Jan 01, 2008 -------------------------------------- Watched the Rose Bowl parade this morning at 11. Beforehand we made a grocery run to Krogers. After the parade we walked the lake our second day in a row. It was windy but in the fifties. Dinner was the Slider burgers Joe left behind on his Hawaiian sweet bread. We watched Huntington Beach OC on TRU television tonight. A contrived show with lifeguard rescues and beach hijinks. Heard from Joe in Tennessee that they watched it as well. Jan 02, 2008 -------------------------------------- A pretty cold day but bright and sunny. I made much progr,z.ess on Nieto - rewriting the log handler. It seems to work OK now without duplicates. I'm using the test server Jack has set up on his machine. I'm also trying a diet. We went over to Trader Joes for things we couldn't get yesterday because they were c;losed for New YEars. Dinner tonight was pasta. We made a 10:30 PM run over to the greenhouse because it was cold inside - the probe was reading 56. It's 27 right now but going to 18 tonight. Hope it doesn't make it there. Jan 03, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on fixing the inlet for the greenhouse inflation. The top wasn't inflated very well so we were losing heat. The inlet was clogged. Need to make a better adapter to go from the rectangular blower opening to the round tubing that inflates the greenhouse. Dinner was some Kung Pao chicken that we got in Trader Joe's Wednesday. Jan 04, 2008 -------------------------------------- Got all of the pictures sized and sent to Nancy Hayes for the AVSA calendar. I wasn't planning this but got it done anyway. Made a plywood adapter for the inflation blower in house 1&2 and installed it. Trying to get the greenhouse inflated better. The sidewall appears to be shot and won't hold air. Talked to Bill about a renter for March. Called Pat and we're still not rented. Libbie said we should give her one more week. Put the extension cord on the fig tree on the back porch. Picked it up in Home Depot today along with some new spotlights for the greenhouse main aisle. Dinner was crab cakes with tomato on a bun. Jan 07, 2008 -------------------------------------- The exercise machine arrived today. We unboxed it in the driveway and carried the pieces upstairs where I spent the afternoon assembling it on the floor. Jan 08, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did a grocery run this morning while trying to figure out the NTP frame. Received the new Nieto board this morning and was disappointed that the Wiz module didn't fit. Will still populate it to find out if there's anything else wrong with it. Dinner tonight was pasta. Jan 09, 2008 -------------------------------------- Dinner was Citrus glazed chicken from Trader Joes. Jan 10, 2008 -------------------------------------- Got the new board functioning with AVR Studio. The problem was backwards LED, misplaced components and Studio was in Simulator mode. Crabcakes on a hoagy roll for dinner. Jan 11, 2008 -------------------------------------- Called Mom for her birthday this morning. HEard that Lib had called earlier. She seemed to be up in spirits, mainly because she was getting a cake and everybody was coming over. We went to Sams today for the first time in a long time. Needed some dishwashing soap, yeast and a few other odds and ends. Stopped by Trader Joes and Kmart on the way home. Got more dishes in Kmart then picked up frozen stuffed salmon in Traders. Dinner was crab stuffed salmon with squash and Chardonnay. I wanted to download Windows Home Server from a Warez site. Tried using my credit card for a trial membership to a porn site which is what they recommended. Got a call from the Credit Union security - there was a $40 charge on my card which I didn't authorize in addition to the $3 trial membership. They cancelled the card. The warze thing ended up being a scam - couldn't download anything. Jan 12, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on the NTP frame this morning, did 18 minutes of elliptical, took a shower and got ready for the opera early. HAd an apple for lunch. We left around 12:10 for the 1:30 opera. Had to stand in line at theater 4 in North Hills. The place looks like Disneyworld with the trees in pots and all lit up with tiny lights. We parked downstairs. The opera was spectacular even though MacBeth is not one of my favorites. Afterwards we foraged for shrimp and squash in Harris Teeter which we had for dinner with Shiraz. A very nice day. Jan 13, 2008 -------------------------------------- Picked up a paper this morning at 7:20, it's still pretty mild outside. Did 19 minutes on the elliptical. Jan 14, 2008 -------------------------------------- I found the Windows home Server product on bit torrent. Downloaded it. Now I need some server hardware. Jan 15, 2008 -------------------------------------- Wasn't planning on a grocery trip but Libbie wanted almonds for her trip. Went to Trader Joes and picked up a minimal amount of stuff. Same with Krogers. Had to pay cash at both places since my credit card is suspended. Jan 16, 2008 -------------------------------------- There's snow predicted for Libbie's flight tomorrow. Wish I could stay home and watch it from the fireplace. Oh well. Went out to NAD and got gas. Price is down a little to 2.98 a gallon. Picked up 9 gals since I have to drive to sculpting and also to the airport tomorrow. Started a new sculpture tonight - our model is a gorgeous 27 year old named Samantha. I had a tamale before leaving for sculpting. On the way home I noticed that the roads are pre treated with brine for tomorrow's event. Jan 17, 2008 -------------------------------------- We woke this morning to a cold rain but noticed some white snow areas in the woods. No problem at all getting to the airport for Libbie's 8:45 flight. Left home at 7 and got to the airport around 7:25. On the way back I stopped in Brueggers and picked up a bagel with cream cheese. It's been a long time and it was good. I tweaked the draft for NIETO and started cleaning up the other documentation. Libbie called from Baltimore and said it was snowing there. Dinner was a Lean cuisine glazed chicken. We missed the snowstorm today Jan 18, 2008 -------------------------------------- My new credit card came today. Went to the Credit union and withdrew money in case I go to the theater on Sunday afternoon. Took pictures of Nieto for my article. Also started coding up some http for a web browser for configuration. Went to the greenhouse and tended to the inflation blower. It still has an air leak at the blower to tin transition. Had a stuffed cabbage dinner Lean Cuisine. Went to bed late after researching httpd processing. DDJ had a nice article on this. Jan 19, 2008 -------------------------------------- Woke up this morning to a light rain and 40 degrees. They're saying it's going to get colder and change to snow. We'll see. Jan 20, 2008 -------------------------------------- Supposed to be ice this morning but when I went out for the paper around 8, all seemed well. Later in the morning I noticed Buckingham Wat was sanded. Went to Tristan at 3. Jim was out sick but His friend Jim was there. IT was an incredible performance. Two of the stars from today will be in the Met performance in March. I was blown away and had chills. Came home at 8:30 and saw the Caller I had 22 calls on it. Called Lib to find out what's up - she said there was a tragedy, Barbara's house burned down. I asked how was Barbara and Libbie replied "she's deceased". I was sick and heartbroken. Went to the greenhouse because it was reporting 57. Outside was 22 degrees already. Stayed there until about 11:30 hooking up a fan to blow house 2 into house 1 and also plugged the house 3 heater in to run it all night warming house 2. I couldn't sleep, fell asleep at 3 and woke up again at 5. Jan 21, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went over to the greenhouse at 8:30 to unplug the heater. Saw Jennifer and told her about Barbara. Later in the day I received some links to stories from Cynthia. Truly heartbreaking. Jan 22, 2008 -------------------------------------- Talked to Vicki today about Helen's bank account then called both nursing homes for info but got nowhere. I made arrangements for plane tickets and rental car in Philly. Leaving here Thursday morn, arriving at 10:30 in Philly. The funeral is Friday at 9. Went to Home Depot and got some track lighting for Libbie's cutting table. Worked out where it's going to go but don't like the junction box size so I didn't cut a hole. Jan 23, 2008 -------------------------------------- Cut the track lighting hole this morning after picking up a smaller junction box in Ace along with batteries and a longer handset cord for our bedroom phone. Wired it up in the attic but ran out of time before picking ;Libbie up. Left at 1:15 - her plane arrived at 1:35. I waited in the Sheetz parking lot for her call. After lunch we went to Home Depot, the Greenhouse and the Credit Union. Bought the Track lighting cans for the tracks over the sewing table. Got everything hooked up before leaving for sculpture at 6. Dinner was Wedding Soup - very good. This was our last night for Samantha. New pose and model next week. Came home and packed for the funeral trip tomorrow. Jan 24, 2008 -------------------------------------- Woke the normal time, had breakfast then left at 8:15 for the 10:15 flight. Upon checking in I found it was canceled and called Lib who came back to the airport to get me. I'm scheduled now for the 12:05. Left home at 10:30 and got to the airport just before 11. Went straight to the gate and waited. We left on time and arrived a little early in Philly. The flight was very smooth. I read the Donald Trump library book, Think Big and Kick Ass. At the Hertz counter they gave me a Khia which I found out when I went outside was an SUV. I marched back in and exchanged it for a Gold Corolla. Later I noticed it was very smokey. Stopped in Cramers in Yardley and got some eclairs and a powder sugar tart cookie. The ride went well - it was dark, cold and gloomy. Went straight to Sheenans and got there at 3:30. The afternoon wake is over at 4. Took Helen to Watchung Ridge after she visited with Mom. Paul helped with lifting her in and out of the wheelchair and car. Came home and the girls were over visiting Grandma. One of them ordered some very good pizza. Cynthia, Jack, Andy and David stopped over before round 2 of the wake. Left at 7:30 for the next batch of calling hours which went until 9. It was standing room only and a line to get into Sheenans. I took a few pictures of everything. Jan 25, 2008 -------------------------------------- Woke early but couldn't go out because the aide was there for Mom's bath. After all this I walked to the bagel shop and got 4 bagels which was a waste sinc e I was the only one who had one. Left a little late for the funeral - got to Arlene's a little after 8. Went in for our last viewing before they started the procession to the church. Mass was at 9 - it was pretty terrible but the Eulogy by the boys and one of the nurses was very touching. Afterwards we got in the procession to the cemetery. Arlene drove and boy is she hyper. I told Rich she needs therapy. Little tiny things set her off like the car in front of us was stopping for the Stop sign and we were in a funeral procession. We went to Carpaccio's after a very cold and windy gravesite service. The pewter coffin was over the hole surrounded by flowers. It was very sad. At the restaurant i ordered stuffed flounder. it came with a Farfalli appetizer and an iceburg salad. We didn't stay for desert. Jack and Cynthia came later to Mom's house with the two dogs which they put on the bed with Mom. They drove me to Arlene's to get my car. On the way back I stopped at Barbara's house to take pictures then went to the cemetery. The coffin was in the ground, the dirt replaced and flowers over the grave. I was the only one in the very cold cemetery. Took some pictures and went back to Mom's. Vicki came over with nancy and Lauren - Nancy left and I drove Vicki home and stayed at her house until the rush hour traffic subsided. The cars were lined up coming down the hill on Warrenville Rd. Stopped in Burger King on 22 for a Whopper Jr and fries for dinner. Jan 26, 2008 -------------------------------------- Left Mom's a little late - was sitting on her stool having coffee and a corn muffin. On the way home stopped at Dunkin donuts for a large coffee. Took Rt 1 - Saturday traffic was very light and most of the lights were in my favor. Stopped at McDonalds outside of Yardley for a biscuit and more coffee, got gas at 3.13 then went to the airport with time to spare. I tried calling Lib at10:30 AM shile sitting at the gate. My Pay Per View phone wasn't cooperating. It took many redials to finally get a connection. This thing works better in Alltel territory. The flight was very smooth and early. Lib was crossing Crabtree Lake when I called her. Came home and went to Target to exchange one of the black pairs of pants I bought and also got our groceries which included Skim Milk, Lean Cuisines and Ribs for dinner tonight. We had the ribs with sweet potatoes and Shiraz. Watched Miss America afterwards but I fell asleep during it. Jan 27, 2008 -------------------------------------- Woke a little late this morning, finally got into the shower. It wasn't possible at Mom's house with the busy schedule and the aids and caretaker there. Had my normal shredded wheat then went over to McDonalds for a paper but the machine wasn't working. Went to Perkins and found a much nicer machine that is newer. I may use this one in the future. Went over to the greenhouse to diagnose the heater in House 3. The heat exchanger has a big crack in it. We need to replace the heater then rig it up to heat both house 2 when needed as well as house 3. Organized my pictures, studied Barbaras funeral some more and caught up on this journal. Jan 28, 2008 -------------------------------------- Talked to Nancy's Knit Knacks today and also Comcast about our bill which is in disarray. They didn't take the phone off our account. Nany's sent me some specs for their electronics projects. I made an estimate and sent it to them. We're going to meet tomorrow at 3. Ordered the new heater for house 3 this afternoon from LR Gorrel. A heat exchanger is 1200 but a new heater is 1500. The difference is more than worth it since we get new controls and a new burner assembly. Hopefully the weather iwll cooperate in the next 2 to 3 weeks. Jan 29, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the grocery run today - got a lot of seafood from Trader Joe's since Libbie wanted seafood. Dinner tonight was Trader Joes SPinach and cheese pasta. Jan 30, 2008 -------------------------------------- Had some spicy chicken and veggies from Trader Joes before running off to sculpting. I found a rubbermaid tub in Krogers for my sculpting tools. We had a new model tonight. Tanya is older and much curvier than past girls. She has huge boobs. We have her in a standing pose. Kim does excellent sculpture - she is using black clay and is almost finished in one evening. Jan 31, 2008 -------------------------------------- Bill and Bar called at 7:20 AM this morning as they were approaching I-4 in Tampa. We told them we go either way - I-4 or 301 diagonally. The arrived in Apex at 6 PM. We had homemade chili which was outstanding with Corn Bread and red wine. Feb 01, 2008 -------------------------------------- Today's an ugly rainy day but we need the rain. High was in the upper thirties. Bill and Barb left at 6 this morning and called us in the evening that they were in RI at 6:20 PM. 50 miles inland from the coast it was icy but they hugged the coast and were mostly OK except for Westchester county where they said the trees ere icy. We went to First Friday this evening. Parked in the PGN garage, walked over to ArtSpace then had a lovely dinner in Fins. IT was excellent - one of our more memorable outings. Got home by 9 PM. Our dinner reservation was for 7:45. Feb 02, 2008 -------------------------------------- A nice day - sunny and mild. Worked on the layout for Kahlo then looked some at the software. In the PM I listened to Walkure while working on the layout. For dinner Lib took our Trader Joe's large scallops and cooked them in a wine and brandy reduction sauce with rice and green beans topped off with Chardonnay. A very memorable meal. Feb 03, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to the greenhouse this morning after the paper and cleaned up the fertilizer injector. It now seems to be sucking in fertilizer. Need to order a new housing since the old one's cracked. Went back home and returned with the chain saw and hacked back some of the hollies. Feb 04, 2008 -------------------------------------- Dinner tonight was leftover chili. Feb 05, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the grocery store thing today as usual. Talked with Vicki about the banking situation. She was at Aunt Helens and got some papers signed for the account. This is pretty difficult. Dinner tonight was Pasta. Feb 06, 2008 -------------------------------------- Received the Digikey parts today a day early which was good. PC Boards won't be here till tomorrow. Worked on putting the program together. Libbie fixed some pasta before sculpting. I worked a little on Sam at home - I'm pleased. Do not like my Tanya sculpture. Her body is OK but not my type. Feb 07, 2008 -------------------------------------- The PC Card for Kahlo arrived this morning. I immediateley started populating it and stayed up till midnight until I got the LED to blink. This Atmega is an enhanced Atmega16 and had different register names. I also changed the timer to a compare type instead of overflow. Got it all to work but it looks like the LCD does not have 5 volts. Needs to be wired. Dinner this evening was crab cakes. Feb 08, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent a lot of the day getting bank stuff taken care of. Vicki faxed the documents which I signed, had notarized, scanned and faxed back. I used the built in faxing ability of Mazeppa. Microsoft has print to fax built in and if you have a modem, it works well. Dinner was special - Libbie and I went to Krogers to get their Salmon which we had with Acorn squash and a single glass of Shiraz. Feb 09, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent some time this morning trying to get online access at BAC. Found out that they don't allow Power of Attorneys to get access. Talked to Vicki and she suggested I visit the local BAC office. Went to Casey Walter in Apex in front of the Crdit Union nad she saw my name on the account but wanted real papers before she would change the address. Went home, printed this stuff out and brought it to the bank. She then changed the address for me and ordered checks that I don't need. Went home, had chili for lunch on the very warm back porch then listened to the Beverly Sills opera this afternoon. They replayed an old recording as a tribute. Very nice. Worked some more on Kahlo getting the cursor to display, etc. Dinner tonight was St Louis style ribs that I picked up on Tuesday in Krogers because it was on sale, 11.99 instead of the normal 15.99 we pay for Lloyds in Target. We watched Bambi I and Bambi II tonight from my laptop onto the HDTV screen. It worked well. Feb 10, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the newspaper thing this morning then went over to the greenhouse and hung the fan I rebuilt. It will be cold tonight so I wanted this in case we need to blow heat into house 1. Most of the day did some online reading of systems and media centers. At 4:40 we went to the library to browse books - they were closing at 5 so we had to hurry. I got Redn Moon Rising and a book about the rise of Starbucks. It was very windy in the library parking lot. When we got home the driveway was littered with branches. Got a call from the greenhouse that the power was out. Went over there and couldn't get to Jessie baecasue the road was closed. Walked to the greenhouse while Lib stayed at 1010 and Smith to argue with the cop. The generator would not auto start but I was able to manually start it. Next problem was the heat relay was stuck on PGN. I plugged one heater into the FanJet outlet but the only way house 2 would start was by unplugging the Fanjet. Climbed up to the transfer switch and unstuck the heat relay. Stayed with the generator until 9 when the power came back. We had multiple problems. No flashlight, Libbie didn't have a coat, I only had a light jacket and light shirt, no meter, no extension cords. Bought new flashlight batteries at Krogers this evening for next time. We had soup for dinner when we returned at 9. Feb 11, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to the bank this morning and requested a new bank card as well as a new PIN for the account. Started looking at what the problem was with the generator last night. The thing started right up when I hooked my meter to it. Found the power connector to the controller card is flaky. The relays get their ground through this connector which is not good. Will improve this. I think this is why the relays wouldn't start the generator last