April 29, 2017 10 PM Update

Good evening! Partly cloudy and 58 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. Temperature is dropping quickly this evening, especially with the breeze. It’s still only the end of April but it’s been so mild lately. Nice starts though this evening. 

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 46 degrees at 5am. Four degrees above normal. North wind 6 to 10 mph. In 2016, it got down to 44 degrees under mostly cloudy skies. The record low of 25 occurred back in 1874.

Waxing Crescent Moon tonight with 28% illuminated. The moon will set around 12:07 am. The First Quarter Moon is on Wednesday night with mostly cloudy expected. The Full β€œFlower” Moon is on Wednesday, May 10th. The sun will rise at 5:51 am with the first light at 5:20 am, which is one minute and 23 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 9 hours and 55 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 30 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have isolated showers between 10am and 4pm. Partly sunny, with a high of 60 degrees at 3pm. Four degrees below normal. North wind 5 to 7 mph becoming light and variable in the afternoon. A bit chilly for this time of year. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies and a high of 66 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 1903. There was a dusting of snow in 2008.

In four weeks on May 27 the sun will be setting at 8:23 pm, which is 28 minutes and 57 seconds later then tonight. In 2016 on that day, we had rain, thunderstorm and temperatures between 87 and 71 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 73 and 51 degrees. The record high of 94 degrees was set back in 1914.

Went down to the park for a while today. Uploaded the last batch of videos from my Adirondacks trip. I will continue featuring the remaining scenic dash camera videos over the next few days. Added some maps and downloaded the latest weather records to update my blog data. 

Didn’t get out fishing or to Henry Hudson Park because the weather was kind of cloudy and looked like it could rain. Ended up cooking one of the burgers for lunch on the stove at home then later heading to the Car Wash, Lowes, and Walmart. 

Gave Big Red a good wash including crawling under it to do as much of the undercarriage and underside of the quarter panels in the bed as possible. It was a messy job and quite wet and muddy but I got the last of the residual salt off. I had noticed the other week when running the wires back to the truck cap there was a lot of mud and crap hidden under the undercarriage. Being a lifted truck it is a lot easier to get under there and really clean the hard to see places. I have a few paint chips and rusty spots after six years to fix with clear coat, probably sooner than later. 

Bought some new boots. My old ones where in really rough shape. The leather was fine but the soles were very worn through. I was worried about stepping on something like a sharp branch and cutting my foot. I got a year out of them but I haven’t been doing quite as much walking as I did in the past. Bought the same low cost brand in hopes of getting just as much use out of the new ones. 

Sat out back for a while but with the breeze it started to get cool. So I came back in. Earlier I was drinking beer and eating trail mix but it got cold. I sat in the truck cap for a while before deciding to come in. Laying in bed, I have my big camp flag lit using the 3 watt camp bulb I use. It’s such a nice warm white and very energy efficient to boot. I look forward to being out in the wilderness soon enough. 

Went to Lowes to get the Big Buddy Heater filter, so I can use a standard hose but after a half hour of staff searching they decided it was a seasonal product and they don’t have any more. I’m going to have to order online. I will do that tomorrow. I want to have two of filters to ensure that I no longer have issues with the heater not starting on cold mornings. 

Bought a very big bottle of hot sauce, which turned out to be quite good. Somebody reminded me on Facebook how good hot sauce was on eggs, so I decided I needed some more. I got the bigger bottle which was only slightly more expensive for a lot more sauce but came in plastic, so it won’t shatter I’d dropped at camp and can be burned if I finish it off at camp rather than taken to the transfer station. I like hot sauce, I expect it won’t last even all summer. Eggs and so many other things hot sauce is delicious on. 

I don’t mind staying in town, but these weekends can be sort of dull especially when the weather is crappy. I wrote and improved a lot of blog code and interesting content, so I guess that’s a big upside to being stuck home. And I saved a lot of miles on my truck. 

Looking ahead, Memorial Day is a month away.

April 29, 2017 Morning

Good morning! Happy Saturday. Finally the weekend! Cloudy and 67 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a west breeze at 7 mph. The dew point is 55 degrees. Not the nicest day but will get progressively nicer as well the day progresses. The skies will clear around 2 pm.

Today will be partly sunny, with a high of 75 degrees at 3pm. 11 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 55 at 10am. Breezy, with a west wind 7 to 12 mph increasing to 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 31 mph. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies and a high of 59 degrees. The record high of 88 was set in 1888. 1 inch of snow fell back in 1885.

