Goodbye to West Hartford, CT

My father is selling the old family house and moving down to Potomac, MD. Lot of memories, I didn't live too long in West Hartford but I was born and lived till 13 in the City of Hartford. Took lots of junk: he's 78 and has more junk than he could handle. CT is a really messed up state road-wise. These safety wusses love to put stop signs everywhere: on curves, rr crossings that see 1 train/month, at almost every inersection. It is so bad that they have to put signs telling people when it isn't an all-way stop so they will actually stop, instead of blowing through all those pestilential pussy stop signs. On their interstates and limited access highways, they have lots of left exits and entrances. On I-91 between Hartford and Windsor, they have a carpool lane, which takes up two regular lanes and has no passing or exits until the Hartford City line, which they don't tell you when you get on that utter waste of good road space and money: they even built ramps and overpasses for the HOV lanes, that almost no one uses. Typical brain-dead CT thinking! CT has yearly emissions testing; but if you buy your car new, you never have to have a safety inspection on it. A used car will get inspected once by the state when you first register it though. So there are tons of really badly maintained vehicles on the road, even nice ones. Every third car has at least one brake light out. They have these fancy emission testing centers, you'd think they would throw a safety check too while they are there every year.

Spent 2 days in Boonville

Thursday, Friday and tried to drum some business up. Thanks to the weather, business is shit, anyone know a virgin we can sacrifice to the snow gods? Lowville, north of B'ville, is the center of the snow belt and has no snow, it's like spring. Boonville is totally retrogade; most of them are getting used to dial yourself rotary desk phones, they just gave up their hand cranked ones. But prices are cheap their, there is an A-Plus mini mart with the cheapest gas and high test coffee for $.64 a mug; compare that to rip-off McDonald's who want $1.84 to fill up the same cup. Starbuck's cofee is cheaper than both CrapDonalds and Punkin Donuts. Took NY 28 to NY 30 back home, sold a CAT 5 wiring job to my friend in Speculator at a deep, horrible winter, discount. The Eagle runs great with clean plugs and my gas mileage went up, so I spend less on the juice. Bosch 2 and 4 electrode plugs are prone to foul, so I bring cleaning stuff, xtra plugs and sockets all the time now.

Gonna Hit the Road

Going lean and mean this time, prolly camp-out. Heading W-N-W, maybe?
Update: Boonville, Lowville via NY 7 to I-890 in Schen, to NY 5 to Amsterdam. Then NY 67 west to Johnstown, where I tanked up and took NY 29 through the lower 'Daks to Middleville, where I picked up my NY 28 to NY 12. that is a short and good hardcore 2 lane route with no tolls or b.s.

Drive Home

Took the Olympic Way NY 3-86-Old Mil Road-73 to the Northway. Kept some good time, taking the occassional pass here and there to keep the pace up. Wasn't till I cleared Keene Valley did I find someone worth following. In spite of all the Statey traps, I came up clean every time. Some of the passes might have gotten a little over 55 mph though, this is NY State!

Tuned up the old beast

yesterday. Put a good high quality cap, rotor and Bosch 4 electrode Pt plugs in the old thing, 2.4 l, 16 valves, and she ran like a champ this time. Finally realized that the other Bosch plugs 2 electrode, Pt plug, were getting fouled up with soot. Also, put some shock bushings in as cushions for the 5/16" eyebolt that I was using to hold my Thrush® muffler to the bumper. Saves gas and ears, smooth purring!




Then I went for a starlight patrol of NY 3 & 30, the Sara-Tupper Speedway, to Saranac Lake to the only all night store in the Tri-lakes Region. It ran like a dream, with Beethoven's 9th, Ode to Joy and the highbeams on the whole time. NY 3 rules all other NY routes. It's simply the best road in design, scenery, challenge, and age. Ironically, I cover it from Plattsburgh to Wanakena on adkI87.com and nyroute30.com.

High Speed in Tupper Lake

Booted up the Northway/US 9. Got a new customer in Olmstedville, Muellers, who do heavy duty repair and towing, I mean the hard core stuff. Then it was through Schroon, No. Hudson to CR 84, Blue Ridge Road, to Newcomb and came into the Tupper the right way. Hooked up my new-used 16 port office switch for my friends Maggie and Jerry's Park Motel, so we can have CAT 5 high speed internet in their rooms. Will finish up all the receptacles and RJ-45 jacks by tomorrow .



