Please don’t murder me, I think the lyrics of the Grateful Dead song goes.
I actually really like how that Maryland map I just posted came out. While it seems like these days I’ve not been doing as much map making as I should, it’s always fun to develop interesting and pretty maps in QGIS. The key is do to all the data preparation and development in R, and then focus on using QGIS to make the actual map look pretty. Trying to manipulate data through QGIS’ user-friendly GUI interface is awful compared to running it through a pipeline of chained together R commands.
It snowed, and it will continue to snow this upcoming week. It’s still the first half of February for a few more days, and that’s to be expected. Next weekend, President’s Day Weekend still looks like crap for heading out of town, but maybe that will have to wait until a future week. The forecast could though inevitably changed, but for now we are stuck in the cold and snowy pattern.
It was nice riding yesterday, I think I got in around 15 miles of riding and it was fun walking around on the frozen Black Creek Marsh. I do wish I had brought my bike down to creek and ridden on the ice, it would have been so much fun, with that layer of snow on it for good traction. Looking forward to the red wing black birds returning, but this winter that’s probably more then a few week off. Maybe a future week, though now there is probably too much snow. Don’t think I’ll be riding in much this week either as the rail trail has quite a bit of snow and it’s going to be cold and snowy a good portion of the week. I guess there is always is the Corning Hill and riding up past the Port of Albany, but I hardly enjoy that but maybe it beats busing it every day.
Made chicken soup last night, using up the last of the noodles and rice I had in the kitchen. Also used up the remaining black beans and tomatoes dish I made up for the chilli cooking contest on Friday. My dish when moderately well, but it also made some good meals at home. I have more black beans and great white beans cooked and frozen in the freezer, but my stomach needs a break from all those beans I’ve had this past week. I mean I’m pretty gassy from all those beans.
Besides map making, eating, and riding trail and road, been doing some reading. Started a book about Tiny Houses and more about writing Linux programming code. Trying to learn a few more skills here and there, and continue to explore my options for an actual, real home and not my dumpy apartment.
Going out to see the family this afternoon and then I’ll probably head over to Walmart to stock my pantry. The idea is if I leave at 6:30 PM tonight it won’t be so late in the evening, but after all the Superbowl attendees have burrowed in front of their tele eating terribly unhealthy food and watching terribly bad for one’s mental health commercials. Truth is I don’t really understand football or care one way or anothe about the spot.
But the thing is it wasn’t a particularly cold January in Albany, though it was nation-wide and in many parts of state, as that map I posted yesterday shows. In addition, nationally it was a cold month, coldest January in 30 years. Yet, that ignores record heat globally, and how a warm Pacific and Atlantic Ocean created a bubble that allowed arctic air to push south, in many cases into the deep south. While not unheard of in the winter, and not the coldest air ever, it certainly put a good chill over the nation.
What I am watching as are many meteorologists is the steep temperature gradient setting up next week with North Dakota very cold and Texas very warm. Such a steep gradient between above and below the polar jet stream could really lead to some strong winds and violent weather. The polar jet stream being right overhead, is indeed why New York looks like it’s in the path of one snow storm after another and continued cold for the foreseeable future. But the warmth building in the south is a sign of an inevitable springtime coming, and it’s only going to gain strength and push the polar jet stream north in coming months, and we would have a significant warm up before you know it. Or maybe not, it all depends on where things ultimately land.
You know, a lot of people think I am good with technology. I have some knowledge, having played with computers going on 30 plus years, but my knowledge of contemporary technology more limited then you might think as I abstain from a lot of use of technology at home and in my personal life. I have a laptop computer that runs Linux – but I have never had Internet or television at home – though my smartphone in recent years does provide limited mobile hotspot access which I use sparingly.
People often think I must know a lot about Mac OS, Microsoft Windows or Computer Networking. But neither have been a topic of much interest to me, as I’ve almost never used Windows outside of work, and I don’t have much of a need for knowledge of computer networking, when I get my internet over my phone or from public hotspots. Other people take care of making it work, I’ve never purchased or used a network router, as I don’t have cable service where I lived, and when I was growing up we just had dial-up internet.
