Good evening! Made it through a Monday. Next Monday is Coldest Week of the Year 🌬. Good time for my heat to quit working in my apartment, that is this week. Right now, it’s mostly cloudy and 18 degrees in Albany. There is a north breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. Hasn’t been much in the way of warmth today, but it will change tomorrow. Things will start to thaw out at 9 am tomorrow. 🌡️ Maybe then once the heat is fixed, it will have a chance to heat back up, although things are working okay up in my bedroom with the electric heat. Getting fixed today. Which is good, it’s winter!

I wanted to get my flu shot today, 💉 but they had run out of vaccine at CVS. I am thinking I will try to stop somewhere else this evening, maybe Hannaford or one of the pharmacies I pass on my way out the Guilderland Town Hall for the IDA Board Meeting over the proposed apartment complex in Albany Pine Bush.🌲 Yeah, I should have done this months ago, but I always bad and better late then never. I also need to get gas for my truck.⛽ Happy Monday.

The local bus home is slow with the rush hour traffic, 🚗🚙🚚🚛🚒🚌but that’s to be expected. I only am going to Delaware Park and Ride so that will hopefully give me enough time to get gas and the flu shot before the public hearing. 🍖🍛 Then after the hearing I’ll stop and get some groceries.

Tonight will snow, mainly after 2am. Cloudy 🌨, with a low of 23 degrees at 8pm. Eight degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around March 8th. Maximum wind chill around 19 at 6pm; South wind 7 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of less than one inch possible. .In 2018, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 16 degrees. The record low of -18 occurred back in 1878.

Tomorrow will start out quite icy. Freezing rain and sleet likely before 7am, then freezing rain likely between 7am and 10am, then a chance of rain showers after 10am. I don’t care, Big Red gets to sleep into tomorrow. The bus will get me to work. 🚌 Then cloudy, with a high near 42. ☁ South wind 8 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 24 mph. Assuming the wind doesn’t blow everything away,🌪 it actually might thaw things out inside, although I’m sure the electric heat will make my bedroom toasty tonight and the power company rich. Chance of precipitation is 60%. Little or no ice accumulation expected. New sleet accumulation of less than a half inch possible.

This morning, I had some trouble getting the truck out of park in the cold, 🅿 as there is a speed sensor that somewhat malfunctions at below 40 degrees and is really bad below 25 degrees. Eventually it always clears and I am able to proceed, but it’s annoying. Usually after 10 minutes of driving, or two restarts of the truck, everything clears out and my cruise control and park lever works fine. I don’t drive it enough in the cold for it to be a problem, and honestly if it’s only happening a few times a year it’s not worth the money to get it fixed properly, at least until the problem gets worse. At least with the solar it cranks over easily. The accessory battery fully charged adds to the cold cranking amps rather than detracting from it before I permanently mounted the panel.

If you ask me my opinion, I wish winter would be over now but I am sure we still have three months left. ❄ I don’t know how I make it through the cold each year, especially when I think about it mid-summer but I do. Give me a hot and humid day in the summer over the cold. The cold doesn’t bother me as much as the cold rust belt winters in New York. And the beat goes on, on, and on, or so does Cher sing on the radio. 🎤

At least with my lighting system I built, I have nice soothing colors at night 💡and I feel like when I am home and awake I can afford to keep the heat at comfortable temperature for sitting up and reading a good book. 📚 I sometimes put a pretty downloaded movie on my laptop with the Bluetooth headphones but I find it hard to keep my interest, as I find staring at a screen really boring. I do kind of like listening to YouTube videos like those about off grid living, homesteading, farming and electronics but watching them I find really boring.

That said with work and everything else lately I’ve just been so busy. 💤Plus lately I find myself going to bed increasingly early as I’m tired and I preform so much better when I’m not sleep deprived. That said many mornings I awake pretty early, although many times I’ll lay under the covers until the alarm rings. I hate winter, I look forward to having the fresh air from the windows open again.

As previously noted, next Monday Starts Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 when the sun will be setting at 4:46 pm with dusk at 5:17 pm. On that day in 2018, it was cold but sunny and temperatures between 16 and 3 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 30 degrees. We hit a record high of 66 back in 1932. Well, back before my time.