I think I’ll skip hiking Vromans Nose today. Instead I’m heading to Shauls Farm Stand next then I’ll inflate the tube, try floating first at the parking area and then closer to Max Shauls before heading up to Mine Kill for the car show which apparently starts at 1 PM. Then pool swimming and back to camp around six o’clock.
Got neighbors? 🏘️
I guess Betty Brook has become more popular probably because of my two decades of photographing and making videos about it on the interweb. The upper site along Betty Brook was taken, so I took the lower site but another family came by and asked if they could share my site. Fine, whatever. I didn’t have anything real stinky to burn last night, kept the music and audio book down and hung up a tarp for privacy with the shitter bucket. Nobody wants to see my balls or my fat ass as I poop and pee in the bucket. They’re not even up yet.
This morning around nine I’ll get camp squared away and locked up, 🏕️ then I’ll drive over to Looking Glass Pond for some wildlife observation, 🐦 then down to Shauls for produce. 🌽 I guess if it’s not too hot I could do a quick hike up Vromans Nose. Then I want to inflate the tube ⭕ and float in the Schoharie Creek by the swimming hole by Max Shaul Campground. At first it was cloudy and to the south the sky was dark 🌧️ with a few rain drops 💧 but as the sun rose over the deep valley it has gotten sunnier. The sun is nice. ☀️ Humid this morning, it was smokey driving out, probably wildfire smoke hanging low over the hills.
I believe there is a car show 🏎️ at Mine Kill to check out in the afternoon and swim. 🏊 Plus the wildflowers 🌼 are always nice in the Bluebird fields at the Power Project. Then listening to an audio book and hopping in the pool. I should practice my swimming strokes as I’ll need to be a good swimmer before the days at the Watkins Glen pool and Enfield Glen. 🏖️
I’m not bothered by the neighbors 👨👨👦, I’ll have to strike up a conversation this afternoon once I’m back from swimming and I’m not totally stoned or drunk 🍻 like I was last night. I need to cut back on my drinking up at camp as it’s going to make me fat but whatever it’s summer and the first half I spent so much of it at home without drinking. Between the weather, my truck and my extreme anxiety and confusion over everything it’s been a werid summer in many ways. 🤪 But then again we live in such werid times in the era of the Trumpster and celebration of plastic which can be pretty stinky when you burn it. But I had a fire last weekend so there wasn’t a lot of garbage to get rid of. 🔥
Two more days of Dragging the Line and running shell 🐚 scripts and building data frames 🖥️ and then it’s off to the Finger Lakes National Forest through Labor Day. I did visit Northern Lights asked the bud tender for recommendations on grass 🦗 and got a pre-roll but I’m still using up the last of that Dank Diesel I got last November that admittedly is moldy mush crap at this point that mostly makes me hungry. 🍁 I don’t know if I’m going to break open the new stuff until summer vacation at this point but I also look forward to exploring the options for grass in Ithaca. With 13 days for this year’s summer vacation I plan to set up camp 🏕️ on Wednesday and just have days built in to hang out, listen to audio books or read 📚, fish, 🎣 ride trail, 🚲 float ⭕ and not worry about he risk of driving under the influence of weed or alcohol. I do need to renew my fishing license, remember to pack my tackle box and maybe get a new rod. Fun times, I just want to be relaxed and enjoy the colors 🌈 and the wildflowers and the Grateful Dead.
It was a nice drive out here. 🏢 Only a bit over an hour, I left the office at around 5:10 and had camp set up starting around 6:20. One thing nice about the suburban office is it’s quick on and off the freeway and the acres of parking 🅿️ are nearby. Traffic was mostly free flowing and I got off at the NY 10 Richmondville exit and went straight up to past the now long closed Camp Summit and then to camp. Like all of the now abandoned prison, the state just kind of abandoned the essentially unsellable buildings and they sit abandoned until the state finds the money to smash them down and haul their contents to the local construction and demolition debris landfill. 🏚️
It was a nice drive, Red 🛻 is running good now that I got over my fear 😱 of every little noise. I topped off the oil and coolant in the truck, 🛢️ none of them were excessively low but I figured do it before vacation. I think Red will probably make it through vacation fine if I keep my mind in the right place, though I still want to retire him next year. I get that cars are expensive and not an asset but they’re also the best way to escape the city. I’ve never considered an automobile having any value besides the pleasure it delivers. Sometimes you just got to enjoy life and not be so caught up at being woke. Be a stoned gonzo watching the flicker of the fire 🔥, listening to the cows chew their cud 🐮. Betty Brook Road is rough but it always is and like everybody who drives it I go slow not to abuse Red’s suspension too much.
I got a flash card for my camera 📸 as the old ones were wearing out 💾 and after ten or 15 years were no longer reliable. It was $7. My cellphone camera is fine but the telephoto and color is much better on the point and shoot camera. And this is the time for taking very colorful pictures and summer won’t be with us much longer and the colors will fade to gray before you know it. Then I use the card reader on my phone then upload them to the interwebs via my blog. Looks like this month will be a $200 blog revenue month. 💵 Not getting rich but that’s far more then I’ve spent on overpriced grass this past year. Not bad for a blog that smells like cow shit and burning barrel where I post random photos and maps 🗺️ and dream about owning an off grid cabin with hogs while stoned in the wilderness. 🐖
It’s all in my head 🧠
One of the most liberating things is to realize that anxiety and mental illness more generally is not real – it’s all in your imagination. Now all the doctors, medication companies and drug dealers don’t want you to hear this – but if it’s not real it doesn’t matter. Anxiety and delusions aren’t real, they are something contrived in your mind based on focusing on things that may exist in this world but have a much lesser of an importance then you want to subscribe to them.
