December 30, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Cold and damp and 34 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ Calm wind. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 10 pm. ☃️

We got some pretty good icing midday ⛄ so I’m kind of glad that I stayed home. The commute home in the ice and slush could have been miserable. Never got to upload my photos from my trip as the library was closed. 📙 My truck is not solid froze with ice. I know they predicted it in the outlying areas but I didn’t expect any ice in Delmar. I’ll deal with it eventually. I haven’t been shopping yet this week so I do got to kind of dig it out.

Tonight will be drizzle at times, mainly before 11pm. Cloudy ☁, with a low of 33 degrees at 1am. 17 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 12th. Light and variable wind. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 29 degrees. The record low of -17 occurred back in 1917.

Tonight will have a with 31% illuminated. The moon will rise at 11:01 am. The is on Wednesday night with partly cloudy skies. The is on Wednesday night. The sun will rise at 7:25 am with the first light at 6:53 am, which is 12 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 54 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 37 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a slight chance of drizzle before 10am, then a slight chance of rain and snow showers between 10am and 11am, then a chance of rain showers after 11am. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 41 degrees at 2pm. Nine degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 3rd. Light and variable wind. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became light snow by afternoon. The high last year was 41 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 1895. 7.9 inches of snow fell back in 2007.❄

I looked at a lot of dash cam videos and photos 📷 to share on my blog over the coming days when I get a chance to upload them. I want to better tell my story and how seeing the open farm country and rural lands really made me feel. It was so nice to get away and out of the basement where I work, even if I didn’t make it to the Finger Lakes. I also have been getting really interested in the path of moon and sun and are going to incorporate more astrological data into my blog 🎑 in the coming weeks.

I am leaning towards backcountry camping tomorrow night 🌃 to close out the decade but that’s to be decided in the morning. 🎇 I think they’re is enough snow and ice left out in the hilltowns to drag my gear back on a sled. I’ll have a nice fire 🔥 and toast out the end of the decade. I might even buy some egg nog or hot coca to have around the fire. It will be a simple campsite with the heater to keep me plenty warm. Too much ice and snow might make it hard to get a fire going. Not a done deal though for sure.

In four weeks on January 27 the sun will be setting at 5:01 pm,🌄 which is 30 minutes and 58 seconds later then tonight. In 2019 on that day, we had partly cloudy, snow showers and temperatures between 40 and 11 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 31 and 14 degrees. The record high of 62 degrees was set back in 1974.

Looking ahead, Make Your Dream Come True Day 🏡 is in 2 weeks, National Popcorn Day 🍿 is in 3 weeks, National Pie Day 🍰 is in 3 weeks, Clean Your Computer Day 🧹 is in 6 weeks, Presidents Day 👴 is in 7 weeks, Read Across America Day 📚 is in 9 weeks, Worm Moon 🌕 is in 10 weeks, Arbor Day 🌳 is in 17 weeks, 8 PM Sunset 🌇 is in 18 weeks, Flower Moon 🌕 is in 20 weeks, Memorial Day 🇺🇸 is in 21 weeks, June 🍹 is in 22 weeks and Average High is 80 🏖 is in 25 weeks.

Rays Across the Reservoir

How Our Cities And Towns Are Killing Us | The Daily Caller

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The Landscape Of Despair: How Our Cities And Towns Are Killing Us | The Daily Caller

While many Americans deplore suburbia in a general way — including many who live in it — its actual dynamics are poorly articulated in the public arena. Interestingly, one of suburbia’s biggest defects is the impoverishment of public space, and with it the degradation of the very public arena where ideas are exchanged and vetted for value.  Most public space in America is devoted simply to the movement and storage of cars. The highway is a hostile environment for humans and few people seek camaraderie or stimulation in the parking lots. The ambiguous leftover scraps of land, like the woodsy berm between the Walmart and the Best Buy, have no civic value. (That’s where kids go to drink malt-liquor.) Everything else is private space, including the shopping mall, by the way, where you can be arrested for making a speech, or just wearing a T-shirt with a provocative message. Public space per se has been relegated insidiously to TV and the Internet, and neither of these are an adequate replacement for real-live social relations with other human beings in a real place worth caring about.

