I was in the grocery store recently and could not find blades for my ‘had it since college’ cartridge razor and it irritated me since my interpretation of the lack of cartridges was that they were making shelf room for the latest 5+ blade cartridge systems. This event, plus the absurd ever-increasing blade count and cost of the cartridges led me to investigate alternatives.

I’ve spent the last two weeks shaving with a classic old ‘safety blade’ razor, the kind most folks used up through the 1970’s, that I bought at classicshaving.com.

I’m going to stick with it for the time being, despite some shortcomings. While I get a smoother shave from the cartridge systems, the classic shaving stuff is just tons less expensive – a 45 cent blade lasts me a week, compared to a ~$1.25 cartridge that lasts about the same amount of time. Also I think part of the issue is my lack of experience with this – my first shave using it was awful but I’ve been getting gradually better. The key seems to be holding the razor at just the right angle – it’s much less forgiving about this than disposable or cartridge razors are. I’m also suspecting the shaving cream I’m using is part of the problem as it seems to gum up the razor, so I’m going to try a few alternatives in that department.

These are worth checking out if you’re appalled at the spiraling price of shaving supplies and looking for an alternative.

As in years past, too much fun outside means not as much time to geek out on the weblog. Andrew gave me grief about it today so I’m poking my head in to say ‘I’m not dead, I’m just too busy having fun outside.’

I’ll be back to a regular posting schedule around September when football season starts and I spend my sundays on the couch.

What a great weekend I had. I was headed to Lake George in upstate New York for a long weekend camping trip and decided to take back roads through Vermont rather than the highway. This added over an hour to the travel time (it ended up taking about 4 hours) but in return Soolin and I were treated to absolutely beautiful scenery. I cut west from route 89 in Vermont, taking rt’s 107 -> 100 -> 73 -> 74, which cut through the northern end of the Green Mountains National Forest, mostly by following rivers. It was spectacular, the more so because the rivers were all running very high after several days of rain. Plus rt 74 terminates on the west end at a cable ferry that crosses the southern end of Lake Champlain.

The camping itself was cool – lots of kids, several dogs, and many harried adults. I had a great time. There are pictures in my gallery, you can use the links at the top of the page to access it. The weather ended up being decent too.

On the way back I took a similar route – all back roads, this time rt 22 -> 7 -> 9, and from there back onto 91 south and home. Great great stuff, I think I have finally found my playground to replace the mountains of the adirondacks.

Recipe for a fun long weekend over the 4th of July: First, spend 2 days exploring the area looking for good swimming holes. I found several good ones for Soolin. None for me, alas, but at least I have one in my back pocket for the steamy July and August months. Anyway, second, go tubing on the Batten Kill river with friends. Take lots of pictures. Third: Spend an entire day doing absolutely nothing, recuperating from it all. I had a blast and love that it’s a short work week this week as well.

There are new photos in the gallery of the tubing trip including some movies, use the gallery link at the top of this page to get there.

Familiar with the Bonnaroo Music Festival? This years festival took place a couple of weeks ago. Bonnaroo has become something of an event for me, since shortly after it happens the audience recordings of the show come online and I get to check out a bunch of live music. Some of it is from bands I know, but a lot of it is from bands I’m not familiar with and it’s great fun to check out new music. The highlight of this year’s festival so far has been Radiohead’s show, but the GRAB show is also phenomenal, especially if like me you have a fondness for the Grateful Dead. Anyway there’s an extensive collection of concerts available. This is legal music folks and anyone who likes jam bands has every reason to check it out. I found a great directory of lossless (mostly flac) recordings of it on this post at the Live Music Blog.

Kudos to my brother for poking me about this. I went looking for the shows a couple of days after the festival ended and came up empty. Jesse sent me links to a couple shows and that ended up with me tracking down the link above, which at this point has almost all of it.

A minor pipe dream of mine – actually go to this festival one year and relive the days of my youth. Anyone game?

My neighbor noticed a fox den on my property about a month and a half ago, and after it was pointed out to me I would watch for them to come out of the den most every evening around dusk. Their den was about 2-300 yards from the side of my house in a little clump of trees right in the middle of the farmland that’s adjacent to my place.

About a month after I noticed them I saw a dead fox on my drive to work, at the point on the road that is closest to the den. A month later, a second dead fox, same place. This saddened me, and I wondered how the fox kits would survive if it was both parents who had been slain. Then things got weird. The afternoon after I saw the dead fox, I got home from work and took Soolin out to play in the yard. I noticed on the way into the house that one of the foxes was wandering the farmland, which was unusual. While I had occasionally seen them out on the field during the day, every other time it had been either in the early morning or very late in the day.

The moment Soolin came down the stairs and into the yard, the fox looked up and made a beeline for her. Not in a brazen ‘attack!’ sort of way, more like in a ‘let me creep up on her, but as quick as I can’ kind of way, with a very alert expression – ears forward, eyes focused like lasers on her. I rushed her into the house, not sure what to make of it. For the next several days I was constantly seeing the fox out in the field, and almost every time I brought Soolin outside it would come running for my yard, even when it was in its den. At one point it even came right into the yard and onto the driveway and crept around the garage, peering around the side of it to look at Soolin, who was looking back at it through the back door.

Then one day – no more fox. Since then I’ve seen it only once, and it was far enough off that I can’t even be sure it was the same fox. I’ve no idea what to make of this behavior. Did it think Soolin was possibly one of its missing parents? Blame her for their disappearance? Need to eat and think ‘hmm, tasty blond snack!’ Have rabies and basically gone off its gourd? Anyone have a clue what might cause a fox to behave this way?

I should also note it’s not clear to me this was even one of the kits – it seemed over large to have been born in the spring. I know they grow quickly, but this seemed large even by grown fox standards.

What a great weekend. Summer finally arrived, with temperatures pushing 90 and humidity to spare. I had Stan the black lab for the weekend since my friend Andrew was headed to Cape Cod and needed a dog sitter, so Soolin, Stan and I spent the weekend hunting swimming holes and found several nice ones, including some excellent currents on an isolated spot near the stillwater bridge, (gmap, googlearth) and Lake Mattawa (gmap, googlearth). The worst event of the weekend – scurrying across route 2 west of Orange I lept down an embankment with the dogs to avoid traffic and found myself waste deep in a poison ivy patch which Soolin immediately proceeded to roll around in. The best? A 1/2 mile hike upriver from the Stillwater bridge, ankle to waste deep in water and clambering over and around boulders. Awesome! Soolin and I were in our element. Stan was not as sure of himself around the water but he’s known Soolin and I since he was 8 weeks old so he put on his game face and clambered after us, only stopping to complain occasionally but always scurrying up the bank when he could.

Next week weather permitting I’m heading back to Lake Mattawa in the early AM to get out on the lake with a float and Soolin on a line for some swimming and soaking action.