UPDATE: Sunday, 1/29

Job completed, 7 rooms wired.

Computer Running Slow, Try a Memory Expansion

My laptop ran slow as molasses, even with a 2.4 GHz processor, cause it had only 204 MB of free RAM. The XP OS soaks up tons of RAM when it is running. So I sent away for a 512MB memory stick and it made the computer run about 12x as fast. Remember, memory is the cheapest and best way to improve performance, especially on cheaper machines that come stock with only 256MB of RAM. But still remember to check all the auto start up programs and delete the ones you don't need most of the time.

More Email Caveats

set your email client(Outlook express, Netscape Composer, Eudora) so it prompts you if someone wants a return confirmation email sent back to him. Lot's of spam have the confirmation requests set to true to trick Outlook Express into confirming to them that the email addy is good.

Psycho Weather

It was a windstorm last night, then it turned into a ice storm. The power went out this morning. Then it warmed up in the afternoon and turned to rain. Then, by 5, the wind shifted from the NW and snow and 40 mph gusts blew in. Here is a night shot from Berkley Square in Saranac Lake. My friend Nadia is back in SL, so we got together for some web design business and socializing

I'm the CAT 5 Wiring Dude

Just wired my first room here in Tupper Lake at the Park Motel. As soon as we get another switch, we'll have the whole place with wired high speed that we split off of the DSL connection. Took two tries with the RJ-45(the ones that look like big telelphone jacks) crimp tool till I learned how to crimp the ends on right. Now that I have high speed in Tupper Lake. I don't need to sneak into Lake Placid hotels and use their phone jacks to get to the local crummy AOL dial-up number!

Yahoo Beats Google Search

In spite of mass Google hype, good old Yahoo search is way better. It returns more relevant links quicker. I was just looking for a potential customer in the Central Adirondacks. Google gave me a bunch of useless garbage while Yahoo gave me the link to his website on return #1. When AdkI87.com tanked out last summer cause of the server, Google was returning for #1 a ceramics factory near the Northway that had the Northway listed in a map in a .pdf file while Yahoo returned a summer resort near the Northway that mentioned it several times in their site for keywords "Adirondack Northway". Now of course, my www.AdirondackNorthway.net site returns #1 for keywords "Adirondack Northway". Don't believe the hype!

Boonville Recon

Checked out Boonville testerday, after I left Old Forge. I put up the Boonville page earlier that morning. I have been busy like a beaver working on the re-born NYRoute28.com site, cruising from Barnveldt to Inlet. Business has been good. Heard about some scum who has a snowmobile website who ripped off some of my customers by taking their money and not putting up one page.

AOL Ripoff

Had AOL on my laptop for a while, so I can access the net on the road. Started out with the free month plan, then was paying 25/month for unlimited, finally 15/mo for 6 hours. Since the access numbers in the 'Daks are almost always long distance, I would sometimes pay an extra 10/min for their 1-800 service. It was a real rip, so I decided to cancel. When I called them to cancel, I told the man, very pleasantly, about just how useless AOL was for the 'Daks. Except to connect to the net, I never used AOL for anything else; their browser bites and who needs another email addy when I have about 14,900 extras of my own. Then, I told him I used Road Runner at home and had no need for the AOL bunny slope community. Then he tells me, that since I was a Road Runner customer, that AOL was free! I blew over a 100 on that useless crap when the whole time it was free. The moral of this anecdote is that if you have Road Runner, then AOL is free.

Back in Old Forge

Took the Thruway to Palantine Bridge, Exit 29. Took NY 5 all the way through to Herkimer to get on NY 28. Westbound people should get off at Exit 29A, Little Falls, to get to NY 28 north. It's a four lane highway from Little Falls to Herkimer. Also, NY 28 north is about 3/4 mile east of the Herkimer exit, so you'll save on the miles too. Rail buffs love NY 5, it goes along the Mohawk Division of the NY Central RR. One of my friends says I have too much time on my hands if I like to watch trains.




