The Bluetooth lighting controller board is built and soldered on perf board, although I haven’t soldered it yet on to the leads for the led strip.

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The Bluetooth lighting controller board is built and soldered on perf board, although I haven’t soldered it yet on to the leads for the led strip. Not a really complex device with really only three parts, four resistors and 25 lines of c++ code, it is important I check the connections because the mosfet transistor operates at 12 volts, the Arduino at 5 volts and the HC-05 Bluetooth controller at 3 volts and a short could easily burn something out. I’ll look at it carefully tomorrow evening with a magnifying glass and a test meter. Then I’ll solder it on to the strip, power it up, pull out my smartphone and see if it works. For now I’m using the Arduino Bluetooth Controller app on my phone but eventually I will write my own Android app and also eventually the color led strip with the sunrise timer will control it so it comes on automatically at 6:55 am in the morning.

Keep Right: Blind Hill

Turning Gray

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Sixty-odd days until my 36th birthday says the VMS display on my wall. It’s a bit shocking how much gray I see every time I look in the mirror. But graying hair is not uncommon as one heads towards the fourth decade of their life – historically for that age of mankind it was considered ones later years by 40s and 50s. Nowadays, we’ve doubled the typical lifespan but many of us still gray around the same time.

There are dyes and chemicals one can use to hid the splashes of gray popping up in my beard and parts of my hair widely sold at retailers all over. But I’m not really interested in putting toxic chemicals into my hair. If I am going gray, I figure it’s part of nature, a sign that I am maturing. The gray means I’m experienced, have had a little stress in my life, learned a few lessons over the years. It’s a reminder too that every day I must work towards my savings goals, as retirement and later years, are coming sooner then I want to admit. But I think I will make it. I have a plan, and I’m working to implement it.

November 26, 2018 Evening

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Good evening! Pretty heavy and 40 degrees here in Delmar. ☔ There is a east-southeast breeze at 11 mph. 🍃. The snow locally has bit the bucket or something like that. ️Temperatures will drop below freezing at Wednesday around 4 am. ☃️

Dark day at office because apparently a breaker tripped or a mouse chewed through the wires for the overhead lights. 🐭 I had a light for my desk but with the rain and clouds, and early setting sun it felt like I was working in a creepy office workers office, usually sought out by obscure power brokers. I can assure my day was less exciting than that, just lots of spreadsheets and a hour long lunch break walking in the Empire Plaza. 🏃

Tonight will rain before 3am, then rain and snow likely. 🌧 Low of 35 degrees at 5am. Seven degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around November 3rd. East wind 7 to 11 mph becoming west after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2017, we had cloudy skies with some clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 23 degrees. The record low of 8 occurred back in 1957.

Dark commute home tonight on the expressway. It’s always so dark looking out from the lit up bus out to the very dark world outside. 🚍 Bus was a bit late which is a change with the new routing through the plaza, but maybe the driver got held up with traffic. Just drizzle at the bus stop, picked up in Delmar. Looks like their is a crash on the end of the old 787 but that’s pretty common during wet weather. At any rate we moving, and I’m not driving. I expect only to be home a few minutes later.

I’m a bit tired. 💤It wasn’t a terribly long day but it’s a five day week and it’s only Monday. I do have some more vacation time to take off before the end of the year but I want to reserve that for nice weather.

I am going to work on some soldering projects and then do some reading when I get home. 📕 Looking forward to the quiet evening. Probably too wet for the evening walk or the library.💦 But I don’t care, I got my steps in today. At six thirty, I’ll probably listen to Marketplace, as the financial news really is all I care about news wise this year. The rest is either just stupid or depressing.

It turns out that Reszin had some help earlier in the evening, and they are now paying for the folding service, 📬 so they didn’t need extra help with folding the newsletter. Once I get the PDF of the newsletter from Lynne, I’ll post it to Facebook. It’s saving postage that in 2018 Save the Pine Bush is now sending more and more of their newsletter out electronically.

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 80% illuminated with the moon rising at 8:00 pm. The moon will set at 11:13 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Wednesday night with a slight chance of snow showers. The Cold Moon 🌝 is on Friday, December 21st. The sun will rise at 7:01 am with the first light at 6:29 am, which is one minute and 9 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 37 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 38 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will rain and snow showers likely before 11am, then a chance of rain showers. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 40 degrees at 1pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around December 4th. West wind 6 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 43 degrees. The record high of 66 was set in 1896. 4.8 inches of snow fell back in 1940.❄ All I can say about tomorrow’s forecast is that it’s not going to be a big snow event here in the city. Wednesday also doesn’t look half bad for getting my truck to the dealer to get state inspected.

I’m actually quite satisfied with the current weekend forecast. Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 41. Sunday, a chance of rain. Cloudy, with a high near 45. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Typical average high for the weekend is 41 degrees.😺 Maybe not perfect for starting off the month of December but it’s an improvement from the weather lately. You have to take the hand delt to you from God.

In four weeks on December 24 the sun will be setting at 4:27 pm,🌄 which is 2 minutes and 12 seconds later then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had snow, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 36 and 26 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 33 and 18 degrees. The record high of 72 degrees was set back in 2015.

Looking ahead, 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ is in 2 weeks, Boxing Day 🥊 is a month away, New Years Eve 🎆 is in 5 weeks, Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 is in 7 weeks, Martin Luther King Day 🖤 is in 8 weeks, 5:30 PM Dusk 🌆 is in 2 months, Presidents Day 👴 is in 12 weeks, Average High is 40 ☀️ is in 14 weeks, April Fools Day 🤡 is in 18 weeks, Tax Day 💰 is in 20 weeks, Earth Day 🌎 is in 21 weeks, Memorial Day 🇺🇸 is in 26 weeks, July 🏊🏿 is in 31 weeks and Last Sunset After 8 PM 🌆 is in 37 weeks.

Nose Between South Branch and Main Branch of Cattaragus River