Next Time – Wednesday April 22
Today’s sunrise was at 6:02 am. The next time the sun will rise later then today 🌄 is in 116 days on Sunday, August 16.
The average high for today is 63 degrees. 🌡 The next time it will be on average cooler then today is in 175 days on Wednesday, October 14 when the average temperature will be 62 degrees.
The highest point for the sun today will be 59.6° from the horizon at 12:54 pm. 🌞 The next time the sun will be lower in the sky mid-day is in 121 days on Friday, August 21.
Today has 13 hours and 52 minutes of daylight. ⏳ The next time the day will be shorter then today is in 120 days on Thursday, August 20.
Today’s sunset will be at 7:44 pm. The next time the sun will set earlier then today 🌆 is in 124 days on Monday, August 24.
The average low for today is 40 degrees. 🌡 The next night it will be on average cooler then tonight is in 182 days on Wednesday, October 21 when the average temperature will be 39 degrees.
More on Short Beds vs Long Beds on SuperDuty
Choosing between a Short Bed (6.75 feet) and a Long Bed (8 feet) on a Ford Super Duty depends on how you balance daily maneuverability against maximum utility.
The long bed is the traditional choice for workhorses and heavy-duty towing. 
Positives 
- Massive Cargo Volume: Fits 4×8 sheets of plywood/drywall with the tailgate closed.
- Fuel Capacity: Long bed models feature a much larger fuel tank (up to 48 gallons with the Quad Cab), significantly extending range while towing.
- Towing Stability: The longer wheelbase provides a smoother ride and better tracking when pulling heavy trailers.
- Fifth-Wheel Clearance: Offers plenty of room for a 5th-wheel or gooseneck hitch without needing a sliding hitch to clear the truck cab.
- Higher Payload: Often has a slightly higher payload capacity due to the frame configuration.
Negatives 
- Parking Nightmares: Nearly impossible to fit in standard garage stalls or tight grocery store parking spots.
- Turning Radius: Requires “wide turns” similar to a commercial vehicle; difficult to navigate narrow city streets.
- Off-Road Obstacles: The long wheelbase makes the truck more likely to “high-center” on peaks or rocks.
The short bed is the “lifestyle” choice, favored by those who use their truck as a daily driver. 🚙
Positives
- Daily Drivability: Easier to park, U-turn, and navigate through drive-thrus or car washes.
- Garage Friendly: More likely to fit inside a standard residential garage.
- Better Breakover Angle: Performs better in off-road or uneven terrain because there is less belly to get stuck.
- Lighter Weight: The truck itself weighs less, which can marginally improve unladen fuel economy.
Negatives
- Smaller Fuel Tank: Usually limited to a 34-gallon tank, meaning more frequent stops on long trips.
- Trailer Clearance: Requires a sliding hitch for 5th-wheel towing to prevent the trailer from hitting the truck cab during tight turns.
- Tailgate Down: You must leave the tailgate open (or use an extender) to haul standard construction materials.
- Choppier Ride: The shorter wheelbase can feel “busier” or bouncier on concrete highways compared to the long bed.
| Feature | Short Bed (6.75′) | Long Bed (8′) |
|---|---|---|
| Fuel Tank (Diesel) | ~34 Gallons | ~48 Gallons (Crew Cab Only) |
| Max Cargo Length | 81.9 inches | 98.1 inches |
| Wheelbase | ~148 or 160 inches | ~160 or 176 inches |
| Best For | Daily driving / Off-road | Heavy towing / Construction |
Earth Day and Albany
The history of Earth Day in Albany, New York, is a narrative of grassroots radicalism evolving into established civic tradition. While the national movement began in 1970, Albany’s specific journey was shaped by a unique collision of student activism at the State University of New York (SUNY) at Albany, the preservation of rare inland pine barrens, and the political machinery of the nation’s longest-serving mayor, Erastus Corning II. Together, these forces transformed Earth Day from a one-time protest into a permanent fixture of Capital Region culture.
The initial spark for Earth Day in Albany was ignited on the SUNY Albany campus, primarily through the efforts of the Protect Your Environment (PYE) club. Formed in the late 1960s, PYE was a byproduct of the era’s broader counterculture and anti-war movements. For the first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, PYE organizers did not merely hold a moment of silence; they staged massive “teach-ins” and marches that drew thousands of students and faculty. PYE was instrumental in bridging the gap between academic theory and local environmental crises, focusing their energy on the Hudson River’s pollution and the encroachment of urban sprawl. Their advocacy ensured that Earth Day in Albany was never just a symbolic gesture but a platform for demanding legislative change.
