Personal
Nice Morning On The Lake
Along Mud Lake Road
Yesterday, I hiked along Mud Lake Road. Saw a family of bears, monarch butterflies, a hawk and other wildlife.
Taken on Sunday September 4, 2022 at Notes.It’s the sign of the times 📻
As Petula Clark sings on the radio some 60 years later. Going to be a nice day, which is a good thing because I have a lunchtime meeting downtown in the dungeon. But first it’s off to Menands on my mountain bike to type %>% furiously and work on more IOI Codes. I wonder who is catering lunch? I mean if I’m riding up that big State Street hill, they better have lunch, LOL!
Carrot pancakes with apples, cinnamon and topped with blueberries and maple syrup. 🥞 🥕 A good sugar high for a while. The oatmeal and carrots add a lot of fiber which is so important. I haven’t included lots of carrots in my diet lately, but when I do I find it greatly improves my vision. I always make fiber a key ingredient in all meals, as not only does it keep me pooping good 
it avoids consuming too many unhealthy calories, despite all eat.
Did some cleaning of the kitchen and the bathroom 🚽 yesterday evening. Yes, I see that mouse dropping 🐁 in that picture I took this morning off the coffee pot. They do like my stove, and I should check the electric trap, or go back to a snap trap if they’ve figured that one. I do like the mouse zapper as it’s super clean and easy to use. Just have to keep it full of peanut 🥜 butter, cleaned out and batteries 🔋 fresh. Things are better now, but maybe not perfect, but I’m a dirty hick 
and everything is falling apart in my apartment, and it’s not like the landlord doesn’t have my unit in his eye for a studs-level gutting. 👁 
Hopefully they’re won’t be any garbage trucks 🚚 overturned on the expressway downtown this morning, That would have been a bad thing if it was Friday morning, and I decided to drive out to Vermont to work for the weekend, and needed to be set up by nine. 🕒 That’s something to consider, shit like that happens sometimes when you are motoring. For a while, when I was riding in on my bicycle 7:30 AM the expressway was completely blocked, but it also impacted the commute people driving in at 9 AM. 
I am just glad I decided to ride in yesterday. Not only did the rain hold off 
until darkness, I ddn’t have to deal with the whole traffic ordeal. 
Plus I got honey 
and sugar-free syrup. I haven’t had honey in a long time, it’s kind of calorie heavy 
and pure sugar but it’s so good especially with all the apples I now have hat home from apple picking. 
Often I complain about the school traffic this time of year, 
but with the bicycle commuting I’m totally missing the traffic. Plus I head in so early these days.
I am really digging those headphones 🎧 that are fully wireless and have 20 hour play time. While I’ve used wireless earbuds for some time, I didn’t realize how annoying that wire that seemed to break on cheap so often really was. I know people have had Apple earbuds and similar Bluetooth ear pieces for decades now, but I’m not into that high technology until it’s cheap and common. There $15 earbuds when they break or get lost won’t be the end of world, chances are ultimately they’ll become. 🔥 And I’ll get new. Don’t tell a liberal. The sound quality is what you would expect from low-cost ear buds, but still allows me to enjoy tunes 
and podcasts at work and when I’m hanging out.
I haven’t decided if I will watch or listen to the debate, assuming it’s on the YouTube or broadcast on WAMC streaming over my phone. 📱 I am sure they’ll have coverage of it in the news the next day and on the 538 podcast. I am pretty sure I am going to just vote for libertarian Chase Oliver, because honestly I hate both candidates. I like smoking pot, and I think Kamela would be much better on cannabis even if Donald Trump says he would allow state rights on cannabis, and would get the federal government out of business of regulating cannabis. But there was Jeff Sessions, who reminds us only bad dudes like me smoke. Or something like that. 🚭 And Trump would be better on gun rights, though seems like his record when he was actually in the White House was mixed on that, witness the bump stock ban.
Legal grass, that can be brought across state lines and smoked legally in national forest is a higher priority at this point, plus it would be nice to be able to buy firearms without committing a federal felony for lying on the 4473 form. 🔫 Just saying. Not that I need more guns at this point, I have what I need that is legal in New York. I also think Biden, I mean the Harris Waltzer would be more likely to appoint people to Forest Service who would close down more campsites and roads in the back country, because they feel like they have to save the earth. 🌎 I do think the Waltzer and Company would be better on climate change and advancing electric cars and cleaner less polluted cities, even though we are pretty much ducked on that front. 🦆 Plus more mass production means cheaper off grid components. ☀ I don’t want to decide and it. doesn’t matter at all in New York and it’s not like I really have a dog in the fight. 🤷♂️ Somebody will win, though I concede that a Trump win would make work easier for me in 2026 as people won’t be hating on Democrats so much with a dumpster fire in the White House. 🗑️
Besides cleaning I spent some time reading 
trying to finish up the books I have to return this week, including one about rebuilding old houses. Amazing how fast time goes by and how a 3 week loan fro the library doesn’t last very long. But I guess not finishing a book isn’t the end of the world, and if I really am interested in it, I can always take it out again.
