Good evening. Foggy and 43 degrees in Delmar. 🌁 There is a south breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. Finally fairly mild out for change. I had a nice walk around the superblock that has the high school. I’m back home, wash is put away watching a video with the lights dimmed to a red color for easy sleeping. Temperatures will drop below freezing at Tuesday around 1 am. ☃️

Tonight will have a slight chance of showers after 3am. Areas of dense fog. 🌁Otherwise, mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 41 degrees at 1am. 15 degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around October 12th. South wind 5 to 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2017, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 25 degrees. The record low of -1 occurred back in 1976.

Tonight will have a Waning Crescent Moon 🌘 with 18% illuminated. The moon will rise at 2:57 am. The New Moon is on Thursday night with mostly cloudy skies. The Cold Moon 🌝 is on Friday, December 21st. The sun will rise at 7:07 am with the first light at 6:36 am, which is one minute and 2 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 45 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 18 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers, mainly before 7am. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 47 degrees at 12pm. Six degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical day around November 19th. West wind 9 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. 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 46 degrees. The record high of 63 was set in 2009. 5.2 inches of snow fell back in 1893.❄

On Saturday I went for a hike out at Schodack Island State Park. I hiked down the main trail to the old ice house smoke stack, then over to the Shodack Creek overlook. There was a ton of hunters in the woods so I stayed on the main trails not to bother the hunters. I don’t know I don’t think it’s fun to hunt when you can see two other hunters in the woods. While I’m sure it was good hunting being an island and there was a lot of deer prints around but at this point I’m sure most of bucks are harvested. I had blaze orange hoodie on but I probably would have gone somewhere else where there wasn’t so many hunters in the woods next time. At one point I spotted three hunters within a short distance there. Apparently it’s shotgun not just bow there.

I decided to buy the USB 3.0 Hub. As expected it worked fine. I think it was a good deal. Not too overpackaged, although I would have preferred a cardboard to a plastic tray inside and the recyclable online order bag it came in was a bit unnecessary.🔌 It does seem like the Bluetooth dongle though doesn’t work very well – I ended up plugging that into the laptop directly to get the headphones working well for the short time I was watching a pre downloaded YouTube video from bed. 🎥 I’m really not that much of a YouTube fan.

Stocked up on lots of groceries at Walmart. I ended up spending like $66 but then again I now have a lot of food, probably enough for two to three weeks with some additional things when I run out next week – probably no more than $20. 🍖🍍One thing I like about Walmart is that they have lots of bulk packages and things tend to be less packaged and less costly on a per serving basis than many of the regular grocery stores. As I don’t have trash pickup where I live and I have to pay as I throw at the transfer station, I always try to minimize my waste.🚮 Plus it’s good for the environment too. 🌎

Leaving Walmart a lady flagged me down with a stalled car in the middle of the road. I stopped and looked at her car and she asked me for a jump start. I pulled over and looked at it getting out and I looked and her car was pouring coolant on the pavement.😮 I think she may have siezed her engine. I guess I should have given her a jump but I said with that much coolant loss, she really should get it towed. Maybe it would have made her happier to jump it but I didn’t want to blow a fuse and being in the middle of the parking lot I was worried about getting hit myself with shoppers trying to pass me in the lot.💥 Maybe I should have tried jump it but I doubt it would have helped her but maybe I would have felt less guilty about leaving her while she waited for the tow truck. But it was getting dark, I was tired after hiking.

Despite buying a ton of food, I ended up just reheating lasagna leftovers that I had taken home from the previous weeks Sunday dinner.🍛 It was already thawed out from earlier and I was tired and really had no place for it in the freezer.

