October 11, 2018 Night

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Good evening! It’s been a long and at sometimes very wet day here in Syracuse. Just lots of heavy rain, some very heavy bands too. But for now the rain has stopped and we have mostly cloudy and 61 degrees in North Syracuse. ☁ Mild weather is expected to a last a few more hours, but it won’t be an all night thing. There is a west breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 56 degrees. The skies will clear Saturday around 11 pm.

Not a terrible today, but also quite busy and rainy at times. I did get for a nice little walk out along North Main Street in North Syracuse, 🚶 in the early morning, but most of the day was spent in the office. Now I am super tired, I didn’t get enough sleep last night. 😴 Stayed up late, and had to get up early for work. I had a nice “glass of wine” 🍷in a red solo cup around 6:30 PM tonight, I think I may have been a little buzzed driving home at, but it wasn’t really more then a 1/4th of the cup but on an empty stomach. Like most days, I had a late lunch. I usually end up skipping dinner, because I get tired of eating out or getting food out of a can 🥫  — or whatever I keep cool in the beverage cooler and heat with my personal microwave which they have in the office.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly after 5am. Cloudy ☁, with a low of 50 degrees at 5am. Nine degrees above normal. West wind around 10 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2017, we had light rain in the evening, remaining overcast into the early morning. It got down to 42 degrees. The record low of 22 occurred back in 1964.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent Moon 🌒 with 11% illuminated. The moon will rise at 10:40 am. The First Quarter Moon is on Monday night with a chance of showers. The Hunter Moon 🌝 is on Tuesday, October 23rd. The sun will rise at 7:14 am with the first light at 6:45 am, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 12 hours and 47 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers, mainly after 9am. Cloudy , with a high of 52 degrees at 2pm. Seven degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 46 at 6am. West wind 11 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. The high last year was 65 degrees. The record high of 85 was set in 1954. There was a dusting of snow in 1904.❄

I am glad that I’ve made it halfway to Election Day, well actually that starts tomorrow at Day 25. 🗳 By the end of the day, I was really fried. Some ways though, this is always the toughest week or two, just because it feels like it will never come to an end. But alas, November really is just around the corner, I will do what needs to get done, and things will hopefully work out just fine. I am definitely looking forward to that November trip, each day it creep closer. Those long nights in the wilderness will be great — and if it’s not too cold or wet — I’m hoping for a nice night watching the stars from Foster Pond in the Finger Lakes National Forest.🌠 That never happened this summer, as it was too wet and cloudy most of the week I was there. Not to mention the many other adventures I’m looking forward to. Plus all those great camp meals to look forward to, the fires, the nice nights in the wilderness.

The headlights now re-aimed, make night driving so much easier. 💡 Maybe I’ll have to go a bit higher for rural road driving, but I really like how much more light I have on the road now, and how it seems to cut down on the glare from other vehicles. I’m sure I’m making other drivers happier, I’ve not seen anybody blink me since I made the adjustment. One of these nights I got to try some rural road driving at higher speeds to see if I’m running out past the low beams while driving — although for the extra light on the road, and still having my high beams, it’s probably worth having them pretty low.

I do swear though I notice at times that the suspension is riding a bit rougher, especially when I turn hard — maybe the shocks are wearing down a bit — but things are still relatively level,  and I’ve not heard any noises. 📎 I get some wheel hop and flex in the tires when turning hard, but that’s to be expected with the big tires. The other day I drove home with the windows down and radio off to confirm I had no issues because ever since the spring I’ve though something could be wrong. I don’t really care that much about breaking down out here, but I do worry in the back of my head that I don’t want any mechanical problems to impact my November Road Trip that I’ve been looking forward to going on for months now. Big Red wouldn’t be as much fun if I didn’t have something to worry about on it constantly. But my worry comes from back when I had that old Ford Ranger which wasn’t always the most reliable. Then again my neighbor who I sold the Ford Ranger to seven years, still has it on the road, but then again, he never really leaves town.

I decided to order two Yeeco® Digital Multimeter and shunts from China, to provide me with more information about the power being produced from my solar panel and how much power i am pulling off my accessory battery. I could get them from E-Bay but I figured I’m not going to have a chance to wire them up until later at any rate. I decided I did not want an inline meter, because I was concerned about line-drop from too small of wires, and the fact that many of the inline meters tend not to be well built. 📟

In contrast, a shunt will be quite reliable, and if the meter were to die, I could just replace it — and I can mount the meter wherever I want, like back in the truck cap. I might wire up both shunts — one between the solar controller and ground, and one between the battery and ground, but only use one meter, and put one of the two-way switches to switch between the two. 🔌 This way I can monitor either the current flowing from the battery or the current flowing from the solar panel. The gauges show voltage, amperage, wattage, and power consumed/produced. I may need some more crimp connectors but they aren’t hard to get a hold off. I am thinking I could use the non-function Ethernet cable I have (after testing which strands are broken). Before my November Road Trip I would like to at least have the shunt between the solar panel wired, although I guess I could quite easily do both at the same time.

