The shop is now open at 8 AM and they want it in by 8;30 AM but first I need to get the hub caps off and the new windshield wiper blade installed as the old one isn’t clearing the window well in the rain and snow, and with winter coming that’s kind of important.
The assemblying of the windshield wiper clips went actually fine this time, 😀 it helps when you buy the right kind, not the absolute cheapest blade, and assemble it in the morning when you are fresh and awake. I checked and all of the lights are working on my truck, no check engine light, it seems to drive about as good as it always does, and I got the hub caps off with no problems as they’re also going to rotate the tires. Topped off the windshield wiper fluid so I don’t have any more annoyance for a day or two of the low windshield washer fluid message, not that it matters for the inspection.
I could have worked from home today, 🖥️ but I had another hearing to go to last night and didn’t want to have to bring my laptop with me or back to work tomorrow, especially as I think I want to ride my bike to work tomorrow and my computer is falling apart and kind of fragile. Instead I want my day off so I can ride and hang out, and wait with baited breath about the inspection 🫦 though I feel odds are good it will be fine and if it’s not, then I’ll get shit fixed before it breaks down in the wilderness or kills me. I probably will ride out to Five Rivers 🐸 for a while this morning, and then when I pick up my pickup, head down to Hannaford for a few supplies. And then just spend the balance of day finishing up the books I have on Hoopla before they return. I should be excited, I still have 10 more Hoopla borrows for the month, but I’ll probably instead finish up that book I have on Libby about raising livestock 🐑 🐐 and then get more books on there – and wait to later in the month to get more on Hoopla, probably before I head up to camp on Christmas Day. 🤶 Generally speaking, Hoopla is a lot more reliable for offline reading 📖 in the wilderness.
Carrot 🥕 were shredded for the cornmeal pancakes with onions, 🥞 and like usual were pretty delicious. Didn’t get up real early this morning, as I needed to catch up on sleep 🛏️ as I was up super late by my standards on Monday. 😦 Feeling better after a good night’s rest, but I want to get my truck to shop shortly right when they open up so hopefully I get it back early in the day so less chance to spend the day worrying.
Do you feel like something’s not real? Let the spirit move you again Are you leaving for the country?
I was sitting at that Public Hearing on the Eminent Domain proceeding for taking of Pine Bush on Rapp Road for the proposed transfer station to replace the Rapp Road landfill and haul all of Albany and surrounding communities garbage to a 10 acre expansion of the Franklin County landfill on the Canadian border next to the several state prisons about 15 miles north of Malone.
The Albany City Council hearing on the Eminent Domain proceeding was everything you would expect from the city, complete with rich looking lawyers like from Whiteman Osterman and Hannon or one of those big firms and of course Clough Harbour. We the environmentalists made the case for preserving the Pine Bush and the corporate lawyers for the city explained why they thought they were justified in the taking. They of course pointed out that the taking didn’t guarantee that the permits would be approved, but we all know what the presumption is though a very brave agency man or commissioner or judge could change everything.
It was the last regular city council meeting of the year, so there was a diverse group of individuals from the public to speak during the general comment period, many honoring a long-time city hall employee who recently passed away. And there were several homeless activists – and former homeless persons including a man who said he slept in the bushes behind the LOB many a cold night. I want to be an off-gridder, and I camp in wilderness many a night but I always have my heater and my truck to climb in if it gets too cold. Tough life on the street. I liked their proposal to turn some of the former Saint Rose dorm into housing for the homeless, and how difficult it is for many people to obtain the very limited social services that exist. Of course, some of it had to blend into my imagination from recently reading Edward Abbey’s The Fool’s Paradise.
I was sitting there as the meeting dragged on, flipping through my phone, doing mindless scrolling on Facebook which I told myself that I wasn’t going to do and it kept reminding me I was over my 30 minute self-imposed limit on Facebook. Pictures mostly of cattle and hogs, farms, solar and rural landscapes. The things I interact the most with, things that taste like silage and of vast open spaces of countryside. My mind floated away for a few minutes, as I looked the glory of the City Hall Chambers, not unlike the State Capitol but also still a bit run-down like most of the once opulent government buildings maintained on a shoe-string. I’m sure people looking over my shoulder in the cramped city hall gallery had to think what a hick I must be.
I didn’t stay for the whole meeting, though I had hoped to catch the vote on the final condemnation of the land, but it was getting late and I wanted to catch the 9 PM bus home as I’m usually asleep before then. I just leaned at the bus shelter, staring at the Capitol, the Empire Plaza Towers and the Alfred Smith Building. In many ways I miss working downtown, though I do transfer to the shuttle there everyday. But as I daydreamed a bit on the shelter, with the signs reminding people of No Loitering, I listened to more Ian and Sylvia and dreamed of the off-grid cabin, away from all the plastic and the garbage dumps and the endless ads and commercialism. No home internet, no TV, heat and electricity I made myself, waste I disposed of myself – returning it back to earth. Far away from the homeless and many urban problems, next to a nice warm woodstove in a dimly lit room as I sat before retiring to bed.
Twelve years from now I’ll be Age 55. In some how, I pretend in my mind that’s a kind of nirvana. Then I can focus full-time on building my off-grid homestead.
