Good morning. At the 9 o’clock hour we are at about 43 degrees as we quickly warm to 59 degrees later on this very sunny morning.

It’s already the second half of November. I don’t know where the month went so quickly. I am thinking of possibly doing my North Country trip this weekend depending on the forecast by midweek. Right now it doesn’t look bad but we might get an inch of snow up in North Country – which won’t stop me but will cause me to proceed with caution. I don’t want to get stuck or freeze up north.

Throughout the week I will posting maps of the local primaries to the blog. I mapped results for all the County Legislature Democratic primaries except for LD 1 & 3 in the city, races I know little about. I also did the county executive and the Bethlehem Highway Superintendent. I also did revised maps of several St. Lawrence County state forests. With the county election districts lines I feel as happy as a pig in shit. Because it’s damn fascinating to compare geography to voting patterns. People in neighboring EDs tend to be demographically similar and vote similarly. Candidates tend to get their neighbors or sometimes local issues play a role in elections.

It was a nice weekend but much too short. The hike in the Catskills was refreshing but those mountains are nothing like West Virginia. Still that hike made up for an extraordinarily boring Saturday whose highlights were making maps and walking 7 miles around the neighborhood.