September 1, 2020 Morning

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Good morning! Happy September 🍎! Doesn’t seem like summer is already dun in in this most odd of years. But metrological summer has come and gone. Three weeks to Autumn 🍂. Then the nights will be longer than the days. Mostly cloudy and 62 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 59 degrees. The skies will clear Thursday around noontime.

Not a super nice day to start out metrological autumn ☁️ with all the clouds. But often autumn is cloudy in Upstate NY, especially the month of November. I don’t know how wet it is going to be later on though. I don’t have a lot of ambitious plans, I’ll probably work from home or I could walk down to the park or library later and use my laptop 💻 from there. I do need to think about getting a new laptop battery 🔋 as it really isn’t holding a charge well.

Today will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 74 degrees at 1pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 11th. Maximum dew point of 62 at 1pm. South wind 6 to 10 mph. I think we might see some clearing out later but who knows. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 75 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1953.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:56 pm with sun having an altitude of 55.4° from the due south horizon (-15.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 4.1 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:53 pm with the sun in the west (276°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (282°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:31 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 57 seconds with dusk around 7:58 pm, which is one minute and 42 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Full 🌝 Moon in the east-southeast (110°) at an altitude of 2° from the horizon, 247,479 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 8:35 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 71 degrees. The dew point will be 61 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 8 mph. Today will have 13 hours and 8 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 46 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have scattered showers, mainly after 3am. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 64 degrees at 1am. Seven degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 62 at 6pm. South wind around 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2019, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It became somewhat humid as the night progressed. It got down to 62 degrees. The record low of 38 occurred back in 2017.

On this day in 1985, a joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the Titanic. ⛴️ Asked for my opinion on the movie 📼 – I heard it sunk.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, sunny, with a high near 73. Maximum dew point of 52 at 8am. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 77. Maximum dew point of 55 at 11am. Typical average high for the weekend is 76 degrees.

I still haven’t made a decision about the weekend 🤔 but I might go out to Vermont for a couple of days if the weather is good and work remotely from there. If I go up there early in the week I should be able to get a good campsite ⛺ with cell reception 📶.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until Autumn 🍂 when the sun will be setting at 6:52 pm with dusk at 7:20 pm. On that day in 2019, we had hot weather to start out autumn with mostly sunny skies, shallow fog and temperatures between 87 and 51 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 70 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1895.

Fire

NPR

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Pandemic Emptied Big City Office Buildings, But For How Long? : NPR

For cities, as well as their tax bases, empty commercial real estate presents a crisis still looming. The pandemic hit the ground floor first, knocking out smaller shops and restaurants. Trouble may not creep upstairs to the office floors until six to nine months later, according to Victor Calanog, head of commercial real estate analytics at Moody's Analytics REIS.

Because office tenants tend to hold longer leases, averaging around 10 years, Calanog says, they take the dramatic step of breaking a lease to cut costs only if a downturn is prolonged enough to justify it.

9⃣ weeks out I’m quite intrigued by the possibility of Trump’s re-election

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9⃣ weeks out I’m quite intrigued by the possibility of Trump’s re-election

I’m not sure it would be a good thing or a bad thing but I do appreciate how many of the norms and old accepted ways of doing things in America are falling out of practice. I do think rules about obscenity were always kind of silly – Trump’s No Bullshit flags are a refreshing change – and the use of the White House as a back drop for a political rally is just a reminder of how the presidency is fundamentally a political position. I’ve always thought many of the long standing norms were kind of silly.

It’s hard to argue that Trump is not incompetent. He is, he really is not up to the job as president. But on the other hand as tweeter in chief he’s proven himself to be largely harmless if not obnoxious. Maybe if I were an immigrant or lived in a big city I’d feel different but he’s kept our country out of war, the economy moving forward and it seems like at least my life is doing well.

If the Senate and the House go Democratic in 2020, it might be good to have a president with a veto pen to say slow down, use caution and protect the voices of the many who wouldn’t be represented in Congress under such an administration. A Republican president is a great fundraising and organizing focus to rally against for democrats. The grassroots withered during the Obama administration, they’re certain to dry up should Biden win.

There are some who compare Trump to the rise of Adolph Hitler. But I think that’s a kind of silly comparison because our two party system is much stronger and I don’t see the Democrats rolling over to Trump any time soon. Trump is pretty crude and bad at pulling the levers of power, especially without Majority Leader Mitch McConnell at his back. I think his rhetoric on the cops and military is about a half inch deep and phony at that.

Life will go on whoever is president in six months. I suspect a Trump second term will deminish the power of the presidency and the federal government and move more back to congress and the states. A Trump second term will further delegitimize the role of government and put more emphasis on the individual, the family and the private sector. But I’m quite okay with that as I think we’ve been too trusting of the government for too long and government is too all encompassing.

Will I vote for Trump in 2020… I doubt it but honestly I don’t know. I am willing to keep an open mind and listen to all the candidates before pulling the lever or filling in the bubble. 🖋