Springtime News

A few times a year I post what's new, what I've been working on, and my plans for the near future.

Freehiking Season

St Patrick's Day brought us some Irish Luck. My girlfriend and I went freehiking (for the first time ever) during the only 72+ degree day in March. We hiked a 3 mile trail that is absolutely perfect for freehiking. It has a clear wide path, wide open fields, a river, and not a house in sight. There was nobody else there, no bugs, no snow, and not much mud.

I sent a writeup about this trip to TNS. Most of it consists of how to find a good local trail for freehiking. I pointed out that almost all of their freehiking articles are from out West. I took on the task of finding a trail locally, in a state that has a higher than US average population density. Hopefully it'll be in one of the future issues. I could dive into the details of this trip, but I think it would only make you jealous.

I concluded that here, "freehiking season" is the few warm days we get in March. Summer months are too buggy, too weedy, and too busy. Fall is deer hunting season. April and May are turkey hunting season. March is all that's left, assuming it gets warm enough!

WWNCW

My other site, the World-Wide Nudist Collaboration Wiki, has been revamped to version 3.0. I removed the whole social web idea, stripped the profiles, and removed almost everything. Naturists don't need another social platform -- they need a collaboration platform! The new Wiki does only that, without any fluff and as simply as possible. It's fair to say that I gave the WWNCW a really big KISS.

So how does it work now? Follow these steps if you would like to initiate a project, event, or meeting:

1. Enter a project name and click "add project".
2. Fill out the new project form, which is only 4 questions.
3. Add events to your project calendar, create sections specific to your project for tables, polls, or more text. Tables contain information for tasks, items that are needed, or other general information. See the examples for how to use the tools.
   
4. People volunteer to help out or bring stuff by adding their name to the table. They can also vote for stuff, or post comments. The project almost organizes itself, since everyone has all the information in one central place.
   

Most important is that people DON'T NEED TO REGISTER anymore to go in and create/edit stuff. There is a shared WikiGuest account that anyone can use, or they can register to get their own username.

Nude Olympics

We're still in the process of organizing the Mazo Beach Nude Olympics this year. Of course, the project will be organized via my handy site mentioned above. (I'll do a special post when it's ready.)

Reading

At the start of winter, I had a pile of stuff that I wanted to read. And it kept getting bigger, since I never wanted to pull myself away from the computer just to read. I looked for another solution. Scheduling a time to read didn't work because I didn't take it seriously. I'm very limited to what I can take on my weekends of travel. I can't read at the beach since it's winter. All I needed was about a half-hour each day, so I moved my reading materials to the bathroom. Hey -- it works! I read through my 9 back-issues and 2 current issues of Nude & Natural Magazine, and highlighted some things in the NR 45 regulations (DNR land use rules). The real test is next -- I moved my Worldchanging book to there. It's almost 4 pounds of very small text. I bought it new in 2006, and haven't yet hit the half-way point.

Modeling

We answered the call from N 28.3 page 87, and it sounds like it might happen this summer! We not only offered ourselves as subjects, but also offered some of our "secret" locations. I'll keep you posted on what develops from this.