[{"content":"","date":"30 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/","section":"Max's Website","summary":"","title":"Max's Website","type":"page"},{"content":"Briefing On My Blog: This blog is a repository for reflections on my personal and professional activities. The majority of posts are a series of regular check-ins with a standardized format. Sort of a way to capture snapshots of my life, one week at a time. Occasionally I write longer posts as well, diving deeper into specific projects or bigger life events.\nContent focuses on what I spend my time on: endurance sports training, personal experiments in self-hosting and other technologies, my travels and videos I make on my trips, my work as a Hydrologic Technician with the United States Geologic Survey, and any other topic that might have my mind at a particular time.\nThis blog is purely for your entertainment and my catharsis. Please don\u0026rsquo;t take it seriously, because I don\u0026rsquo;t.\n","date":"30 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/","section":"My Blog","summary":"","title":"My Blog","type":"blog"},{"content":" Recent Locations # Location 1: Ribbett Ranch: Ruch, OR Highlight: My friend and boss, Randy, got married last weekend at his property and we were lucky enough to get an invite. They call the place Ribbett Ranch because the first thing he did when he bought the 3 acre property about 5 years ago was dig a big hole in the front yard and make a pond out of it. Big as in like 75ft long, 40ft wide, 13ft deep. The pond has naturally attracted lots of critters, including a self-sustaining population of little frogs. The party was awesome: lots of good food, Bad Bunny playing on the dance floor all night, and a special appearance by my old coworker Bryan and his family. They live in Puerto Rico and we dont get to see them often anymore, so it was great to spend some of the weekend with them. #* Location 2: Applegate Lake, OR #* Highlight: First real lake day of the year! Spent a couple hours in the sun, cooling off in the water when it got too hot. Water was definitely warm enough to swim in, though did get a little chilly after a few minutes. Still was able to get some cool Gopro shots of the dog chasing sticks, and also caught some glimpses of some fish.\nYour browser does not support the video tag. Work This Week # Removing Cableway At Chetco River: This week I joined our resident cableway expert to remove an old and dangerous cableway at one of my sites. For those that haven\u0026rsquo;t heard me talk about cableways before, they are a large cable that spans across the width of the river, supported by metal \u0026ldquo;A-frames,\u0026rdquo; to keep the cable high above the water. Afixed to the cable is a cablecar just big enough for 1-2 people to ride along the cable in. We use these structures to collect discharge measurements, but at this site, the cableway was too dangerous to use and trying to improve it offered no benefits to data collection. It\u0026rsquo;s nice to have this lingering liability off the books. Prepping for Next Week\u0026rsquo;s Camera Install Trip: The big camera install trip with camera experts from Colorado is next week, so I spent a lot of time getting all equipment prepped so that the field visits are as smooth as possible. Biggest hurdle was get all the networking stuff set up on the modems, but after the first 1-2 times it became faster and more familiar. I am excited for next week, and just really hoping that I am not forgetting something. Personal Projects This Week # Current Focus: Refining The Website Progress: Built a few more pages for the site and finally finished the big post about building my music server. starting to feel mostly done, though I\u0026rsquo;m sure I will still be constantly tweaking it. Next Steps: Need to get back to digitize these records, I\u0026rsquo;ve got a big backlog of files that need broken into tracks and tagged in Picard. Also need to buy some hard drives to start setting up my new NAS. The Week in Training # Training Phase: Continuing in Build Key Workout: Some tough run and bike interval workouts this week, but they seemed to go pretty well. Most fun workout was an 2,200 yard open water swim in the lake with my buddy Roman. Feelings: Definitely feeling the drag of several long weeks of high volume. ready for a down week next week to soak up all the fitness gains. One more brick workout tomorrow then lots of recovery before diving back in on the week of 6/8. Reading and Listening This Week # Song/Podcast of the Week: Lots of Timesuck With Dan Cummins this week, made it through 2-3 full episodes while on the road. Current Reading: Still working on Xenocide, but downloaded a couple of new audiobooks this week that I am looking forward to starting. Will write about one next week. A Cool Website I Visited This Week # Cool Site: Fedi.tips Why it’s worth a click: Good resource for learning about Mastodon and the larger Fediverse. That ecosystem still confuses me a bit, but I\u0026rsquo;m learning and definitely think its the way to go over traditional social media. Rose And Thorn: # 🟢 The Best Thing # Finishing the long blog post about the self-hosted music server felt very good, I worked for quite a few evenings and went though multiple drafts to polish that thing up. Though it was generally a great week and there are lots of things I could write about in this spot.