Rockingham Recreational and other local rail trails

Spent some time on the Rockingham Recreational Trail recently. Its a multi use trail with several access points near my home in Hampstead. Its unpaved, pretty level and varies between loose gravel, hard pack, and a short stretch of sand. I was able to walk it in sneakers, ride it on my BMW R1200 GS, and I borrowed my friend Rileys WR426 which has proper knobby tires.

Here is a link to the trail

https://www.nhstateparks.org/visit/recreational-rail-trails/rockingham-recreational-rail-trail,-fremont-branch

It is mostly wooded with some wetlands, and it comes out in Fremont near a pizza place. Crossing 121A in Sandown there is a great little coffee shop, as well as a small market that off roaders gather at.

This is the first multi-use trail Ive ever had the opportunity to spend a lot of time on and the folks on the ATVs and bikes seem pretty respectful, and it is a good trail to walk as well as bike on. I took my Trek mountain bike end to end and it was a pretty good work out , but mostly level as it is a former rail trail.

Last Saturday I checked out the Windham / Derry rail trail, starting in downtown Derry this trail is paved and crosses a lot of busy roads near the center, and for a while runs along the highway.
https://derryrailtrail.org/

This trail is not a multi use trail, and is paved. There were a lot of folks bicycling and I had a nice 2 hour afternoon walk thru mostly wooded sections.

One of my favorite local motorcycle rides is on back roads from my house on Kent Farm road up thru Sandown, Chester, and Auburn to Lake Massabesic. There is a pedestrian only rail trail that passes by the lake and it is a nice twisty bike ride to the lot, and then a nice hour walk thru the woods.

Getting to know the area having lived here a couple years has been rewarding. The roads are in good shape and there are many paths and rail trails to explore.

I've walked just about 60 miles in November on the trails. Haven't seen any big animals other than a few deer and lots of birds.

I'm tempted to buy  a snowmobile or a fat bike for the winter, but if I do it is a near guarantee it wont snow.

Breedlove Stage Dreadnought Guitar

A quick review of my Breedlove. I've had it now for about a year. I bought it on closeout at Manchester Music Mill, and they were really nice to me. the guitar plays very well. I've been using it at work on Wednesday nights for our Jam Sessions. We usually play for 2-4 hours, and it takes a beating. The other day the strap button came out and was hanging off the pickup wire, but it did not break! It was difficult to get my hand in there to refasten the nut holding the end pin in.

The end pin is made by L.R. Baggs. Its a product called the Strap Jack Plus. This is worth knowing, so that when it spins out, you can look at the picture and figure out what to do.

Here is a link to the manufacturers instructions.

https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5772af1029687f3cdf68994e/t/583df2c0bebafbc5c12f1435/1480454849331/lr-baggs-strapjack-plus-install-manual-user-guide.pdf

There is a soldered on wire passing through it. There is a threaded cap to shield the wire, a nut, and a lock washer. I could only get my arm in through the sound hold far enough to loosely spin it, but after several of my friends and co-workers tried it, we were able to find someone small enough to reach all the way in and re-tighten the nut.

Apparently there is a tool to do this, its a forty dollar 9/16ths nut driver with a groove machined out of it. I am going to try to make one, because I''m way to cheap to pay that for a 3 dollar tool.

https://www.stewmac.com/Luthier_Tools/Types_of_Tools/Wrenches/Endpin_Jack_Wrench.html?utm_source=google&utm_medium=shopping&utm_campaign=2019-10-gp&gclid=Cj0KCQjwuNbsBRC-ARIsAAzITueJ4w7EUj5W4e5l-W4X2vDnlrCUFlPaWIN-Mkxvwr5ztycaUrW7-nsaAqymEALw_wcB

The guitar has otherwise been fantastic. It sounds great, stays in tune, and it is easy to string with the bridge having no pins to come loose. I try to string it every month, but when I get lazy, the strings still stay in tune well.

I am an amateur rhythm guitar player, and I've used the guitar mostly unplugged. It sounds nice through and amplifier or PA system ,and the battery in the tuner lasts about 3 months of regular use.

It is the first all solid wood guitar I've owned and I got a good deal on it. Relative to a Taylor or a Martin it sounds fantastic. I did sit in the showroom and try a lot of $3000+ guitars. Im just not good enough to own an instrument that costs that much, but I play pretty OK for a Software Engineer. 

I would highly recommend this guitar to anyone. I put this review here so that folks learning about end-pin repair would find the links quicker than I did. 

Rock on.

DB Tip of the day - (mostly) Standard way to get table schema

Handy to know the Standard SQL way to get a table schema. Different databases have their own commands, but this is pretty but not completely universal. SQL Server, Postgres, MySQL support this. Sadly Oracle does not.

select column_name, data_type, character_maximum_length from INFORMATION_SCHEMA.COLUMNS where table_name = 'tableName';

Riding motorcycles in Southeast Asia

Asia Motorcycle Trip research

Links related to a planned trip to IndoChina and Thailand

Border Crossings Laos/Cambodia
https://www.indochinamotorbiketours.com/travel-hub-c/crossing-the-border-with-a-motorbike-between-laos-and-cambodia-a.html

Thailand Ducati
https://www.dartasia.tours/

MotoQuest
https://www.motoquest.com/motorcycle-tours/indochina-motorcycle-tour/

Hampstead Hiking Trails

Hiked 2 different locations in Hampstead this weekend. The Hamstead area off West Road was a nice short loop, and the Eastern section starting from Starwood drive was a nice  2 hour hike

Town Trail Map
http://www.hampsteadnh.us/Pages/HampsteadNH_BComm/Cons/Easterncomplete.pdf

Google Satellite view
https://goo.gl/maps/odVuGhP7u99FnYZb6

There were many old stone walls, small foot bridges, and lots of creeks and brooks. Terrain is rolling hills and it was a fairly easy and well marked trail to follow.

Mosquitos were thick in some places.

Late nights.. Insomnia... bad software humor...

Insomnia rest client, Postman Rest client,  SNMP device discovery, ONVIF Camera discovery, Swagger docs, late nights

Device Definition Files....

Not getting a lot of sleep.. ironically up late using a tool called Insomnia to debug a giant tangle of web client code.. 

 https://insomnia.rest/