Next stop on our trip was Valley Forge. Beautiful place with lots of history. We spent 2 nights in an Airbnb that was perfect for our needs. It was great being able to reset a bit by doing laundry and enjoying "home cooked" meals. Our camping trip in the Shenandoah National Park was our best camping experience yet with the little one.

I enjoyed learning and refreshing my memory about the revolutionary war. My favorite part of learning the history of this place was seeing the head quarters George Washington lived in for the few years he lead the malitia at Valley Forge.

Our first family road trip! We were very excited as we prepared and packed the truck. The dog stayed home, so it's just the three of us. We left Sunday for the Shenandoah National Park as our first stop and spent 2 nights.

Here are a few photos of us while camping at Big Meadows campground.

We planted a veggie garden! Something Kat and I have wanted to do for a while. I'm excited to see what grows well. Full sun is not something we have a lot of in our yard. I'm just glad the raised bed has kept the rabbits out!

Bitcoin isn’t perfect. My hope for a better future does not rest in Bitcoin. Bitcoin is only a tool. It’s like the internet, but for money.

Bitcoin has advantages over the current fiat system. Bitcoin could provide the entire world access to purchase goods and services over the internet without requiring a credit card. Bitcoin allows people in any place to opt out of storing wealth in systems designed to lose value overtime and incentivize debt.

Most people I encounter do not interact with Bitcoin because they do not understand it. Most people I discuss Bitcoin with think of it as a risky investment or something criminals use. Like many things in life, these topics are way more nuanced than mainstream headlines would lead you to believe. So many aspects of our fiat system and digital banking experiences have been normalized. We don’t ask the questions we should.

If you have ever wanted to know a little more about Bitcoin, I’d start by reading this strange and a bit goofy post WHY BITCOIN. It’s a good 10 minute read. Then ask me about Bitcoin, because I can talk all day about it.

To provide some context on my current home network, my wife and I recently became home owners for the first time this year. Our home is a split-level on a half acre lot. The house has 1,400 square feet of interior space. Right next to the house is a separate workshop/shed sitting 15 feet off the garage with another 300 square feet of unfinished interior space.

Buying a home for the first time opened up possibilities for home networking options I did not have in the past when living in an apartment. In an apartment I could not reasonably run wires in the attic or walls. So before we had closed on the house I knew I would be buying some Ubiquiti gear. Prior to moving in I picked out ideal locations for WiFi access points and a network “cabinet” location in the house. I attempted to strike a balance between cost, reliability, and longevity that would fit my needs.

After some research I landed on buying the following pieces of equipment.

• EdgeRouter X SFP
• Unifi AP AC LR
• Unifi AP AC Lite
• Unifi Mesh AP

Choosing the EdgeRouter over the USG was not an easy decision. YouTube reviews and comparisons were helpful in making the decision. Ultimately I went with the EdgeRouter X over the USG. Not having a Unifi router means my network equipment would not be entirely controlled by a single interface. The integrated system was desirable, but I also wanted the EdgeRouter for more customizable options.

I definitely do not have a pretty networking cabinet with perfect cable management. What I have is a central location for all the network gear at the top of a basement closet. It’s out of site and yet still accessible when I need to make any adjustments.

I’ve been very happy with this setup. The Unifi controller runs on a raspberry pi 4 sporting Ubuntu Server for ARM64. I use docker containers for Homebridge, the Unifi Controller, and a few other small things. I was using PI-hole for local DNS but ended up giving up on it since it was nothing but trouble.

My internet speeds are not very fast where I live. My only option for internet is AT&T DSL. I have a 50 MB down and 10 MB up connection. The EdgeRouter with Smart QoS has no trouble keeping up with this. I was initially disappointed with this Internet speed. However, over time it has proven fast enough for everything I need. I’ve even had more than 40 connected Wifi devices on my network and had no complaints from users or issues using IoT devices.

In the past my home network has been a single access points from a Linksys or Netgear router. DD-WRT made these devices way better but nothing like the Ubiquiti gear. A good example of this is my use of multiple SSID Wi-Fi networks associated to specific network VLANs. VLANs give me the ability to segregate the devices on my network for security reasons. It’s as if the devices are on separate physical networks. Really cool stuff.

Here are a few pictures of the equipment in action. All the APs are POE from the EdgeRouter. All the networking equipment (including the Pi) is connected to a UPS. Without power I can have the internet running for about 80 minutes. I’ve done only a tiny bit of cable management in the closet. It’s a mess.

My EC2 reserved instance was set to expire on August 12th this year. I like to keep a remote virtual private server instance running 24/7. I don’t want to spend a lot of money on it, so just something cheap and accessible. The virtual private server is used to host this site and a few other small things. I occasionally use it as a VPN or do some SSH tunneling in a pinch. It falls into the space of personal and career experimentation/growth. I don’t view it as any kind of production box.

The last 3 years I have been using an AWS micro EC2 reserved instance with Ubuntu 16.04 LTS for this purpose. It served me well while costing me less than $4 a month. After 3 years I decide to try something new. I'm giving Linode a try since I had a $100 coupon code and heard good things about this provider.

I initially planned to only migrate and recreate what I already had running. Maybe just a few security updates. But like most technology adventures, I did not have any clear scope defined, so my initial task quickly grew in scope. Here is a quick list of what I have accomplished so far.