\n🔴 The Worst Thing # Struck out with some hard drives that I thought I was getting a good deal on. Found 3x 3TB drives through marketplace that were advertised as new and unused, but when I tried to set them up in my NAS, they all had issues ranging from very used to completely non-functional. Bummer and I think I\u0026rsquo;m just going to have to shell out for some new drives from a reputable dealer, even though its going to be much more expensive.\nEnd of Log.\n","date":"30 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/weekly/2026-22-checkin/","section":"My Blog","summary":"","title":"Weekly Check-in: Week 22, 2026","type":"blog"},{"content":"A weekly checkin of my most recent activies. Each week, I will touch on the things I am consuming, what I am exerting energy on, and some of the highlights and lowlights.\nMy hope for this series is to capture \u0026lsquo;snapshots\u0026rsquo; of my life one week at a time, so that after some arbitrary amount of time, it can all be stitched together like a timelapse of my life.\nI don\u0026rsquo;t use social media anymore, so this place will serve as an analogy to my \u0026lsquo;feed\u0026rsquo; for those who want to \u0026lsquo;follow\u0026rsquo; my life!\n","date":"30 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/weekly/","section":"My Blog","summary":"","title":"Weekly Check-ins","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/archiving/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Archiving","type":"tags"},{"content":" Retaking Ownership of My Music Library # Why I Wanted To Make A Change In My Music Software # In the last few months, my idea of consuming media has shifted completely. Driven by rising subscription prices, volatile Terms Of Service, and blatant misuse of user’s data, I decided to reclaim control of my media through true ownership of the movies, TV shows, music, and books that I love. In the winter of 2025 I built a self-hosted server with one main goal: erase my dependency on corporate streaming services completely.\nWhile finding guides for hosting movies, TV shows, and books was simple, finding a well-documented solution for building a music libary proved more challenging. To replicate the paid subscription services that I had grown accustomed to while using free-and-open-source-software (FOSS), I had to cobble together a chain of individual programs built by passionate developers that wrote code out of an ideal for a more decentralized internet. The final suite of software that I settled on may not be as convenient as opening a single app and having instant access to millions of songs, but it is built entirely using FOSS and all the songs are lossless audio files that live on hardware that I own. This is the story of how I built that stack and how the journey eventually led me right back to an overlooked musical treasure trove in my own living room.\nMigrating My Old Library and Cleaning Up the Tags # As a longtime Spotify subscriber, my first priority was migrating my 3,500 liked songs to my own hardware. These songs traced my musical evolution from a 16-year-old listening to Flume, through college days filled with the Grateful Dead, to my current \u0026lsquo;Cowboy Grandpa\u0026rsquo; phase. Losing access to this archive wasn\u0026rsquo;t an option. I needed a way to move this history off the platform so that I could keep it as a record of myself in perpetuity, away from Spotify where they were bound to make it increasingly expensive to ‘rent’ access to this part of my life, or even lock me out entirely if they found I violated their arbitrary rules at any point. It took some research to find my exit strategy, but I eventually came across a piece of FOSS called Spotiflac, a software built for bulk extraction from Spotify.\nSpotiflac is a tool that takes a Spotify playlist URL and cross-references the tracks against platforms like Tidal and Deezer. The songs are then downloaded from those platforms in lossless format, a huge improvement over Spotify\u0026rsquo;s compressed streams. It took about 5 hours for Spotiflac to work it\u0026rsquo;s magic on my Spotify library, leaving me with a directory on my server packed with high-fidelity audio files of all the songs I\u0026rsquo;ve loved in the last 15 years.\nThe next challenge was sorting out the metadata. File metadata was always something I took for granted: when you\u0026rsquo;re on a streaming service all the song names, artists, albums, release years, etc. are all right there for you. Sourcing my audio files from a mish-mash of platforms left my libary with inconsistent and conflicting tags. Before my media player could make sense of my audio files, I had to santize and standardize the metadata tags.\nThe solution to this was a service called Musicbrainz Picard. As a preeminent metadata repository, Picard was able to scan each songs in my library and rewrite the tags in a standardized format for downstream services. Picard handled about 95% of the 3,500 song automatically, and its acoustic fingerprinting tool caught almost all the rest. Combining Spotiflac and Picard, in a single afternoon I was able to transform my Spotify songs into pristine, structured library for ongoing management and growth.