Singing along with Arlo Guthrie and riding my mountain bike in freezing rain to my dental appointment 🦷
It had stopped and started back up so I expect showers all morning, but I’m still hoping to ride to my mountain bike to the dental appointment, the chain well greased up. I’ll bring extra socks in case I am completely soaked by the time I get to work, and it’s always ungodly warm in my office but then again I keep the heat in my apartment at 48 degrees so the pipes don’t freeze solid.
I started the 15-bean soup on the stove at 4:30 AM and realized I didn’t add additional pinto beans to the mix when I was soaking last night, 🍲 but whatever when those beans are gone, I’ll probably break open another bag of pinto beans, soak them over night and have the other two pounds of them for the remainder of the week. Also have bread 🍞 baking in the oven, and scrambled some eggs 🥚 with a bunch of onions, mixed vegetables, salt and some cornmeal, balsamatic vinger and Stevia. It’s fine, now just to clean my teeth good 🪥 before heading to the dentist. I really hope the rain holds off to west as I both want to ride to the dentist then over to Menands in the office. Probably just take Delaware down to Morton and from there the bike trail should be fairly clear or I can ride the various south end streets. 🚵 I don’t want anything to do the Capitol this morning, as I’m not dressed up as data frames don’t care, 💾 plus I like to avoid crowds. I really didn’t get out of bed until closer to 5:30 AM but with the 9 AM dentist appointment I actually will be going in later then if I had taken the bus to the shuttle to the office at 9 AM.
Continuing to read through that second book about buying cars I got out of Hoopla, 📚 and watching various videos on YouTube about perspectives on how to get a fair deal when buying a car. Much like investing money, there are is a lot of consensus on many things but also a lot of difference in opinion. ⚖️ I do think I have a fairly solid strategy, researching until February, test driving in February, then scouring dealer listings through March and making a decision near the end of the month, 🗓️ before the first quarter comes to a close. Study window stickers online, get internet quotes for out the door prices and a break down of what goes into the out the door price. Like shopping, stick only to models you can study the specifics carefully on the internet. Focus on the total out the door price, but also carefully review the components, and understand what each means to know how much bullshit they really are. 📧 Everything besides the the out-the-door price is bullshit, but some are easier to chew away at. There is a lot of things like dealer holdback, floor payments that go into that calculation that don’t appear on the bill but are worth further consideration when reviewing the bill. The nice thing about limiting yourself to specific stock numbers 📄 if you can fully research them. I plan to start out in Syracuse, Glens Falls, Bennington, Pittsfield, Newburgh, Oneonta dealers first and get total out the door quotes, 🎯 and see if local dealers will match it on trucks I like. It doesn’t seem like the F-350 regular cab long bed, with the XL appearance package and the rear locker is exactly an uncommon or high demand truck, though it seems like every dealer has at least one or two of them in back lot. Undecided about the XL off-road package. But I pretty much know what I want. I think though that I haven’t test drove, and fuel economy and shit stiff ride gives me pause. it seems like the F-350 1-ton axle is much more common then the F-250 3/4-ton axle, the main difference is towing and rough ride. 🏔️ But it’s a real truck. I want to be fair and informed, respected by the dealers, but also realize I’ll never know as much as they do, so it’s worthwhile to listen even if I do not ageee with eveything. 🤝
I don’t know, there often is an older gray SuperDuty regular cab truck parked along Eggy’s 🛻 which I kind of like. I should consider alternatives more seriously, but I don’t want a pissy little truck, and I share the concerns with many mechanics about all the blown, I mean supercharged engines, all the LEDs and fancy displays. Those SuperDuty’s with the XL package, the vinyl seats and floors, mechanical speedometers, really remind me of my old Ford Ranger, and I have good memories of that old truck. And I want a bigger bed. But fuel economy and ride quality, especially for long trips just gives me pause. Truth is though until February this is all just theoretical in my brain, 🧠 and it’s not like I am going to buy another truck until at least late in March, maybe longer, otherwise I would not have surrendered my plates and dropped my insurance. I still have the registration on my old truck, so I could get new plates and insurance if I want to get it back on the road too, but I admit that boat 🛥️ has probably sailed.
So I’m just watching the rain and how it’s going to turn to sleet. ☔ I’ll probably do the bike part of the way, but I concede busing it is the better option but with the schedule, it could mean a lot of waiting, so I’ll probably be riding in the rain unless I want to figure out the Uber/Lyft thing and pay. 🚖 I don’t know, I won’t melt in the rain and the damn truck is going to be so expensive. But I still want to travel and not own a 20-year old Honda Civic. So bike it will be in the early morning rain. 🚲 With lots of grease to resist to the road salt, as I’m sure it will kill my mountain bike in a few years, just like it did to old Big Red. Winter won’t last forever though, and eventually I’ll get back to the woods and have a good fire, 🔥 and these days will be behind me.
