Sunny to start out the day but clouds pushing in later 🌤
Tomorrow is going to be wet for the Save the Pine Bush Hike, hopefully a few people will show up or otherwise I’ll just go for a hike in the rain. Some fresh air is always nice.
Today. Feels like … December 3rd.
Mostly sunny.
Light south wind increasing to 6 to 11 mph in the morning.
and
42 degrees
,
4:24 sunset.
Tonight. Feels like … November 7th.
A chance of rain, mainly after 5am. Increasing clouds.
South wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
and
34 degrees
,
7:06 sunrise.
Saturday. Feels like … November 6th.
Rain, mainly before 1pm, then showers likely after 1pm. High near 53. South wind 14 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 32 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.
and
53 degrees
,
4:24 sunset.
Saturday Night. Feels like … November 23rd.
Mostly cloudy.
West wind 8 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph.
and
29 degrees
,
7:07 sunrise.
Sunday. Feels like … December 9th.
Partly sunny.
West wind 5 to 8 mph.
and
40 degrees
,
4:23 sunset.
Sunday Night. Feels like … December 7th.
Mostly clear.
and
25 degrees
,
7:08 sunrise.
Monday. Feels like … November 28th.
Sunny.
and
44 degrees
,
4:23 sunset.
Monday Night. Feels like … November 13th.
A chance of rain and snow after 1am. Mostly cloudy.
Chance of precipitation is 30%.
and
32 degrees
,
7:09 sunrise.
Tuesday. Feels like … November 11th.
Rain likely before 1pm, then showers likely after 1pm. Cloudy.
Chance of precipitation is 60%.
and
51 degrees
,
4:23 sunset.
Tuesday Night. Feels like … October 9th.
A chance of rain before 1am, then a chance of showers after 1am. Mostly cloudy.
Maybe I should have taken today off but it’s going to cloud up later.
Partly sunny and 30 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☀ Calm wind. Things will start to thaw out at around 8 am. 🌡️
I am waiting with bated breath to find out if I have jury duty next week. 👨⚖️ I would kind of like to know, as otherwise I will take off some time next week to head out of town as I’m thinking a long weekend would be nice. Regular Season ends this weekend in the Northern Zone, so it will be quiet in the woods if I head up to the Adirondacks bar the concessional black powder guy, but they are even more rare in the Adirondacks then other places. 🐻 The following week, assuming it’s decent and I don’t have jury duty, I’m thinking of heading out to Central NY for a few days.
I have quite a few more hours to take off before the end of the year, 🏕 so I should plan some time off. The past month though I haven’t taken many days off because it’s been tough to find any extended time periods with decent weather. 🌦 I hate to just take time off to sit at home and do nothing all week. Rather just get work done at work, it breaks up the time, and I don’t have to pay for extra heat or electricity when I’m in the office.
I’ve been continuing to work through that FreeCodeCamp Course. 👨🏫 Right now I’m working on one of the credit projects. I think I’m spending too much time working on it, making the CSS sheet look all pretty when the machine evaluation of the code structure doesn’t really care what it looks like as long as the tags evaluate properly. But whatever it’s good practice, though I do want to move on to the more advanced parts of the code.
Installed Visual Studio Code on my Laptop. I’ve been using RStudio and Jupyter and Geany for most of my text editing needs, 🤖 but I’m very impressed with VSCode right now. Maybe it’s time to switch over to it. I like RStudio for it’s speed but VS Code is also speedy too. I need to get a good IDE that I really master for everything, especially as I do more coding these days.
Last night, got my steps in and went to bed. 🛌 Most nights during the winter I’m not super ambitious. Also did some reading and research on a few topics of interest. But nothing too remarkable. The library is closed today for staff training 📚 so I won’t be able to go there tonight.
That wind will make it feel cold tonight it seems, but at least it should hopefully limit the risk of a flash freeze and excessive salting on the roads. But I stocked up well at the grocery store so I shouldn’t have to go out right away, except maybe for the Save the Pine Bush hike on Saturday. But now that looks like rain. And I was hoping to get up to the Adirondacks after that. Doesn’t seem likely based on the most recent forecast.