A central theme of Albany’s Earth Day history is the protection of the Albany Pine Bush, a rare “inland pine barrens” ecosystem. Throughout the 1970s, as Earth Day celebrations grew, so did the urgency of the “Save the Pine Bush” movement. This grassroots organization used Earth Day milestones to highlight the ecological importance of the Karner Blue butterfly and the pitch pine-scrub oak barrens. Earth Day events often doubled as organizing rallies to protest proposed developments in the “Pine Bush,” effectively linking the global message of Earth Day to a specific, local piece of land. The success of this movement eventually led to the creation of the Albany Pine Bush Preserve, a victory often touted during annual Earth Day ceremonies.
The political landscape of Earth Day in Albany was dominated for decades by Mayor Erastus Corning II. Though Corning was a classic “machine” politician, he was also a noted outdoorsman with a deep personal interest in conservation. His relationship with Earth Day was complex; while he often clashed with activists over development projects, he recognized the growing political power of the environmental movement. Under Corning’s long tenure, the city began to formalize Earth Day events, transitioning them from student-led protests to city-sanctioned festivals. Corning’s administration helped integrate Earth Day into the city’s civic identity, paving the way for municipal recycling programs and the greening of public spaces like Washington Park.
In the decades following the first 1970 celebration, Albany’s Earth Day events including the Pinks expanded into a city-wide tradition. Today, these events often center around the “Tulip Festival” preparations and community clean-up initiatives. The City of Albany frequently hosts “E-waste” recycling drives, tree planting ceremonies in Lincoln Park, and educational fairs at the Corning Preserve along the Hudson River. What began as a radical push by the PYE club at SUNY has matured into a multi-generational commitment. The history of Earth Day in Albany serves as a microcosm of the American environmental movement, illustrating how local passion can preserve unique natural wonders and influence the political will of a city.
Happy Earth Day 🌎
Terra Prima as the signs say, it’s the only place where you can till the shit into the dirt, make chopped silage, and roll coal as the sprawl and plastic houses with their 25-year old Hondas roll out another 1,000 miles per day, or something Nadle Mercant and later Joan Baez song back when she wasn’t quite as old and still had a voice.
Rainy start to this Earth Day. 🌧️ It’s fine, the rain is going to stop early and I plan to bus 🚐 it in regardless, as I have a Save the Pine Bush 🌲 meeting to go this evening. I missed the Walkable Albany Meeting last night, I was interested in going but some how I thought it was on Earth Day too and couldn’t go with the conflict. 🚲 Regardless it was a nice bike ride home, got home, finished off the leftover fish from Saturday’s lunch plus some onions, shrimp, and rice. This morning is cornmeal pancakes with shredded onion, carrot and spinach. A pinch of salt, some stevia, cornmeal, and lots of tumeric. I like a good strong taste. And I just like mornings with a lot of fiber. 💩 With that strong coffee at work – I do like the Peanut Butter Banana 🍌 flavored coffee of the week at work – it keeps me pooping good. As the advertisement says, clears waste out of the digestive system. And keeps you full! 🥕 Morning breakfasts that don’t include at least one enormous shredded carrot in the mix just don’t feel like breakfast.
Spent much too much time playing with the VPIC Vin Database. 📀 It’s pretty cool all the information you can get on a car, but the PostgresSQL Function that provides the output table is incredibly slow, only able to do about 3 look ups per second, which is bad when you would ideally like to code all 12 million or so VIN numbers in New York State so to do analysis of the state’s auto fleets. It’s amazing how much data there is on each car from safety to transmission and engine, and in many cases the exact model codes of each car. Part of the problem is the built in function pulls all 200 or so automotive attribution linked through like 50 tables, so it’s bounded to be slow. I am interested in seeing how much I can parallel but the problem is I keep running into low memory errors and thread count errors in PostgresSQL.
