I pray and wish people would take a step back and work for peace as we continue through the holiday season. There is no need for war or hatred, we have our own beliefs but we should keep them to ourselves and not try to force them on others. We should try to find peace and serenity in our own lives, celebrate our own religions and come together with our family during the holiday season.
Icy start to Hanukkah 🕎
Better be careful riding in on the bike trail and wash and grease the bike when I get home from the road salt.
Good morning! Happy Thursday on this start of Hanukkah for all those celebrating. 🕎 Despite the commercial media, I’ve heard Hanukkah is a relatively minor holiday compared to Rosh Ha.
Cold and icy start to the morning. Mostly cloudy and 21 degrees in the Delmar. ⛅ Sun lol 😂. There is a northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. There is a inch of snow on the ground. ☃ ️Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 9 am. 🌡️Won’t get above freezing today but much warmer come the weekend.
My stomach is feeling better today. ☺ I think I might have just had a minor case of food poisoning the other day with the undercooked kale. 🍲 Been trying to cut back and adjust the foods that give me problems while still eating a diverse and healthy diet.
Today will have a chance of snow, mainly between 11am and 5 pm. Mostly cloudy 🌨, with a high of 32 degrees at 1pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around January 15th. Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming southeast in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. I left the heat on at 48 degrees to be safe. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, which became cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 58 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1998. 5.5 inches of snow fell back in 2003.❄
Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:48 am with sun having an altitude of 24.8° from the due south horizon (-46° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:38 pm with the sun in the southwest (232°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (240°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:23 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 22 seconds with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 6 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:30 pm. At sunset, look for snow showers 🌨 and temperatures around 31 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 5 mph. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 12 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 58 seconds over today.
Tonight will be mostly cloudy ☁️, with a low of 25 degrees at 4am. Typical for tonight. Light southeast wind. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 29 degrees. The record low of -3 occurred back in 1902.
Today in 1787, Delaware becomes the first state to ratify the United States Constitution. 📜 And for football fans in 1963, Instant replay makes its debut during the Army-Navy football game in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. 1972 today marked the end of an era — Apollo 17, the last Apollo moon mission, is launched. 🌕 The crew takes the photograph known as The Blue Marble as they leave the Earth.
Not a particularly nice weekend on tap. 😞 Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 47. South wind 6 to 8 mph. Sunday, a chance of showers before 1pm, then rain likely after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 54. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Typical average high for the weekend is 40 degrees.
As a reminder, there are 2 weeks until First Day of Winter ☃️ when the sun will be setting at 4:26 pm with dusk at 4:56 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 34 and 16 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 37 degrees. We hit a record high of 62 back in 2018.
Snow flurries for the bike ride in 🚲 ❄
It’s not going to discourage me from riding in. I’ve been looking through my phone and noticing how much I’ve been saving on bus fares by riding in – not as much since the time change – but still riding in one direction saves and it’s good exercise. Truth be told though I end up spending more though when I end up stopping to buy groceries mid week on my commute but I guess it’s important to have healthy eats.
Good morning! Snow flurries and 28 degrees in Delmar, NY. ❄ There is a north breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. Things will start to thaw out at around noontime.
Figure ride to work today 🚲 as time is limited. Not much time left in the year or daylight left to do this, especially as I move to that new office 🏢. I’m treasuring that view of the Capitol and the Hudson River as I know soon I’ll be forgoing it for the suburbs but admittedly better pay, more responsibility and a better sounding job title for experience and the future resume building. 📄 Plus it’s a way to use my skills better 👨💻 and expand my knowledge.
Noteworthy, 25 days remain until the end of the year. 🗓 I hope you’ve worked to maximize this year to the best of your ability. ⛺ Hoping to get at least one more adventure out in the wilderness maybe two before the end of the year. 🎄 Maybe Madison County in the days leading up to Christmas, but it all depends on how much snow and cold they have. Rensslaerville State Forest is another easy option, though I’d rather to NYE there.
