/**
 * file: journal_karbytes_27october2024.txt
 * type: plain-text
 * date: 27_OCTOBER_2024
 * author: karbytes
 * license: PUBLIC_DOMAIN
 */

The journal content featured below this paragraph was originally intended by its author to be appended to the web page featured at the following Uniform Resource Locator: https://karbytesforlifeblog.wordpress.com/journal_karbytes_26october2024/.

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This part of this note was drafted approximately three hours after I published this web page (and wrote the content on this web page which is above this paragraph). I wrote it while riding the BART trains from Dublin/Pleasanton back to Warm Springs (South Fremont) at approximately 9:00PM Pacific Standard Time.

Last night, after bicycling downhill from my residence in Castro Valley to the Castro Valley BART station and riding the BART trains to Warm Springs (in the hopes of going back to South Bay where my current preferred hang out spots are located), I noticed the front tire of my bicycle was partially deflated. When I attempted to ride the bicycle after I exited the Warm Springs BART station, I noticed the front tire squish down even further to the point that it seemed un-ride-able. I thought maybe someone intentionally punctured my tire by sticking a tiny thorn it it (which I found and pulled out at that location), but I also reasoned that the thorn could have been lodged into the tire entirely by accident as a result of riding over it on my way from my house to the Castro Valley BART station (though I do remember some “suspicious” events on my way out the door and my bicycle feeling a bit “squishy” as I started to leave my driveway (and by “suspicious” I mean my dad did not say anything when I said goodbye to him on my way out the door and I noticed several cars parked on the side of the road with people sitting in them with their headlights on as though waiting for me to pass by them and to signify to me that they were watching (though they could have been doing something unrelated to what I was doing))).

After I arrived at Warm Springs BART station last night, I walked with my bike all the way to Warm Springs trail next to Cushing Parkway (within a mile of where I used to work (which was the CXD5 Amazon warehouse)). I camped at a relatively serene and spacious place which smelled of the bay and where I could see the illuminated poles bordering the Topgolf arena and the rotating green beacon light on top of Hangar One at Moffett Field.

While I was sleeping I had a rather eventful and fun dream that I was some kind of low-key college student living on my own near some campus in a parallel universe which had similarities to where I was camping. There was some black guy slightly older than me (by approximately one decade) who appeared and disappeared just for the parts we went to some cannabis shop to buy some good bud to smoke and the shop owner (like the shop owner of Al’s Food Market in Castro Valley) forbid students from shopping there (but the black dude told me to use my schmoozing prowess to convince the shop owner that I was already a graduate so that I could get him and me some good “banana flavored” bud to smoke). We were successful at that. Then the dream morphed to me somehow entering a video-game-like component where I was able to ride my bike along some narrow road sparsely populated with industrial trucks (for transporting gravel and other large quantities of material) and that road apparently lead to a mysterious place called Newby Island (which is not-so-coincidentally the same name as the waste management area near where I was sleeping which resembles a small mountain in the middle of the baylands alongside Fremont Boulevard where the border between Milpitas and Fremont seems to be located).

I wanted to append this note because I honestly had (and still have) some “weird” feelings about what I said in this web page when I initially published it. In particular, I did not want to make a personal religion out of meditation nor did I want to promote it as an effective means to achieve anything (including what I professed it to accomplish). I only wrote that dialog between “karbytes_0” and “karbytes_1” to cope with the fact that I thought I was being bullied into having almost nothing to do except for meditate as a result of having my equipment tampered with and weekend plans thwarted. I’ll append this note once I get to a decent camping spot in Fremont, Milpitas, San Jose, or Sunnyvale.

(By the way, I had my bicycle tire repaired at the Dublin/Pleasanton REI and was recommended that I get some Armadillo tire tape which goes between the inner tube and the outer tire as an extra protection against thorns. I am a member of REI (which enables me to get discounts on bike service and which required me to pay only one membership fee for my entire lifetime). When I am closer to the Sunnyvale region and get tire flats, I tend to go to the REI near downtown Sunnyvale along El Camino Real (and last time I was there the mechanic kindly installed tires he did not want from his new bike onto my bike and which are superior to the tires my bike originally came with for no extra charge)).