• Ubuntu 20.04 LTS Setup and network hardening
• Migration of files and content from AWS
• Setup Nginx reverse proxy and automated letsencrypt with acme.sh
• Replaced hexo as static site generator with home grown single node.js script
• Created a new custom website theme

I was tempted to go further but stopped with these changes. I'm hoping to make more changes in the future, but I'm not committing to anything yet.

I still use AWS for S3 and CloudFront. I want to try out Cloudflare as a CDN but wasn’t willing to mess with DNS records.

hmmm beer

I tried to keep status updates on this blog of my location and general happenings each week but I didn’t do a very good job. So now after weeks have passed since my August 12th 2014 summit of Katahdin (marking the end of the Appalachian Trail) So now if your willing to read this entire post I will update you on the last few months.

I’ll start with the end. Walking the last 5 miles to the top of Katahdin was epic. Climbing 4,000 feet to the top on a beautiful summer day was breath taking. I enjoyed the ending of my trek. As I climbed I ran into friends I had met along the way. At this point in my journey I was ready to be finished but also excited to celebrate what I had accomplished. I only wish I could have seen more familiar faces that day of other thru hikers I met along the trail.

During the last two months of hiking I gave up on the blog post updates. Things got hectic with traveling home, meeting friends, and the desire to do more miles to finish the journey in under 5 months. After I had missed a few weeks of updates, it was easy to make the decision to wait until the end to do one large post.

Let me catch you up on the last few weeks. If you want to know about the first 11 weeks, read some of my previous posts.

Week 12

Matthew Leverton came to visit me.

I was really looking forward to his visit. I know Matthew from NIU and worked with him for almost 2 years at Digital Intent in Chicago. He’s a unique and very smart individual. I’ve learned a lot about programming from him for the last few years. Also, up to this point on the trail I hadn’t had any visitors come see me so Matthew would be there first! I was excited and thankful for his visit.

I met with Matthew and his girlfriend Pricilla at Delaware Water Gap on the New Jersey and Pennsylvania border. We hiked a section of the AT the day after they arrived. Although I ended up hiking these same miles on the AT over again because I wanted to hike the entire trail with my full pack. Some might criticize me as being a ‘purist’. I don’t really care what it’s called, I just want to hike the entire trail with my backpack and not as a day hiker.

We also spent the next day at a state park where we camped out next to a nice lake. The next morning we headed over to a different set of trails to hike near some pretty cool looking water falls. Matthew and Pricilla headed home and I hiked on.

Week 13

The next week was a hard week for me. For the next five days after Matthew and Pricilla left it rained. I didn’t see the sun for at least 5 days. I pressed on through the rain and walked a lot of miles. I walked 150 miles that week. I basically walked all of New Jersey and New York in five days. At this point I also decided I did not want to pay to stay anywhere for the next few weeks. The middle states of the Appalachian Trail are expensive. I wanted to keep on a tight budget but I also kind of just liked the challenge. I almost caved and got a hotel when I was in New York. After the fifth day of rain and a bad nights sleep in a leaky shelter, I was very tempted to pay to get out of the rain. I convinced myself to press on that morning after finding a good place to relax for a few hours out of the rain. I sat under a sheltered picnic area with a vending machine and bathroom for at least 2 hours near the Appalachian Trail Zoo. This was a great place to just rest without being raining on. There is also something very mentally uplifting about having a Coca cola. During all the weeks of hiking I found that my favorite trail magic was usually just a coke and a piece of fruit (like an apple or orange).

I had heard while hiking that I would be able to see the New York sky line from bear mountain in New York. But because of the continuous rain I could hardly see 100 feet in front of me. There where points on the trail that day where I was sure I was going to get lost because I could not see the white blazes. In a place like New York there are many side trails to get lost on. The white blazes are really hard to see in a dense white fog.


After climbing down from bear mountain I walked through the Appalachian Trail Zoo. The trail runs right through the middle of the zoo. There are white blazes on trees and post signs. It’s a strange experience. In the zoo there are bears, coyotes and a few other animals. All of them looking pretty miserable. I felt bad for the animals. The trail leads right over the hudson river on a busy highway after leaving the zoo area. Most of the day I was surrounded by thousands of people who didn’t have any idea that hikers from over 1,000 miles away had walked there.

I might have been challenging myself to not pay for anywhere to stay, but I definitely spent plenty of money on food while in New York. I ordered Chinese food from the RPH shelter, where the delivery guy walked right up to the shelter. Not having to even walk 10 feet to get hot food!! What a life of Luxury.

Also, I had originally planned to update you with this video below, but I never got to posting it. Here it is anyway :-)

Week 14

During Week 14 I took it a little easier. I still walked over 100 miles but I didn’t push myself like I did the week before. I continued on my not paying to stay anywhere challenge and had made it to Connecticut. The terrain was still pretty flat but unlike New York and New Jersey the large wet bolder walking was over. There where some pretty flat sections of trail in Connecticut. I enjoyed the change. Connecticut felt pretty short, walking through it in a few days. After spending literally weeks in the one state of Virginia, it was nice to complete states in only a few days. I felt like I was making great progress.

Massachusetts came next in the week. The great thing about this state is that there are tons of trail towns. Meaning lots of food that I don’t have to carry. The highlight of Massachusetts was stopping in the town of Dalton and tenting at Tom Levardi’s house. Tom was super nice and accommodating to long distance hikers. It was really a treat to have his help in Dalton. He drove hikers to the grocery store, and to the Old Country Buffet. Hikers love buffet’s. I hope Tom is doing well.

