Super Duty dreams and off-grid schemes.
February 7, 2023 Evening
Good evening! Rain showers and sleet and 35 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south breeze at 10 mph. 🍃 with gusts up to 28 mph 💨💨💨. ️Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 7 pm. ☃️
I wasn’t sure if I was going to go for the evening walk 🚶 but I wanted to get my steps in and keep up my record of doing 10,000 steps every day. There is some sleet and rain this evening and it’s cold but it’s kind of scattered. Not the nicest evening ever ☔ but I’m getting my steps in 👣.
Tonight will rain showers and sleet, mainly before 9pm. 🌧 Low of 34 degrees at 10pm. 17 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around April 5th. South wind 7 to 10 mph becoming west after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Little or no sleet accumulation expected. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 9 degrees. The record low of -16 occurred back in 1950.
It was a pretty ordinary Tuesday at work 🏢. I made it home by six 6⃣. I’ve continued to further automate some of the boring 💤 tasks I do at work with R and selenium. Code usually makes less mistakes than I do.
Tonight will have a Waining Gibbous 🌖 Moon with 95% illuminated. Not going to see it with the clouds. The darkest hour is at 12:10 am, followed by dawn at 6:35 am, and sun starting to rise at 7:04 am in the east-southeast (110°) and last for 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 11 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 7:45 am with sun in the east-southeast (117°). Tonight will have 13 hours and 42 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 32 seconds over last night.
Going to bed 🛏 shortly. I guess the State of the Union address is tonight but I haven’t listened to a political address in years and will listen 👂 to the Lex Fridman podcast in bed. Most political speeches aren’t really worthwhile to listen to with all their partisan talking points 📃, you can catch the important points in the morning news 📰. I’ll listen to NPR as I make breakfast 🥣 tomorrow to learn what was noteworthy in the address. Truth is that if it’s not reported, doesn’t really matter what the politician said at any rate.
Tomorrow will be mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny ☁👉 ☀ , with a high of 42 degrees at 2pm. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around March 6th. Northwest wind 11 to 15 mph. A year ago, we had light snow in the morning, which became light snow by afternoon. The high last year was 23 degrees. The record high of 52 was set in 1925. 14.0 inches of snow fell back in 1895.❄
Been doing a lot of reading 📖 and research on what it means to be your forties and peak 🗻 earnings years. 💵 Whatever that means, it sure doesn’t feel like much money during such inflationary times with taxes so high. You can do all the right things but it feels like the deck is stacked against you. I know have made a lot of progress but I am growing impatient as things take longer to compound then I would hope and I want to own my own land 🚜. And I’m getting older 👴🏻. But I’ll keep doing my best and those days will happen eventually.
In four weeks on March 7 the sun will be setting in the west (264°) at 5:53 pm,🌄 which is 35 minutes and 25 seconds later then tonight. In 2021 on that day, we had sunny and temperatures between 33 and 15 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 42 and 23 degrees. The record high of 62 degrees was set back in 1974.
Looking ahead, Valentines Day ❤️ is Next Tuesday, Average High is 40 ☀️ is in 3 weeks, First Day of Spring 💮 is in 6 weeks, Average High is 50 🌸 is in 7 weeks, 7:30 PM Sunset 🌇 is in 2 months, 8 PM Sunset 🌇 is in 3 months, Primary Day 🗳️ is in 19 weeks, Independence Day 🇺🇸 is in 21 weeks, World Population Day 👩👩👧👧 is in 22 weeks, August 🌻 is in 25 weeks, Halloween 🎃 is in 38 weeks, Average High is 50 🍂 is in 40 weeks, Election Day 🗳️ is in 40 weeks, Repeal of Prohibition Day 🍺 is in 43 weeks and Boxing Day 🥊 is in 46 weeks.