Looking East on the Mohawk Division Mainline at the West Canada Herkimer Creek bridge, on the Herkimer-Montgomery County Line

Furry Little Friends

in Old Forge. Right after I took this shot, I got the Eagle stuck in the snowbank, right in front of the OF town garage. The crews quickly dug me out, thanks!

I drove up to Old Forge via the Thruway, 1-90 west and NY 28 from Herkimer, Thursday the 15th during the ice storm. I had no problem, getting off the Thruway in Herkimer was the best thing cause people are dumb on the Thruway. NY 28 was fine from Herkimer, and as I drove up the road, I realized just how lacking NYRoute28.com was; It was always the poor step-sister to the other two. I hadn't been that way in years and it was fine, except that I had to break the ice off my windshield every 10 miles. People up here were too scared to drive so I had NY 28 pretty much to myself, which is great. The snow removal there was barely adequate, nothing compared to NY 30 or the High Peaks routes like US 9, NY 3, 73, 86, where they keep the roads bare. My cellphone got left back home and I didn't call my motel buddy in Old Forge, so when I pulled in they already turned in. Not wanting to wake them, I camped out at Nick's Lake DEC campground, in the back of the Eagle. It wasn't cold but the ice and wind made it uncomfortable. An ice laden branch hitting the roof made me levitate an inch or two. I was happy for morning, as I drove down from McCauley Mountain in all the brand new heavy snow and ice. As I was working my way along the River road, I saw those deer, so I pulled over too suddenly and got my beast stuck; yet again wasting some town crews' time, about 3 minutes, to free here. I was so happy to get my room and warm up and shower. My friend Joe ran high speed into my room, it was heaven along with HBO!

Had some password problems with Blogger

Which I finally resolved. So now I can post again. I had this blog for as long as I had NYRoute30.com and I would really miss it if I couldn't figure it out.

Got Firefox!

Finally bit the bullet and took the free plunge to Mozilla Firefox browser. What an easy painless download and installation. Using it now. Checked out my ANCA work in Netscape today and the stupid html commented tags were throwing errors that IE 6 would never do. Really smooth, it imported everything from IE 6!

I grew up on IE 6, and it is the most forgiving browser for bad JavaScript and html. But it is ponderous and vulnerable to security issues, which never bothered me. But this Firefox is winning me over. Though any good webmaster should check his work on at least one Mozilla based browser, now I have two.

Hills Behind My Stand

Got 2 Turkeys in Melrose, Rensselaer County

I was visiting an old farmer friend, we use to rent from his nephew. He always let me hunt his small farm. I checked it out earlier, using a very mud and water logged route to a nice little grove of wild apples on the upslope of this field and bog. Real heavy clayee sucking mud it was from all those freaking October rains. So I came back about an hour later and parked closer to the meadow and grove. I set up a little base alongside some thick, sideways growing apple trees. My boots and socks were wet, so I spread my mat out and took off my footgear to dry off a bit, plus I had some dry socks. I got my camera out too.

So, natch, as I am sitting there scannning the bend in the track and tree line I see some racoons? Racoons, cats, sheeet, they're gobblers and I'm shoeless. So I ducked down and dragged my boots on and tried to hide the stuff as I lay prone infantryman style behind a small hummock, in full camo now. I called them a couple times but they just moved back out of site. So I doubled back to my base, hid everything, which was just precaution and laced up my boots and went with just the basics. I tacked up the hill through the apple trees and made it to the tree-fence line. Following the cover there, I worked my way to the bend. Snapping the safety off on five special 3" turkey loads, I rounded the bend and there was the biggest flock of turkeys I've seen in a long time. Standing, I got up closer and pumped 2 quick ones at head level. The flock scattered minus two birds flopping around in their death throes. So I blew off the first guy's head and did the secong manually; at 85 cents a shell, hell yes. Cleaned them in the driveway at home, what a pain!

Call of the Turkeys

still doing some turkey hunting in Albany County southern zone.

