Rattlesnake Hill WMA

The Rattlesnake Hill Wildlife Management Area is a 5,100 acre upland tract, situated approximately eight miles west of Dansville, New York. Roughly two-thirds of the area lies in southern Livingston County, while the remaining third lies in northern Allegany County. The tract was purchased in the 1930’s under the Federal Resettlement Administration and is one of several such areas turned over to DEC for development as a wildlife management area.

The area is appropriately named after the Timber Rattlesnake, which may be occasionally found in the more remote sections of the “Hill”.

The area offers an interesting blend of upland habitats such as mature woodland, overgrown fields, conifer plantations, old growth apple orchards and open meadows.

The area is inhabited by a variety of game species and is open to public hunting. The white-tailed deer, wild turkey, ruffed grouse, grey squirrel, cottontail rabbit and woodcock are found on the area. An occasional snowshoe hare may be observed adjacent to thick creek bottom brush or conifer plantation habitats.

A number of small marsh units have been developed and provide limited hunting for waterfowl. Some of the area’s furbearing species such as mink, beaver and raccoon may be occasionally viewed at these marsh units.

http://www.dec.ny.gov/outdoor/24443.html

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Six Weeks Until New Years Eve 🎇

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Those extra cups of coffee did me no good yesterday. Not only did it make it impossible to get to sleep, it contributed to my extreme anxiety I had most of the afternoon. I just kind of wanted to relax to some extra coffee yesterday but I guess I really overdone it. I swear I used to drink a lot more coffee when I was younger, and coffee ain’t as strong as it once was when sipping it, but the after effects are much worse. Between the garlic powder gas and shits, the anxiety and staying up too late, I didn’t get much sleep and sleeping past 6 o’clock is unimaginable in my mind at this point.

Good morning! Happy Sunday. Partly clear and 34 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 10 pm. ☃️

Not a super cool morning. 😀 I could go for a walk but I want to get to the store pretty earlier and my guts are mess after last night I don’t want to risk an accident out walking. 💩 Could be excess coffee of yesterday ☕ but I think it’s the garlic powder I added to the tomato sauce I had last night, as that previously gave me trouble in West Virginia plus one other time at home. Big bulk container I got from Hannaford, even in moderation it keeps me running to the toilet 🚽 . Could be salmonella or mold growing in the container. I probably should empty it and toss in the recycle bin ♻️ before it gets me sick again. 🤢

Decided on pancakes this morning 🥞 as that’s all I really had left. I was playing with recipes, decided to do ground oatmeal, with one egg, apple cider vinegar and baking soda for levity, and Splenda rather then bananna for sugar. Came out fairly good, little more filling then just ordinary oatmeal-banana pancakes. Topped with shredded apples from the food processor 🍏 heated and cooked down in the microwave, along with chopped bananas. 🍌 Pretty good.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 46 degrees at 12pm. Two degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 23rd. South wind 6 to 11 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with a few breaks of sun the afternoon. The high last year was 39 degrees. The record high of 71 was set in 1921. 4.2 inches of snow fell back in 1914.❄

First thing this morning is to shower 🛀 and then head over to Price Chopper in Slingerlands for grocery shopping, 🛒 that is once I get my list together. 📜 I need to get $50 in groceries to use my $5 coupon, though that shouldn’t be hard as groceries are so expensive these days. Only shopping through Friday morning, as I plan to get what I need when heading up to the Adirondacks. Not Walmart on Black Friday, but I don’t think Hannaford will be particularly crowded the day after Thanksgiving. Mostly just restocking the pantry full of fruits and veggies, though I’m also going to get a big bag of frozen salmon fillets as I have that other coupon too. 🎫 Eating lots of omega-3 is good.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:42 am with sun having an altitude of 28° from the due south horizon (-42.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 11.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:48 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (237°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (244°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:31 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 14 seconds with dusk around 5:00 pm, which is 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south (170°) at an altitude of 28° from the horizon, 226,654 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:36 pm. At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 42 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 41 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and one second over yesterday.

