Cybersecurity Newsbites: Be Careful Out There

Another Bikey/Hikey/Bikey No Boaty Three Day Weekend

Holiday three-day weekends like Labor Day are generally the perfect time to not travel, and (weather permitting) do lots of outdoor stuff at home while everyone else fights the traffic.

Started out the weekend with a 40 mile bike ride from home. While cycling past the Blue Mash trail parking lot, someone was standing there playing the bagpipes - not something you see/hear everything, not that I ever rued a day that lacked hearing bagpipes. (Are bagpipes, like pants, inherently plural??)

On Sunday, Carl and I did a 4.5 mile hike checking out the Gateway trail that starts at the eastern boundary of Catoctin Park on what is called the Lewis Property. This meant a few hundred feet more climbing to get up to Chimney Rock and Wolf Rock. 

The parking area was near a 40 foot tree that was dropping fruit on our heads. I bit into one, it looked and tasted like a pear but I've never seen a pear tree that tall. Actually, I'm not sure I've ever seen a real pear tree - I don't think Bradford Pears count.

The Gateway trail goes through a variety of woodscapes. With all the rain there was a lot of shade and many colorful mushrooms and assorted fungi.

Speaking of fungi, despite years of protests, the state of Maryland is going ahead with the stoopid Purple Line light rail project from Bethesda. The good news is this will eventually mean some trail improvements along the Capital Crescent/Georgetown Branch trails. The double bad news is (1) the stretch of the two trails from Wisconsin Avenue to Silver Spring will be shut down for 4-5 years due to construction; and (2) the tunnel under Wisconsin Avenue and the Air Rights complex will never come back for biking. Labor Monday would be the last chance to bike this section for a long time so Carole and I (and many other people, it turned out) decided to ride the GBT/CCT.

The coolest part of this section is biking on the old railroad bridge over Rock Creek. I'm not sure how this will work after the stoopid Purple Line is built.

We did a twenty two mile round trip, stopping at Georgetown Harbor to watch planes descending to land at National Airport and the snack boat ply the Potomac River trying to sell refreshments to the many anchored large boats and the paddling kayakers. The trails on the way back were jammed with both holiday weekend bikers/walkers/strollers but also many others saying goodbye to the GBT for the foreseeable future.

 

A Plethora of Baby Boomers Partial and Piecemeal Pedal of the Great Allegheny Passage Trail

Camp John 2017 was much fun. I used the Crazy Old Guy on a Bike website to chronicle our adventures. 

You can read the journal here.

Pretty Hilly, Pretty Hot, Prettyboy Reservoir 37 mile Bike Ride

 

Back in 1979 when I first moved to Maryland I bought a Schwinn LeTour 12 speed "road bike" and started riding around Maryland. I saw a 37 mile ride in the "Greater Washington Area Bicycle Atlas" (now out of print since 1998, I think) called the "Prettyboy Reservoir Challenge" about 20 miles north of Baltimore. The description said "If you are in search of hills, this ride is for you."

At the time I worked at Ft. Meade, and one summer day I threw the bike on the car, and went in to work early so I could leave at 3:30pm to drive up and do this ride. The first 10 miles kicked my ass - by the time I got to mile 15, I was walking up hills and it was starting to get dark. I turned around and slunk back to my car.

About 20 years later,  in 1999 or so, I decided to try again - this time on my Trek 520 touring bike that had 21 gears to choose from - including a very low granny gear that made the ride doable. Many beautiful views, but a tough ride.

I decided to try this one again, now another 18 years or so later, on my new Trek bike. No more granny gear, but it is 10 lbs lighter than the 520, and I'm actually in better cycling shape than I was back then. This is not a very long ride, but the hills are all steep - lots of 10-12% sneaky stinger grades. I've been doing longer rides lately, but not real hilly ones - a good test for the new bike.

