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.
Started packing and getting ready to head out of town tomorrow for a weekend in Madison County. Probably going to camp at Charles Baker and then do some fishing on the Nine Mile Swamp and/or Lake Morane in Hamilton, and take a nice stroll around the Rogers Environmental Education Center on Saturday.
The weather doesn’t look perfect for Friday night or early Saturday morning, but thunderstorms could mean anything. None of forecasts are calling for much rain — one model says we could get a half inch of rain on Friday night, but others are calling for a 1/10th of inch or less. I will bring a tarp.
Sixty four and sunny this morning. Later it will get up to the mid-80s. Thunderstorms this evening. Saturday still looks fairly marginal but I continue to watch the weather to see if conditions.
Eight years after the last asphalt resurfacing the DOT plans to mill and resurface Delaware Ave in Elsmere. The section of Delaware Ave under the old Slingerlands Railroad bridge has felt like an off-road course for some time now.
I’m glad the nice weather has returned but I wish they had saved it for Saturday and the weekend. I guess we will see what happens with the weekend.
New Google Maps KMZ on the blog. I’ve started doing more Census data KMZ maps on the blog. They really aren’t hard to do with the script I wrote a few years back and linking the data with modern version of QGIS. I just stopped a while back because I was running low on mapping data and ideas on what to map. But new data has come out and I have gotten some new ideas.
One week until the legislative session is done. It will be nice when summer is finally here. Last year for many reasons wasn’t much of a summer for me. I still haven’t made all plans up for this summer but I should have many fun adventures.
Good evening. 64 degrees and the spring peepers are singing their song. Mostly cloudy with some stars peaking out this evening. The fireflies are out and a frog is singing along as a bass note with the peepers. A bit of a breeze.
Tomorrow should be warmer and sunnier. Mid 70s and sunny. The rain we got the past few days was much needed, but sun is nice. More rain though is still expected for Friday and Saturday and into next week. Sunday will be nice, but looks like it might be bad for heading out of town for camping.
The rain certainly at times this afternoon, heading into the evening has been pouring pretty good. Much needed rain one would note. Currently, around 65 degrees now.
Lately, the rain has been slowing down and is expected to end in a bit. Mid-50s by morning with occasional showers. Tomorrow will be in the mid-70s and with some rain, just less than today. Clearing out for the rest of the week.
Got stuck at work for a while this evening after everyone else left. My office got released at 7:40 pm, just ten minutes too late to catch the 7:35 pm bus home.
I had to wait until 8:30 to catch the next bus. Sometimes I go to the public library when this happens but with the rain and a good podcast just ended up hanging out and just getting home really late.
It’s kind of a game when you don’t know your hours for sure and the bus runs hourly after 7:30. But I hate driving my big jacked up truck downtown if I can avoid it. City traffic sucks and I feel like I’m driving a monster truck in the city, constantly checking the corners of my truck and looking down for tiny cars. I certainly can’t fit in the state garage with Big Red.
So I either have to find a massive parking space on the street uptown a ways or take the bus. Unless I think it’s going to be an all-nighter at work or I’m planning to head camping from work, I take the bus. The hour headways suck.
I could probably trade in Big Red for a Corolla or something and get parking, and skip the bus. But besides the hour headway I like the convience of the bus. Plus riding the bus is far more green than supporting massive parking garages and expressways to get back and forth to work. But sometimes the bus is fustrating.
Two-day weekend trips are a lot of packing and unpacking, and week long trips often are too long.
I have been giving a lot of thoughts about what my summer plans should be lately…
I have my big jacked up truck with good tires and the electrical system fixed so it should keep the lights burning well into the night while camping. I will have my full-size spare tire, and I’m going to pick up a new jump pack some time this week, in case the automatic battery shutdown fails to do it’s thing (which is less likely now that the voltage regulator is putting out the proper voltage at idle). At some point I may be due for brakes, but that’s a minor thing. I will replace them once I hear or see evidence they need work. So things are going good.
Yet, this year I’m thinking of doing things differently. Not so many weekend trips (except when it’s real hot – heading up to the Potholers), and not so many week-long trips. Instead, I am going to do more long-weekend trips, e.g. 3-4 day weekends throughout the summer.
Two-day weekend trips
Two-day weekend trips aren’t bad and they can be a lot of fun. But they also are a lot of work between packing, unpacking, and shopping for groceries. They also tend to cost on average between $50-75 when you figure in gasoline, food, drink, and supplies. They certainly aren’t free, even if camping out in the woods doesn’t cost anything per se. These trips aren’t bad, but they do get tiresome, especially if I go out every weekend.
During periods of extreme heat and humidity on weekends I will still head up to the Potholers. But in moderate summer weather, or when it seems like the weekends are going to be rainy, I am pretty much going to stay in town.
Week-long trips
Week long trips always sound like a good idea on paper. They are necessary for longer trips, like out to Western NY or Pennsylvania. But the problem with week-long trips is you kind of stuck with the trip, once you start them. You’ve committed to five days off from work, and nine days in the woods. If you forget something you need, you kind of screwed. The camera stops working, well then you miss out on pictures all week long. Shorter trips avoid these problems.
The long-weekend is the solution
Long weekends give you the best of both worlds. They aren’t as much work as packing for a week long trip, and they aren’t such a major commitment of vacation time. If you decide not to go away for a long-weekend, and you only lose a day or two of vacation time. If things get screwed up or you leave something home, your not as screwed as you might be if your leaving for a full week.
This evening has me wishing I got out of town this weekend. This evening is 67 degrees and clear now that it’s dark out.
The entire weekend isn’t expected to be real warm but it will be sunny. Mid 70s in the city and upper 60s in the Adirondacks.
There is still a lot of summer ahead I tell myself. I hope I’m right about that. This weekend for a lot of reasons wouldn’t have worked well for getting out of town.