Exit 30 High Peaks

The way to Lake Placid and Keene Valley

Snow

it was snow for the upper Daks. over a foot in the high peaks last week and when we drove through the pass to Ticonderoga on NY 74, it was a sample of winter. Went all the way up to St. Albans Vermont in Eileen's car to pick up this tranny I bought for a Subaru. The Quebec junk yard undercut everyone in the US by $450 so we went with him when he dropped it off for me in VT. QC, CA is a good place to go for used parts, especially with free continental calling. Got some dynamite pics from the shop on Lake Champlain, see front page of ADKI87.com.

It's Fall Now!

With all this rain, snow and cold, you know it. Looks like it's going to be a tough winter. Went out last night and built a fire and slept out in a remote part of Albany COunty. It was realy cool and bright once the fire died down and it cleared up. No bugs, so I slept under the stars. For all you outdoor types, Albany County, while being part of the Catskill-Helderberg, not the superior Adirondacks, foothills, is full of state forests for hunting, snowshoeing, camping, cross country skiing all through the south western part of the county, like Rensselaerville, Berne.

Free Email Accounts

with @adirondacknorthway.net extensions, just email me with username and a pw, use link on top of page for squirrelmail access, ditto for the nyroute30.com site, same deal but with a @nyroute30.com domain extension.

Now No.s 1 - 2 on Yahoo, MSN, & Google Search for keyword "Adirondack Northway"

Yes, after being buried in Google last month, at one point #80, I am number one with AdirondackNorthway.net for search string "Adirondack Northway" on the search returns. Wouldn't one figure that a website utterly devoted to the "Adirondack Northway" would pull #1 on "Adirondack Northway" for Google and MSN Searches, #2 on Yahoo Search?

Yurt Raising

The lady who runs the most unique resort in the Adirondacks needed some help to erect her newest lodge, a 30' diameter yurt. The Mongols used yurts, they look like little circus tents. These are kits with insulated platforms. It has a pretty heavy duty wall fabric wrap-around plus an openable skylight. She rents out tree houses, cabins and yurts with no electricity but wood heat, gas stoves and battery/kero lamps. This in the off the path part of NW Fulton County, Bleeker. It was a big hoe-down with a combo of her guests, neighbors, fellows in Adk trekking meeting to put this big conical thing uo

Mission Statement

I started these websites to combine some Adirondack adventures with some business. I do try hard for the business. If it was only business, I could do better at almost any job. It's doing what I like; web design, exploring, camping, the Adirondacks, and checking out all these places of business and other nooks and crannys all through the park. And the best way to do this is to drive around and solicit business. Plus, that means you meet and interact with people. If it was all the Benjamins I ain't making, I wouldn't do this. It's fun and rewarding. For example, I have to pick this transmission from a Quebec junk yard, up in NW Vermont. So, now, I will circle Lake Champlain to the north on US 11 and hit all the towns on the nrothern plateau like Moerrs, Champlain. Places I have pages but no content. Plus, I haven't been north of Exit 39 yet, in the lifespan of this site.
I am meandering, the mission is to patrol and report about the Adk north country on-line,

After the Rains

During all this rain we had, i got a nice flat, a broken off cotter pin this time. I plugged it right on the axle on Albany-Shaker Road with my plug kit. At least the cop stopped to throw some light and talk to me. None of the Capital District troglodytes driving by could be bothered to at least ask, as opposed to the 'Daks where almost everyone would have stopped. Next day, I went to Walmarts for tires. The jerks there take about 2 hours to mount and balance 4 tires, giving me all sorts of grief about how tight my lugs are. At first they refused to take the lug off, claiming it might break, they don't fix lugs, yadda yadda corporate bs to the maz. I wasn't going to stand for this nonsense, I just took the wheel off last week and didn't want to hear any of Wal-Mart's corporate drivel. So I got right on the case, but ended up blowing another $15 on a set of new lug nuts, which wasn't such as bad idea. Kicked ass and took no prisoners on two new website jobs, a brand new one for capital region mica task force & the new look for Adirondack North Country Association

Skool Daze

I was subbing in this area middle school, Spanish, which I am barely proficient. But since it was 8th Grade, I was the "expert". The regular teacher had hand lotions and ferbel dolls for the kids to use. I quickly put the kibosh on such nonsense, especially the lotions and cream crap. What are they trying to do with our kids? Make them all thumbsucking drones? Today I am old Cohoes High, doing Regents Chemistry for an old teacher, much more straightforward.

