I Want To Believe

I’m going to start treating links as content and not as a separate thing living under 

. I started thinking about this by way of 

 on Jim Nielsen’s blog, which led me to 

, which got me thinking that all the inline links I post get lost in posts over time, and the posts I created as "link" type posts were... not numerous. There’s a lot of things I read which are interesting, and it’s a disservice to the Internet (alright… it’s a disservice to me when I go to look these things up again) to not treat them as the rest of the content.

 to show all the external links ever posted here, and I’ll try to get better about re-sharing the good stuff I find. And I’ll remember to share links with the whole link title instead of some clever words because that might be clever but it is 

Treating links on the blog as real content.

A Little More Love for Links

 yesterday. I used to go with my parents every Summer when I was a kid, because it was honestly about the only thing to do in the Summer in the Northeast Kingdom back then, short of the day they switched the movie at the theatre in St. Johnsbury.

I don’t remember the fair as much: there were the cows, goats, other small animals being judged (with every single one seemingly winning first place), a demolition derby, a tractor/horse/ox pull, rides that had not seen a maintenance check since the day they left the facility that built them, the usual lineup of crappy carnival games and fair food mixed in with local grub.

This year was a lot of the same. The big hit was the magic show — Lorelei got picked to be the last “assistant”, and was part of an elaborate “pick a card, any card” trick during which she was part of a sham wedding to a Vermont boy and was threatened to have her armed removed.

The card Lorelei picked and how she made it clear it was hers.

But the big difference from when I was a kid was the “guns and Trump” stalls all about the fair. Need a hat with a pistol on it and the words “we don’t call 911 here” above it? Need a Trump 2024 flag? Need a “let’s go Brandon”, uh, anything?

Thirty years ago you’d see some knock off No Fear shirts, or Calvin pissing on whatever stickers, but it tended towards Beavis and Butthead levels of stupid and silly, not blatantly offensive. And it’s not like I think Vermont is the hyper-liberal wonderland some people picture it as (the “no steppy on snek” flags don’t stop at the Connecticut River) but it’s disappointing to see so much of the fair become political Hot Topics for shitfucks.

Wherein we visit the fair and Lorelei is married off to a Vermont boy.

The Comedy and Tragedy of County Fairs

I wish I could post the sound for this photo. Well I can, I guess? There was no sound. You get out early enough here and there’s no other bikers, no road noise, heck even the birds seemed like they’d had their worms and were chilling.

This didn’t help the voice in my head that kept wondering why the trail was named Black Bear. It’s just a fun name… right?

Even the bears don't want to hike up this.

Above Black Bear

A pleasant change from the brown yards of home.

Green Mountains

 I had some less than stellar ideas for watching Fourth of July fireworks without crowds. I made up for it tonight by getting a great spot for the Beverly Homecoming ones.

It’s amazing how well the iPhone Pros can take pictures at night. In the past I’ve tried getting photos of fireworks with a decent DSLR and ended up with blurry lights, now I can balance the phone that I carry in my pocket on my ankle and get something good-enough in 3 seconds.

built with coffee

I Want To Believe

A Little More Love for Links

The Comedy and Tragedy of County Fairs

Above Black Bear

Green Mountains

You just gotta ignite the light

Elden Ring

Leaving the Island

Island Night

Morning View