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Andy Arthur

Ultimately maybe I could have headed out of town this weekend, 🏕️ but that's behind me and I found ways to be busy and have fun riding down to Henry Hudson and Hollyhock Preserve this weekend. And doing lots of reading. I'm hoping for better weather next weekend, but maybe it's time to get out of town regardless.

In Hope of Nice Weekend Weather

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Maybe I’m just desperate for a nice weather weekend, or I wanted to practice my skills for work, but I created this quick little bash script that runs on the 29 and 59 minutes of each hour, so I get the latest NOAA forecast for the weekend, hot off the presses displayed on my screen for the weekend.

#!/bin/bash

wget "https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lat=42.4686&lon=-73.9294&unit=0&lg=english&FcstType=dwml" -O /var/tmp/forecast.xml

WEEKENDS=( Friday Saturday Sunday  )

for WEEKEND in "${WEEKENDS[@]}"
do
	DAY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath '/dwml/data/time-layout[2]/start-valid-time' | awk /$WEEKEND\"/'{print NR}')
	DAY12=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath '/dwml/data/time-layout[1]/start-valid-time' | awk /$WEEKEND\"/'{print NR}')
	DAY12NIGHT=$((DAY12+1))
	HIGH=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/temperature[@type=\"maximum\"]/value[$DAY]/text()" 2>/dev/null)
	LOW=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "/dwml/data/parameters/temperature[@type=\"minimum\"]/value[$DAY]/text()" 2> /dev/null)
	DAYSUMMARY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "string(/dwml/data/parameters/weather/weather-conditions[$DAY12]/@weather-summary)" 2> /dev/null)
	NIGHTSUMMARY=$(xmllint /var/tmp/forecast.xml --xpath "string(/dwml/data/parameters/weather/weather-conditions[$DAY12NIGHT]/@weather-summary)" 2> /dev/null)

	[[  -z $HIGH ]] || OUTPUT+="\n $WEEKEND: "
	[[  -z $HIGH ]] || OUTPUT+="$DAYSUMMARY $HIGH "
	[[  -z $LOW ]]  || OUTPUT+="/ $NIGHTSUMMARY $LOW"

done
notify-send "Weekend Weather Update" "$OUTPUT" -t 15000

Center Of The Adirondack Park

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The absolute center of the Adirondack Park (centroid) is 43.95039680083595, -74.283820885915 according to the shapefile put out by the Adirondack Park Agency of the Blue Line, which is on the northern shoulder of Fishing Brook Mountain, south of Winfall Mountain in the Town of Minerva (barely, just the corner that reaches up there).

https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=43.95039680083595,%20-74.283820885915

The point of inaccessibility (greatest distance from any part of the border) is about 3 miles south-west of that point at 43.88007470563294, -74.32116420377541, which is the about 1/3rd of the way up the south flank of Dun Brook Mountain in Town of Blue Mountain Lake.

https://mapper.acme.com/?ll=43.88007470563294,%20-74.32116420377541

Foggy start to the Monday morning 🌫

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So it would seem. The fog is supposed to burn off later today, and become a fairly nice spring day which should be good for riding to work. Around 45 degrees this morning, a tad bit cool with the windows open but at least I don’t think it’s cold enough that the heat kicked in with the windows open.

I’ve decided to get away from the blog template posts, 📝 and the weather forecast and try to start writing my daily posts from scratch. The templates were good for getting me started with a post but I think the free-format is more readable and better for telling my story. I’ve been playing around with new designs for the blog, but so far I’ve not come up with one that I like that is compatible with good ad placement and search engine optimization. That said, I do think the current blog layout is more cluttered ✨then I like but I also want to make it easy for interested people to find content and my writings about many different topics and interests. 🎨

Carrot 🥕 pancakes this morning, 🥞 and I’m eagerly awaiting the arrival of the replacement blades 🔪 for my food processor as hand grating the carrots wasn’t fun and the hand mixing of the oatmeal and flour made something more lumpy and consistent with biscuits then pancakes. It was fine but nearly as good as I would normally cook up. Topped with frozen Maine blueberries and real maple 🍁 syrup.

Around two in the morning, 🌃 I threw on some clothes and walked out in hoping to see the northern lights with no luck. Lots of stars ✨ but no northern lights. It could have been late for the geomagnetic storm or maybe the city lights are too big. What we really need is a geomagnetic storm when I’m up in the wilderness, particularly remote open country like Powley Place.

Should be a good day for riding in. 🚲 It’s obnoxious that the kick stand bolt snapped off on one hole and buggered up the other hole, but ultimately a kick stand isn’t essential on a mountain bike and most riders don’t actually like them because they do tend to get caught up in brush. I’m learning to live without it, and I do have that U lock that I can lock it a tree or other object when parking. 🔒

Yesterday turned out to a be pretty quiet day, 📚 lots of reading and I went down to the library for a while to use the internet. Running low on Hoopla books to read, but I still have my 10 book May quota in tack, so I can get books, but I’ve been delaying to later in the month. I figure when more of the books from April expire then I will order more Hoopla books. Libby is great for popular books, but for more technical books – – things like building a cabin or computer programming – – Hoopla is the way to go. ☔ Every time I wanted to go out and walk or ride, it seemed like another rain cloud was passing over head. I mean I could have gone out of town this past weekend, but I have hope for a better weekend ahead.

Busy Monday ahead. 📜 Not only do I have a long list of work things to do, I also want to look at biting the bullet and ordering a new phone, 📱 scheduling my yearly physical 🩺 and investigating finding a new mental health therapist. 🧑‍⚕️ I’m just increasingly frustrated about the disposability of shit, how things keep breaking, how I spend too much time thinking about fire 🔥 and burning things, and whether or not I should build my off-grid cabin in New York State 🏡 or seriously consider moving out of state. While I doubt a therapist can give me definitive answers, on whether or not to move out of state for better gun laws, 🔫 I’m sure I can learn more coping strageties – – and better yet – – get better at making good decisions. Plus I need to get better at getting rid of broken shit, the kind of things I can’t burn but probably could part way with at dump for a few bucks.

Regardless of the weather, ⛺ I really want to get out of town this weekend for a long weekend. Friday looks good, while Saturday is pretty much what you can expect for weekends these days. If Friday continues to look good I’m going to seek out a personal day to ride the Catskill Scenic Trail and Saturday I’ll have my screen tent 🎪 and if it rains a lot, then we’ll it keep the black flies 🐜 in hiding I guess. I just want to have a good fire, burn some things. 🔥