night. Replaced the AC outlet for the modine in house 1. Half of it was bad. Instead of a household outlet, this time I put a commerical one in. Feb 12, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the grocery run this monring then went to Home Depot and bought 2x4's to slide the heater. Went to the greenhouse at 1 and met the Merritt delivery truck. He rolled the new heater into house 3. I started disconnecting the old heater and lowered the blower assembly before getting exhausted. Libbie helped me slide the old blower across the benches to house 4. Dinner this evening was Pasta. Feb 13, 2008 -------------------------------------- This morning I made some 4x6's for a Valentine card and had them printed at Walgreen. I also picked up another free razor in Rite Aid. $4 off coupon and $5 rebate makes it free. Went to the greenhouse and lowered the old heater then slid it on 2x4's across the benches from house 3 to house 4. To unhook the heater from the bar I used the hydraulic jack and a 2x4 to jack each side of the heater up while Libbie pulled the hook away from the support pipe. . Went back after lunch and rolled the new heater into house 4 then using 2x4's and pipes to roll on, rolled the heater in it's box across the benches. Stood it up in house 3 and cut the box way, installed chains. The new heater comes with 3/8 threaded holes and my rods are 1/2 ich. Moved the old hanger nuts from inside the old heater to the new heater. Have to take the heater sides off to do this. Went home in a pouring rain. Dinner was Glazed chicken from Trader Joes. Delicious!!! Asian veggies, rice and nuts made it very tasty. We watched American Idol after that. Feb 14, 2008 -------------------------------------- Bought some 1/4 inch iron bar and made straps for the pipe clamps to hold the pipe to the greenhouse bows. I raised the heater and hooked it to the pipes. This sounds easy but was an all day job. Came home and found a message from Vicki with the new ATM card number. Tried it with the password and now I'm into the BAC website for online bill paying. Paid the nursing home bill with this. Dinner was stuffed flounder and a glass of Shiraz. Veggies was brocoli. Feb 15, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went over to the greenhouse got the heater leveled and some new cables installed that I picked up in Home Depot. Also wired the AC and the thermostat. While I was up on the benchtops I also secured some of the hanging cooling water lines with copper wire. Left with Libbie and searched for stove pipes. Tried East Coast Distributors where we got the 7 inch lines last time but no deal. They sent us down the street to Virginia Air. Virginia Air was nice and called Johnstone Supply off of Tryon - they had the pipes we needed. Drove over there and also filled my gas tank for 2.86 a gallon on S Wilmington St because the gas light was on. Stopped by Lowes food where Libbie picked up some fixins for our dinner which was Trader Joe's Scallops with White wine and rice. Also dropped the pipes at the greenhouse on the way home. Will work on this tomorrow. After dinner this evening we watched Hairspray which I fell asleep during. Feb 16, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent the morning trying to hook up the stove pipe chimmney. Ended up using the second elbow to make the connection. This means I can't finish the chimmney until I get another elbow. Also hooked up the propane lines and tested them with soap. Left at 12:30 to hear Manon Lescaut which starts at 1. The opera was wonderful. This was the one we couldn't get HD tickets for. Afterwards I returned to the greenhhouse and adapted the transition piece to the front of the heater. The heater is smaller so the old transition needed to be adapted. Finished the job and returned home where Libbie fixed Butternut Squash and St Louis style ribs for dinner with Shiraz. Feb 17, 2008 -------------------------------------- Got the paper and then worked on Kahlo. Rewired the opamp and was able to get the thermistor voltage at the CPU. Tried using the Jtag to get the A/D converter working. Found a few programming errors and eventually was able to get A/D readings and display them on the LCD. Having touble with the keypresses. Pressing 2nd key changes the LCD to show A/D raw readings but then this key seems to be locked out of future scans. Feb 18, 2008 -------------------------------------- Picked up another elbow from Johnstone supply and finished the chimmney job. Tested the heater and all seems to be well. Ordered the parts for a Home server from NewEgg. The clincher was free shipping on a very nice Antec case. Feb 21, 2008 -------------------------------------- Received the case today from Newegg for my server. Feb 22, 2008 -------------------------------------- The motherboard and CPU arrived for the Server. Started putting it all together in my office. Feb 23, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked today installing the Windows Home Server Operating system in Traviata. Went to Traviata the opera from :La Scala in HD - left at 5:30 for 6 PM performance. Met Jim and his friends in the theater lobby. Beforehand we had a light supper. Got out of the theater at 8:45 PM. It was one of the best performances of Traviata ever. Feb 24, 2008 -------------------------------------- Read the paper this morning as usual. In the afternoon we went to RLT for Epic Proportions. It's a comedy about two brothers hired as extras in the Arizona desert for the movie Epic Proportions, a Ben Hur style movie with a cast of thousands. Afterwards we had home made pizza which was excllent and watched the Academy Awards hosted by John Stewart. Feb 26, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent much of today learning and configuring the Traviata server. I want this to work badly. Did a Trader Joe and Kroger run in the cold rain. Dinner was Trader Joe pasta. Feb 27, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the W2 and W3's this morning then mailed them on the way tolunch. We had lunch at the Blue Rain since it was Jack, Jennifers and Nancy's birthdays. A very nice time - Jennifers sister Bobby and her mother inlaw from Ohio were also there along with Mackenzie. I had the veggie sandwich. Printed off a 20% off coupon from the Entertainment site courtesy of Time Warner. Received a call in the afternoon from Watching Ridge - they didn't get the BAC check. It turns out I sent it to the wrong address. The bank will re-issue the check. Lib fixed a chicken sandwich and soup before I left for sculpting. Started a standing pose with Sandra. I don't like how it's falling on itself. Mar 01, 2008 -------------------------------------- First of March and it's a beautiful warm day. Temp in the low 70's. Yeah. Mar 02, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to Balanchine at 2 with Carolina Ballet. Wonderful warm day. We really enjoyed the performance of the three works. What a treat. We were in the third row of the orchestra. Very close to the dancers. Mar 05, 2008 -------------------------------------- Skipped sculpting this evening. Too much going on with Mom and then Libbie is traveling tomorrow. We stayed home and stayed busy. Mar 06, 2008 -------------------------------------- HEard from Circuit Cellar that I won honorable mention in the Wiznet contest. Prize is $500. Took Libbie to the airport - she was met in Philly by stephanie. Stephie stayed until evening at Mom's. She's mostly sleeping although conscious with her eyes open. So sad. I worked a little on Kahlo getting the DS18B20 to display on the LCD. Also worked outside slicing up the log in the backyard. Dinner was turkey sandwiches. Mar 07, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent the day answering questions for circuit cellar contest brochure as well as communicating about the article they want me to write. JEnnifer called and said the boards are falling down on the greenhouse wall. Went out there and put some temporary nails in to hold it over. The lady from MacGregor brought the birdhouses over this afternoon. I'm going to mount one in the front yard and one at the greenhouse. It's lonely around here without Libbie. Watched the movie "Pumpkin" on IFC. Mar 08, 2008 -------------------------------------- A crappy morning - lots of rain then a windy afternoon. Jennifer called me out to the greenhouse. The sump pump was gurgling and not pumping. It was sitting in a pool of sludge which I cleaned out. Came back late in the evening and checked on the plastic after the wind storm. All was well. Mom was lying comatose and calling for me. They put me on the speakerphone and I tried talking to her. She said she was very cold. Libbie said she was breathing 7 breaths a minute on oxygen. Normal is somewhere around 15 to 20. This may be the end. It looks like I'll travel tomorrow. Watered all the plants, set up the fish feeder and printed an address list. Will gather all my stuff tonight for tomorrow. Mar 09, 2008 -------------------------------------- Drove to NJ today. Libbie called as I was getting on 85. She called later in South NJ. Arrived at 6:00. Everybody was huddled around Mom waiting. She was unconscious. Dinner was Lasagna Arlene had picked up. Mar 10, 2008 -------------------------------------- Mom awoke this morning and recognized me and asked for a kiss. She also wanted coffee and ice cream before she went unsoncsious again. We went to Walmart and Shoprites. I forgot to bring socks and underwear so i bought some. Also picked up some black socks in case of a funeral this week but Mom looks strong. Mar 12, 2008 -------------------------------------- Mom died at 2:20 this morning. Libbie was with her. She wasn't having a very easy time of it - lots of moaning and crying. Libbie got pretty good with the Morphine drops. When she died Libbie and I hugged then I called Arlene, Vicki and Hospice (Grace). Rich called Maggie, the head hospice nurse. Maggie came over and pronounced her dead, filling out the death certificate. She also called Sheenan. Two guys in Black suits showed up with a hearse and took mom away. We didn't watch - went into the office and waited. Went to Sheenans at 8:30 to plan the funeral and go over the details needed. Dinner tonight was quiche brought over by Kelly. Mar 13, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went through the house some more. Went out to dinner tonight at Charlie Browns. I had the barbecue shrimp and baby back ribs with Shiraz wine. Mar 14, 2008 -------------------------------------- We went through Mom's house - I sorted pictures into piles by family. Took all the albums for my box. Will scan and return. The wake was this afternoonn from 2 to 4 and from 7 to 9. In between we went to Moms house where we ha sandwiches. The Sroczynski girls and kids are all a pretty noisy bunch. This altered our plans for going to Tres' party on sunday. Mar 15, 2008 -------------------------------------- Today is Mom's funeral. Arrived at Sheenans at 9 for our last viewing. Rode in the limo to church. Aunt Helen arrived just before the hearse. Did the mausoleum. The boys looked great as pall bearers. Wish Joe could have been there as well. I did the first reading in Church. Libbie did the prayer for the Fiathful. The girls sang Ave Marie. The lunch at Arlene's went quite well. Libbie said she really liked talking to Dorothy. John Glembock never made it to Arlene's. He got lost on the way there. Glad I told Frank and Harry it was at Arlene's house. Mar 16, 2008 -------------------------------------- Drove to Toms River after having breakfast at Vicki's. Cynthia prepared quite a spread for us. There was light rain on our way there and back. When we got back to Mom's Bob arrived. They had already taken the dresser and were now picking up the garbage. We went out to Sunset Diner for dinner. i had the Chicken Parmesan which came with soup, salad and deseert. Too much food. Vick and Bob left from there for home. We went back to Mom's to pack. Mar 17, 2008 -------------------------------------- We left Mom's house around 8. Stopped on 295 near Bordentown at McDonalds for gas and breakfast. Made it to Petersburg for lunch and more gas. Arrived home around 6:15. Arlene called looking for the door opener. Message from Anna at Watchung Ridge requesting a hamper for Aunt Helen. Picked up the mail from Janet - lots going on. Mar 18, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the grocery run this morning to both Trader Joes and Krogers. Got a ham for Easter. Went to Walmart for oil for my oil change. Mar 19, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to Litmus this afternoon to retrieve my sculpture and also picked up some Velcro at Krogers to mount the hard drive in Traviata. This evening we watched Dancing with the Stars but I fell asleep. Mar 20, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to the dentist this morning at 7:40. Had a panoramic facial xray done. This is a first for me. At home, Dad's death certificate arrived via fax from Vicki. Printed it and mailed it for the life insurance along with Moms certificate and the policy. Worked on downloading and classifying the pictures from my camera taken at the funeral. Also worked some more on the Traviata Server. Apache won't let me in to dokuwiki. Need to figure this out. Worked on the bird house this afternoon. Dug a hole, cut the guard and drilled holes for everything. Didn't mount the nest box yet. Mar 21, 2008 -------------------------------------- More work on getting back from the trip. Had to fax the papers for getting a new credit card vendor for Bluebird. Got that on it's way. Got a birdhouse mounted in the front yard this afternoon. This was difficult since I couldn't get the 8 inch stove pipe assembled. Mar 22, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on organizing some pictures this morning then got dressed for the opera. Early start today at 12:30. Tristan was wonderful singing but the HD camera work in little windows on screen left something to be desired. Came home and had a ham dinner with sweet potato and Chardonnay. Afterwards started reading the Valerie Bartonelli book which I actually started at the opera today. Mar 23, 2008 -------------------------------------- This morning i read the paper then went over to the greenhouse and put two shade cloths on houses 1 and 2. Got cleaned up and started some of the funeral thank you cards. We mailed 8 out of 34 on the way to Raleigh Little Theater. Today is Easter - we had the traditional chocolate bunny, peeps and Russel Stover chocolate caramel egs. Mar 24, 2008 -------------------------------------- LEft at 7 to pick up Sue at the airport. Her flight landed at 7:25. Stopped at Brueggers on the way home and had bagels and cream cheese and coffee. After a trip home, took Sue to the greenhouse. I fixed the flat tire at home - tractor rear tire had a sidewall slice. Put a tube in the tire which wasn't too hard. Libbie and Sue went dress shopping. For dinner we had Chinese- Mongolianf Beef and Hunan chicken. Watched Dancing with the Stars after dinner. Mar 25, 2008 -------------------------------------- Took Sue to the greenhouse this morning and mounted the repaired tire onto the tractor. In the PM Sue, Libbie and I went to La Cocina and had an anniversary dinner. Our 36th!!!! I gave Lib a photo card with poem and pics. We each had 3 Margaritas since it was 99 cent Margarita night. They served the drinks in cut crystal glasses. Mar 26, 2008 -------------------------------------- A productive day. Changed the oil in the car and the tractor. Put the bird house up at the greenhouse. Dinner was ham, sweet potato and apple sauce. Mar 27, 2008 -------------------------------------- Libbie took sue to the airport at 1:00. I went to the greenhouse in the morning to finish the bird house. Later in the PM I moved some of the dead logs in the back to the pile. Mar 28, 2008 -------------------------------------- A beautiful day. Moved some pinestraw to the transformer in front. Organized ifles on the Traviata Server. Mar 29, 2008 -------------------------------------- This morning I went outside and raked pinestraw then spread it around the transformer in front where the ground was bear. Spent some more time on scanning old pics then in the afternoon listened to Ernani from the Met. Looked at my receipts and found out that we had tickets to La Fille Du Regiment in April. I originally thought we missed out. In the PM we went out to Target and got ribs for dinner. Dinner was ribs, Shiraz and rice and beans. Apr 03, 2008 -------------------------------------- Wasted some time for Aunt Helen today - about 4 hours. Anna said she had too much stuff spread out ont he floor. Talked to Arlene and Vicki about picking up the boxes. She wants to bring the end tables - Anna checked and said there's room for one. Apr 04, 2008 -------------------------------------- The PCB for Nieto arrived this morning. Worked on putting the parts onboard. Left at 6:30 for First Friday. Saw some nice art in Artspace - I liked the old NC country scenes. Walked over to the Longview center and looked at this art then back to Artspace. Had dinner at Fins - $100 - we both had Alaskan salmon. I had a salad while Libbie had the asparagus soup. Went back to the parking garage where we started 4 single girls getting out of their car. Oprah said that Raligh singles meet at artspace. Apparently after we old timers go home (it was 9:45), the young folks come out. Apr 05, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did some work on Nieto in the morning then we left at 12:10 for La Boheme in HD. A rainy day. We got to the theater at 12:25 with plenty of time to spare. Loved the Boheme performance. Had a guy behind me that coughed through the whole thing. Picked up some shrimp in Harris Teeter for dinner tonight. Had shrimp, steamfresh veggies and shiraz for dinner. Apr 06, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the newspaper thing. It was a rainy day. Went to Rite Aid and got a birthday card and candy for Vicki's birthday then tried mailing it at Apex. The machine was down. Took it to Cary with success. Dinner was traditional pizza. The JTAG device won't recognizeNieto. Don't know what's wrong - it's frustrating. Apr 08, 2008 -------------------------------------- I left home at 6:44 AM after having breakfast and picking up last minute items. Went the I-440 way around and passed through the 42 interchange around 7:05. The beltline was busy but moving at 70. Traffic down I-95 was pretty heavy in general. Wonder what was up with that. I took I-10 across to Lake City then dwon 75 because I didn't want to deal with the speed traps in Lawtey and Waldo. Last time I had a Waldo trooper in his SUV cut directly in front of me to pull over the car ahead of me. I had to steer hard into the left lane to avoid this moron, therefore I went around. This is a relaxing less traveled journey. Had to stop where 75 meets 275 North of Tampa because of an accident. The good news was it only cost about 10 minutes. All lanes were closed except for the left shoulder. Got into Stoneybrook about 5:45. Tried calling Lib but the telephone wen down almost immediateley. This thing has been a nightmare. Hopefully, Verizon will provide better service. Went over to Peter and Christa's and was surprised they were in town. Had a glass of wine with them then found out it was Bingo night and I couldn't order dinner. Ordered a BLT instead which was good with the fruit. Watched American Idol and tried to watch Dancing with the Stars but fell asleep during it. Didn't find out till next morning that Tony corolla and Julianne were kicked off. Apr 09, 2008 -------------------------------------- After breakfast, did a little reading on the Internet. I'm able to get to Traviata OK at home. Unplugged the Comcast modem and drove to Fruitville to swap it out. Came home with the new modem and I can't get rid of the welcome screen. Drove back to Fruitville and swapped it for another modem just in case this was bad but most likely the girl there said the modem was firewalled. They will check in half an hour. Got the internet up and running, then the new telephone. The phone connection is much improved using the 5.7 Ghz cordless phone. Walked the rail trail from Central Parkway up to the junkyard, about 1.1 miles for a walk total of about 4.5 miles. No dinner tonight so I ordered two sandwiches at lunch - a Buffalo chicken and a BLT, both with a side of fruit. Apr 10, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to Selby in the morning, toured downtown by car. Did a walkaround the block inside Stoneybrook. Still sore from yesterdays walk. Picked up the GPS on sale at Target - a Magellan 4210. Since we're driving to Tulsa and I'm going to the East coast tomorrow, I thought it may be useful. In the evening I orderd a half rack of ribs on rib night and talked to Lib about Tulsa. Southwest has a $94 special each direction so we decided to fly instead and use the time in Tulsa to play instead of selling violets. The ribs were yummy and included rolls and salad. Apr 11, 2008 -------------------------------------- Left at 9 for Melbourne via I-4. An accident in Lakeland caused me to lose an hour. Made it to 192 in Kissimmee where the interstate was tied up again. I was able to take the 192 exit ramp and bypass a lot of the traffic tieup. 