Delmar, NY

Good morning! Sun is rising on this beautiful fall morning 🌄

A really nice autumn morning. Sun is rising not too hot and it’s far enough north at this point not to be right in my eyes 👀 as I walk Bypass Extension.

Mostly sunny and 55 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☀ Calm wind. The dew point is 54 degrees.

Decided to do breakfast 🥞 before my morning walk 🚶 because it’s very dark at six o’clock. Did the loop in Delmar around the high school 🚸 rather than then taking the early bus to the Plaza as I get more steps in starting early and walking in town and there aren’t the homeless people that are sleeping, 👾 leaving needles 💉and pooping 💩 all over the Plaza. Albany lately has been in such a slope downhill. The pandemic combined with opiods really damaged the cities. Even below grade, the roof has multiple leaks 💧and your dodging puddles and dumpsters set up to catch the rain water.

Yesterday was another busy day💻 but at least I didn’t bring any work home and it stopped raining for the evening walk 🚶 thought between the rain in the morning and no lunch break I didn’t get my steps in. Spent some time reading about garbage collection in Python and R and then some advanced techniques in R. The more I learn about the programming languages the faster and better I will be at coding – which means less work in the future and better results.

Monday I bought a $1,000 in stocks and bonds 📉 and totally cringed a bit when I saw the market declined ten percent upon the release of the inflation report. But that’s short term thinking 💭 not what things will look like in 2030 when I’m starting my homestead. 🐐 I buy and hold, I’m in for the long term. I wish I had broken it up and spread it out over multiple days to get more cost averaging although in the grand scheme of things it’s just one of many stock buys on good and bad days. 🤷‍♂️

In some ways it’s kind of discouraging to see how over the past year my investments have remained flat 📊 despite continuing to increase my holdings 💵 thought I am well aware that stocks and bonds have no real value to convert them into cash. More shares, bought at discounted rates due to the fed rate rising, means there will be more upswing when things turn around. Cheaper prices today, are better for a better tomorrow. It’s not like I’ve actually lost real money, it’s just that things aren’t really growing much with stock market being pretty much flat to down over the year that’s been.

I am thinking about working from home 🏡 on Friday and then going camping / hiking this weekend. Probably not too far from home 🏡 although Schoharie remains a real possibility. Where to go I’m not totally sure. Already the sunset is early which makes the Adirondacks a challenge to drive up to after work. Been such a mild September this year so I think the Adirondacks colors 🍂 won’t be great until the first week of October this year.

Good morning! A Sticky, Muggy Monday in September. 😰

It really feels like a swamp outside today. Maybe some drizzle but it’s really all about the humidity today. Autumn, what’s right? Feels more like a damp summer day.

Cloudy with rain sprinkles, humid and 63 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ Calm wind. The dew point is 62 degrees. The skies will clear around noontime.

Dropped my phone 🤳 twice this morning on my walk down to the express bus 🚍. My hands 👐 are wet from the sweat and I kept getting tangled in the headphones. 🎧 I should get a replacement for the Bluetooth headphones but they never have anyone in electronics at Wally World. Plus the emails keep rolling in while I walk down to the bus. 📧

I did get shopping last night at Wally World, 🍔 getting a bunch of groceries, which like every week was more expensive then last. 🤑 And they have more stuff locked up. But I like still like how they have more bulk packaged stuff then the grocery store, which means less stuff that I end up having to get rid of 🔥 or take to the transfer station for recycling. I was very happy that I was able to get hot sauce in plastic container, ♻️ as I really hate glass, as I worry about breaking it, and it takes a lot of room and weight in the recycling. Plus I’m very dubious about glass recycling. Seems like a lot of trash dumps in the woods are just full of glass. 🍾

The weekend came and went. 🕊 It was there until I blinked my eyes 👀 and it was gone. I did enjoy the relaxed final weekend trip out to Thacher Park. I enjoyed the six Saturdays I spent up at Thacher Park, and while there is one more Nature Bus 🚌 the week of September 25th, I will probably be heading up to the Adirondacks. I enjoy having a Saturday to explore the park and back roads, lay in the hammock, do some reading and hike. Saturday, I hiked over 15 miles. Sunday with the clouds and rain, I did far less hiking around.

After listening to that podcast about pack goats 🐐 my fascination with them continues. I read a book about goat farming a while back, I think it was last summer, and they seem like a useful animal on the farmstead, to say nothing about hiking. Much easier to bring on a trip then a dog, as they don’t have the water needs and browse their own forages. Plus they are great for cleaning up overgrown areas in the woods. Or at least I’ve been brandwashed by Marc Warnke. 🧠 I do remember how stinky buck goats can get when they spray themselves with urine so to attract females.