Finally surrendering the plates for destruction at the DMV and canceling my auto insurance made it hit home to me. This really is the end. Those were my plates for 22 years, now just a memory. I am so defensive about my decision to retire Big Red, as from an economic standpoint it’s completely irrational – it’s a nice truck and everybody is asking about it – but I felt this was the time to retire it.
Maybe because I’m unsure of what is next.
I mean at one level it’s obvious, take the bus and bike to work. Test drive a truck or two in February, start scouring the listings and websites come March. I should replace it but like any lost love one that’s easier said than done. Maybe I’ll be happier to a new Ford SuperDuty but I don’t know it won’t be lifted. And I don’t know if I even want a lifted truck at this point. But it’s so much money even if I do pay cash though all new trucks are expensive. It’s not like I haven’t made good money in the markets and my career is progressing well I can retire in probably quite young compared to most.
I keep reminding myself that time is on my side. But I have a lot of angst about the cost of a Ford SuperDuty truck, probably because I spend so much time studying finance and investing – and the frugal lifestyle – which everybody says by the 20-year old Honda Civic and the Plastic (coated) House. I do despise vinyl siding and asphalt roofs. And color television, and weekly garbage service. But despite all the fascinating shapes plastic makes when you toss it in the fire stoned out of your brain, it really stinks when some of it burns. And I don’t want to undermine my future homestead by buying a big truck now, though honestly I make good money, and my investments have grown significantly over the past decade and half and in comparison, a SuperDuty truck which will last most likely 10-15 years before needing to be discarded really is a pissy amount on a yearly basis. But I still have a lot of angst about it.
On the backside of Mount Grant and Bread Loaf Mountain is the headwaters of the White River in Granville, Vermont. Forest Route 55 provides access to the back country, and there is a deep hollow with informal campsites along it to explore.
I peacefully surrender! Now don’t take my guns. Bringing my license plates in to work today to surrender to the DMV at lunch time today, either for them to hold or destroy depending on what they want to do. Honestly, I don’t care because it’s the dealers problem when I get a new truck to figure out how to get me plates. Then to ask for my insurance money back. I’ll search for new insurance policies in March or so when I get a bigger idea if I’m really going to buy a Ford SuperDuty or that 20-year old Honda Civic everybody praises as a rational choice for delivering pizzas out the back.
While I continue my research and continue to learn, I am really not in a rush to get a new truck at this point, 🚚 as summer is still a ways off and we are in depth of winter but I want to be as informed as possible so I get the best possible platform to build my next rig which hopefully will last me through state retirement circa 2040 when I may very well want a different rig when I get my off-grid cabin. Or maybe an F-350 would be a pretty damn good snowplow truck and even hauling bags of feed and towing a trailer full of hogs 🐽 when I retire. I can’t believe today marks 19 years since I started the Assembly Internship, but granted I have a few more then just 11 years until 30 years of state service, because I worked a year over at Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee and several months in years past during election season. 🗳️ I tell you, the crazy-assed stories I could tell. I just finished rolling over my retirement from that organization into my main IRA account. Going to slowly convert it over an Roth so I don’t have to deal with taxes or RMD when I buy a manure spreader or bailer or whatever you are supposed spend your money on in retirement. 💩
Today I am going to try to be less vulgur on my blog 🤬 less I upset the advertisers. Believe it or not six weeks later my Facebook account is still restricted for promotion of shooting cops with heroin and therefore apparently promoting “dangerous” illegal substances. 💉 From what I’ve read, the actual danger of narcotics is less then what a lot of people think – a majority of first-time users of narcotics don’t become addicted unless their is a regular supply and the social and psychological conditions that promote addiction. People don’t become down and out because their addicts, it’s also that people become addicted because they are down and out. 👹 But don’t tell the drug warriors that. Granted, two summers vacation ago when I smoked a lot of weed, it was kind of a downer when I got home and had to quit. That was fun though, lots of giggles studying the melting plastic and laughing with the cows in the National Forest. 🤭 Honestly, I am not that freaked out about pornography but I read a lot of books about animal raising and husbrandy, and if you have cows and goats, you have to have at least one bull or smelly ol’ buck to mount them. 🐐
Kind of feel that way with motoring, with people pushing you left and right to get another car and saying it’s so sad to not be a motorist, but honestly I don’t care though I do at times still feel the sting of Big Red and realize the inconvience of not owning an a car. I get it, figuring out the trash and wash is kind of a pain, but most people figure out alternatives. I think the going early to the laundromat makes sense when necessary, as I’m an earlier riser. Recycling and landfilling is for the city dogs, I’d rather have a fire. I don’t mind getting home late, as it’s warm walking those laps in the Plaza. Don’t get me wrong, a truck is a great way to get away from the cities, hauling garbage to transfer station, and when I have livestock, feed home. But I hate the idea of daily motoring, and using a car to get around the city. When I retire, and have my off-grid homestead I’ll certainly have a truck but I doubt I’ll go into town more then once a week or less to buy food and feed I can produce, wrapped in plastic for the burn barrel to eat. I look forward to someday looking at the wooden tongue and groove, only having a trash and compost bucket, and producing as much of my food as possible without all the wrappers and plastic. Each day, and year is one step closer.
