Archives 2025

After leaving Leicester I landed on an old neglected junk yard under the pretense of being a farm.

I figured I might stay here for the winter, and I knew my tent would keep.me warm with the stove but I also knew I didn’t want to spend the winter stuck in a tent too small to stand in, so I made it into a yurt.

DIY Yurt

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I even buit me a cot out of sticks and rope to reduce heat loss by conduction.

Hand made cot

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My days were mostly occupied with gathering fire wood for the coming cold. I built a firewood rack out of all natural materials and cut and split all the fire wood using only hand tools. This was quite a chore in late December.

Handmade firewood & rack

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I tried to clean the place up but was led to believe I’d never be able to use anything I was trying to revive: the greenhouse was, like everything else in the junk yard, waiting for “the right person,” which I am evidently not.

Cleaning up the waste and ruin

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I lived by lamp light during the long winter nights and ate many free meals from 12 Baskets, a local charity.

Simple Food, Simple Light

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In Oct 2024 my seasonal gig at Angels Rest Hiker Haven came to a close and I had to figure out what to do next.

My friend Roadrunner was planning a trip to Asheville and offered to hitch me down there for free. It was a deal too good to pass up so we went south and landed in Leicester just out side of Asheville NC. Leicester fared much better during the storm.

Roadrunner helped me find a consulting gig at a local restoration company while staying in Leicester.

I camped in the yard while Roadrunner parked in a schoolie. Cooking and cleaning was done in the house we were housesitting.

Camped outside of AVL

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My days were filled with rolling around the destroyed parts of Asheville and seeing what homes could be restored.

There was a tremendous amount of community support with free meals and bottled waters on every corner and impromptu camp sites all around with so many people displaced. Many opposing feelings.

After the Storm

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After a month Roadrunner was ready to head back up north and I stayed behind. My consulting gig came to an end but I deemed that I had enough saved up to survive the winter.

The new river is dropping down to normal levels after some rain.

Master Fisher

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I (still) haven’t had any luck fishing but I was able to observe a master fisher.

During my time here, one thing I’ve tried to do in addition to fishing is capture some bird moments. This usually fails because birds are very skittish and have good vision.

Last night I was able to fish about 30 yards from what I believe was a gray heron. It is a very elegant creature that has no trouble feeding itself out of these waters.

As an independent producer I understand the importance of names. As a digital nomad I know how important time is and how much of it I want to spend looking at a screen.

I once had an idea to sell vanity subdomains and email. That inspired the purchase of name.giving and some other domains. The costs, both financial and temporal meant that this site never came into being.

I still have a number of domains left over that haven’t made it to auction yet. If something catches your eye, send me an email and we can discuss possibilities.

Contact

Available Domains:

• name.giving
• asheville.cloud
• communal.homes
• intentional.homes
• libre.homes
• sanctuary.diy
• branch.diy
• revelations.fyi
• doom.ink
• doom.homes
• doom.pics
• lib.pics
• llbrary.com
• lostontrail.com
• lostwebsite.org
• lost.ws
• root.sbs
• ip6.space
• disk.homes
• opensource.baby
• selfhosting.site
• xfer.site
• aggsrx.site
• tinee.site
• offtopic.site
• 4m.homes
• vps.irish
• vps.christmas
• save.christmas
• dirty.news
• cunnilingus.party
• wheatpennies.shop
• tacklebox.top
• serve.email

Simple Privacy Focused Solutions for Technophobes

I created Lost.ws & LostWebSite.org to service my own desire to produce and distribute my own content without having to deal with vendor lock in, algorithms, or censorship.

Now that I’m actively succeeding with that goal, I hope to share the joy of self-publishing with the world and help other creators become producers and distributors their own content on their own brand without YouTube, Facebook, or OnlyFans taking a cut of their earnings.

You’re ready to strike out on your own and build your brand from the ground up?

