March 16, 2019 Night

Good evening! Cloudy and 32 degrees in Delmar, NY. โ˜ There is a west-northwest breeze at 13 mph. ๐Ÿƒ. Remarkably chilly out with the breeze. Things will start to thaw out at tomorrow around 11 am. ๐ŸŒก๏ธ

Today was kind of lazy day, working on some code and other projects ๐Ÿ“™walked down to the library for a bit and watched some YouTube videos ๐ŸŽฅI had previously download. Turned my bedroom lights green for a bit but I enjoyed being out of the busyiness of the week that was. The upside of today is that it was warm enough that the heat remained off in my apartment for the bulk of the day. Kind of raw for going for a walk around the neighborhood, ๐Ÿšถ it was sleeting pretty hard when I walked down to the library earlier. I really should have ridden the excerise bike ๐Ÿšฒ more or gone for a walk but I was kind of fried from the week that was. Since reseasoning my cast iron skillet and using ample oil at low temperatures I was able to make awesome omlets again at home without that awful off taste. ๐Ÿณ Good breakfast today for sure.

Tonight will have a chance of snow showers, mainly before midnight. Mostly clear ๐ŸŒง, with a low of 23 degrees at 6am. Three degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical night around March 10th. Maximum wind chill around 14 at 6am; West wind 10 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. In 2018, we had light snow in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 15 degrees. The record low of -1 occurred back in 1916.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon ๐ŸŒ” with 87% illuminated. The moon will set at 5:03 am. The Worm Moon ๐ŸŒ• is on Tuesday night with partly cloudy skies. The sun will rise at 7:04 am with the first light at 6:36 am, which is one minute and 44 seconds earlier than yesterday. ๐ŸŒ„ Tonight will have 11 hours and 59 minutes of darkness, a decrease of 2 minutes and 55 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be mostly sunny ๐ŸŒž, with a high of 37 degrees at 2pm. Eight degrees below normal, which is similiar to a typical day around February 25th. Northwest wind 11 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 23 mph. Another cold day but at least fairly sunny. ๐Ÿƒ It could be worse if was January though. I’m ready to shut the heat off for the winter but gawd is not conforming. A year ago, we had partly cloudy in the morning, which became mostly sunny by afternoon. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 75 was set in 1990. 4.1 inches of snow fell back in 1982.โ„

Going to check the oil ๐Ÿš—in the truck and fill the windshield washer reservior, bake some brownies and visit my parents house ๐Ÿก tomorrow for Sunday dinner. They are making corn beef ๐Ÿƒ and cabbage. ๐Ÿ€Should be a good Saint Patricks Day. On the way out I’ll probably stop at Keheler Preserve and go for a walk there. I’m still trying to save gas and miles at least until the billing cycle closes on my credit card, so I don’t have to move money around to close out April and can make my April road trip a reality. Camp. โ›บ

In four weeks on April 13 the sun will be setting at 7:35 pm,๐ŸŒ„ which is 32 minutes and 5 seconds later then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 63 and 40 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 57 and 37 degrees. The record high of 87 degrees was set back in 1977.

It got pretty nice out in last evening, it was 70 degrees in my apartment when I got home. Very comfortable. ๐Ÿ˜Š It had cleared out mid afternoon so I had a quick dinner ๐Ÿฒ and went down to the park.

I didn’t bring a book ๐Ÿ“™ as I know the sun still sets pretty early and I had my phone ๐Ÿ“ฑ to play with. I thought ๐Ÿ’ญ about walking ๐Ÿšถ the nature trail but the park โ›ฒ was very soggy from the recently melted snow with still frost in the ground below the snow.

Sitting down at the park a man approached and asked if he could sit down on the bench next to me. ๐Ÿ‘ฎ He looked a bit like a police officer or maybe a park staff person, wearing a yellow construction ๐Ÿšง vest like some of the officers do on traffic duty. I honestly figured it was a new park manager ๐ŸŽ„ just reminding people that the park closes up at dusk ๐ŸŒ† except for around the tennis courts ๐ŸŽพ.

He asked if I was from around here. I told him sure, I live down the street. He asked about where I worked, and told him about my job downtown. I told him I came down for a walk ๐Ÿšถ, some fresh air and to get the free Wi-Fi ๐Ÿ“ถ. I said it was a nice sunset. I said I like waking because it’s healthy and driving is kind of expensive.

That’s when things got kind of weird. ๐Ÿ˜œ He started talking about walking around Troy then asked if I heard the voices talking to him. I said it was getting late and I needed to head home ๐Ÿก. He just continued on the bench, and I walked away. He said, God bless and make sure to keep yourself clean.๐Ÿšญ I’m glad that I don’t smoke or drink much anymore. It’s so unhealthy.

The whole situation was really kind of odd, especially because he was dressed nicely and well groomed like a traffic officer or park personnel with the uniform vest on. Maybe he was a town employee who has some mental issues but does a good job as a maintenence guy working ๐Ÿ‘ท for the parks department. Not appearing somebody who was mentally ill or for that matter inarticulate. But the guy really creeped me out. I guess some people are just odd balls. โšฝ I’ve never had that happen before over the nearly 12 years I’ve lived in Delmar. He seemed harmless but you never know.

I walked home ๐Ÿก and got milk ๐Ÿฎ at Stewart’s. I sat out back and had a beer ๐Ÿบ that I brought home from Brooklyn Night. After the sun set the temperature rapidly dropped, especially with all the melting snow around. I went inside, watched some videos and retired to bed.

Looking ahead, Arbor Day ๐ŸŒณ is in 6 weeks, 8 PM Sunset ๐ŸŒ‡ is in 7 weeks, Average High is 70 ๐Ÿฎ is in 2 months, June ๐Ÿน is in 11 weeks, Fathers Day ๐Ÿ‘จ is in 3 months, Average High is 80 ๐Ÿ– is in 14 weeks, Hottest Time of the Year ๐Ÿ˜… is in 17 weeks, Last Sunset After 8:30 PM ๐ŸŒ† is in 4 months and Average High Falls To 79 ๏ธDegrees โ›ฑ๏ธ๏ธ๏ธ is in 23 weeks.

Photo.2013.03.10 18.37.22[2]

More on Continuing to Pull Back from Social Media

I continue to pull back from social media, deleting old posts and removing automatic posting from my blog to social media sites. Why?

1) Social media sites are very constraining on layout and design. With paid hosting that I use, I have almost complete freedom in content and design.

2) Social media sites have become swamps of nasty comments and dens of angry people. The nature of easy commenting, makes it easy for people to “flame” and tell you why you are wrong or your ideas lack merit.

3) Facebook is becoming an increasingly closed and proprietary platform. Not only are they very aggressive with censorship, they have all but eliminated the largest developers from using their API. They want users to create “custom content” exclusively for their platform, and not be sharing it from other sites.

4) Facebook not only requires extensive vetting to use their application programming interface, they constantly break their API, requiring countless hours and updates to make your software keep working for them. My Twitter and Instagram code haven’t been updated in years, and they keep plugging along, but Facebook keeps breaking.

Simply said, I like doing my own thing. I don’t want to spend countless hours updating a Facebook page or being limited by a design set out by major corporation. I may lose followers, but I’d rather work on my own blog.

Ice Covered Lake