Few things annoy me more than the tacky poly vinyl chloride covered plywood McMansions located on Orchard Avenue as you drive out to Five Rivers Environmental Education Center on the outskirts of Delmar and Albany which are eating away at the farm land and woodlands on the outskirts of town.
Some of those houses are for the rich but many are just upper middle class. Many have 1kW of solar panels on their roof (even if they use 20 times their output in a day), pantries stocked with organic food and frying pans made out of certified recycled steel. Many of those people would be horrified to shop at Walmart, although their bit trash can is always full despite ever so carefully washing out their milk bottles and tin cans.
I am quite fine with these people paying more in taxes. They complain about the high cost of tuition at private schools, maintaining their SUVs, the cost of groceries and utilities. But they have a lot more than a lot of us, I think they should pay their fair share. I’m fine with them taking away their fancy house’s mortgage deductions and SALT deduction. If you can afford to live so high on the hog then you should pay more.
With all this talk of inflation as it comes to automobiles and homes, one thing rarely mentioned is the cost of all the new technology that has been mandated by government regulation. It’s funny how this was a big deal back in the early 1980s, but it seems like the current administration while often taking swipes at technology they view as liberal, has not taken a deeper look at how building codes and automobile safety standards are boosting costs. Maybe the higher costs are worthwhile – saving lives is important – and many technologies are inexpensive to adopt – but I have to wonder if we are pushing safety technologies too quickly, raising costs for what is at best dubious value.
Prior to summer vacation, I had Zillow on my phone and every day or so they would have not very helpful suggestions on the latest home to buy – 90% of them being just your typical white vinyl siding with asphalt roof in a suburban setting with virtually no acreage. Houses that are well, a place to live, a roof but hardly something I would want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on.
I get it, you have to live somewhere. Houses are seen as investments, superior to just renting, an expense with no return beyond that’s month of shelter. Beats living on the street, you need a place to shit and shower and get cleaned up so you can go to work and make money. Still, I can envision a long commute in an car, to an essentially suburban house next to a corn field that smells like cow shit. Zillow’s solution? How about a city house in the ghetto?
I just got frustrated. It’s not to say that aren’t some unique and even some interesting homesteads and off-grid cabins that pop up on Zillow from time to time, interesting options but all too far away from work. Everything around Albany seems to either be a property in the city, usually a bad neighborhood, or a fairly typically suburban house be it in a village, a suburban subdivision or next to a cow shit cornfield. Ready for your big screen television and sign-up for weekly garbage service and paying big utility bills to the power company.
I just don’t want any part of it. My apartment is diapolated and leaky, in bad shape but it’s cheap. Money forever gone, but I am also saving and investing a lot. Truth is much too soon, my parents will be gone, and I can probably buy their 5-acre homestead, even if it also isn’t exactly what I want but it will provide a place to live until my early retirement in around 15 years, when I am free to buy whatever, get that real off-grid cabin in a state that respects values and right to own whatever guns I want without guberment permission and have fires and burn my own shit.
But in the mean time, if I’m careful what I burn, and I do end up with their old homestead, I will be able to have goats and other livestock like they once did, and if I want to add solar, I can probably build rack mounts, add batteries, and by following code and working with an electrician have a largely independent, if grid tied system. And I can continue to compost, burn paper and maybe even some wrappers, take my own trash to the transfer station and avoid as much waste as possible.
Yesterday, Veterans Day was unnecessarily cold and I refused to turn on my heat on or go outside except for the briefest of time periods. But today I’m bundling up and riding my mountain bike to he suburbanite office with acres of parking in suburbs, as it sucks dog dick to drive your big jacked up truck to work with a million traffic lights and jackass cops in the way of your office.
I don’t mind a day off from work, but I don’t like all the worship of government workers. It seems like every other highway is named for some dead government worker. Yet, it’s rare to see anybody in the private sector? Rather then offer more holidays and commemorations, why not work on making the jobs of government workers safer and paying them better wages? I know holidays are cheap. It would have been so crappy driving back from Madison County, though maybe the snow would have been purty. I will do a long weekend out that way come December once rifle season is done.
