Day: July 27, 2026💾

Doesn’t make sense ot leave before Thursday with rain coming, and I’ll be riding my bike to work today and busing it for Tuesday and Wednesday, but I plan to set the SuperDuty to fire up at 6:40 AM, get bacon and gas at 7 AM and hit the Warren Anderson shortly thereafter.

Hoping for a nice vacation 🏖️ not too crazy but very relaxed and laid back. Lately I’ve been very low energy, probably it’s the dog days of summer. While I brought my mountain bike 🚴 and tube ⭕, I couldn’t be bothered to reassemble them or inflate the tube when I was out in Schoharie but I will take advantage of both when I’m out in the Finger Lakes. Kayak too. 🛶 Think I have most of the technical issues worked out with batteries and camping in the truck, 🪫 I’ll make sure to bring electrical tools – and extra spokes and the chain puller for my bike – to avoid any unforseen issues. Not going to beat the bike doing too much hard pasture riding. It’s just better to ride the gravel roads, and then when I get to pastures, just walk and have the cows approach me. 🐮 With a big grin on my face. ☺️

It was a nice weekend, with a few issues with equipment – discovered a loose wire on the Xy-cd60 control box – but other then that it worked well. The F-350 rides heavy on the rough Betty Brook Road, but it’s a very solid ride, and except for the one really deep mud wallow I drove through, I never felt like I needed 4×4, though I definately took advantage of Hill Descent Control. It’s kind of fun to look out the mirror and be crawling down the hill, with your foot off the brake, but the brake lights are on. Obviously, but still it’ s kind of nice.  ⛽ I do love the SuperDuty, maybe not so much the fuel economy, the lifelong economy averaging maybe a notch over 13 1/2 miles per gallon. I was worried gas prices would surge before summer vacation, but it seems like at least for today, $100 a barrel oil spooked the President, and he’s pausing his foolish war in Iran. Who know if we’ll be at war in two weeks, but I’m hoping gas prices will remain the same or slightly decline by Thursday, I can gas up the SuperDuty in Rotterdam and mostly make it through vacation on a full 34-gallon tank.

Maybe the truck is fuelish,  but I tell you, the SuperDuty has so much power that it really quite boring to drive on Interstate 88, 🛻 as it drones along at a constant 64 MPH or 67 MPH with basically no gear shifting or change in speed or velocity as it climbs up and down the mountains. No roar of a struggling engine, even going down steeper hills, there is enough vacuum to engine brake without much trouble. I like not having to downshift on the big hills – generally the engine has enough vaccum and I’ve noticed the longer you descend a hill with the brakes on – the more it automatically downshifts for you. And the brakes are rock solid at the bottom of hills, no brake stink. I am sure it would be different if I was towing a heavy load, but an F-350 has plenty of capacity for my needs.

During my weekend trip to Schoharie one of the wires came loose from the Xy-cd60 voltage sensetive relay control box, ⚡ and I couldn’t fix it until I got home last night as I left my jeweler screwdriver home. For some reason, being tired, I struggled and even ended up touching a hot to a ground making a big spark, but eventually I got things “fixed”. Swore a bit, yell fuck and nigger and whatever other obsensities I like being the knuckle dragging racist I am. I like obscenity, and it’s hard getting back to the city with all the backfiring cars, noisy motorcycles and kids screaming. 🔕 What I probably need is a wire ferrules and wire ferrule tool 🪛 to get them in tight permently. Maybe that’s a fix for after vacation. It’s working again though, and I am just waiting for the replacement volt meter display to wire up, I have the wires ready, and should be able to plug that in tonight. Also going to move over the old dash cam to the new truck today, that’s just plug and play, I have double sided sticky tape to put in the windshield, and then I’ll just use a bit of that tape to tack the USB cable along the edge of the windshield.

Riding the mountain bike to work today,  🚵‍♂️ rain the next two days so I’ll probably bus it work. 🚍 The bus pass works pretty good, 🪪 and it’s easy especially if I get the earlier bus home. Not looking forward to packing the truck in the pouring rain on Wednesday night, but maybe it will lighten up 🌧️ and I can do much of the packing inside, and just run outside as little as possible. But first I need to shower, get on the bike, and peddle to work. Have a good one.