Week 15

Then week 15 was here and gone like the previous weeks. At this point, time was flying by. The days where really tough though. Not as much because of the physical nature of the trail but the mental and emotional trial of hiking for almost 3 months. I was pushing myself each day to continue hiking. Telling myself that if I made it through today that it was get easier. I can’t say that I was really enjoying the hike at this point in time. I was really ready to take a long break or just get off the trail. I did not want to quit either. I had to just push through each day.

I was hiking in Vermont by week 15. The hills where returning. At least now after hours of walking in Vermont you are rewarded with some cool views on a few high points. A turning point for my mental state of feeling was Killington Mountain. This was the first time I had been over 4,000 feet in a long time. Since Virginia actually. The other motivation I had for hiking this week was my Brother was visiting. Joe was coming out to see me for a week on the trail.

Week 16

Week 16 marked the week of Joe’s arrival to Rutland, VT. I was glad to see him and excited to take a day off and use the rental car that he generously got for our convince. We spent a night in a motel getting great food and cleaning up.

Joe and I took 5 days to hike the remaining 50 miles of Vermont to New Hampshire. If you don’t know Joe, your missing out. Joe at this point in his life was training for his first full length ironman. So as you might imagine you have to be in pretty good shape to do an Ironman (which he did accomplish weeks after our hike). So when we hiked 10 miles a day and he carried about 15 pounds of gear and he was complaining (only a little) about how tough the trail was, it made me feel good. This was because I had spent the last 120 days conditioning myself to do one thing really well. I was a professional hiker. 10 miles for me was less than a half days work. 10 miles for Joe was exhausting.

Even though Joe complained maybe a little, most the time he was in good spirits and enjoyed hiking along with me.

I was glad that we hiked this section of the trail together. I got to show Joe a few aspects of the trail. Including longer 1,000 foot climbs, trail magic, trail towns, and friendliness of other thru hikers. I had a few people come visit me during the trail, but Joe I’d say was the only one who got a immersed thru hiker experience.

As we walked into the town of West Hartford, VT we struck hiker gold! We where invited to enjoy break on a friendly trail angle’s porch. Coffee, hash browns, bacon, eggs and a good time. This home was conveniently set in front of a bridge that went over the ‘White River’. I was told that locals jumped off this bridge into the water 30 feet below. So I had to take on this challenge!

We hiked into Hanover where we where taking the bus back to Killington, VT to get the rental car. We hung out in Hanover for a few hours. Eating pizza, donuts and a few beers before taking the bus. We took the bus back to where we started hiking together in Killington. We relaxed in town, watched a movie, and ate thai food. It was really nice relaxing in town and taking a few easy days before I began hiking again.

Week 17

Joe left to go home and I had a few days before I would need to board a bus to Boston. During the few months that I had been on trail my best friend Tim had decided to get married. He asked me to be in the wedding and I had to go. So I felt like I needed to push hard and put in a few good days of hiking before I left. I had originally planned to get to Lincoln, NH, but I got there too quickly. So I did another 25 miles to get to Crawford Notch. I then took the AMC Hiker Shuttle to Gorham, NH and then caught the Concord Bus to Boston. From Boston I took a flight to Chicago. This basically required almost 2 days of travel. All this travel just to make it to Tim’s wedding. Well worth it.

During this week I did do a good deal of walking in New Hampshire. One of my favorite views during this week was on Franconia Ridge. After a long day of hiking and a 3,000 foot climb around 2 pm I got to Franconia Ridge. The weather we perfect. Clear blue sky’s and a good breeze to keep me cool. The view’s were stunning. I had seen nothing like it up to this point. You could have told me I was hiking in the rocky mountains.

I arrived back in Chicago on the 15th. I was tired but happy to be back to see friends and family. I tried to keep my agenda simple for this week but that was hard to do. Without a car getting around to see friends and family was not easy. Took a lot of coordination with my mom and her generosity with her car.

I won’t say much about Tim’s wedding, but it was great. Tim Smith has wanted to be married basically as long as I have known him. I know he was excited and I was excited for him. It was great to be there on that day.

Week 18 + 19

I had already paid for my return airline ticket so I had to go back. :-)

A good thing was I had my friend Nick McMaster who accompanied me back to the trail where we would hang out in Boston for two days and then hike a small section of the trail together. Nick lucked out because he would be hiking 20 miles with me on one of the most spectacular places in the world. We would be climbing Mt. Washington.

The unlucky part for Nick is that it would be a very tough climb. This was easily one of the top 5 hardest parts of the trail to hike. I had originally planned to take on the climb in smaller sections. The problem is that finding places to camp in the White Mountains can be challenging. I had originally planned to do 6 to 8 mile a day with Nick but we ended up short a day because of the bus schedule. This meant that we would have to hike the 20 miles in basically 2 days. The second 11 mile day turned out to be a really tough day. Nick’s feet suffered because of it. I won’t get into details but I was surprised he was able to walk at all by the time we where done. The amazing part is that I don’t remember him complaining about it at all.

It was pretty awesome walking the trail through the Presidential Mountain range. I was not only impressed with Nick’s efforts but also pleased that he was there to hike that part of the journey with me.