Eat lots of split pea soup with chopped onions and carrots and I bit gassy by evening but whatever. It was damn good. Already also finished off one of the loaves of bread I baked yesterday and dipped in lots of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, eat a bunch of spaghetti squash from Shauls. Yes, the balsamic vinegar in plastic, because I can pretend to put it in the recycling bucket then take it and smash it down in the white garbage bag and use it for starting fires up in woods. It is after all National Recycling Week, well on November 15th GIS Day for us map makers of the world, and they remind you to recycle right which for the suburbanite doesn’t involve fire or hogs. I should do that with all the burnt-out cans and that one or two glass bottles the yeast comes in the next time I’m out at the folks house. Honestly, if you want to recycle, it’s best to get hogs and chickens, eat mostly things that come in natural packaging, and feed the rest. Then use any remaining burnables for starting fires. Just don’t tell a liberal such things, they’ll freak out about dioxin and a million other trace chemicals like any woke nuterered person would do.
I pulled out the space heater and I’ve had my electric blanket for a few days now, but I’m resisting turning the heat up to 50 degrees downstairs as long as I can without worry about frozen pipes. Truth is I like the cold, I’d rather wear my blaze orange hoodie with all the permanent coloring from the muck and burn holes at home, to stay warm, and the head under the covers after dinner. I actually the feel of the cold on my face when I get out of bed in the morning, though if it’s really obnoxious, I’ll sit by the Space Heater but I mostly prefer the heated blanket at night, and that doesn’t use that much power – 175 watts at high but I can’t stand the much warm at night. Truth is the cold inside in my apartment makes the cold feel less bad when I ride my mountain bike to work. And when I’m camping in the wilderness, mid-winter, desprate to get away from the city the cold doesn’t feel so cold if you’re used to it.
I better shower and get on my bike and ride to work. Made a delicious omelet with lots of chopped onions for Shauls along with frozen vegetables and lots of Frank’s Hot Sauce. There is a lot of shit I need to get done in my office, and I’m sure it will feel ungodly hot there after all the time in my unheated apartment yesterday, snuggling under the heated blanket for most of yesterday, that was when I wasn’t eating hot soup and bread. Make money, buy more plastic and gasoline, head back up in wilderness to have fires and smoke grass. And good times, as the say. Charged the bike lamp up so should be good at rush hour for the ride downtown to catch the bus home in the pitch black. Didn’t get as much cleaning as I wanted to do yesterday, spending more time reading. Finished up reading Backyard Foraging on Libby, and Martin Krause’s The Complete Developer about Modern Javascript which I got into a bit before returning. I should learn more modern Javascipt but its hard to learn when I don’t have a practical use for the day. Today, riding to work I’m continuing listening to Goats for Dummies. Maybe that’s why I’ve been posting so much about goats lately.
Still watching the forecast for the weekend, but Saturday looks good but maybe snow and rain in the evening. I am thinking Pine Bush and Salvation Army/Goodwill to look for more work clothes, as many of my shirts are getting a bit threadbare. But for $5 or $6 at the thrift store and using them for two years, pretty dang good value. I am glad I donated those baggy, but good jeans to the store after I lost weight. I feel like it’s giving back and I’m not only just taking from the Thrift Store, though I know it’s still good regardless as I’m buying shit helping these organizatons and recycling clothes otherwise destine for the garbage dumping grounds in Pine Bush or Colonie. I want to get a picture of that John Wolcott sign and maybe ride trail in the Pine Bush, where there is likey to be fewer hunters compared to other places where rifle season craziness is underway. I should be good on groceries for a while, though I always notice a few things low, like noting I’ll need more grated cheese come he weekend. But whatever.
If there was an animal that I would consider as a pet, it wouldn’t be a dog or a cat. It would be a goat.
Why a goat? It’s not like you can bring a goat inside your house and sit it down by the woodstove and not expect to be shoveling manure, as like many farm animals they have no control over their rectumns. They manure everywhere, the pasture, the barnyard or your living room floor.
But goats are fantastic animals. For one, they produce milk and meat. But they’re also excellent pack animals for carrying gear while hiking, and are quite loyal but with an independent streak. They can go for miles without drinking, their forage consumption is moderate and less expensive then most other pets.