After feeling kind of sick after work 🤮 yesterday evening and cleaning up after changing my pants 👖 💩, feeling better this morning. Too much stevia and cranberries yesterday with the oatmeal for breakfast followed by rice and lentils I guess or maybe I should have cooked the kale better. I have a lot of trouble with cooked oatmeal though fried or baked with bananas or eggs I’m good. I don’t know, I got washed up and showered and it was fine. 🚿 It’s like the pissing and farting problem, a matter of tweaking what I eat 🍽 to meet nutrition goals 🥅 while not destroying my digestive tract in the process.
I think a lot of the problem lately as I’ve gotten out of the habit of soaking lentils overnight 🥘 before cooking them, though I do wash them. I heard that can make them easier to digest. 🤰 Plus I am trying to drink more water with meals, eat slower, and mix things up. I want to include lots of fiber and protein in most meals, but I need to be careful about how many beans and alike I use for cooking. 👩🍳 I don’t have as many problems digesting the pea soup, when I make sure to add water and lots of balmastic vinger and not eat too much.
It was probably better to miss the talk by Miko Peled, Israeli-American human rights activist, as he’s really controversial and I didn’t want to go to the event and get caught on TV 📺 by the news 📰 attending it. The thing is if I’m interested in such alternative perspectives I can always watch on my phone 📱. I really try to stay away from controversy today, especially outside of the blog. Nothing in this world is quite as third rail 🚈 dangerous ⚡ as the Isreal 🇮🇱🇵🇸 conflict. Best to keep opinions to yourself. Not that I don’t know what really to believe which is why I kind of wanted to see controversial Miko Peled. Just to hear another view. 🎤 👤
Today will have snow showers. Mostly cloudy 🌨️, with a high of 33 degrees at 1pm. Eight degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around January 5th. North wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had light rain. The high last year was 54 degrees. Going to likely be that warm come Saturday. The record high of 68 was set in 2001. 12.5 inches of snow fell back in 2003.❄
I was in bed 🛌 by around 7 PM last night, though I did more study of the Udemy course. 📱 Continuing to learn more about machine learning. 🤖 Woke up around 5 AM and started out with a cold glass of water with some apple cider vinger and ginger. Then frying sweet onions, peppers, adding stir-fry vegetables, mushrooms and corn. 👨🍳 Then turmeric, red peppers, two eggs scrambled, some corn starch and topped with nutritional yeast. 😋 A delicious meal complemented by coffee with skim milk, cinamon and ginger. ☕ Yum. Power to ride to work and make it through the day.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:47 am with sun having an altitude of 24.9° from the due south horizon (-45.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 12.9 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:38 pm with the sun in the southwest (232°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (240°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:23 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 22 seconds with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 8 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:30 pm. At sunset, look for snow 🌨 and temperatures around 31 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 7 mph. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 13 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 3 seconds over today.
Spent too much time yesterday trying to figure out what was wrong 😕 with the maps and graphs of landfills vs social deprivation. I realized that the issue was I should be comparing against state-wide numbers and as such have made up graphs and maps of income and race. I will have to revise the Messer deprivation maps later on when I have time. 🗺 At any rate, it’s been an interesting thought and coding experiment. 🤔 Also I am continuing on with my machine learning class, as its gotten further along and more technical, most of the stuff I’m learning is totally new to me.
Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌫️, with a low of 20 degrees at 3am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 25th. Maximum wind chill around 13 at 3am; North wind 6 to 8 mph. In 2022, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 47 degrees. The record low of -7 occurred back in 1901.
Been enjoying grapefruit for breakfast or as a snack. 🍊 I never thought I’d like grapefruit as I thought they were awful as a child. But at first I was kind of mixed on it, then learning that my mom can no longer have grapefruit being on statins, I learned to treasure the fruit even more. I should enjoy it, as there might come a time I won’t be able to enjoy it. Healthy to boot. Grapefruit and statins is an interesting topic, the chemical interaction is fascinating. The good news is unless you are on certain statins like Liptour for high blood pressure, grapefruit is healthy and delicious.
