Don’t you know that rain is coming, but also it’s Friday so I have meetings downtown this afternoon most likely and it would be convienent to have my bike and not have to deal with either the shuttle or catching the 22 downtown. Assuming the meeting is mid-afternoon, that would negate the issue of having to ride through the rain and I could put my bike on the bus at the end of the day.
I don’t know, I still have some time to weigh my options. ⚖️ I am up early enough I could catch that early express in and then maybe walk on the Plaza. But I do like riding the bike, good exercise, cheapest and most flexible option. It is actually a pretty beautiful day to start out spring. 🌸 Maybe I can deal with being wet later on or take the local bus home if it gets real wet. 💧
Been enjoying my library’s subscription to NewsBank Database 🗞️ which has full-color full-page newspapers for most of the major cities in Upstate New York including the Schenectady Daily Gazette, Syracuse Post-Standard, Buffalo News, and the Albany Times Union. Really enjoy seeing the perspectives and the papers from each city upstate. Also my library has the Wall Street Journal and New York Times online, which is great for getting National and International coverage, especially as I think NPR has become super liberal biased since they lost their government funding. Lately NPR has just been an endless whining fest about Trump, the need to ban all guns, and of course how Trump is banking democracy or some crap like that gives liberals their jollies. 🤡
Yesterday was another busy day with the database update, 💾 got another 10 or so districts loaded but some of them were tough, ended up having to write a bunch new SQL queries for that Tompkins-Cortland district I was working on, and then left some of the database joins running through the night on the server nohup. I want to get through a 1/3rd of the state by my meeting this afternoon, and hopefully get the postage report software working again. And then just moving forward.
All week I’ve done nothing to look at trucks, 🛻 honestly though at this point I don’t really care that much, maybe because I feel like with gas prices going up, ⛽ whatever I buy will be too expensive to operate and I don’t think a lot of people will be out buying trucks right now. Those SuperDuties have either 34 gallon or 48 gallon tanks. What I may ultimately end up doing is signing up for CDTA Car Share, and getting one of their electric cars to visit some of the local dealerships in April once session is on recess, the database update and other projects are done. Honestly at this point though, I am just not really feeling like I want to get back into the driving game.
Those big trucks are so damn expensive, use so much fuel, and honestly I’m just bored with traveling, smoking pot and hanging out in wilderness. 🏕️ Maybe a 25-year old Honda Civic would be fine, or I could look at the cost of repairing/replacing the frame on Big Red, getting some body work done on the bed, and maybe a good detail done to vehicle to make it shinny and new, along with getting caught up on various services like transmission and axle fluid changes. Or I don’t know, just buy that Godamn Godzilla Holstein. Or another big truck. And if fuel is expensive, pay it like a man or stay home. I just get tired of the endless ads for plastic houses and 25-year old Honda Civics that everybody says adults should drive to work and live in.
Tomorrow I will probably ride over to Glenmont to get groceries, and maybe look at getting another bike tire 🚲 for my bike. Looks like it will be a pretty mild and sunny ☀️ spring day, and with the longer evening, it will probably leave time for visiting Five Rivers 🐸 in the evening. Then Sunday looks like rain ☔ but I will probably visit the folks if they come to pick me up. Then it’s just back to work. 🖥️ I feel like whatever, just let the time go by, save and invest more. I could save a lot of money if I cancelled my trip to Michigan this year, and instead took a few long weekends this summer and just hung out at local parks.
It’s a lot of fun to look at off-grid properties and hunting camps on the Internet. I do spend too much time dilly-dallying on my phone, looking at Land and Farm real-estate, as I found Zillow wasn’t exactly a great site for looking for places that aren’t your typical suburbanite development. Hunting camps and cabins, especially without electricity and running water out of the middle of nowhere tend to be quite affordable, especially in less expensive parts of country. Honestly, some of the properties I’ve looked at aren’t really accessable year round, might have restrictions on their use, or are too far from any kind of useful work, but it’s still interesting to explore and dream of the world of tomorrow.