It was my fault for pushing Nick too far. I should have planned better. Logistics are difficult to plan when all you have is a phone and little knowledge of the area. All in all, Nick had fun, and so I did.




Nick headed back home to Chicago and I continued forward on the trail. I knew I only had a few more days left in New Hampshire and then the State of Maine. I was super ready to be done. After spending a week at home and hiking for almost two weeks with other people my pace was dramatically slowed down and I knew that if I wanted to catch any of the people I had hiked with before I would have to push hard. The challenging part was the southern section of Maine was harder than I had anticipated.

Week 20

During week 20 finished off New Hampshire. The end of New Hampshire was harder than I initially expected. I did a 21 mile stretch over Wild Cat with a hiker named purple blaze in 8.5 hours. It rained the entire time, we where soaked all the way through. I even forged a river up to my waist in water.

I entered into Maine and found that southern Maine continued to be harder than I expected. Some of the toughest trail was in Maine. It slowed my pace down to 1 mile an hour in some places. Maine had everything I had seen in the trail up to now. Maine had rocks, bogs, roots, and so much more. Maine was the last state, I was excited to be there. I couldn’t believe that I had made it that far.

Week 21

The highlight of week 21 was the hundred mile wilderness. 100 miles of trail with no resupply. I pushed really hard through the 100 miles and walked it into 4 miles. I did 70 of those miles in 2 days. The farthest I had walked in a single day only days before my summit of Katahdin. I finished the trail in 21 weeks and one day.

I’ve learned a lot about myself hiking this trail. To face uncertainty. To be able to live with very little. To pursue the work and place where I want to be. I don’t know all the answers, but each day I’ll work on figuring it out.

Bonus

This is a graph of the miles that I walked each day

Anyway, Week 11 started off in the town of Duncannon. I took rest and resupply there. In this small trail town there is a well know hotel that hikers stay at called the Doyle. So where else would I want to stay? The Doyle does have a reputation of being a dump ... so my expectations were low. It turned out to be very enjoyable place. One of my favorite places to stay on the trail so far. I was up on the fourth floor, in the 100 year old building, with a corner room with two windows. The room was smaller than my dorm room in college, but it was dry and cozy. There were also a few other hikers there so we where able to hang out, enjoy the good bar food, and a few cold beers.

When I was in Duncannon I got mailed a new pair of shoes. So I had to wait until 3pm until the UPS guy showed up. This also meant I could take an easy day out of town to break the shoes in. I only went 5 or so miles up som more rocky Pennsylvania. My shoes where broken in very quickly. Walking out of the town I remember being dive bombed multiple times by a falcon. First time I'd seem (or at least noticed) a falcon on the trail.

After Duncannon there were a few notable shelters along the way. The main one being the 501 shelter. This shelter is fully enclosed and feels more like a hostel than an AT shelter. I was able to order a large pizza and chicken parmesan sandwich that was delivered to the shelter. A life of luxury.

Making my way slowly down the trail I stopped into the town of Port Clinton and stayed for free in the town pavilion. I was able to resupply at the near by Walmart. All around a slow moving week but was a nice change of pace. Slowing down was boring at times but I was able to stop more often and talking with people along the tail and in towns. I was excited also to meet up the Matthew and spend a few days off trail. Week 12 update soon...

Leaving Harpers Ferry I distinctly remember the millions of inch worms that must have been on the trees. The forest sounded like it was raining, but instead of water it was raining inch worms. Inch worms create astring that they hang from the trees by, similar texture to spiders webs. Walking that 5 miles of trail with the inch worma was very uncomfortable.

Another highlight of the week after leaving Harpers Ferry was leaving Virginia! Yay! After spending weeks in Virginia it was nice to reach the next state. West Virginia and Maryland are very short trail states and have few miles of the Appalachian Trail running through them. I was able to hike through both states and into Pennsylvanian in one day.

I made it to Pensilvania and the real half way point in week 10 too. It's a hiker tradition near the half way point of the trail to eat a half gallon of ice cream in a half of an hour. This proved to be pretty easy. As a reward I got a little wooden spoon to prove I completed the challenge. In week 11 you'll get to hear about all the rocks in Pensilvania.

As I write now I'm actually beginning week 12 on the trail. So week 9 was only a few weeks ago, but some of the details are a little fuzzy. I do keep bullet point reminders of events and activities to help jog my memory for later post updates.

The trail through the Shenandoah's was terrific. Spring was in full bloom. Flowers at this point where along the edges of the trail and the green canopy provided full sun protection. The trail in the Shenandoah's runs from mountain ridge to mountain ridge. Great views and scenery almost everyday averaging around 25 miles a day. The weather was great almost every day too. A few of the shelters where not very pleasant and water was harder to come by. The first shelter I stopped at for the night had a 20 lb rat who would walk around the shelter as soon and the sun set. I decided to sleep in my tent that night. The Shenandoah's also have a road named the Skyline Drive in the Park. This road twists and turns across the entire length mountain ridge running parallel to the AT most the time. I was very happy about this road because it meant daily crossing for me and other hikers to stop and eat. Along the Skyline Drive, about every 20 miles or so, there are Wayside restaurants that serve delicious cheesecburgers and french fries. Needless to say, I ate well through the Shenandoah's.

