People are like no war with Venezuela 🇻🇪
And I’m like will it jack up gas prices to the nth degree by March so I can score a deal on 2025 or 2026 Superduty gasser because nobody who doesn’t suffer from extreme mental illness is going to be buying a big-block engine when gas is $7 a gallon?
Maybe the older and older I get the less I care about things that aren’t directly related to my own interest. ⛽ But what happens overseas is so far away and truck prices and fuel prices are what really matters to me in my advanced age. 👴🏻 I can’t see much of a consequence one way or another, except my more security to walk through at the Plaza. 👮 Maybe fewer homeless people to harass me as I get my steps in. 👣 Gotta love the Trumpster, although I still am inclined to believe that he won’t get us into a lengthy entanglement with Venezuela though sometimes when you hop in quick sand it’s hard to get out. ⛳ The President is such a moron and a cheat, but I’ll give it to him, he’s gotten himself out of a lot of tough situations by being a blowhard and just dumb luck. ✊
I got to stop reading Edward Abbey and Hunter S. Thompson, 📚 it’s really coloring my view of things these days in the world of Trumpster where everything is fake news and weed is legal and guns are banned at least in New York. And learning the ins-and-outs of auto dealer scams, and how to score a big-assed long-bed gasser pickup, without getting the cops called on me at too many dealerships. 🚘 Well maybe if I ride my bike, I can avoid the cops, or just agree to peacefully leave without driving a SuperDuty truck out of the lot. Honestly, I want to take my time, and I know dealers need to make the deal and will tell me they’ll sell my dream truck from 2025 the next day if I don’t buy now at the inflated price, even though it’s been sitting on the lot for year and half rotting and rusting in the sun and salt. And there are I don’t know, 50 or 100 Ford Dealers within 150 miles of Albany, all of which have at least some SuperDuty trucks in the style I want. 💵 It’s not like they don’t make a shit ton of them and they don’t sell well so dealers tend to hold on them for a while, because Ford makes them take them whether they want them or not.
But maybe I don’t care much about gas prices ⛽ as I’m surrendering my plates tomorrow at DMV and won’t any longer be a driver. 🛒 Today I am going to ride down to Hannaford in a bit and a few supplies though my pantry is well stocked and I want to keep it that way, as it will be a pain to get groceries mid-week with the nights cold and dark, unless I guess I walk up to the Ghetto Chopper on Delaware in Albany, 🍏 and get things before catching the bus home from there. But that’s kind of a last resort and I figure I can survive on beans, rice, flour and similar things in the mean time. 🥫 Really trying to get away from anything packaged, as not only is it healthy but I don’t have trash service so I have to either dump it in a trash can along the way, ask a friend, orstore it outside until spring time when I have said SuperDuty and a chance to go to the transfer station or have a fire. 🔥 I mean carefully wash out and recycle ♻️ the plastics.
I keep looking at truck slide-in campers 🚚 just like I look at Taco trucks and the alike, so I know my options. It’s interesting to see what’s out there, especially on the used market. I think I still prefer camper shells without all the particle board, though having a shower and indoor toilet in some ways might be nice, though honestly I prefer my bucket shitter – 5 gallon bucket with garbage bag and a toilet seat up top. Does the job, and it’s not like you sit out in the cold for hours with your balls hanging out. 🚽 Bucket are easy to wash with ammonia, bury the shit, the fire takes care of shit-covered garbage bag. And for showering, 🚿 most of the time I’d just rather go for a good swim somewhere, or in winter, who cares, you stink a bit. There are always campgrounds with showers, baby wipes, etc. And I’ve never used a truck stop shower, but I know most of them you can pay like $5 or $10 to use a shower. I did have a solar shower bag but it fell apart after a few years and stunk when it got tossed in the fire. 🔥 Also the think with truck campers is they put a lot of weight high on the axle, and with a big-ass heavy 1-ton truck you’re not likely to shift as much bouncing over the rough country, a camper shell with gear in the bed will still ride a lot better, even with a heavy kayak and several solar panels on the roof. While I don’t plan any real rough off-roading in my new rig, I do want it be able to handle the shit forest service roads I drive, and not to bad that in wind or at high speeds on those Midwest Superhighways next summer.
I would ride to work tomorrow but I want to bring my laptop in, 🖥️ and I don’t want to haul it on my laptop lest it’s increasingly fragile nature break on the inevitable bumps from biking. Then catch the shuttle up to Plaza mid-day, surrender my plates and call the agent and tell him Big Red 🛻 is baked, I mean done, and I want my policy cancelled and remaining value returned to me. Then that chapter is closed, even if I need to remove my gear and equipment from Red and sell him once I get my SuperDuty in th spring time. I mean, I haven’t made up my mind, I could still look more at the Toyota Tacoma or the Ford Ranger, but yeah. 🔎 I am just taking it slow and deciding what is right for me and the adventures I want to take, 🏕️ and not what the frugalists are like with buy that 20-year old Honda Civic, drive to the Maul daily, and the plastic house with the recycling dumpster. 🗑️
5-Step Roth Conversion Blueprint—Build Tax Free Wealth
Roth conversions are super interesting... You can do them even if you max out your Roth IRA every year as there is no limit on Roth conversation though you do have to pay taxes on the amount as ordinary income, preferably using non retirement funds, so it's better to do when the market is down, you lost your job or are on sabbatical. To minimize taxes you also should spread the conversation over many years, as you really want to keep in the lower tax brackets. But if you're thoughtful it's very easy to do - often just a few clicks of a mouse.
Traditional retirement accounts and IRAs can be bad in the sense you have RMDs which old people obsess about because they suck as they require you to withdraw money and pay taxes at forced intervals and such accounts including their capital gains are taxed as ordinary income. Major bummer! The more you can do as Roth initially or convert to Roth before you get close to retirement the better but then you have a higher tax bill on income which usually is higher now then in retirement.
What Happened to Herefords
Why you see fewer and fewer Hereford cattle these days.
Little Rock City
Exploring the winter aerial photography of Little Rock City, you can see the massive "buildings" and boulders under the tree line.
What’s good for the burn barrel is bad for one’s health
After listening to Eva Shaub’s Year Without Garbage and now listening to Michael Moss’ Salt, Sugar and Fat, I’m reminded of the old adage, what is good for your burn barrel is not good for your health. Packaged processed food – even so called enriched processed foods – should be called what it is – junk food. And maybe junk food is too nice of a term, as that emphasizes it’s cheap.
Lately I’ve been flooded with ads for protein pancake mix, protein this, protein that. I must have looked briefly at an ad. But there is so much protein you can get without a fancy label or excessive packaging – like those 4 lb bags of kidney beans and 2 lb bags of brown rice I buy. Or plain unsweetened store-brand Greek yogurt – which admittedly comes in non-recycable No 5. polypropylene containers, though they do burn pretty hot. Still, if I can avoid plastic, all the more better – and indeed too much Greek yogurt – even fat free – can make you fat.
I am totally convinced that the healthiest things out there come with little to no packaging. Fruit and vegatables you can cook at home. Or if it’s packaged, it comes in bulk, as it’s basic ingredients and wrapped in simple paper or lightweight plastic, and not the clamshells and glossy packages that the marketers are constantly selling you at every grocery store these days. If you compost and avoid packaged foods, you can really cut down on your toxic trash.
