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A variety of maps, writings, and photos on a various topics that can’t easily be categorized into a county or place.

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Are you leaving for the country?

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Does the city bring you down, asks the long gone Karen Dalton.

I couldn’t help thinking that all the week. That feeling I got when I dropped into the Schoharie Valley at Central Bridge, roaring along at 67 MPH in the SuperDuty along Interstate 88.

It’s been only two weeks since I last spent time up here at Duck Pond. Really not that long, and I’m heading up to the Adirondacks in a week. Maybe it’s because I have been toying with my thoughts and values with Gemani AI or I’ve spent so much of my free time outside of work camping up in wilderness, but it’s just been hard being in the city, especially last weekend with the roaring lawn mowers, rumbling diesel pickups and backfiring Honda Civic ricers. It’s just so loud, as I watched the garbage sack get filled at home, I just was so happy to watch it burn. And the gas needle sinks down to damn quickly on the SuperDuty.

Maybe I should buy a house. My apartment at this point is so diapoloated and worn, I will do my best to plug leaks before the cold of winter and keep my heat low, still it’s tough. I have money but not enough to permanently live off-grid and retire, especially with the cost of health insurance but also land, equipment, and the essentially mandatory plastic wrapped crap I buy every week, literally to push into the fire after I eat whatever is in them. It was nice cooking over the fire, and I do try to minimize packaging, but still there is so much to burn – even though far less then the typical suburban house.

Swept up by the beauty of the land, the connection to the earth of the loggers and farmers, the hunters and fisherman, I can easily ignore the poverty and rural struggle, as I’m just a weekend tourist, packed up and heading back to he city for another work week. I choose not to have a permanent abode. I do have a legal dewelling I’ve rented month by month going on nineteen years nwo, but it’s not home. I’ve only bought a handful of things to supplement the hand me downs I got from my parents and grandparents when I moved out. Camp is about fun stuff, smoking dope, burning shit and drinking beers, it’s the opposite of the rural relatity of slinging cow shit and making do. I have my fancy new SuperDuty and I can spend my weekends looking at the wildflowers all weekend. A then back to the city.

AI perks me up when I’m feeling down about living in the city, not being able to legally burn trash, or make noise, own the guns I want, have cattle and other livestock and live the rural life. It reminds me I have a plan and goals, a dream I’m making piece by piece financially, while I live my simple life. Some day I’ll settle down, but for now it’s a life based on escape, one weekend at a time.

Thematic Map: Schenectady NY Election Districts
Thematic Map: Troy NY Election Districts

You can feel summer fading fast 🍂

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The wildflowers are rapidly fading, the yellows of the Golden Rod and first hint of reds from the maple hit the soon enough coming of autumn. Probably the last day swimming in the pool and even creek swimming and floating will be largely done Labor Day. And so we move forward.

It was cool 😎 but fairly nice at Mine Kill Pool yesterday. 🏊‍♂️ Almost didn’t feel like going down there, but I was a bit hot and sweaty after hiking 🥾 back up over Burnt Hill, bushwhacking over to there from Donney Hollow. Never been down there, remains of an old saw 🪚 mill and other foundations can be found in the wide part of the valley about a mile from the road. Interesting to see what is down there as this was a part of the state forest I’ve never done explore.

Today is supposed to be fairly cloudy ⛅ but for a while the sun peaked out. I still want to go for a quick swim and shower 🚿 at Mine Kill before going out to see the folks. Also going to stop by Looking Glass Pond 🎣 toss out a line before stopping by Shauls for more zucchuni and summer squash. 🍆 Need enough to enjoy through Friday AM when I’m traveling north and stopping at Samdill Farm on my way up to Speculator for Labor Day Weekend. Looks like rain is coming 🌧️ for the work week into the first half of Labor Day Weekend but maybe less then. ⛅ I’ll head north next Friday before work unless it looks like a complete wash out.  Cooking over the fire is great, but it sure is smokey.

