Notes

Doing a little packing tonight 💼

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I think I’ll probably head up to Rennselaerville State Forest come mid afternoon tomorrow.

I was going to go to Vermont either this evening or early tomorrow 🏕 and work from there but my list 📃 of things to do is too long to risk unreliable hotspot service especially if I were to stay through Monday. It’s not like Speculator where there is that excellent library nearby. Plus I’m just so paranoid about Friday the 13th. I don’t want to get in trouble should I loose connection remote working or have the bad luck of getting in a wreck. 🤞 It’s stupid but I’ve had bad days before on that day.

Instead I will work remotely tomorrow 🖥 starting out the day at Bethlehem Library and dropping the bike 🚲 off at Steiner’s for a new chain. I could get a chain tool and break the chain myself – the old one I have is broke – but they have the tools there and it’s not a lot of money to have them do it and it will be done properly with a good chain fitted to the bike. Beats wearing out the crankset. I’m sure at this point it’s due, I rode a lot this summer. I don’t so much care about the bike for the weekend at this point but I want it back on the road by Tuesday. ⚙ That’s when I have my meetings downtown and I’d rather avoid the shuttle if I can. 🚀 Truth is I don’t want to spend a lot of time with half assed adjustments on the bike when I ride it so much. It actually wasn’t terrible riding it down to the library – I didn’t really damage the chain trying to pull it off but it’s obvious in my mind that a new chain will keep it riding smoothly.

This weekend I’m thinking 💭 Rennselaerville State Forest for two quick overnights, getting there early enough that I can get the campsite. 🏕 No guarantees in life but then at least I can work from the hammock as needed, have a fire, and relax. 🔥 I figure go out and see the folks on Sunday. 👪 Thinking in two weeks of going up to Speculator to enjoy the colors and work remote from there. Then go hike Huyck Preserve Sunday and visit my parents in the afternoon and do my wash there. Much less packing for two quick overnights though I do need to get lantern 🏮 mantels. I should get out and clean my 22 and go online and buy my hunting license so I can cook some tree rats 🐿 while I’m up there. I love the views up there. I have enough propane for two nights but come the next trip I’ll want to get it filled because I’ll soon be using the heater a lot more at camp. Need to get another propane line before I start using the heater again – the old one blew out.

Maybe I’ll do a Vermont trip eventually but it’s somewhat lower on the priority. ⛰ If work was a bit slower I would be all for it, working remote from Forest Road 72  – Somerset Airfield Road as I have decent cell phone 📱 reception 📶 there. Maybe as soon as next weekend, or the weekend after or maybe I’ll wait until October. Probably not Columbus Day Weekend though as I want to avoid the craziness 🤪 of all the leaf peepers in Vermont.  🍁 Even if I think by then many of the leaves will be done.

The truth about long hair …

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When I was younger I had long hair. Long curly hair. I hated going to the barber shop, so I let my freak flag fly.

But the truth is long hair sucks. It gets dirty, oily and difficult to clean. Plus with short hair, you can regularly buzz it off at home, and it’s cooler and looks much nicer.

Untitled [Expires September 26 2024]

I have a shit list that includes full counties with 1.4 million in population 💩

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Few things make me crankier how every county stores their data differently, and how sometimes they put data in random fields, and you have to detect strings in fields and move them into a format that there is reasonable chance that zip4 encoder will have an idea what to do with them. The life of Data Services director.

Garbage in and pretty data out. ♻ I guess I’m a recycling or at least refining the data, though at times I feel like I’m a janitor. 🧹 Certainly getting damn good at cleaning data with R Studio. That said, using R for work so much I forget all the fun visuals you can create with it too. There are at least 9 data jobs awaiting me when I get into the office.

I’ve been working so damn hard these days, 🖥 writing code and processing data left and right. It’s almost entirely my fault because I keep coming with ideas to push the data harder and do more with it. But the data I get from the counties is often such crap. And volunteering to take on more projects. 📄 And supervising staff, which at a certain point you just have to trust that they’re doing a good job –  because as a manager you really don’t have time to dolge into the details. 👷 Plus, staff don’t like it when you do their job or replace their judgment for your own. But at times it feels like your flying blind, with no idea what is happening, beyond data streams come in, data stream go out, processed and cleaned to the best of your ability. You just hope you have good information ℹ to make good decisions. 💭 Like so many things in the world, it’s a blind sleep of faith. 🙏

