NY Route 26, the Otselic Valley

A rainy day driving north from Price's Dairy where I got sweet corn through rural farm country in the Otselic Valley along NY Route 26, including many small towns of Cincinnatus, Pitcher, Otselic, and Georgetown. Sped up 10 times.

A Monday morning as we enter the second half of August 🌅

The morning today is surprisingly dark but we’re losing daylight quickly this time of year and more clouds and rain drops then I would have expected from the initial forecast. I’m up and going a bit earlier than normal but it’s good to get a jump on the weekend and I was going.

Good morning! Monday’s come back around again. Mostly cloudy with a few rain drops 💧 and 63 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ It’s raining out again, so shocking. Calm wind. The dew point is 59 degrees.

Out for the morning walk 🚶. After breakfast 🥣 and a shower 🚿 I’m thinking I’ll take Blackie 🚵 to work. Saves $2.60 in bus fares plus it’s a nice ride and it won’t be too hot or rainy today. Tomorrow it will be back on the express bus 🚍. I think taking Madison Ave from the bike path rather than Howard and Green and riding across the Plaza roads. 🚘 You’d think Howard would be a quiet side street but with all the parking garages it’s not and lower Madison has less traffic then you’d expect even at rush hour. Oatmeal soaked overnight with blueberries and chia seeds plus a little Greek yogurt for breakfast. Egg plant for dinner tonight. 🍆 I tried the oatmeal overnight thing on Saturday for the pancakes mix today doing it for actual cold oatmeal to eat this morning.

Today will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 80 degrees at 4pm. Two degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around August 28th. Maximum dew point of 63 at 9am. Calm wind becoming west 5 to 8 mph in the morning. Good morning for riding Blackie 🚵 to work. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 82 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1988.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:01 pm with sun having an altitude of 61.8° from the due south horizon (-9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.2 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:22 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (284°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (291°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:01 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 5 seconds with dusk around 8:29 pm, which is one minute and 26 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:09 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 74 degrees. The dew point will be 63 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Tomorrow will have 13 hours and 58 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 33 seconds over today.

It was a nice weekend ☺ but it came and went so quickly. Pretty evening up on Bennett Hill 🌇 and it was nice seeing the folks. 👪 My pantry is well stocked 🍏 and I was able to get some more reasonably well fitting clothes at the Salvation Army. Biking in the Pine Bush was nice and being able to use Blackie 🚵 to run to the bank and Walmart when I needed to without having to fire up Big Red. 🛻 I’d like to get some Balsamic Vinegar today and the nice thing about bicycle commuting is I can just stop along the way. 🛒

Tonight will have showers, mainly after 3am. The rain could be heavy at times. 🌧 Low of 65 degrees at 5am. Four degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 63 at 7pm. 🏖️ Calm wind becoming north around 5 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 58 degrees. The record low of 48 occurred back in 1964.

Back in 1962, Two gunmen hijacked a mail truck in Plymouth, Massachusetts, ✉ and made off with $1.5 million. Kind of a crazy story, they dressed up as construction 🚧 workers, barricaded off Interstate 495, took the unmarked mail truck 🚚 at gun point 🔫 never to be seen again, leaving the Massachusetts State Police 👮 and the FBI with no answers. Everybody says it was an inside job but one seventy years nobody knows what happened to the money, 💵 back when it was real money and just a typical retirement account.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, sunny, with a high near 81. Maximum dew point of 60 at 3pm. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 87. Maximum dew point of 63 at 11am. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees.

Unfortunately Friday looks to be a bit wetter in the morning ☔ and cooler with a high of 68 up north but Thursday will be closer to eighty and sunny 🌞 so I’m thinking about spending some quality time up at the Potholers 🏊‍♂️ this weekend before summer is done, followed maybe on Sunday with paddling around Moss Island in Little Falls 🛶 and riding some of the bike trail out that way.

And now something to look forward to next Monday is World Mosquito Day 🐞 when the sun will be setting at 7:50 pm with dusk at 8:18 pm. On that day in 2022, we had hot, partly sunny and temperatures between 88 and 70 degrees. Mosquitoes have been bad this year, I might bring the mosquito tent 🎪 when I head north this weekend. Typically, the high temperature is 82 degrees. We hit a record high of 98 back in 1916.

View

Red Building

Along a gravel trail heading out along Conner Bay. I wanted to put a kayak out on Connor Bay, but it was much too rough.

Taken on Sunday August 15, 2010 at Point Au Roche.

Inflation Reduction Act didn’t contribute to lower inflation

Inflation Reduction Act didn’t contribute to lower inflation

Even President Joe Biden has some regrets about the name of the Inflation Reduction Act: As the giant law turns 1 on Wednesday, it's increasingly clear that immediately curbing prices wasn't the point.

While price increases have cooled over the past year — the inflation rate has dropped from 9% to 3.2% — most economists say little to none of the drop came from the law. What You Need To Know

Even President Joe Biden has some regrets about the name of the Inflation Reduction Act. “I wish I hadn’t called it that because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it has to do with providing alternatives that generate economic growth,” Biden said Thursday at a fundraiser in Utah

As the giant law turns 1 on Wednesday, it’s increasingly clear that immediately curbing prices wasn’t the point

Price increases have indeed cooled over the past year, with the inflation rate dropping from 9% to 3.2%

But economists say little to none of the drop came from the law. Harvard University economist Jason Furman says he can't “think of any mechanism” by which the law would have reduced inflation

“I can’t think of any mechanism by which it would have brought down inflation to date," said Harvard University economist Jason Furman, who added that the law could eventually help to lower electricity bills.

Alex Arnon, an economic and budget analyst for the University of Pennsylvania’s Penn Wharton Budget Model, offers a similar assessment.

“We can say with pretty strong confidence that it was mostly other factors that have brought inflation down,’’ he said. "The IRA has just not been a significant factor.’’

That shouldn't come as a surprise.

When the Inflation Reduction Act was proposed, the Congressional Budget Office said its impact on inflation would be “negligible."

So why the name? It may ultimately help to hold down prices in the future — and it fit the politics of the moment.

Judd Road SPUI

Fairly new style of interchange that allows for two left turns at the same time where the new Judd Road Expressway, NY 840 crosses NY 5A in Whitestown.