Mornings are definitely a lot darker now that we are heading into September, with today’s sunrise at 6:10 AM. But I’m up and going, after a late of steak, an emergency bathroom break at the State Office Building and catching a later bus home then getting packed for camp.

My Thursday evening meeting was canceled due to a flooded office and I packed my truck mostly last night for camping 🏕. I’m going to get propane this morning and then head into the office then up to camp for a quiet three nights off the grid. Might not get up until close to dark tonight but it’s fine. 🌃 August is always tough, plus I’m not going to be able to leave right at Five. I’m not as hung over as I was afraid I’d be this morning. 🤮 Not perfect but I’ll survive with enough coffee ☕ and water. I’m fine to drive in and then once work is done I’ll head north so I get an extra night in camping and can spend all day on Friday floating, reading and riding. ⭕🚲 📖 Probably the last time I can fully get away through November, there is just too much work to do. Trying to be hydrated and caffinated this morning so things go smoothly – didn’t get to bed until after 11 AM, kept waking up to pee and I was up around 6 AM. Actually earlier but I started my day slow.

That $71 strip steak at 677 Prime 🥩 was pretty darn good as was the several glasses of cabrera at that hundred 💯 plus dollar a plate 🍽 event I attended last night. But I got so drunk after a few glasses of wine 🍷 and while ultimately I caught the later bus home, I ended up catching an emergency piss break 🚽 in the old office 🏢 building I  used to work downtown after catching a bus up there 🚍. I’m sure I was on the security camera but I wasn’t disruptive and was in and out of the bathroom. It’s fine, only a buck thirty, and I didn’t wet my pants 👖 after a fun evening. Totally overdressed for the event but what did I know about dress code at Albany’s fanciest steak house. Truth is I don’t know anything about the way sophisticated people eat eat and drink, I alway defer to my colleagues. I fully understand where JD Vance comes from. I hear about people taking plains and trains to other parts of the nation and I think of all the places I could travel on my income if I wanted. 🛬 So many things I could do if I only chose. I could have my own land, a much nicer place. I do make six figures but that’s still pretty meaningless with inflation these days. I realize what’s holding me back is solely myself. I could cut a check and be in a house or on land within a month if I so chose. I mean I still have that friend who I think has feeder pigs and while it’s heading into winter, I could have chickens come the spring. Going to get some books to read over the weekend.

I should treasure these good days in Albany, 🏢 with my job and being a director. I love my job but so many elements don’t fit my social class. So many people don’t have the luxuries that I have but still so many days I feel like I’m struggling on the crumbs, one step away from homelessness and losing it all. 💔 I read the news 📰, maybe not as much as others do but I’m well aware of the risk. Sure I could have taken an Uber home but I prefer to bus it home. Had I had land, I wouldn’t have been able to drink so much as I would have had to drive home. 🏡 Still I know I certainly poisoned my body last night but that Cabrera and steak was good. 🥩 🍷I think I would much rather smoke then consume alcohol these days. Fucks you up less the next day. But some how that is still is kind of taboo, outside of the blog I don’t talk much about being a pot-smoker. It was though nice chatting with the other directors after having a glass or two of wine, realizing that we all have the same kinds of problems, recruiting and keeping good people, moving our own departments forward.

I really still have bad feelings about this Drive and Save Program I installed on my phone 📱. I’m really creeped out about it. I have nothing invested, the program is free I can quit at any time. That said, never starting the program after signing up makes me feel guilty especially after I got that sixty dollars credit on my car insurance bill. 🚘 I get it’s a trap to get people hooked on the program so they become safer drivers. But I need to be able to know when calls and text come in and have access to Waze. I’ll give it a try and if it proves too obnoxious I’ll return the dongle to my insurance agent. 🪙 I think I worry too much about pennies. If ultimately, it doesn’t work out, I was reading that I can uninstall the app, they don’t even want the Bluetooth fab back (but I probably should return it) and it appears that I can keep my $60 discount for just signing up. Worse comes to worse, they don’t renew my policy and I’ll have to go with another insurer. 🤷‍♂️

Been thinking a lot about the anti-theft measures at Walmart, 🛍️ like doing away with the self-checkout except for small orders and locking up cheap soap and other random things behind glass. 🛒 It’s a pain but it’s intentional, as I’m sure they want to become more like Amazon where a bulk of their sales is through delivery 🚚 and pickup rather then having the massive store footprint. 👣 Make it inconvenient enough for people to buy things at the store, they will order online. That means they can have less inventory just sitting in stores, as even if you are ordering something like a gallon of milk for pickup, they know to put it on the next truck to replenish hours earlier then if you scanned at the cash register.

Plus let’s be honest, self-checkout is kind a joke. 🍌 Something doesn’t scan, how many times do you try again before just putting it into your bag? Often even the supervisors don’t really care who are supposed to be watching you. A $2 tube of toothpaste by all means is hardly a big loss. But I’m sure if this happens every 5th customer, it adds up! 💵 And it’s not like stores are going to spend that much effort going after people not correctly scanning that toothpaste, especially if it’s not clear if it’s shopping lifting or an unintentional scan error. In theory they could use facial recognition, file a police report and take you to court, but they would only be eligible for 3 times the sale price, and the district attorney would probably be loathe to take on such cases when it’s plausible it’s a scan error. What happens if the defendent is a white-collar middle-age professional who demands a jury trial and the video be shown during the trial? 📺 It could get very expensive for county quickly over a $2 tube of toothpaste, as investigators are often very well paid. Obviously a big screen TV or an expensive good is different, but I’m sure 99% of all lost merchandise on the self scan machines are a single item under $5 out of a much bigger order, where it really isn’t clear if somebody was not paying attention or was actually trying to get free shit.

Other then that, I need to look more at E-Books to read over the weekend, along with podcats and music. I want to have a lot to listen to and keep me busy both while I’m in the hammock and floating on the tube. That said, if I’m truly relaxed and higher then a kite, maybe an audio book would be better. I still have all 10 Hoopla borrows left, and while I like to save them to the end of the month, let’s be honest, usually the 30th or 31st comes around, and I’m making a mad dash to download as many books as possible before my borrows and expire, and I end up with one or two books I’m never going to listen to at any rate. And that’s kind of waste of my borrowing privileges.