On Mt. Taylor

We saw lots of pretty sights while we were driving up Mt. Taylor. The mountain is the remains of a very old volcano about2 million years old. It has been considered a very sacred place by the Native Americans that are in this area. Pueblo Indians from Acoma Pueblo, Laguna Pueblo, Zuni and the Navajo Indians. Some call the mountain The Sacred Mountain or The Turquoise Mountain, but it was named Taylor afterGeneral Zachery Taylor, famous in the Mexican War, and then became one of our presidents. It can be seen for over 100 miles around it as it seems to sit out in the middle of a large section of flat New Mexico landscape. It is just over 11,000 feet high at the highest peak. We did not get there this time, as the roads were sorough and washed out and because we neededto be back in time to feed the critters their evening meals.

This day we saw two deer, lots of Indian Paintbrush flowers, and aspens just leafing out.

Recent activity

Recent searching led us to this interesting looking line.

Fun days ahead! The crack moving left after the ice appears to be

solid and should take gear all the way to the top. Is it possible

to have too many projects?

We've been climbing a good bit. Several days with Ray Burnsworth A.K.A. Wildfilm Productions. He's been shooting some incredible footage on several recent outings. Should be seeing some really cool stuff from him soon. He's been really psyched and working hard to highlight the climbing offered here in SWPA. I've been continuing work on several projects while Laura has been getting on the sharp end more. We've discovered a great way to help one another accomplish personal climbing goals. We've been alternating "personal days" which is a day that is only focused on one person's training or goals. That way the belay slave gets a rest day for their "personal day" to follow. Some days are hard and some are easy, but most of all we've been pushing each other to climb stronger and smiling while being miserable and sore.



So far it's been a good season despite the couple warm ups that caused some serious damage. Things are finally getting back to normal at the smaller crags. Water is seeping and the flows are forming nicely and getting fat. The Big Climbs are in a state of funk that is challenging to say the least. Most of them are very aerated and spooky. Currently they're formed like early season climbs, which is expectedly hollow and difficult to protect. Amplify that with exposure to near 50 degree temperatures (two near melt outs), its made things WILD to say the least. This weekend when it rapidly dropped to zero from above freezing things became almost no fun at all. Notice that I said almost. Looking back it was fun. Its not everyday that we get the chance to climb such scary stuff. Might as well enjoy it while we can! After all... this is climbing in SWPA, make the most you can out of nothing.



Saturday 1/22/Some nice folks we met from VA last weekend decided to return to PA to sample some more ice. We met them at Lower Meadow Run to show them around. We led Hemlock with an icicle start. It's barely touching down, but with some gentle climbing it supported us up to the better ice and eventually solid rock gear. Fred from Exkursion was there with some friends that were new to ice. They were climbing away and having a great day. The weather was sunny and made the chilly day feel very comfortable. By afternoon the ice was soft and everyone was spent. We joined the VA folks for dinner at NY Pizza and Pasta after climbing. They spent the night at The Melody Motor Lodge in Connellsville. Many visiting climbers seem to enjoy staying here. Rooms are warm and reasonable, breakfast is right next door at Ed's and climbing is only minutes away. What more could you ask for?

Sunday 1/23/The temperature hovered just above zero which quickly chilled our hands and feet. With poor conditions and cold temps, Laura and I jumped on the Infinite WI5. I climbed about 1/2 of it and lowered off to rewarm my frozen hands. I went up a second time reaching a reasonable high point where I could safely lower off. Conditions were not favorable for pushing too hard. Our friends from VA were in town again. They made an attempt of Called on account of Security WI4. They made it to the center pillar and made the decision to call it quits and top rope the lower portion. Maybe next weekend things will be looking up. Unfortunately the left wall isn't showing much hope. The new additions Mad Rocket WI5+and Double A WI6 are far from being "IN". On a positive note The Beast WI5+ is making an appearance for the 2nd year in a row. Currently it's about the most promising looking line on the left wall.

