Things aren’t all bad no matter how you look at them. Still everything seem full of risk of bad things happening in my mind. I am troubled by so many things at so many levels. What I am calling delusions and hallucinations are simply common cognitive distortions – catastrophizing over what is often incomplete information.
I still can’t believe I thought that worn shock bushing was a bad wheel bearing. I so diluted myself in beleving that. And I realize my lack of clarity is just an overwhelming from the news and advertising – and all that psychedelic music I’ve been listening to and an dreaming what a grass filled haze must be like, even if it’s not really like that.
I really should turn off the push notifications from Zillow with the endless stream of vinyl-covered houses in the city that I despise. I have a solid financial path I’ve been laying down for my future, I don’t need to keep watching videos about how to be financially successful, and putting myself down when I don’t take every step the experts recommend for maximum financial success. Not everybody who is successful has a vinyl-house in the suburbs and a 20-year old “affordable and quote-un-quote reliable” Honda Civic. Am I too conservative with some of my investments? Sure, but I keep telling myself I’ll need that money soon for a truck and it’s good to keep a bit on hand for the unexpected. I also have quite a bit of market exposure via low-cost index, sector and bonds funds.
And those automobile meme posts and videos, that are always showing wheels falling off cars, and drivers who have never changed a fluid in their car, and wonder why their engine seizes. I get the 5.3l V8 on many of the Chevys isn’t perfect and I might some day throw a rocker on my truck, but hopefully not before it’s in the junkyard. The past 14 years haven’t been that bad despite all my worries and videos about disasters. Should Big Red die, I’ll just rent a car for the remainder of vacation – who cares about the cost – and the next year get a new truck. Shop says their is nothing wrong with my truck, bar of course the wobbling shock absorber.
It’s all kind of silly. I just got to get my mind in the right place before I go out on summer vacation.
So I called up Capital Region Truck Center and they can’t replace the shock bushing until after Labor Day. American Auto Glass that installed the lift kit is no longer around.
It’s fine, I can live with the rougher ride now that I know what the issue is. I feel better knowing I’m not going to loose a wheel, worse comes to worse I chew up the carrier bolt but it’s not to that point yet – it was much worse when I banged up going down to West Virginia in 2017 on that shit road back to County Bridge Campground in Pennsylvania and had to replace it. I’ll have to just deal with it on vacation, it’s not to the point where it’s really rattling yet. I looked and shock bushing is specifically a BDS part, so it’s not something standard my regular mechanic can get and install. Hell of it is it’s a 6 dollar part (literally, I just checked!) and like 15 minutes of labor with a torque wrench and it’s annoying with the slop but so be it.
I guess my alternatives is I could see I could order the part and see if my mechanic would install it. Or call Big Boys Toys in Johnstown which is the nearest BDS Dealer to see if they could do it. The thing is I probably can survive another month with it the way it is and probably it will be fine on vacation, even if it does start to rattle and be obnoxious. I don’t think it’s likely to have so much play that it damages the U-joint and similiar components.
Another hot and smokey summer day, though maybe not as smoggy as the weekend that was. But also not as wet as Sunday. Maybe I should have done an overnight somewhere in the wilderness, but it was not like I figured out what was going on with my truck until Friday and then it poured most of Sunday morning. All while heat, humidity and smoke settled over the land. And people ask why I am so confused lately as all I see is advertisements for roofs and vinyl siding.
Yesterday was wet and smokey. 🌫️ When the rain finally pulled away it was unbearably hot, but as evening approached it cooled down a bit. I rode down to Pine Hollow Arboretum 🌲 and then out to Black Creek Marsh 🐸 but time was late and I didn’t have a lot of time. Plus I was wearing shorts, and I picking ticks off my legs 🪲 by the time I got home. Still it was good to get some exercise in, but already we are losing light in the evenings.
