It so dark at 5:40 AM this morning with autumn rapidly approaching. I will be finishing up packing for the weekend in the darkness tomorrow, but it’s fine as I have to be to Speculator by 9 AM to work tomorrow, probably setting up camp mid-day. Some Grateful Dead, then a quick shower, and it’s on the bike to Menands until I have to head downtown for meetings.

Last night I rode out to Five Rivers 🐸 after work. With darkness coming earlier and earlier each night with autumn approaching, 🍂 I know there won’t be much of a chance to ride 🚲 out there after this week due to the sunset coming earlier and earlier. I should be able to ride home through the end of October when the time changes, but there won’t be enough time to ride after dark. Though maybe I can still ride down to the park for a week or two into September.  🏞

Stopped at Northern Lights Cannabis Dispensery and got some Strawberry Runtz 🍓 for the long weekend. I actually still have some Tropical Skittlez left, but I didn’t want to run out during Labor Day Weekend up north. ☺ Sooner or later I am going to decide what strain I actually like, and just get a pipe and a 3.5 gram container to save money, but pre-roll, which people used to call blunts, but there are 800 different cultivars of pot out there, and it’s worthwhile to try a bunch to see what really gets one in the place you want to get. It’s funny I posted a picture of me visiting Northern Lights on the Facebook, and got the usual range of opinions about smoking pot. I certainly have those straight-laced Christian friends who think I’ve crossed over to darkness smoking the devil’s weed, and now it’s only one step to madness and homelessness. 🤪 God bless his soul listening to the Grateful Dead stone in the wilderness. 🎸 🔥 And those who are redneck hog-raising trailer-living pot smokers, 🐷 who probably think it’s groovy, especially as they saw me as super straight listening to Peter, Paul and Mary and not smoking more of the Jane. 🪕 The smell of kerosene, hog shit, grain and marijuana in the morning! Now that’s a pungent combination! 😤

Rode downtown yesterday and got some produce at the Farmer’s Market to hold me over until Friday when I visit Samdills. 🍆 Just ended up getting some zucchuni and mushrooms, but I do wish I hadn’t passed on the peaches, which are so good. It’s too bad, they would have been good during the weekend. 🍑 I’m an idiot, what can I say. Visited with and caught up with people in the Capitol to hear the latest of what is going downtown. 🏢 Riding down the hill from Capitol Hill is much more fun then riding up the hill.

The weekend has somewhat improved, 🌧️ but Saturday might still be wet but Sunday looks pretty good, and I might spend that day wandering back in the West Canada Wilderness. 🌲I am thinking possibly about riding to the end of Jessup River Road and hiking back to Spruce Lake or Little Moose Pond on Sunday. Saturday looks to be crap for the firetower lighting, 🗼and it might be good day to just hang out in camp, 🏕 reading 📖 and watching YouTube on the phone, 📹 and maybe catching up some work  for the campaign committee that probably should have been done earlier in the week but I was too busy riding my bike, reading and thinking at Five Rivers and Bender Mellon Farms. 🍈 I’m not planning to visit the magic dragon 🐲 until the evening around the campfire. 🔥 Especially if there is a chance to enjoy the fire tower lighting from Speculator.

Going to try to get into the office 🏢 pretty early this morning, as I need to get as much done as possible today, as while I’m working tomorrow from camp, it’s best to cross things off the list 📃 as I have Zoom Meetings and the robo dialer to run tomorrow. Plus I keep volunteering myself for new projects, as I hate downtime in the office, I always want to expand the targeting 🎯 and analysis capacity of my office, writing new code and developing new concepts. I was actually looking a bit on SUNY Schenectady’s Computer  Bootcamp programs, 🖥  kind of expensive at $12k and I think I already have many of those skills, but it sure would be nice to have some more computer skills learned in a format way and something I could point to on my resume.

Truth is though that I don’t really have the time for such things 🕒 plus I feel like I’m more of an advanced programmer then what I would learn in such classes. I feel like I have enough skills and knowledge, I could teach a class in C, R, Python and maybe PHP – – though I’ve not always kept up with the latest developments in PHP. Plus I do so much MySQL with my job and writing little Unix shell 🐚 programs with AWK, sed, etc. I actually have been studying the books that inherited when I took over as the Director of Data Services for NY Assembly. And that alone is a pretty cool sounding title, even if that won’t lead me to my career after my current one ends or when I actually build that homestead in a place where I actually want to live and not the dumpy apartment in the suburbs of the Albany.