I had to create a static page for the blog so that I could customize it to look like the other pages on this site. That’s why it’s called Blog V2.
- Tenative Hiking Schedule for 2025A lot can and will change in the next year. But these are the tenative dates that I will be hiking, car camping, RV’ing, WV VIPP’ing and more. Again, these are subject to change: Rivanna Trail between River & Coleman RDS and Barracks RD, Charlottesville, VA, 6.5 miles, linear- This is the last section of… Read More »Tenative Hiking Schedule for 2025
- Recon: Further exploration on the western end of the future Broad Run Trail near Bristow, VAThis recon half mile up, half mile back linear hike occured on Tuesday, December 17, 2024. It was just me on this one. Since today will probably be one of the last sixty degree days this year I decided to go and recon some more of the future Broad Run Trail. I wanted to see… Read More »Recon: Further exploration on the western end of the future Broad Run Trail near Bristow, VA
- Recon, Western Terminus, Broad Run Trail, Prince William County, VAThis .5 mile up, .5 mile back recon occured on Tuesday, December 12, 2024 and was at and along the current western terminus of the Broad Run Trail in Prince William County, VA. It was only me on this one. I wanted to check out the new Rollins Ford Park as well as explore the… Read More »Recon, Western Terminus, Broad Run Trail, Prince William County, VA
- mikecalabrese.com Going Ad Free on 01/01/2025I had to think long and hard about this decision. I’ve had a personal web site of some sort on and off for about 25 years now. And I have had ads on those sites for a good deal of that time. My reason for doing so was to make enough money to offset the… Read More »mikecalabrese.com Going Ad Free on 01/01/2025
- In Memoriam, Tom O’BrienWe lost another fellow hiker and good friend today. Tom O’Brien and I hiked many miles with the Prince of Peace UMC Hiking Group between 2018 and 2022. Tom showed up for nearly every hike unless he and Jane were going on vacation or he was visiting his kids. In fact, the last hike that… Read More »In Memoriam, Tom O’Brien
- Recon of Discovery Trail, Prince William County, VAThis 2 mile up, 2 mile back linear hike took place on Saturday, October 26, 2024. It was just me on this one. Since I lost some weight on my last hike I wanted to get out and lose some more today. So I decided to hike a new trail called The Discovery Trail in… Read More »Recon of Discovery Trail, Prince William County, VA
- Recon: Popular Ford Park & Surrounding Areas, Centreville, VAThis recon occurred on Friday, August 30, 2024. It was just me on this trip. The purpose of a recon is to see if a given area and/or trail is acceptable to to hike. I’ve done a lot of recons of trails in the past. Did this one pass? Read on and see. I did… Read More »Recon: Popular Ford Park & Surrounding Areas, Centreville, VA
- Recon, Culpeper Battlefields State Park, VAThis recon occurred on Wednesday, August 14, 2024. It was just me on this trip. As of today, Culpeper Battlefields State Park is the newest state park within the Commonwealth of Virginia. According to the Virginia State Parks Website this park was dedicated on June 8, 2024. It will eventually be over 3,000 acres and… Read More »Recon, Culpeper Battlefields State Park, VA
- My Windows 11 laptop just bit the dustLast Tuesday I went RV camping in Prince William Forest Park near Dumfries, VA, I took my laptop with me and used it on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. It had been running slow the last few days but was working OK. I used my phone’s hot spot feature as the RV campground Wi-Fi didn’t… Read More »My Windows 11 laptop just bit the dust
- WordPress Plugins: the good, the bad and the uglyOne of the reasons why I chose to go with a WordPress website a year ago was that they offered what are called plugins. Plugins are small programs that become integrated within the WordPress application and allow the owner/developer to extend the number of features and enhancements that a given website may have. These plugins… Read More »WordPress Plugins: the good, the bad and the ugly
- The 2nd iteration of mikecalabrese.com is is turning 1 year oldHappy 4th of July! Sometime in the spring of 2023 I decided to make the switch and start from scratch. I was having issues with my prior website mikecalabrese.xyz and either could not get through to my previous web hosting provider to get them fixed or was told that they didn’t know the solution and… Read More »The 2nd iteration of mikecalabrese.com is is turning 1 year old
- 06/11-12/2024 Greenbrier River Trail, WV Backpack Trip CanceledSince I am not feeling 100% yet, I am cancelling the Greenbrier River Trail Backpacking Trip scheduled for June 11-12, 2024. I’m getting my endurance back but I still am having a tough time doing things that I used to easily do. So I want to hike this stretch some day. As a backpack or… Read More »06/11-12/2024 Greenbrier River Trail, WV Backpack Trip Canceled
- 3 Month Review of my 2019 Subaru OutbackI’ve had my 2019 Subaru Outback for about 3 months now. Overall, I’m happy with the purchase of this vehicle. In the forthcoming paragraphs I will list the pros and cons of this vehicle and give it a star rating. First the pros: This vehicle has been a pleasure to drive. It has handled well,… Read More »3 Month Review of my 2019 Subaru Outback
- One Month Until Greenbrier River Hike 06/11-12/2024I plan to do 3 more backpacking trips over the next 3 years and then hang up my backpack: Greenbrier River Trail, WV in 2024, Allegheny Trail, WV from Douglas to Canaan Valley Resort in 2025 and Allegheny Trail and Allegheny Trail/Greenbrier River Trail somewhere between Siefert and Cass, WV in 2026. 06/11-12/2024- It’s about… Read More »One Month Until Greenbrier River Hike 06/11-12/2024
- It took me about 8 months……but I finally figured out how to use a plugin that I have called Random Content to generate 728 x 90 banner ads as well as text ads separately but from the same plugin. It involves creating groups and placing the code for each type of ad into a separate group. This is still a… Read More »It took me about 8 months…
