Gene Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Category: Uncategorized

  • Birdwatching 101

    Since I have been walking far more than usual I feel qualified to serve as an expert on being outside. Let me tell you, the outdoors has a lot of things going for it. One thing not in its favor is that it is boring as shit. When it comes to entertainment, indoors beats outdoors by KO in the very first round. Think Ronda Rousey vs Gina Carano. Inside, I have my computer with blazing fast internet access. Streaming MLB Network and full audio for all 30 teams. Xbox series X. As Jimmy Buffet would say “an air conditioner for when I’m hot, a radiator for when I’m not”. All a person could ask for.

    Outdoors has grass and sidewalks. Clouds and the relentless scorching sun and the outside of buildings that are temperature controlled only on the inside. All things that are fine the first few times you see them. But the three thousandth? Not so much. I never saw a tree that could play Disco Elysium or listened to Songs In The Key Of Life from a conch shell. The fact that being outdoors often sucks is making it tougher and tougher for me to properly train. I am in need of a solution. Something I can do outside that can compare in some small way to binge watching Abby Labar on Quick Pitch or DarkViperAU on YouTube.

    After looking over some new outdoor hobbies for all of fourteen minutes I decided to take up birdwatching. You should have been able to deduce that from my post title. As with anything new I attempt nowadays, the first thing I did after making my decision was to head over to the r/birdwatching subreddit. Those guys don’t make birding seem that hard. You go outside. You see cool birds. You photograph them. You figure out what kind of bird they are. All you need to get started is the ability to leave your house (check), a pair of binoculars (check), and a camera phone (check). I can handle this.

    So the very first thing I noticed is that birds are really fast. And jumpy. If you get close to one and then try to whip out your phone to take a picture they will inevitably get spooked and fly off at 100 mph. I searched on the internet for the best way to overcome this. I searched for things like “how to get close to birds and take pictures without them noticing you”. I found one interesting site by a British guy. It got kind of weird and pervy. Not much I could use in my birdwatching life, but maybe some pointers I can add to my everyday life as a weirdo.

    As I’ve mentioned before, I am a crappy photographer with a crappy camera on a crappy phone. It has only been since I took up birding that I realized I’ve been using my camera zoom incorrectly. The camera UI has a button that says “1X” for the zoom and when you push it the camera zooms in and it says “2X”. Push it again and it goes back to saying “1X”. Therefore, I logically assumed my camera could only zoom in 2X.

    Not so fast my friend. It turns out you can use your fingers to unpinch the camera and extend the zoom up to “4X”. There is a trade off in quality at that zoom level. Considering how poorly my pictures normally look it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to realize the pics I’m about to show you look like they were taken with a tiny hole cut into a shoebox. You have been warned.

    First up we have to choose the humble pigeon. The most ubiquitous of all the urban birds. I was able to get lots of shots of these guys in their natural habitat like gas stations, power lines, and big puddles in parking lots. Because of their ubiquity, you’d be excused for dismissing pigeons as uninteresting creatures. But they are actually fascinating birds with a complex social structure and unusual quirks, as shown in this documentary from last year on PBS.

    For example, both parents are able to feed their chicks a form of milk that they produce from a gland in their throat called a crop. Pigeons also are able to … WAIT, WHAT? Milk from a pigeon? I thought only mammals made milk. Do pigeons have nipples? Can Greg milk them?

    Pigeons are one of a few types of birds that produce crop milk. Both sexes secrete this fluid which contains IgA and is high in protein, just like mammalian milk. Crop milk production begins just before the chicks hatch and it looks sort of like cottage cheese. There is no proof to the rumor that raw crop milk is a nutritional panacea or that it is a great way to wash down your daily dose of ivermectin.

    These are some interesting shots I got of a white pigeon. I saw this one sitting in a doorway and expected it to fly away when I took my camera out. Far from it. This little birdie basically sat there and posed for me. They did their little turn on the catwalk and everything. I actually started to get scared that they were injured and unable to fly away. That was not the case though, as they eventually flew off after getting bored of hitting various poses.

    Next up we highlight the grackle. This bird is also common in urban settings and fairly unfazed by human activity. This allowed me to get closer to these birds than any others. You’ll recognize this bird by its dark, shiny, iridescent coat and the fact that it sounds like someone started a jet-powered lawnmower in your yard. The big, dark ones are the males. Females have a more muted, brown tone and are significantly smaller.

