Notes — Andy Arthur.org

Bar exam 🧑‍⚖️

Andy | July 28, 2026

There was a great mass of people coming onto the Concourse as I walked laps on the Plaza. Such young people. I read the sign, bar exam.

I guess most people taking the bar exam would be in their twenties. 🧒🏻 Not gray and getting old like me. Still it seemed overwhelming to see all those young people come pouring out of the Empire Plaza Meeting Rooms.

Like many things, I had second thoughts, 💭 the times I thought about going to law school after college. But I got an internship and then a job with State Assembly, and have been there going on over 19 years now if you include my internship. Hard to believe after all that time, now the Director of Data Services. Love coming up with great ways to target things and overseeing a big data unit, still much like the SuperDuty, I always have questions about my life choices.

I could have caught the earlier local home, but it looked like it was actually running on time, too little time to catch it 🚌 but a few refreshes of the real-time bus info showed I actually had plenty of time. So I ended up catching the later home, walking laps 👣 through the crowd but also getting some steps in.

Got home, fried up summer squash 🍳 lunched around a bit, and decided with the volt meter not being delivered to wire up a USB/12 volt outlet to the starting battery and use my portable plug in battery gauge at least as a temporary solution. To hopefully keep that from getting fried, ⚡ I also inserted a RC Snubber Board into the circuit. Also moved the old dash cam into my truck, using electrical tape around the cable and jamming it under the headliner as a temporary solution. I want to get a good, lens fog free camera for the truck, but not until prices come down again and expenses are a bit lower.

Then just a little packing and not enough cleaning. 🧽 I am such a dirty hick, my apartment run down and I don’t really care that much anymore. Hell, I’m going to the wilderness to camp in the mud for 10 nights, or at least in a forest next to a cow pasture. 🐮 Shit will smell like cows and farm, and I kind of like that. Someday I’ll have my own land, off-the-grid, simple, with livestock but the week plus in the National Forest also works for now. I had wanted to go to Michigan but it just wasn’t going to happen this year. Rain for driving out but it should clear relatively early in the Finger Lakes, and then the next chance for good rain is Sunday.

What the heck, I’m packing my propane heater for summer vacation. 🪭 Essential? No, but I think I can fit it, and on Sunday when it’s raining out, I might rather sit next to it on a low compared to a smokey campfire. Really, I don’t bring that much more stuff on summer vacation then what I brought for my autumn trip to the Adirondacks, and I think I’ll have room, and it’s not like the SuperDuty is going to notice one way or another if I bring it or not. Once I’m at camp, I’ll just chain it up and won’t bring it everywhere. I have the propane for camp stove, regardless. Still it strikes me as just wrong to be packing it for late July.

I am just trying to pack the essentials – things I can’t live without all the week. 🩳 The thing is I will have access to stores, so I’m not worried about grocery stores, 🛒 and while I don’t want to buy an extra bottle of sunscreen, 🧴 something like that if it gets forgotten or used up can be purchased. I am not going to get groceries before I leave, though I might stop at Oneonta Walmart both for a pee break and a few supplies. Friday I’ll be down in Watkins Glen most likely to swim and maybe kayak. Looks like a nice day. Saturday is good too but rain Sunday. Cool and rainy on Sunday. Then thunderstorms likely as often is case most of the week. But not a wash out most likely. Got the clothes packed, water containers filled and loaded, tent in the truck, propane and heater in the truck. Packing tools like a the cassette puller, extra spokes, spoke key, allen wrenches, electrical tape and crimp, rubber cement so I can fix as many things as possible as I go along.

Debating if I should bus it in or drive tomorrow. 🚍 Continued rain tomorrow, and I have a meeting downtown, but I thought about driving, as it would be convienent. The thing is parking downtown, even in the DACC lot is a pain, as I don’t have a spot and the SuperDuty is one big mother in the city that really guzzles gas. 🛻 I probably won’t, no need to burn more then I need. The bus is fine, hopefully I’ll catch the earlier local tomorrow. Or maybe if its’ really bad out, I’ll just spend my afternoon downtown and not had back to Enterprise, though I have likely a few more loose ends to patch up before leaving for vacation.

Roaring Paint Mine Falls at Thacher Park

Andy | July 28, 2026

Last summer started out dry, then we had a real wet period for a while that left Paint Mine Falls roaring to life at Thacher Park.

What’s So Bad About DEET? | Reviews by Wirecutter

Andy | July 28, 2026

What’s So Bad About DEET? | Reviews by Wirecutter

When it comes to safety, DEET’s record is about as solid as it gets for any product meant to go on your skin. “There has never been a documented case of DEET poisoning when applied following label directions,” says Swale, who co-authored a peer-reviewed safety review of DEET in the journal Pest Management Science in 2019.