\n# Library Management and Continuous Growth # With my Spotify library migrated, cleaned, and organized, I needed to work through the next big issue: ongoing growth. My old habit was to use Spotify for searching and saving music that I heard during my daily life. To replace that convenience, I set up 3-pronged system built for ongoing procurement and automated library management, with the priority on a conscious effort to support artists directly.\nThe first tool I set up was Lidarr, a music collection manager that can automatically or manually download new music. It can be used to search for music to add to my collection, or Lidarr can monitor artists in my library for new releases and automatically download albums to my library. Best of all is that it takes care of the metadata and track renaming on its own, completly bypassing the tedium of Picard.\nLidarr doesn\u0026rsquo;t have access to all songs, however, so I also had to build in Slskd, a modern web interface for the Soulseek P2P network. Soulseek, and Slskd, is a niche Peer to Peer network specifically for sharing high-quality audio files between users\u0026rsquo; local libraries. While it is more manual than Lidarr and requires using Picard to clean up metadata tags afterwards, Slskd proved to be a lot simpler to start using and was an excellent replacement for the tradiitonal Spotify search bar.\nAnother thing I wanted to be more conscious about in my new system was reallocating the money I used to give to Spotify to give straight to the artists. I set a monthly budget of $15 to buy music directly from musicians, whether that be vinyls or CDs at live shows, or digital versions through platforms like Bandcamp. Beyond helping offset my karmic debt of my self-hosted digital hoarding, it contributed to the shift from mindlessly paying a subscription bill to intentionally curating a collection of music I really love.\nStreaming My New Library # All the time I spent curating and tagging my new music library wouldn\u0026rsquo;t mean much if I couldn\u0026rsquo;t easily listen to the songs while on a dog walk, in the car, or with friends. To turn my server directory in an active streaming service, I spun up Navidrome. This is a FOSS music server that bills itself as a “Personal stream service.” With a few clicks to configure the settings, Navidrome gave me access to listen to my entire library from a clean UI that looks a lot like the Spotify that I was used to. All of my files were indexed by artist, album, or playlists that I created. There is also a feature to add links to internet radio stations, so that I can tune into any type of radio right alongside my local tracks.\n# One concession of Navidrome is that while it works great in a web browser, there is no Android app. Navidrome operates on the universal Subsonic API, meaning that any Subsonic client could connect to it. I have tried a few clients now, but my favorite is called Tempus.Tempus takes the UI and capabilities of Navidrome a step further by generating ‘mixes’ of similar songs based on a starting genre or song. For example, I just opened the app and it suggested a mix from the song ‘Chicken in Black’ by Johnny Cash. In the mix that it created was more Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Hank Williams, Marty Robbins, and others. Features like this have helped me explore my music that I don\u0026rsquo;t listen to often and let me engage with my libary in a more intentional way.\nBridging the Digital And Phyiscal Worlds # After several weeks of troubleshooting and configuring the music pipeline, unexpected inspiration struck. One day it hit me out of nowhere that I had a literal stack of great music right in my living room, in the form of vinyl records! There was so much great music there, if only I could turn these physical records into digital files! We own an entry-level turntable that gets occasional use when we want to enjoy the novelty with friends, but I assumed that digitizing vinyl required professional-grade studio equipment. Rather than do it myself, I began cold-calling local records store to see if they offered digitization services. Five phone calls got me five ‘No’s.’ Feeling dejected, I tried one more call, this time to a local recording studio. As luck would have it, the engineer that answered gave me the exact lead that I needed.\nThe engineer told me that most turntables are able to output audio directly through the RCA cables running from the table. Upon hearing this, I realized that I hadn’t even really looked at the turntable I already owned; a quick investigation revealed that my turntable did indeed have RCA ports, I might have a chance to digitize these records after all! A bit of research into audio hardware showed that all I needed was one additional piece of equipment to make this happen: an analog-to-digital converter to get the turntable signal to my computer.\nThat converter turned out to be the Behringer U-phono UFO202, a $40 USB audio interface that bridges my turntable to my computer. Using the Behringer\u0026rsquo;s RCA input and USB output, my laptop would instantly be able to start recording my vinyl with the help of Audacity, another legendary piece of FOSS. Given the goldmine of music I had in vinyl format, the Behringer would pay for itself in a single afternoon of archiving. I ordered one immediately.