Fuck yeah. Doc Sarvis is riding his mountain bike to work, though truth is I’d rather be smoking pot and riding my mountain bike in the snow wilderness. But I’ll save that for Christmas Day as I should really work a few more days this year, and keep the disorder going on in the office. I totally get what Mayor Daley said, “The police are not here to create disorder, they’re here to preserve disorder.” Trust me, when you oversee the data unit, shit always broken.
Beautiful day, crisp for riding in. Once the snow squall pulled off the sun came out and the sky got blue. Definitely on the cooler side of things, but not so frigid as the wind is light. Tomorrow may be snowier for riding in, I was thinking I could drive in and grab some pallets to bring up to camp on Christmas Day, but I should have time to find wood in the woods and not deal with having to pick out pallet nails from the snow and ice at the end of the trip with my magnet. Much easier clean up if you just burn natural wood that fully burns down to ash. I was worried about the rain, then freezing rain expected Friday through Sunday, but now it looks like mostly snow, though I got to be careful come Sunday driving home. I don’t want to wreck my junk pickup. Especially as I never fixed the recalled passenger airbag which I’m sure at this point is full of metal fragments. Today the rail trail is mostly ice and snow free which is nice, though by tomorrow morning, there may be more snow on it – and certainly by evening there will likely be a good dusting, but by then it will be dark out unless I leave work. The Normans Kill Gorge provides some great scenery as I listen to Ian Sylvia, well until I reach the smell of the garbage recycling plant, sewage treatment facilities and oil train yards.
Gotta live like you’re dying but also not crack your frame. Those old Chevy 1500s are all such a mess with the rusted out junk frames, as witnessed by the parking lot of Govel Welding. 👨🏭And then I got reading all the comments, that now are in all my social media feeds about how badly the Silverado frames rot out in salt belt. I can blame myself for not fluid filming the frame each winter, I’ve heard good things about it but it’s another appointment or thing to do as I don’t have a paint sprayer or a place to do the messy work of applying the oil to the frame. I did regularly pressure wash the frame, crawling under my big jacked up truck, but alas it didn’t work. 🚿 I actually woke up during the night, and ended up going down a deep dive into undercoating and trying to preserve the undercarriage of trucks in the salty northeast. Best advice, move to the woods of North Idaho! No road salt there but lots of burly pickups for hauling water and cattle. And buy an AR-15 and lots of handguns for your off-grid cabin, and burn your all plastic trash. What can I say, I had really woke thoughts last night.
But if you can’t take such a dramatic step next year, applying fluid flim once or twice a year to the underbody of your truck can help by protecting the factory zinc coating, though it’s not a miracle solution as it can only boost resistance like the COVID vaccine. I wore my muzzle yesterday at the Nutcracker, as I really didn’t want a COVID-ity Christmas this year, as I want to have one last big fire in wilderness before I retire Red. I’ve also heard the old Vermont farmer trick, spraying used motor oil using a paint sprayer or underbody kit remains a popular option. Also helps keep the dust down on your driveway, or you can toss old feedbags down to collect the oil before burning them. Don’t tell the EPA, though I’m not necessarily planning on buying one of those EPA rated displacement-on-demand, shit lubricating 0W-20 engines that stall out at every traffic light. Spraying used motor oil on your car to prevent rust, is far greener and more useful then tossing it in bags of garbage to make sure they quickly disappear in the fire. If I only had land, of course, I would have long ago bought a homestead in New York if not for the burn ban and probably the gun laws too, but don’t tell a liberal that. I heard that fluid film makes your pickup smell like tractor grease in a barnyard, but I’m not convinced that is a bad thing. And it sure beats a rotted out frame, even if it’s not perfect as DOTs find even more corrosive toxins to dump on the highways each year, killing both the Pines, grass (not the kind you smoke), fish in roadside ponds and creeks, and pickup trucks 🛻 unlucky enough to drive them in the winter.