192 through Kissimmee was tacky, long and terrible. Many, many stoplights with lots of trashy tourist junk up and down the highway all the way to the turnpike. Once I got outside of Kissimmee things got better. 192 is under construction to be a 4 lane for uch of it's path. In Brevard county it already is 4 lane. I was surprised with how built up it was in Melbourne. Went up Babcock street and had to pee real bad. Parked in front of the admin buioldings and found a rest room inside the Keuper admin building. Walked the dormitories, the old classroom quad, the botanical garden, Gleason auditorium, and then the new Olin engineering complex. Things have really changed. Lots of college woman around on the old campus. This was a big surprise. Next went up to the airport to find the old shopping centers and Trailer Haven. Never found the trailer park and ended up on Wickham Rd which I took to I-95. Got gas for 3.36 at Wickham and I-95. Using the GPS I took 70 then 72 across the state. Aside from some slow moving SUV's and pcikups, the trip was not eventful. Great weather, nice scenery. Saw a large fire at Myakka. The road was also one lane and under construction through Myakka. Interesting automatic red light signals to allow either side to go/no go. Got back at 6:30 in time to order dinner. For dinner I ordered a NY Strip takeout. Apr 12, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to Selby in the morning to get some pics of the copper heron. Went to Lowes on the way home and picked up a new light fixture for the Master bathroom to replace the light bar. Came home and left over strip steak from yesterday for lunch. I had it with a stale roll from Thursday night's dinner. Replaced the light bar with the new triple hanging light fixture over the mirror. Had to make a trip to Target to pick up some Mollys to secure the fixture in sheetrock. Now the wall needs painting or at least touching up. Worked on setting up FTP on Traviata using the MS remote connection then transferred my files to the ImageDb directory. This is convenient. Took a 5 mile walk up the Turtle Creek side of the Rail trail. Made it all the way to Palmer Ranch Parkway. Barely got home in time to shower and dress for the opera. Got going to the opera at 7:05 for an 8 PM performance. La Rondine was wonderful - strong singing and beautiful sets. Act one featured a living are with steps up to a dining table in the background. Act 2 consistrd of a 2 level cafe with lots of chorusters. Act 3 was at a villa with a large painted backdrop of a lake and mountains. The forgeoung featured a garden bench and a stair case going up on the left in the garden. Very beautiful. Came home at 11 and had a bowl of cereal for dinner. Apr 13, 2008 -------------------------------------- Had breakfast then went to Publix for the paper and more cereal and milk. Also got oranges and apples. Resisted the donuts since I want to start a real diet. The opera today will help since I'll be limited to one meal, a BLT from Stoneybrook which I'll have after the opera. Uploaded some Western Art to Traviata today. Had to use the remote connection to move it into the correct directory, but this was OK. I need to configure the Gallery software. Ordered a BLT at noon and stopped by to pick it up on the way to the opera. PArked on the side street in front of the Methodist Church. Took pictures of the new lobby, bar and theater as well as the orchestra pit. The opera, Il Due Foscari was wonderful. The Verdi choruses, duets, trios and quartets were spectacular. They had 32 choristers and very nice staging. The Soprano was capable of blowing the windows out of the place. She was great as was the Doge, a baritone. Loved it!!! This was truly better than a Met HD perofrmance. Got back a little after 5, snacked on the fruit side from my BLT. Apr 14, 2008 -------------------------------------- Picked up two sandwiches for lunch today and tomorrow. Forgot that I was going to the Grosse's for dinner. Took a long walk then came home for a short nap. Woke at 4:45, got cleaned up and went for dinner with Peter and Christa. I had too much wine, German shrimp cocktail and pizza. Left at 9:30 after a delightful evening. Apr 15, 2008 -------------------------------------- House cleaning today. Washed the floors with MR Clean, used the shop vac for some heavy duty vacuuming. Packed my suitcases and put as much as I could in the car tonight. Did not go out for gas but I did go to Publix and pick up more Navel oranges because they were delicious and also some trail mix for the trip. Watched Dancing with the Stars and American Idol before going to bed. Apr 16, 2008 -------------------------------------- Got up early, 5:15, started the coffee and got ready for the trip today. Put the rest of the stuff in the car including the food (leftover cereal and coffee), filled my thermos and got going around 5:50 which was good. Traffic was pretty light. Stopped in Brooksville for gas at 3.43 and an Egg McMuffin. I had to buy two McMuffins because they were 2.39 each or 2 for $2. I fished the GPS out of the trunk because I forgot to get it out when I left. Hooked it up and used it for entertainment. It works well. I found that if you touch the arrival time it toggles between arrival, hours to go and miles to go. I kept it on miles to go. At quarter to 8 I was about 20 miles North of Brooksville and gave Lib a call but no answer. She called back saying she was in the bathroom. Took the route through Gainesville. Luckily made most of the lights. Used the GPS to get mileage to the next milestone. It worked well and is a nice unit. Stopped for a bathroom break at exit 5 in SC and also got gas at 3.33. Stopped again in Florence and topped off at 3.21 when I noticed the tires were low. Measured the rear tires and they were at 15psi and 20psi respectiveley. Invested 75 cents in the Hess station air pump and topped off all my tires. The air seemed to be holding because the tires were OK when I got home. Picked up some hamburgers in Florence. When I got home at 4:56 Lib was at the greenhouse receiving a Wyatt Quarles truck. I unloaded the suitcases before she came in. Dinner was Chow Mein from Trader joes. Part of the mail was a postcard for 10% off purchases tomorrow at Home Depot. I need a lawnmower. Apr 17, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on Traviata managing files. Looked at mowers and tried to look at radios for the greenhouse. When Lib came home we left after lunch to pick up a new Toro mower and a sheet of plywood in Home Depot. The plywood is for the closet structured wiring project. Went to Home Depot and using the 10% off coupon, bought a new mower. Dinner was crabcakes. Apr 18, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on organizing files on Traviata in the morning. When I listed the estate sale, I listed my old lawnmower. After I cut the back lawn with the new mower I got a call for the old mower. Sold it for $40. and gave away the broken one behind the shed. Lib suggested we go out for dinner tonight, so I made a reservation at Lucky32. Went back outside and trimmed the boxwoods in the backyard. Went to dinner at 7:15 at Lucky32. I had the chefs special which was Tilapia pan seared with brussel sprouts, mashed potatoes and Louis Martini Cabernet. Bill was 62 less a 10 off coupon. Libbie had the chicken with goat cheese. She took half her dinner home. Apr 19, 2008 -------------------------------------- We worked on pictures filling the Century Photo album Mom never used. Ordered some more filler sheets from Century Photo. The afternoon opera was about ghandi by Philip Glass. IT has lots of monotoneous passages that seem to be almost all chorus, chanting away. Dinner was ribs we picked up in Target, Brocolli and Shiraz. Apr 20, 2008 -------------------------------------- It rained last night. This morning I'm transfereing more files to Traviata after having read the Sunday paper. It worked well accessing Traviata from Sarasota. The computer is running three web servers. An Apache stack for the Wiki and Gallery. The MS IIS for FTP and a generic web server on port 81 not used yet. The EZ Files server to look at pictures in thumbnail fashion remoteley. The Traviata remote package even worked across the Internet. I got an eMail from Jim about SFO's Madama Butterfly. I did some googling and found it at Carmike in Raleigh tomorrow. Dinner tonight was traditional pizza. Apr 21, 2008 -------------------------------------- We went to the 4 PM SFO Butterfly on Atlantic Ave in Raleigh today. We were the only ones in the theater. The performance was magnificent, probably the best Butterfly I have ever seen. After the show we stopped in the new Mexican Restaurant near Krogers and had dinner. I had Chipotle chicken, we each had 99 cent Margaritas. This is the last big eating day - I'm starting a diet tomorrow, finally. This morning I took my car to Colony Tire - they fixed my flat for free but came up with $166 worth of suggested stuff I should have done. Some of it was dubious such as cleaning the fuel injectors and putting Nitrogen in the tires. Other items, such as the air filter are dirty but I'm gooing to replace it at 30,000 miles as recommended by Toyota. Apr 22, 2008 -------------------------------------- Lib took the garbage out today, I found some stuff in my office that I added to the bin later in the day. For lunch I only had an Orange after a mid morning apple. Dinner was the leftover Chicken Chipotle from yesterday but i did have ice cream. Tried to walk the Seagroves property but when I got to the top of the hill at the rear of our property, in started raining. Picked up some MWE this morning which now gives me 300 shares. Apr 23, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on the license plate for my fron bumper. Apr 24, 2008 -------------------------------------- Started the schematic and code for Hopper, the text to speech DAA. Worked on the spotlight out front today - finished it!!!! Dinner was seafod medley stew from trader Joes. Apr 25, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on the Hopper code this morning, dealt with prescription hse from Watchung Ridge. It will cost $72. started a spreadsheet tab for Aunt Helens account. I have 1050 deposited, deducted 72 for the hose. Mowed the lawn out front today. Sold all the FGP because it was going nowhere and bought 300 more shares of MWE, giving me 700. Dividend on this one is about mid May. Should be .60 x 700 = $420. The divvy on this one keeps increasing so I switched from FGP. May 03, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to work rigth away after cheerios at Arlenes. Worked all day on the wiring then in the PM worked on moving the gas line. In the evening all the girls came over and Arlene had a birthday party. Rich cooked a ham which was served on a buffet with salad and Key Lime birthday pie. Aunt Helen called this afternoon to wish Arlene a Happy Birthday. May 04, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to Ninth St and put a cover on the other junction box after a trip to Lowes to purchase the thing. Then Arlene and Rich went to Rodin in Philly with me but in separate cars. We parked behind the place since a marathon was going on for the cancer foundation. Afterwards I went to the Fine Arts museum and got a 4 PM ticket for Frida Kahlo. Unfortunately, after Kahlo I found the museum closes at 5 PM. For lunch had a turkey sandwich in the museum cafeteria. Watched a movie on Kahlo in the bookstore before I went into the exhibit. Left Philly shortly after 5 and headed South. Stopped in Md below the normal Aberdeen stop and had dinner at a Burger King. Got into Sue and Bruces around 8:30, about 10 minutes before Sue and Bruce arrived with Libbie from PA. May 05, 2008 -------------------------------------- Left Silver Spring around 9 - had a few beltway slowdowns but in general the trip was good. Got gas in St Petersburg at Rte 1 for 3.49 but we didn't have lunch since we would be home by 2 PM and decided to eat there instead. Used the GPS to give us mileage and location info. May 06, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did Trader Joes and Krogers, then headed over to Lowes with a $10 off coupon to get fencing to protect my roses and possibly the tomatoes in the garden. Dinner was Trader Joes pasta. May 07, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on the extra button for the web site to satisfy the card processor request for terms and conditions. Scanned a few more pictures that I removed from the panels I brought from NJ. May 09, 2008 -------------------------------------- I mowed the front lawn today after it dried off a little. Worked on scanning pictures and struggling with Delphi before downloading Visual Basic 2008 Express. Dinner was stuffed salmon and Broccoli. May 10, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked outside on mowing the lawn in front then worked on the cage around the climbing roses. In the afternoon we went to Target and got a new Toaster Oven and picked up ribs for dinner. Dinner was ribs with beans & rice and Shiraz. Very nice. May 11, 2008 -------------------------------------- A rainy day today. After the paper, Lib wanted to do pictures so we put a few more years in her new albums. Postage is going up tomorrow so I finished the funeral thank you notes and sent a statement tto Aunt Helen. Drove to the Post Office in a tremendous rainstorm. Dinner was traditional pizza after which we watched Bucket List with Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. Lib used the new toaster oven this afternoon to make toast for our tuna sandwiches. May 13, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did a grocery run this morning while Libbie went to a party at Linda Abplanalps house. Dinner was pasta I picked up in Trader Joes. May 14, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent the whole day working on scanning Mom's photos. Shared some with Cynthia and asked her questions. Spoke with Eleanor Klejna today also about her Mother's birth and death dates. The old guy we used to call Vuja was her father, Joseph Borowski. Dinner was boneless skinless chicken breasts that I picked up on sale for 1.88 per pound on Tuesday. May 15, 2008 -------------------------------------- Got the tiller working by getting an air cleaner and spark plug from Ace HW. Also picked up some Rose fertilizer that I already had. This was a bad move. Put fresh gas in the mower and it started although it was a little rich. Adjusted the air screw and it settled out and worked OK for me. Got the area for tomatoes tilled pretty nicely. Dinner was crab cakes on a slice of bread with tomato. Built a Wiki for Lib because she seemed to want something like this. Also got our certificate straightened out with Superb. Started some work on VB Express 2008 which was a free download from MS. I;m wondering what the catch is going to be. So far there seems not to be one. May 16, 2008 -------------------------------------- Looked at Genealogy software in the morning then in the afternoon got potting soil for the tomatoes from the greenhouse. Made 6 mounds, planted the tomatoes then added the cages. Had to cut some stakes from a 1x6 to make the stakes, To top things off I dug 3 wheel barrows of clay out of the future pond and used it to fill tree holes that are appearing in the backyard. Filled my tank today at 3.71 per gallon. We're getting closer and closer to $4. Dinner tonight was French Market Jambalaya with chicken breast over it. May 17, 2008 -------------------------------------- This morning I answered an AVSA person who requested CD's instead of slides for the library program. Go figure! Artsplosur this this afternoon. Had a pretty enjoyable afternoon. The weather was perfect - there were a lot of people. Enjoyed some fine art by painters, sculptors and muralists. Did not like the watercolor paintings I saw by one artist. Afterwards we swung thorugh the Farmers Market and got strawberries which prompted us to seek out Fresh market. It was spectacular - picked up a Rib Eye on sale and also a lemon pound cake for our strawberries. We had a choice of "Red" wine from Australia. Had to read the label - it just said red. May 18, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the morning activities - had to repair the mulch around the tomatoes after yesterdays rain. Lef for Il Trittico at 2:15. A very enjoyable opera but staging was not great and a little dark. I won tickets for an opera festival next month by correctly identifying Il Tabarro as one of the operas in Trittico. It was raining when we got out of the theater. Got a little wet. Ended up stopping for dinner on our way home at L:a Concina, our local Mexican Restaurant next to Krogers. May 19, 2008 -------------------------------------- Answered AVSA eMail about slides, CD's and DVD's. This took most of today. Worked outside on moving the climbing rose bush away from the sidewalk in back. I cut my hands up a bit. Dinner was grilled chicken with asparagus and new potatoes. Chocolate yogurt for dessert. May 20, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the Krogers thing this morning and worked on more scanning of pictures and re-organizing data. Thought I was installing the Flash program on Mazeppa but found it was already installed after I started installation. Dinner was Pasta after which we watched Dancing with the Stars but it was 2 hours long so we went to bed early and found out the next morning that Kristi won. May 21, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent the whole day reading about MP3 encoding. Finally got something sort of working in the evening. Watched American Idol and saw David Cook win. Very nice. Dinner this evening was Farfale. May 22, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on MP3 recording almost all day. It was a beautiful day outside and also Wagner's birthday. I recorded about 20 audio clips for the new introductions using my new software. Dinner was crabcakes. May 23, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to AgriSupply this morning to get electric fence posts. It was late afternoon and we saw the very heavy beach traffic going East on 40. fortunateley we didn't run into any of this. Picked up posts and a ground rod. Dinner tonight was the scallops, shrimp and calamari mix which we had with Chardonnay. May 24, 2008 -------------------------------------- Put the electric fence up today in the front yard. Pounded the ground rod in under the Camelia and set up the electric wire. Had to go to Home Depot to get more aluminum electric fence wire. Dinner was Pork Chops with wine and rice and apple sauce. Used my new Chagall program to finish recording the new intros and uploaded them to the MAAVS test site. May 25, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the newspaper run this morning then worked outside a little. Put a wheelbarrow of dirt around the roots next to my garden so that mowing will be easier. Late at night I took Libbie's inventory update and updated the Bluebird web site. Libbie made her traditional pizza for dinner. May 26, 2008 -------------------------------------- Memorial Day. I spent much of the time reading about creating an NT service so I could build a program to communicate with a weather station and display the sensors on a web page on Traviata. Dinner tonight was pork chop with leftover rice, squash and apple sauce. Watched the Edukators on IFC this evening. I liked the movie about 3 rebels protesting against wealth and excess in society. May 27, 2008 -------------------------------------- Washed clothes for the trip tomorrow and started looking for the photo equipment. Can't find the camera battery charger. I have several and also need it to run the camera on AC with the battery replacement adapter from Canon. May 28, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent the morning doing last minute packing and gathering of photo stuff for our trip. Our flight is at 4:40 so we left home at 3 PM. Parked in the garage under cover because of the possibility of hail. It has been raining all day but it looks clear in chicago and Tulsa. I was ecstatic to see that the weather channel said that a high was incontrol of weather from chicago to St Louis. In Chicago we had a dry turkey sub for $12. All flights were on time but the lines at the Budget counter were very long, partly because we had to wait for Libbie to use the bathroom after we got off in Tulsa. Used our GPS to navigate at 11PM to the hotel. It got us there Went into the show room and saw John and Judy but not the Nicholas's. Went to bed around midnight which was 1 AM Raleigh time. Not too bad!!! May 29, 2008 -------------------------------------- Got up and had the cold buffet at the hotel. It cost $23 which was not worth it. Had an 11 AM meeting in the conference room with the library gang. Everything looks like a go for photography as soon as judging is done. Started the photo session around 2:30 without the results sheet but we were able to pick blue ribbons off the table and shoot them first before the official list. When we were done for the day, went out to "Riverwalk" with Bruce and Barbara. Had a nice meal at a Mexican restaurant with Margaritas. A