Hiking, web development, best practices, and general awesomeness
Far from my usual haunts in the Huron Mountains, Wolf Mountain rises 1,826 feet and is the highest point in Gogebic County. Emily and I drove north along a forest road off of US-2, bumping up and down on the rough two-track past Little Presque River through thick, green woods. It was a short drive,…
PHP was the first programming language that I understood fluently. Sure, I had dabbled in BASIC, Java, ActionScript (3.0 is pretty awesome), and a few others, but PHP was the first language that I felt truly comfortable with. It wasn't until I moved onto JavaScript that I started to understand a…
As the Lake Superior shoreline stretches north from Big Bay two named features, Black Rock and Salmon Trout Point, make a bitter stand against the pounding waves. The shore here is mostly composed of straight, towering sandstone cliffs with the exception of these two basaltic outcroppings which…
Throughout my hiking adventures I've occasionally bumped into different animals. It's always exciting to meet a pack of wolves, grouse, deer, or even have a thrilling encounter with a mother bear and cub. There are a few other animals that I've been hoping to bump into that are a bit more rare in…
North of Palmer and the sprawling open pit Empire Mine M-35 winds its way around Goose Lake. I rarely drive past it on my way to my usual hiking spots in the Huron Mountains, with 553 providing a more direct route to Marquette through the Sands, but when I do I always crane my neck around to check…
A welcome sun warmed my body after several nights of cold camping. I stood on the shore of the Dead River between Silver Lake and the Dead River Basin on the southern end of Mulligan Plains, looking northeast at my next hike. Even though I was near a major route to these basins with open grassland…
Soft, cold rain drizzled down around me. I was attempting to cross Lower Silver River Falls, a waterfall near Skanee, MI that I've visited at least a dozen times (and even proposed to Katie at). The river was higher than normal and the rocks were wet-slick, making a crossing tricky and dangerous.…
Thanks to the prevalence of microblogging, and before that the infamous 80 column screen, friendly (or keyword-stuffed) URLs have run into character limit issues. Long URLs are great for both SEO and usability. They give both users and search bots an insight on the page's content before actually…
As the Panorama Hills head east to the lake, away from the lofty Yellow Dog Plains, they lose much of their commanding height. The tallest of the eastern peaks is just a bit above 1100, fairly low in comparison to the surrounding area. After visiting the taller central and western hills I was still…
A year had passed since I first found the Panorama Hills, located off of County Road 510 just north of the Yellow Dog Falls. My initial visit was a brief excursion, mostly exploratory in nature. I was more ambitious this time around with plans to hit up the far western peaks.
Parking once again…