\n# Ripping the vinyl ended up being more of test in patience than I was expecting. Because Audacity records the audio signal as the needle tracks the groove of the vinyl, I had to listen to each album in real time. While this becomes time consuming, the time spent was totally worth it because it gave me the opportunity to sit and actively listen to some of the great albums that I hadn\u0026rsquo;t spun in years.\nThe result of recording a side of vinyl is a single, continuous 20-ish minute audio file. Using Audacity\u0026rsquo;s label tool, I divided the massive track into the individual songs on the side. At this stage, I also used several of Audacity\u0026rsquo;s built-in effects to repair the most egregious pops, cracks, and hisses from the recording. After a few minutes of processing, I was able to isolate and clean up the tracks while maintaining the charm and warmth of the original vinyl.\n# Once the all the tracks on the album were exported as uncompressed FLAC files, the album was run through Musicbrainz Picard for quick metadata tagging. Picard standardized the naming convention, and even automatically applied high-res album art to all the tracks so that it looks pretty in Navidrome. For a couple of very obscure albums in my collection, I also had to rely on a more manual metadata tagger called Kid3.\nThe final step was then to move the finalized FLAC files into my music directory, which Navidrome was able to instantly index due to the standardized tagging. Now, I am able to listen to the same exact audio of my record collection anywhere I want, at any time that I want. My favorite milestone of this project has been digitizing an old Beatles record that my dad used to listen to when he was my age. Today, I can stream those exact audio waves that he used to enjoy, hosted totally on my own hardware.\nThe Future Of My Music Habits # The first weeks under this self-hosted system have been both deeply rewarding and a bit challenging. It\u0026rsquo;s rewarding to no longer pay rent for access to my audio and instead source my music directly from artists or physical media I already own. Challenging because I can no longer quickly \u0026lsquo;save\u0026rsquo; or stream any song I hear in my daily life. I now have to be intentional about the songs I hear. If I hear a song I like, my current method is to quickly jot the song title in my phone\u0026rsquo;s note app, then look it up on Slskd or Bandcamp later. In a way though, this has brought me closer to the music and has honed my musical taste: now that I have to take multiple steps to find that song again, I am a bit more selective.\nI think I still have a lot of refinement to make in my process, and like any computer project, the possibilities for tweaking are endless. Looking ahead, I want to further streamline my music acquisition by diving more into opportunities offered through Slskd, Usenet, and P2P sharing. On the phyiscal side, I want to expand my digitization setup; local record stores offer great opportunity to purchase more vinyl and with a little more hardware I could also archive CDs or cassettes.\nBuilding the backbone of this self-hosted music stack has been an enlightening experience, both technically and introspectively. By moving away from corporate walled gardens and embracing FOSS alternatives, I have learned about the tech behind these services and also been forced to establish a clear ethical framework for how I consume my media. Getting away from the streaming services has taken a lot of time and patience, but it has been totally worth it to know that my life\u0026rsquo;s soundtrack is now safe on hardware in my own home.\n","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/long/digitize-long/","section":"My Blog","summary":"Driven by the desire to escape the grip of corporate streaming services, I built an open-source, self-hosted music streaming stack, plus and discovered a vinyl treasure trove right in my living room.","title":"Building a Self-Hosted, FOSS-Centered Music Stack","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Categories","type":"categories"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/docker/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Docker","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/foss/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"FOSS","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/homelab/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Homelab","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/categories/long-form-blog/","section":"Categories","summary":"","title":"Long Form Blog","type":"categories"},{"content":"In these posts, I move outside the standard format used for my weekly checkins to reflect deeper on certain topics that I spend more time on. Feelings and experiences with particular projects, fun travels, or race reports are things that I want to think deeply about and preserve in writing so that I can look back on them years later and move right back into those mindsets.