(Via It's About The Story.)

The 2-year terms of Trustees Charles Becker and Don Norman are expiring. The election is in March, but the caucuses to select candidates will be held Tuesday, January 31st.

Republicans will be meeting at 7:30pm Tuesday at 1 West Main Street. (I think that's the Dryden Cafe, or maybe they're next door in their former headquarters?)

Democrats will be meeting at 8:00pm Tuesday at Village Hall, 16 South Street.

(I think a June primary is a good idea generally, and hope the state accepts its wisdom. We'll see how it works this year, however.)

The soldiers going to Kuwait are expected to deploy in April.

The soldiers expect to be on federal active duty for up to 12 months, but the Army continues to review and reduce forces needed overseas. Some soldiers may be released sooner than the one-year deployment timeline if the Army makes further changes to the mission.

Current plans call for the New York Army National Guard to deploy to Kuwait soldiers of the 2nd Battalion, 108th Infantry, which is headquartered in Utica and has elements in Morrisonville, Ogdensburg, Saranac Lake, Gloversville, Glenville, Geneseo, Ithaca, and Leeds with additional Soldiers volunteering from New York City and Long Island.

They'll be holding a ceremony at the Armory this Sunday, January 29th, at 2:00pm to honor their members as they set off. (The Ithaca Armory is at 1765 Hanshaw Road, accessible from Abbott Road on the south side of the Route 13 / Hanshaw Road intersection.)

What do snow, tornadoes and groundhogs have in common? Come to the Freeville Potluck Dinner THIS SATURDAY starting at 5:30pm! Meteorologist Drew Montreuil will be talking after dinner [7pm?] about lake effect snow, tornadoes in New York, and who is a better forecaster: himself or Punxsutawney Phil!

I gave a talk last night to the Varna Volunteer Fire Company about weather disasters, exploring some of the extremes we've had here, how forecasting is getting better at predicting (some of) these things, and what people can do to help.

I've posted a PDF of When the Weather Becomes Deadly (1.5MB) if you're curious. The first half is mostly history, and the second half is more forecasting and helping forecasters.

(It's hard posting talks, because everyone seems to hold their photos too close and copyright makes the risks pretty ugly. I think this talk dodges that, though mostly because I didn't include too many photos.)

Thanks to the Dryden Town Historical Society, Elsie Gutchess, Gina Prentiss, Mike Lane, Carol Kammen, Duane Testut, and Dawn Potter for helping with the history. Thanks to Highway Superintendent Jack Bush for using his photos, and to David Makar for his ice storm photo. Thanks to the VVFC for having me, and thanks to the National Weather Service for holding Basic Spotter SKYWARN training here last year.

looks like a man wearing an elaborate, feathered headdress while projectile vomiting.

Dryden, of course, is one of the projectiles. Great.

Proposed NYS Senate and Assembly maps.

Dryden seems to be in the same gerrymandered Senate and Assembly districts as before. (Abe Lincoln loses his hat, but that's about it. It looks like the Senate district now runs up to a split-up Auburn, too.)

"Our" legislators have no shame whatsoever. I'll dream about Governor Cuomo vetoing this nonsense, but I won't hold my breath.

Update: Proposed State Legislature maps are available.

I guess State Senator Jim Seward's earlier comments about home rule didn't sit well with the Dryden Safe Energy Coalition folks. Tracy Marisa (of One of Nine and webmaster of the DSEC) writes to argue that local government should stay out of the drilling conversation.

I never thought I'd see the day when Republicans would argue that New York State regulation was the conservative solution and that the DEC was our reliable guardian. Somehow, though, that's been the story for the past six months or so.

I guess that makes Texas, where home rule is just a given in the drilling conversation, a bunch of crazy hippies, and not just in Austin.

Update: And the pro-fracking forces are even praising the President. Maybe "forget the local, forget the State. This should be federal!" will be coming soon to Dryden?

Today the estimates for the recoverable gas in the Marcellus fell in another estimate, from last year's 410 trillion cubic feet to the EIA's current 141 trillion cubic feet. Chesapeake, one of the most visible of the gas companies, is cutting back its production in the face of ever-lower gas prices. (Futures are down to $2.32 per 1000 cubic feet.)

It's hard for me to make sense of the enthusiasm of the "let's drill now" crowd, when gas seems to be so abundant that you can't make the money back drilling new wells. I think, though, that I finally found an explanation that works. Oil prices, unlike natural gas prices, are still historically high, and this has a side effect for natural gas:

Large amounts of natural gas are produced in conjunction with the production of hydraulically fractured shale oil and in association with conventional oil drilling. Given the price differential between oil and gas at present many companies have changed their focus to shale oil or liquids rich shale gas to enhance economic returns. Although much associated gas in the production of shale oil is simply flared, as in the Bakken play in North Dakota, much is also produced into the market even at current low prices.

As that article makes very clear, the decline rates on shale gas and shale oil wells are very fast, so this situation won't last forever. I'm guessing, though, that even if New York State gave drillers everything they claim they want in the dSGEIS, we wouldn't see an army of drilling rigs crossing the border the first day it was legal. I suspect we'd see some test wells to see how things look, and then a wait for gas prices to climb to a level where drilling these intensive and expensive wells is profitable.

Given that, I suspect the gas companies are quite pleased with the delays in New York. It lets them argue that the leases they bought cheaply should be extended while they wait for prices to go up, and gives them a story to tell impatient investors who thought they'd have the money by now. Their lawsuits and lobbying are still important - after all, they want to be able to get to New York's gas in the long run, and they have a core group of dedicated supporters pushing hard now. It's much harder to put that kind of enthusiasm on hold and bring it back later than to sustain resistance.

Overall, though, I can't help thinking that the gas companies' outrage at New York State's delays is theater meant for Wall Street and a few politicians. Some days I wonder if Dryden is stuck as a bit player in a pump-and-dump stock swindle, forced to defend itself against projects whose value is far less certain than the costs.

Ice lantern stubs.

Sunday night looks like the next possible time to make any lanterns, and even that's kind of iffy.

A Dryden banner visiting the legislature. (Provided by Judith Pierpont.)

The Ithaca Journal has more on the lobbying day.

an employee at an independent software development consulting firm who allowed unauthorized access to one of the companies' customer information systems. The customer records contain Social Security numbers, dates of birth and, in some cases, financial institution account numbers.

Of course, the data may have been just as unprotected before NYSEG was bought out - at least I don't think we heard of any breaches. A year of credit monitoring service from a company that I'm sure will hope to sell us continuing credit monitoring services doesn't really make things better.

Want to know more? Here's the letter you'll likely be getting, the press release, and the frequently asked questions (FAQ). It sounds to me like it was their main billing data, though I'd love to be wrong and find out that it was a smaller subset.

Let's hope they do a better job with natural gas than they do with personal information.

The main problem I've had is that candles melt everything around them, or just melt to the bottom, get put out by water, and then freeze into the lantern again. That makes it really hard to reuse the lanterns, as the old candle is usually inconvenient.

To deal with that, I've added 1/2" drain holes. They may fill eventually, but they'll at least let a lot of water out first. I've also added silicone pieces (cut from a baking tray liner) below the candles. They make it a lot easier to get the candle level, and should keep the candle from melting through the ice below. (I might be able to use tea lights in metal cups with that too. I'm not sure.)

Silicone under the candle.

New lantern shining on a stump by the driveway.

Even the old, imperfect, and sometimes downright weird ones can be beautiful, though.

Old lanterns, molded by warmth and rain.

Four old and two new lanterns.

Next year, I think I'll explore some of these suggestions for making bigger and better ones.