Good morning. Happy Monday. Five day work week coming up this morning. Chilly, around 16 degrees and mostly cloudy to the north with some sun to the south. A few flurries on and off but no accumulation. So be it, January weather is hear. But it won’t last with a warm up expected by the end of the week.

Kind of a chilly morning with the wind but I didn’t notice it much as I left the heat at 60 before bed, wore my wool overcoat, and races down to the bus stop, catching the bus with seconds to spare. I should make an effort to get to the bus stop a little earlier.

So it’s January. Great, we are working are way to spring time. I’ve been through a lot of winters before and while they are a grind, they always come to a conclusion. Winter’s fury can only last for so long before it succumbs to the changing angle of the sun. Every day we will be getting increased solar radiation with the changing seasons.

Good evening. Now we are down to 35 degrees but no snow. Some good gusts of wind. Later on, temperatures will drop rapidly and by sunrise looking at 19 or 20 degrees. Sunny tomorrow constant temperature around 20. Sunrise at 7:26 AM with 9 hours and 8 minutes of sun. Gaining daylight slowly, mostly in the evening.

Pretty nice evening walk. Went earlier then usual, hoping to avoid the cold which hasn’t happened yet. Nice evening but cloudy.

Started to write code for a bulk American Community Survey mapper that will allow me to make many census maps easier, similar to the political mapping tool I wrote earlier in the week. One change I made in both tools is using CSV files as an alternative to dBase files. I think it’s better to use CSV as they are smaller and more future compatible. dBase format will remain around for a while, if only because ERSI Shapefiles use the format natively for storing data – which is why I was using it at first. Plan to code into both scripts and add to the blog a crunched number feature, that will not only show the map with ED or block group statistics but also detailed statistics broken down by town, ward, and/or tract. Cool stuff but it will require a fair amount of coding. But it’s winter and I have the free time.

Well, good night. Sleep well.

Good evening! Currently 37 degrees and cloudy this evening. It cleared out for a while this evening before dusk, but the clouds have returned with the approaching front. We are expecting some snow showers later this evening that might make the roads slippery.

Tomorrow starts the new work week for the new year. Five day work-week. January seems to have come so quickly, without the harsh weather we’ve gotten use to. Tomorrow is going to be cold, with temperatures around 20 degrees all day. A stiff breeze will make windchills appear below zero, but the mercury will be at least in the positive single digits. It will feel cold though. Not as cold as late February and early March last year, with temperatures in the morning in the negative 10 degree range. Last year was so bitterly cold, but we might once again get some of that cold, but not this week.

Did you notice how late the sunset was tonight? Or more properly, how late darkness came once civil twilight came to an end? Civil twilight tonight was at 5:06 PM, so when you get out of work at 5 PM, it won’t be totally dark out. That’s nice. Sunset is at 4:34 PM in Albany, and even later in later parts of the state. Not having clouds dominating the sky sure made it seem like the day was a lot longer today. With the colder weather of Monday and Tuesday plus the clear weather expected through Thursday, nicer days and later sunsets will be the norm. I’m sure glad for that.

Where did the time go? It seems like it just wasn’t early fall. Certainly it can’t be 2016 already. Then ago the lack of snow plus that Big Buddy Heater I’ve been able to camp until last week – and I’ll be camping next weekend or the weekend after, once my truck is back from repair and the weather is not too cold or snowy. It will be like a winter without winter, which is kind of nice. Granted, I can’t get back far in the Adirondacks from a plowed state highway but I still can spend nights in the wilderness, toasty by the Big Buddy and with bright light with my lantern. Local wilderness camping or in a lean-to is a possibility too – I have my mind on a particular spot in the woods where I want to set up camp. Spring will approach quickly. My winters are usually quickly consumed by the long days I put in at work. Four weeks and we’ll be in the first weekend of February. Eight weeks the time changes. But for sure, in the mean-time we will have some snowy and cold weather, even if El Nino keeps us relatively warm for most of the winter.

Pretty quiet day, although I did make some maps up in QGIS. I had a problem in QGIS that took a while to diagnosis – somehow I had a layer that was malfunctioning, but now it working correctly. I cranked out a batch of maps, including Google Maps of most of the competitive races in the County Legislature. At this point, I’m pretty much done with mapping Election Results at least until after primary day – although maybe I could get some of the old LATFOR data from 2008 and so an interactive primary map comparing Hillary Clinton versus Barack Obama. I think the next time I’m down at the library, I will have to get some more census data, although honestly on that front of running a bit thin on data to map too. Maybe some historical data might be interesting.

In the afternoon, I almost wish I had gone down to the park rather then the library, it was so nice. But whatever. Nicer days will certainly come, once we get past the coldest week of the year – typically next week. I do look forward to going to the park with a book from the library and reading to dusk or beyond. Or even just bringing my laptop down there, and playing on the WI-FI. Library Internet is fine, but I sure prefer to be outside when it’s nice. I wonder if they’ll even operate the ice rink at the town park this year, with the weather being so mild all winter. Below freezing temperatures are bound to come. This is Albany and winter, after all.

After this mild winter, it means there will likely be some hot and toasty summer days. I can feel the potholers already on a 90 degree day. I sure love those waterfalls on a hot day, and camping up by the East Canada Creek in the summer. It really is my home away form home. Summer nights are really quite wonderful, even if they last such a short time. It really can’t be a hot enough day for time in the potholers, although an extended drought I guess could really sap those waterfalls compared to more normal water conditions. I am also looking forward to heading out to the Finger Lakes for summer vacation, with hot days going in out of the pool at Watkins Glen. 2015 was an amazing year, and I hope to build upon it this year.

Have a great evening! I’m off for my evening walk.

Good evening. Currently 34 degrees and cloudy. With no wind, the weather seems pretty mild. Tomorrow we may see more sun then today, although that’s not saying much. We had about 10 minutes of sun between the clouds and cold. Tomorrow will be 39 degrees and mostly cloudy. Colder weather for Monday and Tuesday, both days will have highs in the 20s and lows in the single digits but with more sun. Wednesday looks super nice with some sun and temperatures around 40.

Definitely a nice evening for the evening walk, at least with a sweater. The sidewalks are ice free, the air was dry, and no breeze. I could almost sit out back this evening. Wouldn’t be bad weather for camping either. Maybe next weekend.

I am super excited about the election results library I finished writing today that crunches election results in batch and also links them to a KML file for display. You can zoom in and click on different parts of the file to display interactively and bring up balloons with ED detailed statistics. All I have to do is cut and paste election results from the canvas book, save the file and run the script. Makes for easy, interesting content for my blog without much work and without taking up a lot of space. I’m a big fan of interactive Google Maps. Static maps are prettier and have better previews but they aren’t interactive.

With the cold weather and clouds I decided not to hike out to Five Rivers Education Center. Instead went down to the library and out to my parent’s house for Sunday dinner a day early because they were going to be doing stuff with my sister on Sunday.

Tomorrow working on more blog stuff and maybe going down to the library for a bit. Need to do some more cleaning around the apartment too. I don’t have any big plans but I’m hoping to do more things next weekend if it’s nice. We will see.

Have a great night. Sleep well.