Interstate 90 and US 4 East Greenbush Round Abouts
They keep popping up on this busy corridor, keeping the cars a-moving.
Personal
Commerical 🏣
That’s how they are pushing the property I was looking at the other day but passing on it. I guess the road noise and small, dilapidated house and homestead lot puts people off and that they want it as a cash deal as is with no info on the septic or electric. But who is going to build a business way out in the country, where folks don’t have much money? Greenville yes, but they’re mostly chain businesses.
So yes, I’m still ruminating over that property next to my parents house 🏚 that I wish would get sold so I could put it out of it’s misery in my mind. I’m not going to move out to country, I don’t really want to settle down and homestead, be feeding and dealing with sick goats and hogs. 🐷 🐐 I still want to travel and spend my weekends in the wilderness, 🔨 not mowing lawns or hammering boards. But at one level it does seem so perfect, not having to pay rent and have fresh veggies and healthy meats without all that plastic crap. But how much longer will New York be my home? It depends on how work goes, how the elections go, and if I’m truly certain on retiring in 13 1/2 years when I’m 55. I don’t know.
I was up and going fairly early this morning, 🌅 though around 6 AM it started to pour out but stopped in time for me to ride in. 🌧 I can’t say how truly enjoyabe I find it to bike to work, 🚲 it’s a really nice commute through the Normans Kill Gorge and then along the river. Riding through the Projects and under Interstate 787 isn’t quite so nice, but it’s part of the trip and beats driving or taking the bus. 🚌 Truth is probably if I didn’t get the damn bicycle and was more used to automobile commuting, I’d find myself in a totally different place with that homestead. Cool but cleared out today, weather got better as things went by. 👃 🚽 The sewage treatment plant next to the office today though is a bit stinky. That strong north wind should hel with the evening commute.
Really my thing now is to get out and spend as much time traveling and exploring 🏕 if I’m not going to be building that homestead right away. I want to be able to get out and see things while I’m still young. Maybe not Paris or Rome like in Europe, but maybe hick towns with similiar names. 🤠 I’ve been thinking about this fall going down to the Warren National Forest and maybe next summer heading out west for a week, especially if I get a new truck. 🛻 I figure this year though gas prices ⛽ are relatively low and I should maximize my use out of Big Red as much as possible, especially as he’s running good, despite the rust meaning things are falling off in big hunks now.
Wednesday I think I’m heading up to the Piseco-Powley again, ⭕ for three nights and the Independence holiday, and the forth night I’ll either camp somewhere else at a different site, maybe Stewart Landing, Rockwood State Forest or Spectulator. I’m undecided. I have options. I can only stay three nights in one campsite, 🏕 plus my e-Books on libby expire if I don’t have any cellphone 📱 service for more then two nights, plus data requests could come in for work. 💽
It could have been mine 🏚️
I keep telling myself that. And it’s probably not too late, though I have so many questions on my mind and I’m not sure if I’m ready to give up so much of my life to dedicate to a fixer upper and homesteading.
It’s a path not taken 🏞 one of many I’ve chosen to skip in my life. Do too often I take the easy way out? Probably yes, but also I see myself 13 ½ years out from age 55 when I can early retire and have time for projects like this in a community I actually love. 13 ½ years to accumulate market growth and save the each week.
Truth is the more I look the more I see problems. 🌾 Even that hayfield it comes with is choked with milkweed and probably saplings as apparently it hasn’t been harvested since the eviction a few years back. My friend from high school who used to harvest it must have heard I’ve been looking at the property as she keeps popping up in my Facebook feed. I’m sure she’d like access to the land again. And the foundation issues and potential bad well and septic worry me. Probably though for the $150k plus another $50k in repairs – I’m just assuming the leach field is bad and the well is crap and foundation needs a bunch of tearing up – it would be a pretty good homestead. And my current apartment is such a dump. But I want to still travel and not put so much time and money into the homestead right now. And the pasture is full of trash – overgrown with brush and the old farm dump despite what the agent claims is still full of tin cans and glass and other partially burnt garbage.
I’ve just been keeping busy. 🌸 I enjoyed the ride from East Greenbush to Nassau and back again. Thacher Park was nice yesterday as is watching the sun set from Kooning Hill and Holt Preserve tonight. 📚 Before bed I need to check out the remaining seven books I have in my queue for Hoopla before my 10 June borrows expire for the month. Then I’ll have a bunch to read and listen to through the third week of July – at least the start of vacation when I can then get additional titles – truth is I get ten more titles for three weeks starting July 1st but I like to save new borrows for later in the month.
