come to this... configuring git to decorate names of committers who are on record of making poor choices WRT AI slop

Doolin to Dublin by way of Dog Bay Beach

 BIG GOAL Increase Stamina and Endurance 

STRATEGY: swim 4 days a week TACTIC early mornings is a great time to swim TACTIC swimming cools down my body temp TACTIC 18 lengths of the pool equals 0.25 miles 

 STRATEGY walk with disability group 4 days a week TACTIC putting on walking shoes is ideal TACTIC social encouragement is proven TACTIC can walk in Air Conditioning 

STRATEGY walk half a mile every single day TACTIC cooler in mornings TACTIC alley loop is about a half mile TACTIC counting flocks of birds occupies mind

 I swam again this morning and did River's Way goals group.  I think the other reason I am doing so great with motivation lately is because I identified "Endurance" as my main focal area.  It is a great thing to push towards!

Friends as Waterfalls

My waterfalls don't hang up

Do not disturb signs 

But maybe the rain was a lot recently 

And I imagine the trail is too muddy 

Or maybe it's been bone dry 

But I just don't think 

It's the best falls to see that day

Or I just get a feeling 

Other wanderers who might be visiting 

Would prefer to go alone 

One of my favorite waterfalls 

To listen to her bubble 

Or roar and seem to laugh 

Is a trek away

Sometimes I write her emails 

Our special little place 

Sometimes I don't commune with her

Though I crave to talk to someone 

Maybe I should more

Her mossy banks

Have been the best to feel 

My bare feet stand upon her

So grateful for her touch. 

For Dani Amoroso 

You're a slow rolling beauty with a mystical drop.

- an email to Ed

Chasing Friendlier Waterfalls

Waterfalls, flowers, mixed metaphors

This poem walks down a country road between a rolling stream

and a bouquet of wildflowers

picked weekly

between the worn hands of my mother

I always was timid, reticent,

when it came to picking flowers

and friends

Then I found my friends didn’t end up being droopy blooms

but raging and gloriously loud waterfalls

My best friends are waterfalls

my acquaintances and other friends aren’t.

A waterfall has a sort of decent into deepness

Not all streams do

A waterfall lets you visit it

whenever or commune with it

Not all creeks are open to visitors.

Don’t go chasing waterfalls

Please stick to the rivers and lakes that you’re used to

I know that you’re gonna have it your way or nothing at all

But I think you’re moving too fast

-lyrics from TLC

Makes you Wonder what a Waterfall is

I am brazen

I can be courageous trying to get friends

who seem they might be deep, moist, misty

But finding these 30 precious people I finally collected

has been a life’s works in progress

Again, not everyone is going to be a waterfall

I have friends who I value deeply but maybe I am the waterfall between us

That can be a wonderful dynamic,

But I also need waterfalls.

Then there are ones like Autumn or Josh

Waterfalls among waterfalls

People who make me feel

After 40 years of searching

I am not peerless actually

There are others like me

I am not alone

Nomenclature

Waterfall

As defined by the American Heritage Dictionary

is a descent of water from a height, a cascade

I guess what I mean in this obvious metaphor

is I have a certain kind of friend

who really gets me

It has to do not with the technical term waterfall

but more so how visiting a waterfall makes me feel

My first childhood friend Christina has a lot of trouble

feeling her whole life like she is struggling

to not just always be in fight or flight

She told me I give her a sense of calm that is rare

She said also that I listen to her non judgmentally

She made me feel valued and I value her

Maybe the way I feel among my waterfall friends

Is how I make many feel

Bouquet

I'm usually shy about picking flowers 

I want to let them stay beautiful 

Where they are

But about once a year 

In summer's thick

I find myself in a field 

Or bank

Or yard

And they beg me to gather them together 

Maybe butterfly bush 

In a friend's backyard 

Or queen Anne's lace

Asking me persistently 

Kindly 

To arrange them together 

Highlands, North Carolina

I remember visiting a waterfall with the other interns in 2009,

It was a wide flowing one and it had just rained

It was roaring and beautiful

The sound was a nourishment my mind desired

A blank noise that calmed the thoughts inside my mind

Wiped them right out

Until there was nothing.