On approach, the first view

Galen belaying Sean on Called on Account of Security WI4

Tuesday 1/25/

Today it was Laura's day and she chose to go to Lower Meadow Run. She's recently made a clean go of Season Finale M6. She's been after it a for quite a while now. After a few tries this season she did it with no falls. She wanted to try it again and I wanted to try out the new pocket camera I purchased for shooting seconds coming up. I'd like to get away from lugging a body/lens combo up routes. I've not been very pleased with any pocket camera I've tried so far. This time I'm trying the NIKON S8100. The size is nice. Its small and light, reasonably fast and cheap (almost disposable). Seemed worth a try. Here are a few of the images we shot today. Not bad for a point and shoot.

Supporting the park we frequent

checking Laura's screw placements

Pulling over the crux bulge

Look out guys, Laura shows how its done

For any taker who want the novelty of climbing

Cucumber Falls WI2+. This is as "IN" as I've seen

it in years. Go get it while its still up! P.S. Don't expect gear

Is this Fair Use?

This morning I received an email from someone who was asking me for more information about a person they had found on my site at Ancestry.com but the first thing that popped into my feeble brain was that I don't have a website on Ancestry and I knew that what they were referring to was not on my freepages at RootsWeb!

So I went to Ancestry and did a search for "Phend" which brought up the following screen and didn't see anything out of the ordinary (click on any of the images to make them easier to read):



So I elected to view all 229 results:



The "Internet Biographical Collection" jumped out at me. Notice the padlock? I clicked on that link, but this is a "for pay" subscription database, and since I wasn't logged in I couldn't see the detail any more than the listing of pages, all of which, except for the last one, are from my website and they are definitely NOT part of Ancestry.com!!!



After logging in and clicking on "View Record" on one of the listings, what you see is shown below. No indication of where this came from, only a small link to "View Cached Web Page", Okay, so it says it is a cached page. . .



Click on "View Cached Web Page" (click on these images to make them bigger) you'll see a small link at the top of the page to "View Live web page" and it will then take you to the page, maybe.



For this particular page the link works because my site is still live. But when I was investigating all this I had gone to some obituary links. The site where the obituary was retrieved from is even more "hidden" for lack of a better word - many newspapers only keep obituaries online for a short time so the page is no longer live. I wonder if Ancestry.com is paying those sites to "store" their obituaries and make them available to Ancestry subscribers?

Is this legal or moral? How is it right for Ancestry.com to take my website pages, which I've made freely available, and CHARGE people to use them? And if they can legally or morally do this, how can they in turn say that it is illegal for their users (me and you) to use their images (census records, draft cards, etc.) on our websites or in our books or other publications?

The more I think about this, the angrier I am getting. At first I thought, okay, they say it is a cached web page, but it's not overly obvious. But they are charging people for access to my stuff!!! I really don't think it would bother me so much if this wasn't hidden behind a padlock. The more people that can find my data and possibly connect to me or someone else, the better - but they shouldn't have to pay to see it! Now, Ancestry is probably going to say they are simply providing a service for all of us poor webmasters and making it so that more people will see our stuff - but does that make it right? They are profiting from my work, and not just my work but the work of anyone with a genealogy related website. Will my blog pages show up next?

This is different than Google or Yahoo or any other search engine storing cached pages or providing links to websites. This is a company using other peoples work for their own gain - Ancestry is charging for these 'searches'. That is just not right, and not just because this is my work showing up - if you have genealogy pages out there anywhere they will probably show up as part of this new Ancestry database.

*** Update 4:00 PM Tuesday ***
I spent a while this morning and afternoon putting this post together, and while I was doing so, it appears that "all hel* was breaking loose" on this issue, see these posts with some very good commentary on the subject:

• Kimberly Powell with Has Ancestry.com Gone to Far?
• Janice Brown with Ancestry.com Hijacks Cow Hampshire
• Randy Seaver with Ancestry.com is Caching some web site data
• Amy Crooks with Ancestry.com Nothing but Theifs

*** Update 4:44 PM Tuesday ***

Ancestry.com has now made the "Internet Biographical Collection" a "free" resource. You have to register to view these free records, which is not the same as signing up for a free trial, but why should you even have to register to view the "Internet Biographical Collection"? Registration is not required to view the Ancestry World Tree entries. To my way of thinking, this step by Ancestry does not entirely resolve the issue.

