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    • StalkingTortoise wrote:

      LIhikers wrote:

      Here's wishing everyone at the Cafe a great holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. I hope you have miles of smiles in 2024.
      Amen! Best wishes for a healthy and happy 2024!
      Yeah, healthy at most of our ages is the key, after that everything else will fall in place. :)
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General

    • Merry Christmas!
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      Dogs are excellent judges of character, this fact goes a long way toward explaining why some people don't like being around them.

    • The ATC has blogged an article about birding on the trail, which is a good read for those interested in the subject.

      appalachiantrail.org/official-…on-the-appalachian-trail/

      But wait! There's more!

      The ATC has also jumped on the Taylor Swift bandwagon and released a TikTok video about "Appalachian Trail Birds as Taylor Swift Albums." I like Taylor but this effort misses the mark. Maybe they should pay her to date Warren Doyle. Or me. :)

      I don't have a TikTok account but I was able to view the video on my computer. On my cell the video was bigger than the screen so not a good experience. (New phone; maybe I need to tweak some settings?)

      It's only 16 seconds long...

      tiktok.com/@appalachiantrail/video/7336293072709405994
      2,000 miler

      The post was edited 2 times, last by max.patch ().

    • IMScotty wrote:

      Sure has been quiet in here this week.

      I hope that means you are all out there hiking!
      I was thinking the same. We were in Key West for spring break. Then got busy getting caught up due to being gone for a week doing taxes, grading papers, balancing checkbook, orchestra concert, etc.. (but not hiking)

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    • IMScotty wrote:

      Sure has been quiet in here this week.

      I hope that means you are all out there hiking!
      I got out to hike, we’ve had beautiful weather.

      My international sock knitting competition has started so I’m focused on that, made it through qualifications and round 1. Trying to plan a backpacking trip between rounds 2 and 3 but the timing may be too tight.

      Also busy fiddle playing…I have a new teacher for private lessons but he’s expensive so it’s only twice a month plus a weekly 2 hr jam class then random jams throughout the week.

      busy busy

      hope everyone is well
      Lost in the right direction.

    • Four of us went to SID Richardson Scout Ranch, Bridgeport Texas, Saturday 3/16/2024. We were deploying the orienteering control equipment for our two day meet, which is next weekend. I didn't run any track on myself. Rain was due and by 11 it was rumbling. By 11:30 it was raining off and on the rest of the day. We all got pretty wet. But all but 7 of the controls (of 83 total) are deployed out in the forest (Control bag, plus electronic timing device at each location, tied to tree or something). I slept well last night.
      Pirating – Corporate Takeover without the paperwork

    • In honor of St. Patrick's Day, I pulled "Ireland In Pictures" off our shelf, a book I bought at a used book store quite a few years ago. It is a "Coffee Table Book" with 400 pages of beautiful large-format photographs of Ireland. What makes it remarkable is it was published in 1898 in America. At that time, there were millions of 2nd-generation Irish-Americans whose only knowledge of their ancestral homeland was what their immigrant parents may have told them. This book was produced to show them their heritage. Some of the pictures show cities and towns. Some show the countryside, cultual sites, or scenes of everyday life. But most fascinating are images included to raise awareness and money for the Irish battle for independence from the UK that was on-going at that time, such as the army using a battering ram to take down a cottage of tenant farmers being evicted by English landlords. Be sure to read the captions. Most contain stories of Emglish oppression. It's an amazing window on the country from 125 years ago.

    • New

      OMO,
      Congratulations! You must have mixed feelings about that?
      I maybe could retire, but I am having problems letting go. Committed at least for another year. I'm still having fun. Besides, my young wife needs to work for a while longer, and she would have a bird if I was home enjoying myself all day and she was not.

      S
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

      John Greenleaf Whittier

    • New

      IMScotty wrote:

      OMO,
      Congratulations! You must have mixed feelings about that?
      I maybe could retire, but I am having problems letting go. Committed at least for another year. I'm still having fun. Besides, my young wife needs to work for a while longer, and she would have a bird if I was home enjoying myself all day and she was not.

      S
      Can relate, especially to the younger wife. Current plan is 4 more years. Start a pair of 8 week classes next month, and then no more summer school. :)
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General

    • New

      Astro wrote:

      IMScotty wrote:

      OMO,
      Congratulations! You must have mixed feelings about that?
      I maybe could retire, but I am having problems letting go. Committed at least for another year. I'm still having fun. Besides, my young wife needs to work for a while longer, and she would have a bird if I was home enjoying myself all day and she was not.

      S
      Can relate, especially to the younger wife. Current plan is 4 more years. Start a pair of 8 week classes next month, and then no more summer school. :)
      Congrats on the pending retirement!!!

      We are the opposite. Wife is a few years older than I am. I was burned out, had contract jobs for about the last 15 years of my career, then got outsourced and 3.5 years later, they outsourced what was left of my team a second time. They only picked up 7 of us and I was laid off 8 months later. I was 58 but wife was OK with me retiring. I would have had difficulty even finding a local job in what I loved to do. Wife has been with the same company 40+ years, they just threw her a 35th service lunch (she was also outsourced for almost 10 years but never left her desk). She still enjoys work and plans to work another 18 months. I keep telling her she may "retire" (quit) any time. We have plenty of investments and retirement funds. Our financial planner is already thinking 10 years from now, how we transition some of the funds. Neither of us will claim Social Security until we are 70. As our financial guy says "I WISH I could get you 8 percent in today's market....Lets take the government 8 percent premium until you turn 70". Subject to if either of us gets a big illness.
      Pirating – Corporate Takeover without the paperwork

    • New

      Yesterday was pretty nice here, so I brought my BIO for non-majors class outside to explore the 'Rocky Intertidal Zone' for a while. Then I decided to just keep them out there and do the lecture next to the crashing waves and the screeching seagulls.

      At 48 degrees, they found it rather chilly. I thought it was perfect :)
      Ha, still having fun!

      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

      John Greenleaf Whittier