Elm Ave Park & Ride – CDTA

The Elm Avenue Park and Ride offers a convenient way to get downtown without the hassles of urban traffic. Located next to the Elm Avenue Park at the end of the Delmar Bypass (NY 32), it is serviced by several buses that will quickly transport you downtown.

There is a new, expanded schedule for the Elm Avenue Park and Ride. 5 morning buses depart there, 5 buses in the afternoon plus a mid-day bus schedule. Very convenient. http://www.cdta.org/uploads/Route719.pdf

June 29, 2016 Evening

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Good evening! A pleasant summer evening without too much humidity. Mostly sunny and 80 degrees in Delmar. There is a west-northwest breeze at 14 mph. The dew point is 57 degrees.

Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low around 59. One degree below normal. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph becoming calm after midnight. The record low of 47 occurred back in 1938.

Tonight the sun will set at 8:37 pm with dusk around 9:11 pm, which is 6 seconds earlier than yesterday. Those days sure are getting shorter quickly. Just wait until September 21st.Tonight we have a Waning Crescent Moon with 30% illuminated. The moon will rise around 1:42 am. July’s Buck Moon is on Tuesday, July 19th.

Thursday will be sunny, with a high near 83. Two degrees above normal. Calm wind becoming west around 6 mph in the afternoon. The record high of 98 was set in 1964.

A nice Independence Day Weekend coming up with seasonable temperatures. Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 78. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 80. For Independence Day, sunny with a high near 84. Nothing like Independence Day in 1911, when Albany baked under 104 degree weather. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees. For the most part low humidity all weekend through the Fourth. You don’t get nice weather like this much in Albany.

In four weeks on July 27 the sun will be setting at 8:20 pm, which is 16 minutes earlier then today. The average high is 82 degrees, and the record for that date is 97 degrees was set back in 1955.

June 29, 2016 8 AM Update

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Heading into our morning on this Hump Day, It is partly cloudy and 67 degrees in Delmar. There is a west breeze at 3 mph. The dew point is 62 degrees.

Today will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly between 2pm and 4pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 80. One degree below normal. West wind 5 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. The record high of 96 was set in 1944.

Tonight the sun will set at 8:36 pm with dusk around 9:11 pm, which is 6 seconds earlier than yesterday. Today will have 15 hours and 16 minutes of daylight, a decrease of 36 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low around 58. Two degrees below normal. West wind 3 to 7 mph. The record low of 47 occured back in 1938.

On this day in 2006, in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld the U.S. Supreme Court rules that President George W. Bush’s plan to try Guantanamo Bay detainees in military tribunals violates U.S. and international law.

There are 7 weeks until Thrift Shop Day when the sun will be setting at 7:52 pm with dusk at 8:22 pm. The average high temperature is 81 degrees, with a record high of 97 in 1913. Always good to be thrifty and get affordable summer clothes, especially when the mercury is around 97.

I was tired last night and it absolutely poured, so I basically just sat in bed and played on my laptop before retiring early to bed. It’s good we finally got a good soaking rain as things started to get dried up.

Somebody left a dead doe or buck they towed out of the woods with baling twine along Elm Avenue. It might have been poached as its head was missing, though this time of year it wouldn’t have antlers and seemed pretty small to have sizable antlers. The hair was mostly gone and had been rotting for a while. It certainly stunk. Oh well.

May 13, 2016 Morning

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Good morning folks. Happy Friday. The weekend is just around the corner. Currently 60 degrees and cloudy in Delmar. Going to get up to 67 degrees with showers moving in during the next few hours. It’s going to be a wet one today.

It is going to be fairly cloudy and rainy the next few days with 1/2 inch or more expected by Sunday when a front will come through and give us sunny but cold weather. The best chance for thunderstorms is tomorrow afternoon, but we might have some today too.

Yesterday we got to 80 degrees in Albany, for the second time of the year but with the breeze and low dew point in the 30s it felt pretty nice. Those hazy, hot and humid days are still just around the corner.

Two weeks until the start of the Memorial Day Weekend. I think I can already see the traffic building on the Adirondack Northway for the weekend. Although a lot depends on the weather, but I’ve seen years when traffic for holiday weekends is backed up on the Northway from the Warrensburg exit. I am leaning against the Adirondacks this year, instead thinking about the Kelley Stand section of Green Mountain National Forest, but that’s still to be decided on. One problem with the GMNF is getting out there on the holiday weekend, and limited routes with traffic and the alike.

The average high for Memorial Day Weekend in Albany is 73 degrees with a low of 51. Sunset is at 8:23 pm on Memorial Day Weekend with dusk around 8:56 pm. Not too bad, but it can be kind of chilly up north, and the black flies can be bad. With such cool, damp weather, I don’t know if Moose River Plains will be open this year for Memorial Day Weekend, or if it is, there may be various road restrictions.

Today in 1960,  Hundreds of University of California, Berkeley students congregate for the first day of protest against a visit by the House Committee on Un-American Activities. Thirty-one students are arrested, and the Free Speech Movement is born.

