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. 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.
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.
Good morning folks on this beautiful Saturday. Started out cloudy, but now clearing. It sure is nice to the see the rays of sun, when it’s been so cloudy for so long. The breeze — around 10 miles per hour makes the 35 degrees seem a bit cooler then the mercury suggests, but still nicer then recent. Looking for a high around 40 degrees today.
Kind of slept in this morning, and made some breakfast on the stove. Not too fancy, but some eggs and salsa, with some cheese dip I (accidentally) bought for camping a while back. It was okay, but I do need to get to the store and buy some groceries. I’ll stop at the store and get a few things on Monday, and hopefully by Tuesday evening I’ll have my truck back and it will start reliably in cold weather and on short trips. I have great hope that the shop with all their tools can figure out the electrical problem, probably in five minutes (and bill me for an hour). Probably a loose wire or the battery actually. I probably could have figured it out myself, but it would have taken hours of figuring out how to test from the Interwebs and probably replacing unneeded components. But I don’t care that much, it needs to not strand me in the wilderness.
I’m off hiking to Five Rivers Environmental Education Center in a few minutes after I get done with my shower. Going to take some pictures and go for a nice walk. Feeling better this weekend, despite my nagging cough, and want to spend more time in the woods. Yesterday was nice at the Town Park but the Environmental Education Center offers more different views. I would have liked to go to the Adirondacks this weekend, but so be it. Made some good progress on various improvements to the blog, and map making.
Got my last pay stub of the year, and it was pretty good year. Better then expected, made up somewhat for a fairly flat stock market. Worked a lot of hours, but made some good money. Too bad with inflation, that money went out the door about as quick as it came in. A lot of it went to savings though, especially my retirement account. This year, I’m not making a large up-front payment on retirement from savings, so the bimonthly withdrawls will be larger, but it will provide more stability for investments, should the market decline. I’ll miss watching my savings account grow as quickly as it did in the past though. Eventually though, I hope to have land out in the country, a basic off-grid cabin, in free state. At least by the time I retire. In the mean-time, I may end up buying a small house in the city or near suburbs, where I can take the bus to work every day. I hate driving in the city.
2015 was a pretty darn good year, all things considered. Spraining my ankle sucked. It hurt like a mother and I couldn’t get around well for over a month. But once I got the boot off, I started to recover. My ankle still occasionally hurts a bit, but it’s more on and off. Probably should loose some weight, but I sure like drinking those cold ones in the woods. Camped right up to the end of year, and except for the stupid truck, would have spent New Years Eve in the wilderness. Still, I might get out camping next weekend or certainly Martin Luther King Day Jr. weekend, assuming it’s not that frigid (as defined by days that have highs close to or above freezing and no rain or damp fog). West Virgina was amazing, although I wish I had spend more time in the Shenandoah Valley, exploring some of the beautiful farm land and the Shenandoah River. Once you get into Shenandoah National Park, there are few access roads to the valley below. Maybe November 2016, I’ll take the Blue Ridge Parkway farther south, where it will be warmer and I can explore more. The Remington 597 .22 I have is a lot of fun to shoot, but I sure wish I could own a high-capacity magazine in New York, as it would make it even more to shoot.
Have a great day. It’s a beautiful one. Get outside and enjoy it.
