John Boyd Thacher State Park

John Boyd Thacher State Park, is situated along the Helderberg Escarpment, one of the richest fossil-bearing formations in the world. Even as it safeguards six miles of limestone cliff-face, rock-strewn slopes, woodland and open fields, the park provides a marvelous panorama of the Hudson-Mohawk Valleys and the Adirondack and Green Mountains. The park has volleyball courts, playgrounds, ball fields and numerous picnic areas with nine reservable shelters. Interpretive programs are offered year-round, including guided tours of the famous Indian Ladder Trail. There are over 25 additional miles of trails for summer hiking and mountain biking, and winter cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and snowmobiling.

http://nysparks.com/parks/128/

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February 1, 2023 Morning

Good morning! Happy February. We made it through January. โ„ Now the real cold weather is heading towards us though not for long.

Clear except that the south ๐ŸŒ… and 14 degrees for the morning walk ๐Ÿšถ in Delmar. That’s normal for this time of year but seems cold after the January that was. Calm wind. There are 2 inches of snow on the ground. โ˜ƒ ๏ธThings will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 11 am. ๐ŸŒก๏ธThen really cold on Friday night relatively speaking.

As February gets underway the mornings are brighter ๐Ÿ”† especially with the sun out like today. Needs to get a little brighter before I walk at 6:15 but I plan to change back to that time later in February. Early is nice as it’s calm and not a lot of traffic. Plus I generally prefer to walk ๐Ÿšถ before breakfast.

Today will be mostly sunny ๐ŸŒž, with a high of 29 degrees at 2pm. Four degrees below normal. Calm wind becoming northwest 5 to 9 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 25 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1989. 15.0 inches of snow fell back in 1898.โ„

Yesterday was a Tuesday. ๐Ÿคฏ I mean that’s mind blowing although that’s a pretty ordinary thing. Got home at six 6โƒฃ reheated half of the soup ๐Ÿฒ and went for the evening walk ๐Ÿšถ. I was surprised, made it home by 6 pm. Continuing to cut meals ๐Ÿด in half to save money and reduce calories and if I need a little extra I’ll add some veggies or fruit.

Solar noon ๐ŸŒž is at 12:10 pm with sun having an altitude of 30.2ยฐ from the due south horizon (-40.6ยฐ vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 10.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour ๐Ÿ… starts at 4:27 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (240ยฐ). ๐Ÿ“ธ

The sunset is in the west-southwest (247ยฐ) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:09 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 9 seconds with dusk around 5:38 pm, which is one minute and 18 seconds later than yesterday. ๐ŸŒ‡ At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous ๐ŸŒ” Moon in the east (91ยฐ) at an altitude of 44ยฐ from the horizon, 249,894 miles away. ๐Ÿš€ The best time to look at the stars is after 6:12 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies ๐ŸŒ„ and temperatures around 26 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 8 mph. Tomorrow will have 10 hours and 4 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 23 seconds over today.

I was thinking wow, how fast the year is going. ๐Ÿ—“ I got my third paycheck on Monday and was studying the paystub and I was like wow already saved $2,500 towards retirement that means like a 1/10th of the year is done though that’s just an artifact of it being a werid three paycheck month. Oh, well. ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ

Tonight will be partly cloudy ๐ŸŒค, with a low of 16 degrees at 6am. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical night around February 5th. Maximum wind chill around 15 at 6pm; West wind 5 to 8 mph becoming south after midnight. In 2022, we had snow in the evening, which became light snow by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 20 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1961.

Cold come Saturday then warm come Sunday. ๐Ÿ˜• Saturday, sunny, with a high near 16. Blustery. Sunday, cloudy, with a high near 40. Typical average high for the weekend is 34 degrees. Get kind of everything this weekend.

One month ๐Ÿ“… from now will be March ๐ŸŒจ when the sun will be setting at 5:45 pm with dusk at 6:12 pm. The average high temperature is 40 degrees, with a record high of 65 in 1991.

Frank Jadwin

Some Useful Investigative Open Data Resources

Usually when I want to research a New York organization I start at NY Open Government, which is a website put out by the NY Attorney General and brings together several open datasets.

NY Open Government: nyopengovernment.com

One way to find people’s addresses is to find them in the voter file. Voter Ref contains the voter files for several states, which can be handy for looking up people’s addresses, date of birth, party registration.