Over the years, I’ve learned a lot of different programming languages and with nearly three decades of using Linux as my primary operating system, I know quite a bit of UNIX. I also picked up some SQL when I wrote my own blog platform before eventually adopting WordPress, though I do write most of the theme and many of SQL queries that are used to power the blog. And as the Director of Data Services, which officially is a non-technical position though I use UNIX, SQL and RStudio daily, I am using computers constantly and writing scripts and queries to get the most of data. Plus I’ve done a lot of mapping and GIS work using open source software like QGIS and RStudio.
Truth is without a television or home internet though, I never get to experience a lot of techie-stuff. I really don’t like playing computer games, nor do I like glossy operating systems or advanced video and audio technology. I am quite happy with the XFCE Desktop Environment, which I like to point out, pretty much remains unchanged from 20 years ago, and pretty much works like computers did in 30 years ago. You won’t see me running out to get a Windows 11 or Mac OS X PC any time soon, I hate how much commercial crap and advertising for the rare times I have to boot Windows on my laptop to connect to the work VPN.
At least according to Robert Caro, 1974. Whether or not he actually said that has been much debated like many things in his epic book.
Robert Caro didn’t pull the quote just from thin error though. It turns out that this quote was a favorite of Richard Nixon. He used it most famously in his eulogy for Senator Everett Dirksen and several other times. But again despite Nixon crediting Sophocles, there isn’t actually a lot of evidence that Sophocles actually said that.
That’s such a great quote, when I heard it in Forrest Pritchard’s Start Your Farm audio book I’m listening to while riding today. Not that farmers always break the rules but some are stupid and in rural areas without nosy cops and neighbors everywhere you can get away with a lot of shit. Plus, it’s really something I’ve been thinking as a future property owner, hopefully of that off grid, how to comply but local rules and code but in ways more sustainable and better for my own land and life then what the government regulations would set forward.
It’s wonderful that it’s frozen enough to walk on it. Been years since it’s been that hard frozen from the cold. Of course I forgot the road back here – ended up on North Greatview Road and not Kling Terrace. I’ve been walking the marsh on the north side of the rail bridge but not under it due to the melt water from the bridge and faster currents making the ice thinner.
The rail trail was a bit rough riding with the pock marked snow and ice but it was passable. Heading to Five Rivers Environmental Education Center next then I’ll probably head home and read tonight. Get to bed early and see how much snow there is come the morning and move forward. Sunday dinner with the folks and then I’ll probably go to Walmart or I could wait until later in the week as my pantry is okay though I do need more fresh and frozen fruits.
While it seems like these days I’ve not been doing as much map making as I should, it’s always fun to develop interesting and pretty maps in QGIS. The key is do to all the data preparation and development in R, and then focus on using QGIS to make the actual map look pretty. Trying to manipulate data through QGIS’ user-friendly GUI interface is awful compared to running it through a pipeline of chained together R commands.
It’s still the first half of February for a few more days, and that’s to be expected. Next weekend, President’s Day Weekend still looks like crap for heading out of town, but maybe that will have to wait until a future week. The forecast could though inevitably changed, but for now we are stuck in the cold and snowy pattern.
I think I got in around 15 miles of riding and it was fun walking around on the frozen Black Creek Marsh. I do wish I had brought my bike down to creek and ridden on the ice, it would have been so much fun, with that layer of snow on it for good traction. 
Looking forward to the red wing black birds returning, but this winter that’s probably more then a few week off. Maybe a future week, though now there is probably too much snow. Don’t think I’ll be riding in much this week either as the rail trail has quite a bit of snow 
and it’s going to be cold and snowy a good portion of the week. I guess there is always is the Corning Hill and riding up past the Port of Albany, 
but I hardly enjoy that but maybe it beats busing it every day. 
using up the last of the noodles and rice I had in the kitchen. Also used up the remaining black beans and tomatoes dish I made up for the chilli cooking contest on Friday. My dish when moderately well, but it also made some good meals at home. I have more black beans and great white beans cooked and frozen in the freezer, but my stomach needs a break from all those beans I’ve had this past week. 
I mean I’m pretty gassy from all those beans.
and then I’ll probably head over to Walmart to stock my pantry. The idea is if I leave at 6:30 PM tonight it won’t be so late in the evening, but after all the Superbowl attendees have burrowed in front of their tele 
eating terribly unhealthy food and watching terribly bad for one’s mental health commercials. 
Truth is I don’t really understand football or care one way or anothe about the spot. 
