May 22, 2018 Night

Good evening! Mostly cloudy but some breaks in the clouds so you can see the moon and 57 degrees inside my bedroom in Delmar, NY according to the display. 🌃There is a south breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 46 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 7 am.

Almost a bit cool to be sitting outside but I still like the fresh air and watching the faint artificial firefly lights dance on the lawn and the trees. Just sitting back listening to some music, ruminating about the day that was. I mean I have to use some of that free solar power I got today or otherwise tomorrow’s sunlight will just be discarded by solar controller. 🌝I checked and despite the clouds and rain the panel was still topping off the battery. It’s kind of pretty and calming but the damn motor in the firefly light is so noisy. 🐸Fine when you have headphones on but it does kind of disturb the peace.

Today wasn’t a half bad day at work. I expected a long day but that was not to be, I caught the five o’clock express bus home.💼 Moreover tomorrow is not a session day so no need to dress up. Going to be a nice morning tomorrow so I may try to get an early start😎 and walk down to the express bus.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly before 4am. Patchy fog after 3am. Otherwise, cloudy☁ , with a low of 56 degrees at 2am. Seven degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 55 at 5am. South wind 5 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2017, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 46 degrees. The record low of 36 occurred back in 1967.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔 with 62% illuminated. The moon will set at 2:37 am. The Flower Moon 🌕 is on Monday night with mostly clear skies. Definitely can smell the lilacs out back. The sun will rise at 5:25 am with the first light at 4:52 am, which is 48 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 9 hours and 6 minutes of darkness, a decrease of one minute and 43 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny β˜€, with a high of 81 degrees at 3pm. Nine degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 55 at 6am. Northwest wind 8 to 15 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 73 degrees. The record high of 93 was set in 1964.

Made some Macaroni and Cheese for dinner with a bunch of broccoli. A little bit more high calorie than I normally eat at home but I wanted a change. I get tired of having to find easy to cook meals with low packaging waste that is affordable. I guess I should take another look at the store and get more creative. I always try to have a big portion of vegetables in every meal.

Tonight I went down to the library and uploaded a few new Google Maps to the blog and another chart. I admit that I should do a lot more of that but I’ve gotten tired of that as I’ve mapped and graphed much of what I can get off interesting public data. I should do more digging bit I’m lazy.🐷 Maybe I should come up with some more. At least I have some things ready for the next few days and after which I will either have to make more or dig in the archives for past things folks have long forgotten.

Well, at least three first half of Memorial Day Weekend looks nice.😾 Saturday, a chance of showers. Mostly sunny, with a high near 85. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Maximum dew point of 63 at 6pm. Sunday, a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 78. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Maximum dew point of 60 at 1pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 72 degrees.

I think I’m going camping in the Adirondacks but where is to be decided. Still thinking about the Wells or Speculator area but with it going to be so warm Saturday, Pisceo Powley seems quite appealing too. β›ΊFishing opportunities are better in Wells though under the dam. Might come back Sunday if it’s a complete washout. Decided to skip kayaking for this trip, I’d rather just park the truck for the weekend, and walk everywhere from camp to save gas, especially now that I expect the solar panel to keep things charged. Plus I get tired of driving all the time.

Got a bunch of books out of the library to read over the long weekend. I plan to spend much of my weekend reading. I really don’t read enough these days. 📚 You can learn much from a good book. Having a smartphone is kind of a big distraction although at least I don’t have regular internet or television at home.

In four weeks on June 19 the sun will be setting at 8:36 pm,🌄 which is 18 minutes and 7 seconds later then tonight. Almost the latest sunset of the year. In 2017 on that day, we had thunderstorm, thunderstorm rain, rain, mist, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 83 and 68 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 79 and 58 degrees. The record high of 94 degrees was set back in 1995.

Decided to buy another six of those FC 16 Max7219 modules from China,🎎 this time in green. I want to build a third large VMS display to use downstairs or for other projects. 💻Set me back $27 as the green modules are somewhat more expensive than the red ones. They also make blue ones but they are even more expensive as they have a different forward voltage than the standard red or even green ones. There may be cheaper LED displays available but these are big enough to be easily read across the room, don’t use much power and can be powered over USB and are well supported by Arduino libraries.

Looking ahead, 8:30 PM Sunset ️⛱️ is in 2 weeks, Average High is 80 🏖 is a month away, Election Day 2018 🗳️ is in 24 weeks, Thanksgiving 🦃 is in 6 months, Christmas 🎅 is in 31 weeks, New Years Day 2019 🎉 is in 32 weeks, 36th Birthday 🎉 is in 36 weeks and Election Day 2020 🗳️ is in 128 weeks.

🇺🇸🦅Only 2 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!🦅🇺🇸

Percentage Of Population Recieving Food Stamps

With SNAP aka Food Stamps being in the news, I thought it would be interesting to do a map showing what percentage of people in our state in each Census Tract have received SNAP benefits in the past twelve months.

Data Source: SELECTED SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS IN THE UNITED STATES, 2012-2016 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates. https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?pid=ACS_16_5YR_DP02&src=pt

Tom Paxton – Dogs At Midnight

Tom Paxton's 1970 classic about Black Lung Disease that coal miners once got frequently and is now becoming more common once again with mountain top and strip mining.

New Studies Confirm A Surge In Coal Miners’ Disease

New Studies Confirm A Surge In Coal Miners’ Disease

"More coal miners in central Appalachia have suffered the advanced stages of the deadly disease black lung than previous government research has found, and more miners working in the region today have earlier stages of the disease. Those are two of the findings in a bundle of studies released Tuesday and expected to be released soon, which focus on the epidemic of black lung disease first reported by NPR in 2016."

"It does really underscore that this is a real phenomenon," says Kirsten Almberg, an occupational health researcher at the University of Illinois, Chicago and co-author of a black lung study discussed Tuesday at a San Diego conference of the American Thoracic Society."