\nI will try to be informative and write as though I have an audience, but theres a good chance that much of the writing will be most meaningful only to myself. I am okay with that, and I only ask for your understanding when you inevitably get lost or confused in the ramblings in some of these blog posts.\n","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/long/","section":"My Blog","summary":"","title":"Long Form Blog Posts","type":"blog"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/music/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Music","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/privacy/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Privacy","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/self-hosting/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Self-Hosting","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Tags","type":"tags"},{"content":"","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/tags/vinyl/","section":"Tags","summary":"","title":"Vinyl","type":"tags"},{"content":" Supporting This Website # This website was borne out of an idealism for the type of Internet I want to exist: creative, personal, and open-source. While I truly believe in these ideals, the reality is that running even this small site does cost money. If you enjoyed some of my writings, found inspiration in the content or design, or just want to help out with some of the bills associated with this page, please consider supporting with a modest donation. Any contributions will go directly towards domain registration fees or electricity bills associated with powering the hardware.\nFinancial Contribution # Buy Me A Coffee Non-Financial Support # In all honesty, just knowing that other people are enjoying my site is so much more rewarding than a few bucks. IF you want to support the project for free, please consider:\nSend Me A Note: Get ahold of me through one of the methods listed on my contact page. A little message is always a nice pick-me-up Share The Content: If a particular post was helpful or especially interesting to you, pass it along to someone else who might like it Drop A Suggestion: If you notice a typo, bug, or other room for improvement, reach out and let me know how I can improve this site. Thanks so much for being here!\n","date":"27 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/support/","section":"Max's Website","summary":"","title":"Support","type":"page"},{"content":"I want to use some space to acknowledge the tools and services I have used to build this website. Below are details about the design, production, and licensing of this site.\nSource Code # Complete source code for this website will always remain open-source and available for any purpose. If you\u0026rsquo;d like to adopt any customizations made to this page, please reach out or refer to the repository at:\nCodeberg Repository Tech Stack # Hugo: Static Site Generator Blowfish: Hugo theme, by Nuno C. VS Codium: Code editting Codeberg: Git hosting Cloudflare: DNS and networking Self-Hosted Stack: # Proxmox: Hypervisor OS Ubuntu Server: Base OS Docker: Container deployment Nginx: Web serving Licensing # Website Content # Unless otherwise noted, the textual content, articles, and essays published on this site are licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license. You are free to share and adapt this material for non-commercial purposes, provided you give appropriate credit.\nWebsite Code: # The underlying configuration, code snippets, and structural design modifications unique to this repository are released under the AGPL-3.0 License.\nInspiration # I am constantly on the lookout for personal website inspiration. The internet is full of beautiful personal spaces crafted by individuals carving out a digital home in their own image. While I hope to build a more custom, curated site down the road, for now, I rely on themes and design elements borrowed from the following sites to improve my own:\nmnmlist insidemordecai Manuel Moreale Scott Nesbitt \u0026hellip; Plus many others ","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/colophon/","section":"Max's Website","summary":"","title":"Colophon","type":"page"},{"content":"I believe the best way to follow your favorite publications is through RSS feeds. I get almost all of my news through my RSS reader these days, so I want to contribute to the RSS universe with a feed of my own. If you enjoy getting your content straight from the source and without algorithms, follow the feed below from your preferred RSS reader.\nWhat is RSS? Check out About Feeds or What Is RSS? for more information!\nRSS Feed URL # Copy the link below into your favorite RSS Reader:\nhttps://max-price.com/index.xml\nHow to use this feed # Copy the URL above. Paste it into an RSS reader like Feedly, Inoreader, or FreshRSS. Stay updated automatically whenever a new post is published. ","date":"26 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/subscribe/","section":"Max's Website","summary":"","title":"Subscribe","type":"page"},{"content":" Upper Sacramento: Trout Heaven # Quick post about a great day of fishing on the Upper Sacramento near Dunsmuir, CA. My fly fishing guru friend, Sascha, has been trying to talk me into a fishing trip on this Northern California river with him for some fishing, and we finally made it happen! I put it off for so long because I assumed that it was a major committment to drive down there to get on the water; I thought it was an all day adventure. Turns out, its only about 1.5 hours from the house and the fishing doesn\u0026rsquo;t even get good until the evening bug hatch! A 5pm post-work fish is what this river is best for!