After all these years working in politics – as a researcher, a coordinator and then Deputy Director of Research Services – the position I really enjoy is now being the Director of Data Services. Simply said, I like working with data.
None of this should be a surprise, as a teenager I was the quintessential computer geek, first with my Macintosh computers and then Linux. I’ve used Linux exclusively for years outside of work, I became good at using the Unix text utilities over the years for reasons of convenience and necessity.
For years I wanted to get away from computers, I have nothing but disdain for the culture that celebrates materialism and is filled with the latest high technology. I loved the life of working on the Capitol Hill, although maybe not so much the all nighters, sleeping under the desk. Politics is a lot about clever wit and the use of power to get big things done.
But computers and working with data are a lot of fun too. Nothing beats coming up with a clever little shell script, some sql, a C program or R script to fix a problem. A good script can automate and save a lot of labor and product produce better output. I know I’d rather be checking the output of a program I wrote then doing something by hand.
The neat thing about my work is the tools I use – – especially the Unix text utilities are really simple and old but work incredibly well when piped together. As many of our databases are over 10 million records, it can take a fair amount of processing power on the main frame where they run, but the next result is useful data extracted from the system using simple, reliable tools.
There is all this talk these days about machine learning and advanced computing. But there is something wonderful about the simple old tools we use at work. And I enjoy working with them, along with the people. Plus I know every day I’m refining my skills, building my resume, and developing a better life and future that I will be able to take and put forward towards my future life goals.
For fourteen years, a truck named “Big Red” was the constant in my life. Now that he’s retired, I find myself staring at that number—fourteen. It is the exact span of time sitting between today and 2040, the year I plan to hang up my own hat. When I tell people I have fourteen years left until I retire from state service, they often react as if that time is an eternity. But I look at the empty spot where Big Red used to sit and realize that fourteen years is nothing more than a heartbeat.
I remember 2011 with a clarity that defies the calendar. I can still feel the pride of driving that truck off the lot and the excitement of outfitting him for camping in the spring of 2012. Back then, I was in my late twenties with far less gray hair and a much narrower view of the world. To my friends, it seems like I bought that truck just “a few years ago.” In reality, a seventh of my life has evaporated since then. This trick of perspective is exactly why I am eyeing the exit now.
By 2040, I will be 57 years old. With thirty years of pension contributions and a lifetime of aggressive saving, the math says I’ll be ready to leave Albany behind. But the math isn’t what drives me; it’s the physical reality of the ticking clock. I want to build my off-grid homestead while my back is still strong and my legs are still steady. There is a specific kind of wisdom in knowing when to leave while you’re ahead—before the inevitable decline that comes to everyone who stays “long in the tooth” for too long.
My new rig, an F-350 SuperDuty named “Old Smokey,” is a heavy reminder of this timeline. When I tell people that this truck will likely be the one to carry me into my retirement, they are floored. Every dollar I sink into its bedliner or cap feels like a countdown. Like any material thing, Old Smokey will eventually wear out, just as I will. But for now, he represents the bridge to my future. These next few years are my window to travel freely before the responsibilities of the homestead—the goats and the hogs that don’t care about vacation schedules—take root. I suspect that if I build a life I actually want to live, the very concept of a “vacation” might become obsolete.
The next fourteen years will undoubtedly be heavy. I expect to lose my parents and make the transition back to the country, perhaps to their land. So much is unpredictable; life offers no guarantees. But I know that these years will disappear like a few quick tokes of cannabis smoke by a roaring campfire, or a few summer afternoons spent drifting down a creek in an inner tube.
Time is a relentless thief, but it is also a teacher. It has taught me that fourteen years is both a lifetime and a weekend. I plan to spend the remaining hours of my “work life” with my eyes wide open, honoring the gear and the body I have left, knowing that while nothing lasts forever, the life I’m building is worth the race against the sun.
I would definitely use such hillshade data when considering to buy a piece of land, to get a better idea of what its like then what just an aerial photo or map shows. LiDAR see through trees and bushes, it gives a lot more information then you might get without a very detailed survey of a property.
Combatting bacterial and viral infections is getting tougher because of their growing resistance to drugs. Antibiotic drugs can no longer be counted on to conquer nasty bacteria. Antivirals don't always overpower the viruses. This is a huge problem but it is one that widely acknowledged and researched.
There's an additional medical challenge though, that matters a lot. Namely, drug-resistant fungi.
Yep, fungi.
It's a topic that doesn't get discussed much — and that worries Paul Verweij, professor of clinical mycology at Radboud University Medical Center in Nijmegen, the Netherlands. He says there's a "silence surge" in drug-resistant fungi and that it's mostly happening under-the-radar.
Fungicides are used to protect plants against fungal disease. Everything — watermelons, maize, wheat, flowers — use lots of fungicides. If we didn't use the fungicides, you'd probably have a yield loss maybe of 30% or 40%.
The problem is that the fungicides are quite similar to the drugs we give to patients. So the fungus becomes resistant to the fungicide and, at the same time, our medical azoles [a class of antifungal drugs] do not work as well anymore.
Now Adam was the first man since the world began. The Lord picked up some clay and from it made a man. Now Adam wasn’t satisfied, he said, I’ll need a bride. So the Lord took out a rib from Adam’s side.
They set out to meet each other, never met before. They recognized each other by the clothes each other wore.
Now she wore a tulip, a bright yellow tulip, and he wore a big red rose. And as Adam grew older there were some things he told her, but he told her no one knows.
He said, hey, you’re dynamic, you can start a panic, right down from your head to toes.
