A dark and cloudy morning, with the mercury around the freezing point at least of water. It was remarkable how thick the ice was on the quiet sections of the Vlomans Kill. It’s been a cold November after a pretty warm October. It’s supposed to warm up by the end of the week so don’t be counting on an early hard water season. Maybe some clearing late, probably after dark, maybe we will reach forty in the city by midday. 

The sun will set at 4:34 pm with dusk around 5:04 pm, which is 57 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy conditions and 38 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 48 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 12 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy, with a low of 27 degrees at 5am. Five degrees below normal. North wind around 7 mph. In 2016, we had clear skies. It got down to 25 degrees. The record low of 12 occurred back in 1996.

In an effort to get enough sleep and not feel drowsy in the morning, I took a sleeping pill but evidently not as early as I should, so I was pretty drowsy by the time I woke up. The gray skies didn’t help. I guess I’m better rested then I would have otherwise been. I should use the red light more. Hopefully I will get the concept version of led driver I’m building working by the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. 

I may hold off on getting an SSD drive for my laptop a bit longer. I was thinking of getting one during the Black Friday sales on the internet to speed my laptop and make more room with all the videos I’ve been cutting for the blog. But it’s another expense for something I don’t really need. Maybe if I can find a 512 GB one for closer to $100 then $200. After all, I was good this year and I didn’t but myself anymore firearms. That said, I need a smaller soldering iron, electronics solder, solder wick, cases and perf board for permanently wiring up my Arduino projects. And more electronic components. That stuff ain’t expensive but it ain’t free either. 

I am still thinking about taking off Thursday and maybe Friday off for a road trip. It all depends on the forecast and if I can get those days off. A lot of people are taking time off around the holidays. 

Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until Christmas when the sun will be setting at 4:27 pm with dusk at 4:59 pm. On that day in 2016, we had drizzle, mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 43 and 21 degrees. It was fun camping on Irish Hill that day. Typically, the high temperature is 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 66 back in 1889, although I think 2015 also was pretty warm.