I feel sorry for farmers with Diesel prices reaching minimum wage

 I feel sorry for farmers with Diesel prices reaching minimum wage.

You can thank Mr. Trump and his cult followers for this.

How can someone live on this??

Foreign Visitors Spending Less in the US

 As travel to the US declines, it is obvious that foreign spending will decline as well.  According to

International Travel Receipts and Payments Program:

International visitors spent nearly $19.9 billion on travel to, and tourism-related activities within, the United States during the month of August, a decrease of nearly 5 percent when compared to August 2025.

My emphasis.

Well, add to that international fuel increases due to Trump's War ... well that doesn't take a brain surgeon to make the connection.  

Just wait until you book that flight to visit Grandma next month!

Southeastern Recreation Research Symposium

 Spreading the word...

2027 Southeast Recreation
Research Conference
Call for presentations is now open!
Join us at Amicalola Falls State Park, GA, gateway to the Appalachian Trail.

The details:

We invite your participation in the 49th Annual Southeastern Recreation Research (SERR) Conference, scheduled for March 21-23, 2027 at the beautiful Amicalola Falls Lodge and State Park in North Georgia.  Graduate and undergraduate students, faculty, agency planners, land managers, and researchers are all encouraged to attend the conference and submit a proposal for an oral or poster presentation.

Presentation Proposals

Abstracts (consisting of a completed form and a 500-word abstract) for oral and poster presentations at the 2027 SERR Conference are now being sought.  Presentations should be of an empirical, conceptual, or theoretical nature related to recreation or the environment, and one or more of the following topics:

• Education
• Programs and Services
• Human Behavior
• Economics
• Policy
• Planning and Management
• Health
• Methodological Approaches
• Diversity, Access & Participation
• Technology
• Sustainability
• Environmental Justice
• Ecosystem Services
• Climate Adaptation
• Travel & Tourism

Authors are encouraged to give presentations focusing on completed empirical research, as well as conceptual papers on innovative models or theories, perspectives, or methods. Presentations detailing innovative recreation programs or other applied practices within the field are also encouraged.

Submissions should include a component addressing policy, planning, or management implications. As always, graduate student research will be an important part of the conference. Graduate student attendance and submissions are strongly encouraged!

Oral presentations will be given in a conference room setting. Audiovisual support will be available in the form of a laptop (with a USB port) and a projection unit. Each oral presenter

will be given 15 minutes to present their work and 5 minutes for discussion/questions. Authors presenting planned or uncompleted research may be asked to make their presentations in the form of a poster.

Abstract Submission

Please submit your proposal using the following link:

Link to 2027 SERR Conference Abstract Submission Form

Abstract Deadline - January 8th, 2027

*For your submission, be prepared to provide the following information:

• Presentation title,
• Author(s) name(s), position title(s), and affiliation
• Your (or the corresponding author’s) email address.
• Your preferred session type: oral presentation or poster presentation
• Your general topic area (see first bulleted list above)
• Your presentation abstract: Limited to 500 words.

Your abstract should be sufficiently detailed to permit judgment of the paper's quality. Abstracts of empirical papers should include a problem statement, methods (including analysis), results, and address policy, planning, or management implications. Abstracts of conceptual and theoretical papers should include a problem statement and discussion with a system of organization like that of the empirical papers. A list of references is not required.

Selection

Selection of abstracts for presentation will be based upon review by two peers of the SERR community. Authors with accepted abstracts are expected to present their papers at the conference. In case of multiple authorships, at least one author must be present. Abstracts submitted are expected to meet professional standards.

Deadline

All proposals must be submitted by Friday, January 8, 2027. Authors will receive notification of acceptance or rejection by January 30, 2027. A list of presenters with session titles will be available on the SERR Conference website (http://serrconference.org) by the end of February 2027.

Student Scholarships

We will be offering a limited number of student scholarships for undergraduate and/or graduate students to attend this year's SERR conference. The scholarship amounts will vary and will only cover a portion of the costs of attending the conference (registration, travel, etc.). Interested students should email a one‐page letter (as an attached MS Word or PDF file) to BOTH the conference co‐chairs (see below) describing how they believe their academic and professional interests will be enhanced by their attendance.

____________________________

More information, along with the abstract submission link, can be found on our website, www.serrconference.org. Registration and lodging information will be posted soon.

We look forward to seeing you in North Georgia!

The SERR Planning Committee

HOME | Southeast Recreation Research Conference

PS: I attended this conference back in the 1980s and can state it was informative and friendly.

"Validation of Recreation Quality Monitoring Measurements by River Zones.” Annual Southeastern Recreation Research Symposium.  Asheville, NC. February 1988.

"Monitoring Recreation Quality River Zones.” Annual Southeastern Recreation Research Symposium.  Asheville, NC. February 1987.

