I mean Dan Halloran wasn’t wrong. Sometimes you got to swim in the mud and muck in the Cesspool of New York State to pay for the days riding Blackie through the cow shit and horse manure of Schuyler County. Those ten days went by so quickly and I’m back in Albany with the rain falling down doing my morning. The first day back is always the hardest, especially on such a dreary day but those eighteen flights of stairs must be climbed even with the door to door service of the local.

Good morning! Monday’s come back around again. Time for the morning walk and that old John Prine record. And maybe Paul Simon. 🎶 Rain I know I’m shocked and 65 degrees for the morning walk in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 60 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 9 am.

Out walking this morning 🚶 in the rain like so many days lately back in the Albany. The weather was so unbelievably nice out in the Finger Lakes. 📻 But it also was nice camping 🏕 somewhere without cell service 🔕 and no radio – avoiding the shit known as the news, all bad and useless crap – and the even worse social media. I heard that Florida Man got indicted for even more felonies over the past week and might soon be subject to a protective order. Good for him and I do think his cases will ultimately for first amendment law ⚖ and restorative justice. I mean he will likely be the first felon ever to be a major presidential party candidate. 👩🏻‍⚖️Maybe he’s bad for our country but he’s a good force for it’s laws. Crises are often best the time for reform. I’m excited about some of the second amendment cases in front of the Supreme Court in the coming year. 🔫 Whatever you think it Florida man, be has been a voice for change in the justice system – many times unintentionally.

Not to be overally negative after vacation, but I know I wouldn’t return to Albany if I didn’t like playing in the shit of the Cesspool, 💩 and making that big boy money 💵 from my corner office that overlooks the Capitol, Empire State Plaza and also the Hudson River and Dunn landfill that is when the caustic smoke from the Canada wildfires doesn’t drown out the skyline. I mean I wouldn’t listen to Paul Simon’s Duncan if I didn’t like that song. Like so many things in this world. It’s so hard to get up and going after 10 days of pure delight out in the Finger Lakes. I wish I could live every day out in the woods, in the country. 🚜 But alas, I’m back in the city, back taking the local bus downtown to work. I know it’s going to be a great week, 😀 I have good healthy food to eat,

Today will have showers and thunderstorms before 10am, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 10am and noon, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after noon. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds and heavy rain. 🌧 High of 75 degrees at 4pm. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 8th. Maximum dew point of 71 at 3pm. 🏖️ Southeast wind 8 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New not rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. It became very sticky as the day progressed. The high last year was 91 degrees. The record high of 102 was set in 1918.

Pots of red kidney beans, brown rice with red lentils and split peas are cooking down this morning on the stove. 🧑‍🍳 Good carbs cooking down to be the basis of many meals this week. I double checked to make sure they were properly refrigerated or frozen and the stove off before leaving for work on the local bus 🚍. I was hoping to ride to work today 🚲 but the weather is not cooperating and I wasn’t running early enough to catch the express after all that cooking and breakfast to say nothing about the morning walk. Oatmeal pancakes 🥞 for breakfast with some chia seeds mixed in and topped with frozen peaches, strawberries, mango and whatever else was in the blend with a little sugar free maple syrup.

I ended up spending a shocking 🤯 $120 in food this week at Hannaford, I fully admit I should have gone to Wally World last night but I was tired and my pantry was bare. I did end up rugged getting a lot of things, many things like the 5 lb bag of brown rice should last a few weeks. They didn’t have store brand only 5 lb of Carolina brown rice but the price was reasonable for a bag that size. They also had non-fat plain Greek yogurt actually in stock at Hannaford so I ended up buying 2 large containers as it can be hard to get locally. Unopened Greek yogurt has a shelf life of about two months refrigerated and two years frozen, which I was reading how good it freezes. Not that it would ever last that long because that’s how I get my dairy fix 🐮 these days, though I try to eat in moderation st least when I’m not on vacation. 🍋 I also bought big bags of red and Vidalia onions 🧅and lemons because I enjoyed such things a lot on vacation. Both can be used in so many meals, plus I’m hooked on fresh squeezed stevia lemonade especially on a hot summer evenings. There is worse things to be hooked on.