I started early to try to beat the heat, as July was starting to be July-like - temps were to go into the mid 90s. One annoying feature of this ride is that the toughest part is the first 10 miles - which is also the last 10 miles. That means that after getting through that section at the start, all I could think of was "Oh, crap - 17 miles from now, when it is even hotter, I have to do this section again." About 2000 feet of the 2900 feet of total climbing were in that section.

At the northern end of that section, a very ornate church was for sale. You don't see many churches with both fancy stained glass windows and satellite dishes. From there the route circumnavigated the reservoir.

There aren't that many views of the water from the road, other than from one bridge and from the dam, but Prettyboy does live up to its name. Well, to the "pretty" part anyway, as "Prettyboy" to me brings to mind some old lady's parrot. There are never many boats on the reservoir. It is expensive to get a kayak/canoe/rowboat license for the waters and you have to swear to only use that boat in this reservoir. Since Prettyboy is an active part of Baltimore's water supply, they are very aggressively trying to keep out invasive species like zebra mussels, yet another gift from Russia.

The new bike passed the test - all the hills were doable with its gearing and my knees did not feel worse for the wear. I averaged a little under 14 mph overall, with one rest stop at about mile 21. The disc brakes proved their worth, as twice on downhills deer came leaping out. There were more deer on most roads than cars - this ride is on very low traffic roads, even though there have been a lot more houses built since my last ride. The upside of all that new development is the roads are in much better shape -  a lot of new fun-to-ride asphalt compared to conditions 20 years ago.

 

Carole and John Head West: Bison Backups, Ursine Uncertainty, Cycling Skyward, Lakeside Lunching

After doing a frou-frou Alaska cruise last year, Carole and John decided to rough it for this year’s vacation. We flew into Jackson, Wyoming and tried to rent a hand-pumped rail cart to propel ourselves up to Yellowstone National Park, but there were none available. So, we rented a car and drove the 100 miles north and looked for a camping site at Yellowstone. 

But, those were full, too – so we settled for staying at the 125 year old Yellowstone Lake Hotel.

It had a decent view of Lake Yellowstone and the snow-capped mountains of the Absaroka Range– these were pretty much the only clouds we saw all week.

Bison are to Yellowstone as politicians are to Washington DC – you see them everywhere but they never seem to accomplish much.

Our first full day in Yellowstone we drove around the 70 mile loop of park roads starting with breakfast at the  Old Faithful Snow Lodge and then on to various geyser and hot springs areas north of that. This is really a unique area and by 1141 am we had reached one of the most unusual geysers at Yellowstone, the Digital Clock Geyser.

Continuing north, more geysers – like Easter Eggs, all different colors but they all smelled like eggs.

 This is the White Dome geyser on Firehole Lake Drive. For some reason, little Scottie doggies are not allowed on the boardwalk near this one.

Here's a geyser doing what a geyser's gotta do - geysing, I believe it is called.  This was one of many in the Midway Geyser basin.

We had intended to do a 7 mile hike to Fairy Falls, but the area was closed for renovation, so we continued north. We encountered an immense traffic jam, as a herd of bison decided to slooowly clomp up the road south from Mammoth Hot Springs, luckily going in the opposite direction from us. We continued north, viewed Gibbon Falls and the Mammoth Hot Springs and many other scenic wonders too numerous to mention. That night, we had a very nice meal at the Old Faithful Inn restaurant.

Huge fireplace with clock in the 114 year old Old Faithful Inn.

The next day was a hiking day – we did 4 different hikes adding up to a little over 11 miles. Carole was very happy that I rented bear spray (the UDAP canister above), even though the only bears we saw all week were small plastic ones filled with honey at the restaurants. If a bear charged you, the theory was you wait until the bear is 20 yards away and then start spraying a cloud of noxious vapor towards it. I told Carole that since I was carrying the spray, and since Carole is much faster than I am, I would probably just spray Carole and then run like hell.