Then next week is kind of up in the air as I might have jury duty or I might not have to report next week. I figure statistically the chance of having to report next week is low, as I could be called one of the four other weeks in December. Will know on Thursday evening. I do want to take off the second half of next week, assuming it’s decent and I’m not called to go up North or maybe to Cazenovia. A lot depends on how much snow is in both locations and the weather. But it’s been a long time since I’ve spent a night in the wilderness or had a nice big fire.
Today. Feels like … November 3rd.
Rain likely, mainly between noon and 1pm, then showers after 1pm. High near 54. South wind 10 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
and
54 degrees
,
4:25 sunset.
Tonight. Feels like … November 26th.
A chance of showers, mainly before 7pm. Mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming mostly clear.
West wind 7 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.
and
28 degrees
,
7:04 sunrise.
Thursday. Feels like … December 6th.
Mostly sunny.
West wind 10 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 40 mph.
and
41 degrees
,
4:24 sunset.
Thursday Night. Feels like … December 7th.
Partly cloudy.
Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph becoming calm after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 24 mph.
and
25 degrees
,
7:05 sunrise.
Friday. Feels like … November 28th.
Mostly sunny.
Calm wind becoming south 5 to 8 mph in the morning.
and
44 degrees
,
4:24 sunset.
Friday Night. Feels like … November 10th.
A slight chance of rain after 1am. Mostly cloudy.
Chance of precipitation is 20%.
and
33 degrees
,
7:06 sunrise.
Saturday. Feels like … November 3rd.
Rain. High near 54. Chance of precipitation is 80%.
Kind of just like that 2022: fades away. Not that it ever was much of a year that I wanted to remember. I’m happy it’s almost done.
Cloudy and 36 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 10 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 2 am. ☃️
November is expected to end itself in heavy rain ☔ though not until after the morning walk 🚶 and the express bus 🚍 downtown to work so if I walk at lunch in the Concourse with the muzzle on I’ll hopefully have my steps 👣 in for the day. Not 18k like yesterday but still the minimal 10k which is five miles.
I finally got to the grocery store 🏬 last night and stocked up. I’ve been buying extra groceries and more in bulk so I can go every two weeks. I freeze the bread 🥪 and then just run to Stewart’s for milk 🥛. I buy a lot of frozen things in the club and bulk size packages as y minimizes waste. 🗑 Those wrappers don’t take much room up in the g trash and can be saved for starting fires. 🔥 Pretty much zero waste.
Late last night the heat kicked on ♨️ and it got cold in my apartment, I had to turn on the electric blanket as I was cold. I was surprised. Of course I’m getting much too comfortable with the heated blanket, going to make winter camping 🏕 seem cold. I do want to do more winter camping this year, especially in Rennselearville State Forest and do a lot of cross country skiing 🎿.
Been continuing to work on the Free Code Camp dynamic web programming online class. 🖥 Most of the stuff is quite basic but it’s good to sharpen my skills. I’m more interested in the visualization courses but they recommend that you do them in order and I’m not fully up to date in the latest advances in web design over the past 25 years since I first learned. I like how the classes are hold your hand as the computer evaluates your code. And it’s free zero pressure.
I’m fundamentally a lazy person ⌨️ and being able to write some code and script can save a lot of time. At work I often see people doing things in unnecessarily complicated manual ways in Excel. Things that could be done in like a line of AWK. 📄 At the same time, I see a lot of people doing GIS stuff manually that could be done much quicker and easier in R, even if that means outputting to a shapefile and then finally loading into QGIS for pretty formatting. I’m thinking the dynamic HTML coding class will help me with web scraping for data processing among other things. Really can save time. 🕒
It’s still too far out to know for sure, but if I don’t have jury service next weekend, I am thinking after the Pine Bush hike of taking a few days to head out of town to hike and camp, probably in the northern zone where rifle season is winding down. Then later on December I might go out to Brookfield or even Cazenovia depending on the weather and snow depth, or do some camping. Or if we get snow early, Rensselaerville State Forest with skis might be a lot of fun for an overnight or two as that road is plowed year round. Maybe New Years Eve?
Thinking about taking Tuesday off as a personal day, to go for a walk and do personal things, like get groceries. Plus I have a fair amount of time to use up before the end of the year.