    Here is a group shot of multiple birds I captured in a picturesque urban setting. A Valero parking lot off of I-35.

    Lastly here are some pictures of white-winged doves. If you are only familiar with these animals from Stevie Nicks lyrics it will surprise you to see that they are basically brown as dirt.

    When they are perched you can only see a very small portion of their white feathers. Once they take flight, the white pops out and creates a staggering visual. Of course, I am not yet advanced enough to get pictures of moving birds so I’ll need you to take my word for it. Actually, never mind, I can just link to some pictures someone else has taken to show you what I mean. Much easier.

    Thus concludes introductory birdwatching. I feel like I am now ready to start photographing some of the many jays, woodpeckers, and owls in central Texas. I need to continue improving in a hurry because fall migration begins as early as mid-August and should peak around October in this area. With any luck by then I will be able to apply everything I’ve learned and capture even the most elusive of birds.

    It’s Abby Labar! From that joke earlier! What a bird!

  • 2 Churning 2 Burning

    I finally decided to try the viral running trend again. You know, the one where you run with a bag of cream and churn it into butter. Last time it did not work out very well at all. As promised, this time I made a few changes based on my previous result.

    First, and most importantly, I got heavy cream that was free from preservatives and was low temp pasteurized instead of ultra-pasteurized. This was the most significant and expensive change I made. I bought this boutique stuff called Mill King Heavy Whipping Cream from Central Market. It cost an angina inducing $6.79 for one pint. That comes out to $54.32 per gallon.

    And what exactly is all that money I’m spending for? The only ingredient in this stuff is literally just cow’s cream.

    Last time, I got burned by preservatives like polysorbate 80. This stuff has none of that at all. It doesn’t make sense that not adding things to a product makes it cost so much more. For $50 a gallon I’d expect this to contain Love Potion No. 9, Invigaron, and Compound V.

    This is like when you go to the modern gym with rows of treadmills and ellipticals everywhere and membership is $10 a month. Then you see another place that looks like some rando’s garage with rusty dumbbells in a corner and everything looks like it smells like ball sweat, and the price is $75 a week.

    In addition to the change of cream I made lots of other changes. As you can tell from the amount of sweat on the bottle in the pics above, I left the cream out for about an hour to get close to room temp before heading out. I also ran 6.5 miles instead of 6 although my route was still entirely sidewalks and improved roads. I also added about 1/8 tsp of salt to the cream. Same as last time, I poured the cream into a double bag and put the bag in my hydration carrier and took off.

    When I got back I knew instantly that I had a different result than before. Last time there was no real separation but this time there was a definite fatty residue all over the bag with a liquid phase all around it. A picture of the inside of the bag will show you what I mean.

    I stuck a finger in there and scooped some up and it definitely tasted like butter. This means I got farther than I got last time. The next step from here is to scoop out your butter and dunk it in ice cold water. This helps wash out any buttermilk that is trapped in your butter (which can make it go bad faster). You put the butter into a giant bowl of ice water and knead it a little so the butter clumps together and everything that isn’t butter rinses out.

    A picture of this would show you what I mean. If I had one. Let me say that scooping freshly made room temperature butter from a ziploc bag into a bowl of ice water is one of the messiest things I’ve ever done in my life. I instantly wound up with butter all over my forearms and the kitchen counter and everything. And warm butter does not simply wash off your hands. It just smears around all over the place. The last thing I was going to do was grab my phone to take a picture of this horrible mess. If you ever try making your own butter, make sure you have at least two sets of hands to help with this step and the inevitable clean-up.

    Eventually, after many hand washes and towelings off, I got the butter fully rinsed. I formed it into a ball and placed it onto a saucer.

    Eyeballing it, this made a total of about 3 or 4 ounces of butter. The only thing left was the taste test. A couple dabs on some toast and washed down with a Powerade.

    OK, not to sound immodest or anything but it tasted great. It tasted like you imagine the homemade butter you will one day make with your own two hands will taste. Rich, creamery butter taste and mouthfeel.

    Finally, the ultimate question to answer: was this whole thing worth it? Fuck no! Between the two tries I spent $9.75 on cream, ran 12.5 miles, and completely turfed my kitchen. And for what? Four ounces of butter? What a fucking joke. I guess I have the memes and the friends I met along the way, but the juice is not worth the squeeze as they say. I hope the next viral trend involves sitting on the couch reading sci-fi short stories.

