Even in Kyoto

There was an article in yesterday's NYT about indigenous communities in Ecuador who are switching from gas-powered to solar-powered canoes as their primary form of transportation (link, but paywalled). Apparently the communities noticed detrimental effects of the gas-powered canoes on local fish stocks, and in addition, traveling via gas-powered canoes is prohibitively expensive because of the price of gas.

Electric boats are really lovely. They are quiet. And in an environment like the Ecuadorean Amazon, it only makes sense to shade an electric boat with an array of solar panels. It's great that communities there were able to figure out a way to make the change.

Today there's an article in the local paper about a developer breaking ground in neighboring Troy for an apartment complex that will be zero-emissions. I'm just glad to learn there are people with the vision and will to see that sort of project go forward, in spite of countless hurdles. I didn't know about the existence of the Passive House Institute U.S. (Phius) CORE certification program.

While there are a lot of terrible things happening in the world these days, it's also important to identify sources of hope.

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I also read an article about why it seems like appliances don't last as long now, as they did historically. It was interesting to learn that many appliances are manufactured using plastic components that are more difficult to repair or replace, because the plastic components contribute to a higher energy efficiency rating, in compliance with government-mandated standards.

Apparently if you are appliance shopping, you are probably best off with either the very basic budget models (fewer moving parts to fail in general), or the very expensive models (actually have repairable/replaceable parts). The mid-tier appliances are the ones with the most issues.

There was more to the story on appliances, but these were the most interesting tidbits.

The Folk Art of Japanese Country Cooking, by Gaku Homma. This is a cookbook, and thus contains recipes, but it also contains a lot of other stories and information about country life in Japan and what it has been like for the author to emigrate to the United States and open up a dojo and restaurant in Denver, Colorado. I really appreciated learning about traditional food preservation and cooking methods. I'm not sure whether I'll cook much from this book, but you never know. One of the things I appreciated about it the most was getting a better understanding of the basic staple ingredients for this type of cooking. It is not as intimidating a list as for other cuisines. Kind of a niche topic, but I appreciated it.

James, by Percival Everitt. This came recommended by a friend who reads a wide range of things. I appreciated it for the project it undertakes, but if someone were to ask, I'd recommend Chain Gang All-Stars first, even though many people might find it to be a more challenging book to read.

Before I set out on the train for the Erie Canal bike touring adventure, I purchased and downloaded several books onto my ereader, so I'll probably continue working my way through that eclectic set for now.

Today I decided to go back to the boathouse after rowing and coffee, to continue work on various boathouse projects for a couple hours.

First, I rehung the boat light charging station on L-hooks, and while I was at it, hung up a second shoe holder to serve as a walkie talkie charging station. I was able to get everything powered up thanks to having obtained some 8-foot extension cords at the hardware store yesterday.

I also moved all of the supplies for keeping megaphones and coxboxes charged up, onto a temporary portable step unit.



This now gets all of the rowing electronics into one place inside the boathouse, instead of having everything scattered in different locations. It also gets all the electronics to a spot where they can be recharged regularly.

Once that was done, I turned my attention to our first aid cart. During this transition, it, along with some of our electronics, has been living inside a shipping container.

Something about the first aid cart has been bothering me for years. The original person who assembled it, assembled the wheels incorrectly. See if you can tell what I mean from the photo below. Up until now I really haven't been in a position to do anything about the problem. Vexing. Especially when you consider that people periodically want to wheel the cart to new locations during our special events.



I kind of feel like there isn't a WORSE way to assemble the wheels!

At one point, the wheels were so poorly fastened that one of the wheels came off entirely. So when I took things apart to swap the wheels to the correct positions, I encountered multiple sizes of nuts and bolts. But at least now the cart will actually roll properly, and with any luck no one will have to tilt this beast on its back to fix the wheels again anytime soon!

Along with the wheel problem, there has been some sort of long-term lingering issue with one of the bottom drawers, where it refused to stay completely closed. Super annoying. When trying to work on the wheels, I ascertained that I would need to remove the bottom drawers to access the wheel nuts from inside the cart. That eventually led me to watch an internet video about how to remove this type of drawer from this type of cart (and it turns out there are two different overall types of cart/drawer; initial hits were for the other type. Complicated!).

The internet video I eventually found helped me to understand that one of the plastic drawer removal latches had snapped off, making it extra difficult to remove the drawer.