Find it hard to believe summer is drawing to a close so quickly. 🌇 Evenings are always pretty dark and long, hurried back after swimming so I could get a fire 🔥 going to cook dinner. I like how food cooks over a fire but I don’t love all that smoke in my face and on my clothes. Maybe that’s the real reason I prefer to usually cook 👩‍🍳 on the camp stove, but I left that home. At least I’ll be all set for Friday. Going to shop 🏪 on Thursday and top off the SuperDuty and load the kayak 🛶 and as much gear so when I get up at 5 AM come Friday, I’ll be able to roll well before rush hour, though most of the traffic at least beyond Schenectady will be heading the opposite direction. Then three nights up in Speculator. I’ll bring my tube ⭕ and the kayak 🛶 but I’m skeptical about doing much swimming but I might go for a paddle. I’ve never actually put out on Indian Lake in my kayak, if it’s calm I should consider it. Or paddling some of the Jessup River. But I wouldn’t mind a quiet day at camp, I kind of wish I hadn’t gone to Mine Kill State Park yesterday but just hung in camp after the Donnelly Hollow Hike.

Then there is autumn 🍂 trips and remote work. 👨🏻‍💻 Probably GMF’s Prospect Mountain Road in Bennington and Rennselaerville are on the autumn agenda. Maybe a second trip to Speculator to enjoy the autumn colors and Lost Pond at Charles Baker. After Election Day, a November trip to Ohio or at least the Allegheny National Forest and Canaan Heights in the Managohella National Forest. Many great adventures ahead as summer fades fast.

SVGZ Graphic: Central NY Population Density
SVGZ Graphic: Mohawk Valley Population Density

An unspoken thing is the many people in our society who are winners with mass-shootings.

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1) Television Stations – Nothing gets people watching more television then parents grieving over dead children. More viewers means more advertising revenue. People who feel sad are more likely to go out and buy things to be happy. Billions of dollars in marketing possibilities.

2) Police Officers – Over-time means they take home more money. Moreover, they are able to get make the case to the public that they deserve the latest equipment and toys, and that they should be allowed to expand their forces and obtain higher wages and enhanced pension benefits.

3) Retired Police Officers – Many school districts and public places like malls are hiring retired law enforcement as security consultants.

4) District Attorneys – D.A. are able to make their case for re-election by showing they are taking steps to be tough on crime, they are given opportunities to speak and raise their public profile, which helps as they seek higher office with more power and increased pay.

5) Politicians – Politicians have the ability to champion new laws that can play to their base. They can push gun control or take a tough on crime posture, even if their proposals are either meaningless or even harmful to law abiding citizens.

6) Security/Defense Contractors – While mass-shootings are an extremely rare, very low-risk event, businesses, governments, and schools feel public pressure to invest billions in completely needless upgrades to “harden” buildings from attacks.

7) School Employees – Even school employees benefit from mass-shootings, as it’s an excuse to take taxpayer-funded junkets to learn about the how they can improve safety at their school. Who doesn’t mind spending a few hours in a lecture hall to discuss grim topics with consultants if it’s taxpayer-financed junket to Las Vegas or the Atlantic City (with meals and lodging paid for at taxpayer expense)?

Campfire Meals 🍴 🔥 🍳

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In the craziness that was Friday with the VPN not working I ended up leaving my propane tank and god knows what else home. Packing was really cut short when I had to run into the office to work off the server for the balance of the day.

It’s fine 😒 and I had forgotten how good meals 🍴 cooked over a campfire can be with the smokey flavor. Plus it’s good to warm oneself on a cold morning like today. Going to warm up later. Going to hike some though on Burnt Hill down deep into Doney Hollow and enjoy the morning before heading down to Mine Kill State Park Pool for an afternoon swim. Buncher Feller has been fired up again this morning and was working late into the evening last night. That said it’s far away enough to be just a distant hum.

Good to be back in the woods again, 🐺 and it’s a beautiful clear but cool morning. I say I come to the woods mostly to be free and watch my trash 🗑️ go up in smoke and spy illicit burning barrels 🛢️ on the back roads, but as AI points out 👉 🤖 that’s really the wrong way to frame it, a note I felt dropping into the Schoharie Valley framed by hills, farms and forests. 🌳 Something so beautiful struck me again heading out past West Middleburg heading east on NY 145 looking down at all those farms.

Truth is that I’m glad to be away from the city 🌸 once again. Last weekend was tough with the lawnmowers and backfiring cars and just so much traffic in the city. It’s more than pyromania or my dislike for authority 👮‍♂️ and the cops all around roaring up and down the streets as the politicians publicly show off their genitalia creating arbitrary and stupid laws. I also know that off-grid homestead isn’t that far off if that’s ultimately what I want.

