Things move fast over here, kids. I’m not one to just sit around and let life pass me by – and to that end, I’ve been turbo-busy these first almost-three weeks of 2021.

I’m not quite as fat as my clothes of many layers make me look. Not *quite*.
Last weekend, a great hike – and reconnecting with one of my best hiking friends I haven’t seen in a long time – at McGill Creek and Graysville Mountain. It was cold, windy and gray, but still, a really good hike. I just recently read about the new bridge across the Creek, and any chance to go check out a deep woods bridge, I jump on. The plan was only to do about 5ish miles to the bridge and back, but you know me – it ended up being an 11-mile marathon. After the hike to the bridge, the decision was made to scale Graysville Mountain to find the waterfall and overlook, both of which were accomplished. It’s be a while since I did 11 miles in one shot, and it felt pretty good.
Sunday, reconnecting with someone else I haven’t seen in forever for some light trekking in North Chick Creek Gorge. After Saturday’s adventure, I didn’t really feel like doing a long one – plus, I had to go see my pals at Home Depot and flex that plastic a little bit (OK, a lot). Pretty good weekend – in fact, one the better weekends I’ve had in awhile. 2021 is treating me OK – so far.

I’m a lumberjack and something something…
Now, this weekend – well, your ol’ pal here very nearly went to sing with the choir eternal. You’ll recall I mentioned a couple of dangerous trees that needed to come down, right? Well, I decided to tackle one of them, in between my many other projects. Let me tell you, dudes and dudettes, I thought I had pressed my luck on this one – life flashed before my eyes and everything (and yeah, I was bored). To make a long story short, the Big Dead Tree didn’t want to come down. At all. I’ll spare you all the physics and safety lectures, and obviously I survived – but if that tree had been about 6 feet taller, it would have driven me into the ground like a plastic tent spike. That’s the downside of doing something like this without a spotter/little helper. One of these days, I’m definitely gonna get killed to death in the yard.
The upside is that I now have a big brush pile for burning, suitable for your finest vestal virgins, Viking funeral or whatever. And before I piled up all the brush, I shovelled out the fire pit – 3 big loads in my wagon, from years and years of burning. I’ve been burning a lot lately, and the next suitable day, I’ll be out there again. Until then, I guess I need to get out there with my mighty stump grinder; as many trees as I’ve taken down, I’m now flush with stumps that need to be removed (and I’ve already ground down probably 20 of them). Fingers crossed, that thing doesn’t try to kill me again.
Anyway, I now have a nearly clear view all the way down to the bottom of the driveway, which was the goal, because reasons. Even one of the Ring cameras can see down there now.
And speaking of the Ring cameras, well, I’ve kinda gone a little nuts with the Ring gear. Anything worth doing is worth overdoing, and to that end, I now have eight Ring floodlights scattered about, along with 6 Ring cameras (and more on the way). I’ve spent more Benjis than I care to think about, but I guess you gotta do what you gotta do. The Ring stuff is the bee’s knees – basically, if any camera detects motion, all the lights come on (and can probably be seen from space), and any adjacent cameras start recording (and boy, howdy – the things they’ve seen). Equally, if any light detects motion, all the lights come one, and the cameras in that area start recording. It is super, super cool. Installing all that stuff was a chore – especially single-handedly. Up and down the ladder, fetching tools, having one hand too few in some cases – seriously, I need a little helper. But I’m used to doing things on my own (or for others – there are people out there that treat me like God; that is, they ignore my existence unless they need something).

Hello, ladies.
That’s not all – I added 8 TP-Link Kasa smart plugs, to go with the half-dozen Kasa bulbs, exterior rope lights and my pimpalicious Kasa LEDs I put on the back of my headboard. Between the Ring stuff, Kasa stuff, numerous Alexas, smart fan, Logitech bridge, Roomba and my mastery of IFTTT, before long, I’ll never have to get up. Next on my list, to tie the Kasa plugs/bulbs into motion sensors, because why not? Oh, and I’ve decided I’m leaving my holiday lights up in perpetuity. I’m gonna be festive, dammit – and they actually look nice on my deck, especially with the rope lights (and yeah, I added rope lights to the barn, as promised – for reals, my yard looks like Las Vegas).

Not a bad view every morning.
Now, I can finally stop to catch my breath. For a minute. There’s a lot of other stuff going on right now – planning a paddle, hoping to return to the Dragon (maybe even on the BMW), thinking about heading south for some much needed beach time. Never a dull moment.
Tomorrow, the iPhone 12 Pro will be here, so I’ll be geeking out on that, I’m sure. Clearly, I dig the gadgets.
Oh, and admit it – when you saw the title of this post, you thought I got engaged or something, right? Yeah – I don’t see that happening. I think I’ve learned that lesson.