Got socks 🧦 and two more pairs of shorts at Wally World 🛒 besides groceries and sparklers. 🎇 I realized that I might want to get the propane filled before four more nights of camping 🏕. I still am not fully decided between Vermont – Forest 71 Somerset Airfield and going back to Piseco-Powley. I do like the Potholers and it’s going to be warm but the National Forest I can stay for four nights in one campsite but I’m going to need to get ice 🧊 midweek regardless. Plus I want to get pot this week to smoke 🚬 and I know your not supposed to do that in the National Forest or bring it across state lines.
After a hot and humid summers day it cooled down a lot 🌇 and I’m up here alone watching the sun set from Bennett Hill and the Holt Preserve. My old neighborhood is nice but it doesn’t give me that feeling of the deep rural country I often travel too. 🐮 The hills and hollows aren’t as big, the houses 🏘 too close together. I mean that homestead is close to the highway and an easy commute to the office in Menands but it would be noisy on summer nights with trucks roaring down the hill with their Jake brakes roaring. 🚚 I mean someday I do want to have a place to call home and homestead but I still want to travel and explore while I’m still young 🧒.
Dinner was nice with the folks 🍠🐷🍍, grilled ham, pineapple and sweet potatoes. It’s good to spend time with them as you know it might be the last time you see them. So many times in your forties you say goodbye until next week and that week never comes. I don’t belabor all who I know are lost from this pineapple.
At any rate, 🌇 there are some nice places to watch the sunset now from Holt Preserve now that they cut some trees 🪓 and built some benches. It’s getting dark now and I got to get home and unpack my wash and bike.
Could have David Soares Run as a Conservative or Republican?
After the election is done, it’s pretty obvious how much both the Working Families and Democratic parties wanted him gone. His far-right ideology, criticizing criminal justice reforms — that clearly are working — served neither well and his positions were not that of most Democrats much less Working Families Party members.
That said, Soares positions were politically popular with the general electorate, and especially with police and prosecutors and the conservative party which wholeheartingly has backed rolling back criminal justice reforms, to a time when criminal defendants were kept in the dark about the evidence against them, when people charged with minor non-violent crimes often spent months if not years behind bars because of high bail levels levied against them.
Should have run as a conservative and maybe a Republican …
If Soares asked for it, he could have most certainly gotten the conservative line, as the police unions generally control that in Upstate New York. Even the Republicans would have wholeheartingly adopted him, as they would love to keep him in office as a leading proponent of rolling back criminal justice reform and serving as a symbol of Democrats being soft-on-crime. Better yet, if he had publically endorsed Donald Trump, it’s certain that both state GOP dollars and Trump’s campaign dollars would have come flowing in to bolster his campaign.
Donald Trump could have found much use in David Soares. He would instantly become one of the nations’ leading black prosecutors who changed parties in defense of the former President. Soares, if he chosen to go on television railing against the “fake charges” brought against Trump would have gotten national attention, especially as his peer is the Manhattan DA who brought such charges and successfully convicted Trump of dozens of non-violent felonies.
Could a Trump-backed DA won the mostly liberal Albany County?
Possibly with enough cash, the continued backing of a sizable part of the black and brown population in the city — some certainly fed up with crime and wanting a tough on crime perspective in the DA’s office. Plus, while in the minority, there are still a lot of conservatives and Republicans in the county especially in the more rural and suburban parts of the towns. Wealthy people fear crime too, especially stealing of the color televisions. That said, it it still would have been a tough row to hoe, as Albany County is pretty liberal, and probably not all embracing of liberal policies.
Muggy this morning 🥵
Last night I started to feel the humidity push in. Now I am really feeling it as things warmed up, and for a while was really sunny and hot — early on — before the thunderstorm came rolling through. Dew point is 73 degrees, which you barely have to move to start sweating this morning. It was hot last night too. I should get out a fan. Or better yet hop in my air coniditoned truck and start driving out to Rensselear County to ride and go to Walmart.
