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Andy Arthur

After getting COVID at the end of 2024 and sleeping through much of the holiday season, πŸ›Œ it's good to be up and back at my game again. It's cold and dark this time of year, πŸ₯Ά but I figure focus on learning and working, while counting down the days until Punxsy sees or does not see his shadow. 🐻

I hope America is Back πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡Έ

I truly hope that Trump is successful and that Americans move forward over the next four years. He certainly is pushing forward many unconventional policies and maybe that’s what our country needs. I’m willing to hold my nose and see what happens, maybe it will be good for us – maybe the old ways of doing things were outdated and problematic.

I take offense to those who reject pragmatism and trying new things just because they’re not their preferred ideology. While I’m by no means a Trump lover – I consider myself a liberal Democrat – I did vote for the man and I’m willing to give him a chance to do better on his second term. I respect his choice of Bobby Kennedy Jr as Health and Human Services secretary from years ago hearing him on progressive radio stations and I think it’s worthwhile to see what actually gets done and not what the Trumpeter is quacking about on the TV.

Certainly a pretty morning out today β˜ƒοΈ

We got quite a bit of snow last night β€” I think over a half foot of snow in Delmar β€” not sure what they got out in North Blenheim β€” and it’s probably pretty cold out but the sunshine is good this morning.

After showering, I’ll walk down to the library in a bit to find out about the cold and to work on my laptop. 🌨 It’s probably best I came back yesterday, I had a good day yesterday between exploring Mine Kill State Park / Power Authority, then the Catskill Scenic Trail south from Grand Gorge to the Mountainview Dairy Processing Plant, then I spent a little time at Windham Path, before heading out of mountains, walking around Greenville for a bit before the snow really started to pick up. I wish I had more time, and had made time for hiking Pratts Rocks but I wasn’t going to risk getting stuck driving through heavy snow coming back through the Catskill Mountains. 🌨

I put away the camping gear in the crawl space, as I expect I won’t neccessarily get back out in the woods before Presidents Day Weekend, πŸ§“ which at this point is only three weekends away, which I will note is the coldest time of the year. Landlord dropped off a new refigerator, it’s super energy efficent using only 28 kWh per month according to the energy label or about $50 a year in electricity. Not bad β€” if you figure that’s less then a killowatt a day, and probably less then that as I keep my apartment cool most of the year and don’t open it up. Tiny little fridge but it has plenty of room for my needs. Now the landlord has to just remove the old one, he couldn’t fit it out the door and needs to remove the fridge doors to get it out of the kitchen. I’m sure he’ll take care of it this week.