So yeah, I filled my apartment with acrid smoke last night frying up some onions and shrimp, and decided to light up some of that Dragon Breath’s incense I got last summer camping, after seeing it real cheap at Wally World, reading about incense in a book about cabin building and smelling it up at Cornell Campus. Shit stinks, but it was better then the acrid smell, says the boy who hangs out with people who post on their Facebook, “The Smell of Manure Reminds Me of Home”, and those who are like hell yes I burn my trashon my homestead – everything but the cans and glass which dont’ burn real well. Dirty real shit unlike the incense which is much more pungent in then the marijuana smoke.
I had low tire pressure on my bike yesterday, 🚲 after riding past the South Pearl Ghetto Apartments again yesterday, but I pumped it up at the end of day at work and made it home but it still felt soft. Looks like I poked a hole in the tube on front tires, but the fix-a-flat sealed it back up. Pumped it up harder when I got home, and it looks fine this morning. There is a big protest downtown ✊ and I’d much rather avoid that on my bike today then take the Yokel Local Bus, 🚌 you know Pay Your Fare!! 💰 and we stop every 5 feet and inch along downtown as you become morbidly obese. 🌥️ Looks like a pretty cloudy and gray this morning. Did I mention I am glad I am in the Tier 4 Pension System, so I have nothing to protest about, and I’ve been maxing out my Roth IRA for a decade and half, and in past decade maxing otu the 457k. I am a solder in poverty, but some day I’ll have that off-grid cabin with the stinky old trash burner and cows and hogs out back. And then I can I say, home smell like manure and burnt plastic. And probably incense and cannabis smoke. Grow your own on all that hog shit. 💩
Slept in a bit this morning until about a quarter before six o’clock. 🛏️ Eggs this morning 🥚 with lots of spinach, broccoli, onions and turmeric. Interesting mix of yellows and greens. Too many cups of coffee, ☕ and I am moving along, once I shower 🚿 it’s will be off to work. 💾 Shit is always still broken in the world of Data Services, but yeah, we are making progress at updating the database and I’m keeping the programmers busy fixing shit. Some of the stuff gets a lot of use by clients and members, others not so much, 🖥️ but you offer it and see what people bite onto. I turned the heat on last night, though if I don’t think it actually got cold enough for the thermostat to kick on. Still haven’t gotten the February bill from National Gird, 🔌 I should look and see as it should have arrived soon. Should be less then January, as I have had my heat off most of the time since early March or turned way down. Bills have been up this year due to higher rates, and simply because I’m home more not having a operating truck. The dealership tried calling me yesterday, probably to ask if I was still looking and push inventory, I didn’t take the call. I should think more about summer and buying a new truck, but yeah, I’m busy and I’m hardly inspired to rush out to buy a Godzilla 🐲 with a 48-gallon tank or maybe 34-gallon when Crude Oil is topping $120 a barrel this morning. 🛢️ That and social media is always reminding me the money on the truck today is not money to invest and spend eventually on buying hogs, that burn barrel for the garbage and cabin in the woods. Do you want to be separating out your plastic forever for recycling and landfill? Or do you to want to fires 🔥 in wilderness and dream of grunting hogs? 🐖 I don’t know, I should get in the shower 🚿 and building data frames and running SQL in the office. 🏢
In late March, the woods of Upstate New York exist in a fleeting, high-stakes transition known as the “spring ephemeral” window. As the iron grip of winter loosens, the forest floor—still matted with the skeletal remains of last year’s leaves—becomes the stage for a rapid biological sprint.
The hallmark of this season is the arrival of sunlight. Before the heavy hardwood canopy can leaf out and cast its summer shade, tiny, resilient wildflowers like Hepatica, Bloodroot, and Trout Lily race to bloom. They are joined in the wetlands by the prehistoric-looking Skunk Cabbage, which generates its own heat to melt through the lingering frost. This “green-up” is subtle at first, appearing more as a hazy wash of red and gold in the budding maples than a true forest coat.