Heat does need to go back on tonight as it’s going to be cold. But if it’s in the upper 40s out, I see no reason to heat an empty building when I’m at work. If it’s cold when I get home, I’ll turn the little electric space heater next to my bed on and lay on the heating pad. Tomorrow though, I can consider turning it off again. Probably doesn’t save a lot but every little bit helps, especially with inflation and energy prices being as high as they are. I’ve also tried to make sure my door is sealed for air leaks the best that can.
Today. Feels like … November 21st.
Partly sunny.
Northwest wind 10 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph.
and
47 degrees
,
4:25 sunset.
Tonight. Feels like … December 7th.
Partly cloudy.
Northwest wind 5 to 7 mph becoming calm after midnight.
and
25 degrees
,
7:02 sunrise.
Tuesday. Feels like … December 3rd.
Mostly sunny.
Calm wind becoming southeast around 6 mph in the afternoon.
and
42 degrees
,
4:25 sunset.
Tuesday Night. Feels like … November 10th.
Mostly cloudy.
South wind 5 to 9 mph.
and
33 degrees
,
7:03 sunrise.
Wednesday. Feels like … October 29th.
Showers. High near 56. South wind 10 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 38 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.
and
56 degrees
,
4:25 sunset.
Wednesday Night. Feels like … November 17th.
A chance of showers before 1am. Mostly cloudy.
Chance of precipitation is 50%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible.
and
31 degrees
,
7:04 sunrise.
Thursday. Feels like … December 12th.
Partly sunny.
Breezy.
and
39 degrees
,
4:24 sunset.
Thursday Night. Feels like … December 7th.
Partly cloudy.
and
25 degrees
,
7:05 sunrise.
Friday. Feels like … December 6th.
Mostly sunny.
and
41 degrees
,
4:24 sunset.
Friday Night. Feels like … November 13th.
A chance of snow showers after 1am. Mostly cloudy.
It’s not expected to last but I think it’s warm enough that I can leave the heat off until I get home after work.
Mostly cloudy and 45 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌥 There is a west-northwest breeze at 14 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 31 mph 💨💨💨. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 11 pm. ☃️
Yesterdaywasn’t a half bad day though it rained hard in the afternoon. ☔ In the morning though wasn’t too bad, hiked around the town park 🏞 and then up Bennett Hill. 🍲Went out and saw the folks, came home 🏡 and read for a a bit and explored some code. Lately I’ve been doing more analysis of the National Land Data Cover dataset with R. Some neat things you can do in code.
In addition, I’ve been doing a lot of listening 👂 to the marathon length Free Code Camp videos. 🖥 While despite all the ads I now see on the internet for paid college 🎓 classes, I’m mostly interested in learning just some theoretical and formal stuff I don’t already know from learning by doing. There are some free online classes on their website, where you can get a free certificate, I might do some of them. And also look around for online lectures. Not formal classes, but things I can listen to and learn. 👨🏫
I did that Free GIS course last spring 🗺 and it was fine but a lot of work doing shit I already knew. The idea 💡 of going back to school for a formal education program that I pay for and then doing unpaid homework assignments just seems kind of revolting to me. 🤮 I like learning but formal education really doesn’t interest me at this point. Maybe a trade class like welding, 🥽 wiring 🚧 or truck driving 🚚 but not computers. But not sitting in a classroom then going home and doing homework. Plus I just find online learning to be so weird.
Today was Buy Nothing Day. The idea is to protest the grotesque displays of consumerism that surround the biggest holiday shopping day of the year. I’ve never been much into holiday shopping, what I will do instead is usually do a donation in someone’s name to the Mohawk Hudson Land Conservancy or other conservation-minded organization as a holiday gift.
I am not against Black Friday per se. I did take advantage of the holiday to get some deals on my most recent laptop, which I use for work and play. But I ordered it online, and picked it up on the Black Friday at an off-hour, not waiting in line. I think it’s a good day to buy things if you have been planning to get them, regardless of the sales. Most sales are pretty silly to get you in the store, but it’s a not bad thing to save a little money.
I do think frivolous consumption is a terrible waste of resources. Gifting always seems a bit off – maybe it’s a nice gesture – but people rarely are happy with the gifts they get for long. Supporting conservation is a much better gift, as it’s something that people can enjoy for generations to come. Honestly, I don’t like anything that comes in wrapping paper or is over-packaged, I have enough “stuff”, I don’t need any more.
