Good evening! Well folks, things don’t always work out perfectly. Got over to DeNooyer and they now close at six. Had to take two buses to get home. Frustrating as duck. Mostly cloudy and 33 degrees in Delmar. ☁ Calm wind. ☃ ️Temperatures will drop below freezing at tomorrow around 1 am. Watch for black ice.

Big Red passed his inspection and his oil changed and tires rotated. 🚙 GM has the best price around but I’m not happy that their hours changed to six (they used to be open until 8 pm) despite the fact they have it printed on big letters on their door and it looks like their website says that too. So I’ll have to go back there tomorrow to pay and get back my keys 🔑. Just wasted two hours walking 🚶 and transferring buses for my stupidity. Sigh. At least I passed the inspection and won’t need an oil change or tire rotation until summer with the minimal winter miles I drive.

Tonight will have patchy fog between 8pm and 9pm. Otherwise, mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 32 degrees at 1am. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 16th. Calm wind. In 2018, we had light drizzle in the evening, which became light snow by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 33 degrees. The record low of 6 occurred back in 1986.

Tonight will have a Waning Crescent Moon 🌘 with 35% illuminated with the moon rising at 11:24 pm. The moon will rise at 12:00 am. The New Moon is on Monday night with mostly cloudy skies. The Cold Moon 🌝 is on Wednesday, December 11th. The sun will rise at 6:51 am with the first light at 6:20 am, which is one minute and 14 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 14 hours and 23 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and one second over last night.

Tomorrow will have a slight chance of rain showers, snow showers, and freezing drizzle before 11am, then a slight chance of rain showers between 11am and 3pm. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 39 degrees at 2pm. Seven degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around December 6th. Light northwest wind. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mist in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 39 degrees. The record high of 72 was set in 1991. 3.4 inches of snow fell back in 1961.❄

GM’s multipoint inspection they do every time you drop it off to drum up business 🔎says that the oil cooler line is leaking. Maybe that’s were its leaking oil – I thought it was the head gasket or valve seal that was starting to go. I still from time to time hear that engine tick that’s now been there for years, especially when it idles for long periods of time. They wanted $500 to fix it which is above above the going rate for an independent shop for the same repair and the leak isn’t that bad based on the quart of oil ⭕ I end up adding between 8,000 mile synthetic changes every 8-10 mile. A leaky line won’t foul up sparkplugs or oxygen sensors but I have to keep a on the oil.

My thought is may be the last inspection that I get for Big Red as may give up driving 🚘 in November 2020 as after then I won’t need a car for work and renting a car for vacation and road trips. I think before the next inspection I’ll need new tires, an alignment and probably some replacement suspension parts like ball joints. That’s easily a $2,000 hole in the budget. I just don’t have that kind of money to spend even though I still like my Big jacked up truck.

The truth is that to motoring I really prefer walking 🚶 and if I could get a bike that I wouldn’t keep breaking spokes on I could be a lot healthier. I could probably save over $100,000 over a decade by giving up motoring and it’s so much better both for my health and the environment. 🌎 I watch a lot of farm videos on YouTube and I’m very interested in off grid living but the more I save now the better tomorrow I can have. It really is fascinating to see what actually happens on dairy farms and rural homesteads across the country. 🚜 There is a lot that goes into farming for sure.

I have to say I often look at the nice things folks have – the big farm tractors and implements, the livestock, 🐽 the four wheelers, the guns, 🔫 the land and the freedom and I’m jealous. It must be nice to live off grid, not have to wash out the plastic jars and milk bottles you toss in the burn barrel out in the country. 🔥Best form of recycling ♻. 😂 I work hard and make good money but after the bills are paid, they’re just not much leftover. 💵 It goes out faster than it comes in. Maybe because I’m saving for a better tomorrow and most aren’t or maybe because many people are just finding ways to stretch bills further. I wish I could be better at wrenching 🔧 my own shit, knew how to weld, was a better hunter. I could do my own oil changes but I hate bothering with getting off the hard to remove filter. I studied white collared shit in school. 💼 Useless stuff that pays a middle class wage that still leaves me struggling. I do get tired of my falling apart moldy apartment, tromping through the snow to the bus, my cold apartment where I can see my breath at times or having pasta and mixed vegetables again as that’s the most affordable option and it’s all I have in my pantry. That said, I always have lots of milk because I love cows 🐮 and drinking milk. I’ll give up virtually any other food for life before milk.

Shower is acting up again. 🚿 Dripping a bit again. I got it to stop dripping eventually ⛔ but it’s getting annoying. I’m going to have to text the landlord to have it fixed. I just hate having him over and seeing all the shit I’ve broken in his building over the past twelve years. 💔 Although not all of it is my negligence, the building is falling apart a bit as rentals always do and it’s a old building. I sometimes forget I’m paying for the his services and use of his property, he’s certainly not giving it to me for free.

Life can be frustrating at times for sure. 😈 But most of my problems are stupid like not knowing about the new hours at the dealership shop or a an acting up plumbing. I doubt I’ll go back to the dealer again for ordinary service. The late close made it easy in the past and they’re cheaper for the oil change than local places. Tomorrow I’ll catch the early bus in and pick it up. 🚍But I made it home, rode the exercise bike 🚲 for a while and now I got to get some sleep.

In four weeks on December 17 the sun will be setting at 4:22 pm,🌄 which is 6 minutes and 37 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had cold, partly sunny and temperatures between 27 and 8 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 35 and 21 degrees. The record high of 59 degrees was set back in 1984.

Looking ahead, 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ is in 3 weeks, Christmas Eve 🎅 is in 5 weeks, New Years Eve 🎆 is in 6 weeks, Coldest Week of the Year 🌬 is in 8 weeks, Martin Luther King Day 🖤 is in 9 weeks and National Pie Day 🍰 is in 2 months.