very pleasant evening along the river in Tulsa. There was an American Idol finalist in the amphitheater on the riverwalk. The loud music made it hard to hear us talking with each other. Afterwards I got a call from Anne to come down to see Richards program. When all left, Richard cornered us about the convention in Raleigh. I agreed to be Convention chair, we'll proposition Brenda Petry to be Show chair with Libbie as Show co chair. May 30, 2008 -------------------------------------- Visited the violet show today after breakfast at McDonalds. Mostly just hung around - went to a Chirita talk by Paul Kroll. For lunch we went back to Rons hamburgers. I had the chili on a cheeseburger again. Libbie and I split a basket of fries. Very good. Dinner was pork loin at the commerical dinner in the hotel. Not sure if it was worth $56 each. After dinner we went next door to the main ballroom and watched the ending of the cowboy songs. May 31, 2008 -------------------------------------- We got up a little after 7 and went to McDonalds down the street for breakfast. Hung around our hotel room for a little bit packing our suitcases and loading the car. Lib bought a case of books last night that we had to pack in our suitcases - it was the new growing to show book. Set our GPs to ake us downtown - what a twisted and curvy ride thorugh a housing development - I finally gave up and reprogrammed it to get us there by way of the freeways. This worked a lot better. started at the Methodist church then parked up by 5th St and walked the downtown streets. Picked up a coffee in Starbucks and used the bathroom in the lobby of the Crown Plaza. After a walk of historic and art deco buildings, we got in our car and drove to an Indian Trading Post warehouse building before programming the GPS for the Gilcrease museum. Drove in a blinding and torrential thunderstorm,. Even though the museum was only 5 miles away it was a challenging drive in zero visibility with rain, hail and lightning. When we got to the museum we stayed in our car in the Parking lot waiting for the rain to stop. The museums was very impressive - a large collection of Rembrabdt and other Western artists. Libbie like the Rendezvous traveling exhibit, specificially an artist named Walter Groste. We had lunch in front of a glass wall over looking a garden and bird feeders. I had a BLT and homemade chips while Libbie had black bean chili. On the way out there was not a cloud in the sky and it was 90. Got to the airport without incident - bought 3 gals of gas just before the air[port at a gas statin the GPS found. We went around some thurnderstorms approaching St Louis. In Chicago we had $5 a slice pizza for dinner which was not too bad tate wise. We got home on time and arrived at our door around 11 PM. Jun 01, 2008 -------------------------------------- First day back. Got the paper and drank coffe and read it on the back porch. Watered the plants which looked dry. Worked on downloading the cameras and organizing the pictures in folders. Libbie made the traditional pizza which was great. Jun 03, 2008 -------------------------------------- Spent some time studying finance on the computer then went to the grocery store. The radio from Circuit City came today along with the brake pads I ordered on Amazon. Installed the radio easily in the dash. I really like the SD card play ability. Dinner tonight was trader Joe spinach pasta. Jun 04, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did a 3 mile walk today in 94 degree heat. Turned the A/C on upstairs because it was so hot. Dinner was crab cakes with tomato on a bun. Worked on burning a DVD backup of the AVSA amterials. Jun 05, 2008 -------------------------------------- Today's a hot one - near 100. Walked the full 4 miles around the lake - barely made it home. Put the small window air conditioner in my office when I got home to cool the place down, especially with the computer in the room and the server. Finished processing the new cultivar pics from AVSA and put them on the maavs web site for narration by Jacquie. Jun 06, 2008 -------------------------------------- Lib and I went to Garner to get electric fence supports but they were out. Bought some re-rod instead and amgoing to use the screw on insulators for re-rod. Retrievedmy power cord which went out to the dish from the side deck. Washed it offand will use it for the electric fence on the side, Need to get from the crawl space to the Camelia bush in the corner. Went out to First Friday this evening. Enjoyed the art in Visual Arts - it was repros by local artists of famouse pieces of art. Had dinner at Cafe Luna at 8 PM. I had Fantasia di Mare, Libbie had Farfalle. There was a scavenger hunt going on of the Contemoporaries, a youngpeople org from the NC Museum of Art. It was nice to see young people discussing art. Jun 07, 2008 -------------------------------------- Today was a hot one. Had difficulty doing the 4 mile walk in 101 degeee temperatures. Part of the problem was I pounded a ground rod in this morning and wired up the electric fence to protect the roses. Dinner was chicken fingers. Went to Advance and picked up a couple of air filters for our cars on sale. The Caravan has 105,000 miles and the Corolla has 30,000. Jun 08, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the paper today then went for a walk. It was over 100 today - Libbie picked me up in front of Shepards Vineyard on my return trip,saving .3 miles. Jun 09, 2008 -------------------------------------- The 90,000 check came today. Put it in the credit union but they put a 5 day hold on it. Bought some TLP today which promptly went down one point uggh. Much studying of where to invest next. Dinner was pasta. Put the new brake shoes on Libbie's car. Now I need to change the oil in the Corolla. Jun 10, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the grocery thing this morning after getting a ucket full ofpotting soil at the greenhouse. After groceries I rototilled the rose area off the back deck and planted the Knockout rose from yesterday. After lunch I went to Lowes and Home Depot and picked up another Knockout rose. Also got 4 bags of mulch and also a bag of river rocks to shore up the walkway and add more rocks to the top of the pond. Dinner was beanburgers and Vidalia. It was another 100 degree day today. Jun 12, 2008 -------------------------------------- We had a critter dig up the Knockout rose. I had to tamp it back down and re-mulch the area. I need to add a lower electric fence wire. Jun 13, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked a little outside putting an electric wire around the new Knockout Roses. Dinner was scallops with Chardonnay. Jun 14, 2008 -------------------------------------- Walked 4 miles today and also studied investments most of the day. Built a switch for the electric wire around the roses so we could turn the fence off easily inside the door. For dinner Lib made the Salmon rounds which we had with Chardonnay. Jun 15, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did the usual newspaper run. Perkins was surprisingly crowded but it was Fathers Day. Not used to seeing this many people out in the early AM. Filled out a brick form to purchase in memoriam for Mom at FIT. Wish I had pics of her in front of the clock tower at the old library which is now the Keuper admin building. I think I will go back to FIT this summer. Also worked on our renewal for RLT next year. Went to RLT and saw Radio Gals, a zany musical with lots of good old fun. Afterwards we went out to dinner at the MExican place, La Cocina. I had the Pollo Chipotle with a Margarita. Jun 16, 2008 -------------------------------------- Too tired to walk today so I vegged out instead. Worked on getting the DS1820 reading correctly and displaying on a web page in the embedded web server. Dinner was pesto pasta which was pretty good. May pick up some more of this at Trader joes. Mailed the package to Arlene today consisting of the espresso candy, Mom's funeral cards and the pictures that were hers. Jun 17, 2008 -------------------------------------- Bought a one day pass to Value Forum and spent the whole day reading about current thinking in investments. Decided that FDG should be in my portfoliio as well as ATPWF and CMOpB as a money place holder. Built a probe with the copper tubing and DS1820 but didn't test it today. Did a4 mile walk - enjoyed a blonde in a bikini at the Shepards Vineyard pool. Did the usual Trader joe and Krogers run. Dinner was bean burgers. Jun 18, 2008 -------------------------------------- Bought FDG this morning at 90.50 and was dismayed to see it go down to 88 but it finished the day at 90.75. Got the new temp probe working. Had two problems - it was wired backwards but I fixed that and the B version of the 1820 has 4 decimal places which I had to drop before converting from C to F. Decided not to travel to Sarasota tomorrow. Too much to do. Went to Lowes today and looked at key locks for the garage door. The keypad is broken so I was thinking about a new Schlage entry handle with combination lock. Picked up some epoxy and mounted 3 RJ45 jacks on a plastic header for the Degas temperature monitor. Jun 25, 2008 -------------------------------------- We went to Reynolds for a very bizarre ADF performance. A French dance company had weird howling sounds as wind blew across mirrors and dancer appeared and disappeared for 10 second vignettes. Stopped at Goodberrys afterwards. They normally close at 11 but we were there at 11:10. Jun 27, 2008 -------------------------------------- Attended Orpheus and Eurydice in Chapel Hill this evening. A different kind of opera consisting of a Soprano and a Clarinet accompanied by the Doug Varone dancers. We enjoyed it then stopped by Goodberrys with our buy one get one coupon. Jul 02, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to Lowes and used my $10 off coupon to get reflective barrier insulation for the crawl space as well as hardware cloth to stop our critters. Dinner was beanburgers with vidalia and tomato. Jul 03, 2008 -------------------------------------- Sold practically the entire portfolio today in anticipation of a large drop due to a lousy economy. Cut the hardware cloth in half to thwart the rabbit from hiding under the porch. The phlox are coming along pretty good but the rabbit would love to mow it all down. The glasses came today from Atlanta. We were surprised how small the 20 oz size was. Measured the old glasses and they're really 22 or 24 ounces. Oh well. Dinner was trader Joe pasta with green beans. Jul 04, 2008 -------------------------------------- I'm down to 238.5 today after topping at 252 last month. Solved my temp probe problem - wasn't wait long enough. Went to Paul Taylor and also Santa Fe Ballet this evening at ADF, It was thunder and lightning during the last perfromance. We ran for our car in the lightning and drove home in heavy downpours, Drove past Goodberrys but it was raining too hard to get ice cream. Jul 05, 2008 -------------------------------------- Did some investment reading and finished up the temp reading using Degas. Went to Fresh Market after the four mile walk and a thunder storm. Picked up some Parmesian Tilapia Fillets which were excellent along with farmers market corn. Stopped by Ace and picked up literature on mold removal prodcuts. I think I'll use Borax instead. Lib picked up 2 bird cups for the bird houses. After dinner we drove to Davis drive for desert. Desert was Goodberrys concrete - I had the special which was red, white and blue for strawberries, vanilla and blueberries. Jul 06, 2008 -------------------------------------- Picked up a paper at 6:30 this morning. The power was out for 2 1.2 hours overnight but the generator kept the dark house going. Did the usual 4 mile walk but didn;t lose anything - maybe in a day or two it will catch up. Read about investing and web serving using the Wiz. also documented POE on Traviata. After reading about how good Borax is for mold, I went to Krogers and Foodlion looking for it. No luck. Bought my first $4 gas today. $40 to fill my tank - wow. Lots of rain throughout the day in the last few days. Our rainfall total is now above normal. Weight today was only 237. It seems to be a plateau for now. Jul 15, 2008 -------------------------------------- Took lib to the airport early this morning. She had a 6:30 AM flight so we left at 5 AM. She forgot to check in yesterday for online pre checkin but made out OK. Jul 21, 2008 -------------------------------------- Jennifer called about the fan #2 not turning. I went over there and tightened the fan belt and all is well. Libbie called while I was there so I got to wish her a happy birthday again. Jul 23, 2008 -------------------------------------- The DC-DC converters I ordered from All Electronics arrived today. I'm gooing to use one of these in place of the negative supply if it works. Will breadboard it first before committing to it. Jul 25, 2008 -------------------------------------- After studying all the web sites and all the possibilities, I booked our flights for October through Priceline. Got a price of $480 total roundtrip for two. I got Kahlo heating water pretty good. Using a pulse technique for the Magnetron I'm able to maintain temperature without any trouble. Jul 26, 2008 -------------------------------------- Went to Lowes to get some Gardenias but they were having an incident with EMS in the garden shop so bought some grass seed and a peel and stick tile for the microwave and left. Dinner this evening was more Lean Cuisine. Since this stuff is on sale for $1.50 in Krogers it has nuked my diet. Found a potential house in HB and sent an inquiry to the owner about October. Hopefully I can get this for around $2000. Jul 27, 2008 -------------------------------------- This morning I worked on the footprint for an RJ45 connector in Orcad layout. Talked to Lib early before I went to get the paper. She was out walking but it started raining in RI. Today is Corrie's shower. Aug 01, 2008 -------------------------------------- First Friday. Worked on Kahlo today - the DC-DC works very well. Need a circuit board layout. Aunt Helen went to the hospital today. She had fever and chills. We went to First Friday then out to dinner at Lucky 32. I had the blackened trout with salad and Cabernet Sauvignon. Very good. Called Arlene when I got home but talked to Rich because she was sleeping. Aug 02, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on New intros and also on the board layout for Kahlo. Getting it nailed down finally with good footprints and good wiring. After my walk we went to Fresh Market and got a delicious Tilapia stuffed with Lobster and Crab which we had for dinner with baked potato and asparagus. When I picked up the mail there was a strange check which ended up being Arlenes share of the house rent. Aug 03, 2008 -------------------------------------- Picked up a paper this morning as usual, after the paper went to work on the New Cultivar presentation. Had to educate myself in the ways of Encore DVD again. Went for a walk then talked to Anne about all this stuff. In the meantime, uploaded the latest PCB data to APCircuits but theiy'e closed tomorrow for Civic day!! Fixed up some pics for Ruth for the Granmas library article. A long day. We had traditional pizza tonight. Aug 07, 2008 -------------------------------------- The cards arrived this morning from AP Circuits. Started populating them. This is time consuming work. Fired one up in the evening but nothing. Aug 08, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on populating the Kahlo card - this is an all day job. Dinner was bean burgers which we had on the back porch along with a garden salad. Stayed up until midnight and got the LCD working. Now to the keyboard tomorrow. Aug 09, 2008 -------------------------------------- Worked on the Kahlo card while waiting for input from Anne about which slides to go with for AVSA. Got the keyboard working this morning but the temperature probe is dead. In the PM we went to Fresh Market and got stuffed Talapia and green beans for dinner. No wine. Very good. Aug 10, 2008 -------------------------------------- Found the controller card has a short. Did my 4 mile walk then talked for an hour with Anne about the slides. Worked on them until 12:30 (after midnight) and got them all done. Dinner was traditional pizza but we only had 2 slices each to cut down on intake. Aug 11, 2008 -------------------------------------- Uploaded all the Tulsa slides to Utah. Was going to debug the microwave but Libbie called saying the car at the greenhouse had a flat tire. I went out to pump it up. August 16, 2008 Fencing and Dishwashers --------------- Saturday. This morning I went up the hill and strung the lower strand of barbed wire from the Longo Corner to almost the other end. Ran out of wire about 100 feet short. Started with a new corner post then stretched the Barbed wire with the come-along and fastened it to the poles 24" above the ground. Came back down to check the time and it was 12:00. Libbie picked up some whole grain bread and bacon for lunch which we enjoyed while watching the antics of the Humming Birds on the back porch. Time to wait for the Home Depot delivery of our dishwasher. They arrived around 3 PM. Went out to Lowes at 4:30 to get a hose fitting. They only had five feet lengths, I only need 18 inches. Bought the five foot anyway andpicked up ribs next door at Target for dinner. Got the dishwasher working by 6:30. In order to make life really interesting, Richard sent the convention stuff for the web site and Anne sent the rest of the files for the convention DVD. Still have not heard from Marjorie - she said she would have pictures this weekend. Dinner tonight was ribs and Shiraz with brocolli and baked white potato finished with chocolate frozen yogurt. ~ August 17, 2008 Fencing and Web Updates --------------- After fetching the paper from McDonalds at 7:15 AM I had breakfast while reading it. Worked on updating the MAAVS website with the latest convention info including event schedule, registration form and advertising update. After a nice lunch with BLT made from tomatoes from our garden, I went up the hill and started working on the fencing. Put a second strand to within 100 feet of the creek before running out of staples. Left all my tools on the hill and back to the house for staples, water and a short break. Finished the fence wire job but I still need to add an opening in the fence. I'll do this by adding another fence post 3 feet away from the existing ones and then cut the upper wire. Libbie made the best pizza she has ever made. The thin crust rivaled the Tuscan pizza we had earlier this week it was so good. After dinner I went over to Krogers to get ice cream, shaving cream and shampoo. I couldn't finish washing my hair yesterday because the shampoo ran out. ~ August 18, 2008 Dishwashers, Septic Pumps, Movies and Credit Card Readers --------------- Started the day by noticing that the soap dispenser on our dishwasher is hanging loose. It seems to not be attached to the mechanism inside the door. Call GE service and they will be sending a new dishwasher out Wednesday. This will be the 4th one in two weeks. Spent some time merging the slides with the audio annotation that Anne and Richard did. After each section I need to create an MPG movie so while this process proceeded, I used my scope and one of the credit card terminals to look for the header pin containing the mag card reader data. As a break in the afternoon i walked up the hill to see what's going on back there since the digging continues. Managed to cut the plastic sewer line in the back as a prep to draining the tank for replacing the pump. A lot of water ran out of the pipe and the area around the tank seems to be draining which was the plan. Went to Lowes for a brass cap for the dishwasher fill hose. When I remove the dishwasher on Wednesday I'll cap the line until the new one arrives. Dinner tonight was leftover ribs from Saturday and fresh brocolli. ~ August 19, 2008 menus, credit card readers, septic --------------- Overnight I got the Encore menu DVD from a Bit Torrent source. Loaded this into my install of Encore and browsed the menus. Believe it or not chose one from the sports category (uggh) but replaced the soccer graphic with the best in show violet. Modified the menus to fit our Violet show. Went into the backyard and studied the septic flow for a while - it doesn't put out a lot of liquid. It almost seems that a pipe in a ditch covered with gravel is all we need. Studied the Grainger book lloking at sewage pumps and trying to estimate our head. I went into the upstairs workshop and tried to sight the hill - it doesn't seem to be over 25 feet, meaning 25 feet of head plus the number of feet to go down into the creek and bottom of the tank - proably another 10 or 15 feet added to the total. I think I have 40 feet of head requirement which may be able to be handled by a 1/2 hp pump. Worked on the card reader scanning cards and trying to make sense of the data. Hooked up an Omron reader I had and compared the scan to the Verifone reader. They are a little different. The Verifone doesn't seem to have a clock. May need more probing. Dinner was Tortellini