Inside the Supreme Court’s Risky New Way of Doing Business – The New York Times
A Weekend of Celebrations for Vladimir Lennin’s Birthday
I was riding my mountain bike home, and there was one of those bizzare celebrations of Vladimir Lennin’s birthdays on going where people were out picking up bottles and cans for “proper” disposal in a mound along the roadway like prisoners do in a corporate-arranged event to assuage all liberal guilt.
Do not fear the SuperDuty 😱
There is a strange, quiet tension in owning a big ol’ F-350 SuperDuty. For two weeks, mine has sat in the driveway, an expensive monument to potential. I find myself avoiding the driver’s seat, almost as if I’m trying to freeze time and keep the truck “new” in my mind for just a little longer. It even smells of the assembly line—a sharp, chemical reminder of the industrial manufacturing process that birthed this beast.
When I look at it, I don’t just see a vehicle; I see the weight of it. I think about the gallons of fuel it thirstily consumes and the heavy footprint it leaves on an already cooking planet. Then there’s the reality of the road: the aggressive enforcement waiting behind highway medians and the distracted motorists, eyes glued to phones, ready to collide with my pristine investment. In the city, a bicycle, a pair of boots, or a bus pass feels more honest. They are lighter, kinder ways to move through the world.
But a truck isn’t meant to be a driveway ornament, and I didn’t spend this kind of money just to admire the paint job. There is a conflict there—the guilt of burning expensive gasoline for no reason versus the desire to use the tool I paid for. I refuse to waste it on pointless trips to Walmart or aimless loops around town. That’s not what this machine is for.
I’m waiting. I’m waiting for the camper shell to arrive and for the spring sun to bake the mud off the back country roads. That is the SuperDuty’s true North: the remote country, the places where the pavement ends and the air is clear.
Ultimately, I have to remind myself not to let fear steal the experience. It’s mine, it’s paid for, and these days are fleeting. I’ll drive it when the destination deserves the journey, because in the blink of an eye, the truck will be gone, a victim of time, miles and rust.
It will be a beautiful spring Saturday ☀️
Heading out to the Pine Hollow Arboretum in a bit to see the spring time flowers, then I plan to drive to Coeymans for a walk in Coeymans Preserve and my parents anniversary party then I’m thinking of hiking back to Hannacroix Falls, then heading over to Lowe’s to get longer mounting bolts for the CB radio and then grocery shopping at Wally’s World and home by dark. It’s fun to drive the big SuperDuty.
Definately want to get out and enjoy the beautiful weather 🌷 before the rain and cooler weather come tomorrow. Last night I was at Five Rivers for a couple of hours, reading, and then going for a little walk before heading home and making up a big pan of eggs 🍳 and veggies. Nice evening, a lot more people then I expected at Five Rivers but at least the bike trail wasn’t quite so congested.
I am feeling a lot better about the SuperDuty since the markets recovered. 🛻 While the truck wasn’t free by any means, when you consider the market recovery this past week, my tax refunds and contributions since mid-January, my net worth remains the same today as it was in mid-January. Crazy to think that but I checked my math, and yeah, the market value increase basically wiped out the cost of the SuperDuty, ignoring of course Capital Gains taxes and shit like that. 💩 And I know that money ain’t real, as nothing has any value except cash until you sell it and something is willing to pay what you’re asking.
So I guess you could say I got that SuperDuty for free, 🆓 or at least it won’t have any real financial impact on my future or retirement or that off-grid cabin with the grunting hogs that smells like burning barrel at times. 🛢️ And hopefully 🤞 it will last until then or about 14-15 years, which is 2040 for those not counting. By this time next weekend, I will have the bedliner in the truck, and I’m now just waiting for truck cap to be ready for installation, 💵 hand over one more big check for the cap as Ruth’s doesn’t take credit cards without a big processing fee, and move the batteries and equipment over to the next rig. Not sure if everything will be ready for Memorial Day Weekend, but whatever that weekend is often so buggy, hot, humid and just sucky in wilderness. 🇺🇸 Juneteenth Weekend is really the weekend I’m planning to break in the new rig with. I am looking at probably August to do my trip to Michigan in the SuperDuty assuming gas prices ⛽ aren’t as insane as I am.
I know everybody says just buy a plastic house in suburbs 🏡 and a 25-year old Honda Civic to drive back and forth to office and shopping maul with acres of parking, and take a sharp knife and cut off you balls ⚽ but that really doesn’t sound like much fun. Honestly, I don’t feel that much like a poor, desprate individual with a SuperDuty who rides his mountain bike to work in suburbs, next to old city garbage dump and sewage treatment plant. I think I will have a fun for now, and when 2040 or 2041 buy or build that off-grid cabin. 🔥 In the mean time, just have a lot of fires in wilderness, smoke some grass and recycle ♻️ the plastics into carbon dioxide and take that occasional tin can 🥫 to transfer station once a year or so. Nobody cares if you don’t have a liberal internet troll up your ass. 🧌
You know, I really like my job 👨🏻🏫
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.
Fourteen years up in smoke
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.
