I ran over to Glenmont to wash off my truck before the bedliner is applied tomorrow. My truck is too big already for the automated car wash locally, so it was off to Glenmont, of course part of the way illegally taking Old Glenmont Road – No Commercial Vehicles Except Local Delivery – but whatever. I hand washed the truck, getting the mud out of the bed. Should be good for getting the bed liner applied tomorrow. Before I hand over the keys, sign the paperwork, I’ll confirm they remove all bed hardware before spraying – I’m sure they do but it’s better to be clear.
Pulled the Marchese Ford decal sticker off the back of the truck, as I hate when dealers slap their branding on their truck. It was just a simple vinyl sticker, not the obnoxious raised lettering and other really aggressive brandting dealers plaster all of their trucks. Pealed off just fine, with only a little bit of glue that game off with a sponge. After I got home, I decided the next step was to remove the Marchese Ford license plate holders. Not that have anything old Dan Marchese, he was reasonable to deal with despite some of the sales tax games and commercial plate games, but I don’t feel like I need to be promoting his business. Plus I plan to have DePaula Ford do recalls and basic maintance during the warranty period, so why antagonize the shop, not that they likely care, as business is business. I tried from from DePaula but they had no interest in seriously working with me, even though my offers were reasonable. Gassed up the truck, figured with uncertain gas prices, and summer coming, best to keep a full tank.
Other then that it was a good day. It’s nice driving the SuperDuty, I realized the hood isn’t as high as my lifted Silverado but with the XL Off Road short valance, and the SuperDuty cab height and decent clearance, its’ more then good for my needs. I really don’t see myself lifting a three quarter ton truck or going beyond the stock 33-inch off road tires. I’m mean it’s already big enough that it can’t fit in the standard car wash, and it will be virtually the same height as Big Red once have the ARE MX Cap, solar panel, and racks on it. Lifted trucks are kind of a headache, but I do like the high up solid ride of the SuperDuty. I think with the heavier weight and frame, the kayak will ride much better on this truck, as will the cap even when I do add that second solar panel. Shouldn’t have any issues climbing or descending those big mountains in West Virigina or wherever I travel. And I think the gas milage will ultimately be very similiar to my old rig.
I’m tired after the late last night, going to get some sleep. Want to get up by 5 AM tomorrow so I can have a good breakfast, shower, load my bike up. I set the truck to start the engine at 7:40 AM in a Ford app, and then that should get me to Adirondack Off-Road a little after 8 AM. I can either take the back streets over to Sand Creek Road and then Albany Shaker Road, or maybe I’ll bike/walk down to Karner Road Bus Plus Station, and use the bus to get downtown. Depends on the traffic and how busy things are in the morning with the roads. I like riding, but I’m not going to get myself killed in rush hour traffic.
In any negotiation, your emotional state is your most powerful asset—or your greatest liability. While anger might feel like a tool for dominance, it is almost always the hallmark of a losing strategy. When you let temper take the wheel, you trade long-term influence for short-term venting, effectively handing the advantage to your opponent.
The primary reason anger fails is that it narrows your vision. Negotiation requires high-level cognitive processing: you need to read subtle cues, pivot based on new information, and brainstorm creative solutions that satisfy both parties. Anger triggers the “fight or flight” response, which floods the brain with cortisol and shifts focus away from logic toward aggression. In this state, you stop looking for “win-win” opportunities and start looking for targets. By losing your composure, you lose the ability to see the full chessboard.
Furthermore, anger signals weakness, not strength. It tells the other side exactly where your “pressure points” are. A calm, strategic negotiator is unpredictable and disciplined; an angry one is reactive and easy to manipulate. If an opponent knows that a certain topic makes you lose your cool, they can use that emotional trigger to distract you from the numbers or terms that actually matter. Strategy is about control—of the facts, the pace, and yourself. Once you lose self-control, you have no hope of controlling the room.
Ultimately, negotiation is about persuasion, and anger is the antithesis of persuasive. It builds defensive walls rather than bridges. When you remain calm and strategic, you project confidence and authority, forcing the other side to meet you on the ground of reason. In the high-stakes game of give and take, the person who keeps their head usually ends up with the better deal.
People are often surprised by my choice of building my new rig around an F-350 SuperDuty.
Why did I choose a SuperDuty?