Friday the bedliner get applied to Old Smokey, 🛻 so I need to wash him on Thursday and drop him off by around 8 AM, and then it’s just waiting for the cap to arrive. I hope it will be a quality product and a good applicator, Patriot Liner is relatively new but is said to be similiar to Bullet Liner I had on my old truck. Reviews are good. Regardless it will be protected by the cap and hopefully not get that much abuse camping. Or in a later life homesteading, 🚜 though even then I plan to be fairly gentle. I was looking at the price of another simple Renology 100 watt panel, as long as there room on the roof and the controller can handle the amperage at 12 volts, I do think I will want to install a second one for additional charging capacity fairly soon. Maybe as soon as I get a cap, as solar prices have come down so much, and I need more power as I add more gear. With gas prices up, I’d rather idle less, though with remote start and the reliable 6.8L, I’m less worried about less excessive idle. Hell, if I don’t want to listen to engine, if I’m camping where there is cell service, 🪫 I can always schedule idle/charging time. Continuing to study the up-fitter switch configuration, and pass through wiring and reconsidering where to mount the CB Radio. Still haven’t ordered the antenna mount yet.
I know the truck 🛻 and camper rig is really about short-term thinking, 🤔 but also 14 or 15 years is still a fair bit of time before retirement. Probably roughly 1/7th or 1/8th of my life, longer then from age 4 to college. Still, as the ads for Better Help for Financial Stress remind me, I do think too much about money, 💰 as I do want that off-grid cabin, even more then the SuperDuty and weekends in wilderness with fires 🔥 burning shit, I want to do that permanently. But really not in New York State. Maybe it’s all the time working in sausage factory, but I am jealous of all the freedoms people have in other states. I could save a lot of money just sitting at home all the time, but there is a life to live too. And at least for now, the markets keep growing 📊 quickly, and the investments are paying off. Each day, the my years of service grow at work, and so does my pension. I don’t want a fancy life, indeed, once I have my off-grid homestead I’ll probably be there most of the time upon retirement, still shit is expensive.
Well, I don’t want to take my F-350 SuperDuty to work on Earth Day, 🌎 so it be best I get in the shower now 🚿 and hurry off to the local bus stop. 🚏 I heard the SuperDuty isn’t exactly fuel efficent in city traffic, even if it is a lot of fun to drive. At least I can play on my phone on the bus, 📱 even while my phone warns me of Power Save meaning State Farm Drive Safe and Save not recording my bus trip. Yes, but I’m not driving. I’ll drive the SuperDuty on Friday to shop to get sprayed. So be happy insurance company, I’m not putting your corporation profits at risk. I will walk over to the 🚀 from Madison Avenue, I think the rain is done. Pulled another tick off my shoulder and I feel a bit achy in my knee 🦵🏻 it’s the third tick I’ve pulled off my body since Sunday not including the ticks I removed crawling on me on Saturday. 💀 It’s a bad year for ticks.
It’s about time ⌛
When you run a command using the Unix time utility, it provides three distinct metrics to help you understand how resources were consumed.
1. Real Time (Wall Clock Time)
Real time is the actual elapsed time from the moment you hit “Enter” until the program finishes. It is exactly what you would measure if you used a physical stopwatch.
- Includes: Time spent waiting for data from a disk (I/O), network delays, and time the CPU spent working on other processes.
- Analogy: The total time you spent at a restaurant, from walking in the door to walking out.
2. User Time (User CPU Time)
User time is the amount of CPU time spent executing the actual code of your program. This occurs in “User Mode.”
- Includes: Mathematical calculations, loops, and logic that don’t require the operating system’s help.
- Excludes: Any time the program was “sleeping” or waiting for I/O.
- Analogy: The time the chef spent actually chopping vegetables and cooking your specific meal.
3. Sys Time (System CPU Time)
Sys time is the amount of CPU time spent by the operating system kernel on behalf of your program. This occurs in “Kernel Mode.”
- Includes: Tasks like opening files, reading/writing to disk, allocating memory, and handling network connections.
- Analogy: The time the restaurant manager spent finding you a table, processing your credit card, or coordinating with the kitchen.
Understanding the Ratios
You can diagnose performance bottlenecks by comparing these three numbers:
| Scenario | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Real > (User + Sys) | The program is I/O bound. It spent most of its time waiting for the disk, network, or other processes. |
| Real ≈ (User + Sys) | The program is CPU bound. It used the processor almost continuously from start to finish. |
| Real < (User + Sys) | The program is Multi-threaded. Multiple CPU cores were working simultaneously, so the total “work time” exceeded the “elapsed time.” |
Practical Example
If you run time sleep 10, you will see:
- Real: ~10.0s (The actual time you waited)
- User: ~0.0s (The CPU did no work for your code)
- Sys: ~0.0s (The kernel did no work for your code)
For further technical details on how these are gathered via system calls like getrusage(), you can refer to the official Linux man pages for time. Use tools like top or htop to monitor these values in real-time for active processes.