Two of the hikes were on the North and South Rims of the Yellowstone Canyon, with great views of the Upper and Lower Falls. More construction here shut down some loop possibilities, so we had to do separate shorter hikes. The picture above is the iconic shot of the 308 foot Lower Falls as seen from rim level at Inspiration Point on the South Rim.

This is the Lower Falls as viewed 500 feet down into the canyon, from the end of Uncle Tom's Trail - which is mostly 328 steps that take you down. The escalator back up was closed for renovations.

The Upper and Lower Falls get all the attention, but during a hike on the North Rim we had a great view of Crystal Falls, kind of the poor cousin the Yellowstone Canyon waterfall clan.

Another hike was at Dunraven Pass, hiking three miles (gaining 1,500 feet in elevation) up to the Mount Washburn lookout. There was a lot of snow on the trail and at the two mile mark we hit a set of switchbacks that was iced over and decided to head back down, as did many others.

 Beautiful views from as high as we got - the picture above shows Yellowstone Canyon in front of the Absaroka Range.

That night we had dinner at the Lake Yellowstone Hotel and packed up for the next leg of our trip – Glacier National Park. That entailed about a 400 mile, very scenic drive north to West Glacier where we decided to really rough it and just sleep in the woods – but bear warnings were everywhere so we stayed at the Great Bear Inn – and roughed it from our patio.

The next day we hiked the Avalanche Lake trail, about 6 miles. I did not show Carole this news item beforehand, mainly because I had decided not to take the time to rent bear spray.

The trail was beautiful with many views of waterfalls in the creek.

At the end huge waterfalls feeding glacial silt into Avalanche Lake turning it a beautiful shade of green.

We then headed back and did a 3 mile loop along Macdonald Creek and over to John’s Lake – where we passed a sign warning about grizzly bear sightings and dangers. Carole alertly noticed every single other hiker had bear spray, and turned to me and calmly said something like “?@@#%&&!!!?##!!%%!!!??”

That night we had a great meal at the Three Forks Grill in Columbia Falls (and ice cream at Sweetpeaks in Whitefish) and rested up for the next adventure – biking up to Logan’s Pass on Glacier’s famous 50-mile-long Going to the Sun Road.

Glacier had well above average snow fall this past winter, and the week they arrived they were still plowing the higher elevations which meant Going to the Sun Road was closed to car traffic for the 21 mile section from Avalanche Creek (mile 16) to something something (mile 37) – but the closed section was open to car-free biking!

We rented bicycles and took a shuttle up to the start at Avalanche Creek. The first 5 miles was a gentle uphill, gaining a a few hundred feet in elevation to what is called “The Loop.” From there it was a steady 6% grade up, with stunning views of waterfalls on the left and amazing views of the valley and other peaks to the right. Carole made it up another 5 miles and the decided she would turn around and enjoy the all downhill glide back to the start. This shot is from about 5,000 feet elevation.

John slogged it out for the final five miles up to Logan’s Pass, after detouring around a few mountain goats in the middle of the narrow road. Turning around there it was a 15 mile downhill swoop on a cloudless, 80 degree day – fantastic.

Here's a route map of the ride from Avalanche Creek where we started at mile 0, up to Logan Pass at mile 17.

Not a very exciting elevation profile, but here it is. From mile 7 to mile 17 pretty much a constant 6% slope. That was pretty much the maximum grade cars could handle back in 1933 when the road was built. Going to the Sun Road was an amazing engineering feat back then - interesting write-up here.

That night we had yet another great meal, this time at Loula’s Café in Whitefish, and headed back to the Great Bear Inn to pack up for the next days 200 mile drive to Couer d’Alene, Idaho. There we did a 4 mile walk around the lake area and out to Strada Coffee and back and had a nice lunch at the Couer d’Alene Resort restaurant overlooking the floating boardwalk and unique bridge.