- A Lot of VehiclesAfter I got my latest vehicle I sat down and made a list of all of the vehicles that I have ever either owned or co-owned. These are vehicles that I actually made payments on: Man, that is a lot of vehicles. Hopefully, the vehicle at the bottom of the list will be my last.… Read More »A Lot of Vehicles
- I didn’t want to do this…… but I had no choice. Either spend somewhere between $2,500 and $7,500 to get my entire exhaust system, including two catalytic converters, replaced or get another vehicle. My current vehicle was only worth about $2K on KBB. So I looked into getting something that was newer than what I had and had less than… Read More »I didn’t want to do this…
- Im Memoriam: Ed C. Sessoms Jr. (aka Robocop, Ranger)On 02/28/1999 I met Ed in the restaurant at Amicalola Lodge in Dawsonville, GA. I had asked the waitress if there were any other hikers there that were starting their hike on the AT. She pointed at Ed. So I went over and introduced myself to him and asked if he wanted to drive to… Read More »Im Memoriam: Ed C. Sessoms Jr. (aka Robocop, Ranger)
- Electronics and MeI worked in the electronics business for about twenty years. During that time I was in sales and/or management in places like Radio Shack, Circuit City and a small independent named Sound City. I also had my own business as an independent sales rep and sold everything from telephone answering machines to video monitoring systems… Read More »Electronics and Me
- Upcoming Hike Update for February, 2024I have been slacking off lately as far as getting outdoors goes. With the cold weather and the fact that I just turned 70, my motivation just hasn’t been there lately. So I wanted to post some places that I want to hike or backpack this year. If anyone wants to joint me, you can… Read More »Upcoming Hike Update for February, 2024
- The Big Seven OhToday is my birthday. The big Seven Oh or 70. I am both sad and glad for this milestone. Glad that I made it to 70. Happy that I am healthy enough to do a lot of outdoor stuff. And thankful overall. However, I think about those that I have known that have passed and… Read More »The Big Seven Oh
- mikecalabrese.xyz has successfully transitioned to mikecalabrese.comThis process started about a year ago. I was having two issues on mikecalabrese.xyz: My SSL cert was not configured properly and my outgoing emails were bouncing. I tried contacting my hosting service at that time but they were in the process of rolling out two factor authentication and were slammed support call wise. I… Read More »mikecalabrese.xyz has successfully transitioned to mikecalabrese.com
- Upcoming Backpacking trips in 2024, 2025 and maybe 2026In 2023 I was able to car camp once. And I enjoyed it. But I never got a chance to backpack anywhere. So I will use this page to plan 3 backpacking trips. They will all be in West Virginia and and will take place during the summer months. These three may be the last… Read More »Upcoming Backpacking trips in 2024, 2025 and maybe 2026
- Going to CaliforniaI’ll be spending some time in California over the holidays. I’m looking forward to seeing Julie’s parents again as well as exploring that state. What I don’t look forward to is the flight out there and back. In my opinion, flying is no fun anymore. The cost, the crowds, the waits, the security, the evershrinking… Read More »Going to California
- Website Transition Report 10/30/2023I think that I am about 85-90% finished with the new site. I will always be uploading images, ad banners, trip logs and archive stuff. But the jist of it is now done. I still haven’t been able to successfully upload an xml file to the site. I’ve tried a half dozen plugins but none… Read More »Website Transition Report 10/30/2023
- AIThe above image was AI generated. I received it in an email from an organization called Finance Dream Chaser. I didn’t bother to read the content of the email. The image struck me as forboding. AI will allow both good things and bad things to happen. Depending on your political point of view, the above… Read More »AI
- Website Transition Report 10/01/2023I’ve been a busy boy lately. At this point in time mikecalabrese.com is about 75% complete. The major things left to do are: moving three more trail distance calculators from mikecalabrese.xyz, creating between twenty-five and thirty product placements within the store and getting two or three of the features completed. So I hope to have… Read More »Website Transition Report 10/01/2023
- Upcoming Hikes Fall 2023 and early 2024The following are a list of hikes in the Mid-Atlantic states that I would like to do within the next year. If you would like to join me for any of them, please use the Contact Form: Seneca Creek Greenway Trail between MD28 and the Potomac River near Darnestown, MD. 7 miles, easy to moderate,… Read More »Upcoming Hikes Fall 2023 and early 2024
- No one is above the lawWhen I first got this website I made a promise that I would not attack anyone personally but I would challenge ideas. It is very difficult not to break my promise here. So I will let the following two stickers from moveon.org do the talking for me: < Previous Blog Post | << Blog V2… Read More »No one is above the law
- In Memoriam: Douglas Alan KnowlesI just got word today that one of my fellow Rag Tag Rangers, Doug Knowles, passed away. He died sometime in 2019. Doug hiked many miles with us in the 1990’s and early 2000’s. He was from one of the suburbs of Baltimore, MD. It may have been Reisterstown, I’m not sure. Doug had two… Read More »In Memoriam: Douglas Alan Knowles
- Website Transition Report 08-28-2023It looks like the transition from the mikecalabrese.xyz LAMP site to the mikecalabrese.com WordPress site is about 33% complete. The major work that needs to be done includes adding about one hundred products to the store, adding about one hundred 728 x 90 ad banners to the store, adding somewhere around 200 advertisers’ privacy and… Read More »Website Transition Report 08-28-2023
- Hello world!OK, the blog area appears to be up and running. I intend to use this area to comment on various things. I promise to be a good boy and not use obcenities or attack anyone personally. But I reserve the right to challenge one’s ideas or philosophies. I welcome comments and will set them for… Read More »Hello world!