And best of all unlike dogs and cats that are carnivorous, goats are good eating when the time comes. No expensive burial or waste of a goat.
but I don’t like all the worship of government workers. It seems like every other highway is named for some dead government worker. Yet, it’s rare to see anybody in the private sector? Rather then offer more holidays and commemorations, why not work on making the jobs of government workers safer and paying them better wages? I know holidays are cheap. It would have been so crappy driving back from Madison County, 
though maybe the snow would have been purty. I will do a long weekend out that way come December once rifle season is done. 
and I bit gassy by evening but whatever. It was damn good. Already also finished off one of the loaves of bread 
I baked yesterday and dipped in lots of balsamic vinegar and olive oil, eat a bunch of spaghetti squash from Shauls. Yes, the balsamic vinegar in plastic, because I can pretend to put it in the recycling bucket 
then take it and smash it down in the white garbage bag and use it for starting fires up in woods. 
It is after all National Recycling Week, well on November 15th GIS Day for us map makers of the world, and they remind you to recycle right which for the suburbanite doesn’t involve fire or hogs. I should do that with all the burnt-out cans and that one or two glass bottles the yeast comes in the next time I’m out at the folks house. 
Honestly, if you want to recycle, it’s best to get hogs and chickens, eat mostly things that come in natural packaging, and feed the rest. Then use any remaining burnables for starting fires. 
Just don’t tell a liberal such things, they’ll freak out about dioxin and a million other trace chemicals like any woke nuterered person would do.
but I’m resisting turning the heat up to 50 degrees downstairs as long as I can without worry about frozen pipes. Truth is I like the cold, I’d rather wear my blaze orange hoodie with all the permanent coloring from the muck and burn holes at home, to stay warm, and the head under the covers after dinner. I actually the feel of the cold on my face when I get out of bed in the morning, though if it’s really obnoxious, I’ll sit by the Space Heater but I mostly prefer the heated blanket at night, and that doesn’t use that much power – 175 watts at high but I can’t stand the much warm at night. Truth is the cold inside in my apartment makes the cold feel less bad when I ride my mountain bike to work. 
And when I’m camping in the wilderness, mid-winter, desprate to get away from the city the cold doesn’t feel so cold if you’re used to it. 
Made a delicious 
omelet with lots of chopped onions for Shauls along with frozen vegetables and lots of Frank’s Hot Sauce. There is a lot of shit I need to get done in my office, and I’m sure it will feel ungodly hot 
there after all the time in my unheated apartment yesterday, snuggling under the heated blanket for most of yesterday, that was when I wasn’t eating hot soup and bread. Make money, buy more plastic and gasoline, head back up in wilderness to have fires and smoke grass. And good times, as the say. Charged the bike lamp up so should be good at rush hour for the ride downtown to catch the bus home in the pitch black. 
Didn’t get as much cleaning as I wanted to do yesterday, spending more time reading. 
Finished up reading Backyard Foraging on Libby, and Martin Krause’s The Complete Developer about Modern Javascript which I got into a bit before returning. I should learn more modern Javascipt but its hard to learn when I don’t have a practical use for the day. Today, riding to work I’m continuing listening to Goats for Dummies. 
Maybe that’s why I’ve been posting so much about goats lately. 
but Saturday looks good but maybe snow and rain in the evening. I am thinking Pine Bush and Salvation Army/Goodwill to look for more work clothes, as many of my shirts are getting a bit threadbare. But for $5 or $6 at the thrift store and using them for two years, pretty dang good value. I am glad I donated those baggy, but good jeans to the store after I lost weight. 
I feel like it’s giving back and I’m not only just taking from the Thrift Store, though I know it’s still good regardless as I’m buying shit helping these organizatons and recycling clothes otherwise destine for the garbage dumping grounds in Pine Bush or Colonie. 
I want to get a picture of that John Wolcott sign and maybe ride trail in the Pine Bush, where there is likey to be fewer hunters compared to other places where rifle season craziness is underway. 
I should be good on groceries for a while, though I always notice a few things low, like noting I’ll need more grated cheese come he weekend. But whatever. 