The schizophrenia risk 🤪 🌈
Opponents of cannabis like to point out the risk of smoking cannabis, especially satavia strains which are much more psychedelic and in some cases can make you much more paranoid. After all, you are essentially turning up the volume on cannaboid receptors. It’s what gives the vivid and rich texture to the music, makes the waterfalls and trees glisten so much.
I think the psychedelic experience is worthwhile but I concede that paranoia is a very dangerous thing. Good cannabis doesn’t put you to sleep or make you focus on your problems but instead puts a shine on the richness of the world. You have to know what you are smoking and what it will do to you. Critical Mass wasn’t for me as it fed my fears I live with every day but Tropical Skittlez really made me find my Zen and take in the wilderness around me.
I’ve been reading a lot about Cannabis and the research on what makes a pleasant experience and what the actual risks are. Certainly there are well documented cases of people who succumb to schizophrenia after smoking cannabis, sometimes weeks or months later. Often it’s blamed on stronger cannabis or concentrates. Most modern cannabis, especially satavia strains are strong. Maybe it is and you have to be careful like everything in life.
The link though is not as clear as it might be. Do people prone schizophrenia self-medicate on cannabis or does it actually cause the often lifetime debilitating disease? I’m in my early to mid 40s now so I’m beyond the peak years of risk of developing schizophrenia but as a single adult, an largely independent person with a relatively small friends circle who spends a lot of time alone, I know I’m at higher risk of a psychiatric break. Plus I already have anxiety problems and have been known to have nervous breakdowns under stress, mostly in private.
Still I’m being careful. Outside of Critical Mass stain, things have generally been good experiences though I definitely prefer Satavia leaning stains over the Indica strains. You might think the psychedelic nature is more at risk then more relaxing strains but I find the beauty and richness of psychedelia puts my mind much more at ease then how Indica leaves me trapped in the world, locked down to the hammock. Maybe these trips on vacation in the wilderness are dangerous but I actually like what it’s doing to my mind, in many ways making me a richer person.
Where have all the flowers gone? 🌸
Mid September is kind of an odd season, one where you are really looking forward to the brilliant colors of autumn and the crisp mornings but you also know much too soon the days will be short, skies gray, air cold and snowy and leaves brown.
Up at five o’clock, making coffee ☕, slicing apples 🍏 and frying up onions 🧅 to have with eggs once I get to store 🍳 and get milk. 🐮 You can smell the silage being chopped on the air 👃 as autumn rapidly approaches on this cool early autumn morning.
Monday morning, a five day week, though I plan to work remote on Friday the 13th 🖥 hopefully some place much nicer then the Delmar. Moratorium is in effect which should slow down the rate the state work is coming to my desk, though I’ll be in early to get any work done before heading over to the campaign committee later in the day. Now a lot of it’s going to be preparing for 2025.
The goal is leave for work around 7 AM and be in the office sometime between 7:30 and 7:45 am this morning. Bringing the rain coat 🧥 as it’s likely to be raining at the end of day ☔ but getting wet then won’t ruin me. I can always catch the bus home from the old train station, or store my bike in my office overnight 🏢 and catch the shuttle 🚀 to the Plaza if it’s an absolute downpour. Or work late until the rain stops. There’s always more work to do.
Quick evening hike up Bennett Hill 🏃
Figured burn off some calories from dinner. I do want to get home relatively early so I can put away my laundry and be asleep by nine so I can be up by five.
It’s been a good day. 🍏 Apple picking was fun with dad, I really need to cherish these moments. I’ve somewhat grown apart from my parents, I’m not them, and they have in many ways adopted the world view common in the elderly. They’re liberal but in a fixed, hardened kind of way. I’m more conservative but I also see both sides working in politics. Took home a ton of apples and tomatoes 🍅, lots of good eating. 😋 Forgot to get maple 🍁 syrup and I didn’t have room on the bike for eggs 🥚 or flour but I’ll stop on the way home on the bicycle 🚲.
They let me drop my cans 🥫 off for recycling ♻ in their ever so proud of trash service and after that my trash cans have a lot more room, much of it now is the shitter / compost bucket I store outside. I got groceries, 🛒 spend a lot of time outdoors hiking and thinking 💭. Mom was suggesting that I take the notary test and become a notary public. $60 for four years plus $15 for the test and I don’t know, maybe $25 for the stamp.📃 It’s another skill to have.
I see that Friday is the 13th which is silly but I’m a bit paranoid of that day 🙄 as it’s the one I got expelled from college 🎓 two decades ago now. All for a discussion of academic freedom. A lot has changed in two decades since I was a rebellious college student to these days as a pot smoking director. I’m thinking of remote working from Vermont that day 💚 but I sort of don’t want to be so far away from home lest something goes terribly wrong. 🏕 I’ve thought about working remotely and camping in the Green Mountain ⛰ National Forest from Thursday or Friday through Monday but it depends on the weather, how I feel and having good cell 📱 service. I’m sure Bennington has a nice library 📚 to work from.