I saw that the new legislative session calendar was released for next year. Heavy weighted for January and February but that’s to be expected with the early primaries.

Good morning! Partly cloudy and 33 degrees at the Delmar, NY. ⛅ There is a northwest breeze at 11 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 6 pm. ☃️ Much cooler than yesterday.

Decided to do cream of wheat topped with shredded apples 🍏 and homemade this morning cranberry sauce. Coffee ☕ with lots of ginger and cinnamon. Plus some water with apple cider vinegar and ginger to smooth digestion, had a bit of an upset stomach 😲 after the pea soup last night. I really now understand why people add ham to pea soup – it’s for the fats which ease digestion by buffering the highly basic peas. 🍲 Not the taste per se, despite what folks claim. It would help too if I added more water to the soup to make it liquid before reheating for buffering plus adding more aciditic balsamic vinegar when serving and possibly adding a healthy fat like maybe mashed avocado 🥑 or some olive oil to the mix. Ham isn’t required especially if you are adding salt to the pea soup for taste. 🐷

I think it will be nice enough to ride to work. 🚲 Wear gloves 🧤 and embrace the cold it won’t be much longer for riding to work until spring or at least a February thaw. ☃ I figure with the new office 🏢 I’ll be able to ride in when there is enough daylight to ride back to the express bus in the evening. 🚍 Which isn’t the case in January.

Today will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 37 degrees at 11am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 18th. Northwest wind 5 to 11 mph becoming northeast in the afternoon. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 44 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 2001. 9.0 inches of snow fell back in 1902.❄

Stayed in the office late last night to watch the fireworks 🎆. Honestly I would have gotten a better view from the Plaza as the agency buildings blocked the view of lower firing fireworks. I figured view the fireworks from my office before I move on. It wasn’t that late and I just caught the 6:45 bus home. 🚌 Already had dinner in the office, and I thought about going for a walk but my stomach was kind of upset after the pea soup.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:47 am with sun having an altitude of 25° from the due south horizon (-45.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 12.8 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 (232°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (240°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:23 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 21 seconds with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 10 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:30 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 36 degrees. There will be a north-northeast breeze at 5 mph. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 14 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 7 seconds over today.

I got home 🏡 last night and with my upset stomach 🤰🏼 decided it best not to do an evening walk 🚶 plus I was tired 😴 and lazy being a Monday. Heated up a glass of milk 🥛 with lots of cinnamon and ginger and that was good, retired to bed 🛏 and watched some more of that class on machine learning 🤖. I think even more than a so called smoothie which adds natural sugars in the form of fruit and or yogurt I’m just as good with plain fat free milk loaded up with cinnamon and ginger nice and warm. Supposed to help with sleep 😴 besides warming you up.

Tonight will be cloudy ☁, with a low of 27 degrees at 5am. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 2nd. North wind around 6 mph. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 39 degrees. The record low of -5 occurred back in 1901.

Another rainy but mild weekend ahead. 🌧️ Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 49. Sunday, showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 56. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Typical average high for the weekend is 40 degrees. No snow in the immediate future 🔮 but definitely cloudy and gray. And rain for the weekends, which seems like we are stuck on the pattern of rainy weekends.

Looking ahead, there are 3 weeks until Boxing Day 🥊 when the sun will be setting at 4:29 pm with dusk at 4:59 pm. A good day for burning up all those boxes and wrapping paper from Christmas. 📦 🔥 On that day in 2022, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 30 and 16 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 35 degrees. We hit a record high of 59 back in 1895.