Good morning! Happy Read Across America Day 📚! Nothing beats a good old fashion book, especially on a nice evening down at the park or up in the woods. Great way to pass time, especially on a rainy day at camp. Last night was the first quarter moon. Next Monday is Worm Moon 🌕. Cloudy and 31 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. The skies will clear around 1 pm.

Kind of a gray and cloudy morning ☁ today. Going to be mild for sure. The heat on the bus 🚍 is ridiculous but I’m a bit hot because I had to run home and grab my lunch which I left on the kitchen table. Feeling better this morning, although this roaring hot bus makes my throat feel sticky and cough a bit. But I am not sick, or so I tell myself.

This afternoon I’m going over to John Wolcott house 🏡 as long as I feel okay 👌. I was feeling better last night but I took a sleeping pill 💊 to make sure I got a good night’s sleep before the work week but this dry and hot air on the bus is no good for my throat.

Today will have a slight chance of rain or freezing rain before 11am, then a slight chance of rain after 5pm. Partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 53 degrees at 4pm. 14 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 3rd. South wind 9 to 16 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became light snow by afternoon. The high last year was 37 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1991. 11.9 inches of snow fell back in 2018.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:08 pm with sun having an altitude of 40.4° from the due south horizon (-30.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. Sun angle is getting higher, which means fewer real cold days, and even if we do get snow, it won’t stick around super long, at least in the valley. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:09 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (255°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (262°) starting at 5:44 pm and lasts for 2 minutes and 56 seconds with dusk around 6:14 pm, which is one minute and 14 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south (183°) at an altitude of 69° from the horizon, 242,018 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:48 pm. At sunset, look out for possible rain showers 🌧  (but I hope not) and temperatures around 51 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 15 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 18 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of rain before 7pm, then a chance of showers, mainly between 7pm and midnight. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 37 degrees at 6am. 16 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 13th. South wind 8 to 13 mph becoming light southwest after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2019, we had light snow in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 29 degrees. The record low of -10 occurred back in 1950.

Today in 1989, Twelve European Community nations agree to ban the production of all chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) by the end of the century. 💭 It turned out not to be a big deal, because HCFCs were already common by then, and newer refrigerants were well on their way to coming on the market. Now, they are phasing out refrigerants that have a high global warming potential for more climate friendly ones.🌍 Certainly it was an easy enough fix for consumers, with minimal cost or inconvenience, most of the hard-work — engineering — had to be done by the manufacturers. Not sure if the other climate goals can be done just by engineering, despite the fact that people want to drive their electric cars to Wally World 🚗 generated by massive solar facilities not in their backyards.

I am continuing to work on the blog code ⌨ to re-write the uploader to handle multiple images to allow the before and after images to be saved under the same page ID. It’s actually a bigger re-write then that, but it will make uploading imaging much faster and reliable for me, making it easier for me to design content for the blog. I am really fascinated by what I can put together with those old aerial photos in comparison to modern ones. It’s going to give a lot of content to blog about.🖼

I decided to grow back my sideburns a bit, 💇 after cutting them shorter and shorter. They’re kind of long now, I haven’t decided how long I am going to keep them. Maybe a bit too long now, but that’s to be decided. We’ll see as things get warmer out.

This week I need to rearrange my finances to find the $1,000 I need to open an IRA account. 🤑 I have had a Roth IRA account for years, and I enjoy the fact that I’ll never have to pay taxes on it, but now that I’m working in the private sector and don’t have the advantage of a 457(b) Deferred Compensation, I am getting killed by taxes despite maximizing my 401k.👫So I am doing the IRA thing. Actually, this my make sense if I eventually move out west to a state without income tax on retirement savings — or at least a high threshold — New York is $18k tax exempt. My only concern is that I might have a big tax bill in the future, if I cash out a big chunk in my later years to buy a tractor or implement 🚜 or a new truck. 🚗 I don’t make that money, but it’s obnoxious that I pay more in income tax each month then rent. ⚖ Thank you government for spending all of my money.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 36. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 44. Typical average high for the weekend is 41 degrees. Might be a nice weekend to get out of town. But where? A lot of places are still closed off due to the snow and mud. I could possibly use a sled and drag back gear for tent camping in the back country, but the snow might be kind of soft and melty. Maybe it’s just best at this point to save money 💸 and wait for the spring time, which ain’t that far away. 💐

🌹🌻🌼Only 17 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!🌹🌻🌼

Going past the Elbow Room I noticed that they have a giant Corona Beer neon sign on their window. 🍻 I’m sure that’s good for business today. Myself I’m just looking forward to warmer weather and having a cold one up in the woods next tot he fire. I don’t normally drink but I do like a cold Corona on a hot day next to a fire, as gross as the bottles get before you return them. Summer road trips and camping up on Piseco-Powley Road can’t be too far away. I really like laying out back on the hammock.

As previously noted, next Monday is Worm Moon 🌕 when the sun will be setting at 6:55 pm with dusk at 7:23 pm (Daylight Savings Time). On that day in 2019, we had sunny and temperatures between 42 and 12 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 41 degrees. We hit a record high of 81 back in 2016.