pasta. ~ August 20, 2008 dishwashers, MP3s --------------- Disconnected the dishwasher after breakfast in anticipation of a new one today. Used my cap to shut the water off until the new dishwasher gets here. Inspected the septic again - still the same with a slow drip coming from the cut pipe. I can't work outside today since I'm waiting for the dishwasher delivery to call (if they do that). Downloaded Audacity, a free sound editor, from Soundforge. Used it to remove the clicks from Anne's wineglass chime sound file. Created an M3U playlist for WinAmp to play all the MP3's with the chime sound. Talked to Jennifer about fixing her dog fence zapper - it got hit by lightning. Did some more experimenting with the credit card reader on the Verifone. Did not find a clock signal going over to the Motherboard, only the data. Did my 4 mile walk carrying a cell phone but the dishwasher didn't come. Got a call from the delivery company after I came home and took my shower. They're on the way. Let's see how this goes. Hooked up the new dishwasher when it arrived and ran an empty load then we put the dishes from the day intoit and ran it. Everything seems to be well. Received a 13k check from Vicki from moms estate. Interestingly, I was looking into an insurance company and Constellation energy during the day. Finished recording the AVSA audio tape after finding the first time that the tape was too short. Dinner was BLT's with our garden tomatoes. In the evening Libbie's sewing machine quit so we went to Sears to look at new ones after checking Consumer Reports online. CU didn't have ratings but they did have some generic buying advice which was mildly useful. We bought a middle line Kenmore from a young lady who seemed to be wearing painted on clothes. She had tight white jeans and a black sweater - very nice. Libbie unpacked the machine and started sewing sample stitches. ~ August 21, 2008 preferreds, Ott Lights, septic tanks --------------- I entered a limit order for CEG-A and SZN this morning. I'm buying a small amount of szn as a first buy. I'm also thinking of adding some PHR to the mix but will wait till after the dividend and see what the price does. Will pick up an Ott light lamp for Libbie's sewing machine this morning at Lowes. Will try my Home Depot 10% off coupon first but i don't think they carry Ott lamps. The SZN and CEG purchases both hit at 19.75 and 24.40. Mailed the tape to Anne then bought an Ott light in Lowes as well as some Rubbermaid boxes and some 4x4 posts. Took a look at the construction on the hill - the lot is lowered and smooth. A trailer of hay is sitting there waiting for seeding. Took the crumbled lid off the septic and tested the power going out there. It's still putting out power but the plug and socket are melted and corroded. Next I will build a wood lid for the tank so I can remove the inner tank lid. A wood lid may allow me to cut a hole and mount an ultrasonic range finder. I was really tired today after my 4 mile walk. Actually, it was hard doing the last mile of the walk. It wasn't too hot but I was out of energy and dragged myself home. Took a nap after my shower then slept in the evening after dinner. Dinner was Bean burgers with garden tomato and vidalia onion. ~ August 22, 2008 DVDs, walking --------------- Worked on the AVSA Tulsa convention DVD all day today. Put together a bunch of pictures for the venue segment and then started labeling violet pictures for the violet show. Walked the full 4 miles today easily. Don't know what was wrong yesterday. I had tortilla fish before leaving for todays walk. Found some public domain music for the DVD by doing a Google search. Skidmore college has a terrible orchestra but the music is public domain. My Selective Insurance preferred dropped 40 cents today. May pick up some more at the open on Monday. It's 19.35 so I was thinking of putting in a bid at 19.25 which was the low today. Libbie went out at 5 to get fabric on sale at JoAnns fabric at Crossroads. We went out to the Mexican place for dinner and Margaritas. I had the Pollo Chipotle which is a spicy favorite. Afterwards we read using the lights on the porch since it was dark out and then had Frozen Yogurt. When we came inside I went upstairs and finished the AVSA DVD but did not burn it. ~ August 23, 2008 DVDs --------------- I tried burning a DVD in Encore 2 but kept getting an error message that my submenu was too complex to be transcoded. I deleted the submenus and instead put buttons in from the Encore Library. The DVD burn is now proceeding error free. May have to modify the menu again because I don't like where the Main Menu button is located. Modified the Menuu Button and made it like all the other buttons, burned a new DVD and drove it to the Post Office. Also checked out Lowes and Target for sonar measures. Target had a Stanley and a Black-Decker for $30. Went out with Lib to Home Depot and bought some composite boards to build a new septic lid. Didn't like the treated wood because it was wet and I was afraid it would shrink exposing cracks to the septic below. Lib bought masking tape as well. We used a 10% off coupon that came in the mail. Mailed a DVD to Marjorie on this trip. Now there is only the CD to complete. Took a look at Libbie's sewing machine - it keeps jamming. Found that the thread wasn't threaded properly. Dinner tonight, which we ate on the porch, was grilled chicken and Steamfresh Southwestern corn. ~ August 24, 2008 CDs, septic lids, Hot Mikado and Reading --------------- Did not get up early this morning which was a surprise. Opened my eyes at 7AM and instantly jumped out of bed and got dressed to get the paper. Finished the AVSA CD and drove it to the post office. When I came back i worked on the septic lid. Unfortunately I misjudged the inside supports and have to redo it. Went inside and got cleaned up for our RLT performance - the first of the season. We left at 2 and wandered the Rose Garden. The colors were especially vibrant today- we're having low humidity and only 82 degrees. The Mikado was colorful with a large cast and a small orchestra. A nice enjoyable performance!! RLT continues to wow us with their productions. Libbie made another of her nice thin crust pizzas - this time she put peppers on it. I really started to get into my Sandra Brown novel, The Witness. ~ August 25, 2008 Power, tuxedos, trader Joes --------------- It's great to have the AVSA obligations completed. Went to Home Depot and picked up some electrical fittings and built an electrical outlet on a post next to the septic tank. Tested it out and all looks good. Will use this to plug the pump and avr power supply into. Had a BLT for lunch then got cleaned up and went to Savvi Tux rental for a fitting. I like the way the Tux looks. This went well. We next went to JoAnn Fabrics on Falls of the Nuese. Libbie got her Orange fabric and pink handles. We stopped into Trader Joes on the way home and picked up Almonds, crab cakes and apples since we were going within a mile of the place. Dinner of course was crab cakes with our garden tomatoes which seem to be coming in abundance today. It was supposed to rain but never did. We could use some badly. Everything is once again drying up. ~ August 26, 2008 blogs, rain --------------- Found Roger Eberts blog thanks to a story in the N&O. It's pretty good, added it to "Tom's Bookmarks". It's lightly raining this morning which we need. Wish it was a little harder. I checked on the newest hurricane - Gustav. It looks like it will be going West into the Gulf instead of affecting my trip to the Florida West Coast this week. Rebuilt the new lid for the Septic and again it's wrong. It doesn't clear the tank. Dinner tonight was Bean Burger with garden tomato. Finished my book and packed my stuff for Sarasota. I'm leaving in the morning. ~ August 27, 2008 driving, Fay & trees --------------- Tried to leave a little after 7 this morning in a light rain but didn't get far. A tree fell across the driveway from the remnants of Fay. Libbie helped move the logs that I cut up with the chain saw. We stacked it out by the street. Left at 7:36 AM. Around Fayetteville the weather got pretty nasty as it started raining pretty hard. In SC the sun came out and I had blue skies the rest of the way. The trip was uneventful. Breezed through Baldwin and Starke as well as through Tampa without any delay or stopping. Gas in Florence was 3.38. In Southern Georgia it was 3.59 but in Florida I saw lots of prices around 3.54. Got here at 6:30. Ordered a parmesan crustd Tilapia from the restaurant which is operating out of a trailer. While the meal was cooking I ran over to Publix and got milk and juice for breakfast. Found out that board member Joe Knipper died yesterday. His daughter sent an eMail. ~ August 28, 2008 Selby, Sears --------------- Woke at the normal time and watched GMA during my bowl of cereal. Took a ride to Selby and enjoyed the tropicals. Inside the Mansion the exhibit was an exhibit of art by Selbys instructors. Enjoyed the watercolors. Afterwards took a ride over to Siesta beach and enjoyed a young mother in a very skimpy red and white flower bikini that did not cover her shapely rear end. Stopped at Sears for clothes shopping. Found a few golf shirts, have to take back an Arrow silk shirt because it's too big for me. It's a nice day here and over 90 which we haven't seen much of in Raleigh this august. ~ August 29, 2008 shopping, selby, suits --------------- Started out this morning by going to Penneys and returning the shirt which didn't fit. While there I tried on suit jackets. The sizes were a mixed bag - a few styles in my size then nothing. Went over to Macys and did the same although the prices were a tad higher. They have Donald Trump clothes which tend to be pricier. Drove up Tamiami and stopped in Barnes and Noble to browse the book recommended by Phil Wasserman on local channel 7 but couldn't find it. Went next door to Best Buy and got a new network card. It's there brand, Dynex and was on sale. Drove further up Tamiami and saw the Mens Wearhouse. Proceeded to Selby, walked around, had lunch at "Local Coffee" in Selby since I had a $5 gift card. It was still valid - I got a veggie wrap sandwich and bottle of water. I wanted the water mostly for the bottle. Sat on a bench in the shade and enjoyed the outdoors and the sweeping lawn at Selby while having lunch. Afterwards I cooled down in the car on the way to Mens Wearhouse. I like the store - bought a suit and a sports jacket. The suit pants need cuffs. They will be ready Tuesday night. When I got back I put a limit order in for Selective Insurance at 19.75. The $188 divvy in September should defray some of my clothing costs. After talking to Lib i ordered a turkey sandwich and fruit from the clubhouse at 4. They close today at 5 for a Chuckwagon dinner tonight. The limit order executed so I had to move $3900 over to Scottrade. Walked all the way around the 1.5 mile loop then had my Turkey sandwich which was very good. We have 2 bikini clad girls in our pool at Clubside. Very nice. Talked to Lib about the suit - I will return the extra jacket but pick up the shirts and ties for a no net difference or close to it. The newspaper has a $15 coupon good at Pennys Sat from 4 to 10 PM. I may use it then and take a look at their sport jackets. ~ August 30, 2008 morning --------------- I slept until 7:10 AM this morning. What a good, deep sleep. Had breakfast then called Libbie at 8:15. She still did not have breakfast yet. Watching hurricane Gustav on the weather channel. It appears to be curving further and further West. I'm guessing it will eventually make landfall West of Galveston. Went out to Penneys and Sears to price shirts. I have a $15 coupon for a purchase over $75. Tall dress shirts by Van Huessen list at $44 but retail for $17 on sale. I also found a sport jacket in 46L that fits. Went over at 4 and bought the shirts and two ties. The guy gave me the coupon back and said I could use it again. After talking with Libbie at home, she convinced me I should return and get the jacket. Talked with Vicki on the phone about 40 minutes regarding Aunt Helen then went back to Penneys at 8:30PM. Picked up the jacket, looked at several more and bought it with the $15 coupon. It was $99 less the $15 for a total of $84 plus tax. Stopped at Publix on the way home and got some Sherbet. Did some computer analysis in the evening. ~ August 31, 2008 Wendys, Sears, paint --------------- Went out at 7 to get newspaper and use my Wendys free breakfast coupon which expires today. Wendys near the Sarasota mall is closed in the morning. Went home and had cereal. Read the paper then went to Sears to get a roller cover to paint the bathroom and also get some paint masking tape. While there I bought 3 more of the Covington shirts I like. They were on Sale further marked down to 8.99. I paid 11.99 on Friday. Took down the mirror, removed the electrical plates and taped all the moldings and sink counter top in prep for painting. It's a windy day out with on and off rain as the hurricane passes. As part of the Social Security analysis, I built a model spreadsheet to see if I could take early SS payments, invest the proceeds, return all the benefits and reset my rate. This looks promising. Did the painting which didn't take too long. Cleaned the tools in the kitchen sink at the advice of Libbie. This worked well. The painting looks good. It rained buckets all day long - sometimes horizontally. When the rain let up a little around 8 PM I ran out to Publix and got a 1/2 gallon of skim milk for breakfast tomorrow. ~ September 01, 2008 morning, trip planning, Evil Empire --------------- Woke on time and had my cereal and coffee. It looks like it's going to be a nice day after the big storm yesterday. I'm wearing one of the new Covington shirts this morning and it feels good. I'll probably go out for a morning walk ahead of any possible afternoon rain showers. Took my walk out to the wetland boardwalk in front. Missed lunch at the clubhouse. Even though I was there at 1:30 they said they were closed. Got hold of Lib in the PM and together we worked through the trip arrangements for Corrie's wedding. We're going to the evil empire on Friday and returning on Sunday. I vehemently dislike Rhode Island and New England and think it's a pretty shitty place to be going in the Fall. I would much rather it be a southernly trip. Dinner was some chicken from Publix. ~ September 02, 2008 nice day, cleanup, stocks --------------- Took a walk around the block through the housing development in Stoneybrook which I like very much. I imagined myself living there some day. Came home and studied MLP's and data formatting a little. Bought some MLP's in my IRA accounts. The IRA accounts are doing pretty poorly. Is it poor management? The two mutual funds in the Roth are both underwater with little hope for recovery but I'll keep the money there just in case a miracle happens. I ordered a Network Gateway board from Mouser today. This has the AVR32 with Linux kernel. I would like to build a Linux stamp equivalent of my own design. Enjoyed T Boone Pickins on GMA this morning. I may get his book at Amazon. He talks about his natural gas powered Honda. Went to Publix and got some trip fixins: Plums and trail mix in addition to the few Apples I have leftover that I brought with me. Have to cleanup this place today which shouldn't be too hard. A few loads of laundry and wash the floors. ~ September 03, 2008 Driving --------------- Got up at 5:12 am, the alarm was actually set for 5:15. Did all the morning stuff - filled my thermos, had cereal, put the stuff in the car and left at 5:40 AM. Short delay in Tampa where there was a 3 car accident at I-4. I made some pretty good time. Stopped for gas in Brooksville at 3.59 and again in Reevesville, SC for 3.59 where I stopped at McD for a bathroom break. Got home at 4:30 - Libbie wasn't home. Unpacked and she showed up later. We went out to the Mexican place for Margaritas and food. I had the Pollo chipotle again which I took home in a takeout box for tomorrow. In the evening I fell sound asleep and was awoke y the telephone. when it rang I was so out of it that I didn't know where I was. Went to bed at 10:20 - it felt good to be home. ~ September 04, 2008 airport, Rembrandt --------------- Left this morning at 9 after breakfast to take Libbie to the airport for her 10:30 flight to California. she has a stop in Denver. In the meantime I worked on the Linux stamp I will be developing. The name is going to be Rembrandt. I need a free web site to host it - I started looking at Google Sites. In the interim I have started collecting info on Traviata in the Wiki. this is a great idea to organize my thoughts andplan what I want to do. When the Gateway board comes I want to fire it up, compile an application or two, possibly get the web server and a temperature probe working. This eventually will be a multi device platform. I was thinking of calling the collective bunch "Network Toys". This would fit the goal of hosting NCID on the thing, possibly hosting a weather station with http and one wire stuff running. I will put one in Stoneybrook to monitor HVAC, one as a zigbee to LAN gateway or something like that and of course there's the fish pond and greenhouse to consider. ~ September 05, 2008 linux, MLPs --------------- I read an interesting recommendation by an author on MSN about how MLP's are going to come back strong and the time to get in is now. IV is back and seems to be faster than ever. I studied how the Round Robin Database tool (RRD) works this morning. It looks to be pretty powerful and may be just what I need to log temperature and humidity data. It contains nice tools to create graphs for display in web pages. I'm going to get it working first in Linux, possibly on an NSLU2. It also seems to work in Windows, at least there is a windows binary that I've been using. Hanna is supposed to hit today with 1 to 2 inches of rain and some wind gusts. Not sure about the greenhouse but around here the generator is all set to go. I need to check the chain saw gas since I recall running out this summer. The NGW100 came this afternoon. Atmel providesnothing in the way of instructions, cables or even how to hook it up. After muddling around a bit I found that Linux bootup comes out of the DB9 rs232 connection. There is no indication what the baud or flow control should be. I was able to change the IP and access the device but I ended up having to change the switch in my office to an 8 port Netgear switch instead of the 5 port Linksys I was using. Went to the greenhouse in advance of tropical storm Hanna and ran a generator test cycle then I turned the monitor system off. We don't need it when the overnight temp is in the 70s. Dinner was a Lean Cuisine, Parmesan fish. ~ September 06, 2008 tired, wet, AVR32 Linux, One Wire and Digitemp --------------- The alarm went off at 6 as always but I was very tired and felt like sleeping in but I didn't. We got 4 inches of rain last night and it's still raining. Elizabeth said it will rain for 3 more hours. Talked to Lib while she was in bed at the Lapworths. The sun came out at noon so I went over to the greenhouse. Everything looks OK. I ran a generator test then turned the monitor system on. The garage is flooded. I was thinking of adding a drain out the back which Libbie doesn't want. Perhaps if I add a pipe with a sewer cap it might win her approval. Picked up the mail, my Walgreens rebate for shampoo came today. will take that with the Eckerds $5 gillette rebate to the CU on Monday. I finally made progress with Linux. Got the SD card functioning and used it to transfer the networking file to the card. It now boots with networking. Still no web services. I get a forbidden 403 error. I got past the web thing. The conf file has a restriction of what IP addresses can access the thing. This is stupidity on Atmel's part. I made it available to all and now can get to the web page. Had to also modify the S91httpd script to change the port of the web server. Interestingly, Firefox wouldn't allow a port of 87 so I changed it to 2287 and all is well. I wanted something more meaningful. Maybe for Stoneybrook I'll use the build ing address, 9320, and see if that works. I also took a look at OWFS and templogger which comes with it. I rejected this stuff as too complicated. I'll probably write my own based on Digitemp. Digitemp also has a script to output the data to the RRDtool. I'll make the whole thing C to hopefully simplify things. Dinner and lunch was a Stouffers French Bread pizza. While studying one wire temps under Linux I had the spanish channel, Gigante Sabado on. This is an old fashioned variety show with lots of T&A. ~ September 07, 2008 9320, hello world --------------- [b]Sunday[/b]. Picked up the paper as usual at 7:05 AM. I noticed the $10 off Lowes coupon from Libbie expires today so I'll go down and pick up another roll of aluminum foil for the crawl space. Late last night I changed the port for Rembrandt and can now access the http server on port 9320. Next step is to compile a "hello world" program before I compile my own temperature reading program. After lunch went to Lowes and picked up the roll of foil. Back home I collected pine straw off the