Notes
Slip sliding away … 🐪
As often is the case in life, things at first glance look a lot better then they are upon closer inspection.
Woke up in middle of the roaring sore throat, 
at first thinking maybe it was a bad air and mold in my apartment as last night was the first one I’ve had my windows closed since late March from the cold, but I realized when I took a good poop in the morning 
that it probably was food poisoning from the free lunch that they had at work on Tuesday. Or more like that extra sub 
and macaroni salad I packed on my bike, rode back to Menands and then rode home on back of the bike in 65 degree weather. Plus it had been sitting out on the table for much of the day. I’m hoping that’s all it was, just some minor food poisoning. I made a breakfast of edamane, broccoli, garlic, eggs and shredded oatmeal which with all that protein is making me feel better. I got to stop bringing home leftovers from the campaign committee, especially perishable food that sits out all day. 🪰 Same goddamn problem I had last Friday as I was heading up to camp. Better not mention on the Internet, or I’ll get more good damn ads for Cronh’s disease. I shouldn’t complain, the advertisers paid me over a thousand bucks for the privilege on the blog.
Discovered on my way to work that my jeans were a lot more dirty 
then I had expected. Lots of rust and mud stains on them. Maybe I didn’t notice in the darkness of my apartment this morning I grabbed a dirty pair of jeans or maybe it’s just the mud ground into them from hauling wood up at camp. 
It’s fine, I don’t have any meetings downtown today. I’ll make sure to grab clean ones tomorrow. I kept hearing a clicking noise on wheel land riding in, and discovered the speed sensor from the speedometer which never works because it’s wet or batteries are dead was hitting a spoke. 
Then the front brake were squeaking. I’ll have to see if I can put a small amount of brake be quiet on them to quiet down the pads and make sure the wheel is on straight. Listening to Peter Paul and Mary this morning, maybe the music wasn’t loud enough to drown out the noise. 
Also can’t find the bike chain grease, but I know Walmart stocks that and I’ll need to get to Walmart this weeend at any rate for supplies. 
Saw what appeared to be a perfect house on Zillow app yesterday, 
but then I looked at the price and location, and the interior, and realized no. The price was high, at $300k, but if was the perfect property, I would just sell off more stocks and bonds while the market is high and eat the taxes. I would still save money over getting a mortgage on a cheaper property. 
Must be nice to be able sell some stock and buy your dream house when you want to. Life isn’t all awful as the Director. But then I realized it’s too far away when I actually read the address, and the interior was a bit too fancy and perfect for my low class tastes, even if it’s on 16 acres out in the country. 
I want a place that not only is heated by wood but tracking mud and manure into isn’t some kind of sin like my current apartment. I guess dream on. Why are all the nice houses too far from work? And located in New York State? I see the targeted ads on my blog now are trying to direct me to a scam site selling abandoned houses cheap, 
that mostly are trying to sell you sponsored links towards people interested in buying houses as-is.
Door is literally falling apart on my apartment again. 
It’s one of those composite doors, that two or three years ago was falling off the hinges and the bottom was rotted out so the old landlord used some screws to hold it together. And now the wood around those screws has rotted away. Its not like the new landlord doesn’t have a stack of doors in garage next door and I’m sure he plans to replace it at some point, but I’m hesitant to ask until it’s really bad, though I should probably before winter. 
But it’s being annoying as the screws snag and it doesn’t always want to close perfectly. I remind myself, I am staying here month to month, and I’m free to leave at any time, and my landlord is free to kick me out at any time so I’m not complaining much unless it’s dire. I just don’t want to pay more for a rental that I’m not getting anything out of besides a month’s worth of shelter. Maybe I can tape up or glue those screws so they quit snagging the carpet and door still and avoid that call to the landlord. 