\nWe found some access near Dunsmuir, I was on the spinner and Sascha was on the 3-weight fly rod. While the catch started slow, the fish sure were active! They were splashing and jumping all over, but they seemed to be plenty satisfied with the real bugs and had no interest for our lures or dry flies.\nWe tried a few runs and a few spots on the river, but after a bit of moving around and a bit of lure/fly-swapping, we finally hooked up on some fish. We reeled in some beautiful wild Rainbows, definitely nice and feisty! Sascha even brought his new toy, a simple but enthralling fish viewing glass! This trout-sized tub is a repurposed office organizer, and boy did it give us an amazing look at this amazing specimen!\nWhile I was able to get a good look at the fish I caught, spin fishing is not as graceful as bringing in a trout on the fly. Check out Sascha land this little Beaut!\nYour browser does not support the video tag. All and all, it was a great day exploring some new water! And it\u0026rsquo;s always a plus when you actually get to catch some fish too. I am bummed that it took me this long to make the journey to this water, but I will definitely be back!\n","date":"21 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/long/20260520_fish-long/","section":"My Blog","summary":"","title":"Fishing On The Upper Sac","type":"blog"},{"content":" Recent Locations # Upper 5 Winery, Talent OR Highlight: We went with some friends to the Upper 5 Winery Spring members party. We all had some great wine, great food, and had a lot of laughs. Spring is going off at their place, the vines are starting to get green and shoots are growing tall. Terry said that the late frost in April had a serious impact on the vines, especially the young ones. Work This Week # Task 1: Helped with interviewing a few candidates for the seasonal position thats open right now. It was my first time interviewing anyone for a job, it was cool and we have some well qualified applicants. Task 2: Met with a hydrology class from SOU at the Bear Creek Ashland site. Bill and I talked about the USGS and what we do as Hydrologic Technicians, then we all practiced making some discharge measurements. Great group of students, and a lot of fun. Personal Projects This Week # Current Focus: Digitizing Vinyl Records Progress: The stack of records left to digitize is shrinking, but still very tall. Borrowed like 15 records from a friend also, so the stack actually grew this week. Able to get about 3 done a night, at this rate I will be recording these records for another month or so. Next Steps: Digitizing will be going in the background, but I also just got a NAS and some hard drives so I will be focusing on setting that up for eventual offsite server backup. The Week in Training # Training Phase: Building Volume under new plan with Coach Tom Key Workout: Coach Tom has me doing a bike ride once a week that includes a high-torque low-cadence interval for really building leg muscle. Feelings: This first week on the new plan was the biggest volume week I\u0026rsquo;ve done in awhile, and I felt it by the end. The next couple weeks are going to be more high volume, so I\u0026rsquo;m sure I will be ready for a deload when it finally comes. Reading and Listening This Week # Song of the Week: Lungs - Townes Van Zandt Current Reading: The Devil Reached Towards The Sky by Garrett M. Graff* Quick Thought: Actually listened to this one on audiobook, but it was a very human telling of the development and dropping of the atomic bombs. Rather than a standard retelling of the events, this book was like 98% excerpts from journals and letters of the actual scientists, military men, and victims involved the Manhattan Project. Rather than the author putting his own spin on the story, the historical figures were able to speak for themselves. A Cool Website I Visited This Week # Cool Site: (https://insidemordecai.com/) Why it’s worth a click: I stumbled on this site while looking for inspiration from others who are using the same website theme as I am. Mordecai\u0026rsquo;s website was on a list of those that were highlighted on the theme\u0026rsquo;s main website. As I clicked through his site, I realized we had a lot of similar interests, have done some similar projects, and appeared to have similar philosophies about how we want to be on the internet. The coolest part to me is that Mordecai lives in Kenya, and from half a planet away, I was able to feel connected to this person who I felt like I had met through their website. It was a reminder that the internet is a lot cooler and a lot bigger than just a few social media platforms. Besides that, Mordecai shares lots of other cool websites made by interesting and creative people. His site is a pure slice of internet untainted by the rampant enshittification seen in so many other digital spaces. Rose And Thorn: # 🟢 The Best Thing # Meeting the SOU class for a day of showing off what we do for work was awesome. They seemed actually interested in water sciences, plus I just like getting up in front of people and talking about my cool job.