Good afternoon! Happy Sunday. Two weeks to First Sunday of Advent ✝️. Christmas is always special, especially when it’s more of a religious holiday or celebration of the winter solstice then consumerism. Time goes by quickly, 40 days or so until the New Year.

Gray, cloudy and 33 degrees in Delmar. ☁ Calm wind. Things are melting quickly with only 2 inches of snow left on the ground. ☃ ️

Today will have a slight chance of snow before 2pm, then a chance of rain and snow between 2pm and 4pm, then a chance of snow after 4pm. Cloudy 🌧, with a high of 36 degrees at 3pm. 11 degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around December 14th. Kind of a cold mid November day. Light and variable wind. Chance of precipitation is 40%. Total daytime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 46 degrees. The record high of 71 was set in 1928. 9 inches of snow fell back in 1980.❄

The sun will set at 4:29 pm with dusk around 5:00 pm, which is 48 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for snow showers around 🌨 with temperatures around 34 degrees. There will be a calm wind. Today will have 9 hours and 38 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 2 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be light snow likely, mainly before midnight. Cloudy 🌨, with a low of 30 degrees at 2am. One degree below normal, which is similiar to a typical night around November 21st. South wind 3 to 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible. In 2017, we had light rain in the evening, remaining overcast into the early morning. It got down to 33 degrees. The record low of 12 occurred back in 1972.

This afternoon I plan to upload a bunch of new maps and GIS content. 🌐 I often struggle to find new areas to map, especially when I’ve done so much of New York and not knowing other states as well and requiring separate data sets makes it a pain to do them.

I also need to find new data to chart, which isn’t that difficult but it requires me to sit down somewhere I have internet and get it done. Maybe I should plan sometime this week to do that down at the library.

I promise not to complain so much on my blog this week, but winters are so harsh and cold and the heat doesn’t work well in my apartment.😯 Never has. I’m hoping at some point it will warm up and be sunny, 😎 I think that would improve my mood enormously. I’m just cranky because winter came early, its been a tough few weeks at work and the holiday season doesn’t do much for me. And I’m just pissed that I blew off camping last weekend before the heavy snow came. Spring will return eventually. I should look at it this way, I’m saving a lot of miles on my truck and investing in my future.

I’ve decided with all the USB stuff that I have at this point, I really need a powered USB hub for at home do I’m not overwhelming my laptop’s USB port. 🔌 I want one with switches so I can disable things like my keyboard when my laptop is off to save power. I’m thinking that I can also use it to power my VMS display at home.

Still also looking at SSD hard drives for my laptop💾 to speed it up enormously and give me more room with all the videos I do. So far the Black Friday sales on Buy Nothing day are only like $140 which is only ten dollars less than the ordinary retail price. That said I do want to go to the SSD drive before the end of the year so I have more space actually twice as much as I’m putting the M2 drive in that slot while retaining my existing drive. It should make map making much quicker as will it help loading any large file.

I also need some more Lolin32 development boards for projects and a 12 volt power supply for the reading and wake up light I’m building over my bed using warm white LED tape that I got sent to me a few weeks ago from China. Like my other lights it will be Arduino controlled and have a timer to wake me up on dark weekday mornings. I think I will be in the poor house by the time I do all that especially if I decide to buy that big certificate of deposit at the end of the month. More shivering at home and doing things for free like walking places I guess. I have plenty of food for now and gas in my truck so I can avoid spending there, I expect the state inspection to go well later in the month, no repairs needed. After I filled the tires up in the truck three noisys stopped.

My neices Christmas gift is almost finished once I finish soldering in the ultraviolet black light LEDs, finish the code, and get some glow in the dark spray paint for some of the glass beads. ✨The heavy glass star coffee table decoration I’m building turns various colors, blinks and flashes, and uses black light to make anything florescent nearby glow aggressively.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until First Sunday of Advent ✝️ when the sun will be setting at 4:22 pm with dusk at 4:54 pm. On that day in 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 41 and 26 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 41 degrees. We hit a record high of 66 back in 1998.

Good morning! After the long weekend, the work week returns. The good news: four weeks to Christmas. That’s a Monday, so it’s also a long weekend. Mostly cloudy and 39 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a west breeze at 14 mph. The skies will clear around 11 am. Cool but clear later on today.

Today will be mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny, with a high of 40 degrees at 11am. Three degrees below normal. Breezy, with a northwest wind 14 to 20 mph, with gusts as high as 31 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 42 degrees. The record high of 66 was set in 1896. 4.8 inches of snow fell back in 1940.

The sun will set at 4:24 pm with dusk around 4:55 pm, which is 27 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly clear conditions and 36 degrees. Breezy, 17 mph breeze from the west-northwest. Today will have 9 hours and 21 minutes of daytime, a decrease of one minute and 35 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low of 18 degrees at 5am. 10 degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 13 at 5am; Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2016, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 20 degrees. The record low of 6 occurred back in 1951.

I ended up catching the later bus to work today, because my sinuses were really plugged when I first got up, and struggled to get moving this morning. I think I will be fine today at work. I don’t know if was coming in from the cold weather that plugged them up or if I picked up another bug along the way. I guess I should have stayed home but if I stayed home every time I felt a little sick from my mildewy apartment, I would never be at work. 

It was a nice trip this past weekend, and by taking NY 30 to Delanson Church Road, past Mariaville to US 20 I avoided almost all of the holiday traffic coming home. I wish I could have had somewhat better weather but indeed, it’s late November. You can’t expect real warm and sunny days this time of year. I’m still hopeful that later in the next few weeks I can get back up north. So far next weekend looks pretty nice but things can change. Next Monday might be a good one to take off to extend the weekend. If the forecast remains true for the next seven days. 

I accidentally posted a bunch of pictures yesterday, that were supposed to be posted over time. There is a bug in the code of my blog, Still I have several more to go through and post over time.  I think I made some nice videos and will have more maps and interactive content to post this week. People complain that I whine too much about our country going to all hell in a hand basket but I don’t care. Hopefully with winter coming I can dig through some data and make up more maps and charts. I’ve been busy lately, and spending more time working on electronics then coming up with interesting infographics. 

Today is cyber Monday but I’ve not seen any M.2 SSD drives at an affordable price for my laptop, at least not at the price I want. I’ve heard there is a real or imaginary shortage of flash memory, which is keeping prices up. Plus with my smartphone and growing interest in electronics, I use my laptop less and less, and I’m not really sure how much faster QGIS would be on an SSD as it’s mostly CPU intensive once booted.

That said, I’m looking at electronics soldering irons as my soldering gun will be much too hot for electronic work. I also want to buy some perf board and non-lead solder and solder wick to start permanently assembling my electronics projects. I’m going to master non-lead solder as that’s the future even if it’s harder to work with as it doesn’t flow as well. Plus it’s less toxic when the electronics are discarded and burnt. 

Looking ahead, there are 4 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 then mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 43 and 21 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 66 back in 1889.