I know from experience that the public’s attempt to understand all this can be laughably dim. If you show a slide of some schlocky boulevard of strip-malls to an audience in a town hall — as I have done many times — and ask them what’s wrong with this picture, you’ll probably get this answer: “It all looks exactly the same!” That is quite true, of course. The strip malls outside Syracuse, NY, look just like the strip malls outside Baton Rouge, LA, or Seattle, WA, except for the shrubs that decorate the parking lot. But sameness alone is not exactly the problem.

Breakfast at Basecamp

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WV Outdoors is an interesting channel on bushcraft and back country camping in West Virgina. People think West Virginians have a strong accent, but as you can tell from this video, the Northern West Virigina accent is pretty similar to Rural Eastern New York.

Recycling of Polypropylene (PP)

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Recycling of Polypropylene (PP)

While PP is easily among the most popular plastic packaging materials in the world, only around 1% is recycled, which means most PP is headed for the landfill. These decompose slowly over 20-30 years. This raises severe environmental issues, quite apart from toxic additives in PP such as lead and cadmium. Incineration may release dioxins and vinyl chloride, both of which are poisonous.

To determine how recyclable polypropylene is, companies have undertaken ‘life cycle’ studies that look at the plastic from the raw material production to the final stages of waste management to assess the sustainability of the product. The general consensus from these studies is that PP has considerable potential as a sustainable product. 

December 30, 2019 Morning

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Good morning! Happy Bacon Day 🥓! Gotta love bacon unless of course you let it go rancid one time and tried to cook it for like I did up in the woods. Two weeks to Make Your Dream Come True Day 🏡. Times of heavy rain and drizzle and 33 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a east breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. We’re not getting the ice here but it definitely raining. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Wednesday around noontime. ☃️

Being such a cold rainy vacation day ☕ I’m just taking it quiet, going to finish going through some vacation photos 📷 and dash cam videos, maybe ride the exercise bike 🚲 and then go to the library later and then to the store 🏬.

Today will rain. 🌧 Around 33 degrees all day long. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 16th. Southeast wind 7 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became light snow by afternoon. The high last year was 33 degrees. The record high of 53 was set in 1984. 10.9 inches of snow fell back in 2000.❄

The sun will set at 4:30 pm with dusk around 5:02 pm, which is 46 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 34 degrees. There will be a east-southeast breeze at 8 mph. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 6 minutes of daytime, an increase of 40 seconds over today.

Tonight will be sleet, possibly mixed with rain before 9pm, then drizzle likely. 🌧 Low of 33 degrees at 9pm. 16 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 16th. East wind 5 to 7 mph becoming light and variable after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 29 degrees. The record low of -17 occurred back in 1917.

Rain and drizzle and clouds to start the New Year. 🎇 Really no change but not super cold so that will help with the heating bills. Says the boy who thinks nothing of putting sixty in fuel ⛽ in his jacked up truck to take out to the woods but hates paying more than $60 a month for heat and electricity. Saturday, a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 46. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Sunday, a chance of rain and snow showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 40. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Typical average high for the weekend is 31 degrees.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Make Your Dream Come True Day 🏡 when the sun will be setting at 4:44 pm with dusk at 5:15 pm. If your dream is a later sunset than it might come true. On that day in 2019, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 23 and 10 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 30 degrees. We hit a record high of 71 back in 1932.

Rays Across the Reservoir

Today’s Almanac for Monday December 30

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Today’s Almanac

Night before dawn is 6 hours and 53 minutes,
Dawn starts at 6:53 am and runs for 31 minutes,
Sunrise is at 7:25 am which is 4 hours and 34 minutes before noon,
High noon, the transit of the sun, is at 11:57 am,
From twelve noon to the sunset at 4:30 pm is 4 hours and 30 minutes,
Dusk lasts for 28 minutes concluding at 5:02 pm,
Leaving 6 hours and 57 minutes until midnight.

Darkening Skies