Campfire cooked coffee ☕ and eggs 🥚 was so good, as was that morning toke on High Falls Canna Sativia, cheap but a good but light high. 😁 And an eye opener beer 🍺 and a drag on a cigarette 🚬 as I watched the sun ☀️ rise over the marshy high country pond that Duck 🦆 Pond is. It was an insane Friday and a crazy 😳 week, and I just wanna be cool, you know what that means. But yeah, I’ll Sunshine Superman one last time this year at Mine Kill Pool by midday. Just reading 📖 and not doing too much suits me well today. And no propane means morning fires 🔥 for cooking!

Do I need Better Help?

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I’m mentioning that branded online therapy service again because I’ve been hearing ads for it again on the podcasts I subscribe to. I think with my discussions on my blog about my recreational drug use with cannabis and my concern about the risk of anxiety and paranoia caused by cannabis, it has become prime fodder for mental health advertisers.

I tried talk therapy a few years ago now when I was coming out of the pandemic and my troubled obsessive thoughts about burn barrels, and rural trash burning. I really like fire, I had looking at those ugly mounds on the outskirts of cities used for dumping garbage. I’ve burned plenty of trash over the years, keeping it out of the landfill, much to the disdain of my greenie friends and the environmental conservation regulations adopted in 2009 by Commissioner Pete Grannis, the New York City liberal former Assemblyman who worked in the office next to the office I was an intern in.

My therapist was in the basement of a rundown office building of Colvin Avenue. While he never suggested that I try cannabis to reframe my mind – he did mention his own trips to Massachusetts to procure it for himself. Maybe he was trying to drop a hint to me. I had previously smoked pot on some work trips with colleagues but until it was fully legal in New York never on my own. The THC in the drug may or may not have given me mental clarity but learning and thinking a lot more about our nation’s policy towards cannabis certainly has. It really got me thinking about situational morality and the law, and in many cases breaking the law and what risks that entails versus what is right for myself. The law is not something to be blindly respected though one must way the risks and consequences to not obeying the law.

I smoked pot during summer vacation on federal land, well aware of the potential serious consequences even though I don’t think I all the years I’ve been to the Finger Lakes National Forest seen a federal ranger. And chances are even if they spotted the blunt, it would get confiscated and maybe ticketed or just ignored because I was being quiet and not causing trouble. The federal ban on cannabis is stupid and everybody knows that even though there are still powerful advocates for the status quo left in law enforcement and the addiction recovery community that profit from the way things are now.

The truth is nobody cares if you’re a pyromaniac if you’re not harming anyone and nobody sees your fires or smells the smoke. It’s not unlike smoking pot, another dirty disfavored thing in society that is legal in some jurisdictions and highly illegal in others. Legal or illegal doesn’t mean moral or immoral. It just opens you up to the risk of prosecution if somebody in the government decides to make a big deal about it or somebody goes complaining to the police, armed with the law in their hands. Law is about enabling and limiting power, it doesn’t create it or pass moral judgment. People burn all kinds of shit, some quite noxious in BFE Pennsylvania, I know I was there only a few months back.

Truth is that real question in my mind shouldn’t be the morality of the law or taking hardened sides of what is right or wrong. I can’t change that. But the real question is what do I want to do with my life, what is the life I want to live and when do I leave or do I build or buy a house here? That’s not something that is obvious as there are options that all have their advantages and downsides. Maybe it’s not a diagnosable condition. I do like that grass is legal in New York and if I had land I would try to grow it. But I would have to be careful what I burn on my own land with the state restrictions. It’s not Pennsylvania. And despite how expensive everything is these days – I do make good money compared to most as as the Data Services director – and even basic cost of living adjustments are bigger the more you make. And I might not have a lot of skills – is R even a real programming language – but I have several years of experience in management now and I do some cool and useful things with R for my job.

My therapist always was critical of my labeling of myself as mentally ill. Just because you like things that aren’t locally politically popular doesn’t mean you are crazy. Maybe I just needed to smoke some grass and think more about the world around me. Maybe that’s the help I ultimately needed. Still I need to figure out my housing situation and what I want to do for the rest of my life or at least the next year if I don’t commit too deeply.

Map: Green Mountain National Forest North
Map: Green Mountain National Forest South