Personal

Twenty five miles per hour

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That’s the new speed limit on Albany streets not posted elsewise such as Washington Avenue Extension or NY 85 Arterial or Interstate 787.

It’s a 20% reduction in speed compared to the old 30 mph limit and statistics show that pedestrian and bicycle crashes with cars is significantly less fatal than at the old limit. Few pedestrians live when hit at 35 mph, most survive a 25 mph crash. The lower speed also reduces stopping times, helping to avoid collisions all together.

The thing is in a city, people aren’t going very far and from a time perspective driving at 25 mph versus 30 mph isn’t much of a difference because the time spent at stoplights is vastly more. And I urban areas, automobile driving should be shunned in favor of walking, bicycling and taking public transit. Parking is too difficult in dense urban areas as are the wide lanes needed for operating private automobiles.

I get that driving at 25 mph will on some roads feel annoyingly slow even if it has little of a factor on the time of arrival for motorists. For example, the access roads along Interstate 787 or even Erie Boulevard on those days I end up driving in. But it will have a negligible effect on actual time. I can set the cruise at 25 mph so not to worry about speeding.

Generally, I believe in higher speed limits on open highways where appropriate. Wide and straight roads should have a higher limit. But in dense urban areas where there are lots of pedestrians and bicyclists, and people are not going long distances the 25 limit makes a lot of sense.

Ran out of propane this morning 🍳

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Campfire breakfast it was. I probably would have skipped the hot breakfast all together had my coffee and eggs not been mostly already cooked to start out. Campfire breakfasts are good and it’s been 11 nights camping since I filled my tank prior to Juneteeth weekend.

Eggs, coffee, fried onion, zucchini,  mushrooms and sweet corn for breakfast. 🍳 Good stuff as was the coffee ☕ this morning. No campfire 🔥 last night but I did gather some sticks and have a little fire this morning. I’m in no rush to take down camp 🏕 though I probably should be as I want to have time to hit up Shauls again 🍆, cool off in the Schoharie Creek 🏊, go to the car show 🚗 at the Blenheim Pump Storage Power Plant and then Mine Kill before heading out to the folks house 👪 at 4 pm.

Been a nice weekend. ☺ I kind of was hoping to camp at West Kill site for reasons of convenience but Betty Brook was nice too. A week and a half from now I’ll be heading out to the Finger Lakes. Probably the thing that excites me the most is all the fresh produce. 🍅 A good fresh tomato is so mouth 👄 watering. Paddling and floating on Seneca Lake, Glen Dairy Bar 🍦and watching the sun set across Seneca Lake. 🍹I finished off the remainder of the pre-roll 🚬 that I’ve been enjoying since before Independence Day Weekend, I look forward to smoking some more once I’m out in the Finger Lakes.

I know cannabis isn’t allowed on federal lands but whatever, I’ll keep it locked up and I’ll be in the back country and I’ve never seen any federal rangers 👮 back there. Maybe a DEC Conservation Officer and a Schuyler County sheriff officer drove by during the Government shutdown in 2013 or on a Friday night to look for teenagers partying and trashing the place, but I’d doubt they care about a little smoke. I’m sure they’d be cool as long as I’m not trashing the forest 🌲 and it’s not like I’m going to be making a lot of noise or trouble. It’s just nice to relax by the fire 🔥 and puff a bit. I do want to get an odor free pouch for storing the cannabis which is pungent when opened. 👃 It’s kind of like silage, the smell gets everywhere.

Going to be a hot one today 😰 though supposedly less humid. But the heat is going to break by the second half of week, and maybe some rain showers. 🌧️ Next weekend I could hammock camp but a down weekend might be good before summer vacation. No nature bus 🚍 to Thacher Park next week as it was this weekend but it’s not like I couldn’t drive there or do something else local. I want to get a few supplies prior to summer vacation – new handle grips and a bolt on kick stand for the bike 🚲, new globe for the lantern (as a backup) 🏮 and a 512 gb storage card for my phone 📱 so I have plenty of storage 💾 for photos. 📸 And obviously fill my empty propane tank which then should be good for the week. Hoping the hot and sunny weather returns for summer vacation.

I’m still kicking myself for not bringing the tube 🛟 as I found several good pools in the Schoharie Creek for floating but maybe I’ll be back to Schoharie in mid to late August before summer is done. But that said there aren’t that many weeks of summer left before September as Labor Day is fairly early and the first weekend of August I’ll still be out in the Finger Lakes. 🏕 September cools off and I’d still like to get to Piseco Powley one more time this year – maybe if I go to the Little Falls cheese 🧀 festival in September but it depends on the work load for the campaign committee.

Stoner culture 😁

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We all know pot heads. Super cool, relaxed people, laid back many who make cannabis their ideology with flags and proudly displayed psychedelic paraphanalia.

I get how the ideology grows upon them, though I’m not convinced that it’s due to the drug rewiring their brains. As much as cannabis makes you relaxed when you are high, I think people seek cannabis out and the lifestyle to be cool and relaxed. Cannabis doesn’t make you love Jimmy Buffet but loving Jimmy Buffet lifestyle might just make you love the intoxicating plant.

I think some of stoner culture comes out of the idea that for a long time cannabis was illegal and that you had to go underground to get it. It’s also in many ways an exaggeration of the stoned experience – colors in stoner psychedelic artwork are far more vivid than the enhancement one gets being high. Maybe it is propaganda for pot.

Heavy use over time probably rewires the brain. But probably not to the degree of popular culture makes it out to be. The cannabis doesn’t make people cool, or allow them to be so much more attuned to the world around them but people choose to smoke to be more attuned to the world around them.