  • Around ACC Highland

    As those of you who are frequent readers of this blog already know (both of you), I am a proponent and aficionado of free, public, outdoor fitness areas. I cannot pass up an opportunity to highlight the area around ACC Highland because it not only includes two such locations but also a short trail that dovetails into a longer trail for anyone interested. There is a lot in the area for anyone looking for a nice quick workout or hike during a lunch break or lazy weekend morning.

    ACC Highland is one of the campuses of Austin Community College. This particular one is housed in what used to be Highland Mall. The region used to be one of the higher parts of the city so there are a lot of place and street names that play on it. Crestview neighborhood, Twin Crest and Eastcrest Drives nearby. Highland Mall opened in 1971 and served the community for over forty years before closing in 2015. From there the building was scooped up by ACC and transformed into the shiny collegiate location of today.

    With as overwhelmingly hot as it gets in Austin pretty much all the time between March and November, you really need to fumble the bag to screw up an air conditioned, indoor shopping mall. That place should have printed money forever and ever.

    Shockingly, racism was one of the big reasons it failed. Highland Mall was in a … what’s the euphemism … “racially diverse” part of Austin and somehow hated the fact that people other than rich whites wanted to shop there. During the Texas Relays (a yearly event around Easter that brings together the best amateur and professional track and field athletes in the state) even more, uh … “urban” youth wanted to shop there. And the pearl clutching began in earnest. Highland Mall faded into irrelevance years before the doors closed for good.

    ACC Highland is shiny and new and all that stuff. A different kind of blog would continue to talk about how great the interior looks and all the wonderful things you can do there. This is not that kind of blog; we are staying outside.

    We begin on campus about a block from Airport Boulevard at the corner of Highland Mall Boulevard and Highland Campus Drive. So named in case you ever happen to forget that you are near ACC Highland for some reason. Here in front of a new apartment building complex is the first outdoor fitness station. This one is robust and includes pullup bars, step platforms of varying heights, dip station, pushup bar, an ab exercise spot, and a lower back extension. I can also proudly report that the water fountain works as well.

    If you are looking for something else to do at this location instead of workout, there is also an outdoor ping pong table. Unlock your inner Marty Supreme if you dare to bring paddles and a ball.

    A couple blocks east along Highland Mall Blvd you’ll reach the beginning of the 1.25 mile Highland Trail. It goes roughly along the perimeter of the ACC Highland footprint. It goes along behind some buildings and passes by a large and open parking lot.

    The parking lot looks like it would be a great place to get sprinting work in. I used to do a lot of sprinting way back before I became old and decrepit. My go-to sprint workout didn’t have a cool name but it always got me tuckered out. All you need to do it is a large open spot (like a parking lot or soccer field) and a way to roughly measure off distances. Go as hard as you can and try not to rest more than a couple minutes between any two sprints.

    • 1/4 to 1/2 mile warmup
    • ten 100-yard sprints
    • eight 80-yard sprints
    • six 60-yard sprints
    • four 40-yard sprints
    • 1/4 to 1/2 mile cooldown

    Just past the parking lot is the second outdoor fitness station. This one is older and has fewer spots in which to workout. It has some pullup bars and pushup bars with a couple of inclined benches for abdominal work. The water fountain here works too. However, I also need to mention that there is zero shade over either fitness area so don’t even think about using them this time of year except for right after dawn or before sunset.

    Highland Trail continues behind another apartment complex (you see, nothing gets built in Austin except apartment buildings and things owned by Elon Musk and the occasional restaurant) and meets up with the Red Line Parkway along Airport Boulevard. The Red Line Parkway is still in development but it is hoped to ultimately become a 32 mile stretch going all the way from Leander to downtown Austin. Anyone in the local area that is interested in hearing more should come to the State of the Parkway presentation at the Central Library on August 26th. Tell them Gene sent you.

    Eventually you come upon Fontaine Plaza on Airport. It is like a super miniature version of Central Park. The plaza and the street that runs next to it are both named for Jacob Fontaine. He was a former slave who became an influential pastor, merchant, and journalist in Austin during Reconstruction. He also played a large part in helping to get UT established in Austin. Hook ’em.