I was hoping to head out to Rensselear before the rain and thunderstorms came rolling through 🌩 but I’m not sure that’s going to happen as it looks like it’s already getting pretty stormy out. ⛈ I was thinking I would hop on the Albany-Hudson Electric Trail from US 4 Parking Lot 🅿️ in North Greenbush 🚲 to Nassau and go for a ride before shopping at Wally World on Third Street 🛒 both for groceries, but also I want to get some more sparklers 🎇 and maybe another set of shorts. 🩳 When I ride out to Nassau, there is an ice cream parlor right on the rail trail, 🍨 and I think by mid-morning they will likely be open. Didn’t go to Jim’s Tastefreeze on Friday as I was responsible so you know what’s on my mind. 💭
Yesterday morning I went out to Thacher Park for a while on the Nature Bus. 🚌 Didn’t stay a long time, caught the 1 PM back home because it was starting to rain out and didn’t want to get stuck at the park in the pouring rain, especially as it was kind of cool and breezy out and I only had a t-shirt on under the rain coat. Also didn’t ride home, though I certainly could have as the rain didn’t pick up until later on in the day.
As it was either raining or had a constant threat, 📚 I spent most of the afternoon at home. 🍵 Made a big container of rice with lentils and chickpeas for lunch and dinner. I was doing a deep dive into a book about modern javascript — I am trying to master promises, async and React. I’ve known Javascript for decades now 👨💻 but I struggle with the modern concepts. A lot has changed in recent years, mostly for the better, but some of the new concepts are non-obvious for me. 🤷♂️
My guide to using R Studio with the State Voter File kind of fell like a dead balloon 🎈 🗳 when I showed it off to the other directors. I am sure they didn’t love the fact I wrote it without asking permission first, or pitching the idea, but I didn’t know how to pitch it without putting it on paper first. 🖨 As one pointed out — what hell is this — it makes my head hurt. 🤯 Truth is programming is complicated, though R doesn’t seem that complicated but then again I use it every day, and what seems simple and logical to me, especially compared to C programming, isn’t really that simple for those unfamiliar. Even if I learned R in a hammock over Labor Day a few years back and it wasn’t hard — I’ve had decades of programming experience. 📃
It’s still good to have it documented, if only for my own use, as I’m sure I’ll be asked to do the common tasks like coalescing columns and householding addresses for work and elsewheres. Some of it I had to learn or refine my skills while writing documentation. And if ultimately it gets no use at work, I’ll uses bits and pieces for blog posts, removing any specific references to work computers. 🍬 I bet people would like to know how to to household address lists using R or more examples of using coalescing with the Board of Elections files. They’re lost your gain. 🤣 At least I got an invite to the War Room in two weeks out of it so I can pitch it again in person. 💻 Maybe I got to sit people down in front of computers and show them why it’s superior to doing everything in Excel.
Been studying cannabis 🚬, trying to determine what I should buy. There is a dispensary up the road from where I work and while I haven’t smoked pot in years, I was thinking it would be fun over the forth of July holiday to get a bit stoned, preferably while floating in the tube ⭕ down the East Canada Creek or wherever I decide to go. I could go to Vermont, but I don’t think your supposed to bring pot across the state lines or even smoke it on federal lands. State lands in New York. Whatever. 🤣 I don’t want to make it habit but if could be a lot of fun for the long weekend, especially if I don’t have to drive anywhere and are just floating down the river looking at the clouds in the sky. 😎
Thinking Wednesday at 2 PM I’ll be heading up to Piseco-Powley. 🏊♀️ 🏕 I don’t have a camping permit for all four days, but maybe if I run into or can flag down a passing Forest Ranger I can ask for a permit, 🎫 or I could end my weekend up in Spectulator or maybe down at Stewart Landing – Lily Lake. Hammock kayak camping would be fun. 🛶 Another issue with Piseco-Powley is I’m going to have to leave mid-weekend at any rate, as the ice in that heat 🧊 certainly isn’t going to hold through Sunday if I leave on Wednesday, and pack that morning. I can probably get ice at the Stratford General Store but there is always a possibility I’ll have to go to Stewarts in Dolgeville, but then again that’s a not a bad thing as I can go to Green Acres 🍦 for Ice Cream.
Blog traffic was good this past month, 💵 it brought in $127 in revenue not including today, plus the $79.70 that I have from last month, so I should be getting a roughly $210 check from Google Ad Services about the time my summer vacation starts. I am happy about that. I still need to figure out when I will be taking my vacation 🏝, probably the second or last week of July and also get my truck serviced 👩🔧 before then. The exact week depends a bit on when I have staff coverage in my office, what lists I need to run, the weather and which weeks the Watkins Glen track will be open, as I want to avoid Watkins Glen on those weeks.
Looking Down at Albany from Wolf Hill
For a long time I've wanted to do a summer evening hike up on Wolf Hill. A few weeks back, I did such a hike and it was nice although maybe not quite as wonderful as I had in my imagination.
Taken on Sunday June 13, 2021 at Notes.