*** Update 11:30 PM Tuesday ***

Dick Eastman's post yesterday on The Generations Network Receives Patent for Correlating Genealogy Records has a lot of comments dealing with the Internet Biographical Collection, which really had nothing to do with his original topic, so you could say the comments thread got hijacked. As can be expected there is a wide range of opinions on the matter. Some make sense, others don't. Some valid, some not. And Dick is really good at playing the devil's advocate!

After the Storm

We had an awesome storm pass through the area last night, hopefully with not much damage though at this time I don't know. Plenty of Thunder. Lightning. Wind. And about 2" of rain in an hour or so. I was looking out the window after it was all over and saw that the entire sky was an eerie orange-pinkish color. Then I saw the rainbow and grabbed the camera...





Half of the rainbow in the eastern sky.



It was huge! This is the "southern" end of the rainbow.



The view to the north.



And a magnificent view to the west.



All photos were taken between 8:45 and 8:55 pm on August 4, ...

Greetings from... Kansas

Wednesday, May 4th - - Today was a traveling day, 260 miles through southern Iowa. Leaving Fairfield, U.S. 34 took me through mostly small towns and farming country. Ottumwa, the largest town I went through, is home of Radar O'Reilly of M*A*S*H fame. Ottumwa is also known as the 'city of bridges' and it lives up to its moniker, nestled alongside the Des Moines River.



At Red Oak I turned south through Shenandoah and Sidney, spending the night at Waubonsie State Park, just a few miles from Nebraska and Missouri.



Thursday, May 5th - - Heading west from the campground at Waubonsie the terrain changed dramatically in just a few miles. From the heavily forested hill country around Waubonsie back to rolling hills and farmland. The route took me to Nebraska City, Nebraska where I picked up U.S. 75 south to Topeka.



I mentioned in a previous post that I had been doing some research for a very, very distant Joslin cousin while I was back in Indiana. I had an open invitation to visit him (JJ) if I ever got near Topeka so I took him up on his generous offer! It is so neat to actually meet the people that you correspond with and who just happen to be related! We had a wonderful visit. Thank you so much for your hospitality!



JJ and I took the short drive (about 40 miles) to Lyndon to visit the gravesite of Lysander and Lydia Joslin, my 3rd great-grandparents. I didn't get any pictures because my camera was back in Topeka in the van! But I have visited their graves several times, most recently in September .. and posted photos from my visit in November ...





JJ and me. Our common ancestor is the 1635 immigrant Thomas Joslin who is my 10th great-grandfather.



Friday, May 6th - - Greeted by blue skies and sunshine, I headed northeast to Leavenworth, Kansas. Another distant cousin, though not nearly as distant as JJ, is buried at the National Cemetery in Leavenworth. So, since I was “in the area” I figured I might as well go visit the gravesite of Charley S. Joslin, my 1st cousin 3 times removed. He is a bit of an enigma and I'll have a post about him sometime soon. But as close as we've been able to determine he is probably the son of Ida (Joslin) Dressler Lewis, daughter of Lysander and Lydia Joslin. She would have been 15 years old when he was born on March 4, 1879. However, in several of his records in the Leavenworth Old Soldiers Home (available on ancestry.com) he lists Ida Lewis as his nearest relative, giving her relationship as sister.



From online searches I knew which section Charley was buried in but I didn't know where that section was located within the cemetery. Thankfully, they have a computer kiosk in the main office building that provides that information along with a printed map. Very nice.





The grave of Charley S. Joslin is located in Section 37, Row 6, Site 6. It is the sixth stone to the left in the first row pictured above.





Charley S. / Joslin / Missouri / Pvt 17 Inf / April 25, 1934

Then I went to the Mount Muncie cemetery, which adjoins the National Cemetery on its south side and located the gravesite of JJ's ancestor George Washington Joslin (after a stop at the main office to get the location and directions). And yes, I'll be having a post, more like a small series, on the issues we had with researching George's parents, and some rather interesting connections to me (at least I thought they were interesting)!





