Notes — Andy Arthur.org

Happy Thursday 😎

Andy | September 10, 2026

Probably going to work remote tomorrow, I have a lot of campaign committee work to do, plus it looks like a nice day, though the second half of the weekend is looking wet but maybe I can wrap up the truck deal this weekend.

Good morning, Happy Thursday. 🚴 I should be able to ride in today as the rain has stopped. It was a good decision to bus it in yesterday, 🚌 as it ended up raining a fair bit yesterday. ☔ Rained a little bit on walk back from the library last night, but it wasn’t awful. Meetings downtown, so I should ride the bike as mid-day it’s gets difficult with the bus or shuttle. 🚀

Eggs, potatoes, onions for breakfast this morning. 🍳 I get tired of pancakes all of the time, and a good protein rich breakfast should be good for the ride in today. Humid though to start out the day, and a bit foggy after last night’s rain. 🌫️ Hopefully I won’t be too much of a sweaty pig 🐷 when I get to work. Still haven’t fixed the kitchen at work after the flood, I am still washing out my dishes and hands in the gross men bathroom or water fountain, waiting to soon enough for that to be fixed again at work.

Traffic has definately picked up with school 🚸 back in session, and people back to work after summer vacations. I got to get home fairly early as I’m showing Big Red 🛻 to a prospective buyer this evening. Hoping to close down a deal, 🤝 I’m ready to move on from Big Red and have money to get the cellphone booster for remote work. 👨🏻‍💻 At this point, I’m willing to accept somewhat under what I could potentially get but the offers have to be reasonable. Big Red, if you put the money and parts to fix the frame, 🧑‍🔧 did some body work, could be a very nice truck once again.

Though I do like my F-350 SuperDuty, and I want something reliable then old Big Red as I do more travels to remote country, especially once gas prices ⛽ come back down again. Truth is outside of the loose lug nut in Finger Lakes 2022 and the burned up wheel bearing in 2021 in Pennsylvania/West Virigina, that was a pretty good truck, but I’m ready to move on and sell the old rig. I still think a recession and gas price crash is likely, though the pain seems to likely get worse as mid-terms approach. Good for us Democrats though. 🐴 Even those of us who drive an F-350 and burn our garbage. I chuckled a bit as I tossed that no-recycling logo Styrofoam egg carton and the fake recycling logo of the Apple Cider Vinger bottle in the trash. 🔥 It will burn well, as they say. But not this weekend.

i’m pretty sure recycling isn’t real…

Andy | September 9, 2026

Just tired

Andy | September 9, 2026

Work lately has been non-stop. I ended up going down to the library to do more work as I don’t have internet at home and to follow up on the uptick of people interested in Big Red since I lowered the listing price to $3,500. I might finally close the sale this weekend, I have one person coming by to look and start him up after work, and then somebody else looking on Monday, and a few others in the wing. It’s less money then I’d hope, but at this point I just want to get rid of him for a good home. I could use that money for the undercoating and the cellphone booster. Maybe somebody can get a few more years out of him after repairing the frame. I like my F-350 now. It’s paid for, though the insurance agent wants his cut come the 30th, and the blog hosting company wants a similar cut. They want $750 for the next three years of hosting, but you know inflation, and I do make well over a $1,000 a year now in blog revenue.

I am glad looking over my test results that I am quite healthy, despite a few things being elevated from my dehydration and hiking and paddling all day Monday in the sun. I am putting on a little weight from all that beer drinking up at camp, and my diet being less strict especially with all that campaign committee, but I’m still far below what I was. That is a warning though for the future. I was worried that the few high reading on the blood test might mean I was sick or had something wrong, being often tired but I realize it’s mostly the long days I work – I am often in my office by 7:30 AM or 8 PM and work closer to 5:30 PM or 6 PM many nights, before riding my bike home. Even this “relaxing” Labor Day Weekend in the Adirondacks was more of a working vacation then anything else, even if it was some beer drinking and pot smoking in the evening after hiking.

Riding the bus on the Hump 🐪

Andy | September 9, 2026

I probably could ride the bike in today, but instead chose to take the bus. I was a bit tired and I’m not really sure how wet it would by evening. Tomorrow I’ll bike in as I have my meeting downtown, and Friday I’ll probably work remote.

I got an email that my blood work was back from my physical yesterday, 🧪 and I guess I kind of screwed up by skipping breakfast and being dehydrated after being out in the sun all day on Labor Day. 🌞 I thought I was going to get busted for my wild-assed drinking and smoking a lot of pot on Sunday after hiking Pillsbury, 🍺 but that doesn’t seem likely according to Gemini AI. Mostly it was the dehydration, same reason the nurse had to get the horse needle out as she couldn’t strike a vein. Maybe I was really trying to be overly favorable about my weight 🤰which came in at 220 lbs, because I’ve been drinking so much beer over the weekend, choking on expensive steak 🥩 at 677 Prime and eating candy at the campaign committee. 🍬 That said, I don’t eat any processed food or meat at home, and lately it’s mostly zucchini and summer squash fried in vegetable oil, with breakfasts of eggs and veggies, or apple pancakes with lots of shredded zucchuni. 🍆 At one point I was down to 207 lbs, wanted to get down to 195 lb but that never happened, but I’ve been creeping back up but not the 275 lbs I was in my younger years before I started eating healthy. 😋

Got a lot of interest in the truck cap and truck since I lowered the price, 🛻 at this point I mostly just want it gone, and have some money so I can cover my various bills like the truck insurance, truck undercoating, blog hosting, maybe cellphone booster that are upcoming. I want to hold out for what is fair, but also, I am willing to eat some of it just to get rid of the truck at this point as I’m getting tired of having to stick in town in case somebody wants to buy the truck. 💸 I have a lot of trouble keeping up with all those emails between work and travel. ✉️ I am so busy these days. Truth is I mostly want to get Big Red to good home. 🏘

Busy, busy, busy. 🤖 Got to keep al that data moving down the pipeline. Between work and keeping up with those messaging about the truck, makes it hard to keep up – plus my demand for some downtime in the weekend just to hang out and relax. 😫 I am just tired, exhausted after all these busy days. Tomorrow I’ll ride my bike to work, which should help.

