Notes

Right Now I’m Thinking I Wish I Could Have Monday Off 🚵

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I realized that I can’t leave Thursday night to go camping, as I am leading the Save the Pine Bush Hike on Thursday night. But even I were to take off Friday, it probably makes more sense to go out on Friday morning early as I would most certainly be riding the Catskill Scenic Trail most of the day. Sunday and Monday look like the best days of the “weekend” though I don’t think I’ll be able to get Monday off.

I might end up working most of Friday and possibly leaving an hour or two early to get up to camp and set up. Saturday hang out and read, do some riding of truck trails if it’s not too wet and then Sunday ride the Catskill Scenic Trail the bulk of the day, maybe heading home around dusk. Even if it’s only two nights out camping, it could be a great weekend, and don’t forget Memorial Day Weekend is the following weekend, and I’m thinking of spending that weekend up in the Green Mountain National Forest, with the screen tent, hiding out from the Black Flies.

In Hope of Nice Weekend Weather

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Maybe I’m just desperate for a nice weather weekend, or I wanted to practice my skills for work, but I created this quick little bash script that runs on the 29 and 59 minutes of each hour, so I get the latest NOAA forecast for the weekend, hot off the presses displayed on my screen for the weekend.

#!/bin/bash

wget "https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.4686&lon=-73.9294&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=dwml" -O /var/tmp/forecast.xml

WEEKENDS=( Friday Saturday Sunday  )

for WEEKEND in "${WEEKENDS[@]}"
do
	DAY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath '/dwml/data/time-layout[2]/start-valid-time' | awk /$WEEKEND\"/'{print NR}')
	DAY12=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath '/dwml/data/time-layout[1]/start-valid-time' | awk /$WEEKEND\"/'{print NR}')
	DAY12NIGHT=$((DAY12+1))
	HIGH=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/temperature[@type=\"maximum\"]/value[$DAY]/text()" 2>/dev/null)
	LOW=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/temperature[@type=\"minimum\"]/value[$DAY]/text()" 2> /dev/null)
	DAYSUMMARY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "string(/dwml/data/parameters/weather/weather-conditions[$DAY12]/@weather-summary)" 2> /dev/null)
	NIGHTSUMMARY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "string(/dwml/data/parameters/weather/weather-conditions[$DAY12NIGHT]/@weather-summary)" 2> /dev/null)
 
	[[ $WEEKEND == Saturday ]] && xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/conditions-icon/icon-link[$DAY12]/text()" 2> /dev/null | wget -i - -O /var/tmp/wxicon.png	


	[[  -z $HIGH ]] || OUTPUT+="\n $WEEKEND: "
	[[  -z $HIGH ]] || OUTPUT+="$DAYSUMMARY $HIGH "
	[[  -z $LOW ]]  || OUTPUT+="/ $NIGHTSUMMARY $LOW"

done
notify-send "Weekend Weather Update" "$OUTPUT" -t 15000 -i /var/tmp/wxicon.png

Foggy start to the Monday morning 🌫

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So it would seem. The fog is supposed to burn off later today, and become a fairly nice spring day which should be good for riding to work. Around 45 degrees this morning, a tad bit cool with the windows open but at least I don’t think it’s cold enough that the heat kicked in with the windows open.

I’ve decided to get away from the blog template posts, 📝 and the weather forecast and try to start writing my daily posts from scratch. The templates were good for getting me started with a post but I think the free-format is more readable and better for telling my story. I’ve been playing around with new designs for the blog, but so far I’ve not come up with one that I like that is compatible with good ad placement and search engine optimization. That said, I do think the current blog layout is more cluttered ✨then I like but I also want to make it easy for interested people to find content and my writings about many different topics and interests. 🎨

Carrot 🥕 pancakes this morning, 🥞 and I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of the replacement blades 🔪 for my food processor as hand grating the carrots wasn’t fun and the hand mixing of the oatmeal and flour made something more lumpy and consistent with biscuits then pancakes. It was fine but nearly as good as I would normally cook up. Topped with frozen Maine blueberries and real maple 🍁 syrup.