driveway and picked up tree limbs in the backyard as well as pruned the roses and weeded. After a quick shower I settled down and compiled a hello world program using Cygwin and GCC on my PC, Mazeppa. Downloaded Hello World to the Rembrandt and executed it OK. Next step is to write a One Wire program derived from lots of examples on the web. I'm going to either use a serial port or the TWI port on the AVR32. Studied some one wire interfacing techniques using 3 volts which is a problem. The Uart will provide the timing but will have to buy some GasFet transistors from Digikey or Mouser. Cost is $.14 each which is more than acceptable but will have to buy 100. because of quantity pricing. Started writing the interface program using Digitemp as a guide. I also need to look at OWFS to see how they did serial port I/O. Fell asleep downstairs watching IFC, went to bed at midnight. ~ September 08, 2008 Linux, diet, blogs, web sites --------------- Got up at 6 which was before the radio went off. Continued looking at the serial programming for One Wire interfacing. I'm fat - I feel very bloated this morning. I may do two walks - one in the morning and then again in the afternoon by driving over to the park. Had trouble with the blog this morning. I found that when I enter without logging in there is no way to login and no way to make an entry. I added another entry into Tom's Musings which is the login page. Let's see if this works. The login page seems to help get to the blog when it appears to be stuck at read only. I struggled most of today trying to compile a one wire serial module. I may have to strip it down to nothing and essentially write my own. I put out the MAAVS eMemo today. Now I need to work on the BB web site. Had some troubles updating the BB web site. When there are no streps in a category, the program barfs with an illegal function call or something like that. Added one fake strep to get around the problem. I started looking at doing the onewire routines from scratch based on the uart, The PD kit from maxim is too complicated and won't readily compile. Libbie encountered thunderstorms this evening in Las Vegas. Her plane took off 1 1/2 hours late because they didn't want to fuel the plane in a thunderstorm. Left the house at 12:15 and arrived at the Sheetz gas station at 12:45. Libbie called at 12:54 saying she just got off the plane. Picked her up outside the terminal at 1:05 and got home by 1:30 AM. this is pretty late but I was up and wide awake. ~ September 09, 2008 Late morning, serial ports --------------- After getting in at 1:30 this morning I didn't get up until 7. Worked on the serial routines under Linux for the one wire bus. I gave up trying to compile any programs I found and read the spec and started writing my own. This is the easiest way and it seems to be going well. I'll need to put a scope on the uart outputs to see if it's really doing what I hope it is. I'm putting together a Mouser order for driver GasFETS and schottky diodes for the one wire assembly. I may do a separate proto board with 3 RJ45 connectors and the driver stuff at first to put in a box with the Linux board for Stoneybrook. Did the grocery store later in the day. Met Tom Herner in Kroger's - he talked about doing a Danube cruise next week for 2 weeks. When I got home I ordered tickets for opening night of the Met HD series on Sept 22. Looked in my eMail and saw there was a 10% off coupon code for Carolina Ballet. Called the Ballet line and got ballet tickets for Sunday afternoon Sept 21. The arts season is up and running!!! Downloaded Lib's camera containing the pictures from her California trip. Pretty nice places she visited. We checked on the owner of the rental house today to see if he's legit. Not a problem, Libbie talked to the realtor selling the rental house and I researched the owner. Dinner was pasta that I picked up in Trader Joe's today. ~ September 10, 2008 slow, fat --------------- I'm a little slow this morning. Ate too much yesterday and didn't sleep well. The rains all day stopped me from going out to cut the lawn. Went to Harris Teeter with Libbie this afternoon to get 24 grain bread for BLT's tonight for dinner. Got a $500 check from John today for the microwave which was a surprise. I'll return a majority of it. I did some reading and scoping of my TTY port on Rembrandt. I found that I have to recompile the image to enable the other USARTs on the card. I'm very tired today. Went to bed at10 and slept very well. ~ September 11, 2008 morning, La Capilla, Ubuntu --------------- I'm feeling much more chipper this morning thanks to reduced eating yesterday. I'm going to start researching how to modify the Linux boot image. Tried loading Ubuntu Linux on an old computer several times. In the end I found that Ubuntu doesn't include the development tools by default. It's not set up to be a developers machine. think I will switch back to Debian. Could not get the Linux image to build on this machine - seem to be missing a few packages. Had some email chats with Joe Bruns about the wisdom of what AVSA is doing in regards to web software. Sold half of my position in MWE today. I got tired of it falling few cents each day for no reason. My target for buying it back is November at about $25. I sold for 29.50. Received a quote from Spark - their least expensive package was $52. We went with LaCapilla for $12.95 per plate all inclusive. Pitchers of margaritas are $18.95. I put a $200 deposit on my credit card. ~ September 12, 2008 buildroot, barbecue chicken --------------- Got Ubuntu updates and all the build essentials loaded thanks to a few web pages describing what I needed. I then ran through the make source and make config successfully. Not sure if the buildroot worked because one file could not be found - I suspect it's a versioning problem. The buildroot took several hours. While this was going on I mowed the front lawn but had to abandon the back because it was too wet. The mower kept choking on the grass and stalling. I got cleaned up then climbed the ladder to look at the lights. Did a trip to home Depot and got a pack of 2 halogen bulbs ($7.50 - ouch!). Replaced the two bad bulbs but one of the original plastic lights has the wires cut at the base and it seems to be weathered. I'll prepare one of the metal lights that I have and replace it tomorrow. Came back in and found the build had finished. Hurray. Libbie made barbecued chicken with her own sauce - yummy. We had it with steamfresh peas and a bottle of Shiraz. ~ September 13, 2008 Ike --------------- During breakfast we watched some of the early pictures of hurricane Ike in Galveston and Houston. I mowed the backyard today then worked on the landscape lights. Put a new light up on the tree that used to carry the IR sensor which was never used. Dinner was stuffed flounder and a delicious Butternut squash. After dinner we went to Staples and purchased Rehearsal Dinner Invitations. ~ September 14, 2008 outdoors, microwaves --------------- After reading the traditional Sunday paper I printed the RSVP cards and printed our names on the envelopes. Libbie addressed the invitations while I worked outdoors finishing the mowing and weeding around the Roses. After a lunch of BLT's we went to Lowes and Walgreens for Isopropyl Alcohol and a microwave. Lowes doesn't carry the Sharp anymore but are switching to GE. Home Depot carries Magic Chef so we went home empty handed. I checked online and found that Walmart in Holly Spring has the Sharp microwave or I could buy it from Amazon. I'll go to Holly Springs tomorrow and pick one up since they list it at $57 and Amazon shows $82. Libbie has perfected her ultra thin crust pizza crust with Olive Oil and a topping containing garden tomatoes - Yum!!! ~ September 15, 2008 crash, microwaves --------------- After the bankruptcy of Lehman yesterday the market is down over 500 today. Not a good day for the preferreds either. Went to Walmart and picked up another microwave which I modified fairly easily. Need to make some probes as well. Dinner was stir fry from Trader Joes. Ran quilt on my Linux distro for the AVR32 and made the changes for 2 usarts. It seemed to compile OK. The truth will be when I burn it to the board. This is way more complicated than I ever would have thought. ~ September 16, 2008 probes --------------- Cut some copper tubing to make some probes for the microwave. Market is doing a little better today although it's a pretty glum rainy day outside. Talked to Arlene today about the insurance policies that Aunt Helen has. Still don't know if they are viable. Made a grocery run today to both Krogers and Trader Joes. It's a pretty lackadaisical day. Dinner tonight was pasta from trader Joe's. After dinner I finished the microwave probe - soldered the chip to the wire, applied some thermal grease and put the heat shrink on, The heat gun does a nice job shrinking the tubing, way better than how I used to do it with a soldering iron or flame. It seems to be a worthwhile purchase. ~ September 17, 2008 outage --------------- Found out the internet is out this morning. Called the Time Warner repair number and found that there is an area wide outage that is supposed to be fixed "in 90 minutes". The Internet came back. In the meantime, i got the LCD and Keypad working on the second controller card but can't get the temperature probe to read. The market is down 450 today. I found my CEG-A was down to $15. I paid $25 for it and own 1,000 shares. I'm hoping this abandoning of stocks and even preferreds is a temporary phenomena which will recover in a few months when Wall Street gets some financial confidence back. It seems a mess today. Talked to Kathy Lahti about the convention. We now have a signed contract and need to start assigning people to the various roles. Talked to George McDonald about the Treasurer position but he turned me down. Will try Irwin Wagman next. Talked to Fay but Irwin was not home. Dinner tonight was a veggie entree from Trader joes. Libbie did not like it because it was all carbs but I loved it - potatoes, carrots, peppers, onions, brocolli and snow peas in a very tasty sauce. ~ September 18, 2008 another day --------------- Still reeling from the preferred losses in the market. Hope things recover some day but the banking crisis seems to be getting worse. Great news - a Fed bailout of bad mortgages is causing the market to soar. Worked on shutters today. I'm trying for one a day. Irwin agreed to be treasurer for MAAVS. Dinner was barbecue chicken with veggies. ~ September 19, 2008 shutters, plastic, fish --------------- Worked on the temperature probe in the morning checking all the timings of read and write of ones and zeros to see where the problem may be. It seems to be reading FF for the temperature as confirmed on the scope. After changing the timings I'm now getting AD. Found that I need to set the output to a strong one (active) or else the bus droops to 1.5 volts with just the pullup after commanding a conversion. In the afternoon I took all the shutters off over the porch. I stretched a ladder across the porch roof to give me some balance. After this Libbie and I went to Lowes and then the greenhouse and nailed boards on the bottom of the plastic over the cool cells. Got home and Libbie fixed a nice dinner of flounder stuffed with crab and Brocolli. Made some more calls in the evening to get convention committees signed up. ~ September 20, 2008 prostate, shutters --------------- Went to Duke hospital this morning and got a prostate screening. They will mail the result by Thanksgiving. When i got home I started looking at the temp probe and found I was programmed for the old One Wire Temp device which is a single byte temperature. The new family. code 28, uses two bytes for temp with 4 decimal point precision. Before I could test my new algorithm I had lunch with Libbie - she fixed some nice BLT's. Next I went on the porch roof and washed windows and put up the rest of the shutters. Ran out of screws so I switched to metal screws with plastic inserts for two of the fasteners. This looks like it will work OK. ~ September 21, 2008 ballet, emmys --------------- It was a short day. I got the temperature probe working but the microwave still has problems. The door circuit seems to be fried. It will be a hard fix since the chip is under the DC-DC converter which will need to be removed. Went to the Ballet at 2. A very nice performance of three disticntly different composers. I enjoyed the pas de deux of Timour but the haunting one was the torture sequences by Lynne Corbet Taylor. We got home in time for Libbie to make her excellent pizza and then watch the emmys for the rest of the evening. ~ September 22, 2008 microwaves, opera --------------- I struggled with the microwave controller. Need to do some very hard hardware changes. We had to leave early for the 6 PM start of the Opening Night Gala. Left the house at 4:30 and ate a light soft taco dinner at Mo's Southwestern Grill at North Hills. The Senior bus was unloading when we got there which seemed early but they really lined up to the doors. We did well - had dinner then got in line. The evening was wonderful - all the glittery costumes, gowns, sets and the marvelous singing of Fleming, Hampson and Vargas. What a delightful night!!!! ~ September 23, 2008 soldering, haircuts and dancing --------------- Struggled with the controller card through the morning before going to the grocery stores for old geezer day. Found that the door signal was shorted to the LEd with a solder splash. The door open now works but the logic level is only 2 volts in the down level. Either there is not enough drive on the input or the output was damaged from being shorted. It's not a good down level. Will check the pull up resistor to make sure it's only 4.7k. May need to go to 10k. In any event, the down level needs fixing. Went to deposit my $59 Home Depot rebate check then filled my gas tank at NAD. Some stations are running out of gas due to hurricane Ike and the changeover to low sulfur gasoline. Stopped by Great Clips next to Krogers to see if they were busy and they weren't so i got a haircut. Had it cut shorter. We've been communicating with Anne about hotel reservations for Dallas on Dec 6. Will visit the Nasher in downtown Dallas then the wedding on Saturday then the Dallas opera on Sunday. Watched the TIVO version of last nights dancing with the stars. it was the season opener. The surprise was Brooke Burke. This gorgeous girl has 4 children and can really dance. The comedian is terrible. Cloris Leachman is also terrible but at least is entertaining. This morning I had toruble with Traviata. It wasn't there and I couldn't get it back so I turned it off and restarted. Still don't know what happened. Dinner was Trader Joes pasta. ~ September 24, 2008 babys, shopping --------------- Vicki called at 9:15 this morning to tell me that Jack Dowd delivered Nancy's baby in the car on the way to the hospital. The baby's name is Trevor Collin at 8 lb 1 oz, 21 inches. Found out that Warren Buffet purchased Constellation Energy which caused the preferred CEG-A to recover quite a bit. This was a scary ride. Fixed another problem on the controller card. The pullup was 1k which only gave a 2 volt down level. Changed it to 10k and now the down level is 0 volts like it should be. This was stressful since I'm shooting for taking this with us when we leave for RI on Friday. I went with Libbie to Southpoint this morning. She picked up her dress at Norstroms then returned a top to Coldwater Creek. We took the opportunity to do a short walk at the mall. I skipped lunch although I'm feeling a little weak today. Don't know what that's all about. Joe is balking about the rehearsal dinner in the evening. Not sure what his problem is. We arranged the venue, sent out formal invitations and thought all was well. He seemed to have the same bug up his ass when Christa and Craig hired the photographer. I'm having some success with the microwave. I added a user selection for power level. This kicks in when the actual temp gets within 10 degrees of the target. This may need to be programmable as well. Dinner was Trader Joes Canneloni and Bean Burger. ~ September 25, 2008 alcohol, rain, evil empire --------------- I loaded 300 ml of alcohol into the microwave and had quite a bit of success maintaining 70C for 10 minutes in a number of runs. The new algorithm seems to be doing well. I'm going to bring my laptop and JTAG device to Rhode Island. It's a rainy day today. We have a Noreaster forming off the coast and is going to track up the coast and follow us to RI tomorrow. It won't be a pretty weekend. I checked us in to Southwest - we both got the A boarding group. I checked some of my preferreds today - I would guess the damages are down about 10% in preferreds and 30% in my one MLP which is MWE. I expect all to recover eventually. It's a tough call - the economy is bad enough and natural gas has fallen where there may not be significant recovery in MLP's. The preferreds are quality issues so they may fare better. I would like to pick up some NRN tomorrow which is trading at 18 but will probably settle around 20. Dinner tonight was trader joe's barbecue chicken on toast. It lacked a bite - it tasted pretty bland. I'm not looking forward to our evil empire trip tomorrow. ~ September 26, 2008 morning --------------- It was a rainy windy night. We woke this morning to hear Washington Mutual collapsed overnight. In the meantime, the Federal bailout is mired in political squabbling. We have to fly today in awful weather. I heard from John - he is going to bring the microwave and some chemicals for testing. We left for the airport at 10:30 in some rain squalls which eventually cleared up by the time we got to the airport. I dropped Libbie off and parked the car in the parking garage. When I got to the Southwest counter in the rain Libbie decided that we shouldn't go. A lot of flights were delayed or canceled and our flight was 90 minutes delayed with a stop in Philly which looked like we may spend the night there. We stopped at Courtneys for lunch. I had the Colorado scramble and Libbie had a country scramble. The difference was she got cheese and I got ham in our dishes. The day didn't turn out too bad. We had Butternut Squash soup for sesert which was pretty bland. Watched a little of the debate then went to bed after unpacking the suitcase. ~ September 27, 2008 regrets --------------- It still looks nasty in the Northeast. Libbie is having pangs of regrets about canceling but I'm happy about it. It would be miserable up there. I worked on Loge, an AVR controller to select which heater to use for greenhouse heating. In the afternoon we went to Fresh Market and picked up some precooked ribs to have with squash and Shiraz for dinner. After dinner i watched a little of the Babysitters which I downloaded. ~ September 28, 2008 Loge, greenhouse springs, heaters --------------- I worked some more on the Loge controller. Did a footprint for the relay I'm going to use. I also managed to find a pdf spec of the thing on the web which is good. Had to go to Ace hardware to get a replacement spring for one of the greenhouse shutters. The spring broke where it attaches to the shutter. This is a natural wear point. Libbie and I went to the greenhouse and measured and also discussed where and how to add an auxiliary heater. Modine makes a 125,000 BTU Hot Dawg heater that is also available in a 2 stage model. With some intelligent control algorithm I may be able have an AVR measure outside temperature and make a decision on which heater to use including using them both for really cold temperatures. When we got back we took a walk back to the Seagroves farmhouse which they are preparing to move. Pacific Standard also seems to be building a few spec homes which I think is foolish. Only 2 of the homes under construction have SOLD signs on them. There are also a few with Open House signs. I need to go back to the greenhouse and troubleshoot the generator auto starting circuitry. It seems to not be able to start the generator from the AVR controller card but manual starting works very well. This could be anything including bad Solid State Relays, low voltage on the relay coils, bad wiring to the relays, bad wiring from the relays to the generator. Libbie made her usual excellent pizza for dinner. ~ September 29, 2008 Loge, Krogers, meltdown --------------- I worked on the software for Loge, the furnace selector. Also spent some time adding the PCB footprints to the design. Need to create some footprints for the relays and possibly some of the headers. Went to Krogers and picked up a chicken and potato salad and macaroni salad for dinner. The market had a meltdown today - down 777 points. Interestingly, the one preferred I was looking at from Lincoln National was only down .07. Why is it the stuff I own goes down several points while the stuff I want to buy never seems to be at a bargain. Dinner of course was the chicken and the two salads. ~ September 30, 2008 Loge, groceries, gutters, dancing --------------- I spent the morning working on the footprints for Loge. Around noon I noticed it was Tuesday so I needed to get groceries. Did the Trader Joes and Krogers runs then went over to the