Good afternoon! Happy Thursday. Mostly sunny and 25 degrees in Albany, NY. 🌞 There is a west breeze at 7 mph. A bit chilly out this morning, but with the sun, it’s really not that bad in the grand scheme of things. I walked down to the express bus. Not a bad walk, I could have probably worn an extra layer besides a sweater vest and wool coat, but it’s fine. 🎅Spring is coming soon, in about two months.⛄

🌷Only 61 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹

Today will be sunny, with a high of 27 degrees at 2pm. 😀Three degrees below normal. Northwest wind 7 to 13 mph. A year ago, we had light drizzle and mist in the morning, which became mist by afternoon. The high last year was 37 degrees. The record high of 59 was set in 1973. 7.9 inches of snow fell back in 1891.

The sun will set at 4:51 pm with dusk around 5:22 pm, which is one minute and 14 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇At sunset, look for mostly sunny conditions and 27 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 11 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 31 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 50 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy, with a low of 16 degrees at 6am. 🌥Two degrees above normal. Maximum wind chill around 13 at 6pm; Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming light and variable after midnight. In 2017, we had light drizzle and mist in the evening, which became mist by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 34 degrees. The record low of -28 occurred back in 1971.

This morning the bus driver didn’t pick me up on my walk down to the Park and Ride which is fine, because it was a nice morning walk. 😎Heading in though, at one of the red lights, the big articulated bus started to jacknife a bit 🗡on the slush on the road, but it was fine. Driver controlled it fine.🚌

Looking forward to putting together that little soldering kit. ⚡I have some Micro USB “breakout” boards coming that I plan to power with, so I can just plug it and leave it blinking throughout. While it’s rated for 3-5 volts, it’s built primarily for 3 volts, so I’m thinking the capacitor may charge too quickly, leaving it blinking too quickly. 💡I guess I could always swap out a resistor or two for a higher value one to slow it blinking. But I have to build it, well solder it together.

I also received the clock boards in the mail, which over the weekend or maybe next week start incorporating into projects. ⏰ Having a reliable, accurate source of time and temperature information will provide a lot of useful functions to projects I’m building. I’m glad to see they included time backup rechargable batteries, which some of the boards don’t include due to mailing restriction.🔋

Continuing to research acrylic board aka plexiglass and how to build things using it. 🏭You have to use specialized welding chemicals to bond it, but at least with thinner sheets, commonly used for building electronics cases, it not to hard to etch and snap. I am going to buy a sheet of plexiglass from a local hardware store soon, and start playing with building a case, then buy the chemicals for bonding the different parts together. I think those Max7219 modules will look awesome when mounted behind tinted acrylic. 🤖 If I can — which maybe is a definite maybe — cut and set the acrylic cleanly, I think the things I build would be quite beautiful, especially if backlit by a few extra LEDs stuck in the background.

The weather looks awesome this weekend for skiing and camping in Adirondacks. ⛷⛺ There is going to be a fair bit of snow up north, but I will park in one of the plowed parking lots, and either pull my gear back in a sled, or take a snow shovel, dig out a spot and move my truck. While it will be too cold for truck cap camping, it’s possible I could run power back depending on how far back I am, or just have less far to move gear back. I’m not crazy about hauling gear back on a 55 MPH road while traffic is wising back. Or of course, I could go camping locally or still do a day trip.

There is 1 month until Winnie the Pooh Day 🐻 when the sun will be setting at 5:31 pm with dusk at 6:00 pm. I like it when I will be getting home many days before dark. The average high temperature is 32 degrees, with a record high of 61 in 1895.