Good Monday Morning! Yeap, Monday’s come back around again. Those weekends keep getting shorter, but maybe that means summer is coming quicker. One can only hope. Next Monday is 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️. Partly sunny and 43 degrees in Delmar. ⛅ There is a south-southwest breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. A remarkably pleasant morning, and while I didn’t leave in time for the express bus, I did catch the local from a bus stop down by town hall about a mile from home. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 3 am. ☃️

Definitely a nice walk down to the bus stop by the town hall, indeed I actually went one more stop below there, 🚏 but walked back as there was other passengers getting on and I didn’t want to make the bus stop twice. 🚌 Almost could have walked down to the express bus but I was late due to dilly-dallying a bit, although not by much. It wasn’t a bad bus ride in though.

The sun will set at 4:22 pm with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 14 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies ⛅ and temperatures around 44 degrees. Breezy, 16 mph breeze from the west with gusts up to 28mph. Despite being sunny it’s going to be cool with the breeze.

Today will have a slight chance of showers before 1pm, then a slight chance of showers after 2pm. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 48 degrees at 12pm. Seven degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical day around November 16th. West wind 10 to 18 mph, with gusts as high as 34 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 46 degrees. The record high of 63 was set in 2009. 5.2 inches of snow fell back in 1893.❄

Tonight will have a slight chance of showers before 9pm. Mostly cloudy ☁, with a low of 30 degrees at 6am. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 23rd. Northwest wind around 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 21 degrees. The record low of -9 occurred back in 1940. It sometimes get really cold in December; there is a reason it’s called meteorological winter.

Based on the latest forecast for Central NY and the Finger Lakes, I am thinking of leaving on Saturday morning and returning on Wednesday, for a five day trip. 🏕 Rifle season closes on Sunday, so I would have the woods to myself after that most likely, except maybe for a trickle of small game and black powder guys. I could do a whole week, but it’s December, with very long nights and I honestly don’t know if we will get that much time snow free. Plus the office holiday party is a week from Friday.  I am going to wait a few more days before deciding, but I could get out of a town for a long weekend it would be nice, and kind of make up for the shitty weather during the week I had planned in November.

I am thinking to head back to the Finger Lakes National Forest. 🌲While I spent a lot of time up there, I actually like it a lot as I have cell services there, it’s not so remote, and I think Potomac and Picnic Area roads are plowed year round. Upper Potomac Road is relatively flat, so it’s not going to be dangerous if there is a dusting of snow or a little ice on it — not that there is much snow left there according to National Snow Analysis. I will probably call the Forest Service first to confirm. The other nice thing about the National Forest, is I can camp there for up to two weeks without getting a permit. 🏕 

If I do camp there and it’s sunny, I’ll find a site with decent southern exposure, probably just walk back in the woods to small-game hunt or hike. 🔫The days are so short, so there won’t be a lot of free time for various adventures at this point. I do plan to check the oil and maybe top off the water in the accessory battery, as I suspect the water levels may be low with it being charged all of the time by the solar panel.🔋 I will most likely hot tent, hang some Christmas lights on the trees, plus the back lit flags. I expect with the sunny days expected, I should have plenty of power without ever turning on the truck, even with the long nights and cold weather. I would probably want a site well protected from the wind, just because it gets windy up there, and it’s going to be cold being essentially mid-December by then. I expect very dark and long nights, but reading and podcasts can keep them enjoyable.

This week in the evening, I will continue to work on writing Android Apps for my Smartphone, 📱 to improve controls on the lamp over my bed and also to control the VMS sign in my bedroom. I actually really like working with Android Studio, once I got it going and shifted into offline mode, as I lack Internet at home. It’s kind of fun, because it’s drag and drop for interface building, and then a little object-oriented java code to hold it together. I didn’t think learning java was too hard, it’s actually a lot like most other object oriented languages. An interactive phone program with Bluetooth is much more powerful then just using an infrared TV remote, as you can have multiple screens and more options. Plus it’s harder to misplace one’s phone then the remote, and almost as easy to use with automatic paring in the code.

As previously noted, next Monday is 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ when the sun will be setting at 4:21 pm with dusk at 4:53 pm. That’s the deep and dark of December. On that day in 2017, we had snow, patches of fog, mist, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 36 and 18 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 38 degrees. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1966.