    Those purple poles on the plaza are part of a light art project that is supposed to resemble bats in flight. I should mention here for those of you that are unaware, ACC teams are called the Riverbats in honor of the bats that live downtown.

    From Fontaine Plaza you can walk a short distance back to the first fitness station or complete the 1.25 mile loop of Highland Trail. Like I said at the start, this is a great area to kill an hour or so and get a good sweat on. You really don’t need to bring anything with you except a desire to explore. And your house keys, don’t forget those or you’ll have trouble getting inside when you get home.

  • Solidarity

    I had been excited for the merry, merry month of May. I planned to use this month to start making some purchases that I’ll need for my thru-hike next year. I already have a lot of the things I’ll need, but I definitely have a wish list as well.

    1. One large backpack (somewhere around 55-65 L)
    2. One sleeping bag
    3. One or two pairs of those cool hiking pants with the legs you can unzip and then they become shorts (seems like they are called “convertible hiking pants”)
    4. One entrenching tool or similar multi-purpose shovel / axe thing
    5. One tablet computer, to make blogging on the trail easy

    I actually pretended to be an adult and budgeted $400 this month to purchase a few of those items. Why did I choose this month specifically? Well, because this month is the big, exciting REI Anniversary Sale! The one time all year when the greatest outdoor store in the world has their best prices for their loving customers and members. Imagine my shock and disappointment when I found out that there was a planned boycott during the sale.

    Lots of crazy people yell at the rain and call for boycotts for all sorts of dumb reasons. Those boycotts usually go unnoticed by right-minded individuals. This boycott, however, comes from the members and workers of REI itself. Therefore it seems worthwhile to hear about why they are doing it.

    REI (Recreational Equipment, Inc) began in 1938 in Seattle as a co-operative founded to allow outdoorsmen and women a way to get quality camping and hiking gear at affordable prices. From that humble beginning REI became one of the leading outdoor retailers in the country. It was able to parlay the public’s love for the outdoor industry into millions of dollars in profits every year while still maintaining its core principles as a co-op. Great benefits for workers and members, money to spend promoting the outdoors and protecting the environment, and some left over to line the executives’ pockets.

    COVID-19 brought changes for REI the company and the public image of REI. The first cracks in the corporate image facade appeared as lax enforcement of CDC guidelines and COVID-19 safety protocols. Things like not being transparent with workers about who had the illness and having workers work too closely with one another.

    Still though, the bottom line continued to perform to expectations. After a down year in 2020 (like nearly everyone else), REI made $3.7 billion in revenue with a net income of $97.7 million in 2021. By 2022 revenue increased to a record $3.9 billion. However, income was a net negative of $164.7 million. Equally important in 2022, the REI store in SoHo, Manhattan (New York City, not Kansas) voted to become the first union store. The execs in the suits were less than pleased with the associates in the green vests.

    As more stores unionized the company became colder and colder to their workers. Among other things, REI quietly settled a charge of attempted union busting in at least one location.

    By 2025 the company went full mask off and left their co-op ideals behind. REI initially supported Doug Burgum for U.S. Secretary of the Interior. Having this billionaire, business-first, ex-management consultant in charge of the nation’s public lands and wildlife is literally letting the fox into the hen house. REI also tried to pass a slate of corporate yes-men to their board of directors. However, that was voted down by REI’s members. No problem though. REI changed its own rules and packed the board with a bunch of yes-men anyways.

    Now in 2026 the eleven total unionized stores are finding it harder and harder to work with REI. Ever since May 2025 they have been attempting to collectively bargain a contract. The most recent offer from REI was overwhelmingly rejected by the union in February 2026. REI then declared an impasse and wants to unilaterally institute wage and benefit cuts across all stores on the 1st of July. Feeling that they were left with no choice, the union along with REI members called for a boycott of this year’s Anniversary Sale. This is a boycott, not a strike, since a strike would only affect the 11 unionized stores but a boycott can be felt across all stores during the biggest time of the year.

    I linked to information about the boycott above, but I’m linking it again here as well. Please also read the many articles I’ve linked above, because I’m not a journalist and I feel like you should read some of them yourself instead of just skimming my overly brief summations.

    So bringing this back around to me, it really sucks that this is happening. It sucks for the workers at REI. It sucks for me because I’ll support their union and their cause but I’ll need to find somewhere else to shop for my wish list. But I’m happy to do it if it helps support their union cause.