It’s that’s the earliest point I can retire from the state though at a pretty steep cost to my pension benefit if I fill for retirement immediately after leaving – 36% lifetime reduction of benefit – though that’s offset by additional years I would be collecting it as I wouldn’t have 30 years in at the system at that point, as I didn’t start until Age 24 and will have missed about 2 years in system due to Leave without Pay when I worked for the Democratic Party. Though maybe by later in my fifties it will have 30 years in and that will be a moot point, as I started at age 24 in 2007, lost about 2 years over my breaks in service and age 55 minus 24 minus 2 is 29.
The thing about is I will make more money working then in retirement, even with my pension and I don’t know if I’ll have enough credit to continue my health insurance, which unfortunately is very expensive and very necessary with accidents and illness even on the homestead. And I kind of like my job now, it keeps me busy and often comes with interesting situations that involve collecting data, writing code and delivering results. It’s great to get a call on phone, hmm and haw a bit, and then come up with a good solution using some reasoning like comparing names to tax rolls or lists of state employees. In the communications targeting business, you usually don’t have to be 100% exact if you reach mostly the people you want to talk to.
And I don’t know, my parents are getting old and probably won’t be with my much longer. My sister doesn’t necessarily want their homestead where I grew up, and while 5-acres and grid tied with neighbors nearby, some good ol’ boys, isn’t perfect, I probably can make it work for a while before I move to a freer state on a more remote parcel that’s totally grid-free with no near neighbors, without necessarily tying myself to that piece of land forever. Have goats, pigs, and other livestock, and even fires, as long as I’m careful not to throw anything too stinky or smokey in the fire. Maybe gain experience in animal husbrandy and crop growing on that land, build a grid-tied solar set up with battery storage myself – with appropriate approvals from an electricitian and the town building inspector. Still it seems like a such a compromise – 5 acres ain’t much land, there are still neighbors around to smell the smoke and hear your guns – and New York with all their stupid laws.
I don’t know. The thing that I fear much is that I’m quickly getting older, that 12 years really ain’t much time, and even age 70 isn’t that far from 55. And already I see myself slowing down a bit, my vacations and travel have been a lot less ambitious and more relaxed, and I worry if I wait too long I might not have an opportunity to do all I want in life. Yet, at the other hand, I see the value of time, how each year gives me an ability to save and invest more, and how the market continues to compound, which the growth in money gives me more flexibility in the future to buy more land, equipment, and protect myself.
A deep and dark December day as the sun rises later and later each day through January. It was a late night after leaving the City Council Meeting at 9 PM to catch the bus home and then have dinner and be just so jacked up after all that.
Slowly but surely I awoke out of bed 🧟♂️ and walked over to Stewart’s to get more milk in another plastic bottle soon enough to melt and turn into bright flames as it gets the cold and wet firewood burning. 🔥 I just get tired of all that plastic stuff and the lies that the media tells us about recycling and how we should just buy more stuff. 🎁 What do you want for Christmas? 🎄 Just some time in the wilderness to listen to Ian and Sylvia, smoke grass, burn shit, poop in a bucket and ride trail.
It’s fine I tell myself. 😀 If I can’t save the world, well I’ll just try to save myself as the hours wile away and I sing along with the old Ian & Slyvia record I discovered on the OpenTunes. So many of the folk standards but with a pentatonic tang that tastes like cattle and silage for my ears. 👂 Apparently I mentioned how much I enjoy audiobooks from the library, and now my feed is full of advertisements for Audible. 📚 But why would I pay for something that I get free? 📱 I was reading about subscriptions on the Internet, though I think the only subscriptions I have is my rent check, the electric and gas bill, insurance bill and my cellphone bill. 💵 Which are all costs, though I try to keep the electric and gas below $100 for 10 months out of year, though it’s difficult to keep below that in the winter with my drafty apartment when it’s below zero and 48 degrees isn’t warm enough to keep the pipes safe from freezing. ❄️
Tomorrow I got to take off to get my truck inspected. 🔎 I guess I could drop my truck off and ride to work and then leave early to pick it up but that seems like a lot of work, especially now that I work in Menands. Or I could I work from home. But I probably have hours to use up before the end of year, and maybe I’ll take off a few extra days around Christmas or New Years, though their giving us off already December 24-28 and January 1-4 so that’s plenty of time to get away for three night adventures if the weather holds up. ☔ Going to rain a fair bit on Thursday into Friday and be in the mid-fifties so that should eliminate the deep snow at many of the places I’d likely be camping 🏕️ if I head out of town.
Today on paper would be a good day to ride in 🚲 as I really haven’t been getting the exercise I need, but besides the Christmas Parties I still eat quite healthy as I don’t buy junk or processed foods both for health and for less plastic which can be kind of smelly and toxic when you burn it. But the bike trail still has snow and ice on it, and moreover I have yet another Pine Bush hearing to attend tonight. 🦋 I did walk laps around the Empire Plaza for an hour last night but it’s not the intense exercising that riding produces. But I also don’t love riding the Delmar Bypass or Corning Hill to work – it’s lacks the serenity of the bike path. Hoping after the warm and rain on Thursday into Friday, the bike path will be clear. Maybe Thursday I can ride in. What’s the worse that come happen? I get soaked riding back downtown? Sock it to me!
But other then that, listening to a little more of Ian and Sylvia, 🎸 then it’s shower time, pack lunch and off to work on the yokel local bus, 🚌 getting my hours in reading and thinking, 🤔 and inching my way to and from work. I do miss riding my bike to work but I do get more of a chance to read while I’m on the bus. 📖 That said, I usually listen to audiobooks when I ride to work. And thank you Audable for advertising on my blog. Need more money to buy more plastic wrapped crap. ♻️ Gotta recycle after all.