I wanted a big truck without the lift kit. I looked at a little Toyota, but no. I wanted to ride up high, have good view of the road and good ground clearance. The truck I bought has the XL Off-Road package which includes the larger off-road 33″ Goodyear Wranglers tires, axle vent tubes for traveling through up to 22″ of water and and the low profile front valance from the Tremor – without cost of Tremor. I’m not arguing the Tremors aren’t nice, but they’re also expensive as many are luxury barges.
I also wanted to get either the Minizilla or Godzilla engine, which is mechanically much simpler and more reliable gas-engine design that anything you can find on a half-ton today. It’s an old school big-block engine, it does not have turbo charging, auto shut-off or displacement on demand. Those features, common on smaller pickups cause a host of issues including motor oil consumption and catestrophic reliability issues such as collapsed lifters or warped cylinders. I did not like the oil consumption of my Silverado – it wasn’t bad and then it bad – and then stop being bad after more sludge built up as the truck got older.
To maximize highway milage, I got 3.73 gears and the Minizilla engine, which is substantially similiar to the Godzilla but with the shorter stroke. Not to mention it was cheaper. Some people call it the destroked Godzilla, because except for the shorter block it’s almost identical – just an old school big block engine. The main disadvantage of big block engines is pumping losses – at high vacuum like coasting to a stop – you get a lot of engine braking whether you want it or not. City gas milage – well sucks in a big block – that’s why they don’t make them in passenger cars any more.
Going to a SuperDuty gives you many other advantages – for one most like mine are equipped with the dual alternators and dual batteries – which means they can easily provide power for charging batteries for camp and all other loads. It’s safe to park the truck for an extended period, use the dome lights, and know you’ll have a reliable start even in the coldest harshest conditions in the wilderness. At times I was overloading the alternator on my Silverado – when I ran my camp batteries down – and then was driving with the headlights on I could smell the alternator getting hot on the old truck. Also, the SuperDuty comes with the Upfitter Switches for controlling whatever loads I wire to them. The 4 built in switches can source 40 amp loads, 2 built in switches can source 80 amp loads. Currently the plan is just to move over the existing batteries and equipment from my Silverado, but I want to add battery capacity and go towards lithium ion with additional solar in future years.
Why an F-350 in particular?
While Ford makes the SuperDuty with both a 3/4 ton axles (F-250) and 1 ton axles (F-350), the 1 ton versions are far more common. The F-350 gives you heavier drive shafts, extra set of stiffer rear leaf springs for more towing capacity. But I for the most part didn’t care about that, but it will be nice some day if I have to tow heavy or decide to get a heavy slide in camper, though maybe not with the 6.8 gasser and 3.73 gears. Honestly, if they had a F-250 in configuration I wanted at a good price, I would have gotten that but there is no practical difference except maybe a slightly rougher ride or a slightly higher registration fee.
But mostly I wanted a straight-axle front end of the SuperDuty, as they are much more durable for off-roading, and driving on rough dirt roads. Independent Front Suspension rides much nicer over potholes, but it’s much easier to bend and knock an IFS front end out of alignment. There is a lot more components to potentially break in an IFS set up. Do people break tie rods and do U-joins fail yes? But no CVT shafts and ball joints on steering linkage don’t get the kind of abuse that they do on IFS.
The other advantage is the weight distribution is better with the truck cap. SuperDuties are much heavier then half tons. While truck camper shells aren’t that heavy, when you mount two 60 lb solar panels on an MX extended height cap and then a kayak above that, things can be a little top heavy especially in the wind, or if you have to make an emergency move on the highway. At times with the lifted Silverado things were a bit top heavy and there would be excessive sway. I don’t think this will be an issue with the SuperDuty.
Why a short bed?
A short bed looks short on an extend cab SuperDuty. People say, wow, that’s a small bed on your truck. How can you camp in something that small? The hell of it is it’s longer bed then my 6′ 6″ bed Silverado, but proportionally with the longer hood of SuperDuty, it looks smaller.
The SuperDuty short-bed is 2″ inches longer then the bed on my half-ton Silverado 78″ (6′ 6″). I would have liked a long-bed, but a 82″ (6′ 8″) short bed is plenty long for camping, and long beds are harder to park in small roadside campsites, have a longer turning radius. The 148″ wheel base SuperDuty is the “smallest” wheel base SuperDuty they make. Longer trucks also have greater issues on rough terrain and climbing over rocks and ditches due to the longer wheel base.
Why the base work truck trim?
