February 14, 2016 Night

Good evening. Currently fair and one below in Delmar. The lack of wind makes the cold more bearable.

Tonight will be clear, with a low around -9. Calm wind. First quarter moon, setting at 11:33 pm. Tomorrow’s sunrise will be at 6:51 am with first light at 6:22 am, which is 2 minutes and 24 seconds earlier then today.

Presidents Day will have a chance of snow, mainly after 3pm. Increasing clouds, with a high near 26. Wind chill values as low as -8. Light southeast wind becoming south 9 to 14 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

Today was a cold day but I didn’t notice it much as I was either in my truck or in buildings all day.
I went to the Adirondacks Outdoors Expo in Johnstown this morning. It was a nice little outdoors show, about what I expected at the fairly large Moose Lodge in Johnstown. It was pretty packed and had a lot of different booths. I looked at buying some traps and some books but held off. I was a bit disappointed that the DEC didn’t have a booth. Their office is just up the road in Northville. Then I went to John Wolcott’s House to look at some maps. He gave me several of his old DOT survey maps of the Albany Pine Bush. Most are large format, State Plane maps, all in feet scale from the late 1960s. Probably not much not available this day of age via free GIS data and software, but still nice to have. Then it was out to mom and dad’s house for Sunday dinner. Nice day even if it was a cold one.

I’ve not noticed a lot of difficulties from the cold, despite the hype. Compared to most winters, this one hasn’t been exceptionally cold. Even today wasn’t that bad. The hot water faucet was exceptionally cold when I first turned on this morning. But eventually hot water came out. The gas heat fell behind a bit but when I got up in the morning, I turned on the upstairs baseboard electric heat which quickly brought things to a comfortable temperature.

The truck kind of rumbled when I first turned the key from a lack of lubrication in the cold but the fresh battery started it right up and it idled smoothly. I let it warm up for 2-3 minutes but it still was a bit sluggish and the steering wheel and shifter seemed a bit hard until it warmed up. I890 was rough the other side of Schenectady due to frost contractions of the concrete panels. All and all the cold was not a big deal at least for me.

It sounds like there is a fire somewhere in town based on the noise of fire trucks going by. It’s funny how colder weather than people are used to catches them off guard and pipes freeze and the alike. People don’t have proper insulation and undersized heating systems for the cold. Today is mild by Minnesota standards. Remember there are dairymen who milk cows at 4 in the morning in 40 below weather in Minnesota. They dress warmly and ruminating cows put off a lot of heat in the barn I guess.

Still thinking about getting a digital TV tuner to use with my monitor. But I discovered another hitch – I don’t know for sure if my monitor can decode HDCP encoded programs. A Google search suggests yes, but I need to download the manual and review carefully in the morning. I also wonder if the tuners will allow me to use the HDMI output for video and analog output for sound at the same time. Maybe it’s not worth all the time and research. I don’t really know if I want to have live TV in my home.

I hope you had a good day and stayed warm. I hope you had a good Valentines Day. Sleep well!

February 14, 2016 Morning

Good morning! Happy Valentine’s Day this very cold and sunny morning. It is currently sunny and negative 13 degrees in Delmar. With the wind chill this morning, it feels like negative 30. That said, wind chill is not very accurate when it’s this cold out.

Today will be sunny and cold, with a high near 6. Wind chill values as low as -31. Northwest wind 9 to 11 mph. Sunset will be at 5:26 pm with twilight at 5:54 pm which is one minute and 18 seconds later then yesterday.

Not quite as cold tonight. It will be mostly clear, with a low around -5. Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening.

Happy Birthday to Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air Interview Program. She turns 65 today and has done countless fascinating interviews over the years.

This day in 2005, the popular YouTube website is launched making it easy for people to share and watch video. It’s hard to believe it wasn’t always around.

Have a great Valentine’s Day! Stay warm.