Good morning! Happy Earliest Sunset of the Year 🌇 ! Next Wednesday is Tea Party Day 🐍. Snow showers and 24 degrees in Delmar, NY. ❄ Calm wind.Things will start to thaw out at around 11 am. 🌡️

Up fairly early this morning as I went to bed 🛏 earlier last night. Dark morning but I’m enjoying the coffee ☕ and have pancakes 🥞 on the stove. I will bundle up 🧣and head out for my walk after a shower 🚿 and trimming a few of the long hairs 💇🏻‍♂️ on the back of my head. 👤

I actually don’t mind the snow 🌨. If it was rain ☔ it wouldn’t be doing my walk 🚶🏻and it’s not slippery. The snow also makes the land bright 🔆 on a cloudy day. It’s odd how the snow is blowing in from the south east but I guess it’s a coastal storm. 🌀

Yesterday was kind of a boring, 💤 quiet day working from home. I thought about going for a midday walk but I knew as soon as I left my apartment my phone or email 📧 would ring. That said I get so tired of being at home all the time. While the morning walk helps clear my mind 🤯 I feel so cramped at times. Cold out but I did sit on my tailgate for a while looking at the stars ✨ because I get tired of being inside so much.

I did turn the heat up a bit in my apartment but not much, but just enough to be relatively comfortable ♨ being that I am home most of the day now with remote work. 🖥 I’d much rather be in my old office 🏢 but I get that the pandemic is get worse and I keep hearing about folks I know testing positive. ↗️ I have to work downtown tomorrow but I’ll wear a mask, use hand sanitizer and plan my route off hours.

Today will have a chance of snow showers before 2pm, then a chance of rain and snow showers. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 35 degrees at 2pm. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 17th. South wind 3 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 47 degrees. The record high of 62 was set in 1966. 7.3 inches of snow fell back in 2009.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:49 am with sun having an altitude of 24.5° from the due south horizon (-46.3° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13.2 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:38 pm with the sun in the southwest (231°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (239°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:23 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 24 seconds with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is one second later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:30 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and snow 🌨 and temperatures around 35 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 7 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 48 seconds over today.

Tonight will be scattered snow showers, mainly before 8pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 31 degrees at 3am. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 20th. Calm wind becoming northwest 5 to 8 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2019, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 35 degrees. The record low of -4 occurred back in 1902.

Today in 1958, the John Birch Society is founded. Businessman and founder Robert W. Welch Jr. (1899–1985) developed an organizational infrastructure in 1958 of chapters nationwide. 👴🏻 After an early rise in membership and influence, efforts by those such as conservative William F. Buckley Jr. and National Review led the JBS to be identified as a fringe element of the conservative movement, mostly in fear of the radicalization of the American right. I was reading that they are still around. In guts you know they are nuts.

Not a particularly nice weekend on tap. 😞 Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 47. Sunday, a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 47. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Typical average high for the weekend is 37 degrees. I am still hoping for nice weather for Saturday.

I was happy that I got the two Jackson Masks that I ordered in the mail today. 😷 I am quite satisfied with the one I had and I figured while Lynne was having her Cyber Monday sale I should buy some. They are expensive but comfortable and well fitting. It’s good to be supporting a local activist who has done more than anyone bar maybe Resin Adams to Save the Pine Bush. 🌲 They’re having a take out lasagna and Zoom to discuss Reszin Adam’s legacy this weekend but I’m not sure if I can do it without internet plus I don’t want to drive to the city just to get some lasaga. 🍲 I’m hoping we’ll be going back to in person dinners come the spring when the vaccine is widely available.

I got my direct deposit restored yesterday 💵 so that’s in my account. No waiting for the check in the mail. That’s good because I always live pretty much paycheck to paycheck as my checking account bears no interest. The paper paycheck I got before Thanksgiving I took directly to the bank ATM 🏧 the day I got it because I knew my account would be quite drained by the time all of my end of November bills were paid.

I ended up renewing the CD I had coming do at the end of November. 💵 I am hoping to get at least another year out of the truck and my savings account is growing well despite the relatively low rates. 🚘 I really don’t drive that much and will be doing less come the winter. I kind of want to hold off on auto expenses as much as possible so I can keep saving until I can afford land. Some of the properties I’ve been looking at in Missouri are very nice – although anything with a house on it seems much too big and fancy for my tastes. 🏡 Zillow app is a great chance to dream. I got to look at Nebraska and Wisconsin some more too… And the Bad Lands of South Dakota are enticing too.

As previously noted, next Wednesday is Tea Party Day 🐍 when the sun will be setting at 4:23 pm with dusk at 4:55 pm. On that day in 2019, we had mostly cloudy and temperatures between 34 and 25 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 36 degrees. We hit a record high of 55 back in 1971.