From there, we had a night at a Spokane airport hotel (the KOA campground was full) and two United flights (we were going to bicycle back home but just ran out of time) and an Uber ride brought us back to Upper Ashton Heights Mews and a lawn just crying out for a herd of bison to nibble it back down to suburban standards of lawn grooming.

 

 

Westminster Wheeling, Woodstock Walking

The weather was beautiful this weekend in the Maryland/DC area and I managed to maximize outdoor time. Saturday I did a 43 mile biking loop, starting in Westminster and passing through a number of classic small towns: Union Bridge, Uniontown, Keysville, Detour and Taneytown.  I tried a different route for the final 6 miles returning from Uniontown, which took me onto unpaved roads through Jasontown for a bit of gravel riding.

Afterwards, I stopped in Westminster at my favorite coffee roaster, Furnace Hills Coffee Company, and picked up a pound of their freshly roasted Soldier's Blend beans.

On Sunday, Jim decided to join Carl and I in hiking so we took him on an old favorite, a 6 mile long loop on the trail system around Woodstock, MD. We headed up to the quarry (above) and then west towards Marriottsville, getting passed by many mountain bikers enjoying the fine weather.

That section of trail goes by an abandoned car (a '57 Chevy? Are there any old cars that aren't '57 Chevies??) that someone had decided to decorate for Halloween.

Pretty elaborate and very clever - much more creative than the typical level of vandalism seen previously.

 

Boating, Building Bookcases, Biking, Blooming

Perfect weather all weekend long and it got started on a high note - taking the boat out on the Bay and up to Annapolis with Carole and Andie. I took advantage of having such hot "hood ornaments" and we cruised down Ego Alley, as the Annapolis dock area is called. In the 6 mph, no wake zone an older guy skippering a 45 motor yacht way too fast smashed into the dock with a sickening, though well deserved, cracking sound. Lunch at Coconut Joe's followed.

Lauren had ordered a bookcase online and mistakenly had it delivered to our house. I took it down to her new place in Arlington and assembled it for her, then I jumped on the Washington and Old Dominion Rail Trail for a 43 mile ride from Dunn Loring to Ashburn and back. Lots happening in the area - the Herndon Festival, two breweries on the trail jam packed, and a swing band playing in a park next to the trail in Vienna.

On Sunday morning Carl and I redid the 5.8 mile Salamander Rock hike in the Frederick Watershed, to see if the "tunnel of mountain laurel" was in bloom. Even at altitude, this is kind of late in the year for peak mountain laurel time - but with the wacky weather we were actually probably a week too early. Saw many mountain bikers and two hound dogs wearing radio collars out on their own - I think someone was tracking them.

Even though I told him mountain laurels have no fragrance, Carl decided to stop and smell the roses rhododendrons.

 

 

 

Memorial Day Meanderings, Much Moisture

Started off the Memorial Day weekend with a 53 mile cycliing loop, from Davidsonville down to Deale and then back up on a different route than I've done before. Many nice, small country roads around Lothian before connecting back to the usual roads back into the Davidsonville Park & Ride. We've been having rain every day for weeks, so I got out early to try to take advantage of what looked like a gap in rain clouds on the radar.

It stayed cloudy and cool, but dry, as I biked into Galesville, where a church group was cleaning up the cemetery and a women's art group had set up easels on the town dock to paint the shades of grey as the clouds reflected off of the West River. From there it was small country roads down to Deale (above) where they could have painted similar scenes on Rockhold Creek where it meets the Chesapeake Bay. I saw other groups cleaning up other cemeteries - a great Memorial Day tradition.

One of the roads to Deale is on the route to the town dump and I had to dodge many pieces of brush that dropped off of the trailers the many homeowner SUVs were pulling to the dump, but no close calls - very courteous drivers, outside of not strapping down their loads!

At about the 40 mile mark I was pushing up a small hill and a large group of  multi-hued cyclists was coming downhill in the opposite direction and I figured it had to be a Potomac Pedalers ride - sure enough I heard Kelly yell out "Hey, John" - apparently they were doing a ride from Southern High School to Chesapeake Beach that started later.

