Good evening! Partly clear and 80 degrees in Albany, NY. There is a north-northwest breeze at 5 mph. The dew point is 54 degrees. I’m sticking around in Albany for a while tonight for the Save the Pine Bush meeting. I stayed at work for a while, catching up on some things that needed to get done, and now I’m just hanging out at Capitol Park, taking advantage of the Senate’s free and fast (after hours) Wi-Fi to upload maps.

Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low of 59 degrees at 5am. Three degrees below normal. North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. Maximum dew point of 56 at 6am. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1978. The sun will set at 8:32 pm with dusk around 9:06 pm, which is 32 seconds earlier than yesterday. Waxing Crescent Moon tonight with 46% illuminated. The moon will set around 2:04 am. The First Quarter Moon will be tomorrow with mostly cloudy skies expected. The Full “Buck” Moon is on Tuesday, July 19th.

Tomorrow will be mostly sunny, with a high of 89 degrees at 3pm. Seven degrees above normal. Calm wind becoming south 5 to 7 mph in the morning. Maximum dew point of 63 at 6pm. It will be hot but not so humid. More humidity creeping in during the afternoon. The record high of 96 was set in 1935.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. Saturday, a chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 82. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Maximum dew point of 63 at 6am. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 84. Maximum dew point of 64 at 7pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 83 degrees.

I still am leaning towards heading out to Schoharie County for a swim, but not until Saturday now as I think Friday will be stormy, and I don’t want to have to bother with setting up camp twice.

In four weeks on August 8 the sun will be setting at 8:05 pm, which is 27 minutes earlier then today. The nights are really starting to accelerate, now that we get into the second week of July. The average high is 82 degrees, and the record for that date is 95 degrees was set back in 1983.

I ordered that Waterproof Bluetooth Speaker I’ve been thinking about getting for some time. It should be even louder then my existing one, for playing camp music, and is said to be water and dust resistant.I wanted a bigger, louder speaker, as sometimes when it’s pouring rain at camp, it’s difficult to hear podcasts and radio programs over the noise of the rain. I think it will be great for playing tunes at camp. I ended up ordering directly from the company rather then Amazon, because I didn’t want to deal with their delayed shipping. I guess I could have asked my mom to use her Amazon Plus account, but I figured I would just take care of it myself.

Thursday Big Red is getting it’s air conditioned serviced, and I’m also having them change the transmission and transfer case fluid. Those services aren’t required right away, but I figured if I had to go the garage, I would have them done. I guess I could do the fluid changes myself, but they looked like fairly dirty jobs, and I figured leave it to the professionals, while I’m in my air conditioned office. The manual doesn’t mandate changing transmission fluid until 100,000 but the severe service says 50,000, and everything I’ve read said it’s better to do more frequently then less, especially with the lift kit and all the dusty mountain roads I drive on. Normally they do that service with an oil change, but I think my oil change is good, because I only did it a few months ago. I might have the shop change the oil when I get it inspected in the fall, or maybe I’ll just do myself.