I do wish I had stopped at that farm stand I passed in Chenango County to get zucchini and more sweet corn 🌽 🍆 but summer isn’t over and I should be able to get both at the farmers market at the Plaza this week. I forgot how wonderful zucchini I when I got some and chopped it up and fried it. I was tired 😴 and just kind of focused on getting home yesterday after vacation then stopping at farm stands. 🤷 I also would like to get more peaches 🍑 from the farm market, as they are so much better then the store-bought ones that are rock-hard and less tasty. Yesterday, I got plums 🫐 at the grocery store and they are pretty good. They are supposed to make your skin really shinny. Good after that sun tan I got last week. Trying to try new fruits when in season to learn new tastes, and maximize the health benefits of variety. Changes it up from apples and bananas 🍌 🍏 every week, though I still keep both of them in my office and like to have those for snacking.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:02 pm with sun having an altitude of 63.9° from the due south horizon (-7° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.9 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:30 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (287°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (294°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:10 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 9 seconds with dusk around 8:40 pm, which is one minute and 18 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:20 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and thunderstorms 🌩 and temperatures around 73 degrees. The dew point will be 70 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 22 seconds over yesterday.

More rain quite possibly tonight. They’re calling for a chance of showers and thunderstorms to start out the evening, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 10pm. Some of the storms could produce gusty winds and heavy rain. 🌩 Cloudy, with a low around 68. South wind 9 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. 💦 I have to say I’m glad I’m not camping this week at least not in the Albany-area. 🏘 The Finger Lakes have been much drier then locally. I guess there isn’t much of a fire danger locally at this point. 🚒 But I’m still hopeful to get out for my evening walk 🚶‍♀️ after my dinner of salmon, rice, spinach, onions and any other thing that wets my appetite.  🐟 😋

That said, we do have more good weather to look forward to come this weekend. 😎 Saturday, a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 83. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Maximum dew point of 66 at 1pm. Sunday, 😂a chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 80. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Maximum dew point of 68 at 11am. Typical average high for the weekend is 83 degrees. Just kind of a chance of thunderstorms, but that’s to be expected on a summer weekend. The plans for the weekend are to be decided, but it seems so nice. 🦷 I have my dental cleaning on Friday, so I have to take off the first part of the morning for that but it could also be jumping off start to the weekend. Schoharie? Potholers? Adirondacks? So many options, though it seems like lately I’m always on the road burning up increasingly expensive gasoline. ⛽ If the forecast slides downhill, I’m thinking of doing some mountain biking in the Albany Pine Bush, and getting some watermelon at Market 32 🍉 which apparently is on sale this week. I do dig the sweetness of watermelon like that one I chomped on summer vacation.

Looking ahead, there are 2 weeks until World Mosquito Day 🐞 when the sun will be setting at 7:50 pm with dusk at 8:18 pm. On that day in 2022, we had hot weather partly sunny skies and temperatures between 88 and 70 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 82 degrees. We hit a record high of 98 back in 1916.

It’s already under six inch of dirt in the Rennselear Landfill

And all I can taste and smell this evening is like smoldering garbage in a burning barrel. That kind of yuck.

This morning I started out my day trying to recover whatever historical documents I could from John Wolcott’s house which was severely burned and roof collapsed after a Sunday evening fire that jumped from a neighboring house, turning John’s archives in his attic into a raging inferno and leading to an emergency demolition at noontime today when the big diesel trucks lined up on Sheridan Street waiting to haul away the pulverized remains of 344 and 346 Sheridan Avenue rapidly removed by Di’Tonnonio and Sons’ Excavator. Another Dutch building pulverized with all its contents and covered with dirt at the Dunn Landfill in Rennselear.

I think we recovered a lot. Most of John’s files I had been going through over the past five years were saved, as much of the water damage occurred in other parts of the house. The Fort Orange and DASNY files were safe. Certainly the best of it wasn’t soaked. All the stuff upstairs was lost, as the fire was fed by decades of dry paper consisting of maps, photocopies, books and original research. Anything I hadn’t seen was lost and probably at this point with his failing memory is forever gone. That said, so much of it before the fire was faded photostat documents and with notes disjointed and memories faded its not clear how much was worth saving even before the fire. Even some of the fabled files that John Wolcott always talked about probably never existed or where just exaggerations of facts after talking with Jim Lafferty. It’s quite possible that the Democratic machine never wanted them found, although who really cares about the machinations of Dan O’Connell and Jim Coyne in 2020. Neither are likely to go to prison in the coming years even if they stole tax money and ran booze and prostitution rings more than a half century ago.