I also went back to Damascus Virginia for Trail Days. Trail Days is a hiker festival (the biggest one) that happens annually. I didn't originally plan on attending but things worked out nicely so that I had a ride to and from Damascus. This was important since it was a 4 hour drive away. Trail Days was a good time, not all that exciting though. It was mostly just a nice 3 day break from walking. I enjoyed checking out all the outdoor gear companies that attended and seeing fellow thru-hikers in one location. I'm glad I went.

Week 10 update will follow soon.

Anyway, I left early in the morning walking down the road to the trail head. A women at the post office offered a ride, saving me a mile of road walking. In the smaller trail towns people know about the hikers and help out this way. I set off walking early by myself hoping to catch up to a few others after falling behind a day. In the next few days I walked a long days with the goal of getting to the town of Buena Vista.

I decided not to stay in the Buena Vista over night when I arrived, but to only get in and get out the same day. I stopped by the main hiker hostel in town called the blue dog cafe. I got a ride into town by the owner of the cafe. This was a nice cafe/hostel combination. I grabbed breakfast there and walked over to the dollar general to resupply with food for the next few days. This town was very friendly and was a great way to spend a few hours out of the heat of the day.

I pushed on doing a few more big days (30 miles a day) and got to the town of Waynesboro, VA. I stopped here to stay at the town pavilion and use the town YMCA to take a shower. I ate at an all you can eat Chinese buffet for dinner. Then, in the morning, I did my first solo hitch out of town. Worked out fine. Waynesboro was larger than I thought it would be. Was nice to get a free shower and eat a good meal.

Leaving Waynesboro is where the Shenandoah National Park begins. I've heard little about the Shenandoah's prior to starting the trail but many hikers talked about looking forward to this section on the trail. I heard there was a large bear population and places to eat almost everyday off the trail because of the large amount of tourism. I'll save the details of walking the Shenandoah's for the next update (week 9).

After eight weeks on the trail it's nice to reach a level of comfort being out here. Walking along the trail has been easier to enjoy each day and enjoying the section of the trail I'm actively walking. It's been amazing to be immersed in God's creation. I hope to continue to enjoy my time out on the trail with a daily thankfulness for what He has created.

During these two weeks I was pretty bored with Virginia. Some of my feeling of boredom was just trail fatigue setting in after being outdoors for so long. This said, Virginia is definetly less interesting than Georgia, Tennesse, and North Carolina. During week 6 and 7 there was still a few great highlights.

The Grayson Highlands where awesome. I looked forward to seeing some wild ponies that I had heard so much about. The ponies turned out to not be so 'wild'. They had been around so many people that it seemed more like a petting zoo. It was still neat to see the ponies, I made sure to take a few pictures.

After the Highlands the next big goal was getting to the town of Pearisburg. Before getting there though I stayed in the 'Partnership' shelter that had a shower. Once I found out it was a cold shower I was much less interested. I was able to get a ride that night into the town of Marion for some delicious pizza. It's amazing how much better getting food in town can make you feel.

Next town up was the very small town of Atkins, VA. The trail runs straight through this town. Here I ate at a restaurant called 'The Barn' that serves a 16oz hiker sized burger. After stuffing myself I managed to still stop by the Sunco station on the way out of town to buy some chocolate milk and a few candy bars.

I should also mention at this point that after leaving Damascus I found a group of hikers who move about the same pace as I was. This was nice to hike with the same people for a few days. Hiking is an individual can allow more flexibility in deciding what you'd like to do, but hiking in a group is also fun and rewarding as you experience things together.

Anyway, before reaching Pearisburg I escaped the rain by making a stop at a famous hostel named Woods Hole. Woods Hole hostel was very cool. It was a little bit pricey ($35), but well worth it. I ate both breakfast and dinner at the hostel. All meals are prepared by the hostel with food grown on the farm. The combination of fresh food and a good cook made the food very good. The homemade bread was delicious and filling. This homestead is run by couple who owns the house and hostel that sits about a half mile off the trail.

I made it to Pearisburg and decided to not spend the night since it was only a 10 mile hike from the hostel I just stayed in. I did get a new pair of shoes (from the post office, thanks mom) and enjoyed a all-you-can-eat chinese buffet. I bought food at the Food Lion and moved on out of town.

From Pearisburg, which was not much of a hiker town, me and a few others headed to Daneville. Daneville was a nice surprise because I didn't expect there to be much there. It basically a truck stop off the highway. But the needs of a truckers and hikers are apparently very simular.

These last to weeks where hard but rewarding. I'm glad to still be on the trail. I hope that I'm able to catch up on these updates in the next few days. I am almost 1 month behind.

I started this week from Erwin, TN. Where I stayed in a hostel called Uncle Johnny's. This hostel and outfitter was conveniently located right next to the trail. I was able to rent a bicycle for two dollars and ride into town. Ridding 7 miles into Erwin, after practically running 9 miles to town, I hastily headed to Pizza Hut for lunch to enjoy an all-you-can-eat buffet. The round trip of 14 miles on a bicycle seemed like lightspeed compared to walking. It was a good change of physical activity that I believe further increased my endurance and strength of my knees.

After spending the entire day Erwin, TN I left as it began to rain. By the middle of the day I got wet as the rain changed to snow. The blizzard moved in fast with very high winds. I covered 18 miles that day moving quickly to stay warm. At no point did I ever feel cold or in danger. The adventure of hiking through a snow storm is a lot of fun with the right clothing. I made it to my destination set up my tarp, crawled into my bivy, and heated a water bottle to stay warm the entire night.