It’s going to be a hot one today. 😅 At least usually my office is pretty cool and the ride in through the gorge is usually fairly cool with shade this time of year and probably a breeze. Air pollution isn’t as bad today, though who knows what will happen by afternoon. Usually by the evening commute it’s started to cool down but if it’s too ungodly hot, I can always catch the express bus home. I think it’s been two weeks since I last didn’t ride to work. 🚲
I will wait to take off the days I want for summer vacation but I like the idea of See You in September, 🗓️ and just leaving sometime in the second half of August through Labor Day at this point. 🏕️ Head out to the Finger Lakes but with those extra days I’ve saved up not plan a particularly busy or ambitious trip. Maybe some days reading, laying in the hammock in the haze. Do some fishing at one of ponds I can ride to, giggle a lot. Who knows, the one things I worry about hurricane 🌀 but maybe that would be a fun day to celebrate in rain. 🌧️ Just need to make sure I’m not somewhere it floods.
Today I’ll call to see if they can order and install a new shock bushing on the truck. 🛻 And I got to decide which jack I am going to get for emergencies and future uses. I have a budget for $50. All caused by stupidity that could have killed me when I was jacking my truck up in an unsafe way to figure out which wheel was loose, when it was just the shock was loose. Even if I don’t get the shock fixed by the weekend, I do hope to get out of town. 🏕️ But I definately want to have a working emergency jack, lest I find one of those pallet nails in my truck. I still have a pallet in the back of my truck I was going to chop up and burn a few weeks back up at camp. 🪓
Also want to get some of those burnables burnt up, they’re starting to smell a bit. 👃I mean I could be green, sort things out for recycling but fire is more fun. 🔥 Helps that I got the compost out to folks house 🍏 which was starting to attract fruit flies, though I could have added to the bucket I had outside of even more rotted food scraps. This is why I need land where I can burn shit and have hogs, preferably far away from anybody else who cares. 🐖 Facebook was suggesting on my dating profile I should add pigs and cattle to my lists of interest. Okay, probably yeah, but I had to giggle 🤭 a bit about that. Looking at playing with Facebook Dating to see if I can meet some new people. 👥
Truth is things are just so damn confusing these days. 😁 All I can do is giggle a lot and look at the flowers, 🌸 and try to learn as much as possible, saving and investing towards a better tomorrow. I am continuing to pour through Abragil Gethring’s Back to Basics, and studying random videos on off-grid systems, composting toilets, rainwater collection, livestock and alternative building systems that don’t involve so much toxic plastic. 🐐 While I don’t get all insane about a little black smoke, dioxin, or even a token every once and while, it’s not like I enjoy the stink or the toxins. I just don’t agree with the growing mounds of crap all around us and everything covered with plastic. Yet, despite my confusion on everything, I don’t think I lack direction even if a lot of things are currently out of my control and I can’t act on them immediately. 🌲
I can at least get up to wilderness if it ever stops raining ☔ and I stop freaking out the delusions about every grone of my truck. Really do need to enjoy – or choke down the last of the Dank Diesel which is probably pretty expired at this point and get some good stuff. I need to look back at my blog to remember what that stuff was, I do remember it coming in glass, which I hate to deal with in trash, 🗑️ but it gave me so many good giggles down bt the waterfall. I’ve been researching my options in Ithaca – I saw there was three different stores, some of them quite highly rated. Truth is if I want to be truly sustainable, I need to get a pipe and grinder and quit it with the pre-rolled crap that is overpriced and overpackaged. Gotta go green. And maybe eventually get into agriculture and grow my own. 🌱 I bet it grows good in hog shit 🐽 and certainly makes Duroc bacon 🥓 taste so much better!
Have you seen the like Their walls are built of cannon balls Their motto is don’t tread on me!
Sometimes my blog posts are a bit repetitive. Other times they’re a bit personal. But for me, my blog is about telling my story, writing about the the things I’m thinking about, my though patterns and evolution of thought. Sometimes I have interesting thoughts worth repeating and as such will repeat them on the blog for a second time. Sometimes I just need to fill space and keep the blog always changing – other times I think what I’m posting is completely relevant to today.
They’re still biting and it’s mad humid, almost foggy with the dampness and the wildfire smoke but only a few mosquitoes around so not too bad! I’m going to ride out to Voorheeesville, maybe just Bender Mellon and then head home as it starts to get dark out.