A couple extra minutes with a small screwdriver and a bunch of swearing did the trick.

Intact latch:


Snapped-off latch:


In the end, I did not reinstall this "trouble drawer," as that seemed unwise.

Once the wheels were fixed, I relocated the cart to a new, more prominent spot inside the boathouse:



It just seems to me that having a first aid cart in a prominent, accessible location is a good idea.

I was so pleased to find that the cart fit exceptionally well into the space where I wanted to put it. The only issue was that the ground was far from level in that location. So I used a chunk of an old wooden platform that used to be underneath our oars, to provide a stable surface for the cart to rest on.

Totally satisfying projects!

Now I can turn my attention to the next boathouse project, constructing a long-term charging station for the coxboxes and megaphones.

I am currently in Newark, New Jersey, with my research students. We took the train into NYC yesterday, where a colleague very generously gave us a behind-the-scenes tour of the insect collections at the American Museum of Natural History (!!!! I took billions of photos to post later). For me it was all cool, but more than that I hope it was eye-opening for my students, who are all at various stages of uncertainty over the future. Almost even better and more important than that was having my colleague tell them about his origin stories, because he got his start in the lab where I got my PhD and has been highly successful as an academic. On top of that, he is currently the graduate program director at his institution and can speak about grad school from that standpoint.

Today we will go visit his institution, which is in Newark, so we took the NJ train over and stayed in an Airbnb on this side of the border. Which leads me to…ahhh, New Jersey. Our sleep spot is in a very Latinx neighborhood, which in a lot of ways is a lot of fun (although I had to get creative about the food options at a small Ecuadorian restaurant last night). But in the whole realm of “travel as imagining alternate lives,” what a contrast to sleepy upstate Albany!

For instance…our spot is on the ground floor of what looks to be a typical 3-story 3-unit dwelling. I stayed in the smallest, cutest room, but woke up abruptly at 3:45 am when the upstairs neighbor commenced with tap dancing lessons directly above my head (the kitchen, I suspect). The room I was in barely fit a twin bed; no room for woodworking projects at this house!

I love walking around cities, and here it is interesting to observe where and how people garden. If a person wants to grow plants here, they have to be pretty determined to do so (and many are!).

I find some of the contrasts with Paris interesting. More litter here. More space carved out for hosting giant American automobiles. (Although I’m sure there’s still a ton of groaning about parking, likely a fond New Jersey pasttime). Almost no bike lanes, and every person I’ve seen riding a bike so far has been wrong-way sidewalk riding.

I have failed to find decent coffee, and I have to admit I don’t really care for Latinx pastries. (Do LOVE the arroz y frijoles, though!).

It has also been neat to see my two students who are city/LonGuyLand people encourage my rural Connecticut student through the hustle of the subway and Penn Station and Penn-Newark. My rural student is also coping well with the overwhelm, all told.

Yesterday, we rowed Petrichor up to the farmer's market in Troy! Once it stopped raining the weather was absolutely beautiful, making it a fantastic day to be out on the river. This was only S's second time ever trying to row, and the first time might have been about a decade ago. He did very well, although early on he commented that he had to keep an eye on his oar to make sure it did what he told it to do, which got complicated by the fact that he had oars on both sides of the boat to try and watch.

Getting the oars in:


I gave a little cheer every time we made it past a landmark to help keep morale up.



It took us about 2 hours to get this far, this time. During our morning practices we can usually reach this distance in about 35-40 minutes.


We had to pull over and stop to pee twice on the way up.


The Troy docks are taller than our rowing docks. But we did bring along some fenders, at least. It's going to take more practice to figure out our mooring system.


In this case, it didn't help that the town's fire rescue boat gave us a MASSIVE wake right in the no-wake zone at the dock. Sigh.

We reached Troy just in time for some lunch at a hipster coffeeshop, and then had about 30 minutes to roam around the farmer's market. We brought home rhubarb, green garlic, kale, eggs, milk, lettuce, a loaf of bread, and maybe one or two other things I'm forgetting at the moment. A good haul.

I'm still so chuffed by the adventure.


Yay boats!

It is already abundantly clear to me that this is an excellent student research team to work with this summer. I am so grateful; I am learning a lot from this group, just as they are clearly already learning a ton from me. It is reaffirming my love of research and teaching and mentoring.

I don't like to write much on public forums about people who don't know about the public forum, so I should leave it at that.

