Little Package Blog

Adding Custom Fonts to EDDiStamper
2020.03.20
WordPress Plugins
All three new Stamper plugins (EDDiStamper, PDF Stamper, and Download Monitor Stamper) come with the three standard PDF fonts: Helvetica, Times New Roman, and Courier. Not much to get excited about, I know. Whereas EDDiMark and WaterWoo (plugins based on TCPDF, not SetaPDF-Stamper) have built-in font uploaders with more instant gratification, the integration with Seta is a bit more complicated, and so you’ll need to use a little code. Whether you add the code into a custom plugin, your child theme functions.php file, or by using the more plug-n-play Code Snippets plugin doesn’t matter. Before using the following example code, we have started by creating a “fonts” folder inside the wp-content/uploads/eddistamper/ folder. We put our Comic Sans (yes!) TTF file inside the fonts folder. You can see […]

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Flu and the Trail
2020.03.16
Hayduke, Hiking, Pacific Crest Trail
We’re now at least a couple months into the surreal shitshow called “COVID-19” (a coronavirus). I’ve spent the past week and a half-sequestered very remotely, not just because of the misanthropy I’ve felt more and more while scanning the news and social media, but to enjoy the wild, help build an off-grid house, and perhaps survive (and help others survive) the pandemic I’ve been warning friends about since I was a nurse in Portland in the oughties. This type of thing was bound to happen, and it’s too bad more people aren’t more prepared. (That said, not many of us have the resources to be prepared.) While cutting wood, plastering, and painting over the past week, various unrelated COVID-19 impacts have come to mind. Having gotten more […]

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My Gatekeeping, Continued
2020.03.04
Hayduke, Opinion
So as to not seem like I’ve got my head completely up my ass, I’m going to address a blog post shared with me by a climber friend of mine. She, blessed with nice melanin, mentioned it with a hard wink as if to say… “consider it carefully, Caroline.” I’m trying. In June 2018, the Center for Outdoor Ethics issued its first guidance on social media by urging people to “avoid tagging (or geotagging) specific locations. Instead, tag a general location such as a state or region, if any at all.” We disagree. We invite all public land owners to experience and fall in love with local, state and national parks, national forests and wilderness areas—and here’s why you should too. We don’t care whether you are […]

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Where trails come from, where they go…
2020.01.21
Hayduke, Hiking
I subscribe to Wired Magazine in digital form, where I learn all sorts of neat things each day. This morning I spent over an hour watching a video produced by Wired, where an astrophysicist explains gravity to five people, ranging from beginner to expert. What a brilliant way of teaching/learning a topic, by helping someone realize how much they don’t know, and expanding on a concept bit-by-bit over an hour. (I was about at the grade-schooler’s level of understanding, haha. How far can you follow the concept? By expert level, my mind was blown.) This afternoon, an opinion piece popped into the Wired newsletter. It’s right up my alley. If you’ve been reading my blog lately, you probably know I’ve been subjecting readers to an achingly long […]

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Rock or Wood?
2019.12.15
Hiking
I just spent a couple of gloriously mild days in Life Valley, canyoneering and hiking, conversing with and admiring a lot of rock. The Valley also had quite a bit of water in it due to some recent storms, but this time of year the plants and animals have retreated and it’s time for the rock to shine. And there’s a lot of rock. The Valley’s valleys, as they show (or don’t show) themselves from the car, are enshrouded, modest, and less-than-tantalizing by reputation. If one is brave and stupid enough to venture too far from the road on foot and with rope, they open in dizzying, hypnotic displays of color and texture, enfolding you. It’s not so much that they threaten to keep you against your […]

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Nature : Museum
2019.10.01
Hiking, Opinion, Pacific Crest Trail
Discussing my latest backpacking trip with my guy, I came up with an analogy which I like very much, and which seems original and enlightening. I compared modern wilderness visits with museum visits of the recent past (pre-2010). My first memories of museums were of the Anchorage Museum as a young teen, then the Louvre and Musée D’Orsay, and the Met in NYC and Mutter Museum in Philly as an older teen. Even if relatively brief, I treasure those visits for several reasons. Be they small or petty reasons it doesn’t matter, the memories are large as a very deep breath. Memories of carefully-curated open space and light, surprises of color and subtle hushed sounds. Photos were disallowed and so I would stare without blinking in an […]

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New West vs. Old West
2019.08.30
Hayduke
I’ve been struggling with thoughts about conservationism, conservationism against the prevailing tide, and my tiny place in the thick of things, as well as a sore knee, since I got back from walking Utah in early June. Some reading, and going through my photos, is helping me finally collect my thoughts. I can’t remember where I was when a friend forwarded me a link from the Canyon County Zephyr, but I was definitely in Utah. I was probably in the backcountry still somehow indulging in LTE “connectivity,” but unable to read much because I was busy walking. But with a few clicks and paragraph licks, I distinctly gleaned a sense of being the outsider where I was. I looked up from the phone and had lost my […]

