So yeah, yesterday was an interesting and crazy day. I typed 1 AM rather then 1 PM into the robo dialer and one of the member’s calls went out at 1 AM. I explained to everybody what happened and thought up a way to kill the daemon on the server to make sure it’s never running after hours. Then it was just crazy with so many things flying past my desk yesterday. Kept it together, rode home and packed for camping.
It didn’t help that I came home and the first thing on my social media feed was of course the meme about how stupid renters are, and that if you rent you are going to live a life of poverty, soon to be tossed out in the street with no equity or savings. But I don’t want be stuck home all the time to feed hogs, mow grass or be up on the roof making repairs. Someday, yes. Next up will be the social media posts about how if you don’t drive a 20 year old Honda Civic, you’ll forever be living a life of poverty, might as well start searching the dumpsters for spoiled cans of cat food if you want to eat. And of course the wheels of your car are going to fall off as the internet shows because you ignored that noise. I really should stay off social media, the stuff the feeds you are such crap. And then just endless pictures of cows and hogs from the millions of farms and homesteads across America. Soon it will be all about chopping corn silage for the ladies. At least I’ve pretty much blocked the political crap.
It wasn’t a bad day yesterday even if it was crazy. When I finally got out of the office at 5:15 PM or so completely frazzled and insane, I looked at the radar and skies and saw a thunderstorm barreling down on me. I figured I’d be south of it and I started to ride home but when I got down to Corning’s Preserve, it started to rain and I didn’t want to get caught in a wicked thunderstorm, so I bellyed up to the SUNY World Headquarters Bus Stop thinking I’d put my bike on the bus, but it was late and it didn’t rain and I ended up riding all the way and not paying the Woke Bus Company. Plus I’m pissed at the Woke, because they’re taking away my express bus come two weeks from now, while I’m out in the Finger Lakes. Not that I bus it in much during the summer months, instead preferring to bike in both ways. But if I want to use transit to get to work when I return from summer vacation, I’ll be taking the yokel bus to work both ways, unless I get the very early last remaining Voorheesvile bus downtown.
While I am kind of tired of Piseco-Powley Road that’s probably where I will end up this weekend. 🏊 I did Schoharie last weekend and I was going to do White House but it’s going to hot this weekend and I want to do the Potholers and float on the East Canada Creek before the summer is done. ⭕ Losing daylight quickly now, and I have some books to read through, and then in a week and half I’ll be out to Finger Lakes, God willing, through Labor Day. Then it’s September. In September I generally do things like Rensselearville State Forest, or maybe I’ll do Charles Baker or the Greens as it rapidly gets too cold for swimming. 🌲🌳 Maybe shoot myself some tree rats 🐿️ hang out. No remote work this year though. Then October after my eyes heal, I want to do a trip up to the St. Regis Canoe Area 🛶 and paddle some of the lakes in the fall foliage and ride a bunch of the Adirondack Rail Trail they’ve built from Tupper Lake to Saranac Lake, or we’ll converted from the old rail grade.
The New York Times newsletter suggested this morning that you should consider writing a letter to your future self. It’s a way to see who you are now and then some day look back at who you were, what you once believed and where you want to go.
Halfway through my 42nd year, what seemed so clear about my future is often quite hazy. But when I look back at these words, some point in the future, I will have much more clarity. And I’ll be able to answer Edward Abbey’s most famous question, “Was it worth it?”
In some ways I would have thought by this point my life I would have settled down in a home and homestead. Had my own land, livestock, maybe a wife and family. But I like to travel, my freedom, my fires and my big jacked up truck. But looking back, probably many of those things will be gone.
I could have bought that house or many others I had looked at. But at least at this point in my life, I can’t imagine settling down permanently into some kind of typical plastic-and-asphalt cladded huse. I would love to live in the country and have livestock, but at this point I’m not ready to commute via automobile and be stuck feeding and watering livestock and shoveling piles of steaming manure and smashing ice-filled water through throughout the year. There are still so many places to see and travel to, I don’t want to have a permanent address.
Did I stay too long in Delmar, was I too wedded to my job, too unwilling to make changes that could better me? Was I too focused on saving and investing, focusing on developing my good paying career? Could have more opportunity been found elsewhere, even if it also meant passing up my good job? It won’t be clear back when I wrote this, but it probably will be today.
These are all questions that at some point in my life I’ll have answers to. And maybe some point I’ll read these words, and realize while I didn’t have perfect clarity now, maybe it was good to have freedom to do what I want at least some of the time and not adopt the suburbanite lifestyle that so many of my professional colleagues have done.
I am now quite interested in exploring the Tanglewood Nature Center and much of the area around the Harris Hill and the cliffs along the Chemung River outside of Big Flats on summer vacation. Maybe combine that with a visit to the Corning Museum of Glass.
I wasn’t happy to see that I weighted in a doctor’s office yesterday at 215 lbs up from 209 lbs last year but I also I had a heavy breakfast with all those zucchuni pancakes and excessive amount of coffee.
