Good evening! Partly clear and 73 degrees in Delmar, NY. There is a south-southeast breeze at 6 mph. The dew point is 64 degrees. Sitting out back working on this blog post. Soon I’ll head to bed and put on a podcast. 

Tonight will have patchy fog after midnight. Otherwise, partly cloudy, with a low of 62 degrees at 5am. 11 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 64 at 8pm. Southeast wind around 6 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2016, we had mostly cloudy skies. It was sticky. It got down to 65 degrees. The record low of 32 occurred back in 1959.

Tonight will have a new moon. The Hunter Moon is on Thursday, October 5th. The sun will rise at 6:39 am with the first light at 6:11 am, which is one minute and 4 seconds later than yesterday. Tonight will have 11 hours and 41 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers, mainly after 1pm. Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, partly sunny, with a high of 76 degrees at 2pm. Five degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 65 at 12pm. Light northeast wind increasing to 5 to 9 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had cloudy skies, clearing in the afternoon. It was very sticky. The high last year was 78 degrees. The record high of 90 was set in 1946.

Awesome weekend on tap, with temperatures running 13 degrees above normal. Saturday, sunny, with a high near 81. Maximum dew point of 61 at 7pm. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 84. Maximum dew point of 64 at 4pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 69 degrees.

Going to be such a nice weekend I should plan on going somewhere nice. Maybe Moose River Plains would be perfect or maybe I’ll wait another week. I might take off next Monday, we will see. 

This evening is remarkably sticky for late September. I guess in Colonie they had some big downpours according to the Weather Underground alert I had mailed to my phone, but we didn’t get them here in Delmar.

Cooked some dinner and are headed down at the Bethlehem Public Library. Nice evening for sitting out on the bench, although it’s almost humid enough to warrant heading inside. Still it seemed like nine o’clock came around too quickly and it was time to go home.

After playing with my volt meter with the relay that controls my CB radio, I figured out why the 87A pin is not hot when the truck is shut off and the CB relay is not excited. The blue and red wires are reversed on the relay, so right now I have the input hooked to pin 87 and the output to pin 30. That works fine and is safe but it means when the relay is in the unexciting position, no current flows to pin 87A. I can fix that easily by swapping the wires, but alas it’s after dark, I lack crimp connectors and heat shrink to make good, secure connections that will last over the bumps and bangs of the road. I can get them an Auto zone but this is going to have to wait until a future evening. I’m thinking of adding an extra fuse for safety. I have an unused ATC fuse holder from my old truck if I can find it. I don’t know if I have any ATC fuses and they are rather bulky and old fashioned so I might get a modern mini fuse holder. 

I got in the mail today the circular polarizer for the dash cam which should improve the quality of video it makes, especially on bright sunny days by cutting down on window glare. This is a real problem with the dash cam especially in the winter on snow covered fields. I’m hoping it will make the skies bluer and fall colors more vibrant too. 

To complement my Bluetooth keyboard I bought a desk mount to hold the phone vertically and an inexpensive Bluetooth mouse. This will make using my phone for typing blog posts and basic web surfing, as easy as having the laptop and wifi. But a lot more compact and cheaper. I can bring this along on vacation and be able to type my blog posts each evening quite easily.

Speaking of which, I took off the week of October 10-13th, Columbus Day Week for a trip most likely to West Virigina and the Blue Ridge Parkway, although I could change my mind and stay in New York. I think it would be a very nice trip though to go back down there, but I don’t know if I would do Shenandoah National Park or spend nearly as much time in West Virigina. I think I’d rather drive the Blue Ridge Parkway more, avoid those steep, stressful hills and just challenging to drive roads of West Virginia. I also hate the lack of cell service in West Virginia, as I like being connected with the world. I would like to get further south on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Things though could change before then. 

In four weeks on October 16 the sun will be setting at 6:10 pm, which is 48 minutes and 12 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2016 on that day, we had rain, drizzle, mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 68 and 45 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 60 and 39 degrees. The record high of 88 degrees was set back in 1947.

Looking ahead, Election Day 2017 is in 7 weeks, Average High is 40 is in 8 weeks, Election Day 2018 is in 59 weeks and Election Day 2020 is in 163 weeks.