Continuing to look at houses and land on Zillow. The thing I find so frustrating is there isn’t a lot of tiny houses with a lot of land — everybody seems to be listing the big house in the suburbs. 🏘 I’d like less then 1,000 feet with lots of acres, to have fires 🔥 and have pigs 🐷 or other livestock. I guess there just isn’t as much rural property out there, but it is fun to browse and see what is out there. I’m not serious, I’m just browsing. 🚜
Today in 1902, a coal mine explosion at Monongah, West Virginia, kills 362 workers.🚂 And in 1953, Vladimir Nabokov completes his controversial novel Lolita. 📙 More uplifting is Adrian Kantrowitz performs the first human heart transplant in the United States in 1967. ♥
Mild this weekend but rather gray.☁️ Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 48. Sunday, a chance of rain after 1pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 58. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Remember it’s mid December. Typical average high for the weekend is 40 degrees.
Estate Taxes
When a parent or grandparent passes away, most inheritances pass down tax free to their children. Most inherited money is not subject to sales or income tax. Granted, when the child invests the money it will be subject to whatever interest or dividends are received on the money, but the principal itself never pays taxes.
So if you are lucky enough to receive $500,000 from your grandparents upon their death, you pay no taxes on the $500,000. This unlike almost any other kind of money you may earn or receive through investments. Going forward, you will pay taxes on interest and dividends earned on that money, including unrealized dividends (those dividends immediately used to purchase more stock or bonds) either at the income tax rate or the long-term capital gains rate.
Now there is an exemption to this rule. If you inherit more then $5.49 million, you will pay an estate tax of 40% on all money received beyond the $5.49 million. In other words, the first $5.49 million you inherit is yours tax-free. That’s pretty nifty, as you get to keep all that money to yourself without the government getting one cent of it. But then after the first tax-free $5.49 million, you have to pay 40% on any remaining inheritance.
Most Americans pay zero percent taxes on their inheritance (as they inherit less then $5.49 million). Those who inherit more then $5.49 million on average pay about 16% on their total inheritance, because the first $5.49 million is tax free. This in the grand scheme of things is a pretty good deal for those inheriting money, even millions or billions in dollars. This point can’t be said enough.
Inheritances aren’t always money. In many cases people inherit property and machinery in the form of a family business that never incorporated into a corporation rather then inheriting money. Farms are a classic example. But how many farms are there out there that are valued at more then $5.49 million dollars? Certainly that is not your rickety family farm with 80 head of beef cattle and 100 acres of rocky farm land. For liability reasons, many farms may incorporate into private businesses, so they don’t pay any estate tax between generations.
And even if they don’t, selling off an average of 16% of equipment or land to pay back the tax man is not a death blow to a family business — if your a good businessman, you can earn back whatever you had to give up when you inherited a lot of money, property, and machinery from your parents or grand parents. By any mark of fortunate, inheriting more then $5.49 million in money, machinery, land or other goods means your getting a leg up that most other people don’t get.
For most people who inherit money from their parents or grandparents, it’s not the estate tax that hits them but other taxes on yearly interest and capital gains. A $500,000 estate simply parked in a bank account that earns 1% interest, earns $5,000 a year. That is generally taxed as straight income, which is viewed by the IRS as the person making an additional $5,000 per year on top of their ordinary income from their job. So if they make $50,000 at their desk job, they have to report $55,000 a year income to the IRS, even though they aren’t utilizing any of their inheritance. They pay 10% on the first $9,275, then 15% on the portion between $9,276-$37,650, then 25% on the portion of between $37,651-$91,150. That’s how income taxes work. You income tax would be roughly $6,797 versus $5,547.
If we were really concerned about helping people invest and save for their future, the priority should not be repealing the estate taxes, but reducing taxes on investments, especially for the first few dollars gained on investment. Investments taxes, especially long-term capital gains should become more progressive so the first $100,000 or so of investment gains are not considered income but are tax free, while then taxing capital gains and income at a progressively steeper rate as more money is invested. At the same time, we should increase the Estate Tax, and lower the exemption to the Estate Tax, to discourage excessive wealth building up in specific families. People should large have to earn their own wealth, one generation at a time, and encouraged to save rather then spend more.