Voter Ref: voteref.com

You can confirm the latest information on people’s voting registration and address by using the state board of election’s voter lookup. You will need their county, date of birth and zip code which you can get from Voter Ref.

NY Voter Lookup: voterlookup.elections.ny.gov

See Through NY has listings of many though not all government employees, which can be useful when you are trying to find information on government workers. No addresses here, but you can find salaries and who people work for in government. If you need bulk data, I wrote a scraping script.

See Through NY: seethroughny.net/payrolls

Another good way to gleam people’s addresses and the candidates they search is NYS Campaign Finance Search. If you think somebody might work for a candidate or campaign, you can search the campaign expenses section.

NYS Campaign Finance Search: publicreporting.elections.ny.gov

The FEC Campaign Search includes a contributor’s address and reported employer, which can provide useful information.

FEC Campaign Search: https://www.fec.gov/data/receipts/individual-contributions/

Every county in New York State is required to post their tax rolls to their website. Tax rolls can be usually found by searching on Google: “XXXX County Tax Rolls” without the quotes. Not only can you find all of the properties owned by a person that way, you can find their address, assessed value and other information. Often the county tax rolls include information on tax exemptions, such as the Guilderland Solar Exemption and Veterans STAR Reduction, which can help you find people who have solar on their homes or are Veterans. I wrote a script to convert the PDFs into Excel spreadsheets.

If you need to search a whole county or the even the state, you will want to get the full roll from NYS GIS. You don’t need mapping or GIS software to use the Shapefiles — Microsoft Excel and OpenOffice can natively open .DBF which contain the data tables. NYS GIS offers selected countys tax-maps as a Shapefile or GeoPackage too.

NYS GIS Parcels Program: https://gis.ny.gov/parcels/
NYS GIS Tax Parcels Centroid Points:
gis.ny.gov/gisdata/inventories/details.cfm?DSID=1300

In addition, most counties offer their tax maps as ArcGIS REST/Services that can be used in a GIS Program like QGIS. You can find them by searching on Google: “XXX County “REST/Services” parcel”.

How to download ArcGIS Rest/Services as KML Google Maps File: mappingsupport.com/p2/kmz_demo/How_to_download_arcgis_data_as_kmz.pdf

ArcPuller is a Great Way to Get this Data in R: andyarthur.org/youll-like-arcpullr.html

In addition, Joseph Elfelt maintains a list of many open government REST/Services:

PDF: https://mappingsupport.com/p/surf_gis/list-federal-state-county-
city-GIS-servers.pdf
txt file: https://mappingsupport.com/p/surf_gis/list-federal-state-county-city-GIS-servers.t
xt
csv file: https://mappingsupport.com/p/surf_gis/list-federal-state-county-city-GIS-servers.c
sv

An easier to read version can be found here: https://servers.cartobin.com/state/New%20York

Sometimes it’s useful to find what state contracts people have:

NY Open Book Contracts Search: wwe2.osc.state.ny.us/transparency/contracts/contractsearch.cfm

See how local governments like counties and cities send their money:

Local Government Reports: wwe2.osc.state.ny.us/transparency/LocalGov/LocalGovIntro.cfm

Many different data sets can be found on data.ny.gov

January 31, 2023 Morning

Good morning! January is almost done. Tomorrow is February and then Friday it gets cold. But warm next week.

Tuesday. โš™ Put your foot on the clutch, let the engine slow slightly. Pull the shift lever down let your foot off the clutch and give it some gas. Do it what seems like a million times and it seems like a very natural process.

Snow flurries and 31 degrees in Delmar, NY for the morning walk. โ„ There is a west-northwest breeze at 6 mph. ๐Ÿƒ. There are 2 inches of snow on the ground. โ˜ƒ Bare patches around. ๏ธThings will start to thaw out at Thursday around noontime. ๐ŸŒก๏ธAnd then that one very cold night, relatively speaking in the context of the year.