I am still excited to be back to work today. It seems like I’ve been home a lot with the holidays and the cold weather and no longer having Big Red. I am sure I would ride even more and spent more time outdoors if it had been so darn cold, but it is still January out there. Not that I would have necessarily gone out to Madison County over the New Years holiday, because I think there is too much snow up there. Maybe I would have gone out to Rensselearville State Forest for winter camping and rip roaring fire in January or February, or gone skiing if I had gotten skis but alas I did not. But it’s good to be back at work, as there is a ton of things to keep me busy and my mind active writing code and SQL statements. I am ready for the challenges of the new year both at work and not owning a vehicle.
I was reading the Wall Street Journal today and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency targeting immigrants as criminal and public safety threats. I was wondering what the difference was. I asked Google Artificial Insemination to explain:
While the terms are often used interchangeably in casual conversation, “criminal threats” and “public safety threats” represent two distinct concepts within the American legal system. The primary difference lies in their scope: a criminal threat is a specific offense committed against an individual, whereas a public safety threat is a broader condition that endangers the community at large.
A criminal threat is a defined statutory offense. For a statement or action to reach this level, it must be a “true threat”—one where the speaker intends to place a specific victim in reasonable and sustained fear of death or great bodily injury. In many jurisdictions, such as under California Penal Code 422, the threat must be so unequivocal and immediate that it conveys a clear prospect of execution. Here, the legal focus is on the psychological harm and fear inflicted upon a single person or their immediate family.
In contrast, a public safety threat is a classification used to justify emergency state action or to prioritize law enforcement resources. Unlike a criminal threat, which requires a specific target, a public safety threat involves hazards that affect “any considerable number of persons.” This category is not limited to intentional crimes; it includes environmental disasters, infectious diseases, or an armed suspect at large.
The distinction is most critical during police encounters. Under the Public Safety Exception established by the Supreme Court, officers may temporarily bypass certain constitutional requirements—such as reading Miranda rights—if they are responding to an immediate threat to the community. Furthermore, agencies like the Department of Homeland Security use “public safety” as a metric to prioritize the deportation or detention of individuals who have committed serious felonies or are involved in organized gang activity. Ultimately, while a criminal threat is a private harm addressed through prosecution, a public safety threat is a collective danger that triggers the state’s duty to protect the general welfare. Understanding this difference is essential for navigating the boundaries of individual rights and communal security.
You really got to watch out when it comes to products that seem to good to be true. There are often subtle differences, though in some cases I'm not convinenced they are a terrible product either, though I generally agree that fee-based index products are better if you know what you're getting into.
Lately, I’ve become really fascinated in paranoia. In part because they warn you that can be the result of a bad high from cannabis but also because I’ve started to wonder and think more about my own fears in my life – the catastrophic mind loop – I sometimes get myself into. If anything, smoking pot has made me less paranoid, but catastrophizing is nothing new in my life.
I listen to old Joan Baez records! I sometimes hang out with old Weather Underground members (who had real reasons to fear the FBI at least decades ago before they turned gray and lost their teeth) !