From there I crossed Roan Mountain and a few other very cool bald top mountains. Passing by one very unique shelter that a farmer donated to the Appalachian Trail. The shelter is open big red barn. It was a neat place to sit briefly during the day while the sunny was out and the temperature was warm. I'm glad I did not sleep at the shelter though. From other hikers I heard many people were very very cold. It gets very windy on that side of the mountain apparently.

This week I also pushed myself to do more cowboy camping. This is where I don't bother setting up the tarp and sleep directly underneath the stars. This open air style of camping is a lot of fun especially when you do it occasionally alone. There is little set up during the night and very little takedown in the morning. This happens to also be very convenient for a hiker since time is important to walk the distance.

I ended the week making it to a important destination on the trail. The town of Damascus in Virginia is a landmark town of the Appalachian Trail. This is the location of where Trail days is held every year in May. I will not go to trail days this year, because I would have to travel over 400 trail miles south back to Damascus. But anyway, in this town I stayed in a unique hostel named Crazy Larry's. It was basically like staying in someones house. Larry was very hospitable and has a unique character (as you might imagine). I took a zero day in Damascus and enjoyed the many small town places to eat and spend time relaxing.

During week six I intend to push myself to travel more miles. Not just for the sake of making the miles, but also as a challenge to myself to see what my body can do. This mostly requires not hiking faster but hiking longer. Doing more miles allows me to spend time where I want to spend it and enjoy many places along the Appalachian Trail.

After 4 weeks on the trail I'm starting to finally find a routine. I remain in high spirits while feeling great physically and emotionally. I spent time this week taking a few days of rest to recover from the strain of the Smoky Mountains in small town of Hot Springs, NC. I've bought a pair of hiking poles and a small knee brace to reduce the impact on my knees, this has work well. My legs grow stronger and I hope to be able to increase the miles I average per day in the next few weeks when I get close to Virginia.

I started week 4 from a hostel at the end of the Smoky Mountains that is famous on the AT. The Standing Bear Farm is a very cool place. More relaxed and less business like that the other hostels that I have spent time in. There was an entire shed full of food and resupply stuff. The bunk house and kitchen area were very cool. I highly recomend this hostel. I should have taken a few pictures, but I think to at the time.

From Standing Bear Farm I moved quickly to the Town of Hot Springs. I was looking forward to getting there because I had planned to take 2 full zero days in town to recover. I stayed all 3 nights in the Laughing Heart Hostel. Another very neat hostel that was being managed at the time by Chuck Norris and Tiger (Trail Names). I liked staying there very much. The town of Hot Springs was super conventent because the AT actually runs directly through the town. Enjoying a few very good meals with a few beers on draft was a great break from walking.

While taking two full days in Hot Springs I got to see a lot of hikers come through town. Some Hikers come into town and leave with in a few hours. Other seem to spend an entire week in town. If I stopped in every town for a week I'd go broke. It was a lot of fun to see a bunch of different hikers around town, but the trail is where I wanted to be. It was difficult to spend two full days in Hot Springs. I was starting to get stir crazy and was very excited to get back to the trail.

I left the Town of Hot Springs in North Carolina towards Erwin, TN. I took my time the next few days not wanting to upset my knee again. Taking 10 miles the first day and doing 15 miles the next few days. I also wanted to take the time to adjust to using walking poles. Everyday went well and enjoyed the easier days as I walked towards Erwin.

Laughing heart hostel

I met a bunch of new hikers through the smokies. I pushed forward out of the hiker bubble I was in and into the next one. I've been hanging around these new hikers for a while. I've met a lot of cool new people.

Also along with meeting new people, I've been to a lot of neat places. I left Franklin, NC (aka Ron Haven town) and headed to Nantahala Outdoor Center. This place was really neat. I hope to be able to come back to there some summer for rafting. They also have a very affordable instructor classes that would be incredible to take part in. I spent a single night at the N.O.C. in a bunk house with a fellow hiker named Geo. It's always nice to stop for a shower and to get a few hot meals.

I left the N.O.C. and made my next goal the Fontana AT Crossing. I shuttled into the Fontana Dam Resort to the general store, bought a lot of food at the store and got a meal at the 'Pit Stop' (gas station) before shuttling back to the crossing. I decided not to spend the night in Fontana Dam Resort to save some money. I wanted to get into the Smoky Mountains as fast as possible since the weather was so nice.

Entering the Smokies was exciting. The smokies are legendary. The first day walking into the smokies out of fontana was excelent. The weather could not have been nicer. Ten miles in there was a very neat fire tower I was able to climb to the top and and take a few pictures. The tower was narrow and would sway gently in the wind.

When traveling in the Smokies your required to stay near the shelters. Because of this the shelters end up being pretty crowed. It's a good thing the weather was nice because it made 'cowboy' camping out side the shelter a good choice. I did not see any bears while I was in the Smokies, only a few deer and mice.

Half way through the Smokies I hitched a ride to Gatlinburg from New Found Gap. In this tourist town I stayed in very cheap motel. It was super nice, but only in comparison to dirt and a campfire. I spent two nights in town (taking a zero day) and recovered the brutal elevation of the smokies.