Even Some Farms
Tuesday, Tuesday. Four weeks and it’s back to work for the New Year 2024.
I saw that the new legislative session calendar was released for next year. Heavy weighted for January and February but that’s to be expected with the early primaries.
Good morning! Partly cloudy and 33 degrees at the Delmar, NY. ⛅ There is a northwest breeze at 11 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 6 pm. ☃️ Much cooler than yesterday.
Decided to do cream of wheat topped with shredded apples 🍏 and homemade this morning cranberry sauce. Coffee ☕ with lots of ginger and cinnamon. Plus some water with apple cider vinegar and ginger to smooth digestion, had a bit of an upset stomach 😲 after the pea soup last night. I really now understand why people add ham to pea soup – it’s for the fats which ease digestion by buffering the highly basic peas. 🍲 Not the taste per se, despite what folks claim. It would help too if I added more water to the soup to make it liquid before reheating for buffering plus adding more aciditic balsamic vinegar when serving and possibly adding a healthy fat like maybe mashed avocado 🥑 or some olive oil to the mix. Ham isn’t required especially if you are adding salt to the pea soup for taste. 🐷
I think it will be nice enough to ride to work. 🚲 Wear gloves 🧤 and embrace the cold it won’t be much longer for riding to work until spring or at least a February thaw. ☃ I figure with the new office 🏢 I’ll be able to ride in when there is enough daylight to ride back to the express bus in the evening. 🚍 Which isn’t the case in January.
Today will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a high of 37 degrees at 11am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 18th. Northwest wind 5 to 11 mph becoming northeast in the afternoon. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 44 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 2001. 9.0 inches of snow fell back in 1902.❄
Stayed in the office late last night to watch the fireworks 🎆. Honestly I would have gotten a better view from the Plaza as the agency buildings blocked the view of lower firing fireworks. I figured view the fireworks from my office before I move on. It wasn’t that late and I just caught the 6:45 bus home. 🚌 Already had dinner in the office, and I thought about going for a walk but my stomach was kind of upset after the pea soup.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:47 am with sun having an altitude of 25° from the due south horizon (-45.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 12.8 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:38 pm with the sun in the southwest (232°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (240°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:23 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 21 seconds with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is 10 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:30 pm. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy skies ☁ and temperatures around 36 degrees. There will be a north-northeast breeze at 5 mph. Tomorrow will have 9 hours and 14 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 7 seconds over today.
I got home 🏡 last night and with my upset stomach 🤰🏼 decided it best not to do an evening walk 🚶 plus I was tired 😴 and lazy being a Monday. Heated up a glass of milk 🥛 with lots of cinnamon and ginger and that was good, retired to bed 🛏 and watched some more of that class on machine learning 🤖. I think even more than a so called smoothie which adds natural sugars in the form of fruit and or yogurt I’m just as good with plain fat free milk loaded up with cinnamon and ginger nice and warm. Supposed to help with sleep 😴 besides warming you up.
Tonight will be cloudy ☁, with a low of 27 degrees at 5am. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 2nd. North wind around 6 mph. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became light rain by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 39 degrees. The record low of -5 occurred back in 1901.
Another rainy but mild weekend ahead. 🌧️ Saturday, mostly cloudy, with a high near 49. Sunday, showers likely. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 56. Breezy. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Typical average high for the weekend is 40 degrees. No snow in the immediate future 🔮 but definitely cloudy and gray. And rain for the weekends, which seems like we are stuck on the pattern of rainy weekends.
Looking ahead, there are 3 weeks until Boxing Day 🥊 when the sun will be setting at 4:29 pm with dusk at 4:59 pm. A good day for burning up all those boxes and wrapping paper from Christmas. 📦 🔥 On that day in 2022, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 30 and 16 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 35 degrees. We hit a record high of 59 back in 1895.
Fireworks 🎇
Watching the fireworks from my office made me think back to the war in Isreal and the rockets flying between Hamas and the Isreal defense forces. I hope we never live through such times in America.