greenhouse to debug the generator. Found that a wire broke off the battery which resulted in no power to the relay box that enables the starter, ignition and transfer relays. Went back home for a soldering iron since the original was a crimp connection which got loose. I don't like the other crimp connections either although they seem to be tight. At some point I'll replace them with solder connections for reliability reasons. Got on a ladder and used my rake tied to a rope to clean the valley over the garage. Got a wheelbarrow of pine straw for the front then blew the scraps off the driveway. Dinner was Trader Joes pasta. In the evening we watched Dancing with the Stars that we missed last night and then I stayed up to watch the results show. Kim Cardashian was kicked off - I didn't really like her. ~ October 01, 2008 footprints, Home Depot --------------- Tried reading the netlist into the layout program but there were some issues with the footprints. I ended up making a footprint for a solder cup DB9 rather than order a normal through hole one. Fixed some drill sizes to match the AP standard drill list. Libbie and I walked the lake so I could take bat house pictures then we went to Home Depot for divider wall plastic. I paid the rental money today for our Huntington Beach rental house and also paid the quarterly for Stoneybrook. This is getting expensive. Found out the $300 check never made it to David Kazan. Am investigating with the credit union. I successfully made a wiring run of Loge. Will sit on it overnight. Dinner was crab cakes with macaroni salad. I watched Adrift in manhattan on the Movie Channel. ~ October 02, 2008 AP PCB, Genny, Mouser --------------- Finished the layout and sent it to AP Circuits in Canada. I made A change so it would accommodate a push button switch so that it could be used on Genny as a generator controller. I'm also looking into using this as a crawl space vent timer possibly tied into a humidity sensor to fine tune crawl space venting. I spent some time putting together orders on Digikey and Mouser. I ended up using Mouser but found out they don't carry Maxim parts. I ended up requesting samples from Maxim for both the A/D battery converter and the RS485 transceiver. Mouser will supply the resistors I don't have and the Max202 RS232 transceiver. I found that I have some surface mount LED's from my IBM days that I can use. The RED one was an SOT23 package which I tested and also tried on the LED pads and all looks well. I don't need the RS485 transceiver from Maxim yet and the Battery Monitor is for a photocell circuit which I haven't worked on yet. Dinner was the Trader Joe's Eggplant Parmesan which was very tasty. I programmed John's controller card and it ran away to 78 degrees C before I shut it down. ~ October 03, 2008 Kahlo, Loge, trees, drains and First Friday --------------- Worked on the fish pond version of Loge defining the timers, etc. Looked some more at the runaway problem on Kahlo. It could be it takes a while for it to get to the magnetron off routine. I don't know why it takes seconds but I'll hook up the scope and see what's going on. The bathroom drain was leaking due to a cracked washer. We went to Lowes and got a drain repair kit for $7. This is an expensive washer. We also bought some new faucets for the sink on the back porch. This new one is higher and will allow a pail under the spigot. I'm also going to put a hose bib mounted on the sink basin. Took the dead tree down next to the house. Dropped some of it on Longo's property but I'm cutting it all up and putting it on the pile in the back. The new washer fixed the leak under the sink. I'll keep the extra parts in case something else breaks but I don't think so. Tonight is First Friday. I have dinner reservations at Cafe Luna downtown tonight. We had a wonderful time at first Friday. Found street parking in front of Exploris then walked to Visual Arts where there was a "perspective" art show. Had some wine then went over to ArtSpace and had more wine while browsing various galleries. Talked to Judy Crane about her painting in the Marriott. She's a nice lady, we chatted a little about her art and the nice work she does. Next went to the quilting lady. I wish I brought my camera. Many nice night scenes with lights to photograph as well as some indoor shots. There was a pretty good street band playing some Bruce Springsteen and Rolling Stones music. I also enjoyed some of the scenery - nice looking woman in pretty clothes. Had dinner at Cafe Luna - I ordered the veal cannelloni which was a nightly special. Libbie had the Totelli cruscettia which is a seafood dish in a rich cream saucee. After dinner we went back to listen to the band some more and went home at 10 PM. ~ October 04, 2008 count, water, movie --------------- The countdown is on for the rehearsal dinner next Saturday. Libbie has 40 positive responses and she also thinks Holly and Darrel will be coming. I doubt it since we heard that as of last Saturday at Corrie's wedding they didn't even have tickets yet but they accepted the invitation. I spent the morning and part of the afternoon hooking up the new faucet on the back porch sink. On the way back from Ace Hardware I went up Laura Duncan and saw a spectacular house fire - they appear to intentionally burning a ranch home in back of the old Winn Dixie. The faucet works and I punched a hole in the sink for the new spigot but I haven't hooked it up yet. This evening we had crab stuffed salmon and acorn squash for dinner. After dinner we watched Father of the Bride on FLIX. This was a very good movie. ~ October 05, 2008 plumbing, WCPE, Tesla --------------- After the Sunday newspaper routine I went to Home Depot to pick up a copper tee for the spigot plumbing. Cut the pipes and soldered the tee to the line and mounted a block of wood to fasten the end of the 1/2" pipe against. The spigot is pretty firm and stands 6 inches above the sink. It took a few hours to accomplish but it turned out well. After a lean Cuisine lunch of sezchuan shrimp we went to the WCPE open house in Rolesville. We have never been there before. Walked around the studio, had birthday cake then toured the transmitter and generator building. It was pretty comprehensive. I took lots of pictures of the music collection, offices and inside the transmitter building. We came back via I-540 and the 64 bypass to the beltline. It was an easy trip back. Libbie made her excellent pizza and I watched a 60 minutes story about the electric car revival featuring the GM Volt and the Tesla motor company sports car. ~ October 07, 2008 Packing, last minute --------------- We leave for California tomorrow. Lib and I spent the afternoon packing. We will have two big suitcases and the carryon. I'm bringing the computer. Dinner was the leftover barbecue chicken on buns. We have to get up at 4:30 AM tomorrow morning. I'm reading Grapes of Wrath which I'm really getting into. ~ October 08, 2008 airplanes, Huntington Beach --------------- Got up at 4:30 for a 5:15 AM departure. We need to park in the outbound lot, lot 3 because of the length. Our flight left at 7 AM on time and got into John Wayne a little early. We got a Pontiac Vibe which I was very happy with except it stunk with cigarette smoke. It was the last 4 door mid size so we kept it. Stopped at Joe's and went to Wahoos for a veggie bowl lunch. After lunch hung out at Joe's until our landlord called that he was available to check us in. The house was nice although it needed a little TLC. It had a SOLD sign on it. When Libbie was here in September it was "For Sale". Paul and Marijah came and met us outside the house. We all walked down to Ruby's for dinner. When Christa got out of work, she and Joe joined us. Afterwards even though we were tired we went over to La Capilla to settle on the menu for Saturday night. We had to choose 3 items from the menu which we did with Joe's help. We also did the grocery store, Trader Joes, and got wine, cereal, coffee and milk. ~ October 09, 2008 Nordstroms, shopping --------------- We surprisingly slept until 6 AM then got up to make coffee and have our shredded wheat breakfast. I didn't like the Trader Joe's breakfast blend coffee. It tasted more like Maxwell house with soy fillers. We drove to LAX at the embassy suites and picked up Sue who is going to stay with us till Saturday. On the way back we stopped at Nordstroms to steam the dress and also Crate and Barrel to buy a set of silver ware for Joe's wedding gift. We had lunch late in the afternoon at Wahoos. Later Joe came over to our house and started grilling some tri tips and grilled veggies that we ate on Tortillas with Mondavi Pinot Noir. The Pinot was pretty good but we should have had the Trader Joes wine instead from an economy standpopint. ~ October 10, 2008 sheet cake, Gerber Daisies, watercolor --------------- In the morning we went to Sams to get a sheet cake which we had engraved with "Three Cheers, your day is here". We picked up the glass beads for the flower vases. On a walk I found a guy selling watercolors of Rubys. Told him I would be back with my wife. Libbie and sue went with the women to get their nails done. When they returned Libbie and I went back to the Farmers market at the pier. She found Gerber Daisies from a guy which we negotiated for $32 for 6 bundles including the pail they were in. At the watercolor place we not only got "Going to Rubys" but we also picked up the Huntington Beach brewery painting and also a Main Street scene that Libbie found. We got all 3 paintings for $45 in cheap frames. We also looked for Huntington Beach placemats but no luck. For dinner tonight we went over to Joe's for pizza. all the boys were there - it was pretty loud with the guys playing Guitar hero. Later they put on Wii fitness. Aiden was great at the ski jump and a few other wii games such as hitting soccer balls with his head. I had too much pizza and also a few beers from Joe's tap. It was a fun night. ~ October 11, 2008 Rubys, rehearsal, Dinner --------------- We had a nice slow start and then drove with Mary and John to the rehearsal site on the beach. We had to pay $10 parking for the one hour of the rehearsal. It seemed to be pretty chilly and a little windy. Afterwards we all went to Rubys. Met Josh's parents on the beach - they had wandered up from Laguna and stumbled upon us doing the rehearsal. We invited them to Rubys but they bowed out. The Ruby rehearsal dinner was nice - the kids were excited with their iPod gifts. The dinner was good. David and Peter joined us - David picked up Peter at John Wayne and made it back. Arlene, Jessica and David and Ellie also made it to Ruby's which was great. The bill ended up being around $700. When we got back to the house our Gerbers had all wilted and needed help. Arlene and I went out to get floral wire which we got at 1-800 flowers. In the evening we went over to La Capilla at 6:30 to set up the flowers and the sheet cake. Our guests started arriving at 6:45 - we had the Margaritas and the drinks brought out earlier than 7 but we couldn't start eating until the Groom arrived. Joe arrived at 7:05 and we got started with dinner. We ended up with 48 plates and 9 pitchers of Margaritas. Mary Elaine and her boyfriend Josh were also there, making it 3 Benziger kids and 3 Sroczynski kids. We left there around 9 and went home pleasantly tired. The bill came in at $800. We previously put down a $200 deposit so the grand total was $1000. ~ October 12, 2008 ihop, wedding --------------- The wedding day was surprisingly another busy one. We went out to the iHop for breakfast with all the Condon girls. We waited a long time for a table but finally we got two booths - one for the girls and one for the guys. I had the avocado and bacon omelet which came with a side order of buttermilk pancakes. Too much food. Because breakfast was over past noon, we skipped lunch and got ready for the wedding. My top button broke in a moment of panic. Joe gave me sandals for wearing on the sand but I stuck with the shoes and socks until needed. Sandals seem very uncomfortable to me. ~ October 13, 2008 presents, HB Brewery --------------- This is the day after. We had a leisurely morning looking at pictures. Around 11 AM Craig, Debbie and joe and Christa came over to open wedding presents. I also copied the pictures from the Lapworth camera. We put all the presents in the Lapworth SUV for storage in their backyard. Afterwards we went to the Huntington Beach Beer Co for lunch. I had the clam chowder and salad. The chowder was served in a bread bowl which was delicious. Later that day Libbie and i went to El Ranchito for dinner with Margaritas. ~ October 14, 2008 san juan, lapworths --------------- Got up our usual 6 or so and had breakfast before going over to the Best Western to say goodbye to Holly and Darrel. We next went over to Joe and Christa's and met Joe getting the boat ready in the street. They go over to Catalina today. Left there and headed South to Laguna. Walked around the Montage resort and enjoyed the path and beach. Libbie fell into the water climbing some rocks - it looks like her camera is dead. We stopped at a nice grocery store and picked up sandwiches and water which we ate at a picnic lunch in San Juan Capistrano. We went into the old mission ($16) and enjoyed the old adobe buildings, beautiful gardens and the butterflies and hummingbirds. Craig and Debbie called us from there and invited us over for dinner. Took I-5 up from Capistrano to Whittier and had a nice outdoor barbecue of Carni Asada on Tortillas with the fixings. Left there in the dark and used the GPS to get us home. Took the PAC Coast down to HB because we had to pick up the party leftovers at the brewery and put them in Joe's garage. Main Street was closed because of a street fair which happens every Tuesday night. ~ October 15, 2008 leaving --------------- Got up at 6 AM Pacific time and showered and had breakfast. This is our last day here. Took our last walk down Main St then when out on the pier, turned around at 9:15. Left the house by 9:50 and took the Pac Coast to Newport where we picked up 55 North and topped off the gas tank at 3.32 per gal. Arrived at the terminal at 10:30 and after security and check in we had a Big Mac from the McDonalds in the terminal. Our plane got off OK at 11:55 for a very smooth flight into Atlanta. We got to Atlanta 20 minutes early but there was no gate for us. Once inside we found our 8:04 flight was delayed until 8:50. At 9:30 we were number 3 for takeoff but had to taxi back due to an overheating engine and oil leak. They got us another 757 at gate A2 from our plane at gate A18. We eventually landed in Raleigh at 12:30. After getting the car, luggage and a trip to Krogers for cereal and milk we got in at 2:00 AM. It was a long but satisfying day. It was great to be back. ~ October 16, 2008 home --------------- We got a late start today. I picked up some groceries at Krogers - mostly Lean Cuisines and some seasonal produce. We watched the Dancing with the Stars we missed earlier but I fell asleep through some of it. I rewired the FET's on LOGE because I thought they were miswired. Went through the mail - my orders from BG micro, Digikey and Maxim Sample parts all arrived to complete PCB assembly. The critical item was the terminal strip with 100 mil spacing. This is a nice terminal strip. ~ October 17, 2008 picasa, pcb, Modine --------------- This morning I did some work on our wedding pictures on the Picasa site adding face names to Google's face technology. Did some rewiring of the Loge board - it was correctly wired for the MOSFET drivers but the RED LED was incorrectly placed (assembly error). So far no errors in the PCB. Arlene called and said that David gave us the $750 deposit money back after inspecting the house. Stopped over at the greenhouse and said hi to Jack who was back from Portland. Looked over the new Modine that arrived. It will go in house 1 underneath bench 1 or maybe in the dead man space blowing into the fan jet under the bench. Dinner was stuffed salmon with yams and Shiraz. We watched a movie, Bread and Tulips on Flix this evening but I fell asleep through some of it. ~ October 18, 2008 Wii research, Loge controller --------------- I did some research on Wii combo packs online. Most are in the $430 to $475 range with Walmart having a combo special for $459 but out of stock online. I got the Loge controller working pretty well, solving the problems of the simulator. The simulator has been very valuable uncovering some problems with the sequencing of relays. The regulator gets a little warm at 12 volts but isn't too bad at 8 volts. I may have to run this on an external 5 volt supply. We went to Fresh market and found Chicken Venetian which was a chicken pastry with cheese and mushrooms. We also had squash and Chardonnay. For desert I had a Canolli. What a nice night. Watched Jerry McGuire on Flix, the showtime classics channel. ~ October 19, 2008 shade, LOGE, heaters, WII --------------- What a busy day. I bought the Sunday paper and found that Best Buy had the Wii on sale for $249 plus the FIT for $89. After gooing to the greenhouse and moving the new Modine to the front of House 1, I went with Libbie to Best Buy at 11 AM. There was a line for the Wii - they had to talk to each person and harass him or her before selling them the Wii. The asshole tried to sell me another Remote and made a wise remark that I must like playin with myself. At the register the cashier harassed me about laughing at the warranty they wanted to sell me for $29. Went home for lunch of BLT which was delicious then went over to the greenhouse and pulled the shade cloths off. While I was still dirty I took the heat shield off the FanJet and moved both the heat shield and the unit down where I moved the heater. Both units are now in place. Back home I tested the controller some more - it's performing very well. I'm going to add packet processing to it so I can network it with other controller cards. Libbie and I bowled some on the Wii and I took the fitness test where it determined I was as fit as a 43 year old. Libbie made a yummy pizza tonight with some whole tomatoes from the garden in it. ~ October 20, 2008 Wii, FanJets, tired --------------- I played with the Wii this morning and also added some of the packet processing to Loge. Late morning I went to the greenhouse and started moving the FanJet into place. Did a Home Depot run for conduit, wire and plumbing pipes for the propane line. At home Libbie and I did some more Wii stuff before I went to the greenhouse and worked some more on the FanJet. Came home tired. We got cleaned up and went to La Concina for 99 cent Margaritas and dinner. I had the Pollo Chipotle. The bill with drinks was 19.71 which is pretty good. After dinner we bowled some on Wii then watched Dancing with the stars which was delightful since they did Jitterbug, Salsa and West Coast Swing as well as the Hustle. ~ October 21, 2008 groceries, Loge --------------- Did a larger than usual grocery run since we were away a while. Renewed Libbie car registration at South Hills DMV then came home to do more packet work on Loge. Went to the greenhouse and got the FanJet mounted but did not have any electrical tape to tape the Cat-5 wire to the 12/2 so I could pull them together through the conduit. Came home and did a little bit of Wii before our dinner of Tortellini pasta. After dinner we watched Dancing with the stars - it was elimination night. ~ October 22, 2008 TNC, Venus --------------- Did some more research on web TNC's using the AVR. Not much out there. I may use my packaged TNC, either the Hansen or the MFJ to interface to the radio at first. This will allow me to free up time concentrate on the packet processing of Venus instead of hardware. ~ October 23, 2008 Wiring, State Fair, La Cochita --------------- Worked on the Venus controller a little in the morning before going over to the greenhouse. Nancy was with Libbie there while I wired the electrical outlet for the new heater. I put the last piece of conduit in to the outlet, screwed it down then put in an outlet. Need to come back with an outlet cover. Tomorrow I'll get into the gas line. After lunch we went to the State Fair because it was free admission today with 4 cans of food for the foodbank. Walked around the gardens, looked at the pathetic violets then went thourgh the village of yesteryear where we bought fudge. Toured the watermelons, sweet potatoes and pumpkins before watching some sheep judging and looking at a few dairy cows. Next we went over to the quilts and cake decorating. Met a very nice lady who took the time to show us all the quilt entries. Bought some peanuts from the peanut roaster. Walked through an environmental tent that had some electric cars then went into the Scott building for Libbie to get milk. Walked down the midway and saw some Hot Wisconsin Cheese being deep fat fried. We did not get any since we just bought a funnel cake with powdered sugar and cinnamon. It was an interesting afternoon of getting our exercise. We were back in Apex around 6:15 where we stopped at home to wash our hands and face before going out to dinner at La Concina. I had the Pollo chipotle again with a frozen Margarita. Came in and fell asleep on