One of the worse things to say to somebody who is anxious is that their thoughts matter. If it’s bothering you then its a problem. Not it’s not. It’s only a problem because you, yourself is making it a problem. Literally, all you need to do is laugh a bit, find something else to interest your troubled mind. Mental illness is not real, it’s merely a construct and a label that imprisons one’s mind when one adopts the label.
NPR
According to Brooks, confusion over who is in charge of MPD officers also poses immediate public safety concerns for police and the public. Joe McLean, a lawyer, poses for a portrait in southeast Washington, D.C., on August 13, 2025. McLean worries about the deployment of the National Guard and federal police, and believes it is unnecessary. Credit: Maansi Srivastava/NPR National Crime is down in Washington, D.C., but still a reality in some neighborhoods
"I think it's actually quite dangerous. Whenever you have lots of armed people and lack of clarity over who's in charge of what, you have a really risky situation," Brooks said.
NPR reached out to officials with the District of Columbia Police Union for their view on how the conflict is affecting officers. They haven't yet responded.
Lower sun angles as September approaches
With my north facing windows in my office and September rapidly approaching, by 4 PM it is getting a bit dark in my office as evening approaches with the lights off. It seems weird to think how when I leave my office next Tuesday, the next time I will be back it will be September. Whatever happened to summer? It will be a wonderful summer vacation.
It will be see you in September 🍂
I bit the bullet and I took off from Wednesday though Labor Day to head out to the Finger Lakes for 13 days of camping. I am still incredibly nervous about it all with my old truck but honestly it’s been running quite well, and I’ve been having fun the past few weekends traveling and this weekend it’s out to Schoharie to float in Schoharie Creek and swim at Mine Kill and enjoy the car show. Two days later at the crack of dawn it’s off to get bacon in Rotterdam, grass in Ithaca and then up to camp by mid-day.
Maybe this weekend is just to prove in my mind that summer vacation will be amazing once it finally comes, 🏊 but I also like Schoharie and Shauls Market is amazing, and it’s going to be a hot weekend, and I don’t want to spend it at home. 🌽 🚲 🏕️ I make good money, work hard, I love my job and I shouldn’t spend my weekends moping around home all depressed about my old rig is slowly but surely falling apart and dying. I’ll have to get up to Northern Lights at lunch time, but I still don’t know what I want to get. Something from a plant that is big and bushy, on the satavia side of things. Truth is I hate the smell when other people are smoking it around the neighborhood, but up at camp I just love the beauty, the colors, the giggles an how the fire looks at night. 🔥 Was it Tropical Skittlez I enjoyed so much last year? I want to laugh, carefree and not paranoid.
I packed a lot of things last night, but truth is for two nights I don’t need much gear. 💼 Just my bathing suit, some changes of clothes, tube and this time the paddle, a few things to eat – maybe I should stop for some bananas way in but I’ll get peaches on Saturday at Shauls 🍑 and I will pack things like my toothbrush and razor after showering. 🪒 Got up fairly early this morning though I’m not needing to leave that early, though as I said I want to have time to swing past the store. I think I’m good on cash but if not there is that CapCon drive through at Wally World I can visit though they don’t have small demonation bills.
Potentially rain ☔ to start out the week and cool to close out the month, but I really want an anti-climatic vacation. With the extra two days – – really only three more then usual as usually I do from Friday through Sunday – – I don’t have to feel like every day I’m wasting by hanging out at camp and just reading, or riding my bike and spending days fishing or floating on Foster Pond or just listening to cows moo 🐮 and tear the grass as they graze. It’s really okay to spend some time giggling 🤭 and drinking beer 🍻 with nothing better then to listen to an audio book or read a book about homesteading, the wilderness, or some other world far away from where I am.
I do think slowly but surely the paranoia is fading from ym mind, 🛻 it’s getting easier to enjoy traveling and seeing America again. I don’t think Red will ever make it down on West Virginia again but there will be a new truck and other adventures. ☺️ Who knows if I really enjoy my Michigan and Wisconsin trip next summer in my new rig, I could do a post-election day trip down to West VIrigina. Often that week after Election Day they still have some color in the lower elevations of West VIrigina and it can be milder, though the high country can certainly be frosty or get snow by mid-November. ☃️
Yesterday I had to wear glasses 👓 all day because my eyes 👀 were so irrated. I really want to get LASIK done this autumn. I will just have to tap savings to do that. I need to get my credit limit raise 💳 so I can put it on my cards for points. I should call the bank 🏦 about that soon. Also need to call the state board for something work related but I’ve been avoiding that like so many things in life. My eyes are feeling a bit better today and I’ll wear my contacts, indeed I was able to wear them last night.
Been continuing to listen to Robert Lover’s Dating Essentials for Men. 🧼🧽 One of the suggestions was to get a house cleaner to clean your apartment or house, so you can bring a girl back there. And the maintaining it after yourself. I don’t know about that. And buying nice clothes. Again, I don’ t care about those things, and I don’t want a girl either that does. And to think more about sex, but I’m like whatever. I do take a lot stock in the importance of listening, asking questions. I talk to much. And not being afraid of strangers and starting up a conversation by asking questions both on the street, and actually clicking on profiles on Facebook dating. But I’ve been busy and I don’t know the whole process seems a bit creepy. Yet, I need to get over that because people wouldn’t be on dating sites if they weren’t interested in meeting new and different people.