Not enough time ⌛
“There never seems to be enough time
To do the things you want to do
Once you find them“
Truth is I am still grieving the loss of Big Red. I get that he was just a pickup truck, I could have him welded, I made decision to take him off the road. Still I don’t know, life just seems a bit more empty without him. It was so easy to surrender the plates and cancel insurance, but not so easy to cancel is memory or his DBE 6911 plates out of my mind. I had a planned retirement for Red – April 2026 – which isn’t that far away but he didn’t hold out for that fateful day.
Time is the weirdest thing. It lasts forever until it is gone. Cancer lurks in silence, chews away at every bone. I knew about trailer hitch rust in some of it under wheel well but it didn’t hit me how bad it was until it failed inspection. You see the hints but it never seems particularly bad until the rust metastasis. You think there is another day and there always is until there isn’t anymore. Somehow I thought Red would make it through the winter, not let me down. Not have this gap.
Maybe it’s because I am riding my mountain bike at 8:45 AM in a freezing rain to get my teeth cleaned tomorrow. Whatever, I can take a bus or figure out how to get an Uber – or even call into work tomorrow if it becomes an issue. But it’s not same without Big Red. And I like riding, and hopefully the rain pulls out early. I think many people are surprised I am choosing to go without a car all winter, though I don’t think that surprises people when I push my mountain bike through 9 miles of snow and ice half the winter riding to work. And sometimes riding in the rain, but only when it’s unexpected.
Time is forever until it’s not, it’s the story I’ve seen play out so many times in my life – with dying loved ones, with friends, with institutions and everything else. Nobody expects things to just disappear. I always wonder about the health of my parents, I see them getting older, much like my old truck. Signs, even worrying, don’t necessarily mean the end is right around the corner, until it is. I look at those pictures of Big Red from 14 years ago, and it just seems like yesterday. I don’t feel 14 years older at this point, though I’ve progressed and matured in many parts of my career and life.
I keep asking myself do I really want a heavy-duty pickup? I think I can live with the gas milage of the Ford SuperDuty 6.8L or 7.3L gasses, they are in real world similar to my lifted truck. And I can get a HD truck without all the technology and gadgets so many cars have today. But especially with the 1-ton axle, it’s going to have such a crap ride, but it might hold up well on beating of rough dirt roads, gives me the option to do either a slide-in camper or big camper shell. Then I can tow a trailer with four-wheelers, a tractor, livestock, or whatever life brings to me in the next 10-15 years. I want the truck primarily now for camping, but I know at some point I’ll settle down, have that homestead and need a good solid truck. I really think half-ton trucks are the worse of both worlds, they’re more passenger cars then pickups. I really don’t see myself commuting to work in a vehicle any time soon. Even if I have to leave my apartment, I think I’d much rather have something in city until I have my homestead. But maybe I’m wrong, I like big trucks, real trucks, but maybe I’m find with a little Taco truck.
I have time to decide I tell myself. Just time. I was upset that I didn’t get to go to Colonie Planning Board meeting because Lynne wasn’t going to drive in the ice storm. I understand, and it’s not like I have a truck anymore but I don’t dare go alone, lest I think what I really think of all those planners. Or try when of my questionable political angles. So I came home, cooked up some frozen salmon, beans, onions, broccoli. And kneaded some bread, that’s rising now with 15-bean soup soaking in the freezer for cooking before riding my bike in the ice storm to the dentist to find out how much damage I’ve done to my teeth with all the coffee drinking at work. Maybe it just was the feel of the rain and sleet pounding on my face walking home from the bus stop.
Still I watch the time go ticking by so quickly. Why do I keep traveling? Don’t I want to settle down, by land, have my homestead? Land? Maybe a girl friend? In a free state, in a deep rural place, not somewhere with neighbors and big cities right nearby and up your ass? And all the regulation and crap to keep people safe in the city. Why do I keep delaying on building that off-grid homestead, besides of course the need to make money, save and invest – so I can do it right. Time has it’s advantages but also it’s costs. Money grows when you invest it and leave it alone, but it comes at the cost of time. It just keeps ticking away.
So yeah, I’ll be riding my bike to my dental cleaning tomorrow 🦷
In the freezing rain, though it’s supposed to stop before then. Worse comes to worse, I take the bus and just get to the dentist early. Though not as early as originally planned – it was going to be 7 AM but my dentist canceled but they slotted me into the 9 AM slopt. But I really want to use my bike, as I got to get work after the appointment, and if I take the bus I’ll have to transfer to another bus because the shuttle doesn’t run mid-day. Fortunately the freezing rain is expected to stop by around 8 AM tomorrow, and my appointment is at 9 AM but things are going to be mad salty. Guess I gotta make sure to grease things up good before leaving. Shrug!
