I’m back home in NY and snowed in with an injury, so I had a spare minute to share an update to the stairs on trails page…
I made the “shoehorning” steps image below as a contractor I was working for was struggling with a state employee who insisted that steps should NEVER be put on the fall line (not even 5 or 6 steps), but should ALWAYS be on side hills or bench cut construction. I don’t know where to begin here with the problems that can arise with this rigidity, or the extra expense that putting steps on bench construction elicits, mainly in the addition of walls, but the contractor and I could not talk any sense into the state employee six ways to Sunday. He was… (continue reading at the stairs on trails page, mainly this image and some words below it on the aforementioned page)
I ended 2025 recently spening about two weeks in Tasmania with a short stop into the PTBA conference in Derby. I won’t say much here yet, but it was a fun trip and some photos are at Instagram (linked in the Instagram logo at bottom). That said, I am moving away from Instagram (again), or “Meta” in general. I left Facebook years ago when there were some privacy concerns and other crappy moves by Zuckerberg imo. His recent backing of the POS POTUS and other bad moves made me disgusted enough to not want to be in that sphere anymore. I ditched Twitter and Amazon a long time ago as well, and I am now leaving the Google environment the best I can, or as fast as I can. Strava is also not my thing anymore, though I do often use it if I am far from home. I can’t boycott everything, but I try to lower my carbon footprint as well as the collateral damage I might do on other fronts. We all have our own battles and choices to live with, we are all hypocrites on some level, except perhaps a few monks and nuns, neither of which I intend to become. I’m certainly a sinner, but trying to be as saintly as I comfortably can, or a humanist at any rate. I wish you luck whether you do the same or not into 2026 and beyond.
I might make my way to another social media platform again, but for now I’m taking a vacation from that and focusing that energy into other areas of life. Whether there will be more time spent on this website or not remains to be seen, but probably not. The website does need some updates, but most of the information remains relevant. I do expect to complete a “safer landing” spreadsheet or analysis tool this year though, it’s been in the works for a while already. Hopefully I can get past the knuckle I keep hitting.