Delmar is a hamlet in the Town of Bethlehem, in Albany County, New York, United States. It is a suburb of the neighboring city of Albany. The community is bisected by NY Route 443 (Delaware Avenue), a major thoroughfare, main street, and route to Albany.
A census-designated place (CDP) has been established since 1980 by the U.S. Census Bureau for tabulating the population of what the census has defined as the boundaries of the urbanized area in and around Delmar. The population was 8,292 at the 2000 census, but it was not included as a CDP in the 2010 census.
In 2005, CNN/Money Magazine named the Delmar ZIP Code (an area larger than the Delmar hamlet or CDP) as one of the “Best Places to Live” in America, rating it the 22nd best place to live among what it called “Great American Towns.
Good evening. Currently 45 degrees and cloudy. Not a bad evening at all for sitting out back at least with a sweater on. I was going to sit out back after I got home these past couple of days but I was tired and didn’t feel like going out and buying some beer.
Tomorrow is going to continue this cloudy and warm weather with temperatures expected to break a record at around 60 degrees. The weather will be cooler by next weekend – the weekend before Christmas but still in the mid 40s which is warm for mid December.
I’m still without a car. I pulled both batteries and put them on the charger. Voltage looked fine so I reinstalled them. I started up the truck once – it started easy – then the bad starting battery went totally flat. The battery went bad. It’s at the auto parts store being charged and they’ll load test it tomorrow. If it comes back bad on the load tester, they’ll warranty it. I don’t think my dual battery system on the truck caused it to fail catastrophically and prematurely but I don’t know. The alternator output voltage has been healthy, and I’ve only one other time had to jump start the truck. I guess I could take the truck to a shop to have the wiring inspected and put the alternator on a load test, but I think it’s fine. But it shouldn’t be through chewing batteries like this. I just replaced the factory one last year – but that’s after it sat at the collision shop discharged for two months and back when I used the car radio when camping, constantly running it down a fair bit. They’re also used to be a undercharge issue with the batteries that was fixed when I ran an exciter wire between the batteries. I’ve babied the starting battery this past year. Then again it was a cheap battery from a big box auto repair store, so it probably was a cheap internal design and just failed.
It’s kind of messed up my weekend but it was crappy and cloudy for camping and traveling. I’m glad the battery failed in my driveway. Spent some time cleaning, putting away camping gear, and too much time playing with QGIS on my laptop. Spent a fair bit of time walking around town, including going down to the park, evening walks, and walking four miles round trip to the hardware store to pick up a grabber tool to pick up the battery clamp bolt that bounced deep in the recess of the truck when I was startled by the arcing battery cable when I was reinstalling it.
It was fine staying in town. Sure it was warm but hardly delightful weather and the nights are so many ridiculously warm. So be it. Next weekend I have to stay in town for my parents Christmas Party and for the Save the Pine Bush Hike. The following weekend – Christmas – I will probably head up to the Adirondacks to camp. We will see, depending on the weather.
New maps are being cranked out of QGIS and are appearing on the blog. That makes me happy. I need to take more pictures soon. More new content coming next week although I left my laptop at my parent’s house, so some updates will come later this week.
Good evening. Currently 50 degrees and cloudy this Saturday evening in December. Remarkable. It’s a warm evening for sure.
Made a bunch of maps. Continuing to get back into QGIS mapping, including some outdoors mapping and a lot of election mapping, which is new and fascinating for me. I probably should have spent more time outside but so be it.
Good morning. Happy Hump Day! Cars don’t have those enormous humps in the center for drive trains anymore and hopefully weeks won’t have too big of humps. I’ve been busy at work lately crunching numbers and making pretty graphs so time seems to be going quickly.
Currently right at the freezing point and mostly cloudy. The sun is peaking out to the south and for a while today we may see some clearing.
Today will be partly cloudy and 49 degrees. Not bad for mid-December. Sunset still comes early at 4:21. In two weeks the days will be getting longer once again when we enter calendar winter. The lack of snow and especially road salt makes winter seem not so bad.