I made it through the smokies before the end of week 3. From New Found Gap it was mostly down hill. Once I made it through the smokies I stopped for the night at a very cool hostel named 'Standing Bear Farm'.

In addition to walking, I've really enjoyed stopping into the different towns along the way. The time outdoors is awesome but also being able to travel through these small towns along the east coast has been rewarding each time I stop for rest and resupply.

I've taken a few breaks by stopping off the trail twice this week. Taking a half day, and one zero day. I ended the first week with a stay at the 'Top of Georgia' hostel. This place was convenient as a resupply location, but I mostly wanted to get in and get out. The hostel was crowded since the weather was bad that night. The next place I stopped was in Franklin, NC. I stayed in motel after a very cold a snowy night in one of the shelters. This stop in Franklin was my first zero day where i was able to eat lots and food and did laundry for the first time. As my appetite has been increasing I've been trying to take the time to eat whenever possible.

Towards the end of the week I pushed myself to do a little more distance. Fighting against rain, snow, and increasing elevation change. I remember one particular day spending 3 hours in the late morning walking up 3000 feet away from NOC while it rained continuously. On the bright side, I was the only one with an umbrella (keeping far drier than everyone else). I found a place to sleep in the shelter that night. I was glad I stopped early that day because in the morning the rain turned to snow. We woke up with about one inch of snow on the ground. Even though there was snow, it was not too cold. I really enjoyed the early start that morning, laying the first foot prints in the snow, paving the way of the trail for others to follow.

I ended the week entering the Smoky Mountains through Fontana Dam. Was a big uphill hike that day to the first shelter. The weather could not of been better. Clear blue skies allowed me to enjoy the view if the surrounding lakes and mountains. The higher I went the greater appreciation I had for the protected vast wilderness of the Smokey Mountains.

I can't seem to stay awake past 9pm anymore. I awake when the sun rises and go to sleep when it sets. I've been excited to get to the Smokey Mountains, glad I made it. I continue to make good progress. My pace will slow temporarily soon as I take rest for my knee and enjoy the neat little towns I'll be crossing.

Fontana Lake

Snowy Trail on the Day after the NOC

Typical AT Crossing Sign

So far I've been able to stay uninjured while making good progress along the trail. This first week felt slow. My legs are a sore, I have a few small blisters, and my knees hurt occasionally walking down hill. Overall I am exactly where I expected to be. I continue to get stronger and my feet build up an endurance to all the steps I take in one day.

I started the trail 9 miles before the actual start. I took the scenic route and walked up the approach trail that adding 8.8 miles to 2000 plus miles I already had planned to walk. The approach trail starts in Amicalola Falls State Park. The extra miles and 2000 feet of upward elevation was worth it. The first two days out on the trail where wet and foggy. Not much to look at. On the third day the sun finally made its way to the sky and it was wonderful. The rain and fog returned on the sixth day but I only hiked after the rain had passed. I took and easy hike on the sixth day after staying at a hostel (topofgeorgia.com) near Dick's Creek Gap. The trail has been generally uneventful as I walk alone but stop to make camp with many other hikers.

I've met over a hundred thru hikers at this point. Some only taking 3 minutes with some usual hiker small talk. Others I've sat around a campfire for hours with after a long day. Thru hikers are an interesting bunch of people from all over the world, from all different walks of life.

One interesting thing that you'll find along the way is that people will offer to help hikers with food, comfort, and rides to town along the trail. This generosity is referred to 'Trail Magic' by most hikers and ex-hikers. These small acts of generosity can change a bad day to a good one with something a simple as a hot dog and a fire to warm up.

It's hard to force myself to stop and write these posts. I've been enjoying life out on the trail. Everyday I wake up with the itch to get walking again.

This next week I'll be done with Georgia and I'll be hiking through North Carolina and then Tennessee not long after that. I hope to be able to increase the miles over the next few weeks. This will be challenging since the elevation increases as I hike north. By next week I'll be hiking through mountains over 5000 feet tall.

I'm excited, anxious, and relieved. It's taken a lot of courage and planning to get to this point. I'm glad it's here. The next few months will be life changing. I've made all this happen so I can take time to evaluate what's important, and prioritize those items in my life.

I'm looking forward to the month of February in Indonesia. I'm tagging along with my great friend Joe. It's been years since Joe has been able to return home to indonesia to see his friends and family. It's going to be great to meet his sibling and see his old stomping grounds. We plan to take time while we are there to enjoy some of the more touristy things along the way but the trip is all about Joe's agenda. Joe is a friend, but he's more like a brother. In fact, I call him brother.

My brother (Joe) did the majority of the planning for our trip. I'm grateful he has done all the hard work of planning ahead of time to allow us to enjoy the time and his family as much as possible. I'm excited about Indonesia. I'm even more excited about hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I recently remotely wiped my mac mini using the Find My iPhone app. The mac mini running Mavericks had two internal hard drives. File Vault 2 was enabled and the second drive was an enncrypted time machine backup. You can find the steps to do this process yourself on the Apple support site. I didn't find much on google about this process, so I thought it would be worth documenting a few things I noticed.

• Remote wipe requires providing a pin number.
• Internal encypted time machine backup was erased with the os x boot drive.
• Remote erase causes the computer to restart before it locks.
• After entering the pin number in the computer, a dark screen with a spinner appears for a brief minute and reboot to the recovery partition.
• After remote wipe mavericks remembers the network WIFI password.

