Day: May 14, 2025

It’s kind of the middle of the middle, you know that period mid-month as we head towards Memorial Day Weekend which is still a week and half away, and its kind of cloudy and gray. Another rough night sleeping, not sure why I didn’t abuse caffeine that much yesterday though I’m super jittery today from the caffeine. I mean I feel like a slept well last night, but didn’t feel that great waking up this morning.

Last night I tried to get the cassette off my bike unsuccessfully. This was particularly frustrating as this is the second or third time I’ve used the cassette puller. I don’t have the wheel yet, so it’s not a rush but I wanted to get this done so I wouldn’t have to do this. I got the brake disc off but not without drilling out that one bolt that I buggered up probably using the Hex Key rather then a Torque T25 key. Now I’m down a bolt for the disc brake, but I’ll see how it will work on the new wheel down a bold. I don’t want to wreck the cassette so I just through up my hands and soaked it with oil maybe to try again tonight. I am just cranky with my without my bike, but I wanted to learn how to full break down the wheel, so I could in future replace broken spokes. I am not going to rush to pick up the wheel until this weekend from shop, or maybe on Friday after work if I drive in. I probably should have just paid the woke bike shop the $35 bucks to do the switch over, and it’s not the fucking money, but the principal. I want to master my own repair skills, so every five minutes I’m having to drive into work, then rush over to the woke bike shop.

People keep insisting the solution to all my problems is to spend more money and throw away more shit. And attend more sessions of professional ass wiping up in Clifton Park, because you know the ass wiper professionals do such more better of a job then whatever you could do. To a certain point, I get it, we live in a throw-away society, you have to buy new and throw away shit all the time because it’s not designed to last. Even so-called good quality, sustainable items are just woke labels, mostly pure fakery. The difference between L.L. Bean and Walmart or something you order on E-Bay from China? Not much of a difference. It’s all garbage. And the hell of it is – you can say live out in the country and have a burn barrel for all that packaging crap – there is a lot of stuff that doesn’t burn really well, and unless you have a big hole you’ve dug – you’re expected to pay somebody to haul it off to a local garbage mound. Really, I’m not cheap, I just don’t want more crap I have to get rid off – and I don’t think wokiness is the solution to all our nations problems.

I was working on my bike and one of my neighbors was smoking me out with marijuana. Not sure which one it was, but some of the crap they smoke is pretty awful acrid smelling. I like smoking grass up in wilderness, but I don’t think the stuff I smoke is nearly that bad. And I’m someone who doesn’t think about burning all kinds of garbage and ain’t scared away by the smell of a little manure on the air in dairy country. I totally get why people find pot smoking to be quite obnoxious, it can be pretty smelly. Just kind of like that burn barrel smoke I smelled when I was out driving down NY 82 last weekend. But freedom! When you’re out in wilderness, or out in country, you don’t have to breathing in your neighbor’s smoke. I don’t like the proposal that some of the leftists are pushing to ban cigarette smoking ️in all multi-family housing. Maybe not indoors due to fire risk or right by doors, but if people want to ruin their health, then so be it. I don’t smoke at home but I do get a lot of enjoyment with that occasional drag on a cigarette in the wilderness with a cold beer. Don’t you know you’re going to die, you sick, depraved individual? Cancer it’s so bad! I have guns, I’ll never die from cancer when I can take care of my own needs.

I saw that Walmart is now charging for pick up of orders less then $35 without their prime membership, just like it was with shipping. Kind of sucks because so much of their crap is locked up now at the store, but I still like shopping there better then the Woke Grocery Shoppe where they package food in fancy labels that burn up just as well at Walmart labels, but charge you an extra $20 dollars for the colorful packaging that if anything is more pungent to burn. Last Sunday after hiking, I stopped at Tops in Coxscakie to get the personal care items that were locked up at Walmart or otherwise I forgot. At least that grocery store wasn’t quite as woke as Market32, where everything is either Organic or in a fancy overpriced label claiming it’s natural. The most unhealthy stuff is in fanciest garbage. As I like to say, what is good for your burn barrel is bad for your health. I just want the food inside, preferably wrapped in less plastic or cardboard. I could and sometimes do recycle such things like any good wokester, especially the in winter, but I’d rather not pay for it, and honestly, things that are better for compost pile are much healthier then stinky ol’ plastic that makes the black smoke. $78 bucks by the time I left Walmart for a “little stock up” which was obnoxious, but at least now I have a lot of healthy fruit and vegetables to eat for the rest of the week. Some wrapped in plastic, but usually I get the bulk sizes, as big as they sell them so it’s not that excessive. I needed more before Thursday when the woke bike shop says my wheel should arrive, but as I noted, I’m probably not going to pick up before the weekend.

The work day yesterday wasn’t bad but I’ve been cranky about not having my bike or how that repair project has been difficult. And that’s been keeping me up at night, as have so many other things. I’ve been thinking about trying on Facebook Friends to meet some new people hang out with as I’m kind of bored of doing everything on my own. Just the usual random shit in the office, computer systems breaking and then getting fixed, reports run, etc. Work, work work it seems. The buses all were fine, I got home, I was tired but as previously noted I got to Walmart. I just want this week to be over, my bike back up and running, and to have a nice weekend to get out of town, preferably with less black flies.

Rain today, tomorrow, maybe Friday and more rain on Saturday. I guess it’s not the end of world that this week I’m busing it into work. It’s fine, I still think it beats driving. Yes, it adds 15-minutes to the commute, maybe 20-minutes but when I’m on the bus I don’t have to pay attention to the road, and gives me a chance to get some steps in if I take an earlier bus in the morning or walk down to the Park and Ride. The shuttle is free, it’s the normal bus fare, and they won’t give me a discount card, as technically I don’t work downtown. Doesn’t look good for weekend either. You guess I’ll it, I’ll be home. It’s time to get the bike back up and running, assuming the wheel comes this week as promised. Next weekend for the Holiday Weekend, I’ll take it piece by piece. Maybe I’ll head up to Speculator or out to the Green Mountains, but it seems like Memorial Weekend is always so buggy with the black flies, and either is mad humid and buggy, or cold and very rainy. It looks like the later is most likely. That said, I’m still deprate to get a night in wilderness so I can have a fire.