Good evening! Cloudy and 36 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind. The skies will clear around 11 pm. After such a mild autumn it sure feels chilly. It was cold out walking today in Troy but it was nice to help out a former colleague from work. Did you see my earlier post about how cold it will be come Friday, especially with the windchill? I’m not ready for single digit windchills yet. 

Tonight will be cloudy during the early evening, then gradual clearing, with a low of 28 degrees at 6am. Six degrees below normal. North wind 3 to 5 mph. In 2016, we had mostly cloudy skies. It got down to 26 degrees. The record low of 18 occurred back in 1971. Bundle up if you’re heading out tonight. 

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon with 79% illuminated. The moon will set tomorrow at 11:15 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Friday night with mostly clear skies. The Cold Moon is on Sunday, December 3rd. But the last quarter moon will feel cold enough. The sun will rise at 6:38 am with the first light at 6:08 am, which is one minute and 15 seconds later than yesterday. Tonight will have 13 hours and 59 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 24 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny, with a high of 44 degrees at 1pm. Seven degrees below normal. Light north wind. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. The high last year was 59 degrees. The record high of 75 was set in 1975. 1.7 inches of snow fell back in 1894.

It will be interesting to see how the Troy democrats made out this Election Day. It seems like they have a lot of good candidates, but Troy is a really conservative, republican machine kind of town. It’s very much kind of the polar opposite to Albany. Maybe that’s an exaggeration but David Bissember is a good guy so hopefully he will win. 

Still haven’t gotten groceries yet. I was tired from canvassing and didn’t feel like doing much this evening. I’m really enjoying my day off from work and not having deal with all the craziness of elections. So I just got home from the canvassing and worked on some Arduino sketches including one with the LCD display and the temperature sensor. I want to make a few more projects then I’ll figure out the components I need for the LED driver I want to build. Walked down to the library for a bit mostly to stretch my legs. Didn’t order those square Yakima washer pad things I need for bolting the solar panel on because I want to shop around tomorrow. 

In four weeks on December 5 the sun will be setting at 4:22 pm, which is 18 minutes and 3 seconds earlier then tonight. Come the nineth of that month days will actually get longer. In 2016 on that day, we had rain, drizzle, snow, mist, cloudy skies and temperatures between 42 and 26 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 40 and 25 degrees. The record high of 65 degrees was set back in 2001.

Looking ahead, Election Day 2018 is in 52 weeks and Election Day 2020 is in 156 weeks.

Today was kind of a cold and gray afternoon. But later in the week will be downright cold. Maybe not so depressingly gray, but look at those wind chills. Sure, we have cold days in January but this seems a bit early for the second week of November. But it happens. At least no snow is in the forecast, even if your heat may be working a bit on Friday into Veterans Day.

Good morning! Happy Election Day 2017. As you probably are aware at this point, you should probably plan on getting out and voting toay. Mostly cloudy and 43 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a north-northwest breeze at 7 mph. The current wind chill is 29. A bit of chilly morning, you will want a sweater. Only going to get cooler as the day progresses. The skies will clear tomorrow around noontime.

Today will have a chance of light rain, mainly after 4pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high of 41 degrees at 7am. 10 degrees below normal. North wind 5 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. The high last year was 53 degrees. The record high of 75 was set in 1938. 4.5 inches of snow fell back in 1886.

The sun will set at 4:40 pm with dusk around 5:09 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy conditions and 40 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 10 hours and 2 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 23 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of light rain, mainly before 8pm. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 28 degrees at 6am. Seven degrees below normal. North wind around 5 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2016, we had mostly cloudy skies. It got down to 26 degrees. The record low of 18 occurred back in 1971.

Last night I hooked up a few different projects with the Arduino. Probably the one I’m most interested is driving the RGB and making nice colors. The starter kit’s RGB LED was a pretty low quality one that doesn’t blend colors well, but I developed a sketch that simulates how I would set up my morning light, once I get a bigger RGB LED strip and MOSFET transitors to drive it. I think also need to add some kind of smoothing capacitor to the circuit because when I try to ramp up the light slowly, I get a lot variation in how quickly the light ramps up. I’ll have to do some more reading up on the Internet to find out what is suggested.

Today being Election Day is a holiday so I have it off from work. I plan to vote in a little while then head up to Troy to help out one of my former co-workers who is now running for City Council. David Bissember is a good guy, somebody who will be a very progessive and smart voice for Troy. We just got to drag those voters out. Elections are ultimately about who shows up and votes, which the political insiders refer to as turn out. This is the first time I’ve been home for Election Day since before I went to college — it will be werid voting on the machine.

Myself I enjoy looking at the different candidates and deciding how to vote. I’m a lifelong Democrat and I usually vote Democratic, but when I think the Republican offers a better option, I will vote for them. The local GOP is pretty obnoxious, teaming up with wealthy developers and farmers and rural residents struggling with high taxes, opposing the new property transfer tax that would help protect open space. I’m not thrilled about all of my choices, but certainly on the town level I will vote Democratic except for farmer Giles Wagoner on the Working Families line, and maybe for the Republican for town judge — Andy Kirby’s mailer really turned me off. His messaging about law and order is not what I think we need a judge to be. We need a judge to be compasionate and emphasize fairness on all sides. Probably vote for the Con-Con so to reform consitution and I am leaning towards Tim Stanton, the corn and vagetable grower for County Legislature special. I think county government needs some fresh new ideas, and too many of the people on there are too indebted to the local political machine. That’s my take on it.

Climbed onto the truck this morning, disassembled one of the Yakima Landing Pads and found out the type of square Yakima mounting washer (for the track) I need exactly to mount the aluminum bars that I will mount to the truck cap. I thought I knew what I needed to order, now I confirmed it. Mounting the bars to the Yakima rack for the solar panel should be easy. Then it’s just a matter of cutting and drilling the aluminium bars that I am buying, mounting the panel to that and sliding it up on the roof.  Then I just have to run the solar wire (in plastic romex) down on the front of the cap, to under the truck cab, and up the same hole that the main power wire runs back to the truck cap, and hook it into the solar controller. I will have the sun topping off the accessory battery any time I’m parked in the sun with the kayak off the roof.

Looking ahead, next Tuesday is Average High is only typically in the 40s when the sun will be setting at 4:33 pm with dusk at 5:03 pm. On that day in 2016, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 58 and 25 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 49 degrees. We hit a record high of 70 back in 1973.