The sun will set at 7:54 pm with dusk around 8:24 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds later than yesterday. At sunset, look for partly cloudy conditions and 70 degrees. The dew point will be 47 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 13 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 3 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 31 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 46 degrees at 5am. Four degrees above normal. West wind 6 to 11 mph. In 2016, it got down to 44 degrees under mostly cloudy skies. The record low of 25 occurred back in 1874.

Went down to the park for a while last night and read a library book for a while. I’ve had too much screen time lately and I needed to do more reading. The Internet is fun and its nice they have a high speed network at the park but sometimes reading an actual book and learning something new is good too. I promise myself I’ll do much more reading come the summer. 

I thought I might have lost my wallet at the park but I left it home. It was getting dark and I couldn’t find my wallet. I huried home and found it where I left it on the dresser. I’ve been doing that more by accident in the evening because I usually take it out of my pocket before sitting back and watching the news. 

Sat out back with my laptop first working on the dashboard camera code then watching the PBS Newshour. I went back in when the neighborhood turned on her light and it was bright especially without any trees. I was annoyed. 

Wrote a new script to take video off my dash cam and archive it. I had been doing it manually first with Openshot Video Editor then with ffmpeg command line but both methods required a lot more fiddling then I would have preferred. I can never remember all the ffmpeg of command options. I wanted to make it as easy as possible for me to store the most interesting clips that my dashboard camera captures, especially now that I’m taking more road trips to the Adirondacks and other scenic locations. For best reliability of the dash cam and to ensure valuable content isn’t lost, I try to reformat it daily which means I regularly have to archive the sections I want to keep. 

Still I’m bit annoyed that over the past few years the landlord has removed all of the trees in the yard. I knew it would be bad but I was hoping he’d spare at least one in the backyard. I understand the trees up front had damaged the plumbing but it seemed silly to remove both trees in the backyard, especially one that I thought was fairly healthy. Maybe because it was an elm they were concerned it was starting to get sickly. Without the trees it will reduce the shade and make things hotter in the summer. It also increases the road noise a bit, especially for the people up front. Hopefully it won’t be too bad and the landlord will at least replace some of the trees up front. It ugly with just the stumps. Still it sucks. Hopefully I won’t have the move over the stupid trees making my apartment too hot. At least I won’t have to worry about trees falling on my truck. There are no more trees anymore in the general area where I park. It will though make things hot in the truck come the summer though. 

Tonight I’m probably going to go down to Henry Hudson Park with a book, my camp stove and grill, some of those hamburgers I bought last week and my fishing pole this afternoon to relax. I don’t usually catch that much in the river that I would want to keep but I like sitting down on the river and watching the barges and boats go by. I have to get some stuff at Glenmont at any rate. If I’m in town, I want to at least be having fun. 

I’m looking forward to getting out camping in a future week. Right now I’m looking at Mother’s Day Weekend because the lupine festival is the following weekend. I’m not doing the Tulip Festival booth because we have other people doing that. While most of the the Adirondack roads won’t be open at point there are still places to go if the weather is decent. Maybe lower Pisceo Powely Road? This would have been an okay weekend if we only had more sun. 

Got my explanation of benefits from the insurance company for my dental visit. Makes absolutely no sense to me but I’ll see if I get a bill from the dentist. I believe regular dentist visits are 100% covered in network and the dentist office over bills the insurance and they negotiate the rate, because they didn’t ask for a copayment. I just hate how confusing insurance really is. Insurers and healthcare providers should work closely together and provide legible, human understood bills. There shouldn’t be so many negotiated mark downs that are confusing to the patient, followed by a  bill asking for $20, like as happened the last time I went to the doctor. 

One month from now is Memorial Day. I hope we have nice weather and not too many black flies. Well we will see. Summer is always nice as long as one doesn’t get eaten alive. 

Climate of Complete Certainty

Climate of Complete Certainty

"Let me put it another way. Claiming total certainty about the science traduces the spirit of science and creates openings for doubt whenever a climate claim proves wrong. Demanding abrupt and expensive changes in public policy raises fair questions about ideological intentions. Censoriously asserting one’s moral superiority and treating skeptics as imbeciles and deplorables wins few converts.

None of this is to deny climate change or the possible severity of its consequences. But ordinary citizens also have a right to be skeptical of an overweening scientism. They know β€” as all environmentalists should β€” that history is littered with the human wreckage of scientific errors married to political power."