Good evening! Partly cloudy and 25 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a northwest breeze at 6 mph. The current wind chill is 13. Cool yes, but compared to recent nights not too bad. I mean I walked down to Stewart’s to buy milk this evening and didn’t even wear anything besides my hoodie. Like a hoodlum but in blaze orange. I don’t want to get shot, I’ve heard from another hunter that lead poisoning sucks. 

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 17 degrees at 5am. Three degrees above normal. Mild!  Maximum wind chill around 9 at 6am; West wind 3 to 6 mph. In 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies, clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 17 degrees. The record low of -13 occurred back in 1968.

Tonight will have a Waning Crescent Moon with 37% illuminated.The moon will rise tomorrow at 1:27 am. The New Moon is on Monday night with a slight chance of freezing rain then chance of rain/freezing rain. The Wolf Moon is in 3 weeks. The sun will rise at 7:24 am with the first light at 6:53 am, which is 15 seconds earlier than yesterday. Tonight will have 14 hours and 42 minutes of darkness, a decrease of one minute and 23 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be mostly sunny, with a high of 33 degrees at 4pm. Four degrees above normal. Light south wind increasing to 5 to 9 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had cloudy skies with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 55 was set in 2016. 7.3 inches of snow fell back in 1984.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. Saturday, rain likely before 4pm, then rain and snow likely. Cloudy, with a high near 41. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 21. Typical average high for the weekend is 30 degrees.

That’s pretty mild, although Sunday will be fairly cold especially up north and even colder for Martin Luther King Day. But I still might try to get camping. I could camp locally but I think I’d rather head up north. I should think about my options some more. I do like going up to the Adirondacks. 

I hooked up the Max7219 module I bought, and flashed several messages across it. I think it will be a lot of fun, especially combined with a HC-5 Bluetooth chip so I can control from my phone or maybe laptop if I ever get Bluetooth working in Linux on it. A real time clock chip like the DS3231 would make it easy to flash messages based on the time and day, and countdown clocks. That chip also has a temperature sensor which compensates the crystal to get accurate time readings and can provide the inside temperature easily. Lots more electronics projects to build before the end of the winter. I’ll probably order more of the max7219 modules from China, so I can get them for only a few bucks making it cheaper to make more projects and give them away. 

Went down to the library for a short while, mostly just for the walk. 

In four weeks on February 6 the sun will be setting at 5:16 pm, which is 35 minutes and 3 seconds later then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had snow, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 33 and 25 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 33 and 16 degrees. The record high of 55 degrees was set back in 1991.

Looking ahead, National Pie Day is in 2 weeks, Lame Duck Day is in 4 weeks, Independence Day is in 25 weeks, Election Day 2018 is in 43 weeks and Election Day 2020 is in 147 weeks.

Only 135 days remain until the start of Memorial Day Weekend!

I think I am going to have a lot of fun with those MAX7219 matrices. Especially combined with HC-5 Bluetooth or DS3231 clock.

I’ve always wondered if I write the Free Software Foundation, Inc. if they will really send me a copy of the GNU Public License.

Good afternoon! Cloudy and 34 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a west-northwest breeze at 14 mph. The current wind chill is 23. I was expecting better for the weather today, but it was not be. Today is a pay day, and I think I got enough sleep last night, so I can’t complain that much. That said, most of the check, after automatic withdrawals for savings, investments and retirement will go to paying down the credit card. But so is life, living paycheck-to-paycheck. Money is always tough — there is never enough to make ends meet, but we are getting closer to spring.

Only 70 days remain until the first day of calendar spring!

The sun will set at 4:41 pm with dusk around 5:12 pm, which is one minute and 5 seconds later than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly sunny conditions and 31 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 13 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 16 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 20 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 15 degrees at 5am. Two degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 10 at 4am; Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph becoming light and variable after midnight. In 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies, clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 17 degrees. The record low of -13 occurred back in 1968.

I was tired last night, so I went to bed early around nine. I did listen to podcasts until I fell asleep shortly thereafter. It was a pretty good, and it was warm enough that I finally could leave the heat down, and yet it wasn’t that cold out in the morning. The LED lighting worked pretty good, although I’m increasingly thinking I should replace some of the RGB string with a row of warm white LEDs to improve efficiency, as I think the reason the strings look relatively dark — despite ample output — is the lack of good color fidelity due to the mixing of the Red-Blue-Green channels with no broad-spectrum light. You can make any color with RGB LEDs but the color is simulated compared to real broad-spectrum light, making color rendition poor.

Still keeping an eye on the weekend forecast, to see if it will be reasonable enough to head north for the holiday weekend. It sure would be nice to have a campfire under the stars, listen to some music, drink some beer then snow camp in a heated tent. Maybe do some target shooting. May go skiing on Sunday or Martin Luther King Day when I return from my trip. I basically have the supplies I need for such a trip, so I’m just monitoring the conditions. I want to get there pretty early on, so I have ample time to dig out a parking space, set up camp. There is probably a lot of snow up north, so I will have to do a lot of digging.

While my day to day finances always seem to be a struggle to make ends meet, as there is so much competing for my bank accounts attention, I do have to say Trump’s first year was a good one for me, with an average of 20% growth across various investments helping me to put me closer to a secure retirement, and building up savings so hopefully I can buy land and an off-grid cabin eventually. Things are growing really fast right now, although I expect it be balanced out in the coming years with a recession. Some years you make $35,000 in the market, other years you lose $40,000. I’m young and risk adverse, I’m going to continue to ride the bull, and just look the other way the next time the market crashes and sets me back. The goal is just to come out ahead.

I’m a bit annoyed with my neighbor with the low rumble of his game machine half of the day, but I’m not going to say anything for now. It sounds like a semi truck rumbling along the road. He probably isn’t that pleased with me hears me cussing out the mornings with me stumbling around, and my alarm clock being reset multiple times. I’ve been trying to keep my noise down when he’s home, swear less and turn my alarm in my phone to vibrate. I don’t really think I need a loud alarm at this point, from habit I wake at seven. I think if it continues after a few more weeks of me trying to be extra quiet and non vulgar, I’ll talk to him. For some reason, the walls just seem extra thin this winter. Maybe because I’ve been home more, maybe it’s because my neighbor has a newer rattling subwoofer for his game.  I don’t really understand why one would want to play stupid games all day. That’s one reason why I can’t wait to have my own place. So I don’t have to worry about being quiet. That’s the great thing about camping in the wilderness.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until National Pie Day when the sun will be setting at 4:58 pm with dusk at 5:28 pm. On that day in 2017, we had rain, freezing rain, snow, sleet, mist, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 39 and 32 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 31 degrees. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1906.