Tomorrow if the weather doesn’t turn out to be a wash out, and it’s not too busy, I may try to get down to Green Lakes State Park for a while in the afternoon tomorrow. 🏞 Believe it or not, despite one day hiking in the open area that’s the bird sanctuary, I’ve yet to spend any time down at the lakes proper, hiking around them. They should be getting a lot of autumn color at this point I’m thinking. They are very pretty on a nice day. Well Sunday morning might be reasonably nice hiking down there. I’ll have to think about it again. It’s going to be cool but maybe fairly clear.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. 😕 Saturday, showers, mainly before 5pm. High near 48. West wind around 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Not exactly a real nice. Cold and wet! Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 56. Typical average high for the weekend is 61 degrees.

In four weeks on November 8 the sun will be setting at 4:47 pm (Standard Time),🌄 which is one hour, 40 minutes and 24 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 47 and 26 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 51 and 34 degrees. The record high of 75 degrees was set back in 1975. It will be much colder by the time my November Road Trip gets underway, but I enjoy the change of the season and I will be glad once the election comes and goes.

Looking ahead, November 🥧 is in 3 weeks, Veterans Day (Sunday) 🇺🇸 is a month away and Thanksgiving 🦃 is in 6 weeks.

Charge a Fee to Report a Crime

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One of the things that bothers me is that many people insist police protection services should be free to use. 👮 There is a cost to using to government services, and one when voluntarily calls the police, they should be charged for the cost of the service — to discourage over use of the service. A $300 fee to file a police report makes a lot of sense — it’s the same fee you would pay to get access to the civil courts. 🚔 This fee would do a lot to discourage mass filers of criminal complaints — like at Walmart and other big-box stores.

If you are a victim of a crime then it makes sense to pay the proposed $300 fee for filing a police report. Crime is expensive to it’s victims — especially when you figure the cost of hospital bills for injuries and loss of use of stolen or damaged property. 🚨 It’s also expensive to local government to investigate and punish. If you are harmed by a criminal, it’s worthwhile to pay the $300 fee to get justice. After paying for the police report, you can ask a court for reimbursement for your losses, after the perpetrator of the crime is successfully convicted.⚖

There is the thought that poor people might be less likely to report crime, if they knew they would have to pay $300 to the local police department to have their report of crime investigated. 🔍 But actually that’s the idea — to reduce police utilization, you have to charge people for filing a police report. You could also set up not-for-profits that could assist impoverished people in covering police filing fees. This would ensure even poor people have access to police services.💰

Too often people are abusing “free” police services, getting the state involved when they could find their own solutions to problems impacting their lives.

My Take on Healthcare Reform

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One of President Trump’s better ideas is saying that health insurance should cost only $15-20 a month. I wholeheartedly agree with that proposal as many working families struggle to put food on their table, pay the rent, mortage, car and recreational expenses and shouldn’t be overly burdened with healthcare expenses. $15 to 20 a month seems like a reasonable expense for most people — except the most poverty stricken people to pay for the healthcare.

While I reject the idea of greater government involvement in people’s personal lives, and think people should be able to choose the health plan they want, it’s obvious that $15-20 a month isn’t going to go very far when somebody breaks an arm when they fall off their four wheeler, or slip on a ladder. To say nothing of the common diseases of old age or poor fortune.

So how do you get to a system where health insurance costs only $15-20 a month but offers people choices on what plan they get and what benefits are included? What system can use market forces to encourage hospitals and doctors to economize but produce the care you need?

I think the solution is government-subsidized healthcare with private insurance. Allow private companies to sell insurance, and allow some flexibility in the plans beyond basic financial protection for people. But have the bulk of the money that funds insurance come from government taxation on the wealth centers of our country, e.g. Wall Street.

Healthcare is enormously expensive. The single individual who lives in a mobile home, works in a factory or more commonly a retailer like Walmart or Lowes, squeaks out a few extra bucks maybe raising some beef cows on their land can’t be expected to care the whole load of their healthcare. The kind of people you see on the back roads of Pennsylvania, Maryland or West Virginia. But there is enormous money out there in our economy — on Wall Street, the big banks, in various financial investments. The rich can and should take a haircut to ensure everybody can afford decent healthcare.

Obamacare tries to do this but it really under invests in our healthcare system, spending too little money and preserving too much of our employer based system. Quality healthcare shouldn’t be tied to one’s job. You shouldn’t have to work for a large company to have access to good care. Obamacare was an incremental improvement but more should be done. The solution is not to repeal Obamacare but to make it better — put more taxpayer money obtained from the wealth centers of our country — and use it to make sure everybody, including those in the backwoods of Appalachia can afford quality healthcare.