Today will have a chance of snow showers, mainly before 8am. Mostly cloudy ๐ŸŒฆ, with a high of 32 degrees at 2pm. One degree below normal, which is similar to a typical day around January 25th. Northwest wind 6 to 13 mph becoming north in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 23 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 17 degrees. The record high of 58 was set in 1913. 6.9 inches of snow fell back in 2000.โ„

Maybe not the nicest morning ever for the walk ๐Ÿšถ, kind of gray and chilly though not as cold as it can be in the winter. But we are heading into February so that’s to be expected. The next few mornings will be clearer but colder. And what will the Ground Hog ๐Ÿป see on Thursday? Nose ๐Ÿ‘ƒ is running a bit in the cold and I had a bit of a headache yesterday but it was a Monday and I’m not a sick puppy ๐Ÿถ even if I’m a bit of a redneck and a pyro.

Solar noon ๐ŸŒž is at 12:10 pm with sun having an altitude of 30° from the due south horizon (-40.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 10.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour ๐Ÿ… starts at 4:26 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (240°). ๐Ÿ“ธ

The sunset is in the west-southwest (247°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:07 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 9 seconds with dusk around 5:37 pm, which is one minute and 19 seconds later than yesterday. ๐ŸŒ‡ At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous ๐ŸŒ” Moon in the east-southeast (102°) at an altitude of 52° from the horizon, 247,924 miles away. ๐Ÿš€ The best time to look at the stars is after 6:11 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies ๐ŸŒƒ and temperatures around 28 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 10 hours and 2 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 20 seconds over yesterday.

Pay day today ๐Ÿ’ต and I look rich for five minutes though I think my landlord and my brokerage firm is laughing ๐Ÿ˜‚ and I might have fifty cents ๐Ÿช™ after I pay down the IRS tax bill lol. One step closer to the future ๐Ÿ”ฎ I tell myself. I could live out in the country and pay even more in taxes. ๐Ÿ Property taxes are a bitch in New York State. a

Tonight will be cloudy, then gradually becoming partly cloudy โ˜, with a low of 14 degrees at 5am. One degree below normal. Maximum wind chill around 15 at 12am; West wind 5 to 8 mph becoming calm after midnight. In 2022, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 10 degrees. The record low of -20 occurred back in 1920.

Brushed the snow off Red ๐Ÿ›ป especially the solar panel so when the sun comes out it can keep the batteries topped off in the cold. With the solar, the truck often starts the best on cold sunny days โ˜€ as the battery is fully topped off. ๐Ÿ”‹ Then it’s just a matter of waiting for the lubrication of the engine to kick in after a second or two.

Cold but sunny for Saturday. โ˜€ Saturday, sunny and cold, with a high near 10. Warms up come Sunday, a chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 37. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Typical average high for the weekend is 34 degrees. I don’t think that quite averages to 34. Little on the low side. National Gird needs their pound of flesh and I need a odd grid cabin out in the country with a wood stove so I can stop paying the heat the earth’s climate.

Looking ahead l, there are 2 weeks until Valentines Day โค๏ธ when the sun will be setting at 5:27 pm with dusk at 5:54 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly cloudy, snow showers and temperatures between 28 and 15 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 36 degrees. We hit a record high of 63 back in 1946.

Silos

January 30, 2023 Evening

Good evening! Snow squalls and 31 degrees in Delmar, NY. โ„ There is a north breeze at 6 mph. ๐Ÿƒ. There are 2.5 inches of snow on the ground. โ˜ƒ ๏ธThings will start to thaw out at Thursday around noontime before the deep freeze on Friday night. ๐ŸŒก๏ธ

It was a Monday. ๐Ÿข Not a bad one, I was home by around 6:20 zapped some food ๐Ÿฒ I had previously froze and had dinner. Out for the evening walk ๐Ÿšถ and then it’s off to bed ๐Ÿ› for the night. Another mild night though cooler weather than recent.

Tonight will rain and snow likely before 1am, then a slight chance of snow between 1am and 3am. Mostly cloudy ๐ŸŒง, with a low of 26 degrees at 5am. 11 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 15th. Northwest wind 6 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2022, we had clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 7 degrees. The record low of -26 occurred back in 1948.

It’s a nice night ๐ŸŒƒ for the evening walk ๐Ÿšถ with some snow ๐ŸŒจ coming down but not really sticking to the pavement. Salters are out so it wouldn’t be a good night to wash my truck plus I’m tired. I’m thinking Thursday will be mild but will things be really salty come the cold blast?

