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A variety of maps, writings, and photos on a various topics that can’t easily be categorized into a county or place.

It’s a Friday 🌄

Lots of wildfire smoke haze this morning, the hills looked brown and hazy, the sun a reddish ball as I rode in through the Normans Kill Valley. Not a bad ride downtown, the rail trail was actually a bit congested though I didn’t get on the road until a little after 7:30 AM when I try to leave most days by 7:15 AM to be in the office by eight AM.

Some ways I find it hard to believe it’s already Friday. 🐰 Where does the time go so quickly? Sometimes it burns faster then roaring hot bonfire like rednecks like me like to build. 🔥 Maybe with slightly less black smoke, but it’s still definitely smokey out there with a wildfire smoke, though not the acrid smoke we had early last summer. ⛔ No camping this weekend as it looks like a wet one, especially Saturday night into Sunday. Maybe more clouds then anything else, who knows, it depends on the weather man you ask. ☁ Next weekend looks nice, and I might take off Friday to be totally off the grid for one last time through November. 📜 I need some time to stop dreaming of new lists to cram on the system.

Yesterday, I stayed over at my parents house to let out the dog 🐶 while they’re out of town for the night. Slept over in my truck, it was a warm and humid night, but my eyes were bothering me 👀 so I decided to retire to bed 🛌 in my truck early on and then got up early, let the dog out, played frisbee with him for a while 🥏 before heading back to Delmar half awake. ☕ Things got better after I had some coffee and woke up a bit, 😴 as I was half awake driving home. Better though then that obviously very drunk driver I followed out to my parents house last night — actually he kept on 443 after I turned onto Clarksville South Road. 🚗 When I was younger I might have driven home once or twice after a drink or two, but this guy or gal was obviously very hammered crossing both the yellow and white lines multiple times, and not by a little bit. 🍺 Hopefully he or she got to their destination safely. One of the nice things about living in the city, is you can always take a bus home after a few too many, though I don’t drink like that anymore since I’m in my forties.

I have to say while the week went by quickly, 😴 I am exhausted. I look forward to the end of the day, riding home, having dinner. 🏞 I might go down to the park for a while and read, or maybe I’ll just collapse into bed. 🛌 I’ve just been so busy, and when I’ve had downtime it’s not been as free as in recent past.

Thursday it would seem😀

I had forgotten how nice the bike ride is into the office, bar the glass spilled all over the road. If I had only picked my bike up on Tuesday, I could have ridden in yesterday but today was beautiful but smokey with the wildlfire smoke. Not as bad as a few years, but there was a brown haze around riding into the valley and the sun looked hazy, almost like during a partial solar eclipse. Almost a bit eerie.

Busy day today 👨‍💼 and I have meetings downtown so I am in early. I try to be in each day by 8 AM, for one it makes for a better bike ride as there is less traffic on the highway and bike trail at this hour. I am just so glad that my bike is back on the road. A good morning with onion and cornmeal pancakes, topped off with greek yogurt. 🥞 It’s been a while since I’ve done that. Been doing too much eggs lately, 🥚 which are a good source of protein but also have a lot of saturated fat, despite all the vegetables and onions I like to put in them. 🧅

The new hire for Data Services accepted the position, ✊ and I’m hoping it will finally work out. The other operators seemed to like my choice, and I have feeling this person won’t back out. 🤞 Maybe I was trying to change the agency too quickly, advancing new ideas and new people, trying to ram a round peg in a square hole. It happens. I’ve continue to develop new IOI Codes for the system, and for the most point after announcing the new codes, have gotten primarily just radio silence. 🔇 I know people are busy, and they’re not as interested in my project and my hard work as I am in. Maybe I’ve just tried to keep myself artificially busy at work, so to make the time go past quicker and not think about all the other problems in my life. It was fustrating those days that my bike was down and out with that broken spoke. 🚴 I wish I had driven to work on Tuesday and picked up my repaired bike wheel then.

Meetings today downtown, 🏢 but one of them is a lunch meeting with free food. 🍗 Maybe not healthy but delicious and I’ll primarily pile the green stuff on my plate. 🥗 Then it’s out to the folks house to walk the dog, 🐶 and do a quick overnight there house sitting. Maybe stroll around the yard for a bit, down by the creek, and think more about my housing decisions. 🏘 That property next door to there’s is still up for sale on the market, largely sitting abandoned, and continue to crumble. I cut a check for $150k it could be mine, and I’d only have to pay for the upkeep and taxes. And cost of commuting. 🛻 But regardless of what people tell me, I would have to give up so much of my freedom, especially if I got livestock. 🐔🐐🐷 But it would be fun to grow my own grass, and not the kind you mow.

