October 20, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Partly cloudy with some fog 🌁 around but you can partially see the stars and 44 degrees in Dormansville, NY. ⛅ Calm wind. Temperatures will drop below freezing at around 4 am. ☃️

Today was a pretty quiet day at my parents house. 📖 I stayed there with the dog 🐶 taking him out for a walk that totalled 1 1/2 miles. I didn’t mind the walk but he’s gotten very elderly and he was out back most of the day, sitting back next to the heater. He got a little too close to the heater and I started to smell dog hair burning but besides a little patch of sinenged hair he’s fine.

It rained ☔ a lot more this afternoon than expected and I ended up heading inside with my laptop, researching and processing some new data for the blog. I haven’t made many Google Maps in a while and I’m still going through videos from vacation. 🎥 There is a lot of government data out there for making maps and charts 📊 if you know where to look for it.

Knowing where to find government data 🏤 not only helps me make content for the blog, it is helpful reference sometimes for work and I think ta good experience and knowledge that could be useful for future career opportunities especially after I leave the state for good. The more you practice the better you get at it. That’s why I’ve gotten so good at map making.

Tonight will have patchy dense fog. Otherwise, mostly cloudy 🌁, with a low of 40 degrees at 6am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 15th. Light and variable wind. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 35 degrees. The record low of 17 occurred back in 1972.

Tonight will have a Last Quarter with 43% illuminated. The moon will set at 2:35 pm. The Last Quarter Moon will be tonight with mostly clear skies. The Beaver Moon 🌝 is on Monday, November 11th. The sun will rise at 7:14 am with the first light at 6:46 am, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 13 hours and 9 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 44 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 59 degrees at 3pm. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 19th. Maximum dew point of 48 at 3pm. North wind around 5 mph. It would have been nice to have such weather today. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 48 degrees. The record high of 81 was set in 1979. 0.2 inches of snow fell back in 1926.❄

In four weeks on November 17 the sun will be setting at 4:32 pm (Standard Time),🌄 which is one hour, 34 minutes and 24 seconds earlier then tonight. I don’t know if I already want to think about that. 😔 In 2018 on that day, we had cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 44 and 37 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 47 and 31 degrees. The record high of 73 degrees was set back in 1928.

Looking ahead, Daylight Savings Time Ends 🛥️ is in 2 weeks, Average High is 50 🍂 is in 3 weeks, December 🎄 is in 6 weeks, Bill of Rights Day 📜 is in 8 weeks, Days are Getting Longer ☀️ is in 9 weeks, National Pie Day 🍰 is in 13 weeks, 5:30 PM Dusk 🌆 is in 14 weeks, Inauguration Day 2021 👴🏻 is in 15 months.

Maples Along Trail

HIFLD Open Data

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HIFLD Open Data

This is a product of the Homeland Security Defense Mapping Project, which is intended to help law enforcement during a time of civil disaster or terrorism, that the federal government has spent billions on -- mostly culling information from the public domain.  It's designed to be disseminated widely -- so everybody from hick town police departments to the NYPD have access to the data they need in case of emergency. Ironically, most of the data comes from things like OpenStreetMap and the reports put out by government agencies. Very little is actually new work.

Is it really useful to first responders and worth the billions put in? That's a bit more debatable, as most of them have Google Maps on their phones which have most of the same data. But then again, that can be said about most defense spending -- maybe it's useful -- but I've never actually seen a terrorist at the grocery store or the gas station.

Downtown Syracuse.

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As they say, the lights are much brighter downtown. Taken during a thunderstorm, heading along the Syracuse Viaduct on Big Red's Dashboard Camera.

Farmville, Va

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Farmville, Virigina. I love to horrify my liberal friends when I tell them my favorite conservative talk radio host is Cam Edwards of NRA News and also 40 Acres and Fool. He lives in Farmville, although he often is in the DC metro area working as the spokesperson for the NRA. I really like his programs, he’s such an entertaining good old boy who like his hogs, backstrap, and guns.

But then again, on balance I do like watching the Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC. So I’m still a good liberal. Haha.

report – pennlive.com

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Pa. state bird could leave if summer temperatures rise: report – pennlive.com

A recently released report conducted by scientists working for the Audubon Society suggests that Pennsylvania’s state bird is at-risk of leaving the state, due to climate change.

The report, which looks at what would happen if or when the earth’s climate would warm another 1.5 degrees, 2 degrees or 3 degrees in the summer and winter, analyzes the increased heat’s impact on birds. It predicts that the Ruffed Grouse will search for a cooler climate, as the bird is known to thrive in cooler weather, even severe winters.

The Ruffled Grouse in the story looks like he is having a bad day. Or maybe a bad century. Climate change sucks. You would think they might want to do something about it, says the boy with the big jacked up truck who likes burning things.

Harmony Mills

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The reds and yellows of the trees framed the landscape as I looked out at Harmony Mills and Cohoes from Peebles Island.

Taken on Saturday October 19, 2019 at Peebles Island State Park.