The city fire department retrieved a great deal of momentums that John and Linda had on their list to keep. Some of those boxes and books they hauled out where heavy with water. Very professional and caring. They also retrieved some of the files I had sorted, later on we were able to sneak in the back door and grab some more, along with a few other files that remain a mystery. The fire department grabbed the hard drive and computer so hopefully we can salvage the data off of that. Albany Historian and former Assemblyman John McEneny helped us salvage some materials and had some good ideas on how to save them. We are trying to dry what we can, they may take the papers to a freeze drier to salvage them. We stored them in a vacant apartment, they were going to figure out how to preserve later on.

One thing I couldn’t believe was the stink from the fire. I was prepared to go in the building, I knew it would be wet, smokey smelling. I wore old clothes, knowing that I would be covered with soot and ash by the time I had to leave – and planned to take a shower when I got home but I had no idea how pungent the smell would be, how I would track it home on my boots and my clothes. Despite taking a shower and washing my hands it’s still on them, it’s in my mouth and nose. Most just from handling documents and my brief run on doors to fetch more. It’s like everything had a sticky tar residue from the fire that reeked of smoldering plastic garbage. I wasn’t in the building more than five minutes and while I handled wet sooty boxes, I couldn’t believe how much rubbed off me.

Linda was very concerned about retrieving clothing and things like makeup from the building. That seemed so trivial to me when history was about to be forever pulverized and buried in the Dunn Landfill within a few hours. Her sister was very concerned about that but I couldn’t imagine even after washing you would want to wear any of the clothes. Certainly the fire department didn’t. Russell salvaged some of the bags of clothes but they were so wet and nasty. I thought it silly when there might have been more historical documents to save. Minutes before history lost, rather than trying to sneak in and save wet and terribly pungent clothing. Maybe it’s more salvageable then wet historical documents, and it’s better than it all going to the Rennselear Landfill this afternoon but nothing was historic or not easily purchased with money from the insurance settlement. Trying to save the new chair or chest freezer they had was pointless.

Truth be told, probably a lot more could have been salvaged from the landfill had we had a bit more time. The downstairs while water damaged especially in the back had very little fire damage. The first floor was in little risk of collapse even though the top floor was a mess. Probably in a rural or even suburban town the burned building would have sat for a while before demolition. And ultimately if labor was cheaper and material more expensive like 50 years ago, they could have saved the bottom floor while replacing the top. Assuming that they could get rid of that smell. It was so pungent! But today, the landfill is king, buildings are disposable, used for a few years to be thrown away like everything else.

They talk about all this green stuff and feel good recycling of tin cans and plastic bottles in front of every suburbanites house. But the truth is laid bare after a house fire when everything is pulverized and hauled to the landfill whether it was damaged by fire or water or not. Momentums are considered salvageable but nothing else is. Anything else you can remove is insurance fraud. And too risky, the building could collapse unexpected after the damage of the fire and water we are told. No time to seperate out the asbestos or the television or the vinyl records or the smokey, soaked rug or furniture before its buried in the landfill. The potent greenhouse gas HFC refrigerant in the refrigerator and air conditioner must be vented to the atmosphere as the building must come down, pulverized and be hauled to the landfill as soon as possible.

Maybe speed was of the essence and the building posed an immediate threat to public safety. The city engineer did and he understood better than any of us how a building could suddenly collapse. The building was old, the neighborhood had rapidly deteriorated since a drug rehab center had opened across the street. Gunfire rang out on the street minutes after I walked up it the last time I visited John to go through files. Plus the fire made everything stink so badly. Yuck. It would have been a job to restore such a mess. But in an era of greater material scarcity it probably would have happened. Probably not a lot of value at least on paper with today’s economy.

I’m just glad no one was hurt and we recovered a lot of important papers although certainly many others were lost. That house was a mess, it was full of papers and random junk. It inspired me to go on a purge of some of my own filing cabinets and discarding worn clothing so that I have less junk. Makes me even more resistant to getting more stuff. I didn’t grow up in the era before computers but I can’t imagine ever having nearly as much paper as Mr. Wolcott once had. If it’s important and I’m likely to use , scan it in. Otherwise, toss it. I know I won’t be saving nearly as much anytime random stuff in my future.