Good morning! Happy Saturday. Three weeks until Christmas Eve. Four weeks to New Years Eve. Partly cloudy and 40 degrees in Delmar. Clearing out a bit but today is expected to be fairly cool and cloudy. There is a northwest breeze at 14 mph. You can hear it roaring around with the gusts. The skies will clear around 5 pm.

Today will be partly sunny, with a high of 42 degrees at 1pm. One degree above normal. Northwest wind 11 to 14 mph. Times with some sun, other times more clouds. It’s that wind that gets you. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies and a high of 49 degrees. The record high of 63 was set in 2009. 5.2 inches of snow fell back in 1893.

I was dead tired last night, so I didn’t go out to the bar or post any updates. Went to bed around 8:30 and didn’t get up until seven. Made a nice omlet in the oven with more veggies and mushrooms then eggs or cheese. 

I seriously thought about going up to the Adirondacks today, and spending the night up off of Route 8 and then hiking Crane Mountain or Hadley Mountain come morning. But with mostly cloudy skies expected and a cold wind, I decided against that. Vermont’s weather is even worse. Maybe next weekend but then the mercury is expected to be much lower with the cold front pushing in. But if we have sunny skies and less wind it might actually be better conditions for camping and hiking. Regular season ends next Sunday, so I’ll have the woods to myself bar some of the muzzleloader guys and trappers. 

This weekend I’m also on call for Sunday so it would suck if I got called in and had to rush back from the Adirondacks, and shower then head into work wearing the suit. I really hope to avoid going in on Sunday because it’s the State Christmas tree lighting and parking downtown will be a bitch, especially with the last Route 18 departing around 6:30 on Sunday. 

The sun will set at 4:21 pm with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 12 seconds earlier than yesterday. Today will have 9 hours and 13 minutes of daylight, a decrease of 1 minutes and 13 seconds over yesterday.

There is definitely a lot of winter left to get out and enjoy the Adirondacks and other parts of the wilderness. Next weekend will be cold but it might be half decent with the sunshine. I do need to fix the truck cap lighting and one of the power ports in the truck among other things. 

I should check the oil, and I’m thinking of installing a battery low voltage shut off and possibly replacing the accessory battery which should have a longer life than two years  if it’s not draining down below safe levels in the future. That inverter is rough on batteries when I let the voltage get too low. The auto shutoff should fix that and reduce the load on the alternator to boot. It automatically will disconnect load when the battery drops below 50% or 12.1 volts. That should greatly prolong battery life

Need to get to Sears today or tomorrow to buy  more Oxford shirts. Been on my list for some time but I didn’t feel like going anywhere this week. Also need to get a winter jacket. Maybe today. I know my size, I could order online. Or maybe I’ll look at Supershoes this afternoon. They have a good Carharrt collection. 

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 29 degrees at 5am. Three degrees above normal. Northwest wind 7 to 10 mph. In 2015, it got down to 35 degrees with periods of rain. The record low of -9 occurred back in 1940. Brr. 

I noticed how noisy my new laptop is at times. I was concerned that something was broken internally but apparently it is normal for the fan in HD laptops to make a fair amount of noise at higher temperaturesper the Internet. I quiets down when the load is taken off, and really isn’t noticeable except in a quiet bedroom. I thought about getting a service contract but in reality most of them are rip offs, especially when laptops are so inexpensive and I am somewhat handy with laptop repair. 

As previously noted, there are 4 weeks until New Years Eve when the sun will be setting at 4:32 pm with dusk at 5:04 pm. On that day in 2015, we had rain and temperatures between 43 and 37 degrees. Wasn’t a really nice day in my memory. Typically, the high temperature is 32 degrees. We hit a record high of 61 back in 1895.

Going to try upgrading to the nightly build of QGIS to see if that makes my map making script work perfectly. Otherwise it’s fine as it is. I may start to finally post new maps today. I got a bunch of Vermont Election data which I might start mapping soon. Albany County has yet to release election data from the most recent election, but I’ll be fascinated to see how Donald Trump did in the hilltowns and suburbs.