Been continuing on the Udemy Courses. 🎓 I am on my third course after two courses on remote sensing. 🛰 So far done is Remote Sensing with QGIS: Basics of Satellite Imagery Classification and Fundamentals of Remote Sensing and Geospatial Analysis. Been learning a lot. It’s wonderful that my public library 📚 offers these classes for free and you get free certifications 📄 after you get done watching the classes and doing the quizzes. The most recent one is Spatial Data Analysis with R, QGIS & More which is good but it’s about 7 or 8 years out of date, and doesn’t show a recent version of QGIS and uses the obsolete R library of rgeos rather then sf and terra which is used today. But still it’s interesting and good to learn as a big part of the class is about kriging, which is something I am still struggling to fully understand. 🗺 📍

Yesterday I checked out the Bethlehem Sportsmart ⛷ and was shocked at the prices of skis, especially ones in good quality. At over $100 for a pair of cross-country skis, I think I’d be best off to get a pair at a retailer, maybe after the holidays, one that fits and works properly for my needs. It was mobbed at the sportsmart, with screaming babies 👶 and children running around. 🧒 The skis I have currently are groomed-track skis, which besides being broken, really aren’t good for the kind of cross-country skiing I do that rarely involves following groomed tracks. 🤑 The problem with those skis is they are too fast and sink too deep in unpacked snow, the prior is a particular concern when descending mountains, especially now that I’m close to 41 years old, and crashing with skis may very well mean broken bones. 🤕 Plus I wasn’t in the mood to spend any money right now, to say nothing about that I’m not sure if it will be a particularly snowy winter. I might just stay closer to home this winter, do more bike riding 🚴‍♀️ on the roads. Winter ski season is so short around here, and it’s often quite cold int he winter.

Didn’t end up being able to fix the vacuum cleaner yesterday, 🧹 turns out that after I got it all apart, then put it back to work, I found out the source of the rattle — bad ball bearing. After fiddling for it for a few more hours, I ended up pulling the motor and any part I could reuse or scrap. ⚙ Heck of it is I had it back to together and it was working until it’s started sparking and not working again. ⚡ Disappointing crap, I bought it only 7 years ago but ever since I got it constantly plugged, burned up belts and malfunctioned. If I get another vacuum, I am going to get a small rechargeable hand held 🤲 one as I don’t really have that much carpet in my apartment and then I can do the stairs and vacuum out the mud and dust from my truck better. I’m just annoyed by all that plastic trash, even I will be able to reuse the switch and cord from the vacuum for camp lighting, 🔌 and may be able to part out parts of the motor for electronics projects or add to the stack of scrap metal for eventual recycling at the scrap yard. ♻️ It wasn’t a real cheap vacuum — it was like $70 or $80 bucks, a Dirt Devil Pet Hair Vacuum but it constantly plugged on wads of hair and dust. I bought it because the reviews were good originally, and I figured a pet hair vacuum wouldn’t clog as much as a standard vacuum. 🐶 I guess don’t believe the review. I just hate carpet, when I have my own land, I don’t ever want that indoors. Especially not the gross, nasty worn out shag carpet like in my apartment.

The broken vacuum cleaner, the debate in my mind to renew or not renew my certificate of deposit,  the signing of Clean Slate last week, getting my ego knocked down a peg for that messed up background at work, and cold weather 🤪 plus all that coffee just really got me into a bad place by last night. 🤯 My mind was racing, I just kind of felt sick. The whole thing was stupid, it wasn’t entirely my fault I messed up the background, the researcher and big boss didn’t catch it either. 💣 The vacuum cleaner was cheap shit it never worked right. The truck is going to be fine for another year. Then I got the shits from that garlic powder. 💩 Yuck, I was so sick for a while. Did I mention I burnt my finger 👆 on the soldering iron when I was working last night. 😠 I was just so bitter, angry and frustrated all evening. I mean it’s stupid, what happened at work isn’t the end of world, moving to a new department soon, the seven-year old vacuum cleaner was less then a tank of gas these days, my truck will likely make it another year, it’s winter it’s cold but I am still planning adventures, I can get better skis somewhere else, and the coffee and shits will wear themselves off.

But regardless, I had a nice bicycle ride out to Voorheesville. 🚲 The bridge is fully re-opened, they did a nice job, it’s a very smooth ride up and over the bridge. On the west side of the bridge it’s a slight upgrade, but the expansion gaps are remarkably smooth and it’s blacktop, all the more surprising for a “temporary bridge”. Truth is they did such a nice job on the “temporary” bridge that they really don’t have a good reason to necessarily replace it anytime soon. Sat and watched the 4 PM freight train roll through Voorheesville 🚂 then watched the sunset 🌆 from Bender Mellon Farms and rode home quickly, thinking it would get dark but it didn’t so I rode down to Adams Street then back along the designated bike route through the back roads of Delmar. Great evening even if it was shitty day in so many ways. That part of the day was pretty nice, even if I got sick in evening 😫 and my mind was racing the rest of day. 🤪

Tonight will have a slight chance of showers before 8pm. Partly cloudy 🌃, with a low of 26 degrees at 6am. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around December 3rd. Northwest wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. In 2022, we had clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 24 degrees. The record low of 6 occurred back in 1986.

