Seen tonight on a nice adventure run. Got dropped off 2.5 miles outside of town, had to run back home on some sketchy roads with no shoulders. Wasn’t too painful, but always on edge when dancing on the pavement with multi-ton vehicles.
Category: Adventure
IRONTON TRAIL
I guess I really ramped up my half-marathon training, as I ran eight miles yesterday on this gorgeous, if a bit noisy, paved trail through the suburban landscape. The Ironton Rail Trail is about 13-ish miles of paved path.

Part of this trail goes right next to a shooting range. Like, DIRECTLY next to it. It’s sort of terrifying, since, well, this is America.
Continue reading “IRONTON TRAIL”LET’S RUN A HALF MARATHON
I signed up a half marathon at the end of the month. It’s on an abanandoned highway and goes through two pitch-black tunnels. I’m not exactly in half-marathon shape (my PR was in 2018 at about two hours and 20 minutes), but I haven’t… stopped… running.



The plan for this month is to just get used to moving for two and a half hours. I’ve done a lot of hour long runs, and a few 1.5 hour runs, but I’m just gonna try walking for two hours here and there, just to get the bones and feet and back used to the movement. Not looking for fast, just don’t wanna be dead by the end of 13.1 miles.
ADVENTURES IN PALMERTON, PA
For some reason I just love the energy in this area. It’s maybe not the most sceneic, but I love it. There’s a four mile loop up along the side of the mountain here, and it’s a crusher, but I love it so much. Only a few hundred feet of single track, but it’s worth it to me.



POLITICS ON THE TRAILS
Running around Leaser Lake is not enjoyable. It’s a lot of soft grass, and there’s really only two nice single track sections, and the one just sorta.. stops. It’s weird.

But it’s sort of a mindless run, a healthy four mile jaunt, and the scenery really isn’t so bad. The loop is sometimes nice to run into some random people and their dogs, which is always fun.

Not pictured are the two road signs with Patriot Front stickers on ’em. Fuck off, white power assholes. This is exactly why trail running is political, because non-white people don’t get the luxury of “leaving politics out of it.”
SMILE
I took this photo from a bus down south, in Texas I think, during my Bike Nerd adventures in 2011 / 2012.
NIGHT TIME PHOTOS
Since getting my new camera I’ve been intrigued by diving into more of what I can do with the manual settings. I mean, I’ve been using cameras for decades, but mostly in the auto-mode, shooting from the hip, and taking what I can get.
Now though it’s interesting to dig through PDFs, watch some YouTube videos, and figure out how to make some nice photos. I have literally no idea what I’m doing, as you can tell by how grainy and well, not great this photo is, but… but this is what I want to get to, taking good night time, spooky back street photos.
BACK IN THE CAMERA GAME

I finally got around to buying a real camera (Nikon Z30), and I absolutely love it. I haven’t owned a digital camera since my Bike Nerd days back in like 2010 or so, and I’ve never owned a camera this nice, period.
Sure, the camera on the iPhone is nice, but using something that just does one thing is real nice. And when I pull out my iPhone to take a photo I could see a notification about an email, a message, or whatever else.
The camera is just a camera, and I love that.
DOING STUFF
JAN 12: Posted another GOODNIGHT, METAL FRIEND mix.
JAN 14: Wrote ‘CASSETTES & EMAIL MARKETING WILL OUTLIVE EVERY SOCIAL MEDIA PLATFORM‘ which includes a tune I wrote.
JAN 16: Put up this subscriber-only ‘YOUTUBE POOPS, VIRAL AI VIDEOS, AND WHY YOU DON’T NEED A TIKTOK ACCOUNT,’ which is a new thing for me.
Oh, I’ve been doing the audio editing for this podcast:

New Years Day means the streets are empty and I can take this sort of photo. Unseasonably warm, sorta quiet sort of day. The exhale of the holiday.