About
Hey there 👋
I’m Jarrod. Welcome to my site!
I grew up in Ionia, Michigan but now I live in Saranac Lake, New York with my wife and our three “fur babies”. We have a turtle named Remus, a cat named Ollivander, and a dog named Phineas. Yes, we’re huge Harry Potter nerds.
The first thing to know about me is that I’m an Eagle Scout. The adventures I experienced and the values I learned in Scouting shaped who I am today. I’ve been a member of the Boy Scouts of America since the age of six when I joined as a wee Tiger Scout (thanks Mom and Dad!).
After graduating from the Recreation Program at Central Michigan University, my professional career began as a Program Executive & Camp Director for Firelands Scout Reservation with Lake Erie Council, BSA. Then I worked, briefly, for Apple as a Technical Specialist. After moving to the Adirondacks, I took a job at a gear shop/guiding service. Now I run my own guide service, Onward Mountain Guides, leading hiking and climbing trips in the Adirondack wilderness — a dream come true! — which has provided me with more time for personal outdoor adventures and writing here.
Connect With Me
If you have any questions or suggestions or just want to say “hey”, you can find my personal profiles as @jarrod on Micro.blog and Mastodon, and as @heyjb.me on Instagram, Threads, and Bluesky. I’m elsewhere, too. If you have comments about a particular article, there’s a post for each one from my account on the Fediverse. It’s great for replies, and I read them all!
Just want to follow updates to the site and not all my daily tweets? I’ve got you covered with @HeyDingus@mas.to.
Not into social media? I get that. I love email, and you can reach me at jarrod@heydingus.net.
About This Site
This blog is written, designed and produced by me. It is, as all good blogs should be, an amalgamation of anything and everything that catches my interest.
I write about my inspirations and my interests, which, of course, include camping and climbing and other “outdoorsy” things, but I also harbor a keen fascination for technology and design. These things have always been large parts of my life, and I’ve consumed endless content about them — but here is where I add to the conversation.
What’s with ‘HeyDingus’?
‘HeyDingus’ is my homage to the writers and podcasters who have inspired me to create something of my own. Attentive podcast listeners may recognize “Hey, Dingus” as the phrase used by some podcasters to fill in for the various smart assistant wake phrases so they don’t get inadvertently activated.
It was Merlin Mann who coined the original phrase with John Gruber as “Yo, Dingus” on The Talk Show in 2016, and it’s evolved since then. Merlin and John are two of my favorite folks on the internet — I love what they put out into the world. Thanks, guys.
Plus, it’s just fun to say.
Colophon
This site runs on Blot. I’ve customized Blot’s old default theme quite extensively, taking bits of inspiration from all over the web. The text is written using Markdown, usually starting in Drafts and then in iA Writer or 1Writer. Images are typically served by ImageKit.io. Items in the ‘Stuff I Love’ boxes are served up by Shoutouts.lol. My analytics are tiny and privacy-preserving, provided by the excellent Tinylytics.
I’ve written about my writing workflow and more about blogging in general.
By the way, you can append .md (or .txt or .text) to the URL of any page or post to see its Markdown-styled plain text. Like this: https://heydingus.net/about.md
To see an incomplete chronicle of major updates to this site, you can check out /changelog.