Last night made homemade tomato sauce with canned tomatoes, Italian spices, spinach, peas, chopped garlic, crushed red pepper, smoked paprika and kidney beans. Added a little bit of lentil pasta towards the end. Tasted good, very filling and kept me full. 🥘 It as all good until I added some garlic powder (really not much), which totally blew up my stomach starting around midnight, with frequent visits the bathroom and everything stinking of garlic. I don’t know why I have such problems with this garlic powder I got the other day — crushed garlic is good. I thought the problem was the whole wheat flour I got from Price Chopper but I’m pretty sure it’s the garlic powder. Been having a lot of stomach issues lately, I thought I would adjust to the high-fiber diet but it’s proven difficult. 🤰

Got reading about the latest generation of single board computers 🖥 which keep getting more and more powerful and cheaper. Technology on this front is advancing so quickly, it’s a golden age to be a hobbyist with things like the original Arduino from years ago seeming so out of date. 🤖 Then I got reading about stomach issues as my stomach grumbled, and this really weird thread on the internet where people fight about whether or not sugars in excessive fruit consumption 🍌 🍏 🐒 lead to fatty liver disease and diabetes. Most of the experts think the benefit of the extra fiber far outweigh any downsides to a diet rich in fruits, though I do eat a lot of fruit (and vegetables too). Probably too much fruit but I like sweet. But I also don’t eat any food with added sugars if I can all avoid it, which is what most doctors 👨‍⚕️ think really are a big threat to health. I am a bit obsessed with fatty liver disease after people warned me about the risk of loosing so much weight so quickly. Hell of it is I don’t have much control over my weight, it really is a just a side effect of diet. Hard to gain too much when your stuffing your face with fruits, vegetables and beans all of the time, and riding to work and walking everywhere.

Next Friday through the following Monday is looking good for the Adirondacks 🏕 though only time will determine for sure. ❄️ It looks like the snow event in Wednesday isn’t going to leave feet of snow up north, so I should be able to get back to camp without doing a lot of shoveling or hauling gear back, though worse come to worse, I’ll bring the sled and drag gear back. 🛷 The weekend looks to be cool but not as cold as they first predicted ☕ and warm coffee and meals along with the heater should be good. And I can get away from it all.

Looking ahead, there are 3 weeks until 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ when the sun will be setting at 4:23 pm with dusk at 4:53 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 31 and 20 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 40 degrees. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1966.

Driving the Elk Highway

Healthy eating has been so tough on my stomach 🥦🫃💩

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I really thought I would be able to overcome the upset rumbling stomachs, the gas and pain, the mixture of constipation and the runs from my high-fiber, high-protein diet I’ve been on. I like being satisfied and eating good healthy foods, and I thought I could adapt but lately it’s been so difficult. As much as I like those bowls of kidney beans with maple syrup, the homemade bread with carrots, the 15-bean soup and pea soup, I think I need to seriously think about cutting back on eating those kinds of things are truthfully, it’s not making me healthy, it’s making me sick.

I want to be healthy and live the good life, but right now I don’t think I am going in that direction with my irritable bowels, excessive pissing from excessive water. I’ve been checked out by my doctor, I am healthy and only improving as my weight continues to decline and my nutrient profile increases, with healthy blood pressure, cholesterol and blood sugar levels. But I do obsess over food too much these days, and just have gotten so horrified at what most Americans eat these days and think tastes good. Good I guess if you like the taste of food that’s poisoning your body.

Decided to Try to Keep Big Red for Another Year 🛻

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November 30th is a big decision day for me — to renew or not to renew the 1-year certificate of deposit that I have about $70k of cash invested in. If I renew the certificate of deposit, then I won’t be able to necessarily get a new truck next year if I need one.

Big Red

But do I need a new truck?

The answer is probably not. Big Red is 12 years old, going on 13 years next October. He has about 107,000 miles on him, which by auto standards isn’t that old. For the most part he’s running pretty good. The 35 inch tires I put on Red two years ago now, are still in good shape. No signs of unsual wear or alignment issues on the truck. Red hasn’t been burning much oil lately, doesn’t have any new or unusual noises, has about as much rust as you might think of a vehicle through 12 harsh salty winters.