Converted the NY 30 site to PHP tonight

that's HTML with brains, now, all my headers and footers are one file and I can have a nifty time/date. It also makes the page ready to be hooked to a database. Always save your html pages as php pages, almost all servers can handle it. Regular old html will work fine as php, and it makes it easier to upgrade to fancy php scripts, go to http://php.net/. It's all open source server stuff, available on almost all servers. But it will make upkeep easier.

Tupper/Saranac/Plattsburgh

After Old Forge, I headed back north to my old stomping grounds in the High Peaks. I called this really beautiful lady, Nadia, who I only met over the phone and email, and met her in person. She offered to feed and put me up for the night in true north country hospitality. She runs a craft program, her site has resources and marketing programs for crafts folks and retailers.

Then I took NY 3 up to Plattsburgh for some Northway business. That is truly a lonely and good road, like Northern Maine. Hit all the places by Exit 37. Got some good probable and made a sale in Ausable Forks Village. Took the really treacherous back route around Whiteface, ostensibly to avoid Placid traffic, through Franklin Falls. It was exciting but there were a lot of wet leaves on the road, fall is here!

Old Forge to Tupper

This weekend I really worked hard. Started in Northville for NYRoute30 and went like a banshee all the way to Old Forge for NYRoute28. Blue Mountain Lake has a BBQ fish fry place, some guy from North Carolina patched a trailer to a cabin and runs a little restaurant right there on NY 28 & 30 just east of the stop sign. In Old Forge, OF, I camped out west of town off the old road grade, now snowmobile trail. It was okay but yesterday Ranger Rick paid me a visit, told me to clean up(as if someone had to remind me) and I was camped to close to the trail. At least he didn't harp on the latter point. A lot of bear hunters were out in OF. Hung around the indispensible all night Fastrac gas station/convenience store. Met a lot of locals and tourist. They are a lot friendlier in OF and NYRoute28 in general. My url posters get ripped down in 2 days in Lake Placid but the ones I put a month ago up in OF and environs are still there. But I wish friendliness translated into more business. I canvassed 50+ places. Now I am at the Park Motel in Tupper Lake and am heading to Saranac Lake.

Gonna Hit the Road

Got stuff patched up here for a while, put a wheel bearing and shocks in a friend's car today. To all my AdkNway customers: The server it was on was crapping out, Canaca told me they replaced it, but that's why it went from #1 in Google on Adirondack Northway to #67. That killed my traffic. 20K in August and less than 8K for September so far, They replaced the server, they say, and gave me a free week's rent. Google re-indexes every week or two so it should bubble back up to 1 or 2 soon. A freaking .PDF file from a technical factory that has directions with "Adirondack Northway" printed on a map pulls #1 on Google, oy vey! I got a bunch of good freebie links, like the Frostbites and the Mountaineer, that will help! But on Yahoo Search however, it still pulls #1 on "Adirondack Northway"!

I am discouraged and I am going to whine

I got some good news, 40,000 hits on NY Route 30 last month. I worked the phones yesterday, mainly trying to get some old timers to renew, no luck. Then this jerk, who agreed to my $200/year website deal earlier this month, welshes on me without telling me after I called him to tell him to check over the info that I laboriously entered. He says he can't use it now, as if his place isn't running at 10% capacity. Fool, the website isn't for you to use, it's to get customers to visit! He really pissed me off. I put all this work into his site and he doesn't have the wherewithal to tell me he doesn't want it. I had to bite through a 3/4" pine board to keep me from giving him the tongue lashing he so richly deserved. Or some other disreputable people, with whom I made a no-money link swapping deal, can't even take 15 seconds to post my link on their site after 3 months, but will take the time to critique my site.

Now, I get to go back to subbing school and other thankless crap where I have to deal with semi-literate baboons who do their best to waste school district money on their fraudulent education! At least this one student that I got for Physics tutoring, a college one, seems motivated. Believe it or not, I like to feel that all my efforts aren't wasted.

