Leaving Las Vegas

After living in Las Vegas for over a year, I have decided it is time to see something different, so I am moving to the Santa Fe RV Park in Apache Junction, AZ (east of Phoenix). I am looking forward to making new acquaintances and developing that "sense of community" that never materialized in Vegas. I have friends in the area with OHVs that, hopefully, will allow me to have a lot more off-road adventures.

In my opinion, Las Vegas is a great place to visit, particularly, if you like to gamble and watch world class entertainment. However, it is becoming increasing expensive to live here and the growing homeless population is leading to more crime and violence. The near constant sound of sirens, police helicopters and jet engines is something that I will not miss.

Merry Christmas

At the risk of not being "politically correct", I would like to wish everyone a very...

Impeachment

In my opinion, any rational individual who is not suffering from "Trump Derangement Syndrome" would see the highly partisan/political impeachment of the president as a complete and utter sham. The question I would like to ask those individuals who support impeachment is: "if President Trump is as bad as you believe, then why is the country doing so well".

We are currently experiencing one of the best economies in my lifetime and it will only get better once the recent trade deals are implemented. Why would anyone want to risk losing it by going back to bigger government, higher taxes and more regulations? The only answer that makes sense to me is to regain political power at the expense of the American public.

Brave Browser

I recently switched from the Chrome browser to the Brave browser for accessing the Internet. The initial reason for the switch was the ability to earn cryptocurrency (BAT coin) while browsing the web as I normally would with Chrome and viewing just the ads I choose to read (you can turn these ads off if you like). However, it turns out I am only making a few cents a day, so it is not worth it for just that purpose.

What has kept me using Brave is its speed and privacy. It is much faster than other browsers I have used in that it blocks all those annoying ads, pop-ups and autoplay videos I had been receiving. Perhaps more importantly, it blocks trackers that allow access to your web activity and data which is then sold to the highest bidder. Here's a snapshot showing that it has blocked 8,575 ads/trackers while saving me 8 minutes and earning 22 cents in BAT coin to date.

I did find that there are times when you do not want it to block certain parts of a web page. I use a script on this blog to show the the location of "Visitors" which Brave was blocking. Thankfully, you can turn off the "shield" for any site you choose and view it without any blocking at all. The browser is free, so give it a try and let me know what you think of it in the comment section below.

Back To Little Finland

In July, 2018 I visited Little Finland, an area of unusual rock formations in the middle of nowhere south of Mesquite, Nevada. At that time, it was too hot to explore, so I decided to return when the sandstone was not the temperature of the sun. Today, it was in the 50s which was ideal for some semi-strenuous hiking. 

Kingman Wash

I joined Larry, a fellow Jeep owner, to explore some spur trails off Kingman Wash south of the Hoover Dam. It felt good to be off-road again...

Mountainous terrain

Just enough difficulty to make it interesting

Old mine at the end of the trail

Here's a dash cam video showing the ridge trail, Lake Mead and in the distance, snow covered mountains...

New Tracking Drone

You have probably been worrying about what to get me for Christmas. Well, worry no more as I have found a solution to your quandary: the Skydio 2 Drone. Having crashed my first drone, I need something that can automatically avoid obstacles while tracking. Take a look at this video to see the amazing technology that is available today...