The usual issues for an older lifted truck — the power windows and seats don’t work perfectly, rusty wheel wells and corner panels, the one tail light leaks water and has to be emptied from time to time to keep the bulb from burning out, after I had the coolant changed the first few times I used the heater I could smell coolant thinking the flush might have caused a leak, the ball joints creek and grone when I crank the wheels tight to get into a tight spot, and the shocks and struts are pretty worn, especially noticeable in the rough country. The 5.3l engine, like most of them, has a lifter that ticks, especially when cold and left at idle speed for a prolonged time. But it’s been doing that for a decade plus now. They all do it to some extent. When the transmission is cold, the 2-3 shift can be a bit rough, a sign that the 460LE tranny is wearing out and not perfectly healthy but probably has a bit more life left in it. Also, not a brand new behavior. I had the transmission fluid changed at 50k, I could do it again, but it’s a expensive process as the pull the whole case off to get the filter, and my local mechanic doesn’t do it. I concede it ain’t going to last forever.

That’s everything I’m aware of, there are probably other issues too.

The thing is I probably can get another year out of it. The more I get out of Big Red, the more economical it will be. New trucks are so expensive, especially compared to 12 years ago. I make a lot more money these days, but still. I am not planning a West Virginia trip next year, due to my busy work schedule next year, probably the farthest I’ll get is the Finger Lakes. If I notice any new odd behaviors or noises, I’ll drop the truck off at my local mechanic to look it over carefully. It’s a risk to try to keep Big Red on the road for another year until December 2024 but with clear rewards in financial savings.

I am not in the place where I would be stranded without a vehicle, as I live in the city. There are towing and repair costs should Big Red break down on a road trip, and costs to rent a car or finding lodging. Though if I am only going out to the Finger Lakes at the farthest, the truth is I could always rent a car for the a few days and if necessary camp in a tent or stay at a motel somewhere. All cheaper then buying a new vehicle. There is no guarantee that my old truck is going to break down on a trip, indeed probably the odds are against that. I had a wonderful trip down to West Virginia followed by Madison County with no issues at all whatever.

The thing to is that breaking a one-year certificate of deposit isn’t that costly should for some reason Big Red break have to be replaced. The only way you end up losing some principal is if you break the CD between the end of the grace period and first quarter of the CD. Beyond the first quarter, you only really risk losing a portion of the accumulated interest over the most recent few months. But the thing about breaking a CD, according to the terms, is you only loose what you pull from the CD — you don’t have to cash out the full CD and only are penalized on what you remove prior the maturity date. And that 5% interest rate on one-year CD is quite attractive, even if it’s not that much over the high-interest savings account I also have with that firm. I wouldn’t have to break the even much of that CD, as I have nearly $40k in high-interest savings, and maybe not even touch it at all with the trade in on Big Red and choosing a smaller, more affordable truck or even car. Another option would be to cash in savings bonds or even sell stock, although the later option is likely a last resort, even though the markets have been up.

Committing to keep Big Red on the for another year, is a bit of a leap of faith that he’ll keep pushing on but compared to situation a lot of people are in when it comes to cars, I can’t be that worried or upset. I won’t need to get an auto loan most likely, and the worse that would happen is I loose a couple hundred bucks of interest by choosing to renew the certificate of deposit. I like Big Red and I’d loathe to give him up at this point, even if he is a bit expensive to operate and long in the tooth. Plus I am not totally sure I would want to replace Big Red with — do I want to get an electric car, a smaller pickup like a Toyota Tacoma that is fuel efficient and easier to get in and out of campsites and truck trails, or do I want the room of a 3/4 ton long bed truck? And moving to that new office in suburbs, I could decide to start driving to work to avoid transferring buses, so I might want a fuel efficient or electric vehicle for such a trip.

When I Had Long Hair

Honestly, I don’t know.

I think for now I am committed to Big Red. He’s taken me on a lot of good adventures. I concede he won’t last forever, but I should enjoy the good times while they still roll along. Keeping Red on the road is the most economical option, even if it comes with risks, like with any older vehicle. Repair is better then discard and replace it. If he doesn’t make it another year, I have options, breaking a CD isn’t the worse thing ever, especially if I don’t have to break the full value of CD to tap it to cover additional costs beyond what I keep in savings for replacing Red.