Around two in the morning, 🌃 I threw on some clothes and walked out in hoping to see the northern lights with no luck. Lots of stars ✨ but no northern lights. It could have been late for the geomagnetic storm or maybe the city lights are too big. What we really need is a geomagnetic storm when I’m up in the wilderness, particularly remote open country like Powley Place.

Should be a good day for riding in. 🚲 It’s obnoxious that the kick stand bolt snapped off on one hole and buggered up the other hole, but ultimately a kick stand isn’t essential on a mountain bike and most riders don’t actually like them because they do tend to get caught up in brush. I’m learning to live without it, and I do have that U lock that I can lock it a tree or other object when parking. 🔒

Yesterday turned out to a be pretty quiet day, 📚 lots of reading and I went down to the library for a while to use the internet. Running low on Hoopla books to read, but I still have my 10 book May quota in tack, so I can get books, but I’ve been delaying to later in the month. I figure when more of the books from April expire then I will order more Hoopla books. Libby is great for popular books, but for more technical books – – things like building a cabin or computer programming – – Hoopla is the way to go. ☔ Every time I wanted to go out and walk or ride, it seemed like another rain cloud was passing over head. I mean I could have gone out of town this past weekend, but I have hope for a better weekend ahead.

Busy Monday ahead. 📜 Not only do I have a long list of work things to do, I also want to look at biting the bullet and ordering a new phone, 📱 scheduling my yearly physical 🩺 and investigating finding a new mental health therapist. 🧑‍⚕️ I’m just increasingly frustrated about the disposability of shit, how things keep breaking, how I spend too much time thinking about fire 🔥 and burning things, and whether or not I should build my off-grid cabin in New York State 🏡 or seriously consider moving out of state. While I doubt a therapist can give me definitive answers, on whether or not to move out of state for better gun laws, 🔫 I’m sure I can learn more coping strageties – – and better yet – – get better at making good decisions. Plus I need to get better at getting rid of broken shit, the kind of things I can’t burn but probably could part way with at dump for a few bucks.

Regardless of the weather, ⛺ I really want to get out of town this weekend for a long weekend. Friday looks good, while Saturday is pretty much what you can expect for weekends these days. If Friday continues to look good I’m going to seek out a personal day to ride the Catskill Scenic Trail and Saturday I’ll have my screen tent 🎪 and if it rains a lot, then we’ll it keep the black flies 🐜 in hiding I guess. I just want to have a good fire, burn some things. 🔥

Having a broken cellphone really sucks 📲

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I have never been one for fancy technology, and my cellphone is a very basic smartphone — Samsung A2S. But ever since I’ve gotten it I’ve had issues with the touch screen misfiring, and over time it’s only gotten worse. It gotten to the point where even typing short blog posts on the phone has gotten difficult. When reading a book or browsing social media, the random clicks often mean I’m off navigating to the wrong page.

I should just order another basic $50-100 smartphone from StraightTalk. It’s fine, but I just have been avoiding the expense and being stuck with another smartphone to get rid of. I know that Walmart, Staples and many other places take back junk phones for recycling, and that’s the proper way to do it — and I should collect up the many junk old phones I have around — because they kind of stink, go pop, and probably are quite toxic if you toss them in a fire. But I’m tired of just having more stuff, more broken stuff, more junk to become clutter or get rid of. I wish things would just work, even though I’ve had the same phone going on three years now, which isn’t bad for an $50 smartphone.

Truth in Advertising

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With all apologies to P.J. O’Rourke and Mario Cuomo, I suggest the major political parties rename themselves to:

  • The Fun Suckers
  • The Big Mean

This would comply with recent regulations put forward by the “The Fun Suckers” to comply with recently adopted Truth in Advertising regulations because we don’t want our cars to burn us to death when they crash.

Today’s Almanac for Sunday May 12

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Night before dawn is 5 hours and 3 minutes,
Dawn starts at 5:03 am and runs for 30 minutes,
Sunrise is at 5:33 am which is 6 hours and 26 minutes before noon,
High noon, the transit of the sun, is at 12:51 pm,
From twelve noon to the sunset at 8:09 pm is 8 hours and 9 minutes,
Dusk lasts for 29 minutes concluding at 8:40 pm,
Leaving 3 hours and 19 minutes until midnight.