Some Books on the Appalachian Trail

 Here are some great books on the Appalachian Trail for your off-season reading.  You can also take the paperbacks on your hike. Most are out of print, but a search will find a used book seller.

In no particular order. But starting with my favorite cover.

and more

The "bible" of the 1970s:

find this one:

Need more?, check out this bibliography.

and of course, my book.

Available from the AT Museum.

Threat of AI?

 Well, nothing new.

Want to watch a film where computers take over the world?  

Try Colossus: The Forbin Project

Pretty good one too.

See the trailer here (after a commercial interruption of course).

Prepare for world domination.

Sea level rise and climate change

Remote Sensing Image (Google Earth) of Ocean City, Maryland.

The break in the barrier island was caused by the 1933 Hurricane. Here is a pretty neat video of the storm.

So, you can see that coastal areas are prone to natural and human caused disasters.

Check out this map for North Carolina.

HI Erosion Imagery

Don't buy coastal real estate. 

Global patterns in sandy beach erosion: unraveling the roles of anthropogenic, climatic and morphodynamic factors

Amazing, this is still found online and hasn't been taken down by the King.

Coastal erosion is more severe under climate change | U.S. Geological Survey

and a toolkit too.

More science on the issue here.

While not coastal, here is a paper I wrote highlighting the issue of climate change and river flows.

Travel behaviour substitution for a white-water canoe race influenced by climate induced stream flow

ABSTRACT

The World Tourism Organization, the United Nations Environment Programme and the World Meteorological Organization have identified one of the consequences of climate change is an interference of normal precipitation. This research investigates the changes in travel patterns by participants and spectators at an annual canoe race as influenced by variable stream flow. Given that stream flow varies seasonally, one might hypothesize that should a permanent reduction of water flow take place in the future, a decline or shift in water-based recreation might be expected. Using data collected over two years at the Annual Westfield River Wildwater Races, interviews were conducted at the staging area as participants waited in the queue. Observers of the race were also interviewed. The two sampling years represent a low flow season and a normal flow season and yield a sample of 142 parties. During the low flow season, one that is projected to become the norm under climate change models, expert paddlers travelled a greater distance characteristic of destination substitutability while spectators decreased travel distance and this suggests a reduction of interest in observing the race.

RÉSUMÉ

L’Organisation mondiale du tourisme, le Programme des Nations unies pour l’environnement et l’Organisation météorologique mondiale ont identifié qu’une des conséquences du changement climatique est la modification du régime des précipitations. Cette étude analyse les variations dans les habitudes de déplacement des participants et des spectateurs d’une course annuelle de canoë, telle qu’influencée par la variation du débit de la rivière. Comme le débit de rivière varie selon les saisons, on peut anticiper un déclin ou un déplacement des loisirs aquatiques, advenant une réduction permanente du débit. À partir de données recueillies lors de deux éditions de la Annual Westfield River Wildwater Races, des entretiens ont été réalisés dans la zone de préparation tandis que les participants étaient dans la file d’attente. Des spectateurs de la course ont aussi été interrogés. Les deux échantillons annuels correspondent à une saison de faible débit et à une saison de débit normal et l’échantillon total est constitué de 142 éléments. Au cours d’une année de faible débit, qui devrait devenir la norme selon les modèles sur le changement climatique, les experts pagayeurs se sont déplacés sur de grandes distances, ce qui est caractéristique de la caractéristique de substitution de la destination, tandis que les spectateurs ont réduit leur distance de déplacement, ce qui suggère une baisse d’intérêt pour l’observation des courses.

16mm Movie Collecting

 It all started about 25 years ago.  I mean, when people were shifting from VHS tapes to DVD, I went backwards to 16mm films.

I bought my first projector, a Bell and Howell 2582 projector on eBay for something like 25 bucks and another 25 bucks for shipping.

My first film was Reptilicus.  It had turned red, but the monster was still great.

I then had access to my college catalog of old educational films that were being surplused since the films had been replaced with VHS titles. (Now it is likely to be streamed.)

Here are some fun titles.

and of course, some interesting scenes from others.

Social Guidance

Star Trek

Old Dracula

Warning

Creeping Terror

Night of the Living Dead

I visited the opening scene of the Evan's City Graveyard with my brother.

Front lawn at Westfield State.

and inside in cooler weather

Oblong Box

and even more

Andromeda Strain

For some of the titles, once I watched them, I would resell on eBay to buy another film.

After 20 years of collecting I ended up with this list.

Then, last year, we had an unexpected fire in our pole barn, and lost the entire collection, plus six projectors and supplies.

Slowly I am building up the collection with two refurbished EIKI projectors (plus an Elmo that needs some work).

My list, so far is.

Try Jason and the Argonauts for size.