August 23, 2018 Night

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Good evening! Mostly clear and 68 degrees in Delmar. There is a west-northwest breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 53 degrees.

A fairly pleasant evening for sure, warm but not too humid. 🌃 Probably up north you might even want a sweater on tonight. My truck is packed and I got groceries for camping and my glasses. The ladder broke climbing up the truck do I’m just going to have to be careful climbing up and down the truck to load the kayak. I tried to enter in the information for my $50 contact lenses rebate👀 but I’ll have to do that when I can get on the internet with my laptop as the site kept crashing with my phone. What a ducking hastle for $50 but I still think it’s worth it.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌞 , with a low of 56 degrees at 4am. Three degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 54 at 11pm. West wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 56 degrees. The record low of 42 occurred back in 1971.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔 with 95% illuminated. The moon will set at 4:12 am. The 🌕 is on Saturday night with scattered t-storms then mostly cloudy skies. The sun will rise at 6:11 am with the first light at 5:42 am, which is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 10 hours and 28 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 40 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞 , with a high of 82 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 63 at 6pm. Calm wind becoming southwest around 5 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 75 degrees. The record high of 95 was set in 1947.

I tried to get tomorrow off but ultimately it was decided that they were pretty busy and I wouldn’t be able to take tomorrow off.💼 I honestly didn’t think I was going to get the day off based on the coverage calendar but I figured I would put my request in. So no Cedar River Flow tomorrow. Maybe next weekend if the weather is nice, followed by camping at Moose River Plains.🍂 It gets dark so early this time of year, so I would likely just drive up to Wells or Speculator, camp there one night then for the balance of weekend after paddling Cedar River Flow camp at Moose River Plains. Ever since setting my computer wallpaper to Cedar River Flow that’s all I can think of lately.

I think this looks like a good late summer weekend. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 81. Calm wind becoming south 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon. Maximum dew point of 62 at 11am. Sunday, isolated showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 83. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Maximum dew point of 67 at 4pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 79 degrees. Definitely much better than recent.

This weekend though the plan is to camp at Pisceo Powley then I think drive down to Moss Island and after hiking there, paddle around in the Mohawk River. ⛺I like the history of Moss Island and its scenic and a fun small town. I think this time I’ll put in above the lock at the boat launch to see something different. Then maybe get some ice cream and maybe hit up the potholers for what is likely the last time of the summer. Sure I could get another nice weekend in late September but by then the temperature will be dropping and I may be put working in the field for work.

Nowadays the sun sets early, so I’ll probably end up buying firewood🔥so I’m not searching for it in the dark. It will be close to dusk certainly by the time camp is all set up. I forgot to buy lighter fluid which can be handy for starting the wood especially if you don’t have a lot of tinder. 🌌 It’s a full moon so it should be a delightful few nights at least with a sweater to keep warm.

I’m definitely leaning towards buying an Raspberry Pi. 📟Been reading up more about them and I think they are reasonably powerful for using as a second computer for basic tasks, and aren’t really that much of energy hogs for all they can do. I might not use it in many of my projects but it would be interesting to learn what those low cost single board computers can do. Well if I figure out the contacts lens rebate, maybe that’s how I will pay for it.

In four weeks on September 20 the sun will be setting at 6:55 pm,🌄 which is 48 minutes and 28 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 80 and 62 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 71 and 50 degrees. The record high of 90 degrees was set back in 1946.

Looking ahead, State Primary Day 🗳️ is in 3 weeks, November 🥧 is in 10 weeks, Thanksgiving 🦃 is in 13 weeks and Buy Nothing Day 🛍️ is in 3 months.

💤 I think it’s time for bed. Good night. 💤

Why I’m disinterested in politics

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As somebody who works in government communications and political campaigns professionally I have very little interest in ever holding elected office on my own. Sure I vote and sometimes will volunteer to help out friends on a campaign but I have very little interest in politics myself.

For one I know how hard elected officials work. Being an elected official really is a 24-7 job, you are always on duty, always under the public eye, always have to be available to respond to emergency. Elected officials don’t get the weekends off, instead they must attend ribbon cuttings, fundraisers and community events. If attending a rubber chicken dinner then a Easter egg hunt with random bunch of children and parents that you don’t know sounds like a good time, then maybe you’re better cut out for it. I’d rather spend my weekends in the wilderness and working to build a better life for myself.

Elected officials are held accountable for every word they say, they are constantly working towards their re-election. They have to constantly fundraise as mass communications is incredibly expensive. They have to meet with unpleasant people, some because they come bearing campaign contributions, others just because they are constituents and it comes with the job.

Modern politicians have to be increasingly ideologically pure to avoid the constant primary threat, they have carefully study polling and demographic data to make sure the views they are exposing and the votes they are taking are representative of the voters who they represent. People think elected officials have a lot of autonomy in their decision making when the truth is their future is closely tied towards representing the people they serve. You can’t buck your constituents on important issues and expect to remain in office.

Even in office, during their term of office, elected officials are very constrainted in what they can or cannot do. Ethics rules are increasingly stringent, and institutional norms often put further constraints on public policy options beyond the limitations imposed by existing laws of federal and state government, along with the fairly iron clad and unchanging constitutional restrictions. It often takes decades of work and playing along with institutional norms to get to the place where one can implement major policy changes – and even those changes are constrained by existing laws imposed by other levels of government.

As such, public service has very little interest to me. I’d rather spend my time in the wilderness, and invest money towards a better tomorrow for myself. I know that the most effective form of voting is with one’s feet, especially on a personal level by moving to a community closer to one’s own views rather than trying to fight an uphill battle to change the system from within.