Along the gravel drive: 8/21/2026
Short audio note about what lies ahead.
Along the gravel drive
An idea for a daily audio postcard along my short walk to and from the office shed.
The elephant’s foot (Elephantopus tomentosus) in front of my office shed has bloomed.
I’m on campus today for a coffee chat with a colleague. Students have not fully arrived so 3D printing lab is momentarily quiet. I printed 2 copies of this small tick remover. Short but powerful t-storm yesterday halved tall pine so I was out with chainsaw. No ticks on my legs, thankfully.
Afternoon musing on missing interactions with my colleagues.
The new Wavelength 2.0 app is pretty slick.
Walked home with Erin after tasting nine delicious wines from Croatia at our local wine shop, Rocks & Acid. My good friend in Cleveland, who just got his Slovenian passport, chided me about Croatia being silver medalists. Slovenia wine is good, too, I know from experience.
Garage Groaning In The Summer Heat
Short recording using Wavelength. Hope @manton can get Apple to approve the new app soon.
In color
Oliver played the full 80 minutes of the Carrboro boys varsity soccer match tonight, a hard 3-0 win again Southeast Alamance.
Duke University has a program for multidisciplinary courses and student research projects, called Bass Connections. Here’s a cool course near and dear to my turtle blogging: Connecting Amphibians and Reptiles: An Ecology + Rights Approach (article here).
Picked up from my local booksellers yesterday, and already reading: Are They Dead Yet?: The Art of the Obit by Sam Roberts. One of my early journalism jobs was a brief stint writing death notices. I’m glad to be alive and able to read. 📚
Over on the Zuiker Chronicles, a blog post about the festivities of the last few days and a first mention of Malia’s upcoming departure for Peace Corps service in Guatemala. She will be a third-gen Volunteer, following me and Erin (Vanuatu) and my father (Dominican Republic). #pride
A thousand thanks to @rpmik for suggesting a solution to my Raspberry Pi flight tracking project. The ADSB Feeder was simple to install and now we’re tracking planes nearby, mostly out of RDU.
I am attempting to use an old Raspberry Pi 3 and a new Nooelec NESDR Mini 2 USB RTL-SDR and ADS-B Receiver Set so that I can track airplanes above my house. So far instructions here are not exactly working.
Well, the rains did come but the party never faltered. 100 people moved inside, loud loud loud, but good conversations among the many overlapping layers to our friends and family, including my college buddy Mark.
Big party here at the house tonight, to celebrate Anna’s first job as nurse and Malia’s next adventure. We’ve been prepping for days. Hoping we don’t get big rains (but if we do I may take everyone out to search for turtles).
Finished reading: Things Become Other Things A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod. Quite enjoyed this. Craig is a unique individual and writer, and I’m glad to read his newsletters, too. 📚
This box turtle found a smashed toad on the gravel road. I don’t recall seeing this turtle before and wonder what’s happening with the missing scutes. It scurried away when I approached so seemed healthy. It also snorted to get that yellowjacket away.
The forest is filled with fungi.
A band from my youth, 38 Special, will perform a free show on the UNC campus in November as part of the Chapel Thrill Game Day series. Just one original band member, though. Reminds me how I felt when my dad took me to see Danny and the Juniors. Hold on loosely …