Sometime next week I will take a day off from work and make my yearly pilgrimage up Overlook Mountain. I like watching the sun set on that mountain.
Good evening. Currently 29 degrees and partly clear. As the evening has progressed, there is more stars you can see. When I went for a walk in the Albany Pine Bush Preserve around 8 PM it was mostly cloudy.
Gradual clearing through the night and slight warm up. Tomorrow will be partly sunny and 49 degrees which is pretty darn nice for December. The low for Wednesday night heading into Thursday is only 41 degrees. Sunrise at 7:21 AM.
Cleaned the mildew off a few more panels in my crappy apartment as part of my effort to slowly but surely make this cheap apartment in the suburbs not so nasty. I bought rubber gloves which means that I can remove the mildew without removing so much skin from my hands using the mildew remover. The gloves are tight on my hands but they keep them from stinking like bleach or mildew remover. I’m making good progress, but it’s a tedious job as I have never done a full scrub of the walls for mildew or even dust and dirt since moving in here eight years ago. The walls come out such a nice white when cleaned.
Besides a short evening hike up Overlook Dune, I did my evening walk. Certainly a pretty pleasant evening outside for mid-December. I’m not complaining about the warm weather although I wish the days were longer.
Tried on the Carhartt jackets at the Carhartt store at the Maul. I discovered that I fit nicely in a 2XLT. I’m a big boy. Still chewing over color but I found a store online with free shipping, good prices, and no sales tax. I still don’t like how they are no longer union made and some of the design changes make it seem lower quality then the previous models.
Dick’s didn’t have the propane adapter I needed for the lantern but I studied what they had at Walmart and figured what I need to order online – basically a high pressure ‘y’ connector. Walmart has the step down adapters. I think I will order it tomorrow.
I don’t envision heading out of town this weekend as the past four weekends I’ve taken trips, and really have stuff I need to do in town. The forecast is warm but cloudy for the weekend. Then again, I might change my mind as I want to do as much roadside camping before the snow ends that. But then again with the heated tent I probably will camp all winter. The following week I have to stay in town to lead the Save the Pine Bush Hike. So we will see.
There are people who don’t like how political parties zealously defend their constituencies, regardless of their overall popular status. I am not one of them. It’s good we live in a country where minority rights are protected, where one political party can act as an effective check to the ideas of the other party.
I’m a Democrat. I’ve always been one. But I’m glad that Republicans vigorously defend those who they represent and act to restrain the progressive agenda. Not because progressives have bad ideas – many are quite valid – but because some progressive ideas while good for the constituencies that they represent are bad or even devastating for other constituencies.
In many ways I believe today’s democracy has never been healthier.
Good morning. Currently we are up to 29 degrees on a bright and sunny morning. All week looks to be sunny to partly sunny with increasing temperatures reaching 60 degrees on Sunday. Hello, spring. I just wish the days weren’t so darn short.
It’s somewhat foggy in the city but not nearly as bad as last night. The fog last night was pretty scary for driving on the expressway or any place driving over about 40 mph.
Still don’t have maps working on my laptop yet but hopefully soon. There was a lot going on last week and the weekends I’ve been out camping. I’m sure cold nasty winter weather will eventually come and I’ll have more time for that.
Good morning. Currently 25 degrees and clear this morning. The fog has lifted on this Monday morning. There may be some places of dense fog and potential black ice so be careful this morning on the trip to work. Slippery sidewalks are just as likely to cause injury as icy roads.
Today will be mostly sunny, with a high near 43. Calm wind becoming northwest 5 to 7 mph in the morning. Sunset at 4:21 PM. The days certainly are short and dark this time of year. Fortunately, the shortest day of the year is two weeks from Wednesday and then the days get longer with a noticeable gain by the end of January.
So far winter has been mild. It seems like the pattern will last through the start of calendar winter, and maybe longer. No accumulating snow in much of New York. I’m not complaining.
