I went camping again last night, with much better results.

I started out at the “trailhead” at the Asbury College challenge course. I had pitched my tent, and was settling in and reading, when the manager for the property arrived. Although, of course, I suspected, I never knew for sure what the policy was about random strangers (or even Alumni) camping on this property. I can now tell you without any doubts that the policy is “No, don’t do that.”

*sigh*

Due in part, I think, to my RailTrail bumper sticker (he had one too), rather than just chasing me off in shame, he suggested a couple of other places, with the caveat that it would take a little doing to get there. I picked one of these places, and I’ll probably post the corrdinates, as soon as my GPSr finishes syncing.

Since I didn’t have a decent pack yet, I had rather counted on driving to the camp site, and didn’t really have stuff in a format that was easy to carry. But it was only about a half mile, so it wasn’t a big deal. I left some of the stuff behind, and carried my tent, sleeping bag, and a satchel of other stuff, up to the spot.

Turns out that getting chased away from my chosen spot was the best thing that could have happened. It was absolutely gorgeous up there. There was a little firepit, a stone wall, and a view down into the Kentucky River. I didn’t take any pictures of the place, as it was getting rather dark. I’m not certain I even had my camera with me. Sunset was at 9:04 yesterday, and I had about 30 minutes to get set up.

On the way up to the campsite, I came out into a clearing, and there was a large doe perhaps 150 feet away. We stood and watched each other for about 3 minutes. Then, when I started moving again, she bounded off into the bushes.

After it started getting dark, the frogs started. There were two different songs – two species, I presume – and they were *LOUD*. There were crickets, too, but they were much quieter.

I went for a little walk in the dark. I have a head lamp, which is 2 white LEDs and is very bright. I saw, down the hill from where I was camping, a pair of eyes reflecting the light. They were close to the ground, and fairly close together. I don’t know what it was, but later in the night – maybe 3 or 4 in the morning – I heard a coyote, and a bunch of dogs barking at it. The coyote sang for quite some time.

The other big advantage of being a fair hike from the Jeep is that there’s less incentive to pack up and wimp out. You kinda have to stick it out until the sun comes up, since lugging all that stuff in the dark would be less than safe.

Although it was a new moon last night, it was still very bright, which was a bit of a disappointment. I’m not sure where the light was coming from, but I HATE LIGHT POLLUTION.

Anyways, I’ve wanted a decent pack for some time, and the hike up the hill with my tent and my sleeping bag in my arms, along with the fact that a nice check arrived from Big Nerd Ranch, persuaded me to go ahead and get one. I got the North Face MG55, which is probably more pack than I need, but I think that it’s a worthwhile investment. North Face makes the best camping equipment you can buy, and it should last at least as long as I’m capable of carrying it. The only problem I see so far is that I have a cheap Walmart sleeping bag which doesn’t compress very well, and so I have to hang it below. Perhaps this isn’t a big deal, but could get cumbersome for longer hikes. We’ll see, the first time I actually use it. Perhaps I’ll go back up to this spot next weekend, and see how it works out.

Or perhaps I’ll take Phydeaux up on his offer.

I have a server co-loced at Mikrotec. It’s part of my bi-monthly security scans. Today Mikrotec called to say that they noticed a large amount of activity to my coloc, and, on further investigation, it looked like attacks.

I don’t think I’ve ever had an ISP alert me that a machine was being attacked. This was a pleasant unexpected surprise

Thanks, Microtek.

This evening I had dinner at Rincon Mexicano (37° 59.303N 84° 30.918W) which, it turns out, is the best Mexican restaurant in Lexington. Their Mole sauce is absolutely stunning, with heavy overtones of chocolate. I am so full I hurt.

Note that this posting uses my new Geo::Cache module to generate a GPX file which you can load directly onto your GPS device using EasyGPS, or onto your Palm device using GPX Spinner.

Last night I pitched my tent at 37° 54.196N, 84° 36.485W, a spot that, at the moment, is a small clearing in a wooded patch at the back of a large tract of land on Harrodsburg road, and which a few months from now will be some rich family’s back yard, or perhaps their breakfast nook.

(Yeah, I know, I was trespassing. I don’t expect it did anyone any harm.)

Unfortunately, I could not sleep, due to the constant noise that went on all night. Trains, cars, airplanes, trucks idling, and some other noises that I could not identify, but which were of some human origin.