In 1963, the Earl Warren court announced the Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963) decision that lead to the Brady rule, which is standard in courts today. It was a landmark United States Supreme Court case in which the prosecution had withheld from the criminal defendant certain evidence. The defendant challenged his conviction, arguing it had been contrary to the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution.

Happy Birthday to Darius Rucker. I still associate his song Wagon Wheel with that awful bar with the same name in Niagara Falls which has now long closed down.

May 2, 2016 Morning

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Kind of a gray and cool start to the work week. Currently 46 degrees and cloudy but rain is expected midday. The bus has departed the station and we are on the way downtown. My priority this morning is updating my time sheet, because I was told if I don’t do it they’ll suspend my direct deposit. Plus all the other stuff I missed when I was off from work.

Later today there is an increasing chance of rain with a high around 56. That’s nine degrees below average for this time of year. Being back east in the state, the sun will be setting around 7:57 pm.

Going to help Reszin stuff newsletters after work today. Then I will head home and probably work on developing some new content for the blog. I am still working on implementing the new design and I need some new maps for the blog. Might go to the library, depending if it’s raining or not.

Traffic is moving slowly on the 787 heading downtown. I’m fine with that as I’m in no rush to get to work and gives me more time to blog. I hate the evening rush more and being delayed on the way home.

Four weeks from now will be Memorial Day. How fast it will be upon us. I don’t really have plans for it at this point. It can be either quite nice or cold and rainy.

April 25, 2016 Evening

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Good evening. 57 degrees and cloudy this evening. Not exactly a delightful spring evening. But we are getting a half inch of much needed rain tonight into tomorrow. So it’s hard to complain.

Almost no traffic heading out of the city because school is not session this week. I’m hoping to get an early start out of work tomorrow so I can get to camp before dark. I don’t mind setting up in the dark as much as I hate driving after dark.

My priorities tonight are the Young Democrats meeting, finish packing clothes and get the kayak on the roof of my truck. I want to try to be to work on time tomorrow, so I can leave as early as possible to avoid driving after dark.

Sunset tonight is at 7:50 pm and dusk at 8:21. It will be about ten minutes later tomorrow after I head west. I am looking forward, it should be a nice trip. Five weeks until Memorial Day.

April 25, 2016 8 AM Update

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Happy Arbor Day. 49 degrees and cloudy. I like trees. They are warm when you burn them for heat and make for some nice campfires. Plus they absorb a fair bit of carbon produced by burning said trees.

I picked up my dry cleaning and made the express bus downtown although I may have briefly exceeded the speed limit on the bypass to make it. Normally I don’t drive down to the bus stop but with picking up the dry cleaning I already had the truck out and running. Even though the axle ratio is high on my truck it still kicks down pretty good with the six speed when you ask it to.

Construction continues on the 787 with some stop and go traffic. I don’t care, I’m not driving. I would avoid it though if I were you.

Sixty degrees later with rain coming in at some point. I actually saw some sprinkles on my windshield this morning. Hopefully the rain will hold off this evening when I put the kayak on the roof of my truck.

Today in 1901, New York becomes the first U.S. state to require automobile license plates. Back in the horse and buggy days they weren’t required. Apparently horse back riders weren’t fleeing the scenes of fatal crashes as much.

Back in 1954, the first practical solar cell is publicly demonstrated by Bell Telephone Laboratories. I think there is a strong future in solid state electricity generation once we figure out how to fully integrate it into our society.

The next bus stop is mine. Have a great Arbor Day.

April 22, 2016 8 AM Update

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I just dethroned fellow bus rider Colleen as mayor of the CDTA Park and Ride this morning. It took 80 check-ins every morning I walked down there at the Park and Ride. Much needed rain continues to come down, wetting down the landscape and helping to keep things turning green on this Earth Day. As I write this, the bus is departing the station.

As a practical matter I probably shouldn’t have walked down to the bus stop in the rain. But it not raining that hard, but the lighter rain is more likely to absorb into the ground rather than run off.

Today is Earth Day. I don’t have any real plans for it but as its raining and I need to return a library book, I’ll probably go down to the library after work. Today in 1970, the first Earth Day was celebrated.

Memorial Day Weekend gets underway in five weeks. Now that things are greening up in the city, I can envision nicer weather going forward.

Traffic this morning is somewhat backed up going downtown but still moving decently. I’m not driving and are in no rush to get to work. There is a lane closure and a lot of tapping of brakes as people navigate the merge.

Staying I town this weekend but I will do some fishing and some short local hikes and obviously packing and getting my gear ready so I can have my truck all ready when I get out of work on Tuesday, hopefully before 5.

Back today in 1977, Optical fiber is first used to carry live telephone traffic. Fiber optic cable is the primary way that phone traffic and Internet traffic moves today. Also on the telecommunications front in 1993, the Mosaic Browser 1.0 was released. It would become Netscape and Firefox later on.