While I’ve installed Android Studio on my laptop before, this weekend on Saturday night I wrote my first actually useful Android app. 💻 Works great, once I figured out that you had to put your phone in PTP mode for it to be recognized by Android Studio and that there is a special setting you have to use to allow Android Studio to work off line, as I lack internet at home besides my phone which doesn’t teather to my laptop. 💡 Writing my own app means that I can create auto pearing with the Bluetooth and big simple easy to use buttons to control the light and brightness in ways I find most useful. Next with be to do the colored warm white / cold white lights I have on the other side of the room once I get that board rebuilt with the ESP 32 microprocessor that has Bluetooth built in. Just waiting for more of those boards from AliExpress. Maybe I’ll work on that over the Christmas holiday.

Spent some more time reading about Off-Grid Living. Maybe I’m not quite willing to do tiny house but it’s interesting to learn more about the lifestyle. 🏡 As a tinkerer and somebody who enjoys working with electronics and camping in the wilderness, it has a lot of appeal to me.⚡ Reading and dreaming makes it easier to save more money where ever I can. It would be great to be as energy independent as possible and live as close to nature with out all the modern ways of doing things.

Continuing to work on updating weather data on the blog. With the year coming to a close now that it’s December, ☔ I’ve been working on updating and further automating the weather records for the blog. I need to update all the record highs for the year, etc. Plus NOAA has changed the format they are doing the past yeas days conditions in so I have to update that in the records too.

Thinking about heading out of town next week. I am thinking taking 4-5 days to head out either to Chenango County or maybe the Finger Lakes. Both areas with the recent warm weather are mostly snow free and next weekend and the days around it looks to be sunny but fairly cool but it’s December.⛺ Probably hot tent with the heater which is always fun. Nothing like a very cold and still morning sitting out with a hot cup of coffee ☕ next to the heater. Maybe leave Friday and return Tuesday, a that looks like the best weather days in the Finger Lakes but things often change for the worse. Monday and Tuesday the woods would be free of deer hunters so I could have more solitude for small game hunting and even just going for a walk especially if it’s nice and sunny. 😎 Plus lots of solar power for camping. It’s been so dark and gray lately, I’d love some time in the woods with some blue skies.

Had Sunday Dinner at the folks. Stuffed peppers were good. Probably ate too much but it was a treat. 🍝I’ve cut all sweets except for blueberries and natural fruits out from home, and no more alcohol so it’s not terrible for a treat once and while. It was a nice walk in the fog after getting home so I burned a few calories.🏃 I’ve been trying to walk more these days. Fog wasn’t terrible driving home, the headlights work so much better now they are adjusted. For the heck of it I left the truck cap light on in my truck while eating desert and I panicked as I thought the low voltage shutoff had kicked in but no it just very foggy at my parents house.

Continuing to work on my neice’s Christmas gift. After painting the glass marbles with glow in the dark paint the hardware part is done but I want to write more color routines before I seal it up and finish it. Maybe next weekend if I’m home. Only like four weeks or maybe less until Christmas now. 🎄

Looking ahead, next weekend may be somewhat cool with 7 degrees below normal but otherwise sunny. 😀 Next Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 29. Next Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 34. Typical average high for the weekend is 38 degrees. Still might be a great weekend to get out of town.

In four weeks on December 30 the sun will be setting at 4:31 pm,🌄 which is 8 minutes and 44 seconds later then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had snow, cloudy skies and temperatures between 16 and -3 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 32 and 16 degrees. The record high of 53 degrees was set back in 1984.

Looking ahead, Earliest Sunset of the Year ⌛️ is in 1 weeks, Festivus 🍖 is in 3 weeks, Ground Hog Day 🐻 is in 2 months, Daylight Savings Time 🌆 is in 14 weeks, St. Patrick’s Day 🍀 is in 15 weeks, 7:30 PM Sunset 🌇 is in 18 weeks, Palm Sunday 🌴 is in 19 weeks, Easter 🐰 is in 20 weeks, Cinco de Mayo 🤠 is in 22 weeks, Mothers Day 👩‍ is in 23 weeks and Fathers Day 👨 is in 28 weeks. A lot of big Sunday holidays next year.

I’m tired. The red lights in my apartment have done their job making me sleepy. Good night.