Big Meadow Campground - Shenandoah National Park Trip: 60 Nights: 198-199 Look at that. 60 camping trips at $82.66 per night. Buy a camper they said. You'll save money, they said. I'm kidding. I knew buying a camper wasn't going to save money. Anyway... we had reservations for Loft Mountain Campground but I wanted...

I quit RSS. Kind of. A month ago, I read an article from someone who had quit RSS and gone back to visiting blogs one by one. It stuck with me. A little poking around revealed that the old Live Bookmarks feature of Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox lives on as an extension. I imported my feeds into the LiveMarks extension....

The Dave Kline Band with Senator Tim Kaine After Friday night's less-than-stellar experience, we tried again. Yep. It was a two-concert weekend for us. The day got off to a good start as I completed my first Bird Friendly Habitat Certification (not counting my own yard). So now we have two certified yards in...

Robert Jon & the Wreck at The Tin Pan I have lived in RVA, and before that Fredericksburg, for over 20 years. I have looked at shows at The Tin Pan on multiple occasions. Every time I passed, because the idea of seeing a loud rock and roll show in a dinner club atmosphere just didn't appeal to me. A couple of months...

My last 5 books - July 2026 edition This is a new feature in which I will copy and paste my recent book reviews from my books page These are the last 5 books I have read. I will update in a month or 2 when I've read 5 more. I'm Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin Rating: **** Uber driver...

Grayson Highlands Camping 2026 Trip: 59 Nights: 194-197 A heatwave hit the east coast just in time for the July 4 weekend. It was over 100F (38C) in RVA. Luckily we were 240 miles away and 1 mile up camping, where the 80F (27C) temps also constitute a heat wave, but one I can handle. We arrived on Thursday, July 2,...

WTF is up with sugar allergies? Friday evening we were on the patio at our local brewery when my wife overheard a young person expounding to his two friends about how people wear CGMs to manage their sugar allergies. My wife wears a CGM because she has Type 1 diabetes. Sugar allergies are not a thing. That would be...

We can't fix society with tech Just capturing this thought from an online friend. You are not going to fix anything, until we find some other core principles to build on. Like cooperation and collaboration rather than competition. Like community rather than individualism. We are all in this together, and none of us...

Laurel Hill State Park Trip: 58 Nights: 191-193 Last weekend was the annual Aliner Ascape rally, which has settled at Laurel Hill State Park near Somerset, PA. We missed last year when my career blew up 3 weeks before the camp out, so it was great to get back this year to see old friends and a make new ones. The...

Teddy’s Last Selfie Teddy Ballgame, aka Ted, aka Teddy, aka Theodore J. Dog, crossed the rainbow bridge yesterday. We found Teddy at Petsmart where the Orange County Humane Society was running an adoption event in 2017. One of our senior dogs had recently passed on and the other was really struggling without her...

Sunday Steamy Sunday I was supposed to get up and go birding this morning, but it was going to be 87F (28C) and very humid by the time we finished, so I'm here blogging from the comfort of my air-conditioned home instead. We planned on heading into Richmond for Sailfest today, but that same weather issue is making...

Weekend at Loft Mountain Campground Trip: 57 Nights: 189-190 It was 92F (32C) in RVA. It was 75C (23C) and breezy two hours away in Shenandoah National Park. We chose wisely. It was a very chill weekend. We arrived around 430 PM on Friday, and after setting up camp, we did some birding in the campground. Dinner was...