And in the meantime, I would really love it if this sinus/barometric headache could die already, kthxbai. Ibuprofen last night, allergy pill this morning, ibuprofen this afternoon; the ibuprofen briefly dulls the pain, but that's about it.

This research team was more than happy to curate a music playlist for our lab work, which I love so much. Rocking out weighing ants and measuring their heads!

My summer research team has started up today (3 students). It is going to be a good group, but is definitely going to require a lot of my time and bandwidth.

There are a couple of themes to write about from the Erie Canal trip. I want to write about Moss Island, and about all of the places where we ate food and drank coffee that were worth writing about (many!).

Also maybe about the locks we were able to check out, and learning about the original canal, the expansion about a decade later, and the contemporary canal. There are multiple canal museums along the trail, and we only visited a handful of them!

Then, we had National Learn to Row Day this past Saturday morning, where it rained cats, dogs, and elephants, but because of that I was able to tackle a handful of important boathouse projects. (and in spite of the rain we still had 44 people come to visit us!).

And on Sunday I managed to get some gardening projects done. We're well into strawberry season, although I suspect it's going to be a short season. The lavender has flowers, and the Dark Dahlia has emerged from the soil. I got a second round of branch shredding done, so now there's a newer mulch pile back by the compost. I just feel so much better with everything shredded!

Onward.

Sometimes it's hard to come back from a vacation high. It has been good to snuggle the cats, sleep in a soft bed, take a shower, and be reunited with my remaining pairs of bike shorts.

But boy, this one twee houseboat just speaks of a very different sort of life:







It was definitely a relief to have a break from the news. A good reminder that there are drawbacks to being glued to it all.

On the other hand, the horseshoe crab's tank needed attention, the clownfish were hungry, the ants needed watering and a temperature boost (I'd turned the heater down while away), and the windowsill plants were all thirsty.

And there's a lot of boathouse and rowing stuff on the horizon.

I am so much more motivated now to make sure we get out on some silly Petrichor adventures, and sooner rather than later!

I have to wonder whether there's a way to set up Petrichor with a boat tent. And a proper galley box. Hmmm....

I should probably finish varnishing first.

Moss Island and the pothole ponds and lock 17 the guillotine lock were all big time highlights. There is an alpaca wool store in Little Falls that we will definitely go back to.

It is always funny to be almost home, but not quite.

Amazing amount of (paved) slight downhill with a tailwind. Sunny and warmer; tomorrow’s supposed to get even warmer yet.

Last night’s campground was not the greatest. Mostly gave me Midwestern RV campground vibes, but also we were out in a site that was almost a swamp due to all the rain we’ve been getting.

To say nothing of the mosquitoes.

So I was glad to pack up and move on in the morning.

I waited until I reached an old lock site before getting out the supplies to make coffee. The site had a bit of a breeze going, to help with the mosquito situation.

But then…my first attempt at a moka pot of coffee capsized. Coffee got everywhere except where it’s supposed to go, in my mouth. Going forward I will monitor the coffee very closely so as to not repeat that most unfortunate episode.

I wound up riding solo for the morning, which meant a whole lot more singing and muttering to myself.

Presently, it began to rain again. I pulled out my rain cape and applied my various rain covers.

Sometime thereafter, it started to rain more heavily, so when I reached an underpass I pulled out the bike spats / shoe booties. And then I merrily continued on my way towards Syracuse.

Riding through Syracuse included several adventures, amplified by the fact that the gusts of wind and rain had picked up. There had been a plan to meet up at the Syracuse State Farmers Market, but by the time I arrived and checked my phone I learned the tandem had foregone the market in favor of a warm, indoors coffeeshop.

After a spin around the market plus some coffee and a donut, I joined the rest of the party at the coffeeshop to wait out the rest of the worst of the rain. Jo declared the rainstorm a Nor’easter, and I suppose he’s right?

After all that, more lovely trail, then a climb up a big hill to a campsite at Green Lakes State Park. The stay here might actually be much nicer due to the rain keeping other campers at bay?

And after 4 nights I think I finally figured out how to properly stake my tent to better keep moisture out.

Here’s hoping, at least.

Touring and camping in the rain can be a hassle, but so far I am pretty pleased with how I’ve handled myself with it all. A lot of old Washington camping habits have stayed with me.

Lots of aqueducts today, and a couple of museum ride-bys, too.