I got back to the start just as rain started - perfect timing for a nice 53 miler.

On Sunday, Carl and I stopped in at the Maryland FM Hamfest and then did an old favorite hike nearby, 4.2 miles around the McKeldin area of Patapsco Valley State Park. Loads of people there - I guess we haven't often hiked holiday weekends there.

Lots of horsies out, too - many with people on their backs. Thankfully, none of the horses left piles of political statements on the paths.

All of the recent rain made the trails quite muddy but also made the small falls much more impressive.

The time of year, combined with all the rain, also made for a bumper crop of blooming mountain laurel, though the McKeldin area doesn't have that many of them.

When I got home, apparently Carole had gotten mad at the washing machine, because it has been refusing to actually fill up the drum for the rinse cycle. She denies this, but allegedly she retaliated by beating on it with her Manolo Blahniks and washer emptied all the water onto the laundry room floor. I should have done a longer hike, as I arrived just in time to take over the grunt work while Carole tottered away to an exercise class.

All in all, a nice weekend with a bonus day off coming to be thankful for the efforts of those who have enabled me to enjoy all this, other than the mopping part.

 

 

Boating, Buccaneering, Birfurcated Bikin, Bivalves and a Bit of a Hike

Spring has sprung in the DMV and it was a great weekend to spend outdoors. First, Carole and I took the boat out for a spin, up the Chesapeake Bay to the Severn River and inland to Round Bay. After taking a lap around St. Helena Island, we headed back out the Severn and decided to go into Annapolis for a spin up and down what is called Ego Alley. However, there was yet another sailboat show in town and EA was closed to puny little motorboats.

Later that night we returned to the South River, along with the Darmodys and the Makowskis, to a fund raiser for the Historic Londontown Museum and Gardens. Much fine food and drink as part of a Pirate-themed event - someone else had my idea of going as Roberto Clemente...

Saturday was supposed to start out cloudy and cool and then go into the 90s in the afternoon, so I left early to drive up to Westminster MD to do a 43 mile bike ride. However, 5 miles in it started pouring, so I stopped and took a quick look at the weather radar on my phone - my entire route was under yellow and red blobs of rain storms. I turned around and got back to the car, staying ahead of the worst of the rain, and drove into downtown Westminster to wait it out at my favorite coffee roaster, Furnace Hills Coffee.

However, the rain didn't seem like it was going to let up, so I started driving towards clearer skies but everywhere I went it was raining. I went home, had some lunch and decided to explore the newly signed MD Bicycle RT 32.

I kinda felt like Washington National's pitcher Stephen Strasburg must feel when, after pitching two innings there is a 3 hour long rain delay. By the time I got going, the heat had hit and it was in the high 80s, and 91 by the time I finished - it was kind of a slog. The ride itself might be a useful route for commuters who work at NSA and live in Clarksville but (a) it is not very scenic; and (2) it dead ends at a guarded entrance to NSA, so no use in serving as a connector to places further east. Plus, there had just been an escapee from one of the nearby Jessup prisons and there were police cars patrolling every street.

My original plan would have been a 43 mile ride with about 2200 feet of climbing, the two pieces added up to 43 miles with about 2500 feet of climbing.

 

Saturday night Carole cooked a find meal at home Saturday night Carole and I drove up to Fells Point for oysters, crab soup and Old Bay spiced shrimp salad rolls and a stroll around Fells Point.

On Sunday, after coffee at the Frederick Coffee Company, Carl and I did a 4.7 mile hike that used to be called The Volkswagen Loop, for the old abandoned VW Beetle about 2 miles in, but now it will have to be called the Volkswagen Chassis Loop - most of the car has disappeared or been taken away by scrap metal recyclers. Lots of mountain bikers out, very nice weather for a hike to end the weekend.