The silence of winter is replaced by a restless energy. The woods grow loud with the rhythmic “drumming” of Ruffed Grouse and the nasal “peent” of American Woodcocks performing their dusk courtship flights. High above, the “V” formations of migrating geese signal a shifting hemisphere, while on the ground, the “spring freshet”—the massive runoff of melting snow—turns quiet creeks into roaring torrents and fills vernal pools for awakening amphibians.
However, this beauty comes with the practical realities of the “mud season.” The earth is saturated and fragile, and the dry, dead debris of winter creates a brief but dangerous window for wildfires before the new growth takes hold. To walk the woods in late March is to witness a landscape caught between breaths—no longer dormant, yet not quite reborn.
Yesterday was cold and blustery but I ended up riding my bike to work after starting out to catch the bus. Some black ice on the Rail Trail and a few bone chilling bursts of air but it was manageable. Today is much colder but no wind, so I guess I’ll continue to riding in, though I want to air up the rear tire, which I should think about replacing this weekend as it completely is stripped of tread. I also should see if I can true that wheel up better after a winter of pounding it through the ice and snow.
Finally started making progress on the database update in the office, 💾 after months and months of things being broken and too many hours just twiddling my thumbs. Rode both ways to work, got into the office fairly early before the busy day, then stopped at Hannaford on way home for milk, eggs, flour and frozen corn. Made pinto beans up yesterday which I used for both lunch and with cornmeal pancakes 🥞 I had for dinner. More pancakes this morning, apple cinnamon with lemon 🍋 for a change as lately it’s been a lot of blueberry pancakes. I just like my mornings sweet with lots of stevia plus it’s an excuse to eat up more carrots. Headphones 🎧 died on Monday which made for a sucky day, but I had a replacement set at home, so Tuesday wasn’t so bad. Saint Patrick’s Day 🍀 was pretty ordinary otherwise, just the usual ride back and forth to work. Topped off the back tire on the bike, but I really should true up wheel and replace the tire, especially as the bike trail seems to have more and more broken glass on it every day as I ride through the ghetto. Riding still beats driving or taking the Yokel Local Bus that stops every five feet as the winos bang on the windows and yell, “let me out!” 👀
I haven’t made any progress or decision since deciding not to buy the Godzilla Holstein, 🛻 even though I do see another truck I kind of like at another dealer but I’m kind of busy and undecided if I should reach out. Honestly, I just kind of like having the extra money and not the hassle and stress of driving. 🫦 And who knows about gas prices ⛽ with the whole Iran situation. 🇮🇷 And honestly, I am just busy especially now with the database update undeerway. Maybe this isn’t a good year to buy a truck, or maybe that should just be another goal for retirement. I don’t think it’s that hard to learn to drive again, and if my insurance is higher because of years not driivng, it becomes a wash because you haven’t been paying insurance over all that time. 🔥 Plus without a truck, it makes it much more difficult to participate in illicit activities, so yeah, that’s good. I am well aware, there are driving alternatives to buying a new Ford F-350, but yeah, they suck unless the only think you care about is driving to Teenage-Stinks-a-Lot at the Maul every weekend. 🚙 I know 25-year old Honda Civics are so cheap and reliable. I guess I could look at reviving Big Red, but I just like have that extra money. Maybe my views will change when the weather gets nicer, but I am increasingly bored with just another summer in woods, burning shit and smoking weed. That and all those social media posts, which seem to remind you if you buy a car, you’ll be forever impoverished, and shouldn’t you put that money into retirement? Well except I’ve been and plan to continue to maximize my 457B and Roth IRAs to federal limits. And keep buying stocks and bonds each weeks. And aren’t you worried about running out of money in retirement, and they not give you extra good flavor jello in the Styrofoam dish at old folks house?🍧 Then I remember my advanced age plans involve a 30-06 and a big fire turning that cabin into a pile of ash, an celebrating the life and legacy of Hunter S. Thompson. Oh, not allowed to say such things, just buy more plastic houses. 🏡