Man, I’ve become such a nuckle-dragging redneck over the years, but I do like my big pickups. It’s not to say I don’t believe the future is electric cars – and solar power – but so much of the interim technology is crap. Maybe it’s what I see on the Internet, but all it seems like now is cars are these Woke Mobiles full of screens and technologies, and fuel saving hacks that seem worthwhile when viewed on aggregate by some bureaucrat in Washington DC, but right now what is rolling out from Detroit and even Japan is complete crap. Ultimately though, it’s obvious the future is electric cars from China, where the government is rapidly supporting its industry to advance the technology. You can mock Chinese stuff, and they do make a lot of plastic crap that fills our trash cans with stuff that fills landfills and makes stinky black smoke, but they are real innovators when America digs coal and 60-year old dirty power plants. I’m just not convinced all this high tech stuff is making our world a better place, but if they could only make something like an electric Ford XL-trimmed truck using innovative stuff without all the displays and buttons for a reasonable price. Maybe I have too many good memories of my old Ford Ranger XL, and why I’m convinced I want a bigger model with similar level of basic trim. China is doing so many amazing things with LiPo batteries and solar, it’s not America anymore. Eventually I’ll get an electric vehicle, but it still challenging to fuel and maintain an electric car for long-distance travel. Especially a pickup for getting to remote country that I want to get to – and you know my thing for big trucks.
While Red still quite wallowly at times – I am sure due to the rot, especially on the likely rotted out and cracked beam that carries the driver side rear shock – all and all I’ve been quite happy with his performance today. But I see the cancer throughout much of the frame, and it’s bad. It really metastasized over the past few weeks. Maybe I’m being wasteful and ignorant about not getting the frame rot fixed as everybody tells me I should do, but I know it’s just a patch over a truck that is going to need to be replaced in a few years regardless, and I want something I can safely and reliably take to the U. P. this summer and see more of America. That said, after today, I feel pretty confident I can get reliably get wherever I want to go for camping after Christmas one last time without fears of something crapping out. Red’s been good to me, but he’s getting old. I wish I had gone to the Salvation Army and the Pine Bush yesterday, and then maybe driven out into the mountains, just for a drive, but I am still kind of freaked out about the mechanic wishing me to “stay safe” with my rotted out truck. Shits bad, but I don’t think those Chevy’s come apart like the Dodges do sometimes.
The Nutcracker with Mom and Dad was good, but Mom this time didn’t mention doing it next year. I don’t know if it’s a sign, but they keep dropping hints that they won’t be around forever, today reminding me that I might inherit part of their estate, and previously reminding me about their 5-acre homestead. I should express interest in buying it from them on their passing, but I don’t know how to have that conversation. It’s not everything I want, but it would hold me over until retirement, and somebody has to take it and I doubt my sister wants it. I could do goats, pigs, hell even cows their but I’d have to buy feed. I just love the idea of having lots of manure for growing shit, and being able to turn food scraps into healthy food. And not so much plastic. Neighbors now have a ton of cows on their homestead. And quite the cannabis growing barn they built with grow lights. Kind of residential neighborhood though so I’d have to be careful what crap I burned, none of nasty plasticiky stuff like as I kid especially with the burn ban. The 1990s were fun, even if some of that shit stunk in old burn barrel. At least we didn’t have to send all our garbage to landfill weekly. Just a stinky fire! Truth is if I homesteaded, I’d probably have even less plastic trash and I could haul my recyclables to transfer station and have hot bonfires primarily for drinking beer around that wouldn’t smell much besides wood.
The Nutcracker was fun, I was enjoying looking at the male ballerinas and their big nut sacks. I can not lie, I like big balls. Maybe it’s all that reading about honey buck goats and cattle and general livestock breeding from all those books. I really enjoyed all the colors of the lighting and ballerina dresses too, since occasionally smoking pot, I feel like I see colors much more richly both when I’m stoned and not so stone. My neice was cute, and it was a lot of beauty, though ballerinas and show more generally ain’t my thing. Okay, see now everybody knows Andy’s gay, I’m sure that’s the assumption around the office as people who are not married in their 40s are closeted gays. Or maybe I’m just into big balls, and worried my dick isn’t big enough, and that’s why I like big jacked up trucks. I’m more of a hillbilly pyromaniac, not willing to give up my nights in the wilderness to settle down with the right girl or guy. All that dioxin from your trash fires you’re producing probably is fucking with your hormones. That said, I should some day settle down, put down the match book, and still still do Facebook dating. We had as a family together a nice dinner at the local Mexican place. Very bland food, but filling. Drove around and saw some of the lights.