Sample package:

• 5GB SSD Disk Space
• Unmetered Bandwidth
• Domain included (limitations apply)
• WordPress Blog or other Content Management System Preinstalled
• Control Panel Access for technically inclined
• Free Technical Support on Best Effort Basis
• Hosted in New York, Dallas, or Amsterdam
• Price $20/Year

Reach out to me via the contact page and tell me your vision.

Publishing ones own content is quite a chore. Here are some of the tools I use to facilitate production:

Web Control Panel

A web control panel is a program that simplifies the management of numerous systems that all have to work together harmoniously to make all of the 0s and 1s into something a person can digest: databases and listening ports and server side processing.

I use HestiaCP as my primary web server. You can learn more about HestaCP at https://hestiacp.com or view the source code at https://github.com/hestiacp/hestiacp

I use Webmin as a secondary system in case of failure. You can learn more about webmin at https://webmin.com or view the source code at https://github.com/webmin/webmin

Application Manager

Everyone needs apps, even, occasionally a server. I use a Yunohost to facilitate app installation and system updates

Learn more about Yunohost at https://yunohost.org or examine the source code at https://github.com/yunohost

It’s important to stay connected. In addition to a regular every day cell phone I use a few other open source projects to assist communications.

Email

I operate my own email server to relay email. It isn’t strictly necessary but I don’t want to be entirely dependent on Gmail and the like

I use mailinabox to manage my personal email server and as part of my DNS infrastructure.

You can learn more about mailinabox at https://mailinabox.email or find the source code at https://github.com/mail-in-a-box/mailinabox

Video Conferencing

If the need ever arises I don’t rely on FaceTime or snap. I use Jitsi Meet if I need to have a face to face but can’t meet in person.

My Jitsi Meet is invite only.

Learn more about Jitsi at https://jitsi.org or get the source code at https://github.com/jitsi/jitsi-meet

Live Chat

I use an open source program called Matrix to serve instant text based comms over the internet, encrypted on both ends. It’d basically like Discord but privately operated.

If you already use Matrix you can set your server to “s.chat.lost.ws” and join #pub.

If you’ve never used Matrix Chat you can try out the Element web client at https://chat.lost.ws

You can learn about Matrix Chat Server at https://matrix.org or obtain source code at https://github.com/matrix-org

Learn more about Element Chat Client at https://element.io/ or view the source code at https://github.com/element-hq

I self publish my own content so I never have to worry about algorithms or censorship.

Web Site Publishing

This site is built on WordPress. You can learn more about it and download the source code at https://wordpress.org

Image Hosting

I use Pixelfed to manage my images, an open source alternative to Instagram.

You can visit my image gallery at https://pix.lost.ws

Learn more about Pixelfed https://pixelfed.org or view the source code at https://github.com/pixelfed/pixelfed

Video Streaming

I use Peertube to distribute my video content. You can view my video library at https://tv.lost.ws

Learn more about Peertube at https://peertube.org or download the source code at https://github.com/Chocobozzz/PeerTube

Re-sharing some privacy tools I use to combat monopolistic AI:

SearXNG

A proxy and aggregator for multiple search engines.

You can learn more about SearXNG at https://docs.searxng.org/

You can obtain the source code at https://github.com/searxng/searxng

Whoogle

A privacy focused proxy that mitigate intrusive data harvesting.

You can learn more about whoogle or download the source code at https://github.com/benbusby/whoogle-search

I haven’t posted an update in like a week. Time flies.

I’m still trying to figure out how to pull fish out of the water. I’m hoping finding live bait will help. So far I’ve landed one.

First Catch

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I’m hoping real bait will make the difference.

The vagrants continue to be an issue. New encampment pop up faster than I can take them down. I still practice leave no trace and break down and pack out my camp whenever I leave.

My diet is very basic, and I’m rapidly losing my trail conditioning. I made a Dakota fire pit to cook on discretely.

I made a friend.

I listen to a lot of trains go by.