Happy Weekend! Frigid at the bus stop.🚏 Going to be a cold and blustery weekend for sure. 🌬It is partly clear and 16 degrees in the City of Albany. Breezy, 18 mph breeze from the west-northwest with gusts up to 28 mph. The current wind chill is 0. Tonight may not have been the coldest evening of this winter but with the wind felt awful cold. 

So I hope you had a good Ground Hog Day, despite the hog’s prediction.🎩 So the fuzzy hog saw his shadow. Not much we can do about it at this point but to accept 6 plus more weeks of winter.🐻 Really if you look at a calendar, spring is more like 6 1/2 weeks away.📅 But don’t tell that to the hog, especially as that part of Pennsylvania has a bit warmer of climate then here in frigid Albany. NOAA is in consensus with the hog, they are predicting a cold and snowy February followed by a mild spring. 🌼

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 9 degrees at 11pm.🌖 Six degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around -5 at 6pm; Northwest wind 11 to 16 mph becoming light west after midnight. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies with more clouds in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 19 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1955.🌉

Tonight will have a Waning Gibbous Moon with 90% illuminated with 32 rising at 7:55 pm. The moon will set tomorrow at 9:07 am. 🌖The Last Quarter Moon is on Tuesday night with a chance of snow showers. The Snow Moon is on Wednesday, February 28th. The sun will rise at 7:07 am with the first light at 6:37 am, which is one minute and 6 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 13 hours and 55 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 26 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be partly sunny, with a high of 27 degrees at 3pm.☀ Five degrees below normal. Southwest wind around 9 mph. A year ago, we had light snow in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 30 degrees. The record high of 57 was set in 2016. 6.1 inches of snow fell back in 2004. Looking ahead to Sunday, snow. High near 35.🌨 South wind 9 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Typical average high for the weekend is 32 degrees.

This is going to be a stay at home weekend. I was hoping the 5-pack box of cheap $2.80 Arduino Nano clones 📟 I ordered would be delivered by the weekend, but alas the shipper with the very low prices I get from Georgia is so slow at delivery.📭 Not as a bad as China, but still slow. Maybe it will arrive on Saturday, but God or maybe the USPS only knows.📦 Otherwise it will be Monday.  Before I can use them, I have to solder on the header pins but I’m fairly good at that for the most part. They’re cheap enough that if I wreck one, it’s not the end of the world. 

I also an thinking of adding a DS3231 module to my LED light controller.📺  By adding a few new lines of code, I’ll then make the lights go on automatically on mornings at 6:55 am, rather than automatically coming on eight hours after I shut the unit off in my special sunset, sunrise mode. :idea:While I don’t have the PIR module I ordered online, I may add the wire connections to make it easy to install once it arrives. 

Tomorrow I have to go grocery shopping. I really literally have zero food leftover by the time Saturday midday rolls around.🍞🍏🍤🍚🌽 Well except for milk and a lot of cans of refried beans. 🍲 I should make burritos next week after I go shopping. Sunday is going to snow so I don’t plan to go except to walk down to the library to use the wireless Internet. 

If I bundle up, I might be able to go hiking at Thacher  Park tomorrow, assuming it’s not too cold. 🌲☀With microspikes it probably would be fine on the trails if I dress in layers. 👕

Last night was a pretty long night at work, I got stuck dealing with an issue that popped up towards the end of the day. 😮I could have left at 6:15 pm but I wasn’t paying attention to time and missed the bus home, so I had tow wait for the 6:45 PM bus home, and by the time I got home and had dinner it was almost 8. 🚍 Decided to go out for my evening walk, which was quite pleasant. 🚶 I need to make sure I’m doing my evening walk more often, as while the stroll down to the library is nice, I do like the longer walk around the high school. Too cold tonight, no evening walk planned for this evening.

Today wasn’t so bad but it was pretty busy. Just a lot of random things going on in the office. 📑📰📈📏 I didn’t get out walking at lunch because a lot of things just popped up around then. I’m just glad we are in February, it’s not pitch black at rush hour any more, and at some point the climate will moderate as spring approaches.  

I am tired tonight, I think I will head to bed fairly early. 💤Maybe work on one of those soldering kits I have then retire to bed early, as I’m exhausted. 🔬Five day week, with several late nights, so what can I say.

In four weeks on March 2 the sun will be setting at 5:46 pm,📆which is 35 minutes and 58 seconds later then today.💫 In 2017 on that day, we had rain, snow, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 56 and 26 degrees.💦 Typically, you have temperatures between 39 and 21 degrees. The record high of 65 degrees was set back in 1991.

Looking ahead, Good Friday is in 8 weeks✝ and Memorial Day Weekend Starts⛵🍔🏕 is in 16 weeks.

🌼Only 111 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!🌻