November 17, 2015 night

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Good evening, folks. 25 degrees and clear this evening. Temperatures will continue to drop into the low 20s tonight with calm conditions. If you’re up early tomorrow, look for shooting stars. I didn’t see any on my evening walk but they expect more towards morning.

Tomorrow will be somewhat warmer mercury wise but with a brisk breeze will make it feel colder. It will be mostly sunny, with a high near 50. Light southeast wind becoming south 9 to 14 mph in the morning.

Caught four mice in mouse traps since I set them up yesterday. I guess I had a bigger mouse problem then I realized. I should have been more on top of it earlier but I just figured I keep my garbage locked up inside and out and try not to leave food around, so not a big deal. I don’t hear any more mice in the wall now but then again they burrow in the gap between where the wall doesn’t quite meet the slab foundation. I reset the traps and bated them again. It will be interesting come morning.

Upgraded my laptop to Xubuntu Linux 15.04. I was using 14.04 LTS but I wanted to get the Bluetooth speaker adapter I use with my speakers and phone camping to work with my laptop at home. That way when I want to listen to music or sound on my laptop it doesn’t have to be physically plugged into the speakers. Saves wear and tear on the cord and simplifies docking and undocking. The Bluetooth speaker driver on Ubuntu 14.04 seems broken, the reviews seem to suggest that the new version has better support. I was fine running the long term support version but the speaker issue plus the pain and problems of using lots of back ported software made the upgrade make sense. I thought I would have to upgrade 14.10 then 15.04 then to 15.10, but apparently I could go directly from 14.04 LTS right to 15.04 then 15.10, so it really only was two distribution upgrades. It took a while but the computer did most of the upgrades itself. Still running the final upgrade to 15.10 but I expect it will be fully upgraded by morning.

Good night! Sleep well.

November 17, 2015 evening

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Good evening. It is currently 35 degrees here in Albany. After a fairly cool day, it will be a chilly evening with mostly clear conditions. Lows overnight in the low 20s. Sunrise tomorrow at 6:49 am. Wednesday will be sunshine and clouds mixed. High 52F. Winds SSE at 10 to 15 mph. Rain showers come in on Thursday, clearing for Friday and the first half of the weekend.

Another long night late autumn evening on tap. We will have 14 hours and 43 minutes of darkness. Tomorrow will be 2 minutes and 4 seconds shorter for daylight then today. Waxing Crescent, 35% of the Moon is Illuminated. Moon Sets 10:05 PM EST. Full moon on November 25th.

I decided to take an extended weekend coming up to make the North Country trip. Sunday’s weather is marginal, but Friday, Saturday, and Monday seem quite pleasant. It will be three nights up at either Deer River State Forest or Brasher Falls / C.C.C. Dam Camping Area. I plan to set up a tarp and tent, so I won’t be taking down camp.

The tarp and tent will help make up for the chilly, wet conditions expected on Sunday — possibly up to 1-3 inches of snow and/or wet rain. I’ll have that Big Boy Mr. Heater doing it’s thing. I’m not going to be that far back in the woods, so it won’t be a problem with the snow, and I lifted 4×4 truck. It’s pretty flat up there, not at all like Moose River Plains. Moreover, there is no snow is on the ground up north yet.

Friday, I will start out the trip via Plattsburgh, as I want to check out the city. It’s been like five years since I’ve been back at the college. I am curious how the city has changed over the years, and I want to see Plattsburgh Bay and Lake Champlain.

Saturday and Sunday it’s off to explore some local state forests and some small game hunting. I don’t have a real solid plan but I have a list of places to explore. There are many possibilities. Monday also will provide some opportunities but I need to head back relatively early as it gets dark early.

Traffic is remarkably slow getting out of downtown. Not sure what the traffic is from, maybe some kind of special event downtown. I don’t care, I’m sure I’ll get home eventually. But I am a bit hungry.

November 17, 2015 morning

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Good morning on this sunny Tuesday morning. Currently 32 degrees and quite sunny. The sun makes it feel a lot warmer than freezing. Later it will be sunny, with a high near 50. Light and variable wind. The sun will set at 4:31 PM and tonight will have 14 hours and 16 minutes of darkness. Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low around 26. Light southeast wind.

Today the CDTA Bus Time is not working so I couldn’t check for real-time updates on the bus service which was kind of disappointing but it really doesn’t matter as the bus running on time.

This morning I caught two mice in the traps I set out. I reset them and I’ll see how many more I catch. I think I will then get some spackle and patch up the hole in the wall. I don’t care that much about it in the grand scheme of things.

I am glad that the winter has held off so long. I like snow but hate or more like despise road salt. Once I do my North Country trip I think I will be more pro-snow but if it holds off, it’s more opportunity for roadside camping. That said I’m all for snow once it comes, and I look forward to doing more winter camping this year. It should be a nice winter or so I tell myself.