If any guy needs a harem, I’ve got more ribs and I’ll share them, and he blushed like a big red rose. The garden of Eden is where they settled down.
They had a small apartment just outside of town. Now Adam didn’t eat much, but she didn’t give a hoot. When he got hungry, he picked him some fruit.
They finally sought their home there, I don’t know where they went. They had to move away because they couldn’t pay the rent.
But she still wore a tulip, a bright yellow tulip, and he wore a big red rose.
And as Adam grew older there were some things he told her, but he told her no one knows. He said, hey, you’re dynamic, you can start a panic, right down from your head to toes.
If any guy needs a harem, I’ve got more ribs and I’ll share them, and he blushed like a big red rose.
I really mean it, he blushed like a big red rose.
Phil Ochs …. before he started out on his own with The Campers (1963) singing Camp Favorites.
It was raining pretty hard when I was about to leave home this morning but then it’s stopped. It was a very pleasant ride in, I shed my rain coat to avoid getting dripped in sweat like I was when I rode in last week. It was a nice ride in, maybe though I was listening to the radio a bit too loud but things very noise level as I leave home then ride along and under the interstate highway. With the tires installed properly, and the new tire on the back, I have a pretty solid ride, and since topping off the front brake, it stops well, though maybe I could use some BrakeKleen on the front rotator to stop the squeal. I think without the freezing weather, I shouldn’t have the air bubble issues I always have in the winter.
So I called and am having the spray-in bed-liner put in my truck next Friday. I was glad they were able to get me in right away, and the price is definitely reasonable. I will confirm the details about them properly masking the bed lights and pulling other hardware before spraying when I get there but the reviews of the place are good, so I think it will be good. I just want the protection of a bedliner before the camper shell goes on my rig. I worried they couldn’t get it done before May, but that’s silly – I still have the panademic-era mindset of everything being back ordered. Then it’s just waiting for the truck cap.
This weekend after Mom and Dad’s anniversary party in Coeymans, I am going to stop at Lowes and get a longer M7 bolt to mount the CB radio to the top of the dash. I have the mounting bracket from the old truck, I might need to drill another hole in the bracket but the M7 bolts on the center console that hold the center speaker on the fancy SuperDuty trucks mount to a bracket that is tied to firewall, and can more then hold a radio without interfering with the airbag. I check the radio is still low enough that it doesn’t impact the view out of the windshield much but puts the CB radio up high where it is easy to interact with.
I am still balking about the bedliner for the SuperDuty, continuing to spend too much time last night thinking about cost of building my new rig which will only last a set period of time, soon enough to be worn out but much enjoyed in the mean time.
This morning I will call ADK Off-Road to see if they can do the bedliner for Old Smokey. 🛻 Just needs to get done by the end of May, so I’m hopeful they can do it. I checked out the reviews, and it looks like they do a good job prepping the bed, masking off and removing hardware and screws, and putting a good durable coat on that should last for the lifetime of the truck. I do get nervous about them doing so much surgery on a $60,000 brand new truck, but from what I’ve read and heard about them, it seems like the Patriot Liner is a quality product. My last truck had Bullet Liner from Capital Protective Coatings but unfortunately they aren’t doing it anymore. It’s a cost but it needs to be done before the cap is installed. If not there is another shop that does Onyx or Zeibert does RhinoLiner but nobody likes RhinoLiner and the reviews for Zeibert suck.
The other day, I noticed my front tire was on backwards on the bike, 🚲 so I pulled it and reversed it this morning, though once again I had issues setting the bead on the tire, but at least this time I didn’t blow the tube in the process, though I had to remount it twice. Also topped off the rear tire, the patched tube on the new tire has been fine but I do want to get another tube at Walmart as I like to keep a new spare on the bike and a new spare at home, even if I do run patched tubes whenever necessary. I also bled and topped off the front brake fluid as the front brakes were very soft, always have issues with the brakes in the winter, as the cold weather causes the fluid to slip around the pads and gets air past the pads. Maybe I need new pads in front again, but I think it’s more that I had air bubbles in the line from the cold and salt of winter.
Riding in this morning, hopefully beating the rain. ☔ I’ll bring my rain coat. Should be a decent afternoon, and just going short sleeved to work today being a Friday and non-session day. Cornmeal pancakes 🥞 with shredded onions and spinach and some oatmeal and whole-wheat flour to make rounded meal. 😋 Too much coffee, ☕ and certainly more when I get to work, iced, as the banana peanut butter 🍌 coffee that is the flavor of the month at work is pretty awesome. Iced is great this time of year too even if I concede all that sugar and cream ain’t the most healthy. 🫃🏻 But I’m riding my bike to work to burn some calories. 😂
Last night I did the Save the Pine Bush planning zoom 📹 from the Noonan Preserve along the rail trail and saw a bald eagle 🦅 as I was looking out over the Norman’s Kill. It was pretty cool. Tomorrow morning, I want to visit the Pine Hollow Arboretum to see more signs of spring, 🌸 then the afternoon is Mom and Dad’s anniversary party in Coeymans, which I plan to follow by hiking back to Hannacroix Falls and then a hike to Coeymans Creek 🐦 at the WMA on NY 144 to see what wildlife and spring signs I can see there. Should be a nice weekend, more rain is expected for Sunday. It guess it help green things up a lot. 🌷 Cool to start next week but not real cold. Won’t need the heat. I was very happy to see last month’s electric and gas bill was only $68. That’s a true sign winter is coming to a close. Need the money for all my toys with the SuperDuty, that eats everything in my cash pocket, gas included. ⛽
