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I believe that the graphic designers/writers for the PC game MYST received inspiration from this place. The seawall greenway has wonderful views. The interior is laced with trails shaded with Redwoods. Stanley Park has a distinct island feel with Coal Harbour, Burrard Inlet, and English Bay on the perimeter. This is a great close-in escape from downtown Vancouver, BC. |
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S’man visiting NYC happened upon the Ellis Island tour which led to an unexpected find. Memorialized there on a panel of the American Immigrant Wall of Honor was the name of his Great Great Grandfather. The discovery led to momentary excitement and debate here at home because previous searches of the Ellis Island/Port of New York records database had turned up null with zero matches. We know from Emigration Records that John Christopher Strombotne sailed from Trondheim, Norway arriving in Hull, UK in 1882 before making the crossing on a steam ship from Liverpool or Glasgow. Many Scandinavians arrived at Quebec or Halifax, where there were excellent rail connections from the Canadian ports to the US Mid-West where he settled. Odds were that he never visited NY. So, why is John Christopher’s name displayed on Ellis Island? It is the one place in the United States where an individual can honor his or her family heritage at a National Monument. Included at the exhibit are names representing all ethnicities, all years of arrival, all points of entry, and all modes of travel. S’man, on the scene, was able to solve this mystery. It was his Grandaunt, Gena responsible for the tribute. |
| With earlier iOS iterations, a manipulation of the sleep/wake and home buttons would abort iPhone recovery mode. There are plenty of helpful youTube video simplifications and mini tutorials on this subject, none of which apply to the newer (e.g. 3.1.3) devices. I spent hours sifting thru them and after attempting all combinations of holding down and sequentially releasing and reapplying buttons while counting for n seconds, I was still stuck in recovery loop with the Connect to iTunes screen. Here’s the fix:
Download iRecovery iHackintosh iRecovery Package for Windows & Mac, which is a compressed RAR file. Likely you will have to download a utility app to extract from it. To start iRecovery on a mac, simply open the command line application (Terminal), and then DRAG the iRecovery file from the location you’ve extracted it and DROP it inside the Terminal window A command line is automatically written. Now type the following:
Finally, reboot your iPhone by pressing and holding the sleep/power button and the home button until the iPhone display turns off (black). Release the buttons. This – saved the day – procedure courtesy of Rafay on this forum was found after exhaustive trial & error Google searching and worked perfectly. |
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From the downtown Center for the Performing Arts to the Guadalupe River Park. This paved greenway starts in concrete jungle with freeway flyways for canopy but gradually assumes a natural original country feel toward the park area. There was some crossing on bridges back and forth confusion as the trail route flip from one side to the other before arriving at a trail detour (scheduled completion Fall 2010) due to a railroad realignment. Le skunk (pepe le pew) unabashedly crossed the path, tail raised high in defiant warning salute. As the sun gets low the downtown portion populates with street people, possible predators and idle youths some of them rough and tough looking. Suggest mid day to be safe
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If you’ve never been on a granite dome before this one would be considered fairly good. But I’ve been on the mother of all Stone Mountains, in Georgia, so this one was anticlimactic. Nevertheless the Stone Mountain Loop Trail with a side excursion to Middle and Lower Falls was a nice afternoon hike. The path is level and well groomed. There is some strenuous rise to the mountain summit and from the Stone Mountain Falls (200 foot cascade), depending on which direction you set out. Attempting to scale the smooth face at the base of the main falls was met with difficulty. Fine sand on hiking boot tread made for poor traction. At the lower side of the park is an old homestead restoration — the 19th century Hutchinson House. It was interesting to me as it had many traditional similarities to the farm of my ancestors. It must have been a hard life but such a beautiful yard setting. |
Not much to see here although you can view the Grotto Bay Beach Resort from across Bailey’s Bay. The park is a short distance beyond the Bermuda Rail Trail head so it’s a nice little extender if you have the energy. The adventure is in the main trail previously reviewed.
The Norfolk Waterside is hamstrung by development built to waters edge. As such there isn’t room available for a dedicated point A to point B greenway. There is a disjointed Elizabeth River Trail however, which was worthwhile. Starting at Harbor Park Stadium the route passes waterfront businesses, small park areas with glimpses of Naval shipyards on Hampton Roads. The USS Wisconsin, on permenant display, is a point of interest. There are rewarding views in the Ghent District after crossing busy Brambleton Ave. One can view renovated historic homes of mariner and colonial architecture. This is a fashionable place to live.
The urban renewal planners in Des Moines have made their inner city greeenway a priority. The city has a certain healthful vitality and I witnessed many users on the system. My route began downtown at City Hall and followed the Des Moines River where the Raccoon River forks. The end point was a loop trail around Gray’s Lake Park. These rivers were swollen from recent heavy rains necessitating minor detours for flooded areas.
By now there are quite a few exercise logging apps with attendant websites out there. The Nike+ pedometer is a fair system with seamless data capture to web page display. Apple/Nike holds your information however, and there is not a way to download or backup your data independently. Runometer, a web source, has taken a crack at it but only to squirrel away your data as well. Nike+ can not record bicycle rides or produce route maps on the fly. Enter RunMonster a quality little application that is easy to use. It will automatically name your runs according to streets, and it’ll even group your runs and figure out whether you walked, biked, or ran, according to your speed. RunMonster creates a gpx file of your tracking event. Gpx is a format understood by most GPS devices using an import/export function. A gpx file can be displayed using HTML and Java Script on the web or with desktop software like Google Earth. I like to upload my gpx file archive to the cloud (e.g. Dropbox ). This practice, in addition to providing a backup resource, provides for a linkable file. Copy pasting this link into the search maps field on maps.google.com will also display your route trace, provide a shareable link, and provide an webpage embeddable link too. RunMonster data outputs to plain text (think spreadsheet). I like RunMonster. My data belongs to me.
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Nice to have a loop trail for continuous new scenery. The reward view from the observation tower (former fire lookout) on the summit ridge line follows a 600 step rise. The 4 mile Moore’s Wall Loop Trail begins behind the Bath House on the Hanging Rock State Park Lake. Tips:
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