Good afternoon! It’s a Monday again. Two more after this before I get to back home. Definitely miss the routine of catching the bus to work. Driving to work is for the dawgs. Three weeks to Veterans Day Observed (Monday) 🇺🇸. Cloudy, damp, and 46 degrees in North Syracuse. ☁ There is a southwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃.

Not a real nice day for sure. Kind of bitterly cold and damp. Yuck. I guess not every day can be 75 degrees and sunny. It’s tough that this October is more typical then many we have had in recent years. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Thursday around 3 am. ☃️

“Wish I was a Kellogg’s Cornflake
Floatin’ in my bowl takin’ movies,
Relaxin’ awhile, livin’ in style,
Talkin’ to a raisin who ‘caisson’ly plays L.A.”

– Punkey’s Dilema, Simon and Garfunkel.

This afternoon will be mostly cloudy ☁, with a high of 50 degrees at 4pm. Seven degrees below normal. Southwest wind around 8 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 74 degrees. Back in the bad old days. 👹 Long ago they seem. The record high of 86 was set in 1979. There was a dusting of snow in 2005.❄ Not a real nice day, but you can’t control the weather but you can control your attitude towards it.

The sun will set at 6:09 pm with dusk around 6:38 pm, which is one minute and 32 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and 48 degrees. There will be a south-southwest breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 10 hours and 42 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 46 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of sprinkles after 5am. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 41 degrees at 5am. Four degrees above normal. South wind around 5 mph. In 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies, clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 43 degrees. The record low of 20 occurred back in 1969.

Last night when I was heading home, I noticed the accessory battery looked a bit low. 🔋I was a bit concerned as I thought that meant I might have a loose wire or some other problem with the battery. Turns out I had left the starting and accessory batteries connected and forgot about it during the day, and the load of the headlights and unlocking the doors with the engine off made both batteries voltage sag a bit momentarily.

Not it was a problem, but my misreading of the gauges made me a bit worried for a few minutes until I figured out what was really going on. I got to be real careful with that switch when camping, ⏺ making sure it’s in the “I” rather then the “II” position when I’m using camp power. That said, I usually keep a close eye on both the starting and accessory battery voltages when I’m at camp.

Today in 1897, using a filament of carbonized thread, Thomas Edison tests the first practical electric incandescent light bulb (it lasted 13 1/2 hours before burning out). 💡 Talk about some dated technology that had a long life-span, as vacuum tubes filled with various gases continue to light our buildings to this day. That said, light-emitting semiconductors,  have all but certainly replaced that this technology, although for existing fixtures many of the mercury-vapor florescent lights and some tungsten-filament energy hogging bulbs are used in rough-service areas like barns.🐄

I was reading about solar power converters, ⬛ last night, which are used in some multi-panel solar systems to boost or buck current from individual solar panels to increase efficiency. Basically, solar panels put out a wide range of voltages depending on how much power is coming out of them. You need a certain voltage to charge a battery, and if the voltage is too low the battery won’t charge well, while if the voltage is too high, the battery will off-gas and eventually explode. Likewise, solar panels are most efficient if you apply some resistance on them so you get the right balance of amps and voltage. It’s a bit complicated, I don’t fully understand the technology, and it’s hard to explain, but it’s interesting to learn more about it. 📟

Honestly, when I own land and a cabin up in the wilderness, I don’t care about all that fancy technology, and aren’t really that interested in having high-voltage 120 volt, grid-style electricity. 🔌 Maybe use a few small inverters to power a few appliances, but my goal is to use as little electricity as possible, and stay with 12 volts or maybe 24 volts with buck converters. I guess things like water pumps, refrigerators, etc. often require more power, which easier delivered with a higher voltage and lower amperage.

But that’s some time off. I need to continue to save and invest for another decade, as I figure I will need at least a quarter million to pay for relocation costs, land, and a small cabin. Land is expensive, and while a smallish cabin is more affordable, I want something that is well insulated and protected from the rain. 🏠 I don’t mind doing low-voltage electrical stuff and basic maintance, but I want something decent to start out. Oh, and a good job once I relocate. But I think with some saving, careful investing, and planning I can make it a reality sometime after 2030. That seems like a long time away, but it’s really not that far out, and I’ll only be 47 years old at that point, and still lots of my life left.

There are 15 days, 7 hours and 45 minutes until the poll close on Election Day in New York. 🗳 Two weeks tomorrow. Three weeks, my vacation will be well underway, god-willing that is. I am still very carefully watching the North Atlantic Oscillation to see how it will impact my trip. I am hoping the weather won’t be too bitterly cold, snowy or rainy. Who knows though, things can certainly change.

Regardless, it will be nice sipping the cup off coffee in the morning next to the heater ☕ and having a rip-roaring fire at night. 🔥 Cooking some decent food in the camp oven — fresh bread, muffins,  pizza. Yum. Sitting back, feeling the chill at night. Hanging out in the woods with a shotgun, going for a hike, seen the land. Just not rushing around, not so busy lie i’ve been lately. I’ll be glad once that time comes around.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until Veterans Day Observed (Monday) 🇺🇸 when the sun will be setting at 4:43 pm with dusk at 5:13 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2017, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 44 and 22 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 49 degrees. We hit a record high of 68 back in 1909.