I need to read more, 📚 as all the e-books I got out at the end of July will quickly be coming to expiration. But maybe the reason I haven’t been reading more is the books don’t really excite me. But it’s also been summer, I’ve been out riding my bike, camping, hiking and exploring. 🚶 🏕 🚵 Come winter, I’ll do a lot better with reading. Used to be in the summer, I’d go down to the park and read, 📖 but since getting the bike, I usually like to ride in the evening. And last night I spent adjusting the bike, 🔧 and reseting the wheel, before going down to Elm Avenue Park for a bit, when I ended up just writing a blog post about what I’ve been thinking a bout lately. 💭 So many things have been on my mind lately.

Blackie Rides Again 🚲

It could have been yesterday but I didn’t feel like driving to work. It’s three days off the road not the end of the world. Gave me an excuse to get in a bunch of walking yesterday, and those days are over now. Riding to work tomorrow, got meetings all afternoon downtown.

Rode out to Five Rivers 🐸 and read for a while before heading back home with darkness coming earlier and earlier. 📖 Didn’t take the fastest route back home but it’s pitch black by 8:45 at this point. Autumn is rapidly approaching. 🌃 It’s nice to be back on the road. I drove in today and it wasn’t bad except for that OGS Employee at the pump station who I wasn’t sure if he was going to back into me.  💥 I forget when you don’t drive regularly that near misses and blushes with death ☠ are a normal part of motoring. Maybe I should get that recalled passenger air bag inflator replaced. 🎈

Nice moon lit evening for sitting out back 🎑 though it’s getting late and I should head into bed 🛏 soon. Fried egg plant 🍆 with onions and tofu for dinner. Then after the ride, banana 🍌 and shredded oatmeal with some sugar free maple 🍁 syrup. Good enough of a dinner and snack. It’s really getting late and I said I would be in the office 🏢 by eight tomorrow ⏰ and damn sure I’m riding in. Once this track is done on the Peter, Paul and Mary album. 💿

I was happy as a pig 🐽 in shit 💩 that I could get baking powder in an all plastic container at Price Chopper. Not only did I need baking powder, I hate the aluminum and paper containers that after you burn 🔥 them you have to pick the aluminum out of the fire. I can also in theory recycle ♻ such things but we all known it’s a scam and in the fire it fully disappears down to nothing. Don’t tell a liberal that. I also got grapes 🍇 and bananas 🍌 so I can continue to rot out my teeth. 🦷 Smoking all that grass – all $40 of it this summer – makes me think a lot about what is right and wrong and the bull shit we all live in especially after my trip to BFE Pennsyltucky a few weeks back. 😂

I want to get out camping this weekend again 🌧️, but I don’t think the weather will cooperate though the forecast seems to be improving. I guess I don’t need that much gear for Schoharie but also I see summer fading away so quickly. 🏖 👉 🍂 And I don’t know if it will be the last summer of my youth. I’m still looking at finding a home 🏡 but then that will be it and days of travel and enjoying summer will be replaced with fixing the plaster and hauling buckets of grain out to hogs 🐽 and caring for the grass, yes the kind you smoke. That’s the only kind I approve of besides the kind out in pasture for the cattle to graze on. 🐮 One of my elementary school 🚸 colleagues is selling a batch of feeder pigs 🐖 if your interested. Never fried zucchini in bacon 🥓 fat and cannabis but I’ve heard it’s good. Next week are taking us out to 677 Prime, that hundred 💯 dollar a plate 🍽 steakhouse 🥩 and they wanted to know if I still eat meat. Housekeeping is paying. Not regularly, but there is an exception for everything. 🤷‍♂️

I have been thinking more about finding Zen. 🪷 At one time I used to think Zen was just another excuse for crass commercialism and not caring about tomorrow. But after reading 📖 and crying over the Art and Zen of Motorcycle Maintenance, 🏍 smoking some grass 🦗 and listening to the Grateful Dead 🎸, I’m starting to realize it’s something different. You can care about today while being responsible for tomorrow. I’m really hoping that a week from Friday I can get off from work and be fully off the grid and spend the day studying the clouds ⭕ all day from the tube on the East Canada Creek. It might be the last time of the year. I do plan to get to Speculator for Labor Day Weekend but I’m sure that will be a remote work trip as will be most of the autumn trips. 🍂 Now if they can only get the internet working on the snazzy work laptop. 🖥

I need a song, but the spring is for sowing
A word to the wise that the Earth must provide
A tomb to untangle the riddle of growing
First things first when you get to the land

Time Marches on into Autumn 🍂

Upcoming Sunsets:

7:45 pm sunset – Friday, August 23
7:30 pm sunset – Sunday, September 1
7:15 pm sunset – Monday, September 9
7:00 pm sunset – Wednesday, September 18
6:45 pm sunset – Thursday, September 26
6:30 pm sunset – Saturday, October 5
6:15 pm sunset – Monday, October 14
6:00 pm sunset – Thursday, October 24
Standard Time Begins – Sunset on Sunday, November 3 is at 4:46 pm
4:45 pm sunset – Monday, November 4
4:30 pm sunset – Tuesday, November 19
Earliest Sunset – Monday, December 9 at 4:23 pm
4:30 pm sunset – Thursday, December 26

Pine Creek Gorge