I wanted a truck for camping primarily. I want to be a responsible steward of my money, and going up the HD truck platform is quite a bit more expensive then a half ton or compact truck. While I could have spent more on a truck, I realize they only last a decade or a decade and half before being replaced, and chrome while maybe looking pretty doesn’t have a lot of benefit. The carpet delete means much easier cleaning, as does the hard plastic inside. And the truck with all the great off-road features (hill descent, fording tubes, rear locker) does everything I need while putting itself in a compact package for off-roading.
Chrome while pretty doesn’t impact the truck functionality. Even the most basic Android Auto on small screen does everything I need, playing my tunes and showing my location on maps. It has cruise control, air conditioning, power windows, remote start- a lot of technology for a basic work truck. And the upfitter switches, dual battery and idle speed control which is good for charging batteries or warming the truck up when it is cold up at park.
That’s how I kind of feel this morning after a marathon session of the Guilderland Planning Board that pushed well into the night, getting home and into bed around 11 PM. I tried to sleep in until 6 AM and then the sun came up.
You know these endless public meetings🧑⚖️ can be quite frustrating at times, noting you’re not moving the needle 🪡 much even when you are because the developers continue to offer more consessions and the planning board members get defensive and act worried. Pressure works, even if the results aren’t exactly what you want. Sometimes just showing up and being a constant pressure helps. Still it was such a long night last night.
Cooking down apple 🍏 pancakes 🥞 as some of the cheap apples I got from Wally World were getting soft and mushy and I like the sweet flavor to start out the day, and it’s a way to get a bunch of fiber in the system 🥕 to start out the day. ☕ The peanut butter banana coffee flavor of the month was quickly gone, but the new flavor Holy Moly is pretty good caramel flavored coffee so I am not complaining, and this one is better hot rathe then iced. Got through another district on AD update, it’s just those last very rural districts are challenging to process. I was hoping to close this down this week, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen.
At least I can ride the bike to work 🚲 and it should be a pretty pleasant morning. ☀️ Sun is out and it’s not too cold, I actually rushed to open the windows as I turned the grittle up a bit too high this morning, and it started to smoke. Tonight I want to wash the truck 🛻, hoping it will fit in drive-through wash before the spray in bed liner gets put in. I said I would drop the truck off around 8 AM at ADK Off Road, so it will be an early day probably fighting traffic on the way up to the shop. Then I have to ride a mile down Central Avenue on my mountain bike 🚴or push the bike on sidewalk if that’s too crazy 🤪 and catch the 905 bus 🚐 downtown then ride over to the Enterprise next to old city garbage dump and sewage treatment plant. Then leave work early – probably around 4 PM – to pick the truck up before they close in the afternoon at 6 PM. Worse come to worse they are open on Saturday, but I think it’s better to go up there and pick it up in afternoon. Glad to get the bedliner put in, hopefully they’ll do a good job, and then it’s just waiting for the truck cap.
I tell you listening to the developers and business owners speaking in front of Planning Boards 👥 you learn a lot about the give and take of the boards, who wins and looses mostly by how calm and collected developers are and how others aren’t. Planning Boards spend endless hours on the aesthetics of buildings, and really trivial things, while it seems like we are pushing for things that really matter, 🦋 like saving the remaining Pine Bush from development. 🌲 It’s a tough fight, but it always has been to go up against developers who are fighting for big bucks. It also makes me think a lot about the permitting challenges to build that off-grid cabin, 🏡 though I think buying a pre-built structure is almost always a lot easier and cheaper. And you go rural enough, with the kind of freedoms I want, there is a lot less permitting and regulation then a liberal suburb in Upstate NY, where they are very concerned about the color vinyl and commercial nursery tree plantation they stick next to the Wally’s Car Wash and Grease Pit sign.
Honestly after a long night like last night 😴 I just want to get up to the woods away from all this crap. I have SuperDuty now, getting the bed liner sprayed then just waiting for the truck cap, and some time to at least wire up the solar and batteries for power. Those days will be here before you know it, Andy Ruth seemed to think the cap will arrive by late May, and people are already talking June being around the corner. I keep studying the secondary engine idle speed control system and the upfitter switches on the SuperDuty, I need to get a trim puller and start to explore maybe as soon as this weekend. And I still need to order the PA Speaker and CB antenna mount for the truck.
![Untitled [Expires April 27 2026]](https://andyarthur.org//data/photo_022262_large.jpg)