Everything’s Finite

There is a cascade

20 minutes from my door

The thing about waterfalls is

If you visit one every week

For a decade

You end up seeing many scenes

Not just one

Every day is a different thing

It is so changing

It is like how the human body

Replaces all its cells

Every 8 years

It is like how my mind is so much different

From when I was a kid or teen

Change is in everything

And waterfalls remind us

Everything is temporal

Flowers are ephemeral

So are the waters

So is a human

We all are here now

But all of us

Will someday be gone

It is a reminder

That can scare someone

But it helps me so much

To see the beauty in changing, fading nature

 I never have felt so motivated for several years.  A couple things lit a fire up under my ass and have motivated me to swim, walk, and eat less sugar.  I have started participating again in River's Way, which provides for me social support, the key to my current success.  Also, 2 or 3 health concerns all spurred me to want to exercise more. It also seems the time is right for my current motivation, regardless of any previously mentioned factor.  

My youtube channel is doing great.  Check out my most recent videos.

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Long Live Mamdani as New York's mayor!!

June 21, 2025

I live 12.2 miles from a 75 foot plunge.

On this hobbley, old day it feels the only possible way to get there is by car. But what if I could walk there somehow? The most I walked any day this month was half a mile. But what if I could build my strength to walk out to the waterfall. I’d let my Mom pick me up on the way home.

I live 12.2 miles from a waterfall.

My kitchen table lies 9.2 miles from 3 parking spots at the dead end of a 2 mile headwater road.

My hair is still damp from jumping in a swimming hole 8.4 miles from my laptop.

It’s 7.7 miles to my friends’ house at the start of the road,

My previously mentioned friends have a second house along the way, 3.5 miles along.

One option is to walk some on the mendota trail from where is starts 2.7 miles from my beating hearth.

Blackbird bakery on the fly is a tempting stop, 1.6 miles from home.

My favorite Egyptian/ Italian restaurant exists 1.5 miles from my doormat.

I could describe every small detail of those 1.5 miles with unique precision, but I am certain I could do that segment in one long stretch without need for too many breaks. I walk slowww. It usually takes me some 20 minutes to meander a half mile, but that means I could walk to sit with the Egyptians and easily arrive there in 2 hours.

I would leave on a Saturday because the more rural treks don’t have great pedestrian walking paths, so I would want to walk to a cheap hotel on the way or to my friend’s second house the first day so that I could trod the rural parts on low traffic, Sunday. I am not great about sleeping away from home. I like my own bed. But even if I had to be picked up and not sleep on the actual way, I could be dropped off again in the morning. It might make it feel like more of an accomplishment if I wasn’t ferried though.

What am I rambling on about?

I want to train to walk at least to the dead end of my favorite waterfall road. That means I want to walk from my home 9.2 miles someday, but the sooner the better, because, as mentioned, I need to up my walking abilities. I am hoping to train for this and the longest stretches of my adventure. Approximately 4.2 miles (I think) would be the maximum I would have to walk in a day.

If I end up sending this to you, thanks for reading this. It probably will be the first page of a book with a map and an associated youtube video. My Mom prefers if I walk with other people for at least part of it, but I feel I’ll be fine either way. Let me know if you want to come along!

Their faq at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-terms-of-use-faq seems to have been updated after that change:

"Previously, we had included some routine licensing language in our Terms of Use that many found confusing. We listened to your feedback, took a second look, and determined the Privacy Notice sufficiently covers the limited permissions we need to operate Firefox on your behalf — so that language has been removed. "

Bless your hearts Mozilla, I was soooo confused by the same transparent legal maneuver that I've seen so many times before.

Just noticed that Mozilla removed the problimatic language from the #firefox Terms of Use about license grants. The removal happened sometime well after all the noise about the ToU had died down, sometime after May 15th.

My trust in Mozilla as an organization remains at a low eb.

Dysart O’Dea Castle, High Cross, Tower, and Church

Ennismore

Cobh

pondering the chances that #uhaul is using an LLM in part of their roadside assistance dispatching process after I clearly explained that a) I am at the welcome center on the state line and b) the truck wouldn't start because the gear shift was broken and it was not in park -- resulting in a mechanic being sent to a nearby motel to perform a battery replacement

(we did complete the trip eventually, with some transmission roulette)

St. Steven’s Green

Dublin

Irish Sea, Rosslare

National Museum of Ireland

Wexford

Wexford

Cork

Halfway done with move (not mine). Driving uhaul.

Wish I was using these today but instead had to queue for a nasty smelly pump with a slow screen and bad UI and then repark before going in to use the facilities.

Half way on a 6 hour road trip and a bit sleep deprived so glad the EV charging had me taking a walk in a garden center.

grey goo

It really likes to start generated sentences with "Learn"

switched my search engine to Wikipedia

#DuckDuckGo seems to be using an LLM to generate and/or mangle many of the page summaries in their search results.

I have all applicable settings turned off. And there is no warning about this. This is unacceptable, and I will no longer use this search engine.

first river swim of the summer!