Good morning! Monday’s come back around again. Next Monday is Presidents Day 👴. Light snow and 25 degrees in Delmar. ❄ Kind of a pretty snow, really only impacting parking lots and side roads so far. Big snow tomorrow, again. There is a north-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. Things will start to thaw out at around 1 pm. 🌡️

Back to work today, taking the local bus downtown. 🚌 Going to be another really busy day at work but I’m getting used to the new routine. I think it makes the days go by faster. At least it’s only a two day session week, although I did pack dinner for tonight. Tomorrow shouldn’t be too long I’m thinking as members are going to want to leave town early with the snow and the President’s Week holiday. ❄

Feeling well rested after the sleeping pill I took last night. 😴 I hate sleeping this time of year although once the time changes and I can leave the windows open at night it should get easier. It also helps that the automatic dimming of the lights got me to bed at a reasonable hour.

Today will have a chance of light snow, mainly before 10am. Mostly cloudy 🌨, with a high of 33 degrees at 2pm. One degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around February 10th. North wind 5 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had light freezing rain. The high last year was 37 degrees. The record high of 59 was set in 1981. 9.6 inches of snow fell back in 1933.❄

The sun will set at 5:22 pm with dusk around 5:51 pm, which is one minute and 18 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 28 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 10 hours and 25 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 37 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 8 degrees at 6am. Nine degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -1 at 5am; North wind around 7 mph. In 2018, we had mist in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 22 degrees. The record low of -16 occurred back in 1979.

Tomorrow will snow, mainly after 11am. The snow could be heavy at times. 🌨 High of 27 degrees at 6pm. Six degrees below normal. Northeast wind 6 to 9 mph becoming east in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 3 to 5 inches possible. A year ago, we had light freezing rain. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 55 was set in 1932. 13.5 inches of snow fell back in 1988.❄

While usually I like snow, I’m hardly thrilled about having to dig Big Red out again after the snow. 🚗At least living in the city, I won’t have to drive in it and I can wear my snow boots. Probably will turn the heat up tonight just on case we lose power and because it’s going to be a cold night and I don’t want things to fall too far behind on the heating front, less the hot water pipe freeze and my shower is cold come morning. 🚿 I’m parked in my winter spot and hopefully the landlord will have my normal spot well cleaned after the storm and I can move my truck back there come the weekend.

It was a nice walk up at Partridge Run WMA yesterday afternoon. Not too bad but very icy. Some areas up there were a sheet of ice with the snow melt off the hills sides. I am very glad I wore my micro spikes. 🌲Walked along the Switz Kill then across the gravel pit up to the Gulf. Walked across a frozen lake, I thought I heard a crack as I crossed it.😮 But I guess it was just the ice shifting. It seemed like it was pretty solid. Then I saw a snowy owl fly overhead.🕊 I wanted to get a picture but it was gone too quickly. The lower Partridge Run Road Bridge is really falling apart with even more of the deck rotting away.🏞 I wonder if they will eventually replace it with a pedestrian bridge? Likewise more and more of the road is disappearing – Irene took away a lot of the road, but now its just eroding quicker that the rip rap is gone.

I enjoyed seeing the open country, I miss living in the country. I’ve always liked the Switz Kill Valley and the rural lands around Berne 🐄although I can’t imagine owning land in New York with all the taxes and regulations. 👿

Had a nice dinner at my parents house. They made up meatball riggis. Did my wash came home. It was nice seeing the folks. 👪

For lunch at work, I finally bought some real metal forks, as I got tired of breaking the plastic forks I usually use. 🍴 They were so inexpensive at under a buck for the most basic model, and I figure they will last longer — although most of the plastic forks I’ve used over the years I’ve gotten for free.

Finished working on the lights in my bedroom, although now I have to write the phone app, although I already have an earlier version I can use that I built that I can use as a template. 📃At this point I’m just building non essential features, most of which are simple to implement now that the framework is done. 💡

Last week I bought a IOT enclosed relay. Not a big purchase, it’s basically a surge protector and a relay integrated into one, as an alternative to building my own switched relay for driving one of the 120 volt lamps in my bedroom. 🔌 High voltage scares me a bit, especially the possibility that leads could accidentally get pulled loose on the floor, leading to a fire or deadly current.

I just want a little more light and those commercial LED bulbs are very efficient and have much better color rendition than my LED strip but I want to be able to control them from my micro controller and phone, and make part of the lights when I wake in the morning. 💡 While I’m sure I could build my own by the time I bought the outlet, the relay, junction box and cover plate I figured it was cheaper to buy the $20 pre-assembled unit especially when I want to switch only one outlet to drive a single bulb. I could see buying one of those gang relays and wiring up the plug if I had a lot of lights I wanted to switch, and a way to tie up the cords, but I feel safer getting a UL certified device anytime I’m working with mains voltage, especially if it’s going to be plugged in all the time by my bed.

Fan started working again on my laptop. ⚠ No more error at boot, but still very noisy. I think it’s only one of the fan units that is causing the problem. I will have to get some canned air and see if I can clean the fan out the next time I’m at the store. I keep forgetting to buy the canned air so I can do it, although I was quite happy with only one of the internal fans working, it made things a lot more quiet.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. 🤔 Saturday, a chance of rain. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 44. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 30.  Typical average high for the weekend is 35 degrees.

Next Monday is Presidents Day 👴 when the sun will be setting at 5:31 pm with dusk at 6:00 pm. It will be partly cloudy with a chance of snow showers, and a high of 38 degrees.  On that day in 2018, we had partly sunny, snow showers and temperatures between 40 and 23 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 35 degrees. We hit a record high of 63 back in 1981.

In four weeks on March 11 the sun will be setting at 6:57 pm (Daylight Savings Time),🌄 which is one hour, 34 minutes and 54 seconds later then today. In 2018 on that day, we had partly cloudy and temperatures between 36 and 28 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 42 and 24 degrees. The record high of 70 degrees was set back in 1977.

Not sure if I will head out of town but I very well may go camping locally on Sunday night. ⛺ Probably hot tent locally as there is still much to much snow in the Adirondacks to camp especially with the limited parking along NY 8 this time of year. Plus like usual my budget is tight and I’d rather save my miles and gasoline for the summer when it’s really nice. ⛽ Hiding out at the Potholers during the brutal heat of last summer was a lot of fun last year.

Looking ahead, Presidents Day 👴 is in 1 weeks, Average High is 40 ☀️ is in 3 weeks, April Fools Day 🤡 is in 7 weeks, Tax Day 💰 is in 9 weeks, Earth Day 🌎 is in 10 weeks, Memorial Day 🇺🇸 is in 15 weeks, July 🏊🏿 is in 20 weeks and Last Sunset After 8 PM 🌆 is in 26 weeks.