Lately I’ve been weighting the pros-and-cons of getting into the map business, especially after looking at the beautiful aerial photograph / map that Save the Pine Bush has printed at AccuPrint in downtown Albany. I really think the map I made of the Albany Pine Bush with the 2019 NAIP Aerial Photography with points representing newly built buildings is absolutely beautiful.
Probably the biggest thing holding me back is the high cost of both producing, printing, and shipping maps not at scale. Running the numbers, it is difficult to envision printing at a print shop and shipping a large-scale color 36×24 map for less then $50 and that leaves zero pay for my time or travel in preparing the map. If I add I figure an hour of labor for design of the map, I should add at least $20 for that plus $5 for taxes. So that gets me up to at least $75. That’s kind of expensive.
Obviously, if I could mass produce maps and sell enough I could drive down costs. One option for inexpensive maps would be to own my own large-format printer. There are many older, obsolete models, for sale within 100 miles that can be picked up for under $500. Businesses want to get rid of them, as many of the older printers don’t have actively maintained Microsoft Windows drivers — like the HP Large Format 5000 printer but still have ink carriages, paper and parts still available. I don’t care about the Microsoft Windows drivers as long as CUPS has decent support under Linux. But I don’t really have the space right now tohave a large format printer in my apartment. They’re kind of big.
But there are options out there. Still I struggle to figure out what makes good business sense. I don’t want to spend all of my free time making maps for very little money, then having to go through the whole printing process. Or have to deal with taxes or incorporating a business. But it’s also good to know that for some time in the future I have that as an option, especially if I could develop enough of a market to have repeat sales of the same map over and over again. If I could sell a dozen copies of a map — or even hundreds of them — it greatly reduces both my time and labor costs, along with being able to get lower print shop costs, and even potentially making sense to have a large format printer at home for the lowest cost printing option of large-format maps.
It pretty much guarantees that any day that I bring an umbrella to work it won’t rain.
Good morning! Happy Tuesday. Second gear, eleven session days left, tonight’s the LCA show and tomorrow is get away day. Two more weeks after that with those oversized dress shirts. I’ll figure out January when it comes. Partly sunny and 52 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☀ There is a south breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 41 degrees.
I’m up and moving, 🚶 but maybe not as early as I should be. With the longer days it’s difficult to be in bed 🛏 by nine o’clock and it becomes closer to ten many nights. 🕒 I did stay in bed a little after six this miles. But part of it was that I was out walking until fairly late at the park, getting in 8.3 miles as I started late after spending an hour trying to figure out how to reassemble the spokes on my bicycle 🚲 wheel. It shouldn’t be so hard but to be fair I was warned that trueing a wheel is more challenging then one might think. But that’s really my main obstacle at this point to getting the bicycle back on the road.
I’m not going to mess around with it again until the weekend 🚌 as I doubt I’ll be out at five again tonight, as it’s the LCA show tonight but I’m thinking probably be home by 6:45 as the show is at seven and I’m sure they’ll want to be done but maybe not by five with so few days remaining. I could he wrong. But I’m not ready for the frustration until the weekend and want to confront it with a fresh mind after some further internet research. 🔎
Reheating quiche this morning 🥧 with some added spinach and cold black coffee ☕. That cream of wheat 🌾 yesterday was good, it actually has a surprisingly good nutrition profile when you study the label 🔖 when you add blackberries 🖤 for extra fiber. Doesn’t have quite the staying power of eggs and spinach though as it’s more carbs and less protein.
Today will have isolated showers after 3pm. Mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 75 degrees at 3pm. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around May 28th. Maximum dew point of 53 at 1pm. South wind 7 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 69 degrees. The record high of 93 was set in 1964.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:53 pm with sun having an altitude of 67.9° from the due south horizon (-2.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 2.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:38 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (293°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (300°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:19 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 19 seconds with dusk around 8:51 pm, which is 58 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the west (274°) at an altitude of 36° from the horizon, 251,168 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:34 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 69 degrees. The dew point will be 52 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 55 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 46 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃, with a low of 51 degrees at 5am. Typical for tonight. Maximum dew point of 53 at 7pm. South wind 8 to 11 mph. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 50 degrees. The record low of 29 occurred back in 1963.
A picture perfect Memorial day Weekendon tap. 🇺🇸 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 77. Maximum dew point of 50 at 9pm. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 79. Maximum dew point of 52 at 8pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 74 degrees.
Sounds great for heading out of town 🏡 but I’ll likely just stay home or at least not head too far from town. Maybe a quick overnight or two. There is just so much to do and I’d rather wait for June when I can be totally off the grid for the weekend and no worries about work. Juneteenth Weekend is in three weeks.
Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until Primary Day 🗳️ when the sun will be setting at 8:38 pm with dusk at 9:11 pm. I have no idea who is even on the ballot but I should probably plan on early voting as they moved my polling place father away down to the park. On that day in 2022, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 82 and 47 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 81 degrees. We hit a record high of 97 back in 1953.
On Sunday, I went into my crawl space looking for some old jeans that were size 38. I mostly wear size 40 these days, but right after college I was doing a lot of hiking in the Catskills and dabbled a bit with some healthy eating, especially shopping at the farmers market I was able to go thinner until the washing machine shrunk my pants.
My 40 inch waistline jeans have gotten cartoonish looking on me. The collar on many of my dress shirts increasingly look like a teen borrowed it from their dad’s closet. So I found one remaining 38 inch pair, admittedly a very worn pair and tried it on. They were surprisingly loose too. Maybe I need to go down to size 36, which would be the smallest in my adult life.
I am thinking this week about going to Walmart and getting a pair of size 36 jeans, at least trying them on for comfort and looks. And one dark green or something similar workman’s t shirt. Nothing expensive or branded but comfortable to wear around and in the woods. I’m cautious as I know it can be hard to keep off the weight. But at the same time my choices of what I eat and what I think tastes good have changed, quite possibly for good.