The EPA, which completed a comprehensive re-review of DEET in 2014, reached the same conclusion: There are no risks of concern to human health, including to children. A clinical trial following 897 pregnant women who applied DEET daily during their second and third trimesters found no adverse effects on the mothers or infants at birth or at 1 year of age. In fact, it’s the only repellent with that level of safety data on young children (though experts we’ve spoken to recommend caution with very young infants, particularly those 2 months and younger).

Satrap

Andy | July 28, 2026

In the New York Times today, there was an article that used the word satrap. Not sure what it was, I asked the Google Gemini to explain what the internets thinks it means.

In modern language, “satrap” is used as a derogatory political metaphor to describe a subordinate official who acts like a local tyrant, or a puppet ruler who exercises absolute power over a territory on behalf of a greater empire. [1]

Common Metaphorical Contexts

Political Puppets: Leaders of client states or satellite nations who take orders from a superpower (e.g., a dictator heavily reliant on foreign military backing).
Corporate Micro-Managers: High-ranking executives, regional managers, or subsidiary heads who rule their specific corporate division with unchecked, autocratic authority.
Bureaucratic Tyrants: Local politicians, party bosses, or department heads who build independent power bases within a larger government apparatus.

Key Characteristics in Modern Usage

When the term is applied to someone today, it carries specific negative connotations:

Absolute Local Power: Total domination over their immediate jurisdiction or subordinates.
Utter Servility: Complete subservience to the higher authority or “emperor” that keeps them in power.
Corrupt Wealth: Using a public or corporate position to extract resources and amass personal fortune.
Lack of Legitimacy: Ruling through fear, bureaucracy, or external backing rather than the consent of the people. [1]

Tuesday before rain and vacation 🌧️

Andy | July 28, 2026

Looks like we have a good soaker upon us, keeps it safe for burning shit and growing corn, but don’t tell a liberal that. Busing it in today, otherwise I’ll be soaked for the commute home most likely, and I think I’ll pass on taking the SUPERDUTY !! that gets 13 1/2 miles per gallon at $4.20 a gallon to work.

Maybe though gas prices are not one toke over the line at Pilot Travel Center ⛽ at $4.05, I still see no reason putting more miles on the SuperDuty or driving in the rain, when I can fork over some dollars to give to the bus company. 🚌 And maybe leave and get home just slightly later without the hassles of traffic. I am hoping gas prices will drop a bit more before I gas up in two days at 7 AM before heading out to the Finger Lakes in the rain, though hopefully not heavy rain and it clears before I get set up at the Chicken Co-Op or on the Potomac.

Last night was super hot and humid, 😅and after stopping at the Hannaford on way home on my mountain bike, cooked up some cornmeal pancakes with a lot of the produce I got at Shauls 🍆 🌽 and settled into bed. 🛌 I was tired, being the first day back from my vacationette. I was hoping to install one of the new volt meter gauges I ordered online yesterday, but it did not arrive before the rain the next two days. I guess I can install it in rain under the truck cap. Shouldn’t be hard, as all the wires are run, and it just screws into the RC Snubber which should keep it from blowing up this time, I tell myself.

One of the nice things about going to the Finger Lakes 🛒 is that I don’t have to shop in advance, and if it’s something small I forget to pack like toothpaste, there is Wally World, Tractor Supply, Tops among other stores to go shopping at once I’m out there. If it’s raining hard, I might visit Wally World in Oneonta both for a piss break and to get groceries that I don’t get at For the Love of Bacon 🥓 or Center Lisle Produce Market on the way out there. 🌽 Do need to get that tent out of the crawl space 🏕 before heading out – I use the tent to store dirty clothes and boxes when I’m camping for a week. Seems like I was just out in the Finger Lakes, but Labor Day 2025 was almost a year ago when I returned. I did it late last year, being an non-election year, and with my concerns with the failing health of Big Red, as I could feel the rot in the frame for a while before it was really bad. I might start packing clothes tonight, and doing some cleaning. I figure with the rain coming, it will be mostly an inside night. 🌧 Then tomorrow, finish packing, as I want to leave at 6:45 AM, I’ll program the SuperDuty to fire up at 6:40 AM on Thursday, though it only lets you set a one-day firing up two days in advance.

Hoping for not too much rain 🌧 for my summer vacation, 🏊‍♀️ but you know it’s summer and there is going to be thunderstorms. I’m heading west as the rain over the next few days pulls off, so hopefully the woods won’t be so soaked when I get there and are setting up. But if it’s wet, I do have tarps and can camp in a better drained campsite. 🏕 Plus I suspect fewer people will be there, so I’ll have more options to select a campsite. Wunderground is a bit more bummer about next week, but NOAA doesn’t seem that pessimistic, and statistically speaking, NOAA’s forecasts tend to be more accurate as commercial forecasters like to predict rain more often then not, because people get mad if they don’t call for rain and it rains, hell with accuracy.