This list is a work in progress, I'll do the math and add up all the different totals another day. It's likely a few items will change, be added, or removed.

Total Carried: 5785 grams or 12.75 lb

Total Worn: 1631 grams or 3.60 lb

It's been a hard decision to put my career on hold. I worked at a great company in Chicago. Stopping the flow of income, leaving about everything I know in Chicago, has made this choice difficult. But I've made the choice, and I am very excited to begin. It's going to be a long walk.

I mention this here because I'll be posting updates of my journey along the trail. I'll attempt to post at least once a week, but only time will tell how that goes.

My first impression when adding auto layout constraints was painful. As I spent time adjusting to the learning curve of the interface builder tool, it only got a little easier to use. Prime example of the pain: shift a UI element one pixel over after adding a custom constraint; don't count on it still being there. In fact, Interface Builder will attempt to do you a favor by adding constraints you don't want. Using interface builder to add auto layout constraints sucks.

Second thing I noticed was a hit in performance when using auto layout. I was creating a few different table views with dynamic data that would make each table view cells to be different sizes. Calculating the table view height is painful enough, but an additional inefficiency during the creation of table view cells to calculate the height causes a noticeable delay when loading the view controller data source.

As soon as I noticed this I did a few google searches and found an interesting post dealing with the performance of auto layout. Here is an interesting graph pulled from the post:

I'm not impressed with auto layout. I find little reason to use it. From here on out, I'll be laying out the fames of UI elements programmatically with out the help of auto layout.

- (UITableViewCell *)tableView:(UITableView *)tableView cellForRowAtIndexPath:(NSIndexPath *)indexPath
{
      UITableViewCell *cell = [tableView dequeueReusableCellWithIdentifier:@"cell"];
      if (cell == nil)
      {
          NSArray *topLevelObjects = [[NSBundle mainBundle] loadNibNamed:@"cell" owner:self options:nil];
          cell = [topLevelObjects objectAtIndex:0];
          [tableView registerNib:[UINib nibWithNibName:@"cell" bundle:nil] forCellReuseIdentifier:@"cell"];
      }

      [cell setup];

      return cell;
}

The 'registerNib: forCellReuseIdentifier: ' method is the part that is often missing in code snippets on stackoverflow. This has been in the documentation since iOS 5. In fact, it might even make sense to register the nib in the viewDidLoad and forgo the if check all together.

“UIViewController is the centre of the iOS world. Apple’s tools like Xcode and Interface Builder, and the workflow they encourage, put the view controller at the centre of everything. The default place to start when you’re adding new code or features is the view controller. When you add a new screen to your app, all you’re given is a UIViewController subclass and a lot of helpful methods to shoot yourself in the foot.

Because of this, code and logic tend to gravitate towards the view controller. The view controller ends up being the delegate for a large number of different objects. It ends up doing view setup and layout, it ends up dealing with core data, table view datasource/delegate methods, and a huge number of other responsibilities.

Apple has tacked on a large number of “convenience” methods which let you directly access the enclosing containers like navigation controllers or tab bar controllers. This makes it very easy to couple the view controller to the specifics of your app’s navigation, and to the other view controllers it interacts with. Storyboards also contribute to this problem. This makes it difficult to reuse the view controller in other contexts or applications.”

Mike Weller's post is a great explanation of why writing reusable UI code in iOS is very difficult. 

Chicago is a walking city. You can walk basically anywhere. Walking 45 minutes from home to work is not uncommon at all. I'd even say that all of Chicago's public transportation is setup as an extension of how people like to walk in the city. The trains and buses are a means to move you to the next walking location.

I work in the tech startup world. Chicago’s tech startup community is small when compared to New York or the valley, but it continues to grow. There are a ton of 'tech' jobs in Chicago, but most are corporate gigs that are not all that technical in nature. I'd actually say that jobs in science related industries in Chicago are likely to be more technically challenging than most programming jobs.

When I'm not working I enjoy exploring Chicago on foot. The lake front in Chicago is great. Tons of Museums, art, music, zoos ... endless amounts of stuff to do and find.

One of the things that makes it hard for me to live in Chicago is the lack of outdoor activities. Most outdoor activities are only the city friendly kind. Sports like basketball, tennis, and biking are very popular. There are a few more expressive water sports on the river and lake. Maybe if your looking for a game of chess, you can generally find one near the corner of Michigan Ave and Randolph. Otherwise you have to go a long way to find some open wilderness.

There's a lot more to say about Chicago, but these things stick out the most to me. Chicago is a great place, I'm glad to be here.

I love looking through the old marketing ads. The practical, yet adventures choice. Here is an except from one ad.

Even small cars are no bargain with today's traffic jams, parking problems, gas prices and high maintenance costs. So I thought even smaller, and I'm very glad I did. Because that thought led me to the Kawasaki KZ400 Special. It's a beautiful machine, and a lot of motorcycle for the money. The big 398cc four stroke overhead cam engine puts out plenty of power smoothly and quietly, with no signs of strain.

My KZ400 is old and needs more attention than a new bike. But it starts right up without problem. At the moment it has a few idle issues, but over all, she runs great. The modifications being done on her are still a work in progress. It's too bad the winter is closing in and won't get as much riding in as I'd like.