Personal

Retro Seeburg

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Those old Retro Seeburg recordings you can find on the Youtube can make the day go by quicker and put you in a good mood, especially when its one data job after another, fixing and adjusting code to keep the data flowing through the pipelines, and get the right results out the other end. I don’t remember if I remember some of this music from my childhood at grocery stores, if I was born a bit too late, though I’m sure even into the 1980s and 1990s it was used as background music in a lot of stores.

I’m hoping I get my bike back today 🚲

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Apparently the bike shop isn’t open on Tuesdays this time of year, but I’m excited about getting back on the road, hopefully today. That said, if I am heading out to Vermont after work on Thursday, I’ll probably end up driving in but I may very well ride into my Friday meeting.

I guess time will only tell. 🚲 I really do need to get a chain 🔗 breaker so I can do my next chain swap and not have to wait, especially if this going to be a regular thing. Annoying though to say the least, as this is ordinary maintence, and this would have been a nice week to ride back and forth to work. But hopefully I’ll have it back for the weekend in Green Mountains assuming that actually happens this weekend. 🤞 Weather looks good, but I’ll need my heater and long sleaves for the chilly mornings, but the question 🙋 is if I need to head into the office 🏢 to be there physically to let people in and out.

If I get my bike back and I’m heading to Vermont tomorrow then I’ll need to get to the store 🛒 and get some supplies and food and fill up the propane tank and get a replacement hose as I’ll probably want the heater for the morning with the forecast. No frost or snow 🌨 expected in Vermont but it will be chilly in the mornings for sure. I might stay in Vermont through Monday, I guess it depends on the weather and how I feel. 🍁 Might be some good leaves this time of year.

I like Trump’s idea of eliminating income tax on overtime

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It seems like a good idea to me on many levels, as it allows workers to take home more of their hard-earned dollars, plus it would deprive the federal government of revenue and encourage shrinking of the federal government. Alabama has introduced a similar policy.

Another version of this idea would be to require employers to pay all taxes on over-time, rather then deducting it from an employee’s paycheck. This would further discourage the practice of overtime and create more jobs at higher wages, which might actually be a better public policy.

That said, I do like the idea of a radically simpler and smaller federal government. I don’t think the US Military does much for me, nor do most federal government agencies. What exactly does the military even do, besides provide some vague notion of public safety from foreign threats?

I can’t think of the last time I saw a FBI agent or even a federal employee. Maybe a Forest Service worker in National Forest, but beyond that it’s hard to even imagine the federal government exists beyond the television and the big chunk of money they take out of my paycheck. So maybe it’s time to move a lot of federal employees to the private sector.

Walk out of any doorway 🚪

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Feel your way, feel your way like the day before
Maybe you’ll find direction
Around some corner where it’s been waiting to meet

It’s like the fog 🌫 of war, I tell myself as I pull solid twelve hours ⏳ keeping it all together the best I can, keeping it all together, keeping the data flowing mostly smoothly down the pipelines like any good plumber. Lists 📃 keep flowing to Mailworks and other requesters with only a few hiccups here and there. While I joke 🃏 about being the head of janitorial services at times with the crap data I sometimes get, once the code is written and field names don’t change, things flow down the pipelines assuming I remember to feed them into the queue, inspect said send the outputs along without too many mistakes. That’s why you use lots of assertions and sanity checks ☑ in your code to save your ass. 🐴

Traffic is really backed up on Southern Boulevard today 🚦but the express was a bit early and the early shuttle 🚀 to Menands doesn’t leave until 8:25. I wish I had my bike 🚲 back but the shop isn’t open until Wednesday but hopefully I’ll get it back tomorrow. I’m leaning towards heading to Vermont after work on Thursday and working remote from camp on Friday and maybe Monday. 🏕 It’s tough as I have so much work and those 12 hour days are tough on the solar to keep things charged up and working. Noontime I have to take the shuttle back downtown for my lunch time meeting. 🔀 It’s going to be another busy day.

Heading home I got a call from an old friend. 📞 He saw I was out in Rensselearville and was thinking about potentially buying land out that way to build my off-grid cabin. He’s been giving me a lot of ideas, as a homesteader outside of Greenville. He’s been working on getting his pistol permit, 🔫 and regretting buying in Albany County because the judge has up to 6 months to consider it, and it’s not easy to get all the paperwork together, and county doesn’t make the process easy to do. He really wishes he bought land in a more conservative-leaning county, which at least they would review his permit quicker, especially after all the time and money he’s gotten the paperwork together. Plus the class doesn’t really focus on markmanship or using a firearm for hunting purpose, 🦌 just the law and very limited self-protection allowed under New York law. I kind of get the idea he really regrets buying in Albany County.

We got talking about homesteading and growing cannabis. 🐐 🪴 I had no idea he smoked or that he raised it in his garden. A lot more good people enjoy a little toke here and there, then the politicians want to admit. He’s a big time bowhunter and a homesteader, we got talking about goats and livestock. And what bull shit New York is to live in with the gun laws. Truth is I really don’t want to buy land in New York and I really don’t want to live here any longer then necessary, but I make such good money and love my work, 💰️ relatively speaking, but it ain’t what it once was with inflation and I sure work some long hours. I do wish I lived his life and he’s a bit jealous of me too, with all my travel. It’s just so many long days, him with his small business and me with my directorship of a state agency unit.

I guess after all that I got a few minutes asleep. 🛏 Sleep didn’t come easy after that phone call 📞 and working late into the evening working on more data jobs and finishing my edits on a campaign plan. 🖥 I’m so bothered by so many things these days, trapped in my indecision. I ended up watching a video on Love Canal 🛢️☠️ and then the former Hooker Chemical office tower in downtown Niagara Falls tha was part of the big state-funded urban renewal project back when Senator Earl Brydges was the long-time majority leader, followed by Senator George Martinez, another power broker that brought home plenty of bacon. 🥓

Why I’m shooting for age 70

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One of the most peculiar beliefs of man kind is that life should be prolonged as long as possible, anything less than that is considered to be mentally ill or at least tragic.

Hunter S. Thompson planned to live until age 50 before blowing his brains out. He ended up prolonging his life until age 67 when his declining health made him decide to end his life. But I would argue that is too young to die, as one can be of excellent physical shape and mental acuity well into one’s seventies, especially if one eats healthy and doesn’t have a life of hard labor or abuses rather than uses drugs.

Seventy seems like a good goal to live to. Like Hunter S. Thompson the year doesn’t have to be ultimatum but a goal to live in maximum health and experience, not so worried about trying to prolong every final year of life. Knowing you are shooting for a reasonable goal in life – is liberating as you can have some fun and risk – without worrying about the consequences in advanced age. And that you are in power, not hospital or person listed in a medical decision directive.

But I’m planning to at least somewhat retire by age 55 or at least do something with my life meaningful and worthwhile – long before age 70. A decade to discover who I am before it’s over on my own terms, turned to mush on the floor, my off grid cabin turned to ash and unburnable rubble soon to be overgrown in the wilderness. To become food for the coyotes, raccoons and other scavengers in the woods rather wrapped in plastic at some hospital a few meaningless decades later.

But what do I know…. Those days are 29 years from now. Things can change. And I could decide to rack up a few more years like Dr. Thompson did. But you got to live life, even if there are some costs to longevity.