Sometimes days are better then other. 🧑⚕️ Yesterday was another day of playing short-order cook, covering for two supervisors people besides my ordinary job. I kept things going, despite the hours of complements and complaints as people tried to get whatever they wanted out of my office. It’s funny how you are smartest and best person on earth 🌎 when people want something from you. I do need to think about trying to eat healthier again – I’ve been good at home but when I’m out at work or visiting family and friends seems like everything is slop grilled in grease 🍔 or unlimited candy bars and sugar. 🍬 It really is hard to be a social, human American and not eat slop that will kill you all of the time. And I had a few beers last Saturday up at camp to unwind after getting over my extreme anxiety about Red. 🐝 At least I plan to ride in today. 🚴
It’s just about moving forward. 🏕️ Woke up at 4 AM this morning, couldn’t get to sleep with semi-trucks hauling asphalt rolling through the neighborhood all night and seemingly lots of energy early in the morning, followed by cups of coffee. ☕ I still need to figure out what my weekend plans are going to be – looks hot but how sunny will it be with the wildfire smoke? 🌫️ The thing is summer is rapidly ending. I am leaning towards the Potholers again, being so warm, but I feel like I’m always heading up there. Schoharie might be more fun next weekend if it’s nice as I heard they are having a Car Show 🚗 at Mine Kill State Park – apparently to complete with the Power Authority Show in July – and that could be fun to check out while swimming 🏊 next weekend. White House seemed good for the blueberries but I just don’t think the swimming in that part of the West Branch Sacandaga River is all that great. Kind of interested in camping at that Keyser Kill Campsite if I can get it, as it’s in a nice location unlike the rough as fuck Betty Brook Campsite. 🪨
Evenings are getting darker and darker fast, 🌇 and with the wildfire smoke last night it was pretty dark by 8:30 PM when I rode home from the town park. I had some work to finish up at the end of the day yesterday, so I was running late and then stopped at Hannaford to get some eggs 🥚 and frozen fruit. 🍑 I also got some New Jersey peaches which I am sure won’t be as good as the ones I got Shauls last weekend. The morning was also quite dark when I first got up and it’s still pretty quiet with the haze from the wildfire smoke. No more dawn before 5 AM. Waking up so early I’m starting to crash after the coffee though. ☕ That said with the sun setting earlier, I am going to try to get more early jump starts on the day.
I am just amazed about the spike in blog advertising revenue, 🖥️ but studying the Google Search data, it looks like it’s nothing I’m doing on my blog and just how the Google Algorithms are showering my blog with searchers and they’re boosting the value of the ads. It’s kind of nuts that in the past week, I’ve made more on blog ads then my blog made several months of winter. Of course, once autumn comes and people are looking for fewer maps and information about camping, I’m sure the ad revenue is certain to dry up. 💰 But at least it covers the hosting revenue, and I’ll probably bring in a little over $1,000 a year on the blog, which after taxes and hosting costs, isn’t all that much money. But I like telling my story 📝 and doing a bunch of wrigin and thinking.
I was thinking how many things have changed since I was a kid coming up here along Partridge Run Road with Grandpa in his AMC Eagle and later my Plymouth Sundance upon graduating High School and into college. More and more roads washed out, gated and closed, especially after Hurricane Irene.
I do miss driving back here though it makes for quieter walks and now with the mountain bike I can ride about as fast as you could ever drive the old road. And it’s a lot easier to stop wherever you want. Spent a lot of time reading and thinking by these waterfalls, some good times and bad getting my car and later my truck stuck up here. Days skiing and hiking, riding and exploring all there is to be found in the woods. Truth is this country is a lot of who I became.
Spent many of my younger years in the Plymouth Sundance and later the little Ford Ranger exploring these back roads. Some to spot burn barrels and rednecks burning their garbage but also to see what is out there. The old rundown trailers with the goats and hogs penned up out back, the junk cars and other debris. The deer hanging from the tree, the smell of silage and kerosene in the winter. Not too different than the neighborhood I grew up in. I don’t think there is a dirt or country road within twenty miles of Partridge Run that I didn’t drive seeking out that special place or flicker of a fire around dusk as those wrappers melted away with that pungent smell.
Truth is that I should get out to the hill towns a lot more then I do but my big jacked up truck is expensive to drive and I often prefer to go to the Adirondacks or other more remote country. I’ve certainly studied land and houses out this way to build my off-grid homestead as I like the country but it still seems a bit too urban and densely populated as, I’ve discovered more wild country Plus you all know my thoughts about the laws and policies of New York State. And the environmentalist culture that seems so distant from the actual wilderness.
Partridge Run and the Heldebergs really are a small part of a much larger world all around us.
was of course the meme about how stupid renters are, and that if you rent you are going to live a life of poverty, soon to be tossed out in the street with no equity or savings. But I don’t want be stuck home all the time to feed hogs, mow grass or be up on the roof making repairs. 
Someday, yes. Next up will be the social media posts about how if you don’t drive a 20 year old Honda Civic, you’ll forever be living a life of poverty, might as well start searching the dumpsters for spoiled cans of cat food if you want to eat. 
And of course the wheels of your car are going to fall off as the internet shows because you ignored that noise. I really should stay off social media, the stuff the feeds you are such crap. 
And then just endless pictures of cows and hogs from the millions of farms and homesteads across America. Soon it will be all about chopping corn 
silage for the ladies. At least I’ve pretty much blocked the political crap. 
I figured I’d be south of it and I started to ride home but when I got down to Corning’s Preserve, it started to rain and I didn’t want to get caught in a wicked thunderstorm, so I bellyed up to the SUNY World Headquarters Bus Stop thinking I’d put my bike on the bus, 
but it was late and it didn’t rain and I ended up riding all the way and not paying the Woke Bus Company. Plus I’m pissed at the Woke, because they’re taking away my express bus come two weeks from now, 
while I’m out in the Finger Lakes. Not that I bus it in much during the summer months, instead preferring to bike in both ways. But if I want to use transit to get to work when I return from summer vacation, 
I’ll be taking the yokel bus to work both ways, unless I get the very early last remaining Voorheesvile bus downtown.