Local government makes no sense today

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Eliminating county and local government a lot of sense…

I am no fan of local government. While I get the desire of communities to have a degree of local control, in modern times where the automobile prevails and development choices impact whole regions, the time is now for more regional government and cutting out of often duplicative local governments. Both municipal and county governments serve no real purpose in the modern age.

It seems like local government agencies have a lot of free time on their hands and taxpayers dollars to waste. Too much taxes, too many elected officials. So much of what they do these days is pass resolutions and meaningless local laws that make political statements about national issues. The few useful things they do are mostly symbolic, allow them to pound their fists in pride, piss off constituents but have no real impact.

There are too many elections, it’s confusing for voters. Rather than electing sixty odd representatives over a period of each four years, if we had only a federal government and maybe a state government then elections could be reduced to ten or less races – and it would make choices much more straightforward and allow people to really understand who they are voting for as their leader.

Getting rid of municipal and county government is not a popular proposition but it’s something that should be considered to save taxpayers money and in the sense of justice and fairness. Each state should have one set of laws and regulations not millions of local laws. Courts and law enforcement should be consistent. Regional variation in justice should not exist.

I get why local government exists, mainly because it’s always existed. But it’s no longer 1800 and it’s really is time for a change.

Rainy start to for Regular Deer Season in Southern Zone 🦌

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I bet those people sitting in their deer stands this morning are shivering, fighting off hypothermia thinking they probably won’t get their big buck despite the statistics that show two thirds are harvested today. I’m quite okay being inside this morning, enjoying my eggs and spinach, along with the homemade bread, sweet potatoes and butternut squash that I baked starting a little after 5 AM this morning.

Good morning! Rain and 45 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☔ There is a north-northwest breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around midnight tonight. ☃️ Kind of a yucky morning, temperature is going to drift downwards as more sun appears later with a steady breeze to keep things good and cool for the balance of the day. That said it’s mild enough, that the heat is off, though I have plenty of warmth inside after all that cooking this morning. 👩‍🍳

While I don’t really need to get up at 5 AM on my day off ⏰ I wake up that hour, especially as I was asleep before 8 PM last night as it was such a dreary night and I lacked the energy to do my evening walk, 🏃‍♀️ though to be fair, I did get in 10,000 steps 👣 for the day, rode my bike 7 3/4 miles to work via the rail trail 🚲, walked laps at lunch time on the Plaza and then did the stairs up and down to my 18th floor office downtown. I do note that once I move to the suburban North Albany office in a few weeks though it’s going to be more difficult to do the stairs, though I am thinking I’ll probably transfer buses a the Empire Plaza and can walk laps there or days I ride in it’s a bit longer of a ride then downtown, though not the Madison Avenue Hill, though lately I’ve been using Arch Street/Warren Street past the Albany City Jail 👮‍♀️ and then heading up Park Avenue and Museum Road (yes, the wrong way on a one way street) to the Plaza to avoid the worse of the hill. 🤷‍♂️ 🤣

I was thinking blueberry pancakes this morning 🥞 👎 🍳 but ended up deciding I so love the onions, tomatoes, spinach and eggs for a more protein packed day that will keep me going all day. Also cooked up some kidney beans, I am thinking of making homemade spaghetti sauce from canned tomatoes, chop up some onions, cumin and red pepper with peas and spinach thrown over some chickpea pasta 🍝 for dinner tonight. Along with a generous side of butternut squash and maybe some of the sweet potatoes. 🍠 🍆

Lunch is going to be some leftover beef stew I got from my parents house about two or three weeks ago that’s been frozen, tossed over some peas and sweet potatoes. 😋 I need to use up some of the leftovers I keep taking home from my parents house. I often forget about left overs. Mom makes good food, even if it is more calorie dense then I would prefer, but then again maybe I’ve gotten a bit extreme with my own cooking. 👨‍🍳 I just don’t want slip back into the old life of being so heavy and out of shape. The left over stew should be real tasty. 🍲 I can’t complain, mom’s home cooking won’t be around forever, as she’s getting up there in the years, and it’s something you can only enjoy until you no longer can.

