No ROOPHLOCH, and my October Gothic Just a general status update. I didn’t manage to do ROOPHLOCH this year. Partly, I was busy, but a bigger part is maybe just that I didn’t have anything new to do. Post from my phone, post from a modern but obsolete computer tethered to my phone, post in a park, post in a nature reserve. It just feels like I’ve done the easy levels, but the next level up is unreachable for me.
Weather and things I am, as usual for me and ROOPHLOCH, sneaking things in at the end of the month. One reason has been that it has been too damn hot here! It doesn’t normally start cooling down for autumn here until October, but this year it has been especially bad. Temperatures in the mid 80s F, with heat indices in the 90s. We’ve finally started to have cool evenings and mornings as of last week, and now after the equinox, I had been hoping the days would start being tolerable.
Today’s the last day to submit entries to ROOPHLOCH, the outdoor, off-grid Gopher logging event. I’ve submitted one the last two years, but I’m going to skip it this year. My main reason is that I want to move my Gopher hole to mirror my Gemini capsule rather than my website, but I haven’t got around to making that conversion. If I were going to post ROOPHLOCH this year, I’d rather it be on Gopher and Gemini rather than Gopher and the WWW.
As is the tradition, I am writing this blog outdoors, for Solderpunk’s ROOPHLOCH 2020 challenge. I’m in a picnic shelter at Dreher Island State Park, where my family has been camping for the last two days. As an offline exercise, this is not especially successful, because there is WiFi in the campground. In fact, that’s why we’re camping.
With COVID-19 distancing measures in effect, I’m able to work remotely, and the kids are able to do school.
I’m writing this blog outdoors, in accordance with the rules of Solderpunk’s ROOPHLOCH challenge. I’m also offline… there’s no Wifi here, and I have tethering turned off for my phone; I’ll turn it on for a minute when I’m done writing in order to publish it.
I’m sitting in a park or greenway that may or may not be closed to the public. This sign blocking the stairs to the boardwalk suggests that it is, but the corresponding wheelchair ramp isn’t blocked.