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous ๐ŸŒ” Moon with 72% illuminated. At 7 PM, the moon was in the south-southeast (154ยฐ) at an altitude of 69ยฐ from the horizon, some 245,655 miles away from where you are looking up from the earth. ๐Ÿš€ At the state speed limit of 55 mph, you’ll make it there by August 5th. Buckle up for safety! ๐Ÿ’บ

The Snow โ„ Moon is on Sunday, February 5. The darkest hour is at 12:09 am, followed by dawn at 6:43 am, and sun starting to rise at 7:13 am in the east-southeast (114ยฐ) and last for 3 minutes and 10 seconds. Sunrise is 58 seconds earlier than yesterday. ๐ŸŒ„ The golden hour ends at 7:55 am with sun in the east-southeast (121ยฐ). Tonight will have 14 hours and one minute of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 18 seconds over last night.

My phone is still dropping out ๐Ÿ“ถ a lot at home ๐Ÿก but not other places. Seems like it’s happening less frequently now and it’s not that I’m getting throttled because when I’m connected to other towers I’m fine, locally it just keeps breaking up in the general area around home. First time this has been an issue since the start of the pandemic.

Tomorrow will be partly sunny ๐ŸŒž, with a high of 29 degrees at 11am. Four degrees below normal. Northwest wind 9 to 11 mph, with gusts as high as 21 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with sunny skies in the afternoon. The high last year was 17 degrees. The record high of 58 was set in 1913. 6.9 inches of snow fell back in 2000.

I was noting it is only three weeks until President’s Day Weekend. ๐Ÿ‘ด๐Ÿป I’m thinking that would be a good weekend to get away – and maybe tack on a extra day if the weather allows. Snow makes it hard to get away to a lot of places in the back country but I have options. There is always Rennselearville but I’m a bit tired ๐Ÿ˜ด of that.

In four weeks on February 27 the sun will be setting in the west (260ยฐ) at 5:43 pm,๐ŸŒ„ which is 36 minutes and 9 seconds later then tonight. In 2021 on that day, we had mostly cloudy, snow showers and temperatures between 44 and 30 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 39 and 21 degrees. The record high of 61 degrees was set back in 1997.

Looking ahead, Save the Pine Bush Turns 45 ๐Ÿฆ‹ is Next Monday, Presidents Day ๐Ÿ‘ด is in 3 weeks, 8 PM Dusk ๐ŸŒ† is in 10 weeks, May ๐Ÿ•Š is in 13 weeks, 8:30 PM Sunset ๏ธโ›ฑ๏ธ is in 18 weeks, Average High is 80 ๐Ÿ– is in 20 weeks, World Mosquito Day ๐Ÿž is in 29 weeks, Average High Falls To 79 ๏ธDegrees โ›ฑ๏ธ๏ธ๏ธ is in 7 months, Labor Day ๐Ÿ‘จโ€๐Ÿญ is in 31 weeks, September 11th ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ is in 32 weeks, 7 PM Sunset ๐ŸŒ† is in 33 weeks, Average Night Below Freezing ๐ŸŒŒ is in 41 weeks, Cyber Monday ๐Ÿ›๏ธ is in 43 weeks, First Sunday of Advent โœ๏ธ is in 44 weeks, Bake Cookies Day ๐Ÿช is in 46 weeks, Christmas ๐ŸŽ… is in 47 weeks, and Bacon Day ๐Ÿฅ“ is in 11 months.

General Sheridan

Today’s Almanac for Monday January 30

Today’s Almanac

Night before dawn is 6 hours and 41 minutes,
Dawn starts at 6:41 am and runs for 28 minutes,
Sunrise is at 7:09 am which is 4 hours and 50 minutes before noon,
High noon, the transit of the sun, is at 12:08 pm,
From twelve noon to the sunset at 5:07 pm is 5 hours and 7 minutes,
Dusk lasts for 31 minutes concluding at 5:35 pm,
Leaving 6 hours and 24 minutes until midnight.

Downstream

January 30, 2023 Morning

Good morning! Monday’s come back around again. We all knew it would happen but did we actually believe it on Friday? Mostly cloudy and 30 degrees in Delmar. โ˜ There is a west-southwest breeze at 10 mph. ๐Ÿƒ. There are 3 inches of snow on the ground. โ˜ƒ ๏ธThings will start to thaw out at around 10 am. ๐ŸŒก๏ธ

Kind of a cold and damp morning. ๐ŸŒ… Of course we can discuss the meaning of cold come the weekend when the first cold blast of the season really comes. Seems like in recent years the really cold weather happens after the Ground Hog ๐Ÿป see his shadow.