\n🔴 The Worst Thing # Beginning to realize that the next 3 months are going to be very busy and very expensive. Its all good stuff like traveling, weddings, work trips, etc., but its all going to add up and by the time September comes around, I will be ready for a break.\nEnd of Log.\n","date":"17 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/weekly/2026-20-checkin/","section":"My Blog","summary":"","title":"Weekly Check-in: Week 20, 2026","type":"blog"},{"content":" Welcome to www.max-price.com, my personal website where I showcase all the things I do in my life.\nBy trade, I am a Hydrologic Technician with the United States Geological Survey. After graduating with a B.S in Geological Sciences from Indiana University in 2017, I held several short-term Earth Science positions before settling in Southern Oregon at the USGS. I have been with the USGS since 2019, during which time I have developed expertise in hydroacoustic instrumentation, remote sensing, environmental data collection and analysis, workforce development, and other areas of specialty.\nIn my personal time I identify as many things, including a loving partner and dog-father, triathlete, skeptic, gardener, FOSS enthusiast, backpacker, archivist, fisherman and hunter, lover of high quality news, self-hoster, and privacy freak. I cannot keep up with all the things that interest me and I am always wishing I had more time and money for all the projects I\u0026rsquo;d love to dive into. For now, I am focusing on training for my next race, strengthing my relationships, and building this website.\nThank you for visiting my page!\n","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/","section":"About","summary":"","title":"About","type":"about"},{"content":" Max Price # maxprice16@protonmail.com | LinkedIn Profile | (574) 606-8111 | Talent, OR\nProfessional Summary # High-energy environmental data professional with over a decade of experience specializing in field operations, instrumentation, and data integrity. I am dedicated to advancing industry excellence by leading workforce development initiatives and employing next-generation monitoring technologies. A personal priority is delivering high-quality data sets to stakeholders and the public.\nEducation # Indiana University # Bachelor of Science, Geological Studies | Minor in Mathematics | Bloomington, IN | 2014-2017 | GPA 3.4 / 4.0\nRelevant coursework: Field Geology of Northern Rocky Mountains with Environmental Concentration (6cr), Field Geology of Precambrian Ontario (3cr), Methods of Analytical Geochemistry (3cr), Environmental Physics (3cr), Fundamentals of Geochemistry (3cr), Biology of Birds (3cr) Indiana Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department Undergraduate Liaison and recipient of Gary N. Lane Beginning Geologist Award Professional Experience # United States Geological Survey # Senior Hydrologic Technician | GS-11 | Medford, OR | 2019 – Present\nCollect hydrologic data including river stage and discharge, water quality, and meteorological parameters using equipment such as ADCP, ADV, Price AA Meters, thermistors, water quality sondes, and tipping buckets, all following protocols that emphasize accuracy and reproducibility Perform installation, maintenance, and troubleshooting of sensing, recording, and communication equipment following methods that minimize data loss and capture true environmental conditions Coordinate and lead workforce development efforts through novel orientation program within the Oregon Water Science Center. Since 2024, the orientation program has accelerated the skill development of over 12 junior technicians within the Center through the creation and presentation of learning materials, holding in person and virtual training sessions, and facilitating mentor-mentee relationships. Serve as Instructor for multiple national-level USGS courses including Development of Stage-Discharge Ratings, Collection of Discharge Measurements with Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers, and Surface Water Records Computation. To date, total number of USGS technical staff instructed during these trainings is over 75. Lead of the Oregon Water Science Center Camera Monitoring Program, installing and maintaining a network of 15 cameras (and growing) to capture real-time imagery at streamgaging locations across the state for situational awareness, image velocimetry, stage monitoring, and improved decision making. 