I was so sure this was going to be the perfect holiday weekend in Madison County but the forecast keeps sliding downhill. Sunday and Monday rain. Maybe next weekend. I was so disappointed as I had great visions of what this weekend would be — get out to Cherry Ridge early on Friday morning, work remote, go for an evening bike ride ride, have a nice fire, 
Saturday or maybe Sunday go down to Nine Mile Swamp 
and paddle there, and maybe ride around Hamilton and the Old Chenango Canal. Then the other day ride the truck trails and some of the horse trails before the off-road use closes down on November 1st and the color is all gone. 
It’s fine, it just a was a rough night. 
I should have called in sick but there is so much work to do. I’ll survive, things aren’t bad in the grand scheme of things — and only are getting better. 
The truth is so much of America is built out of shit, fake silvered-plated plastic. When your not constantly tossing stuff and buying new, in America these days you end up with a lot of broken, half working crap. 
A lot of America smells like sewage treatment plan like my office does. 
I am sure I’ll recover from the sore throat and make it out to Madison County next weekend or the weekend after, riding trail. So I can enjoy the scenery, real America and smell of cow shit and silage now that it’s the time of year for manuring now the corn is chopped. 
And some day I’ll have that property I actually want and not the shit apartment that is literally falling apart at all the seams, full of broken and poorly functioning stuff. 
But maybe not today.
As the web advertisers says, “Know the Sneaky Signs of Schizophrenia” 🧠
I made the tragic mistake of clicking on an article about the next generation of Schizophrenia drugs designed to help people with serious mental illness overcome their delusions and paranoia without many of the traditional side-effects of Schizophrenia drugs – namely the withdrawal from daily life and uncontrolled body movements.
Now I’m being followed around the internet with ads with creepy faces on toasters and refrigerators saying, “Know the Sneaky Signs of Schizophrenia”. The rather colorful and cute ads remind me of a psychedelic album cover from the late 1960s. You know the kind of artwork you might enjoy when you are pretty darn stoned and looking for something to be tuned into.
The irony of it all is such targeted advertising is not only creepy and plays in one’s own paranoia, it actually is in many ways a realization of the modern suburbanite’s home, full of internet connected appliances, constantly beaming information over the internet, some that you consent to and find useful but much of which can be used for nefarious or even surveillance purposes by hackers or government agents if they actually found you to be of something of interest.
I don’t have Internet at home but I have been to plenty of homes where people have Amazon Echos and “smart” televisions and refrigerators with large displays that smile at you and try to be friendly in appearance, even if they are data collecting machines, mostly for innocent purposes like telling you when your toast is done on your cellphone, that and selling your data and marketing to you. I mean, the schizophrenic aren’t exactly wrong about where America is going these days in your typical suburban home.
Politics is more about patronage than ideology
If you turn on the news today, you could be mislead in thinking that politics is mostly about a great ideological fight for the direction of the country. But as I’m reading Robert Caro’s The Power Broker, I’m reminded what government is ultimately about – patronage.
Political parties are groups of people who serve each other’s interests by living off the largesse of taxpayers. People in political parties often don’t agree with each other but they serve each other as they know serving their common goals move themselves and their communities forward.
Often patronage is considered a bad word or a waste of government resources. But it’s how work gets done, it is how coalitions of support are built. Ideology is nice and it might feel good like stroking certain body parts. Yet, nothing was ever built on a common belief. But making sure all supporters are rewarded makes it possible to build great things both for society and the individuals who make up society.
Now the weekend is looking like crap 💩
Especially in Central New York based on the latest forecast. Maybe this won’t be the weekend to go out to Charles Baker though I’m sure by the following weekend the leaves will be mostly gone, especially in the high country outside of Brookfield.
Happy Tuesday to Y’All. 😊 Moving forward, though the week just seems longer as I worked in person yesterday in the office next to the Old City dump. Didn’t smell so much like wastewater treatment plant yesterday, and while it sprinkled a bit on the ride home, 🚲 it wasn’t a bad ride both ways to work. I probably could have worked remote on Monday but I’m trying to be in the office more these days, 🏢 maybe it’s just practice for November when it’s back to in person most days.