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Another Vanagon Wiring Harness
2019.08.29
My VW Westfalia
I made another wiring harness for another 1983.5 (water-cooled) 1.9L (2.2 GoWesty rebuild) Westfalia van. You can see the first engine wiring harness I made here. My friend’s van started right up, but still needs a new throttle body. We knew this before we started. The original wiring harness was in even worse shape than mine, with several sections of burned wire and wire casing. Anyway, here’s some pics of the new one I made. The pics were taken just before the harness was installed, and final connections made, so there are some unfinished ends. But you get the idea. Update: as of December 2019 both these harnesses are working fine, and no regrets (nothing I’d do differently). Update: as of December 2022, approaching 275,000 miles on […]

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Vanagon Digijet Engine Wiring harness
2019.07.29
My VW Westfalia
I haven’t written for a while and since I last wrote I’ve had a pretty marvelous adventure through Utah and Arizona on foot. I’m not an electrician. I’m a trained nurse and a hat-maker and a successful, self-taught PHP developer (programmer). Yet here I’m going to write about a Vanagon wiring project I just completed. I took on this wiring project I’ve been wanting to do for a long time, because if you know me you know I’m not scared to learn new things. I thought I’d share the results in case it could help other folks. The Crusty Old Wiring Harness These Vanagon harnesses are now over forty years old. Where the outer insulation hasn’t hardened, burned, and/or cracked, internal corrosion has typically progressed well beyond […]

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Tuckup Canyon Head Flora and Fauna
2019.05.28
Hiking
I topped out at Kanab Point, a very quiet and lonely place. I did consider introducing myself to the people truck-camped there, but got a definite vibe that it wasn’t the right time. It’s weird to have feelings like that, but I always listen to my gut. Probably a great idea when one is that remote, and without any rescue beacon. But it was good to know someone was there in case my tonsil decided to explode. And as I went through those thoughts in my head, the truck fired up and drove off, without so much as a backward glance. People can be so weird in the desert. I know if I had flagged them down they probably would have helped, but it just seems like […]

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When I Almost Killed George Steck
2019.05.26
Hiking
TL;DR Lucky for him, George Steck is already dead. I was just very mad at him for a couple days for suggesting anyone hike this section of the Esplanade in the Grand Canyon. In hindsight I myself wonder what I was doing trudging through sometimes hip deep snow drifts in a blizzard to Monument Point. But nevermind that, it’s another story. This story starts at the Bill Hall Monument Point trailhead, where I began by borrowing a few small bottles of water from the back of a pickup truck loaded with several dozen gallons. Gee I wondered, what was that person told? Obviously not the weather forecast! What’s wonderful about snow and rain in the Grand Canyon is it means finding water isn’t such a chore. I […]

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Cabin 140 on the North Rim
2019.05.20
Hayduke, Hiking
Hello from cabin 140 on the North Rim! I’m sleeping on the floor next to a heater that came on sometime in the night when the generator was at last repaired, and have been sizzling all night. The six other people in the cabin are snoozing away; they were up late drinking and celebrating their Rim to Rim hike, which somehow ended just before the snow hit. They had foresight to send a stranger ahead with a credit card to reserve this cabin and good doing. It was chaos bordering on riot yesterday evening in the main Lodge, with folks having pushed in despite the weather only to find no respite from the cold: 29° outside and no electricity in the Park. I was not as lucky […]

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Do As I Say
2019.05.10
Hiking, Latergram
I had LTE. @vanillabazan (who picked me up hitching outside Kanab in 2016) DM’d to ask me if I was in Last Chance Bay. I replied “I’m just rounding the corner into it!” As I rowed in, I was struck by some headwinds. I decided to pull ashore for a break & to make plans. Each crossing on the Lake was an endeavor against wind, choppy water, zippy boats, and my nerves. Drowning would be easy. I was so nervous. I chewed gum to relax. I chewed it until it was hard. I lay down behind a rock to dodge the sun, and stared at the dead mussels still glued to it, and the red rock’s white calcium coat. A raindrop hit my knee, soon another, and […]

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Getting Over It
2019.05.05
Hayduke, Latergram, Nursing
This picture was taken while celebrating coming a long way. Not just physically over miles, but emotionally over tears and smiles. Last time I was in this spot in Utah in 2016 I was having blown-out-of-proportion anxiety attacks about quicksand and river crossings. This year I blew up a raft and sat in it and just floated down the river, laughing. I took this picture while spinning circles, getting ready to bounce off the canyon walls and butt drag thru some class 2. This morning I remembered a huge milestone is coming up for me on the 9th, when I will be struggling with weather and more water (in Lake Powell): the 10 year anniversary of my last shift as a registered nurse. May 9, 2009 was […]

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