* * *

It is approximately 10:30PM Pacific Standard Time on 26_OCTOBER_2024 (and approximately an hour and a half since I made the last update to this journal entry). I am now located in Milpitas along Coyote Creek trail approximately a quarter mile south of Newby Island. I felt the need to add some rather disconcerting factoids to this journal entry…

Within the past two weeks I submitted job applications to various Bay Area job openings at Amazon warehouses and had each of those applications rejected (which makes me think Amazon put me on some kind of “do not rehire” list). Within the past four weeks I submitted job applications at other places and got a rejection email approximately two weeks later. During that time I also started filling out a job application for a seasonal package handling job at United Parcel Service but did not complete that job application due to the fact that it required that I have some adult other than myself validate my identity and essentially grant me approval to apply for the job (which I did not feel comfortable doing).

I’m not sure what my financial situation will be long term, but I assume my short term financial situation (i.e. how I have been living during the past four years) will remain relatively stable. For the next three to four months, I’ll try not to worry too much about my employment status and keep focusing on my blog (which gives me comfort and enjoyment to continuously work on and review).

* * *

The “disembodied voices” reminded me that I “have it made” when I “don’t have to be anywhere on time.” I agree. In fact, I would say my life (given my current circumstances) is as close to paradise as I think is currently humanly possible. What is mainly stopping it from being absolutely perfect for me is the fact (and my knowledge of the fact) that there always exists at any future (or present) moment for things to go “disastrously wrong” according to my perspective. I would retort to that by saying that such is always the case for any sentient being; that life (or existence as a conscious being) is inherently stressful or, at the very least, not one hundred percent guaranteed to transpire exactly as such a being might prefer or expect it to.

* * *

It’s approximately 11:50PM Pacific Standard Time on 26_OCTOBER_2024 at the time this sentence is being originally written by karbytes (and I happen to now be located along the 237 freeway bordering San Jose and Santa Clara). I wanted to append this note with some thoughts I recently had (since I last appended this note) while bicycling.

thought_0: Imagine a future version of human civilization where only the sufficiently wealthy could afford to breathe clean air (by paying a monthly subscription for “premium air” air tanks) while everyone else is forced to inhale extremely polluted air to the extent that their life expectancy is no more than 40 years of age and most people (who are not able to afford “premium air” subscriptions or get special discounts or grants for them) die of respiratory illness or cancer caused by inhaling carcinogens for a prolonged period of time.

thought_1: My idea of a perfect civilization is one in which everyone lives for an infinitely long time and immune to physical injury (with the unconditional right to put themselves to sleep for as long of a period of time as they want to if they prefer not to be conscious (and even to assign someone who is conscious to keep extending that period indefinitely in the case of the indefinitely unconscious person preferring to be as close to dead as what is possible in that universe)) and where everyone is granted full and unconditional access to inhabiting and participating in a utopian civilization except for cases in which a person commits serious crimes which amount to preventing other people from enjoying utopia (and ensuring that person endures a minimum sentence in prison but is allowed after that to re-enter civilization with full rights to utopia and participation in utopia reinstated as soon as that person demonstrates reformed behavior (which means that person gets to choose how long it stays in prison after the minimum sentence is completed)) and each time the same person commits a new prison-worthy crime the minimum prison sentence for that crime is increased to be twice the length of the previous minimum prison sentence (while history of all events including criminal activity and prison sentencing is archived eternally and made unconditionally available to the public).

* * *

It is now approximately 11:20PM on 27_OCTOBER_2024. I bicycled back from Sunnyvale to the baylands spanning Milpitas and Fremont (near Newby Island) and am enjoying the view of the city lights and geography bordering the south end of the San Francisco Bay (south of the Dumbarton Bridge). Last night and tonight I noticed a total of approximately six owls (including two brown “horned” owls and mostly the white alien-looking owls) and approximately twenty feral cats (whose circular retinas brightly reflected back the light of my bicycle head-light in a golden-green color). The cats seem to thrive in the grassy parts of the Bay Trail near the marshes where there seem to be lots of rodents, small birds, and wetlands (and I also noticed sometimes humans leaving out cat food for them). The marsh birds are noisy. Some of them have raspy voices while others have high pitched squeaky voices. The small bodies of water near the marshlands here seem to be sustained by irrigation systems (and I can here the water lapping, bubbling, and flowing lightly out of a mostly hollow pipe). There is a moderate breeze and, like most nights during the past four months, a mostly clear night sky revealing many stars and illuminated planets (and tonight there are some high and low clouds covering parts of the sky in a marbled fashion (and the clouds which hover over this region tend to not move much possibly due to the bowl-shaped region which keeps the air currents confined to the baylands area while I notice more clouds forming around the peaks of the mountains bordering the baylands while the sky above the baylands seems more light in terms of cloud coverage and formation)). I sometimes joke, “It is always sunny in Sunnyvale.”