Too many hours of Gram Parsons and Brewer and Shiply

Andy | September 8, 2026

And too many hours of work, I’ve been so busy. I do enjoy that kind of music though of my parents generation, the earthy, old fashioned country-folk back when trucks and tractors were simple, when everybody burned stuff and nobody cared or got all priestly about every little piece of wilderness. I just hate how … Too many hours of Gram Parsons and Brewer and Shiply

And too many hours of work, I’ve been so busy. I do enjoy that kind of music though of my parents generation, the earthy, old fashioned country-folk back when trucks and tractors were simple, when everybody burned stuff and nobody cared or got all priestly about every little piece of wilderness. I just hate how philosophical and detached from reality of cow shit and mud everything is now with everybody claiming an environmental impact and study.

I decided the lower price on Big Red, down to $3,500 as I really want to get rid of him at this point. 🛻 He was a nice truck for many years, but I’ve moved beyond him, I have the F-350 SuperDuty and I want to finalize a deal so I’m not teased by so many people who are interested, finding myself stuck in town in case a lock down a deal, and then losing potential deals when I’m in the wilderness and not right on my phone. And work has become so self-consuming. I am down at the library to try listing my truck at the lower price, maybe too cheap, and to do more work, so I don’t keep falling further and further behind on things. 🤑 I really should do more to promote the sale of Big Red and maximize my profit, but ultimately it’s not that much value left in the truck, though it would be nice to get a little bit of money, to pay for a cellphone booster and oil undercoating my my new truck.

It was good to be away in Adirondacks all weekend, I ended my weekend watching the sun set from Good Luck Cliffs. It was kind of a lousy sunset, though it improved as the sun dipped below the horizon, though I made a b-line for the cliffs edge and trail down the mountain, lest I try to go down it in the pitch black like I did some 5 years ago now back during the pandemic. 🌇 I had my doctors appointment – the yearly physical – this morning, I decided to skip breakfast, coffee, and also dinner, so I was pretty damn dehydrated, and when they tried to draw blood, they had trouble drawing it, and had to get out the horse needle and really push the vein, and when the blood came out, it really bled. Took the bus to work, as I wanted to bring my laptop in, plus I had meetings downtown, so it made more sense to bus it. Tomorrow I may or may not ride my bike to work, depending on the weather. 🚶‍♂️ I also hiked back to Broomstick Lake and checked out the pull out at Shaker Place, trying to decide if I should paddle down there, and then ride back on my mountain bike to my truck some time in the future. 🛶 That sounds like quite an adventure.

Other then that, life has been busy and exhausting. Back in the city, after four short days in the wilderness, 🐺 both remote working and smoking pot and relaxing. I didn’t mention how much beer 🍻 or weed I enjoyed up in woods and said no when I was asked if I was a smoker. I’m not, maybe an occassional drag on a cigarette 🚬 at camp but if anything I like pot better. I dream a lot about the cabin and homestead, 🐐 but the weekends provide enough of an escape. I got a late start this summer, but I did end up spending 26 nights camping in SuperDuty despite the high gas prices and an otherwise busy summer with work, moving gear over to SuperDuty, rainy weekends, and trying to sell the old truck. I was thinking 🤔 I’d love to get out to Vermont for a long weekend of remote work, but I still hold out hope of the truck selling, ⛽ and haven’t you seen how much gas prices went up after Labor Day? I though normally they went down. Maybe the following weekend I’ll work remote Friday and Monday from camp or the Bennington Library. I really enjoyed wandering around Robert Frost’s old homestead last autumn, so maybe that’s eomthing to do again. Or another hike up Bald Mountain or one of other peaks out that way. Prospect Mountain Road is just the other side of Bennington, so it’s not that far way.

Doctor weighted me in at 220 lbs :🩺 – this time though with my steel toe boots 👢 – while other times without. I should get a scale at home and start weighting myself. Of course I had pizza, wings, and lots of salad – plus some breakfast bars when I got to DACC to make up for my fasting – I didn’t have anything beyond eggs and some bananas 🍌 and apples on the trail yesterday – it was too late by the time I reached home at 10 PM last night and this morning, I didn’t want to go on a full stomach. Skipped my moring coffee too, ☕ and was a bit evasive when it came to mental health questions, though I was in a good mood this morning. Truth is I love my job and all the time I spend in wilderness in my SuperDuty even I do want that off – grid cabin eventually. 🐮 Making good money and saving a lot, but between gas prices and all the trips in SuperDuty it’s starting to eat away at my budget. Still wilderness camping is cheap, even if I do burn up a lot of gas in my big truck. Tomorrow I’m hoping to ride my bike to work, but I’m skeptical with the forecast. More photos to share on the blog tomorrow. 🖼️