That’s one thing I’ve been thinking more about after test driving that F-350 the other day. I loved much about that truck, besides the color and maybe the fuel economy as the Middle East blows up. But I’ve done okay all winter without a car, as the bus and bike gets me where I need to go, and my parents have generally brought me out to visit once a week.
But don’t you want to camp? I don’t know, truth is I am getting tired of my adventures to wilderness. It seems so much like the same old, visiting the regular haunts in the wilderness, setting up and taking down camp. Having fires, hiking, swimming, smoking pot and drinking beer. Swatting black flies and shivering in the cold and rain. Riding trail and around, watching as the old yogurt containers and paperboard boxes burn up in the fire. Stupid shit like that. I feel like I’ve been there and done that, and there are fewer and fewer new places to explore. It’s just another weekend or week in wilderness.
Truth is I am quite content on staying closer to home, riding my bike places, and living a simple life without the worries and cost of owning a truck. No maintaince or repair visits, no insurance payments or fuel bills. I’ve noticed how much I’ve saved this winter, how my credit card bills are much lower, how it’s so much easier to have extra cash each month to save and invest. While I am not looking at a car payment, and I know the money spent on the truck will quickly be replaced by market growth, I still know that driving once again just adds a lot of cost, and I don’t get the joy I once did from time in wilderness, when it all more of the same. I feel like I’ve pretty much tapped out the places I enjoy camping, and now a days it’s just more and more of the same. Set up, take down, go back home.
Don’t you want to do that great trip to Michigan this summer? Who knows how expensive gas will be come midsummer or even if it’s going to be avaliable. Everybody says summer vacation is great, but I am increasingly bored with it, especially the Finger Lakes. It’s all the same. Wouldn’t I be content enough just staying home, taking short work weeks and spending my days riding places on my bike, doing nature study or just hanging out at a park somewhere reading or laying in my hammock? Honestly, in many ways that seems much more relaxing then having to take down, set up camp, travel and deal with all the stress of that. Keep it simple, save a ton of money, and maybe put off Michigan for another year.
In Albany, NY, you can generally expect 11 to 12 days of measurable precipitation during the month of March. Because March is a transitional month, this precipitation often starts as snow or a mix early in the month and shifts toward rain as temperatures rise.
Precipitation Frequency & Type
Daily Chance: There is approximately a 25% to 32% chance of precipitation on any given day in March.
Shifting Patterns:
Early March: Higher likelihood of snow (6%) or mixed rain and snow (5%).
Late March: The chance of “rain only” days increases from 14% at the start of the month to 24% by the end.
Measurable Days: On average, 12 days see measurable precipitation, though some historical months (like March 2024) have seen up to 19 days when including “trace” amounts.
Rainfall Totals
Average Rainfall: Typically around 3.09 to 3.3 inches for the month.
Recent Extremes: March can vary wildly; for instance, March 2024 was the third wettest on record with 6.34 inches of total precipitation.
Executives at the biggest private-credit lenders have sought to play down an exodus of investor money from their funds, making carefully worded television appearances to calm jitters about the sector. Apollo Global Management’s APO 4.13%increase; green up pointing triangle?John Zito, co-president of the firm’s asset-management arm that is one of private-credit’s largest players, spoke more bluntly in a previously unreported discussion UBS UBS -1.52%decrease; red down pointing triangle arranged for some of its clients late last month.
Zito called out “arrogance” in private markets, predicted a private-credit loan made to a generic small or midsize “Joe Software Company” might recover 20 to 40 cents on the dollar and said Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell is needling President Trump with his inflation commentary, according to audio recordings of the comments reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
I concede maybe a full lemon shredded and put in my blueberries and carrot pancakes this morning was a bit too much tanginess for a Monday morning. Good song too from that Peter, Paul and Mary side two of their introductory record.
It’s raining, it’s pouring, the old man is snoring. ☔ Rainy start to the work week, but to a certain extent that was kind of needed as New England was fairly dried out, not much mud for spring time. Brush burning ban goes into effect today, and hillbilies everywhere we’re burning their piles before the burn ban goes into effect. 🔥 Still can have campfires, though, not started by you know what until well after dark if it’s going to produce black smoke. I don’t have a truck so no plans currently, I’ll probably save the wrappers for a roadside trash bin. 🐽 One of pig farms I follow on Facebook from down south was having a big bonfire of feed sacks stuffed with burnable garbage before things get too dried out. I guess if you have enough land to raise a bunch of hogs, nobody is going to care about a little smoke.