Not only where they running a ditch-witch and diesel tractor until dark next to my apartment last night, 🏘 one of the worker’s motorcycles 🏍 broke down right in front of my apartment, and they were trying to get it to fire up late into the evening. With the landlord peering into my windows while I worked on my greasy bike chain. 🚲 Which I never ended up getting off. I doubt he cares at this point – I’m sure his plan continues to be to gut my unit once he can persuade me to move out. But I hate the peering eyes, 👀 looking into my dirty, worn out apartment as they conintue to kick up the dust and Mud outdoors. I do give them credit though, they painted the window sills and tried to pressure wash the mold off the outside of the building. He does seem like to be a fairly responsible landlord. 🤷‍♂️ I just find it creepy to know your somebody else’s bitch, 🐶 even if you probably make more money then they do. But ain’t that always true with life. I should buy my own land, 🚜 but the options are all so crappy, as I dig through Zillow and various real estate agent pages that sell rural estates and small hobby farms. 🐐

I plan to take the bike 🚲 to the shop on Friday morning to be serviced. 🔧My chain 🔗 splitter is busted it appears and I couldn’t get it to split the chain so I couldn’t put on the spare chain I had from the old bike I got years ago. It looks like the old chain would fit but it’s a cheap chain and I’m sure it’s not necessarily engineered for long life with the amount of miles I ride. It’s fine, I’m busing it to work today, 🚍 enjoying the later pace heading in, 👣 catching the express downtown. 🏢 I have my meeting downtown midday, I’ll take the shuttle 🚀 back downtown.

It’s going to be a nice weekend 🏕 and I was going to do Vermont for a few days but I have so much work to do and I don’t want to be so remote and distant from Wi-Fi 📶 and reliant on both the solar panel, the inverter and the mobile 📱 hotspot for work. Especially if I planned to work 9 hour ⏳ days both Friday and Monday, plus driving there and back. Plus I’m so paranoid about Friday the 13th and some stupid but awful shit happening on that day like getting into a wreck or Big Red breaking down. 🛻 Or getting busted for having joint at the National Forest. Not it’s essential but it’s fun around the fire 🔥. I might do Rennselaerville State Forest on Friday evening, it depends if I have enough downtime and when my bike will be ready. Hoped to do some end of summer floating ⭕ on the Deerfield River but it’s not going to happen. Maybe next weekend? Doubt it will be so warm and sunny. ☀ Probably the last weekend of September I’ll do four days in Speculator as the library has good Wi-Fi there. I’m cranky about not going to Vermont this weekend but in my mind it would be a very bad idea 💡 even if it’s just pure Friday the 13th paranoia.

If I was responsible… 🤷‍♂️

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I would not be listening to Joni Mitchell sing about having a river I could skate away on. I would be at that public hearing about yet another development in the Pine Bush. Or I would be packing for Vermont.

Truth is that I’m concerned about the practicalities of working remote from Vermont ⛰ and even driving 🚘 up there after work tomorrow. It’s a long ways to Wi-Fi from the National Forest and cell service can be problematic in the back country and I only have limited bandwidth. 📶 And so much work to do Friday most likely so I’ll need 8 or 9 hours of battery life and solar power. ☀ Friday is the 13th and I’m all paranoid about Friday the 13th. I don’t want to get busted for smoking weed even if it’s unlikely after dark in the back country. 🚭 And will the cooler last through Monday with the final heat wave of the year?

I’d love to do a four day 4⃣ up in the Green Mountains ⛰ float on the Deerfield River  ⭕ one last time before it’s too cold. This is an amazing stretch of weather ahead but I have so much work to do at least tomorrow and probably Friday. It’s really not a vacation when you’re pulling a nine hour day, plus the complications of dealing with the mobile internet which can be unreliable, watching how much data you use and the status of your battery bank. 🔋

I should be more involved in saving the Pine Bush 🌲as the developers so giddly develop the last unprotected acres of the Pine Bush all chummy with the commission. But it’s hard to get excited about it after all these years when I know there is no future for me in the Capital Region. 🔮 Maybe some day I’ll buy land but I still find everything local to be so problematic.

Listening to Garth this morning 🤠

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And Brooks and Dunn. Maybe I’m somewhat sentimental for the days were back when I was in college. Not that I would want to go back to those days, but the world in some ways was simpler — and I was much more ignorant kid of the sticks finding my way in the city, but won’t we all?