Trimount
That ad from Rent a Center for $19.95 a week tires 🛻
That ad from Rent a Center for $19.95 a week tires 🛻
Last autumn I was pretty annoyed about the rubber shortage and how much more I had to spend on tires for my big jacked up truck then I had originally budgeted for with my truck getting old and rusty. To say nothing about burning up the wheel bearing in West Virginia and the strut links that needed replacing. It was big bucks but so is everything these days – especially for a truck that is going to be smashed, shredded into scrap and landfill material in a few years. Whether it’s rust, the engine or transmission failing, it’s going to garbage before long. I hate spending money on garbage but I like my big jacked up truck and new trucks are so expensive. Delays meant my truck was off the road for two weeks in December but I was able to cut a few big checks, bite the bullet and get it back on the road relatively unscathed.
I have a tendency to click on advertisements directed towards the working poor and lower middle class. So the internet assumes that I must be interested in such products and shows me more of them every day. I get constant advertisements for Amazon EBT food stamps, lifeline phone services, and HEAP heating assistance. At the same time my interest in homesteading and farming – and frugal, low consumption living reinforces the internet advertisers belief that I must be very poor. I’m a bit of a car geek – even though I’m not that bad besides my truck – but I get tons of ads for jobs in manufacturing, mechanics, truck driving and warehousing.
But when I see these ads I have to always browse through them for the fine print. Many of them are incredibly scammy, with high interest rates and fees often hidden from the unsophisticated. I’m no financial genius but certain products I know I wouldn’t want to touch with a 10 1/2 ft pole. But on the other hand, for some people, these expensive fee-laden products might be their best choice compared to the alternative. Renting tires might be a good alternative to loosing your job as you need a car to get to a job in the suburban office park. Often being poor and having no money can be very expensive. It’s often much cheaper to buy with cash, shop at the big box store or even own a car for many trips then take a taxi. And heck, the banks don’t charge me for money, they pay me for the privilege of holding my money for me.
Now that I make a good middle class income, I often get looked down at for my working class tastes and my choices not to live a higher consumption lifestyle. I’ve had the same run down apartment since college. I don’t have parking at work, even though I could have a spot in nice garage in a premium indoor garage if I wanted. I take the bus to work every day, I don’t have internet or television at home except for my phone. I do watch YouTube but usually it’s things like videos about farming, the woods, off grid living or sometimes technical topics like programming or building electronics at home. I keep my heat at 50 degrees except in very cold weather and don’t have air conditioning. I shop at Walmart for food, clothing and basic supplies. I like how Walmart is one stop shopping and often has good prices on basic and bulk goods. I prefer camping in the woods where I can have a fire and drink cheap beer to any fancy vacation. And I really avoid buying stuff if I can avoid it.
So much of this world these days is about high consumption and throwing away as much possible. If you don’t buy a lot of stuff and throw a lot away, you must be severely impoverished. The only way to be green after all is buy greenie branded electric cars, fancy bamboo tooth brushes, compost boxes and solar panels, not to consume less. Even though solar panels are made out of toxic materials. Living simple less stuff just isn’t considered green – just impoverished. But some day, hopefully not that many years in the future – I’ll have my own land. I’ll be able to heat with wood, make my own electricity, manage my own trash, raise livestock and produce my some of my own food. Not waste my money on compost boxes but feed food scraps to pigs and chickens or mix in with the manure to actually make the land grow food. Be actually closer to the land that I hunt and farm and not just spending my hard earned money pretending to be a greeny by buying the latest in disposable green products to soon be buried in a landfill.
After Dusk
Extinct COVID-19 variants now circulate among New York deer
Early COVID-19 variants that no longer circulate among humans are surging among New York's white-tailed deer, raising questions about whether the mammals could become a reservoir for wiped-out versions of the coronavirus, according to new research from Cornell University's College of Veterinary Medicine.
8 factorial minutes
The month of February has 8! minutes in non leap years.
28 days = 7 x 4
24 hours = 8 x 3
60 minutes = 6 x 5 x 2
28 days x 24 hours x 60 minutes
8 x 7 x 6 x 5 x 4 x 3 x 2 x 1 = 8 factorial