Having that extra pot of coffee ☕ this morning, with the cinnamon and ginger. I am not planning on heading out until a while, and only to the library, so if I spend my day pissing it away, I don’t care. I just like an extra cup or three on this cold morning, with that rich tangy taste of cinnamon and ginger. Plus yesterday when I was walking I started to feel a bit achy, 😣 first time in a long time, apparently the turmeric with the spinach, onions and eggs isn’t enough to overcome all those stairs I’ve climbed 🧗‍♀️ over the past week, lol. 🤣 What can I say, I’m getting ducking old 🦆 in a few weeks I’ll be 41. That means two decades have passed since I can legally drink and that first time I went out to the bar with the Young Democrats.  I just remember that night at the Lionheart Cafe downtown, and how much that bar stunk of alcohol 🍻 I think because it was right after they had banned smoking at bars 🚭 and they hadn’t gotten good at cleaning all that spilled beer. Or maybe the Lionheart was more of a dive college bar back in the day.

Today will have showers likely, mainly before 7am. Cloudy through mid morning, then gradual clearing 🌧 👉 🌞, with a high of 45 degrees at 6am. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 25th. North wind 9 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 43 degrees. The record high of 71 was set in 1928. 9.0 inches of snow fell back in 1980.❄

I am thinking I’ll watch and do some more of the Udemeny Course on Remote Sensing 🛰 and then shower and go down to the library 📚 so I can use the internet on my laptop this morning without working about data use at 10 AM. Then maybe check out the Bethlehem Sportsmart at 1 PM for skis, ⛷ and then in the afternoon ride out to Voorheesville, maybe visiting Indian Ladder Farms for apples. 🍎 Or I could just get apples at Price Chopper on Sunday. Also want to see if I can repair my broken vacuum cleaner. Also thinking about doing some soldering and working on an electronics project this evening. I haven’t done much electronics in a while now. 🤓

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:41 am with sun having an altitude of 28.2° from the due south horizon (-42.6° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 11.2 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:49 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (237°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (244°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:32 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 14 seconds with dusk around 5:01 pm, which is 49 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south (185°) at an altitude of 24° from the horizon, 227,672 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:37 pm. At sunset, look for clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 42 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 11 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 43 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 3 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 31 degrees at 3am. Typical for tonight. Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph becoming light and variable. In 2022, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 21 degrees. The record low of 12 occurred back in 1972.

Pretty much typical weather for this evening. 🛌 I’ll probably head to bed pretty early as it gets dark out so early, and I prefer an earlier start. I want to get to Price Chopper tomorrow morning before the crowds 🛒 and get the groceries I need for the week with my coupons. 🎫 And then get up and going on the day. Maybe ride out to Five Rivers 🐦 to enjoy the sunshine and cold before heading out to the folks house for Sunday dinner. 🍲 They are making chilli which should be good.

Going to shop at Price Chopper come Sunday as I have two $5 off $50 coupons, 🎫 giving one to mom and one for my own use. Plus I have a $2 off $10 in meat or fish coupon to use, I’ll probably stock up on frozen salmon for the next time I decide to bake up some salmon. 🐠 I haven’t had salmon in a few weeks, and I think I don’t have any more in my freezer currently but its an excellent source of omega-3 fats. 😋

Looking ahead, next Saturday is Small Business Saturday 🛍️ when the sun will be setting at 4:27 pm with dusk at 4:56 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 49 and 40 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 45 degrees. We hit a record high of 64 back in 2004.

I am watching the forecast, 🌨 especially to see how much snow they get up north on Wednesday, but I’m hopeful to head up to the Adirondacks come Friday, to camp and maybe hike or possibly ski along the East Branch more likely. 🏕 I would probably take off Cyber Monday so I can have a three-day weekend, as I’ve been planning for some time now, though I am running a bit low on vacation time for the year, and don’t want to drop below 210 hours for the year if I can avoid it to maximize my roll over into next year, where I may need the extra hours to cover time spent working at the campaign committee along with trips I plan for the summer and autumn. 👩‍💻 That said, I’m hopeful to do remote work at times next year, so maybe I can extend some of my camping trips while working from the Spectulator Library or the hotspot and my laptop in a hammock from camp. But not until spring time, as it’s too cold and not enough solar in autumn.

Untitled [Expires December 17 2025]

I’m fried this evening 🍳

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It’s the only way to describe it as a fry up a pan of onions and sweet potatoes for dinner to go along with the remaining pea soup and homemade I have in my pantry. It’s been a long five day week, just a lot of brain twisting projects at work along with long periods of hurry up and wait, and I’m exhausted. It’s going to be a rainy day to start out the weekend, and once I get done kneading the bread I’m going to retire to bed so I can be up at 5 o’clock to start baking and cooking up breakfast.