Saturday, August 15, 2009 - Red Rock, East Chatham NY

The Midnight Striper, August 15, 2009

I spent last night in the Walmart parking lot in Pittsfield MA. About midnight I awoke to the sound of a small engine accelerating and decelerating. Strange. I look out and here's a guy on a beat up old articulated garden tractor with a striping machine hanging out front with a couple headlights carefully aimed just ahead of it. He's out there striping the parking lot. Fast. He'd slow a bit - stripe a line - then accelerate across to the next line, brake sharply and stripe the next line. Back and forth across the lot. He was done in no time flat and put nary a stripe on my rig. Cool.

BTW, that's a Crane & Co papermill steaming in the background - I wonder if that's where Crane makes currency paper.

Night camp

On my property off Less Traveled Road - The Home Place, Red Rock, East Chatham NY

I used to camp in a few locations on what little I had left of the family farm
- In the driveway by the house
- Across the road where the barn once stood
- On the 20 acre piece off Less Traveled Road
Now, with the kind support of the friends who now own the place, I camp across the road where the barn once stood.
Verizon cell phone service - Terrible, barely usable with an amplifier
Verizon EVDO service - Terrible, barely usable with an amplifier
Find other references to Home Place
List the nights I've camped here
Check the weather here

The Eat What You Fancy Diet

The central plank of Sophie's thinking is that you can eat any damn thing you like, be it chocolate, crisps, chips or cheese ? in fact, that it's good for you to eat what you want, because 'forbidden foods' develop a powerful allure. This disappears when food is freely available, reasons Sophie.... The trick, however, that lets you achieve your natural, correct body weight is to eat only because you are hungry, and stop when you are full. Harder than it sounds, of course, and this is where the Beyond Chocolate tactics come in. [...]

more...