Not as cold as those warning of the Cold Warning, aka Windchill Advisory warned us of with no wind and temperatures a few degrees above zero, but I’m not saying it’s a warm winter day at 6 degrees and sun soon to ride but it could be worse.
Happy Weekend on this last day of January. 🗓️ I can’t believe it’s been a month since I’ve retired Red, spending most of it trying to legitimatize in my mind buying a Godzilla engine as blown engines are so bad. 🛻 And hearing from so many people that I am a poor desperate individual not owning a car. I mean how can you go for a drive to the Shopping Maul, located next to City Garbage Dump to buy more plastic? It’s so cold out there in January, how can you ever consider riding your bike to the store, you sad desperate individual? At least the past few days the Homeless Bums weren’t harassing me 👣 as I walked my laps in the Plaza. Beats walking outside. Yesterday, they had bomb sniffing dogs 🐕 walking the Plaza, sniffing the trash can. Must be because I tossed a plastic milk jug in one of those bins for recycling on my way over shuttle earlier in the week. Getting good at finding random public trash and recycling bins ♻️ for little bags of trash, though maybe at this point I should just save the crap for spring time when I can haul to the transfer station or save the paper, as I have been, for fire starting. 🔥
I am thinking I’ll probably head out fairly early to Walmart this morning. 🛒 Might do Hannaford tomorrow morning for anything I didnt’ get a Walmart as I don’t want to overload my bicycle. It’s cold but not as cold out as I expected this morning. I think I’ll try wearing nitrile gloves 🧤 under my winter gloves to see if it will help with the frozen fingers. I’ve heard nitrile gloves while locking the sweat in also really keep your fingers from loosing heat through the gloves. It’s been basically a week since I since last got out to ride, though I’m hoping to ride a lot more this upcoming week to work as the weather moderates, though by Corning Hill. Once the snow is done I can do both ways, and no more busing, which will be nice. I’ll want to grease the chain up well before I head out to Walmart. Probably do Bender Road over to Walmart, that is quite way of going, though I’m undecided if I will take the bypass or the suburbanite subdivisions back to it. 💭 Not sure, I kind of like the quiet way of going there. I thought it was supposed to be sunny out today, but it seems fairly cloudy as the sun rises. 📚 When I get back home, I’ll probably spend the afternoon reading and studying probably more about trucks, I got to get out my Hoopla Borrows for January by end of the day, so I can read them through the first three weeks of February. Always seems to happen like that. I should spread out my borrows through the month.
While for some time I’ve been looking at the Ford Inventory locator, a few of local dealerships and some of the third party sites at SuperDuty trucks, 🛻 I’ve now started to study dealership websites from within about a 150 mile radius to see what inventory is avaliable and which dealerships have the trucks I’m most interested in – the FX4 Off-Road Package, Extended Cab, Godzilla engine, base XL trim with a MSRP below $60k. I picked that number because I think I can make that deal work, and it’s expensive but reasonable with my income and savings, especially if I keep it for a 10-15 years and use it primarily recreationally. It’s werid how some dealerships seem to have a ton of trucks in that configuration, while others don’t have any Extended Cab models, only crew cabs, Lariats and stripper regular-cab work trucks, especially in the more suburban areas. 🤷♂️ There are a few I want to test drive at end of February at local dealerships on bus line, 🚌 but come March I see myself working the phones, getting quotes and ultimate a buyer’s agreement and getting a ride somewhere to take a delivery, Healey’s in Kingston and Don’s in Utica have a lot of trucks but also some of the rural dealerships have a few in the configuration I’m most interested in. I mean I could still buy a Toyota, as I do cringe on how much fuel a SuperDuty will use ⛽, but high fuel costs are good excuse to leave it parked with engine off. If I eventually need a commuter car, I’ll buy one of those 25-year old Honda Civics everybody say is amazing, and if it dies, I’ll get a ride home and drive the SuperDuty until I get it repaired or replaced with another clunker.
Starting applying for quotes to various insurers about getting a policy on a Ford SuperDuty 📄 🔍 but it’s proven a bit harder then I expected to apply online when you don’t have a vehicle currently you’re transferring the policy from and you don’t have new vehicle and are just trying to get an estimate based on general characteristics of the trucks you are looking at. Plus, a lot of default insurance policies are profitable for insurers and seem nice but are terrible rip-off. I want to do a minimum$1,000 comphrensive/collision deductable, because while I hate to piss away $1,000, it’s not that big of a loss these days and you save a fair bit by taking more of risk yourself – and it has psychological benefits knowing it will cost you if you smash things up. On the other hand, I really want to get a $250k/$500k /$500k liability policy or maybe more, to cover my ass, if it’s not too expensive. But a lot of “discount” insurers are trying to push you towards to the state minimum which I think is like $25k/$50k/$10k, which I guess is fine if you are on welfare and all they can take from you is your food stamps. No, I don’t want rental car coverage (if I have to rent a car to get home, I’ll eat the loss) , glass coverage (if more then $1,000 in glass is damaged then comphrensive covers it), lost wages or other insurance that is profitable for insurer but not for those paying for the coverage. You should only insure truly catestrophic losses. But people are like glass coverage is so nice if you get a stone through your windshield, as they replace it for free. But you’re still paying for it over time, after a few years, it’s just better to cut a check and write-off your bad luck as bad luck. Maybe I read too many personal finance books and know a thing or two about insurance works.
So yeah, I’ll probably end up buying a big assed Ford F-250 or F-350, 💰 but I want to be as responsible as I can be about the whole thing while being totally irresponsible and not buying that 20-year old Honda Civic. I want to get good insurance protection, while not insuring loses I can better pay out of pocket and keep the money if I never have a claim against my own bank account. And it’s not like I won’t get a lot of use out of SuperDuty – maybe not put a million miles on it as it will be expensive to fuel and drive – but a lot of use in sense of nights camped and traveled. I like driving to camp, safely parking it, then opening a beer and smoking some weed before riding and hiking from camp, no DUI laws or crashes to worry about. And just using my mountain bike around town. Well, I should get on my mountain bike and head to Walmart on this most frigid of mornings.