Birthday hike

For my birthday this year I went to the Adirondacks again. This time I hiked Street and Nye. There is a river crossing, and I wasn't fully aware of what to expect. I brought a camp towel with the expectation that I would put my boots and socks in my bag, walk through, dry off, and continue on.

It was raining the entire day before, and some parts of the river were much, much deeper than it looked. And it was moving pretty fast.

The picture doesn't really show it, but they seldom do.

One of my companions learned the hard way how deep it was, and promptly took a bath. I found a few boulders I could jump to (trepidatiously, seeing that I refused to jump that distance barefoot, and failure meant landing in the water, boots and all). I successfully hopped across most of the river, while using trekking poles to gauge how deep it was the rest of the way.

Then I went up and back down. It was nice.

Getting back across the river, I figured I'd just go back across where I did before. Problem with that was, nobody could quite figure out where that was. My sopping wet companion just walked across while those of us that remained dry attempted to stay that way. I can say that I did just that.

Now as for the time it took... all the trail guides and apps said it took anywhere from 5 to 6 hours. It took us a fair bit longer than that. I'm positive these were written up by 18 year old freshman going for their degree in conservation or some other hippy diploma that can't fathom anyone not running full tilt up and down. Or maybe there was cocaine involved, either way these are not real people.

I had a good birthday.

The wasted month

Here in the state of high taxes and overregulation New York, school ends at the end of June. Like, after the official start of summer. It's a comedic waste of time because nothing of value is being taught at this point. K-8 are going on field trips to amusement parks (Both my youngest son and my daughter went to Seabreeze), having field days and other parties. The high schoolers are taking their useless regents exams.

What are regents exams, you might ask? Think of a ⭐special⭐ final exam that all the high school administrators think is important, but literally no college cares about. Not even NY state colleges care, it's just a final exam to them. They care more about your grades than the fact that you took the ⭐special⭐ exam. 

New York schools have a week off in February called 'mid-winter recess'. More like midwit excuses. There's lore that says it was because heating the schools in the winter was expensive so they cut it for a week in the coldest part of the year, but that's the worst kind of nonsense I've heard in a long time. It's pointless and needs to go. Send them to school and bring up the end of the school year by a week. And ever since "Juneteenth" became a federal holiday, they don't have school that day, either. That just stretches it out another day, so if we bring it up a week we get to skip that entirely. Right now this year the last day of school is 

June 25

Which is a crime as far as I'm concerned. Bringing it up a full five days would have it end on the 17th instead. And while we're at it, end spring break. Yea, I said it. The idea that the kids, and the teachers, need a break is a joke. Out here in the real world you don't get two months off, and the work time peppered with random half days, TWO WEEKS OFF FOR CHRISTMAS, and two other random weeks off.

End the school year earlier. The people whining about child care are already whining about it during February and April, they can whine about it in summer a little bit more instead. 

Stop wasting June in a classroom waiting for the clock to run out.

June-ish

My cat turned three. We have it on our joint calendar. I went through the contacts in my phone and counted out three people that had died since I last checked. The family members whose birthdays are in that calendar aren't going away, but I wonder how long the cat will linger. A friend of mine recently lost her dog of eight years, and I know I'm going to outlive this pet. I've lived in my house longer, which sounds odd to write out. It's weird to think about.

Back when my wife and I were engaged (a solid twenty years ago now, we're approaching a big anniversary), we were at that part of our lives where all of our friends were doing that. Wedding and baby announcements were as common as junk mail. It all slowed down after awhile, and the wedding announcement trickled in as the last holdouts found someone that could tolerate them.

Or, someone they could tolerate. Whoever is pickier, I suppose.

News of breakups never exploded outward like a wedding did. The latter was always met with fanfare and planning. The former was usually announced much quieter. He changes his profile picture to one of him and the kids. She changes hers to one with more cleavage. Sometimes the entire profile of one or the other disappeared. One time we got a wedding announcement in the mail that we were pretty sure wasn't her first. Nonetheless, these stealth announcements were much slower to make themselves known, but it happened far more than previously, but even those have slowed down now.

Now? I've been to more funerals in the past year than in the previous ten combined. Thankfully, most of them were elderly. I wish I didn't have to add that, but here I am.

At least it's finally nice out. I already have several hikes planned, and I need to knock out all 46 before my knees totally give out on me.

...observed?

The school districts typically allot a certain number of days off due to weather, and for some reason during the school years of only my children (not me), they started giving the kids the day back if and when they didn't use them all. The 'snow day give back', which makes absolutely no sense to me. Especially since they do it on the Friday before Memorial Day. Who doesn't love a four-day weekend? 

Oh, what's this?

Look at that right on the bottom. Memorial Day is a Monday, always has been. No school, always has been. SOMEONE TELL ME WHAT "MEMORIAL DAY OBSERVED" IS SUPPOSED TO BE. WE ALREADY OBSERVE MEMORIAL DAY, ON MEMORIAL DAY!

The bureaucrat responsible for this needs to be named.

Seedlings

It hasn't been rainy this spring. I recall last year it was raining every single Saturday until June. No morning bike rides, and I couldn't put the garden in. I haven't had that problem, no this year I have a different problem.

It's cold.

I can ride in the cold, rather well in fact. But the garden, that's an issue. The ground has a temperature threshold we haven't reached yet. My seedlings demand the dirt.

The first year I had a garden here at the house, it exceeded all my expectations. The second year, nature realized what I was doing and voles moved in, destroying everything. Year three was better as I had deterrents in place. It's been at that level ever since, but that's when, it would seem, the weather began to conspire against me.

Last week Monday it was 90 degrees (you know, while I was at work), but this Memorial Day, with all our outdoor festivities and free time? We're wearing sweaters.

Another quiet oddity

My youngest son had a weekend trip with his middle school French class to Quebec City.

I never in my life expected to type out that sentence, but here I am.

He hopped on the bus Friday early in the morning, and off he went. Once he crossed the border, he switched his phone into airplane mode (because our cell provider thinks Canadian cell towers cost extra for some reason), and he disappeared. Like it was the 90's or something.

And the house was eerily quiet again. This has happened before, when a different boy left for a trip. It seems that removing one or another has this effect, but it doesn't matter which. I came home from work Friday afternoon and thought all the kids were gone.

Nope. Just one.

Saturday was just as quiet. I got a lot done, including my first sunburn of the year. It didn't even feel hot. Sunday was also quiet. In fact, his bus wasn't scheduled to return until 10PM.

My wife took that one for me. I'm the morning person.

I'm now trying to see if I can always have at least one gone at a time during the summer. Gonna see if I can use this new discovery.

Inspection

NYS requires a yearly vehicle inspection. This is only a problem because people in NYC are worried about the cars they don't have to drive, so the entire state gets a law.

I could go on about that dynamic, but this isn't the time.

I like to drive older cars because I'm tired of needless bloat, feature creep, and they're cheap. (Not as cheap, thanks Obama) The problem is that, while they may last years longer, the inspection requirements don't. I had to get a new van a few years ago because the one I had - that was perfectly fine and would run several years longer - wouldn't pass the NYS inspection without a significant investment. It had to be sold to someone cheap out of state. They're still driving it.

So when I dropped off my car this morning, I waited in dread for the call. When it came, they politely asked me how I was doing.

"That depends entirely on what you're about to say about my car"

I got lucky this year.