Good evening! Cloudy and 52 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 11 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 42 degrees. The skies will clear Monday around noontime.

I was bad, I did not go for my evening walk tonight. 🚶 I did ride the exercise bike for a while 🚲 but then I got started working on some code and watching some YouTube videos. I installed the new version of the GIMP image editor, GIMP 2.10 and are very impressed with the features. I really like the single window optional interface, 🎨 much less clunky than the seperate windows that always overlap one and another. It’s just a mucj cleaner way to work. This day of age I can’t imagine why anyone would use anything but open source software.

Tonight will have showers likely, mainly between midnight and 2am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 50 degrees at 1am. Seven degrees above normal, which is similiar to a typical night around May 24th. Fairly mild but damp. South wind 7 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly sunny by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 45 degrees. The record low of 29 occurred back in 1974.

Tonight will have a Waning Crescent Moon 🌘 with 3% illuminated. The moon will rise at 5:06 am. The New Moon is on Friday night. The Flower Moon 🌝 is on Friday, May 17th. The sun will rise at 5:49 am with the first light at 5:18 am, which is one minute and 22 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 9 hours and 51 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 27 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers, mainly before 2pm. Mostly cloudy 🌦, with a high of 66 degrees at 2pm. One degree above normal, which is similiar to a typical day around May 3rd. Maximum dew point of 56 at 1pm. Light and variable wind becoming southwest around 6 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, which became partly cloudy by afternoon. The high last year was 90 degrees, breaking the previous year record. There was a dusting of snow in 1986.❄

I started requesting car insurance quotes to see what is out there. 😮 Information is free to request, it won’t ding your credit score to shop around for insurance. My policy is good through the end of September but I want to learn more about my options. I’m only considering the big insurers with a good reputation. I also think I may be a bit over insured in some areas and under insured in others and I want to study my options to make sure that I have sufficient coverage to protect me and my hard earned savings should I get into a wreck. I’m really not sure if shopping around will save much money – insurance is a very competitive industry – but learning is important. 💬Honestly I’ve not done much research in the past because I figured with so much advertising and competition there probably isn’t a great difference in value.

That said in 2021 when I probably won’t be out in the field much for work I’m seriously thinking of ditching motoring 🚙 for a bicycle 🚲 and bus 🚍 pass to get around town. It’s not just the costly insurance, but just the whole motoring experience from dealerships to maintenance. Not having car issues to worry about would be so liberating. It would save so much money💸, improve my health, and reduce my carbon footprint 👣 dramatically. 🌎 It would be a big change in my lifestyle but it would save money 💵 getting me closer to being able to buy land in a lower cost state, hobby farm and live off grid.

This year my goal is to save roughly 30%, or $18k of my income towards retirement not including my pension plan. 💵 2/3rd pre tax, the rest post tax. Maybe that’s a lot but I’m growing old 👴 fast and I want to have a secure retirement plus it’s really cutting down my tax liability as a single renter without college debt. 🎓 I’m also putting away a fair bit in the markets and savings for more near term when I finally decide to make the jump and buy land. The more I can save the less I’ll be wasting today on landfill fodder and the more I can benefit from compound interest. I may never be able to afford all the toys I want but step by step I can get closer to having a secure 🔐 feature, one with land and a simple home back in the wilderness 🏡 . It does take time though, as even with the record high in the market I’m still a long ways away from where I want to be in 20 years from now.

I decided to rejoin Facebook. 👥I guess I never fully quit it but I did delete the app from my phone and only checked it a few times a week. I’m not going to get on it as much as I once did but a few times a week I’ll do scheduled posts on my Facebook page. I’ll probably keep Facebook fairly non political going forward. 👍I’m tired of all the nasty comments. 💭 I do think I’ll keep participating in a few of the groups I like such as Casual Peppers and some of the Off Grid groups.

Not a particularly nice weekend on tap. 😞 Saturday, a chance of showers, mainly after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 67. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Maximum dew point of 50 at 12pm. Sunday, a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 60. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Typical average high for the weekend is 66 degrees.

It turns out that my aunt won’t be coming up this weekend because she is under the weather. 👪 I am a bit disappointed. But it wouldn’t have been a particularly good weather weekend for her to visit at any rate. Maybe she can come later in the summer when it’s nicer out. I will probably stay home this weekend 🏡 and maybe take a bus to John Wolcott’s house to work on his history project. I also have some electronics building projects I want to do like build the outside temperature probe for my display. 🔬

In four weeks on May 29 the sun will be setting at 8:24 pm,🌄 which is 28 minutes and 32 seconds later then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had humid weather, mostly sunny and temperatures between 85 and 62 degrees. Definitely a hot day for late May but not unheard of for sure. Typically, you have temperatures between 73 and 51 degrees. The record high of 93 degrees was set back in 1931.

Looking ahead, June 🍹 is a month away, 8:30 PM Sunset ️⛱️ is in 5 weeks, July 🏊🏿 is in 2 months, August 🌻 is in 3 months, Altamont Fair Opens 🎡 is in 15 weeks, State Fair Opens 🎡 is in 16 weeks, Sunset Before 7:30 PM 🌆 is in 4 months, September 11th 🇸 is in 19 weeks, More Night then Day 🌌 is in 21 weeks, October 🛥 is in 5 months and Inauguration Day 2021 👴🏻 is in 90 weeks.