Of to work this morning on yokel-local CDTA bus, 🚌 that stops every five feet as yahoos and children pound on the windows, and scream out there brains, 😜 while I sit and just listen to my tunes 🎧, flip through an E-book on my phone 📱 and gentle watch as the bus churns it way downtown. Earlier bus to avoid the craziness of the Capitol and then rush over to catch the shuttle 🚀 to the suburban office. Honestly, the ten-year old white Chevy Traverse they drive back and forth, covered with finger prints from passengers touchin the salt and sand covered body 🖕 is not that fast, and is probably the reason I decided against buying the Godzilla Holstein. 🐮 That an the whole Iran situation. 🇮🇷 Do I really want a 7.3L big block when gas prices are heading up to $6 a gallon in a few weeks? ⛽ The poles melt from global warming and apparently the years worth of plastic garbage I’ve burned up in the wilderness and not sent to landfill or plastics recycling plant. 🌎 I saw another SuperDuty up in Latham that seems perfect for my needs, I should reach out to that dealership this weekend. But I was looking at old Big Red 🛻 at my parents house, and wondering how much it would be to get the frame repaired and him back on the road. I should move on, but I have a lot of good memories with Big Red but 14 years comes and goes so quickly. It makes me sad to look at ol Big Red, he was a pretty damn nice truck. But so are the SuperDuty trucks. 🤷♂️
And then I see another post about how people who buy new trucks are forever impoverished, though I don’t plan to change any of my retirement or investment plans to buy the truck, and let’s be honest, it’s not that much money spread out over 14 or 15 years. S&P 500 futures are up a ½ percent this morning, honestly, a few months of strong growth will make SuperDuty money look like it was never spent. But what the hell, I want to be kind of poor, with livestock and stinky ol’ burn barrel out back for my rundown cabin in woods when I retire. 🌲 🐮 🛢️ That SuperDuty will last most likely until my retirement in my mid-to-late 50s. Nice being Tier 4 retirement, and years of maxing out all my retirement accounts – a perk of being middle management and frugal outside of my love for ginormous pickup trucks. ♋ I know, I’ll probably die from cancer from all those years burning my plastic garbage rather landfilling it like the greenies insist is better. I was noticing how close the houses really are in Westerlo yesterday, too many neighbors and too much nuisance and dreaming of wilder country in my ginormous truck.
I expect a busier week this week at work 💾 with the major database update expected to start today. So maybe not a great week to troll dealer websites for trucks but I’m still chewing over my options 🍴 with the Iran 🇮🇷 situation. Tomorrow looks cold and blustery 🌬️ but I’ll still probably ride in as it feels good and the rail trail is ice free. 🚵 Save money 💰 on the bus so I can spend it on see above, leave later and get home earlier by a few minutes. I do miss the express bus. But in summer I admit I rarely ride it because I like how pumped I feel once it get to work. 🦵🏻
The Ford Godzilla 7.3L engine is supposedly one of the simplest, most reliable big block engines produced today. It’s a solid workhorse, expected to last hundreds of thousands of miles, pull demanding commercial loads and provide reliable transportation.
But yeah, they had a run of bad lifters and maybe the variable oil pump on some trucks, especially those doing extensive all-day idling in a commerical setting have had failures, especially in the first years of engine production. And thanks to social media, I am fully aware of how devesating it can be to an engine, sometimes without a lot of miles on it if it blows up. Many get replaced by Ford, and others get replaced by their owners for $10,000 or so. And it sucks.
But all of life have risks. No engine is going to be perfect, but once you click on one post and study how somebody’s engine failed, then all your social media is full of posts about blown up Godzilla engines. And then you get to learn about all the other failures of gasser SuperDuties from the blown up transmissions to electrical gremlins to failed steering shafts and radios that don’t work. Indeed, if you are a member of any car owners group, they’ll be primarily people turning it trying to find help and solutions to their problems.
Then the other series of posts I’ve clicked on miles per gallon that people are getting in a real world. It’s an HD truck, I don’t expect it to sip gas, but probably have fuel economy similar to my lifted Silverado. And indeed, most of the reliable sources suggests that is about what I should expect, and maybe even slightly better on the highway with the stock tires. However, some people, espeically those who use their trucks in urban traffic or idle a lot, get much worse gas milage. But then again, my Silverado burned a lot of fuel city driving too. Yet, it seems like my social media is full of horror stories about those who are averaging not 15 1/2 miles per gallon, but regularly 8-9 MPG, although most seem to be towing or doing a lot of idling. I am not going to argue a large displacement pushrod engine without active fuel management or auto-idle shutdown is not going to be fuel hungry in the city, but some of the posts just scare me to no end.
And yet that has filled my mind full of fears. Am I buying a white elephant? Will it burn an Iran’s amount of fuel with gas prices at $5, maybe $6 or $7 or $10 a gallon? Are all big Ford trucks not SuperDuties but instead Super Bad unreliable junk? And then I look at all the problems Chevy, Dodge and Toyota have, and I can’t think Fords aren’t worse, but are even better. Still it puts Super Doubts in my mind about whether or not want a SuperDuty.