Enjoy one more mild day. โ˜บ Today will have a slight chance of rain and snow showers between 1pm and 2pm, then a chance of rain showers. Mostly cloudy ๐ŸŒง, with a high of 37 degrees at 2pm. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around February 18th. West wind 5 to 10 mph becoming light and variable in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Little or no snow accumulation expected. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with sunny skies in the afternoon. The high last year was 17 degrees. The record high of 56 was set in 2013. 11.0 inches of snow fell back in 1966.โ„

Back to work after turning forty. It’s the usual Monday routine. ๐Ÿง‘๐Ÿปโ€๐Ÿ’ผI boiled my muzzles yesterday while unpacking my camping ๐Ÿ• gear and I’m doing the morning walk ๐Ÿšถ after having biscuits and oranges ๐ŸŠfor breakfast. My jacket still smells like the weekend that was ๐Ÿ”ฅ but will air out as the week goes on. Shower, iron put on my politicians suit and take the local downtown to my office ๐Ÿข and water the plants. ๐ŸŒฑ Work, work, work ๐Ÿ“„ and get paid Tuesday and invest two thirds of that towards a better tomorrow.

Solar noon ๐ŸŒž is at 12:09 pm with sun having an altitude of 29.7ยฐ from the due south horizon (-41.1ยฐ vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 10.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour ๐Ÿ… starts at 4:24 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (239ยฐ). ๐Ÿ“ธ The sunset is in the west-southwest (247ยฐ) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:06 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 10 seconds with dusk around 5:35 pm, which is one minute and 18 seconds later than yesterday. ๐ŸŒ‡

At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous ๐ŸŒ” Moon in the east-southeast (119ยฐ) at an altitude of 59ยฐ from the horizon, 245,505 miles away. ๐Ÿš€ The best time to look at the stars is after 6:10 pm. At sunset, look for rain ๐ŸŒง and snow ๐ŸŒจ and temperatures around 36 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 59 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 19 seconds over yesterday.

The three day weekend that I invented was nice though nothing that special for my birthday. ๐ŸŽ‚ The skiing ๐ŸŽฟ was great especially on Friday and it was mild and sunny ๐ŸŒž for Saturday but Rennselearville is only 32 minutes from home so it’s not that much of a trip. But I had my fires ๐Ÿ”ฅ burned up all that paper and burnables, had a few drinks ๐Ÿป and some nice meals. ๐Ÿด Did a lot of skiing and a nice hike on Sunday though nothing extraordinary.

My phone service keeps dropping out in Delmar ๐Ÿ“ฑ which has been annoying. ๐Ÿ“ถ Not sure what the problem is though I heard Verizon has had capacity issues lately. I know my cheap service gets the lowest priority and I live on the outskirts of town where service is a bit spotty but it’s been good over the decade and a half I’ve had it. ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ

Tonight will have a chance of rain and snow showers before 8pm, then a chance of snow showers between 8pm and 2am. Mostly cloudy ๐ŸŒง, with a low of 24 degrees at 6am. Nine degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 8th. Northwest wind 5 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. In 2022, we had clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 7 degrees. The record low of -26 occurred back in 1948.

I don’t think today will be a good one to go to the car wash ๐Ÿšฟ but maybe tomorrow before it gets too cold out. Shopping ๐Ÿ›’ on Friday I tried to get everything I would need for the week but some things inevitably got left off the list ๐Ÿ“ƒ. I’ve misplaced my needles and need to pick some up to fix a shirt. ๐Ÿชก So maybe Tuesday after work.

Frigid weekend ahead. โ„ Saturday, sunny, with a high near 13. That’s cold. Sunday, a chance of snow showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 37. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Typical average high for the weekend is 34 degrees. I guess if I don’t want my pipes to freeze I’m going to have to turn the heat above 48 degrees feel like a husky on a hot summer day. ๐Ÿบ It’s been such a mild winter though no 70 degrees days like that year a few years ago.

Next Monday Save the Pine Bush Turns 45 ๐Ÿฆ‹ when the sun will be setting at 5:16 pm with dusk at 5:44 pm. Makes me feel young. On that day in 2022, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 36 and 12 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 34 degrees. We hit a record high of 55 back in 1991.

Lake Champlain from Base of Tower