2019 Oregon Federal Executive Board Rookie of the Year Nominee and 2024 USGS National Data Person of the Year Nominee Mono Lake Committee # Mono Lake Restoration Intern | Lee Vining, CA | June 2018 – December 2018\nCoordinated and conducted weekly field monitoring events at 20 piezometers within the Mono Basin, CA as part of a Piezometer Monitoring Program to better understand the local hydrogeology Drafted multiple scientific reports detailing annual results of the Mono Basin’s hydrogeologic monitoring programs for delivery to local water utilities and research cooperators Guided interpretive walking and canoe tours multiple times a week to educate the public about Mono Lake, the impacts of excessive water use, and the Mono Lake Committee’s efforts to protect and restore the Mono Basin Staffed the Information Center and Bookstore, which included communicating travel information with visitors and operating the POS system to take cash and credit payments Professional Certifications # Wilderness First Aid | CPR/AED | Swift Water Awareness | PADI Open Water Diver\nExtracirricular Skills \u0026amp; Interests # Rogue Valley Triathlon Club Founded and manage a local endurance sports community, handling digital outreach and event coordination Ironman Triathlete and 5x Marathoner Technical Projects and Skills Self Hosting A Server | Web Development Through Creation of This Website | Physical Media Digitization and Archival | Decentralized Communications - Meshtastic | Linux | Microsoft Office | Docker | Kdenlive | Audacity | Proxmox Other Experiences: International and Local Volunteering | SCUBA Certified | Multiday Backpacking | Fisherman / Hunter | Dog Owner | Birder | Nature Videographer | Consistent Employment Since Age Of 15 ","date":"11 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/resume/","section":"About","summary":"","title":"Professional Resume","type":"about"},{"content":" Contact Information # I\u0026rsquo;d love to hear from you! If there is anything on this page that you have a question about, or if you just want to chat, reach out to me through any of the channels below!\nEmail: maxprice16@protonmail.com Mastodon: Maxprice16 Other Social Media Feeds: # LinkedIn Peertube Facebook Instagram ","date":"10 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/about/contact/","section":"About","summary":"","title":"How To Get In Touch","type":"about"},{"content":" Recent Locations # Location 1: Agness, OR Highlight: Drove over Bear Camp Road for the first time this year to get to Agness. Very clear and beautiful day. Location 2: Big Sur and Monterey, CA Highlight: After my race on Saturday, we drove to the coast and stayed at a hotel on the south end of Big Sur. On Sunday we drove through the entirety of Big Sur until we got to Monterey. After securing a campsite at Veteren\u0026rsquo;s Park, we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. So Cool! Many other things of note for this trip, should do a longer post about the weekend. Work This Week # Finalized the purchase order for all the camera gear we need this year. Should be here next week Went to Agness to troubleshoot some sensor issues. Turned out to be very minor issue, very easy and beautiful, sunny day. Not quite warm enough to take a swim in the river, but definitely looking forward to taking a dip on the next visit. Technical Milestone/Project Status: Camera Ops are moving along nicely. Feeling very stressed about the amount of work to do in the next 3 months, but starting to feel hopefull that it will all get done. Personal Projects This Week # Current Focus: Building this website. Progress: Making design and formatting improvement. Getting the \u0026lsquo;bones\u0026rsquo; established. writing some content for the site, hence this post. Next Steps: Flesh out the look, keep writing posts for the blog. populate the \u0026lsquo;About\u0026rsquo; section. Background Focus: Continue digitizing this large stack of vinyl records. The Week in Training # Training Phase: Recovery Key Workout: Key workout this week was mental: had a phone call with Coach Tom to establish training for the next 10 weeks. He will help me get ready for PR at Oregon 70.3 in mid July. Feelings: Gradually moving to 100% after race was total destructive on the legs and shoulders. Reading and Listening This Week # Song of the Week: If I Could Only Fly - Blaze Foley Current Reading: Xenocide by Orson Scott Card Quick Thought: Picking up this series again after reading first in like 7th grade\u0026hellip; picking up a lot more this time. I need to get more into sci-fi, I have totally devoured the first couple books in this series. A Cool Website I Visited This Week # Cool Site: https://cascadiamesh.org/ Why it’s worth a click: Very cool and informative website about the PNW Meshtastic network. Never heard about this until a coworker mentioned it the other day\u0026hellip; turns out there is a very robust communication network independent of the cell providers and the internet. Decentralized, resilient, cheap, expandable\u0026hellip; lots of intriguing applications come to mind. Rose And Thorn: # 🟢 The Best Thing # Safe traveling during the race weekend and all the travels down to California. No real issues at all, other than the absurd price of gas (almost $7.00/gal at some stations!). Race went well and the whole weekend was a lot of fun.\n🔴 The Worst Thing # Honestly nothing too bad this week\u0026hellip; guess my mental state could be improved, but I think thats just the result of coming off the race being a little slower than I hoped for.\nEnd of Log.\n","date":"7 May 2026","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/blog/weekly/2026-19-checkin/","section":"My Blog","summary":"","title":"Weekly Check-in: Week 19, 2026","type":"blog"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/authors/","section":"Authors","summary":"","title":"Authors","type":"authors"},{"content":"","externalUrl":null,"permalink":"/series/","section":"Series","summary":"","title":"Series","type":"series"}]