I figured that out in the middle of nowhere, it would be quiet and free from light pollution, but as the sun went down it was clear that civilization is encroaching on this spot from all directions. I’m pretty sure that the spot *used* to be in the middle of nowhere, but it’s not anymore.

Until about 9, there was the driving beat of some not-terribly-talented youth practicing drums in his garage, as well as very loud lawn maintenance equipment – perhaps a weedeater or hedge trimmer.

Finally, about 2am, I struck camp and just came home. And, just in time too. I missed the heavy rain by about 5 minutes. Almost as soon as I was on the road, the downpour let loose.

Oh well, perhaps I have to wait until later in the summer, and go a little father out into the country, in order to get a pleasant camping experience.

This morning I was sad to learn that the Castle near Versailles burned last night.

More information about the castle here.

It’s like Kentucky just can’t tolerate more than one nice day in a row. Saturday, top down, sunburned nose. Sunday, nasty, rainy, and getting cold. This morning, 36 and raining.

This morning we went to take part in Reforest The Bluegrass. I made the following observations. Perhaps at some point I’ll have time to think about them and make them into a grand unified theory. Right now, they are just observations.

1) Most of the bumperstickers were politically active (issue- or agenda-based) or were athiest/wiccan/anti-Christian. No Christian stickers were in evidence.

2) 100+ vehicles piled into the park to spew exhaust fumes, in order to plant trees to help remove those fumes from the atmosphere.

3) People don’t know how to work in teams.

4) The trees that were planted in last year’s RtB are all dead now.

5) Across the street, they are cutting down trees just as fast as anyone could possibly plant them. 5 years ago, the land for miles around the park was undeveloped, or farmland. Many very old trees have been removed to make way for houses that now completely encircle the park.

6) I was amazed at the age of the volunteers. Whereas I’d expect most of them to be 30+ folks wanting to give back a little of the earth that they have participated in destroying, I was amazed by how many highschool and college kids there were. And, it being a very warm day, one might say that the view was very nice.

ok, that’s all.

Today, driving through Shillito Park, I saw one of those huge inflatable slides, and a huge inflatable “moon walk” bounce building. There were people standing at the edge of the street with large signs inviting me to come for free BBQ, free cotton candy, free games, egg hunts, face painting, and various other appealing things. The event was being put on by something called Life Bridge. I had no idea what this was, but, hey, free party.

So, after picking up Sarah, we went back to the park and went to the party.

Turns out that Life Bridge is a church. I was thinking realtor, or perhaps an insurance company, trying to drum up business. But, no, it was a church trying to drum up business.

I’m not sure I buy into the notion that a church needs to put on an advertising campaign to drum up business. I presume that they call this evangelism, but this seems very odd to me.

So I was thinking about advertising. You know the basic idea of an advertisement – you try to make it seem like your product will help you have sex more often. Beer commercials feature scantily clad women. Jeans commercials, car commercials, chewing gum commercials, feature scantily clad women. Clearly, if I purchase this product, I will be surrounded with scantily clad women.

In other words, the primary purpose of advertising is to lie to the customer in order to get them to find your product attractive.

So … if you throw a party in the park, give people free food, free live music, free cotton candy, and an amusement park atmosphere, then maybe people will attend your church? Well, maybe, but that’s only half of the story. When they get to church, the next thing that you do is to tell them not-quite-true things about God, in order to make them stay.

It’s kinda like the conversation we were having on IRC the other day about The Message. The Message is a “translation” of the Bible that takes out all the bits that are inconvenient. It makes everything beautiful and happy. Kinda like the Pricess Bride version of the Bible. Because, as you know, the Bible has lots of rough edges and pointy bits that you can get hurt on. And if you have to think about something, that invariably leads to people coming up with differing conclusions, and, hence, controversy and division. So take out those bits. Problem solved.

Ok, I do readily admit that I’m being truly unfair to Life Bridge. I don’t know anything about them. And after reading their web site, I don’t know anything more about them. They appear to believe mostly good things. And they did seem like *very* nice people. But I have to wonder at their motivation in spending a couple thousand dollars to put on a party in the park, give out tshirts and frisbees, and then invite people to church, while not saying one word about what the church is about. This seems like standard advertising to me, not evangelism. Why would I got to this church? Because they throw really great parties. That is the extent of what I know about them. And this seems rather shallow to me.

I am inclined, however, to go there some week, just to see if my prejudices have any basis in fact.