That’s how I kind of feel this morning after a marathon session of the Guilderland Planning Board that pushed well into the night, getting home and into bed around 11 PM. I tried to sleep in until 6 AM and then the sun came up.

You know these endless public meetings🧑‍⚖️ can be quite frustrating at times, noting you’re not moving the needle 🪡 much even when you are because the developers continue to offer more consessions and the planning board members get defensive and act worried. Pressure works, even if the results aren’t exactly what you want. Sometimes just showing up and being a constant pressure helps. Still it was such a long night last night.

Cooking down apple 🍏 pancakes 🥞 as some of the cheap apples I got from Wally World were getting soft and mushy and I like the sweet flavor to start out the day, and it’s a way to get a bunch of fiber in the system 🥕 to start out the day. ☕ The peanut butter banana coffee flavor of the month was quickly gone, but the new flavor Holy Moly is pretty good caramel flavored coffee so I am not complaining, and this one is better hot rathe then iced. Got through another district on AD update, it’s just those last very rural districts are challenging to process. I was hoping to close this down this week, but it doesn’t seem likely to happen.

At least I can ride the bike to work 🚲 and it should be a pretty pleasant morning. ☀️ Sun is out and it’s not too cold, I actually rushed to open the windows as I turned the grittle up a bit too high this morning, and it started to smoke. Tonight I want to wash the truck 🛻, hoping it will fit in drive-through wash before the spray in bed liner gets put in. I said I would drop the truck off around 8 AM at ADK Off Road, so it will be an early day probably fighting traffic on the way up to the shop. Then I have to ride a mile down Central Avenue on my mountain bike 🚴or push the bike on sidewalk if that’s too crazy 🤪 and catch the 905 bus 🚐 downtown then ride over to the Enterprise next to old city garbage dump and sewage treatment plant. Then leave work early – probably around 4 PM – to pick the truck up before they close in the afternoon at 6 PM. Worse come to worse they are open on Saturday, but I think it’s better to go up there and pick it up in afternoon. Glad to get the bedliner put in, hopefully they’ll do a good job, and then it’s just waiting for the truck cap.

I tell you listening to the developers and business owners speaking in front of Planning Boards 👥 you learn a lot about the give and take of the boards, who wins and looses mostly by how calm and collected developers are and how others aren’t. Planning Boards spend endless hours on the aesthetics of buildings, and really trivial things, while it seems like we are pushing for things that really matter, 🦋 like saving the remaining Pine Bush from development. 🌲 It’s a tough fight, but it always has been to go up against developers who are fighting for big bucks. It also makes me think a lot about the permitting challenges to build that off-grid cabin, 🏡 though I think buying a pre-built structure is almost always a lot easier and cheaper. And you go rural enough, with the kind of freedoms I want, there is a lot less permitting and regulation then a liberal suburb in Upstate NY, where they are very concerned about the color vinyl and commercial nursery tree plantation they stick next to the Wally’s Car Wash and Grease Pit sign.

Honestly after a long night like last night 😴 I just want to get up to the woods away from all this crap. I have SuperDuty now, getting the bed liner sprayed then just waiting for the truck cap, and some time to at least wire up the solar and batteries for power. Those days will be here before you know it, Andy Ruth seemed to think the cap will arrive by late May, and people are already talking June being around the corner. I keep studying the secondary engine idle speed control system and the upfitter switches on the SuperDuty, I need to get a trim puller and start to explore maybe as soon as this weekend. And I still need to order the PA Speaker and CB antenna mount for the truck.