After driving around to see the lights, I took my parents home. They don’t drive after dark anymore, their vision is poor like mine with before the LASIK surgery. I now have excellent night vision for driving after dark, even in my big jacked up truck. That said, I hated driving their little Honda SUV, the steering wheel felt so light and plasticky, no big burly V8 engine or long traveling brakes. I know a Toyota Tacoma would be such an economical choice, but I really want an F-250. Not a Silverado 2500, I’m totally turned off from GM after my rotted out frame. Of course I said the same thing when I got rid of my Ford Ranger 14 1/2 years ago for the Chevy. I just like riding up high, the feel of a big truck. That said, I don’t think I’ll lift my next truck, except maybe for putting on bigger tires when the first set wear out, and maybe a body lift or leveling kit or both. But not a full-bore 6″ suspension lift. The thing is the 3/4 ton trucks can easily take 35s without an issue, and with a leveling kit 37s. Lift kits are expensive, stress out parts of suspension, require permanent cuts and changes to the vehicle. And it’s just headaches, as mechanics don’t love working on lifted trucks, as their kind of third-party engineered hack jobs.
Still, I cringe at spending $10,000 or more over a Tacoma to get a 3/4 ton, or the inevitable more fuel consumption of such a big non-EPA rated truck. But I sure love the feel of how those big truck drive. I don’t want to drive some puny little Honda or Toyota, when I work hard, make good money, and are so frugal in other parts of my life, using public transit and still living in the same slummy apartment I’ve been in since college. What I love is my travels in BFE, the hills and hollows, roadside camping, and I feel like getting a small truck, having so much gear, would really crimp my experience at this point. Easier to park, less gas, cheaper, yes, but I still am very cynical about things like 0W-20 oil, electronic screens everywhere, crew cabs, and keyless entry. I do like how basic the Ford XL trucks truly are. Old fashioned key ignition! Manual hubs! Small display screens with mechanical guages! But maybe I would go one step up. I don’t know, I still budget money for a truck cap too.
It was a nice ride out to Black Creek Marsh. Still the DEC is working on their construction project in the old gravel pit there, I am guessing it’s a wildlife pond but it’s not obvious as they’ve not done much work since hunting seasons open up this autumn so not to disturb wildlife or hunters. Got caught in a good blustery snow squall on way out there. Wind now has really picked up.
The hub caps are back on Big Red. Looks better that way. I am still more worried about the cancer – the rust on cross members – then the frame issues but I’m not a structural engineer but studying it appears at least the rear shock mount is fully rotted through. Truth is it’s a mess, even though it he past I had always tried to clean it off to best of my ability with the power washer at car wash. I’m not surprised though as the trailer hitch rotted out a few years back.
I really just want one more camping trip with Red, so I’m hoping if I’m careful after Christmas I can make it work. Even if it’s cold and icy, I just one last time to make peace in my mind as I say by to Big Red. After winter, I’ll get a new truck, and I’ll keep Red to move my equipment over to the new truck, as I really don’t want to be pulling equipment off in the cold.
Today you should wish people Happy Winter. 🌨️ The next three days are an appropriate time to wish people a Merry Christmas.🎄 Next week, it’s an appropriate time to wish people a Happy New Year. 🎇 Previously, it was an appropriate time to wish people Happy Holidays.☃️
Once the snow squall pulled off the sun came out and the sky got blue. Definitely on the cooler side of things, but not so frigid as the wind is light. Tomorrow may be snowier 
for riding in, I was thinking I could drive in and grab some pallets to bring up to camp on Christmas Day, 
but I should have time to find wood in the woods and not deal with having to pick out pallet nails from the snow and ice at the end of the trip with my magnet. 