Gas Prices Dip

the other day I was filling up at Exit 8, the sign said $3.19⁹ but the pump said $3.15⁹. So I figured they were planning to raise it so I got on it. When I got back to my car after paying, it was set @ $3.09⁹. If I had waited 5 minutes I would have saved 6 cents/gal. Now, it's at $2.99⁹ around here and falling some more, thank God! Been working on some local accounts and websites, as well as some old fallback jobs like tutoring and subbing. Even at $2.99⁹/gal, it cuts heavily into my margin.
Last trip I concentrated on the High Peaks again, got free rent for some web page help, sort of like the journeymen of yore. Keep on trying, especially trying to hype my wilmington-whiteface.com, without too much initial success, but I'll keep it going too regardless. Checked out some 5 star places in Placid, did I feel out of place. But I got the marketing guy's # and called him on a business day. You'd think someone whose main job is checking out promotion and advertising would take the time to even check my site out, nope! Guess I wasn't a member of the right yacht or polo club for his taste. Quit Whining and get back to work, illegitame non carborundum!

Inlet on NY 28

West to Old Forge this Time

My last road trip was an extended one. I started out in Tupper Lake, went back to Lake Placid, then ended up in Old Forge, working on my NY Route 28 website where I hadn't been in over two years. Placid was hard work, but it's good to have a place with so much packed together for easy travel, I wore out the legs instead of my car which is okay. I even covered Wilmington - Whiteface area and built a new website just for them Wilmington-Whiteface.com which redirects to Adirondack I also made a $20 helping some guy with a leaky heater line, which made that day. I spent one night in this hostel in Placid, but it was too uptight a place. Though a shower in the morning was a big help. Every night I camped out it was damp and rained lightly a few times but at least the old tent held. Then after attending the air show in Saranac and wasting time looking for biz there, I decided to head west on NY 28, which would give me a chance to hit NY 30 too to Blue Mountain Lake. On the way, at my motel website customer's in Tupper, I got some more work making it Canadian friendly and putting a French page in. I did okay, Old Forge was very busy and a lot different. Whereas the Eastern Adirondacks is very cosmopolitan or feeds off the Albany region, the western part feeds off of the Utica - Syracuse = Rochester part of the state. More laid back in some ways. Also got a bunch of new pictures. But the last day in Old Forge it rained the whole day almost. That part of NYRoute28.com laid dormant for the longest time and really needed some work. For too long, it was a backwater.

Smokey, My Favorite Llama

Vermont, Massachusetts and Other Dumb Stuff

Yesterday I went to Great Barrington to see my niece start off at Simon's Rock College, an artsy place that takes high school juniors. Berkshire County is a prettified country estate, real yuppified and cultured, full of all sorts of art like Shakespearean theater and Tanglewood, so Simon's Rock fits in perfectly.

Today I went up to the southern Green Mountains in Vermont: Arlington and Bennington. There is great swimming in the clear mountain streams. I picked up a boat load of trash at the local swimming hole in the Kelly Stand. It sickness me to see the amount of garbage the pigs leave behind. I especially hate bottles: lowlifes love tossing them into the all rock swimming hole. This is unusual because Vermont does have a reputation for being clean and litter free. They should uniformly raise the beverage deposit to 20 cents, that will cut down on the trash and help out the guys on the bottom who collect them for a living. Also, I finally got to use VT 279, the new cutoff from NY 7 to US 7, which allows through travelers to bypass the snarl in Bennington.

On the way there I listened to good old Equinox, WEQX FM 102.7. They are a great FM station with a good progressive and a signal that carries to Schroon, Albany, the Catskills. But why listen to alternative rock anymore? The genre is downright flabby: there is no great ballads, thundering guitar lines, good vocals, complex and enjoyable melodies and rhythms. It seems it's composed of lame guitar lines, horrible whiney vocals and self conscious, alienated lyrics of amazing vacuity considering this genre boast people who are "intellectual". No punk rage and anger, no heavy metal thunder chords, no fusion complexity or innovation, no real protest songs like Vietnam era rock; it's social commentary is so post modern and oblique, you don't ever get it. Does anyone out there still want to play good music with uplifting lyrics, good vocals and instrumentals and a beat you can dance too or hum any more? No wonder why fossils like the Stones can pack a major house while most of alternate crowd can't fill the local bar.

Night Camp Shot