The 2.5 mile Indian Lake Trail from the Kane Mountain Parking Area takes you past Stewart Lake to Indian Lake. A nice quiet trail often done in combination with hiking up the Kane Mountain Firetower.
Truth is I am just tired from the week that was, working car deals and just trying to figure out what’s next. Late nights in Albany Pine Bush, busy days in the office, and just everything else.
I just need to enjoy the weekend, 🏡 and note the work week isn’t that far ahead. A time away from it all, though I do want to continue perusing leads on the various trucks I’m interested, but ultimately the March 31st deadline isn’t for me, it’s on the dealers. 🤝 A couple of the deals are close, that I do think I should be able to close on one of them next week. Honestly, I’m just kind of unsure of it all. I guess a lot depends if I can make one of those deals work this week, got to keep the pressure up.
Often the end of March is one of marathon sessions and late nights at work. 💤 And complete exhaustion. This year is no difference. But then April comes around then I get a chance to recover, the weather gets increasingly nice and green. 🌸 The darkest hour is always before dawn. ⛽ Honestly though I really don’t know what is going to happen with Iran. 🇮🇷 Do I want a gasser truck with a 48-gallon tank that is 3 feet longer then Big Red?
Cold start this morning, ❄️ it got down to the 20s last night in Albany, and I used the electric blanket for a while, 🛏️ though quickly it got uncomfortably hot. Many nights lately it’s been off and the heat is done for the year. Barn swallow have chewed a hole through my bathroom 🚽 ceiling, they do that every year, but I don’t want heat to escape through there before I can patch it. My whole apartment sucks, especially when I’m looking at buying such a big and nice truck, but I figure spend money on things I actually care about. 💰 But don’t I want that off-grid cabin in the woods with cows 🐮 with the burn barrel and no more paper or plastic recycling? ♻️ I haven’t recalculate my net-worth in some time now, as I watch the market slide, and only think of the future upside. 🔮 But first the interim in the world of the Trumpster.
I should think about riding downtown to the No Kings Protests 👑 but honestly I don’t care about those political things nowadays. They matter, outside of a small circle of friends. But maybe I should go downtown and join that protest downtown as I’m kind of need that kind of distraction, and then I can go grocery shopping on the way home on my mountain bike. 🚲 I think the downtown protest is at 11 AM so I have time to make it downtown, ⏳ and it’s a way to pass time this weekend as I think more about Monday. It would be good exercise of my legs and first amendment, but first I need to patch that leak on my bike tire, or at least top it off.
One of the biggest economic casualties of the U.S.-led war in Iran has been the global fertilizer supply.
Shipments of it have piled up on the wrong side of the Strait of Hormuz. In India, Algeria and Slovakia, fertilizer plants have shut down or slowed their output because of rising natural gas prices. China has restricted fertilizer exports. Australian wheat farmers are planting less, and corn and soy farmers in the United States are begging President Trump for relief.
For almost as long as A.I. chatbots have been publicly available, people have enlisted them for interpersonal advice — for help drafting breakup texts, giving parenting advice, deciding who was in the right after a fight.
One of the main draws is that it feels objective: “The bot is giving me responses based on analysis and data, not human emotions,” one user told the The New York Times in 2023. But results of a new study, which were published Thursday in the journal Science, show chatbots are anything but impartial referees.
The researchers found that nearly a dozen leading models were highly sycophantic, taking the users’ side in interpersonal conflicts 49 percent more often than humans did — even when the user described situations in which they broke the law, hurt someone or lied.
Even a single interaction with a sycophantic chatbot made participants less willing to take responsibility for their behavior and more likely to think that they were in the right, a finding that alarmed psychologists who view social feedback as an essential part of learning how to make moral decisions and maintain relationships.
Rain last night but it has stopped so I should be able to ride to work. Still feeling quite sleep deprived as I continue to study all possibilities for the truck deal, with hopes of locking something down in the next day or two.
If not, there is always next month. 🛻 I have three deals outstanding, one is very close, the other two need work but pressure only increases as Tuesday, the last day of the quarter approaches. 🛏️ I’d love to put this to bed sooner then later, but I am not going to get totally scammed out. I know how high gas prices are, and I’m no rush to put $200 in gas to fill up an HD pickup. So close on one of deals, but if we can’t make it work, then I’ll walk. 🚶
But first riding to work. 🚲 Started to rain a bit in Delmar this morning, too late to catch the bus at this point, but it looks like it’s just a quick rain shower ☔ and I should be good if I hold off leaving for a few minutes. ⏳ This is going to be nerve racking day at work, 🤓 not because of work so much but this is close to my peak leverage on the truck deal. I think I will get a good or maybe multiple good offers, and then I just need to decide to bite. Truth is I am still having second thoughts about buying such a big enormous truck with the whole Iran situation. But if I do bite, I will finally be able to sleep well tonight.