Went to the laundromat yesterday and the Wi-Fi was broke but my clothes were clean. 👚 I do try to at least wash my clothes every two weeks, as I don’t care how dirty I am when I’m working remote. I just sat in the parking lot working using my phone and playing around watching a bit of YouTube and reading a book on it. 📱I find I need my computer less and less for many things these days, the phone is so much more portable and doesn’t require a lot of power. I do a lot of work just using my phone, and not bothering booting the laptop. Especially when using the laptop involves not only using power but also my limited mobile hotspot.
I bought a new laptop charger for my laptop, 
and it’s still giving me problems charging at times. I am not sure if the battery is going bad, the charge port is shot or there is an issue with overheating. 
I should take it apart again and check on the fan, and see if I can get it work or replace it. And what is involved in repacing the charging port — if it’s like most things on a HP laptop, it’s likely a generic board that can be unplugged and replaced for a few bucks. Truth is at some point this laptop will need to be replaced — it’s 8 years old now — but it still works well, is fast enough, has enough storage and memory for my purposes — and HP parts are cheap and easy to replace. I run Linux on it, so it doesn’t if the OS is out of date on Windows side of things, it still is fine. Maybe if this laptop quits working, I’ll go and buy another one of these machines used, especially if it has Windows 10 installed and it’s eight years old, I can probably get one real cheap — and parts are easy to keep them running. 
Still it’s frustrating that like everything in this world it’s falling apart.
I am not that set against Madison County for the weekend, it all depends on how the forecast evolves. The National Weather Service isn’t as nancy negative as Weather Underground though the night going into Columbus Day still looks wet. And I worry if I wait another week, then the leaves will be done at least for the high country in Madison County. And Friday and Saturday look beautiful, though Friday will be a remote work, so I can’t ride trail. Not sure I got think about it.
Do people actually believe smoking pot is harmless?
I was reading the New York Times article this morning called, As America’s Marijuana Use Grows, So Do the Harms. It’s one of those anti-cannabis articles that makes all pot smokers to be ignorant hillbillies and children who lack brains and smoke lots of pot without ever thinking about any risks of their drug use. To say that people don’t know about the risks of lung damage, heart attack, psychosis, addiction, accidents from driving or operating machinery while high seems rather silly. All you have to do is do a simple google search. Or pick up any book on the topic. You should be informed, and make your own decisions.
As they say, there is no free lunch. Fun things inherently have some danger, be it driving, riding a mountain bike, hunting and shooting guns, or even a solitary walk in the woods. People do get struck by lightening on beautiful days and by city buses crossing the street. Your house could catch fire, and your burned to death. Life has risks, and people are aware of many of them.
The claim that cannabis users are ignorant of the dangers is the latest tack of anti-drug zealots. But they aren’t motivated about alerting the public about the real danger. What they fear is losing their lucrative business of arresting, prosecuting, fining, jailing and “treating” recreational drug users — somewhat funded by fines but mostly funded by the taxpayer slop bucket. And it’s a disgusting business they’re in, completely contrary to the public interest. I’m not saying, toss all bums in the police departments and rehab clinics on the street — but when their industry is harmful and wastes taxpayer dollars — they should assisted at getting off the public dole, and given the assistance necessary to transfer their skills in the public sector into in-demand jobs in the private sector.
Canaan
Canaan is often used in the bible as a reference to the “Promised Lands” and so-called “Justified invasion of Canaan” was turned into a popular song by Coven with One Tin Solider. Of course, depending on who you ask, Dennis Lambert pretty much turned this biblical verse on it’s head.
Canaan Heights, as the name suggests, is one of the highest elevation locations in West Virigina. It’s not unlike Canaan, NY, which is the highest elevations of the Taconics.
“Canaan Valley in Tucker County can be difficult [to pronounce] especially for people who are familiar with the Bible and are used to the biblical pronunciation KAY-nun. It’s pronounced kuh-NANE here in West Virginia. Canaan Heights and Canaan Valley Resort also put emphasis on the second syllable.”