I was up at 5:30 this morning to make breakfast and get going, and then it was dark, sat down at my computer and finally figured out how to calculate mile points along roads and trails. Doesn’t seem like a major accomplishment but the code turned out to be something I’ve been racking my brain over the past year or so, though when I finally got it to work, it was fairly simple to implement in reality.

Good afternoon! Mostly cloudy and 55 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind. The dew point is 45 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 4 am. Not a real beautiful day, did see a brief break of blue sky but it’s dull and overcast again now. Not heading down to Pennsylvania or West Virginia today but those days will come, or so I tell myself.

I was up early and it was dark. 🌇 The pancakes I made up with ground oatmeal and some quinoa were good 🥞 I added a banana to the mix for sweetness 🍌 and topped with lots of frozen blueberries 💙 and sugar-free maple syrup. I might end up eventually switching back over to real maple syrup but the low calorie nature of the prior is good, and it’s much cheaper. Maybe come next spring, when it’s fresh. And maybe only as a treat. It’s good to use up the quinoa — it’s better now that I’ve started to wash it better and it cook it longer to get rid of the bitterness but it’s not my favorite breakfast food just in a mushy bowl. But it’s surprisingly good mixed into the oatmeal pancakes.

Also continuing on the oatmeal theme 🍵 (I bought more oatmeal this week), I decided to make oatmeal bread up this morning with whole wheat flour, water, yeast and a bit of salt. Also included shredded carrots 🥕 in the mix to boost fiber levels and give it more texture along with the oatmeal. I keep trying to make healthy meals, while keeping things interesting through variety. The apple bread the other week I wasn’t pleased with due to the lack of salt and fat in it, but the garlic bread I made was delicious. I topped the oatmeal bread with oatmeal and a bit more sea salt for good measure. I plan to bake tonight with spaghetti squash and sweet potatoes at the same time in a very full oven, and then reheat more pea soup — though I’ve thought about making up soup with the red lentils, salt, turmeric and other spices. That might be good, especially after my bike ride. 🚴‍♀️

Been reading and studying map making 🗺 in the effort to get better at GIS and make better more useful maps for the blog, make more ad revenue and expand my skill set. One of the big things I’m trying to master is label placement in QGIS. Automatic label placement often sucks, but I’m not very good at manually working with labels in QGIS. In modern versions of QGIS manual label placement isn’t hard but I find it rather confusing as I’ve never used the manual label placement options much and they aren’t always super obvious how to use them. Like how do only show desired labels using manual label positioning, rather then suppressing them? You can change one of the override settings to do that but it’s non-obvious. Plus I’ve been learning all about pinning labels, a concept I didn’t know much about until I spent some time reading and experimenting. Labels are important for quality maps but I have to admit I was very ignorant on how they all worked in QGIS.

This afternoon will be cloudy ☁, with a high of 58 degrees at 2pm. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 24th. Maximum dew point of 46 at 4pm. Light north wind. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 67 degrees. The record high of 81 was set in 1920.

The war on mice continues. 🐁 I literally caught three more last night. I think one was that big fat sucker I tossed outside yesterday in my boxers and t shirt full of shaving cream like a girl 🧒 yesterday. He got back inside and caught again. I haven’t set up the bucket trap this year but I did do both the spring traps and the sticky traps the later which I find works well with a big glob of peanut 🥜 butter which I won’t eat anymore but I’m find using it up catch mice. Lol, I haven’t heard anymore today in the walls but I envision there are hundreds 💯 in my kitchen at night when I’m not looking. 🙀 I guess I need a barn cat for my apartment. I’m not into pets that I can’t eat 🐐🐖🐄 but I could see the utility of having a cat.

I am still thinking about going for a bike ride out to Indian Ladder Farms. 🍏 👈 🚲 I’m just not motivated with the weather today, and I’ve been playing a lot around with maps and code this morning. I am so proud that I finally figured out how to Create Mile Points from a LINESTRING or MULTILINESTRING in R. While the final code I wrote was pretty trivial, it took me a long time to figure out my way around the details, and overcome some of my coding mistakes in earlier versions. It is quite a handy little piece of code, I should not. I plan to use it for a lot of projects in the future.

Tonight will have a New 🌚 Moon with 0% illuminated. At 12 PM, the moon was in the south-southeast (169°) at an altitude of 39° from the horizon, some 247,147 miles away from where you are looking up from the earth. 🚀 At the state speed limit of 55 mph, you’ll make it there by April 19^th. Buckle up for safety! 💺 The moon will set in the west-southwest (258°) at 6:12 pm. The Hunter 🏹 Moon is on Sunday, October 29. The darkest hour is at 12:42 am, followed by dawn at 6:39 am, and sun starting to rise at 7:08 am in the east (100°) and last for 2 minutes and 57 seconds. Sunrise is one minute and 10 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 The golden hour ends at 7:46 am with sun in the east-southeast (107°). Tonight will have 12 hours and 50 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 48 seconds over last night.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy ☁️, with a low of 43 degrees at 6am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 11th. North wind 3 to 6 mph. In 2022, we had clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 38 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 1978.

In four weeks on November 11 the sun will be setting in the west-southwest (247°) at 4:38 pm (Standard Time),🌄 which is one hour, 38 minutes and 20 seconds earlier then today. I won’t be able to ride the bike home from work at that point. In 2022 on that day, we had rain and temperatures between 69 and 48 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 51 and 33 degrees. The record high of 70 degrees was set back in 2002. Those days will be here before you know it.

Looking ahead, Daylight Savings Time Ends 🛥️ in 3 weeks, Veterans Day 🇺🇸 is in 4 weeks, Average High is 50 🍂 is a month away, Regular Deer Season in Southern Zone 🦌 is in 5 weeks, Small Business Saturday 🛍️ is in 6 weeks, Average High is 40 🌨 is in 8 weeks, Earliest Sunset of the Year ⌛️ is in 8 weeks, Tea Party Day 🐍 is in 9 weeks, Festivus 🍖 is in 10 weeks, Bacon Day 🥓 is in 11 weeks.