Much easier clean up if you just burn natural wood that fully burns down to ash. I was worried about the rain, then freezing rain expected Friday through Sunday, but now it looks like mostly snow, 
though I got to be careful come Sunday driving home. I don’t want to wreck my junk pickup. Especially as I never fixed the recalled passenger airbag which I’m sure at this point is full of metal fragments. Today the rail trail is mostly ice and snow free which is nice, though by tomorrow morning, there may be more snow on it – and certainly by evening there will likely be a good dusting, but by then it will be dark out unless I leave work. 
The Normans Kill Gorge provides some great scenery 
as I listen to Ian Sylvia, well until I reach the smell of the garbage recycling plant, sewage treatment facilities and oil train yards.
Those old Chevy 1500s are all such a mess with the rusted out junk frames, as witnessed by the parking lot of Govel Welding. 👨🏭And then I got reading all the comments, that now are in all my social media feeds about how badly the Silverado frames rot out in salt belt. I can blame myself for not fluid filming the frame each winter, I’ve heard good things about it but it’s another appointment or thing to do as I don’t have a paint sprayer or a place to do the messy work of applying the oil to the frame. I did regularly pressure wash the frame, crawling under my big jacked up truck, but alas it didn’t work. 🚿 I actually woke up during the night, and ended up going down a deep dive into undercoating and trying to preserve the undercarriage of trucks in the salty northeast. Best advice, move to the woods of North Idaho! 
No road salt there but lots of burly pickups for hauling water and cattle. And buy an AR-15 and lots of handguns for your off-grid cabin, and burn your all plastic trash. 
What can I say, I had really woke thoughts last night.
this year, as I want to have one last big fire in wilderness before I retire Red. I’ve also heard the old Vermont farmer trick, spraying used motor oil 
using a paint sprayer or underbody kit remains a popular option. Also helps keep the dust down on your driveway, or you can toss old feedbags down to collect the oil before burning them. Don’t tell the EPA, though I’m not necessarily planning on buying one of those EPA rated displacement-on-demand, shit lubricating 0W-20 engines that stall out at every traffic light. 
Spraying used motor oil on your car to prevent rust, is far greener and more useful then tossing it in bags of garbage to make sure they quickly disappear in the fire. If I only had land, of course, I would have long ago bought a homestead in New York if not for the burn ban and probably the gun laws too, but don’t tell a liberal that. 
I heard that fluid film makes your pickup smell like tractor grease in a barnyard, 
but I’m not convinced that is a bad thing. And it sure beats a rotted out frame, even if it’s not perfect as DOTs find even more corrosive toxins to dump on the highways each year, killing both the Pines, 
grass (not the kind you smoke), fish in roadside ponds and creeks, 
and pickup trucks 🛻 unlucky enough to drive them in the winter.
but I do like my big pickups. It’s not to say I don’t believe the future is electric cars – and solar power – but so much of the interim technology is crap. 
Maybe it’s what I see on the Internet, but all it seems like now is cars are these Woke Mobiles full of screens and technologies, and fuel saving hacks that seem worthwhile when viewed on aggregate by some bureaucrat in Washington DC, but right now what is rolling out from Detroit and even Japan is complete crap. 
Ultimately though, it’s obvious the future is electric cars from China, where the government is rapidly supporting its industry to advance the technology. You can mock Chinese stuff, and they do make a lot of plastic crap that fills our trash cans with stuff that fills landfills and makes stinky black smoke, 
but they are real innovators when America digs coal and 60-year old dirty power plants. 
I’m just not convinced all this high tech stuff is making our world a better place, but if they could only make something like an electric Ford XL-trimmed truck using innovative stuff without all the displays and buttons for a reasonable price. Maybe I have too many good memories of my old Ford Ranger XL, and why I’m convinced I want a bigger model with similar level of basic trim. China is doing so many amazing things with LiPo batteries and solar, it’s not America anymore. Eventually I’ll get an electric vehicle, but it still challenging to fuel and maintain an electric car for long-distance travel. 
Especially a pickup for getting to remote country that I want to get to – and you know my thing for big trucks. 