The news media loves to warn you of all the dangers out there in the world. They show the worse of the worse, people who are hit by the city bus while crossing street to get a cup of coffee, or those murdered with a steak knife after they leave the bar after a few drinks. The media loves to make monsters out of mundane, find villains in every corner. Don’t forget the corporate executive who murdered their secretary with a steak knife. They don’t want to necessarily want to think your the monster or villain – that would be bad for advertising but they sure want you to be afraid of the other – usually colored or poor.
Truth is I don’t know if I am that different then other. I might not be colored or poor but I’m not that many steps away from either status. I don’t know I would decide if I was in Hitler’s shoes. Would I be the intensely moral person that Hitler was not? Could, despite my caution, be struck by extreme misfortune that can impact even the most successful and those who did everything right except for that one moment of indiscretion? What should I even be afraid of?
Maybe if you can mentally separate yourself from the other – the colored and poor – and go through life believing your not one step away form them, you could live a life of bliss until your crushed by that city bus. But I’m not so sure. While I doubt the police or other societal have time or desire to entrap and imprison me, that risk is not zero. After all, many institutions don’t like unconventional thinkers. But outside of my blog, I rarely talk or express my opinions that I do here. And it’s not like my attacks on institutions are specific or local, so it’s unlikely most will take them personally. I mean how much time do the Guilderland cops have to monitor me after attending a protest or two against a shopping center construction in the Albany Pine Bush four years ago now? Or recording audio of endangered bats in a darkened mall parking lot during a pandemic?
I could lose my job, my apartment, my truck, any of my material possessions and loved ones, and those would be set backs. The market could decline. But on the other hand, I’ve worked hard to build assets up in many different pots of money, and that’s a bit of freedom if other things in floor drop out. Most people fail when they have only one leg on stool, but if you have back ups, one failure isn’t as critical. Still I have my own fears, as I would hate to give up so much I’ve worked hard for over the years. And I am mostly well behaved so most people just ignore me and go on my way.
I can imagine that smoking pot would be a lot more paranoia inducing if you listened to Joan Baez’s Prison Trilogy. Or smoking pot while watching the news, rather then around the campfire or next to a babbling brook in the wilderness. But I enjoy the sparkles of the fire and fluttering of the leaves, a care-free few moments away from the Prison Trilogy. It’s a good record some 52 years later, but maybe not the sound track for a good life.
Ultimately, when the psychiatrists talk about paranoia, they aren’t talking about caring about social justice or even catastrophizing. There are people who believe absurd conspiracy theories and fears that don’t have any base in reality. The people who are on street corner shouting about Trilateral Commission or how the 2020 Election was stolen by 2,000 ballot mules. Things that are truly bizarre, rather then some ordinary screw up that can happen to the best of us, and can be very harmful one’s life if one doesn’t have a plan B.
with people pushing you left and right to get another car and saying it’s so sad to not be a motorist, but honestly I don’t care though I do at times still feel the sting of Big Red and realize the inconvience of not owning an a car. I get it, figuring out the trash and wash is kind of a pain, 
but most people figure out alternatives. I think the going early to the laundromat makes sense when necessary, as I’m an earlier riser. Recycling and landfilling is for the city dogs, 
I’d rather have a fire. 
I don’t mind getting home late, as it’s warm walking those laps in the Plaza. Don’t get me wrong, a truck is a great way to get away from the cities, hauling garbage to transfer station, and when I have livestock, feed home. But I hate the idea of daily motoring, 
and using a car to get around the city. When I retire, 
and have my off-grid homestead I’ll certainly have a truck but I doubt I’ll go into town more then once a week or less to buy food and feed I can produce, wrapped in plastic for the burn barrel to eat. 
I look forward to someday looking at the wooden tongue and groove, only having a trash and compost bucket, and producing as much of my food as possible without all the wrappers and plastic. Each day, and year is one step closer.
I am sure I would ride even more 
and spent more time outdoors if it had been so darn cold, but it is still January out there. Not that I would have necessarily gone out to Madison County over the New Years holiday, because I think there is too much snow up there. 
Maybe I would have gone out to Rensselearville State Forest for winter camping and rip roaring fire in January or February, or gone skiing if I had gotten skis 
but alas I did not. But it’s good to be back at work, as there is a ton of things to keep me busy and my mind active writing code and SQL statements. I am ready for the challenges of the new year both at work and not owning a vehicle.