George W. Joslin / Aug. 24, 1837 / June 16, 1921Matilda His Wife / Sept. 20, 1837 / July 30, 1920Mount Muncie Cemetery, Leavenworth/Lansing, KansasSection 9 Stone 163



After leaving Leavenworth, I headed north toward Atchison and picked up US 36 West. I hadn't planned on going that far north but missed a turn-off just south of Atchison and didn't realize it until later. Except for the wind, which was very strong and a crosswind to boot, it was a pleasant drive. It also got a little warm (85 degrees) and the air conditioning didn't seem to be working very well Will have to get that checked out soon with summer coming on!

Sunset at Big Lagoon

By the time I returned to the campground Sunday evening, a chill had set in and the wind had picked up. It was downright cold compared to early afternoon. But it was a nearly cloudless sky and there was already an orange hue enveloping the night. You didn't think I'd let it pass without taking a few pictures, did you?

Across the water, signs of “civilization” abound. In fact, condominiums, houses, and businesses are on three sides of the state park, but somehow it stills seems isolated and distant.

Clouds dancing above the observation tower.

Yes, I know, it is similar to the one above, but zoomed in and from a different angle. I like how the colors reflect off the railing and the water. The color changes in the sky during sunset never ceases to amaze me.

Milk Jug Toy

No - it is not a dog fight. They play that way all the time. This is Tuffee and Ziva our dogs, and their favorite toy is an empty plastic milk jug.

The Return of the Camping Bike

The idea of bike camping has been creeping into our insular little bicycle culture for some time now, but I confess to being rather dismissive of the trend. Sure, some people go camping by bike. But so much so as to create demand for camping-specific bicycles? Nah, I thought. But seeing the decals on the new Velo Orange "Campeur" model at Interbike earlier this year really brought it home for me: Camping bikes are for real. The now in-progress long term review on the Gypsy by Trade blog has further fueled my curiosity.






The camping-specific bike is not a new concept. The original French campeurs, popular through the 1940s-1960s, were designed for cyclo-camping - a variation of cyclo-tourisme involving shorter trips and heavier loads. Typically these bikes were built with 650B wheels and wide tires. Front and rear low-rider racks were standards features.






Frames in larger sizes were often built with supplementary diagonal stays, to prevent flex.






Today, Rivendell offers several "diagatube" bicycle models based on a similar premise. This is fitting considering that the current popularity of bike camping is in no small part due to Rivendell's promotion of what they call the S24O: the sub-24 hour overnight trip. The idea is that you set off after work, ride to a local camping spot, spend the night there and return in the morning. Whereas full-on bicycle touring requires considerable time commitment, even the busiest of people can manage the S24O. There are now blogs and a flickr group dedicated to the practice.






So what is the relationship between bike camping and a camping-specific bike? In a sense, any bike that can carry camping gear comfortably will be suitable for the job. Beyond that, it mostly depends on the length and terrain of your route. Touring bikes equipped for wide tires, fenders and racks - such as the Surly Long Haul Trucker and a number of Salsa and Rivendell models - have made popular choices. There has also been a trend to convert vintage touring bikes to 650B wheels (for extra tire clearance) and use them in this capacity with the addition of front and rear racks. But a camping bike could also be a transport bike, even a cargo bike or a capable folder for that matter. There is no precise definition.








So what can we expect from a camping-specfic bicycle model? A number of features come to mind: robust tubing to accommodate the weight of gear, long chainstays for pannier/heel clearance in the rear, eyelets for front and rear racks, clearances for wide tires and fenders, and a reliable braking system. The VO Campeur is additionally interesting in its low-ish trail front end geometry, which some believe to be helpful for carrying a considerable front load.




Will camping bikes take off? The concept of bike camping already has, so it's really a matter of whether the campeur is sufficiently distinct to carve out its own niche. I suspect the concept inspires and attracts a slightly different crowd from those who would go for a standard touring bike, and that's kind of interesting in of itself to observe. Personally, let's just say I am happy to live vicariously through others' bike camping adventures, while traveling light myself. But to the bike campers out there: What is your bicycle of choice, and do you see value in a bike that is optimised for camping?