Twelve Word Tuesday: Cyberthreat Sharing Showers Need to Lead to ISAC Flowers - and Increased Safety

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ISAC MaturityLevel-1: Website

Level-2: Cyberthreat sharing

Level-3: Vulnerability Reduction

Level-4: Safety Increase

 

HHS Funds and Works with NH-ISAC to Create Health Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center

These Aren't Your Grandfather's Bicycles Anymore

The last bicycle I bought was in 1997, a Trek 520 touring bike. It seemed pretty high tech at the time - came with 21 speeds, STI shifters (shift control built into the brake levers) and included both a rack and pedals with foot cages. I put many thousands of miles on that bike over 20 years, including several multi-day touring efforts alone or with Carole or with friends, attaching both front and rear panniers. 

But, I haven't done an overnight touring kind of ride in over 10 years - my riding these days is mainly long single day rides or pretty quick workout/exercise style rides. I decided it was time for a new bike. The choices today are enormous and the price ranges are eye-popping. I decided to stick with the standard pattern of each new bike costing 3x the previous one, and lasting for 20 years.

So, I went with a Trek Domane SL6 Disc and I've been having a blast riding a much lighter bike with a carbon frame, disc brakes and high end gearing and drive train components. The bike shop I bought it from (Race Pace in Columbia MD) offered a discount on Retul bike fitting, which is a computerized way of analyzing your position on the bicycle and finding the optimum setting for seat position,  shoe/cleat placement and other positioning settings, as well as analyzing a bunch of other factors about your pedaling motion and efficiency.

Since the geometry of the Domane was fairly different from the 520, after putting about 200 miles on the new bike I decided to do it. I drove over on a dark and stormy night, with the new bike and the cycling shoes and shorts I typically use. Before getting on the bike on the Retul system, there was over an hour of questions about the type of riding I do, physical measurements and various tests of my natural foot angles, posture, etc. done by the fitting expert, who is actually a sports physical therapist with fitting training - and the same age as me, a good thing.

That immediately resulted in my cleat placement changing pretty radically, essentially moving the cleats back as far as possible on the shoes, which moved my feet further towards the front of the bike. He also made a lot of recommendations for me to try to increase my flexibility, especially hamstrings and hip flexors - but he was pretty realistic about how much of my stiff-like-an-oak-tree body could really change. 

Then it was finally time to get wired up and get on the bike on the trainer, in between two Retul cameras that analyzed everything.

That showed that I had pretty good stability and balance in my pedal stroke but suggested that I had the seat set a good deal too low - close to an inch. We raised the seat and repeated the test and various numbers showed improvement in various confusing parameters. He then printed out a data package including pictures with circles and arrows on the back of each one. He also recommended I try out the new positioning on some short rides, as the cleat placement and seat height adjustments were significant changes from what I'd been using for the past 20 years!

Of course, I ignored that advice - two days later I did a 52 mile ride in Talbot Special Riders charity ride. That ride is table-top flat bu there were 20 mph head winds and I was on the bike for about 3 hours. It may have been psychological, but the changes really seemed to make a difference - I could have kept riding, no tuches (butt) or leg pain or soreness at all, where on most 50+ mile rides in the past I would feel it.

I was worried about up-sell as part of the process - I'd heard stories of recommendations for new pedals, cranks, seats, stems, etc. coming out of fitting sessions. The only area where there was some of that was around recommended "foot beds" - essentially replacing the standard sole inserts in my bike shoes with custom molded ones. Other cyclists I know had actually recommended doing this anyway, so I paid extra for some custom inserts. I don't know how much of a difference they make - could easily just be like Dumbo's magic feather.

Total time was 2.5 hours, several other devices/machines were used beyond the Retul set up. All in all,  I think it was worth the cost, especially if you amortize it across 20 years. All of the technology may have been of marginal value, since the guy who did the fitting was very experienced - but it had definitely entertainment value to me!