Good morning! Yeah, it’s a frosty Friday! Next Friday is Bake Cookies Day 🍪. Partly sunny and 28 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌅 There is a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. Things will start to thaw out at around 8 am. 🌡️

The sun ☀ certainly feels nice on the morning walk 🚶🏻. Lots of bright sunshine although still pretty cool but I expect it warm up as the day goes on. It looks like the remainder of December which is a good thing in my book 📙.

Yesterday I went downtown to the office 🏢. Honestly I’m a little bit nervous about riding the bus 🚏during this stage of the pandemic now that it has ramped back up, but it probably was fine. Both ways the buses were relatively empty, I used hand sanitizer and soap both after getting to work and home, ✋and my mask was tight fitting. 😷I thought about driving 🚘 but who wants to deal with parking 🅿 one’s big jacked up truck downtown.

It was nice being back in the office, 🏢 taking in the views and seeing some of my colleagues in person. 👥It’s just not the same over the Zoom. I miss the old ways of doing things, I really get tired of being in my apartment all day long. It gets lonely and boring 💤. I am hoping now that the vaccine is approved we can he back to normal sooner than later.

I certainly did not expect the bus to break down on the way home. 🚍 The bus was barely two years old and it blew a radiator hose and spilled fluid all over the floor. I made sure to leave before the four o’clock rush hour figuring it would be a quick trip. Once the bus broke 🚌 a lot of people stood outside and the doors were open ensuring lots of ventilation. 🍃 It’s fine, I got the balance of what I needed done at work so it wasn’t like I was missing much and I’m so adapted to working on my phone 📱 it’s fine. With a lot fewer routes running these days, it only took like 10 minutes to fetch another bus.

Tonight we continued our Zoom interview with John Wolcott 📹 with several other people including Lynne Jackson. It was a pretty interesting discussion for future archival footage purposes. The video quality of Zoom is much better Free Conference Call. I just used the Zoom app on my phone, turning off the video when I wasn’t speaking. 🎤 It used not that much data. That said, once my phone plan 📱 is upgraded I shouldn’t have to worry about running out of data and will be doing most of my work Zooms that way.

After that, some twelve hours ago, I did my evening walk 🚶🏻 last night and sat out back for a while. Took a single sleeping pill 💊 early in hopes of sound sleeping 😴. I’ve been walking five miles each day between the morning and evening. It was a warm enough last night that the heat kept well enough and the toilet 🚽 gasket wasn’t acting up as it was the previous night causing the toilet tank to refill at the middle of the night the previous night. Every time I’m tempted to call the landlord it stops. I have very hard water 💦 where I live and despite the landlord’s plumber frequently visiting I find myself constantly reporting leaks or issues with things like the hot water heater. I just remember the time I was in Westchester with the soft water and everything was covered with bubbles 🗯 with my usual amount of soap.

Today will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 48 degrees at 2pm. 11 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 16th. South wind 6 to 9 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 35 degrees. The record high of 61 was set in 1952. 4.3 inches of snow fell back in 1970.❄

Midday today I plan to get groceries 🛒 and a few supplies including headphones 🎧 and then I’ll go down to the library for the afternoon work session and virtual meeting. 🔋 With the clouds this week and the fact that I’ve been parked all week 🅿 both the starting and accessory batteries are a bit low according to the meters but I expect the sun ☀ plus driving today will rectify that. Even when I upgrade my phone plan in a week and a half I’ll probably still occasionally go to the library 📚 to work to save bandwidth. 📶

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:50 am with sun having an altitude of 24.3° from the due south horizon (-46.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:38 pm with the sun in the southwest (231°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (239°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:23 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 24 seconds with dusk around 4:54 pm, which is 6 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:30 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 45 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 6 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 44 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have patchy fog after midnight. Otherwise, mostly cloudy ☁️, with a low of 33 degrees at 2am. 10 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 12th. South wind 3 to 6 mph. In 2019, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 17 degrees. The record low of -12 occurred back in 1988.

Today in 1997, The Kyoto Protocol opens for signature. 🌎 The US would never ratify the agreement, and while some countries would participate, it was a lot of talk and not a lot of action. Mostly forgotten about now, there is a conference to renogiate it come next year. Hard to say what happens but I bet Joe Biden’s administration will be a better advocate for climate action compared to the man the voters took out to the dumpster this past election cycle.

Tomorrow will have a chance of rain, mainly after 2pm. Patchy fog between 10am and noon. Otherwise, cloudy 🌧, with a high of 45 degrees at 2pm. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 23rd. Calm wind becoming southeast around 5 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 31 degrees. The record high of 62 was set in 1979. 6.6 inches of snow fell back in 1970.❄

I am hoping to get an early start tomorrow 🐸 and walk out to Five Rivers before the rain comes. I’ve been trying to get to bed early and up earlier but it’s hard when I sometimes have trouble sleeping.

Looking ahead to Sunday, a chance of showers before 7am. 🌨️ Mostly cloudy, with a high near 54. South wind 8 to 15 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 26 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Typical average high for the weekend is 37 degrees.

I would say that Sunday will probably be a a stay home 🏡 day. Most of next week looks unfortunately to be quiet cool. Maybe a big snow storm mid next week but I’m hoping with above average temperatures expected to prevail the next few weeks it will be rain so they don’t get a ton of snow in the Adirondacks. With two four day weekends to close out the year I’m hoping to get out for at least one of them. ⛺

As previously noted, next Friday is Bake Cookies Day 🍪 when the sun will be setting at 4:23 pm with dusk at 4:55 pm. On that day in 2019, we had partly sunny, snow showers and temperatures between 36 and 14 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 35 degrees. We hit a record high of 60 back in 1921.