August 17, 2018 Night

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Good evening! Thunderstorms and 74 degrees in Delmar. ⚡ Not really severe but it was raining and it chased me in from sitting out back. There is a south breeze at 10 mph. 🍃 All evening their have been flashes of lighting and its super muggy. The dew point is 72 degrees. I’ll be glad when the heat breaks later in the weekend its just not pleasant when it’s this humid especially without air conditioning.

Ended up hooking my laptop to my computer and working on that for a while then walking down to library. 💻 Downloaded some YouTube videos I was watching at home for a while, after I got chased inside by the rain. It was nice out back with the breeze and the fan watching the lightning strike in the distance⚡ but then it started to rain.

Tonight will have showers and thunderstorms likely before 2am, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 2am and 5am, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 5am. Some storms could be severe, with heavy rain and frequent lightning. Cloudy ☁, with a low of 73 degrees at 12am. 13 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 72 at 10pm. South wind 7 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. In 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies. It became humid as the night progressed. It got down to 71 degrees. The record low of 40 occurred back in 1981.

Tonight will have a First Quarter Moon with 49% illuminated. The Strugeon Moon 🌝 is on Saturday, August 25th. The sun will rise at 6:05 am with the first light at 5:35 am, which is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 10 hours and 12 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 34 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms before 11am, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm between 11am and 4pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 4pm. Cloudy ☁, with a high of 76 degrees at 12pm. Four degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 71 at 2pm. Southwest wind around 6 mph becoming north in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. The high last year was 77 degrees. The record high of 95 was set in 1913.

Doesn’t seem like a really good day tomorrow but Sunday looks nice and summer is running out, so I will probably head out to Schoharie assuming it’s not a real soaker.🏊 Do some pool swimming one last time before summer is done. And a nice night by the fire before it starts getting dark reach early. Next weekend heading up to the Adirondacks if the weather is nice,🗻 maybe taking a three day weekend as an alternative to Labor Day weekend at Moose River Plains. Depends a lot on the weather.

Looking ahead to Sunday, a slight chance of showers after 2pm. Partly sunny, 🌞 with a high near 77. North wind 5 to 7 mph becoming east in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%. Maximum dew point of 62 at 8am. Typical average high for the weekend is 80 degrees.

In four weeks on September 14 the sun will be setting at 7:06 pm,🌄 which is 47 minutes and 9 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 78 and 65 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 73 and 52 degrees. The record high of 93 degrees was set back in 1931.

Looking ahead, Average High Falls To 79 ️Degrees ⛱️️️ is in 1 weeks, Labor Day Weekend Begins 👨‍🏭 is in 2 weeks, Consitution Day 📜 is a month away, Average High 70 🎑 is in 5 weeks, Regular Deer Season in Southern Zone 🦌 is in 3 months and Buy Nothing Day 🛍️ is in 14 weeks.

The Most Efficient House on the Block

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Being that I don’t have air conditioning at home, rarely turn the heat up above 50 or 55 degrees in the winter, usually use task lighting and keep my apartment dark, and aren’t home much, I usually have one of the most efficient homes in my neighborhood per the home energy reports that the power company sends out under a state mandate, much of my neighborhood which consists of many apartments. I am sure my electricity use would be even much less if I didn’t have an energy-hogging electric hot water heater, and aged refrigerator which has upwards of 25 years on it’s life at this point.

I honestly don’t get all this appeal of high technology. Sure I like my laptop, but I get the wireless internet at the library or park, so it’s saves on power there. I do have big monitor that I sometimes use, but often it sits turned off for weeks at an end. I do most of my connecting to the world using my inexpensive Wally-world smartphone, because I don’t want or need my laptop connected to the internet when I’m home. And I keep that phone turned off much of the time when I’m home.

I still make my coffee every morning using my trusty peculator pot, granted on an electric stove. I don’t have a fancy coffee maker. I do own a microwave and a waffle maker, but honestly they save power over the conventional electric oven. The waffle maker is a big savings over buying frozen waffles. But when I own my own house, I will probably use propane for most heating purposes, instead saving the solar power for more important purposes.

Lately I’ve been building more different little projects with Arduino 8-bit microcontrollers. While those projects are high-tech in the sense that I use a computer and libraries to develop the code for the microprocessor, the reality is the final projects are simple, and use little electricity. The micro-controller itself when fully operating rarely draws more then 20 mA of current at 5 VDC, and the displays I’ve built for the wall use no more then 700 mA at 5 VDC. They are easily powered by a normal cellphone charger. The LED color lighting I built uses more power, maybe 20-50 watts but only when it’s on.

Honestly I could probably do with less. I could have a lot smaller truck, not all the camping gear. But I’m kind of glad that my apartment is simple and that I spend as little time at home that I do.