No rain yet but it’s coming. The air feels damp but I’m hoping it will hold off until after I catch the bus downtown so I can bring my posters in without them getting wet or having to drive.

Good morning! Happy Tuesday. Clouds and 45 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁️ There is a south-southeast breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Friday around 5 am. ☃️

I decided I definitely need some kind of air freshener or candle warmer 👃🕯 for my office as yesterday they got a fresh delivery of cardstock to the print shop 🖨 below my office and the HVAC sucked in the hydrogen sulfide rich air from the fresh paper delivered 📄 🚚 and I wanted to gag half the morning. I know enough about human noses and sulfur that over time people get used to the smell and can’t smell it, and may even grow fond of it but at least right now it stinks!

I may run to Walmart later in the week, I also need razors and eggs 🪒 🥚. I eat a lot more eggs these days as they’re cheap and fairly healthy protein 💪🏻and make an excellent binder in cornmeal and oatmeal pancakes 🥞. I actually had Johnny Cakes this morning with lots of onion, broccoli, chilli and cherry tomato. 🍅 🧅🌶 🥦 It was good but that like so many meals requires eggs, and I won’t have enough come Friday or Saturday.

Today will rain. 🌧 High of 46 degrees at 1pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 18th. Southeast wind 5 to 8 mph becoming light and variable. Chance of precipitation is 90%. My windows are open but maybe I should shut them. 🔲 Not going to be super warm. New precipitation amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. But wet! 💧A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 42 degrees. The record high of 71 was set in 1964. 8.6 inches of snow fell back in 1917.❄ If this was colder that would be a ton of snow. ☃ But truth be told we need rain to reduce fire risk. 🧑‍🚒

Bussing it in this morning. 🚌 I could drive but it’s much easier to catch the bus. It’s time I can work on my phone or catch up with folks. It’s relaxing to not have to deal with traffic. 🚘 I am sure I’ll have plenty of alone time in an automobile once I build my off-grid cabin, as that naturally has to be a ways from the city so I can have freedom. 🔥 🐷 🐐 Saves over the gas and no miles on my truck. People in my suburban office think it’s weird I ride my bike or bus it here, but it saves money and stress. Some ways I like the urban life, but I am also ready to get away.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:08 pm with sun having an altitude of 41.6° from the due south horizon (-29.3° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:13 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (257°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (263°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:51 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 56 seconds with dusk around 6:18 pm, which is one minute and 13 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:52 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 46 degrees. There will be a north-northeast breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 30 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 53 seconds over yesterday.

I found some a nice property on Zillow that I’m investigating further. 🔍 Not quite ready to buy at this point, and probably somebody else will get it first, but I’m not going to spend $100,000 on land that I don’t have a solid plan to make use of in coming years. But it’s worth it to develop my code and methodology to study the property 🗺 as even if I don’t end up living there, it gives me an idea of what I should look for and avoid. I also started reading How to plan, contract, and build your own home by Richard M. Scutella  to try to understand more of the owner-builder process. Once I get further along, I might reach out to friends with questions, but I want to take my time and do it right.

Tonight will rain likely, mainly before 7pm. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 44 degrees at 1am. 21 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around May 3rd. Calm wind becoming south around 5 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2023, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 33 degrees. The record low of -21 occurred back in 1948.

Going to be a rainy night, so my plan is to do a lot more reading, 📚 and more work on my code to crank out vital information about a property that is listed. I have completed the LIDAR section that gives me total acreage by average slope and direction the slope faces, but also want to be able to calculate how much of the property is on DEC wetlands and/or 100 feet from waterway, what soils are on the land, and so forth. The more data I can obtain, the more leverage I have. While most sellers and real estate agents probably know topographic maps and have walked the property, I doubt many know how many acres are 5% slope, how many acres exactly are soil x, y, or z. Information is power. Or at least it’s interesting what I can crank out of a few lines of R code.

Today in 1970, Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty goes into effect after ratification by 43 nations. ⚛️ It was really bad when they were blowing up nuclear bombs in the air, making the milk and corn radioactive across the mid-west. 🐮 Some of it was willful ignorance by the federal government on how harmful such actions were. In 1933, during the height of the Great Depression, President Franklin D. Roosevelt declares a “bank holiday”, 🏦 closing all U.S. banks and freezing all financial transactions.

Gonna rain again this weekend. ☔ No camping 🏕 for me. 😞 Saturday, a chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 46. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Sunday, rain likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 46. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Daylight savings time starts Sunday. Typical average high for the weekend is 43 degrees.

Looking ahead, there are 2 weeks until Last Day of Winter 🏂 when the sun will be setting at 7:08 pm with dusk at 7:35 pm (Daylight Savings Time). On that day in 2023, we had partly sunny, snow showers and temperatures between 33 and 22 degrees.l Typically, the high temperature is 46 degrees. We hit a record high of 78 back in 2012.