April 19, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Light rain and 71 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a south breeze at 13 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 23 mph 💨💨💨. The dew point is 58 degrees. Damp evening, I was going to go down to the library but the rain picked up and I got working on some code.

After my walk out to Five Rivers Environmental Education Center 🐸 I explored the nature center for a bit. First time I’ve gone inside. They have some nice exhibits to help with species identification. I usually don’t like the fancy nature centers but this one was interesting.

Then I went home and took a nap. I took a shower 🚿 and then cooked dinner – hot meatballs subs with the Falvo’s meat balls I bought a few weeks ago and worked on some code relating to syncing the YouTube videos I downloaded to mp3s on my phone.

Tonight will have showers and possibly a thunderstorm before midnight, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms between midnight and 2am, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2am. 🌧 Low of 63 degrees at 6am. 24 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 61 at 4am. 🏖️ South wind 13 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. Windows are staying open tonight. In 2018, we had mostly clear in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 31 degrees. The record low of 19 occurred back in 1875.

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon 🌖 with 96% illuminated. The moon will set at 7:08 am. The Last Quarter Moon is on Thursday night with a chance of showers. The Flower Moon 🌝 is in 4 weeks. The sun will rise at 6:06 am with the first light at 5:36 am, which is one minute and 34 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 10 hours and 22 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 41 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have showers and possibly a thunderstorm before noon, then showers likely. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. 🌧 High of 70 degrees at 4pm. Nine degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical day around May 16th. Maximum dew point of 61 at 6am. 🏖️ South wind 13 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had cloudy conditions. The high last year was 47 degrees. The record high of 93 was set in 1941. 5.8 inches of snow fell back in 1947.❄

Not expecting a very good day tomorrow. 😢 But that’s fine, I’ll go down to the library for a while and work on some projects around the apartment.🏡 If the weather is rain free for a while I might start putting some of the camping gear back into my truck. I’m looking to leave on Wednesday after work most likely for camping which means everything needs to be packed and groceries bought by Tuesday evening.🍱 To ensure adequate cooling in the cooler, I’ve been freezing salt water ice in waterproof plastic coffee cans which should work quite well. I should look at getting some small waterproof thermometers to monitor the temperature in the coolers. I might run to Walmart and Lowe’s tomorrow to buy some more epoxy for tacking the LED strip up in the truck cap.💡

Looking ahead to Sunday, a chance of showers, mainly after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 66. South wind 5 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Maximum dew point of 49 at 6am. Typical average high for the weekend is 61 degrees.

Again, not a very nice day for Easter. 🐰 I don’t think I’ll plan on doing much hiking that day 🚶 but I could change my mind. I think mom and dad are planning Easter dinner pretty early so I don’t want to head too far out of town. I might join them at the diner on Easter morning, but it depends if it’s nice enough to go hiking later on as I don’t want to drive out to Clarksville and then turn around and drive home. Seems like a lot of wasted miles. 🚶

In four weeks on May 17 the sun will be setting at 8:13 pm,🌄 which is 30 minutes and 54 seconds later then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had mostly cloudy and temperatures between 80 and 59 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 70 and 47 degrees. The record high of 92 degrees was set back in 2017.

Looking ahead, Pack Rat Day 🐀 is in 4 weeks, Memorial Day Weekend Starts 🏕️ is in 5 weeks, Dog Days of Summer 🌻 is in 11 weeks and Labor Day Weekend Begins 👨‍🏭 is in 19 weeks.

Swampy End of Oxshoe Pond

SUNY Administration Tower

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It still is pretty bleak looking down here at the Corning Preserve, but it won't be long until things green up, especially with 80 degrees being predicted for Monday.

Taken on Thursday April 7, 2011 at Albany, NY.

20th Century Constitutional Amendment. The Right to Vote cost $2.00 in Massachusetts; actual receipt shown here. Voting Rights, Civil Rights Acts

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Poll Tax: 20th Century Constitutional Amendment. The Right to Vote cost $2.00 in Massachusetts; actual receipt shown here. Voting Rights, Civil Rights Acts

By 1963 we were ready to exercise our voting rights. And so, in March, I went to the Town Hall of Wilbraham, Massachusetts, to register to vote. Whoa!

"First, Mr. Dailey, there is the little matter of the poll tax."

"What? In this bastion of pilgrim democracy, is a town official telling me there is such a thing as a poll tax?"

Peggy and I had voted years earlier in a number of states, including Virginia, the heart of the Confederacy.! (Virginia, it needs to be noted, had imposed a special federal registration requirement, not a poll tax, but an impediment to voters who did not pay the poll tax in the state's elections.)

Motoring

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Walking out to Five Rivers makes me think I really don’t miss motoring much.🐸 Motoring might be the best way to escape the cities, get far out in the countryside quickly, but there is no good thing as motoring.🚘🚨

The greenies like to promote hybrid cars and electric cars🌲. I mean they must be better just like smoking filtered and light cigarettes is healthier for you.🚬 Fuel efficiency and electrification standards as a whole are reducing oil consumption as a whole but they aren’t making the enormous energy consumption, highway network, noise or run off pollution problem go away.🚘 They aren’t ending suburban sprawl or the carnage that motoring causes to humans and wildlife alike.

I probably should be an advocate for more wilderness areas and abandoning more highways.🌿 But I’m not. I’m really far less concerned about the impacts of dirt roads and a handful of car tailpipes then major expressways and bumper to bumper traffic.🚙🚚🚛🚗🚕 Wilderness areas tend to concentrate the activity of hikers and outdoorsy folk, while other areas are relatively unused. Many logged state forests get a fraction of the use and abuse of the officially designated wilderness areas. They’re a hell of a lot more wild in many cases too.

I have my truck, I drive it up into the wilderness of sorts although not what the greenies want you to believe is wilderness.🌇 They probably consider it to be trash land, a waste land of beer cans and debris, even though in my experience litter is few and far between.🚯 But it’s not a daily driver, I really do everything I can to avoid driving around town because I know urban motoring is particularly bad for the planet 🌏 and honestly you see and enjoy life much better on foot. 👣