Good evening! I hope you had a good Buy Nothing Day. I enjoyed my 10 plus mile walk around town, didn’t drive anywhere.🏃 Mostly clear and 25 degrees in Delmar. There is a south breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. There is about an inch of of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 10 am. 🌡️

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 19 degrees at 9pm. 10 degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical night around December 21st. Maximum wind chill around 13 at 6pm; South wind 3 to 8 mph. In 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies with some clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 29 degrees. The record low of 7 occurred back in 2000.

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 99% illuminated with the moon rising at 5:12 pm. The moon will set at 8:14 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Wednesday night with mostly cloudy skies. The Cold Moon 🌝 is in 4 weeks. The sun will rise at 6:57 am with the first light at 6:26 am, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 32 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 47 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of rain, mainly after 4pm. Increasing clouds ⛅, with a high of 39 degrees at 1pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around December 6th. South wind 5 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 48 degrees. The record high of 70 was set in 2014. 8.8 inches of snow fell back in 1898.❄

Looking ahead to Sunday, a chance of rain, mainly before 10am. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 45.☁ West wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Typical average high for the weekend is 44 degrees.

I had a nice Thanksgiving Dinner last night. My parents cooked it up nicely like they do every year.🍗 Turkey and all the fixings. Then they had apple pie. Nice evening but I kept feeling cool. I don’t know if I got chilled through while I was walking at Five Rivers earlier in the day. I spent 45 minutes hiking, nearly alone at Five Rivers on Thanksgiving, 🏃it was clear that not many people were willing to brave the sub-zero windchills on Thanksgiving despite people’s desire for a pre-turkey trot. While I was at my parents house, I was able to plug my laptop directly into their router, which helped me update the kernel on the laptop so it’s back online.📡

Even had a glass of wine with dinner, which it’s the first in the long time since I stopped drinking alcohol a while back.🍷 Maybe come camping season again I’ll have a beer or two in the wilderness but alcohol is so expensive these days, and my budget. 🍺Plus I am increasingly concerned about the health risks with drinking alcohol, such as cancer but also including addiction and injury from intoxication. I can go to bar after work and take public transit home, but I still I don’t like drinking with all the risks and costs.

Last night was a nice drive home. Lots of moonlight with the full moon, salt on the roads, and white snow made the landscape very bright for driving, making the headlights of oncoming cars not so bright or obnoxious. 🌝Plus ever since adjusting my headlights so they point at the road, I find that I am not looking as much at the headlights of oncoming cars, as my lane is plenty bright with the lows pointed where they can be useful. I wouldn’t mind driving on rural roads nearly as much if all evenings where like last night. Urban roads don’t bother me much but rural driving at night is hard.

The upstairs baseboard electric heat remains turned off because last night checking it for hazards out I noticed a paper wasps nest in it. 🐝 When I got back from North Syracuse, I noticed a bunch of dead wasps around and a handful of live ones. Nothing the vacuum couldn’t fix. But I have to move my dresser tomorrow and get in there with a vacuum. Without the bedroom electric heat boosting the gas heat downstairs, my bedroom drops to the low fifties at night. That’s fine for sleeping but I like how fast the electric can make my bedroom warm when waking up or getting home on a cold night. I try to bundle up and conserve heat but sometimes it’s nice to not be cold all of the time.

I went for a nice walk of over 10 miles around town today. I started out walking from my place near the Bethlehem High School down to the Port of Albany, via Delaware Avenue then the Albany County Rail Trail. 🏃This time I walked all the way down through the gorge to the parking lot next to the Center for Disabilities Services. From there, I hiked 5 ½ miles west to the Slingerlands Railroad bridge over New Scotland Avenue then back home via Cherry and Elm. Nice walk. Didn’t have to burn a drop of gasoline either,⛽ just some shoe leather going for the walk. Helped burn off some calories from turkey day, and is helping to build up more muscle and energy after those long weeks in North Syracuse. A little bit stiff and sore now. 💪When I’m back to work downtown, I am going to make it a priority, at least on non-session days, to do laps in the concourse and state museum to burn calories and increase strength.

I thought about heading out of town, but I never really made a decision last night/yesterday about heading out of town. ⛺ I really didn’t feel like driving anywhere if I wasn’t going to spend the night up in the wilderness. Kind of cool day for camping, but I’ve certainly done it on colder nights. I thought about it but locally it’s Big Game Season and I didn’t want to interrupt hunters dragging gear back, and up north there is still a lot of snow. ❄Plus, I’m trying to save money, as I still am thinking of buying the SSD drive, and that’s going to be a $150 when figure in tax and shipping – maybe a little less with holiday sales but I am not hopeful. Money is tight, and staying home saves money and miles on the truck.

I don’t plan to drive more then about 1,000 miles over the next four months. I did less then 1,000 miles last winter. 🚘 I am quite happy walking around the neighborhood and taking public transit to my destination. Most of the winter I expect to do no more most weeks then a Sunday trip to the grocery store, and then out to my parents house, maybe stopping along the way for a brief hiking or ski.🏂 Once or twice hot tent in the wilderness. Or truck cap camp if we have some snow free days. 🌇 My truck is going on 80,000 miles at this point, and I really want to try get at least three more years out of it – through 2022 – so I am trying to save miles on it whenever possible. Plus I am sure things will need expensive repairs in the coming years, especially once my truck crosses the 100,000 mile mark. I think rust and suspension wear with the big tires will wear things out before the miles.

I ordered a 12 VDC 5 amp power supply for the warm white LED strip I am going to mount over my bed. I went for a more expensive, UL laboratory certified, quality power supply🔌 as I didn’t want something that would pose a fire risk, especially so close to my bed. The difference between a cheap 5 amp supply and a quality one was like $5, and the more expensive one is certified to be more energy efficient.

Once I get the power adapter, I will put together an Arduino Nano board with Bluetooth board and a transistor to drive the warm white LED strip over my bed. :idea:For now I will control it with my phone📱 but the plan is eventually to have it talking to the colored LEDs on the other side of the room, which will be eventually upgraded and controlled by a ESP32 board which will have better PWM for mixing light and the Bluetooth to talk across the room with. It’s a good winter project.

In four weeks on December 21 the sun will be setting at 4:25 pm,🌄 which is one minute and 6 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had snow, mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 32 and 21 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 34 and 19 degrees. The record high of 59 degrees was set back in 1957.

Looking ahead, First Day of Winter ☃️ is in 4 weeks, Festivus 🍖 is a month away, 4:30 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 5 weeks, Winnie the Pooh Day 🍯 is in 8 weeks, National Cheese Lovers Day 🧀 is in 2 months, National Pie Day 🍰 is in 2 months, 5 PM Sunset 🌆 is in 9 weeks, March 🌨 is in 14 weeks, Ides of March ✝ is in 16 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 26 weeks and Dog Days of Summer 🌻 is in 32 weeks.