the couch. ~ October 24, 2008 gas lines, relays --------------- Went to the greenhouse and cut into the propane lines to install a tee and shutoff for the new heater. Joy was there helping Libbie. The project went successfully - I went there in the morning in case it was going to take all day but in about one hour I was already leak testing the new connections. Came home and the relays were waiting for me on the front porch. I ordered them Monday so I could control the Fan Jet the same time as the new heater. I will mount the relay inside the heater. Found an old FanJet fan belt - will match it up at Ace Hardware tomorrow. Did not return to the greenhouse. Libbie fixed stuffed flounder and Yams which we had with Chardonnay. After dinner we watched "the Big Lebowski", an old 1998 movie that we had not seen. ~ October 25, 2008 Traviata, --------------- Traviata was not up this morning. I logged into the console remoteley and restarted the Apache/php service which doesn't self start. Apparently the server had an update last night which required a reboot which it automatically performed. Wired the relay for the FanJet then moved the heater onto the concrete blocks. Libbie and I took a Home Depot trip and got some gas piping parts. We also went to Ace for a Fan belt then Target for ribs for dinner. Finally she wanted to do Office Max for plastic tape. I had a $10 off card which reduced the $22 to $12. Dinner was ribs with beans and rice and Shiraz. We need to stop having this much wine. ~ October 26, 2008 pipes, plays and MAAVS --------------- After the newspaper this morning I went to the greenhouse and hooked up the gas line with regulator to the new heater. I had to do a Home Depot trip to get two 12 inch pipes to finish the job. The gas is now plumbed but not leak tested. I'm also not sure about the old regulator I hooked up. It was salvaged from the shed and the inlet ports were clogged solid with insects and mud. I disassembled the regulator last night and cleaned it. I still need to hook up the vent port. We went to RLT this afternoon to see Death Trap, a comedy "who done it?". I wasn't in the mood for it since I have so much other stuff on my plate but it was enjoyable. Back home I started the MAAVS convention booklet. Libbie made her excellent pizza again. On 60 minutes this evening there was a nice story about T Boone Pickens. ~ October 27, 2008 MAAVS, gas leak, transfer switch --------------- Today is our last warm day so I may go over to the greenhouse and work on the wiring in the garage before the garage gets too cold and numbs my fingers. Laurene sent me the registration file which is in MS Works format. I found a java converter on the web that converted it into an Excel spreadsheet file. The union hooking the gas line to the heater was leaking as determined by Libbie's soap solution. Fixed the leak then went into the garage to start hooking up the transfer relay and attaching to the electrical panel. Went back with Libbie and finished the wiring to the electrical panel. The new heater now has power and it's through the transfer switch but there is no power on the transfer relay. I made a test run with the generator. All seems to be well. For dinner we had TJ's Canneloni and Lasagna. Afterwards we watched Dancing with the Stars. ~ October 28, 2008 AVSA, batteries, disaster --------------- Got a call from Anne that the office needs the CO and MN DVD's because there's is corrupt. Went over to the greenhouse after the Tuesday grocery run and diagnosed the controller which had a loud buzz when we called it overnight. Found that the battery was toast. Got a new one at Walmart for the replacement warranty cost, about $28 instead of $50 for a new battery. Unfortunately when hooking up the new battery I hooked it up backwards and blew up the controller. Not sure how much damage I caused. Hopefully it's just the regulators on the circuit boards. Dinner was fresh pasta. At home I replaced the regulators and we drove back out there at 8 PM. The wind was howling and it was cold. The Fred monitor worked like a charm. The generator controller had no power from the 5 volt regulator. I took it home again. In addition, the heater in house 4 will not come on. Libbie uses this heater for keeping the back house above freezing. When we got home we found Aunt Helen was taken to the hospital. she has pneumonia and a fever. Watched Dancing with the Stars tonight and saw Cloris Leachman get eliminated. I chose not to work on the regulator anymore today. ~ October 29, 2008 regulators, gas valves --------------- I disassembled the gas valve in house 4 and found it did not work when heat is called for. The thing is 10 years old or older. The regulator problem on the generator controller turned out to be a miswiring - went out to the greenhouse with Libbie and installed the generator controller and made a test run with it. All was well. Rewired the controller terminal box so that house 4 thermostat turns on house 3 heater and also removed the FanJet from the thermostat. I will restore this when we get house 4 heater running again. Late at night I won an eBay auction for a new gas valve from Vista, CA. My winning bid was $36.83 plus $14 shipping. There were 9 other bids. Ii talked to Arlene earlier this morning - Tess died yesterday. Funerl is Friday - i went in with Arlene and Vicki for flowers. ~ October 30, 2008 MAAVS, Tony Avent --------------- Did some work on the MAAVS convention book today then went over to the greenhouse to pick up Libbie to go over to Tony Avents. We talked about an AVSA convention tour. Afterwards we had lunch at Smithfield barbecue. At home I went back to working on the convention booklet. Dinner was TJ's Lasagna and Canneloni. ~ October 31, 2008 Halloween, booklets --------------- Today is Halloween. I spent most of the day working on the MAAVS convention booklet. In the afternoon I went to the grocery store and picked up fixings for our turkey dinner - bread, celery, milk, etc. Dinner was scallops over rice with Chardonnay. ~ November 01, 2008 booklets, Modine exhaust, turkey --------------- Worked on the MAAVS booklet some more, finally finishing it late in the day. At mid-morning I cut the plywood and tin for the through wall exhaust support. Went over to the greenhouse around noon and hooked up the exhaust pipe. While I was there I finished hooking up the regulator vent line. The heater is ready to go but i didn't test it. Went home and finished the booklet, uploaded it and sent out notices of the proof copy availability. Libbie fixed our turkey breast which we had with Korbel Brut, squash, potatoes, stuffing and cranberries. Very nice. Afterwards we watched the Aviator. My PC froze before the end of the movie. ~ November 02, 2008 MAAVS, heaters --------------- Heard from Judi about the 2009 convention. Her themes are about couples or comedians. I have some updates to do on the convention booklet this morning. It's a nice day, went to the greenhouse and stapled the plastic around the exhaust pipe. Fired up the heater and Fan Jet combo and everything worked as it was designed to. I may have to do a better job in tightening the FanJet belt. I also need to put the guards around the fan jet housing. The big news is that everything works!!!! Late in the day Ken Barbi sent an updated membership list with email addresses and URL's for the commercials. We had 2 of Libbie's great pizzas for dinner. ~ November 03, 2008 Layout, HVAC parts --------------- Worked on the Venus layout. Would like to send it out this week but it probably won't be ready. Went to Johnstone Supply to get 18 inch ducts - they didn't have any but they sent me to Michels next door. Ordered them from their Rocky Mount Store for pickup tomorrow. Dinner was pasta. ~ November 04, 2008 voting, ductwork, rehab, WII --------------- In the morning I did the rounds of Trader Joes, Krogers and also stopped by St Andrews to vote. Had to hang around today for a conference call at 3 with the rehab center about Aunt Helens progress. I think the phone call was a waste but they think they're doing something. After the call went to Garner for the ducts. Drove in the rain to Garner and picked up the 18 inch ducts. Had a hard time fitting everything in my tiny Toyota. We played Wii in the evening. Talked to Vicki this evening about the conference call we had this afternoon with the nursing home about aunt Helens rehab. Dinner was Pasta. ~ November 05, 2008 battery terminals, duct work --------------- Built the battery terminal box today then tried to work some more on the Venus layout. I'm not happy with placement and possibly function. Went to the greenhouse and started installing one of the ducts next to the aisle. It was a little tough crawling around on the gravel. Totally finished the job on one side of the aisle after having to go to Lowes to get 3 2x4's. Tomorrow I'll do the duct on the other side of the aisle. Heard from the Hilton that they are booked for next fall for MAAVS. Dinner was a delicious Turkey pie. Watched Dancing with the Stars this evening and watched Susan Lucci get eliminated. Accidentally went to bed early at 10 PM. I was tired. Received the eBay gas valve today. Unfortunately it can't be converted to propane. I put it back on eBay. ~ November 06, 2008 birthday, ductwork, Wii --------------- I painted the battery terminal box this morning using the green paint left over from the greenhouse garage building. Libbie cleaned the brush when she came home. Happy 62nd birthday to me. The WII wished me Happy Birthday and also was wearing a birthday hat as well as confetti and streamers. Nice. Libbie made a birthday Apple Pie for me and gave me a new 1/4 inch drill bit because she noticed my old bit was dull while trying to put the bolts into the duct. Finished installing the duct on the other side of the aisle. It's all ready for the fanjet tubing. The fire Ants are active today since the temp is in the 70's. Arlene gave me a Yo Yo Ma Cd for my birthday and Mary and George gave me a book from Island Books like they always do. Vicki called in the evening. This was my first birthday in which there was no birthday card from Mom. So sad. Joe called this morning to wish me a happy birthday. he also sent a link to the uploaded wedding pictures from the photographer. She did a terrible job - cut people off at the waist, put mostly sky in the pictures and tried to correct the exposure with Paint shop. Awful - I feel bad for Christa. ~ November 07, 2008 ductwork, gas valves, screws --------------- The printer said my convention booklet was size to 8.5x11 insread of 8.5x5.5 i opened up PM and re spooled it back out to the PDF converter after setting the paper options in the PDF converter to custom. Went to the greenhouse and installed the FanJet tube under the bench in house 1. This went well. I used the unpunched tube. My gas valve sold on eBay using the Buy It Now. Took it to the greenhouse for pack and ship service. Ordered a gas valve from Grainger for Will Call pickup. Libbie and I picked it up this afternoon and also bought gas on Capitol Blvd for 2.19. Behind Grainger we stopped into Home Depot and bought a 100 pack of #8 and #6 screws. I need them for the terminals in the terminal box. It's a gorgeous day out - on the way home we stopped at the greenhouse and I assembled a cap on the new exhaust stack. Libbie stayed in the gh and plugged in my extension cord while I worked on the cap on the outside drilling holes for the sheet metal screws to hold everything together. We went to First Friday at 6:30. There was quite a crowd everywhere downtown but the galleries were not as full. We were disappointed there was no band outside Artspace. Interestingly, Visual Arts had a DJ and loud music which was annoying. We ended up at Caffe Luna where I had the grilled tuna and 2 glasses of Merlot. The Rodney Strong Merlot was very good. At Paris Alexander studio we were served champagne. He was celebrating awards in several cities. ~ November 08, 2008 warm, no flame, scallops --------------- I worked building the battery box this morning. It's a warm day outside. Went over to the greenhouse and hooked up the new gas valve but no flame!!! did some debugging after going home to get my meters. The regulator pressure is OK. I actually was able to lower it a little. Next I tried electrical testing. I found that there was no power on the valve. Traced the lack of power to a bad wire coming from the conduit near the cooling outlet. I didn't have wire to fix this so we went home. Libbie fixed scallops in wine sauce over rice with peas. We had this with Chardonnay. Watched Mama Mia after dinner. Not a good movie but the Abba music was great. Meryl Streep is campy and wonderful. ~ November 09, 2008 wires --------------- After the newspaper I went to the greenhouse and replaced the faulty wire. The heater now lights but the flame is yellow. Came back with the manometer and checked the pressures then tried to fool around with adjusting the air but could not make the flame blue. Possibly the burner has spread out too much. Libbie made her excellent pizza again. ~ November 10, 2008 booklets, heaters, lasagna, dancing with the stars --------------- Worked out the details for hooking the aux heater up to the thermostat terminal box and the new battery terminal box. Drew the schematic in Orcad for future reference. This took having to measure the existing terminal box to figure out how it's wired. The schematic should help with this in the future. Hung the rest of the tubing for the aux heater in the greenhouse and fired the heater up to test it out. Much remains to do. Dinner was TJ's lasagna. After dinner we watched a pretty good Dancing With the Stars. Brooke is a great dancer. Edita was showing her lovely body once again. Her practice sessions in the little short shorts are pretty nice to see. ~ November 11, 2008 switches, LED's --------------- Mounted the bypass switch in the battery terminal box. Picked up some warm white LED's in Krogers for the Ficus tree on the backporch and replaced one set of the blue white strand. Did some scanning catchup work on birthday cards, tax bills and misc. ~ November 12, 2008 busy, relays, hillbillys, running around, Paneras --------------- This was a very busy day. Worked on the battery terminal box installing the bus jumpers and also installed the 12 volt cigarette lighter socket I bought in Walmart this morning. I also went over to Michaels and AC Moore for design supplies. Also went to Target and Office Max. Jennifer called that she had some Farmer Johns and a straw hat. I went over to the greenhouse and installed a 24 vac relay while waiting for her. This completes wiring the heater which makes me a very happy camper!!! Worked on gathering design supplies then returned some plumbing parts to Home Depot with Libbie, returned some lights to Target then went over to PetSmart and picked up some aquarium tubing for my design. We had dinner at Paneras - we had a buy one get one free coupon. I had a veggie sandwich and French Onion soup. Came home and ran around some more getting stuff together. Settled down to watch the CMA awards on TV. ~ November 13, 2008 driving, designs, dinner and lights --------------- We had our normal breakfast and got out the door at 8:09 but around Western Blvd I remembered that I forgot to bring the design tools. We turned around and lost 40 minutes on our journey. The drive up 95 was tough because of the rain and the whiteout conditions we encountered from the trucks. We stopped in mcDonalds at the exit before our hotel and had lunch - we each had a Big Mac and split an order of fries. Sue met us at the hotel - we unpacked the car and set up the booth while I worked on my designs. The aquarium tube I bought was short - it was supposed to be 8 feet but was only about 4 feet. Went to the Olive Garden for dinner with a bottle of Pinot Noir which was slightly oxidized. Olive Garden has certainly improved - I had chicken breast in Apricot sauce. The family style salad was very good as it always was. After dinner we went to Office Depot and bought lights for the table. They only had 2 in boxes plus the floor sample or else we would have bought more. ~ November 14, 2008 sleeping, meeting, dinner --------------- [b]Friday[/b] We slept late. It was good that Sue called at 7 because we were out cold. I went to the two training sessions for the convention and they went very well. The AVSA executive team was present at the second meeting. In the evening we had a nice dinner with a buffet of horsd'oeuvres consisting of cheese and fruit. We had Merlot for drinks. Dinner was very nice - I had the salmon with salad and fruitcake. ~ November 15, 2008 photos, meetings, dinner --------------- I went down at 7 am to the showroom to take photos but it was locked. About 7:15 I finally got in and started taking the honors table and the best in class winners. Lib came down to get me for dinner then we walked over to the ihop where I had the senior buttermilk pancakes. At noon today we had the meeting getting everybody together. We got Kitty to start thinking about niches from the Richmond club. She said she likes being an Indian but not a chief. I was the emcee for dinner - the dinner went well. We sat with the Carrs from Ohio and Kathy Lahti. It was a very nice evening. The Wagmans were honored with honorary life memberships. ~ November 16, 2008 driving, catchup --------------- We got up this morning at 7 and started loading the car from the hotel storage room. Saw a lot of people on their way out the door - the Carters, Judi du Pont, the Wagmans and Sue. We stopped at the WaWa across from the hotel for 1.78 gas. Down the road in Ashland we stopped at a brand new McDonald's and got our breakfast - coffee and bacon egg and cheese biscuits. The trip was very relaxing - the sun was out, the temp was in the 50's and traffic was not bad. I drove straight to the greenhouse where we unloaded the car before coming home. We got home shortly after 1 PM. Kathy G dropped out of the book so we have to find somebody else to do this. She recommended Marjorie and Janet. ~ November 17, 2008 settling down --------------- Started getting settled back down after the MAAVS convention. Went to Trader Joe's for almonds, blueberries and apples. Lunch was tuna fish sandwichs. For dinner before dancing with the stars we had tomato soup and a half a bun with cheese and tomato. I picked up some LED's in Krogers for the ficus tree on the back porch. ~ November 18, 2008 not busy --------------- Today was not an exciting or productive day. I spent the day researching laminar flow hoods on the internet and eBay. Dinner was pasta that i picked up at trader Joes yesterday. This morning I did the usual Krogers run and got the rest of the fruit cake ingredients. ~ November 19, 2008 pictures --------------- Worked all day today getting MAAVS pcitures formatted for the web site. Tis is a lot of work. The small camera does not have the flash power of my SLR and thus the pictures are dark and noisy. They needed lots of help and still they're not good. Dinner was Salmon and squash. ~ November 20, 2008 maavs pix, greenhouse battery box --------------- Finished the last of the MAAVS pictures today then switched back to the greenhouse. Installed the battery terminal box in the control room. The DC inverter I bought doesn't seem to work. I was going to use it to make 5 volts from 110VAC from 12 VDC. The theory was to have readily replaceable parts. Dinner this evening was chili and corn bread. Nice!!! I fell asleep on the couch with the gas logging running while reading Tortilla Flats by Steinbeck. The gas log remote seems to be broken. I'm going to try a new battery. Had to go back to the greenhouse because I needed one more piece of bus wire about 6 inches long for the negative side of the 12 volts. ~ November 21, 2008 guards, shopping --------------- Went over to the CU and deposited the MAAVS check and a Scottrade 3,000 check to pay the huge Visa bill from the wedding as well as the Sarasota taxes which are $400 lower this year. Pat Ford called and our tenant is facing $900 in expenses for the exchange rate difference. She asked to lower the rent by $500. I agreed but only if she lowered her piece of the pie. She lowered to 12% which is about $100. Went to Lowes and picked up some sheet metal and 1x4 for the telephone box in the steereo room at home. I also picked up screen for the fanjet guard and flashing for the heat baffle. Installed everything OK. The project moves on. This afternoon is very cold and windy. We had snow flurries this morning and a high of only 43 degrees. Brrr. Did a Krogers run and got fixins for Thanksgiving turkey - white bread, celery and a battery for the gas fireplace remote. It didn't work. Boo Hoo. ~ November 22, 2008 opera --------------- I expected to work on the greenhouse controller LOGE this morning but instead did a bunch of catch up stuff. We left for the opera at 11:30. This time we were in Brier Creek for La Damnation of Faust. It was an enjoyable performance done by the Cirque S'oleil guy. He's going to do the ring at the Met in 2 years. On the way back we stopped at Fresh Market on the Cary Parkway. We picked up some Parmesan Tilapia and a desert consisting of a "peanut butter chocolate stack". It was delicious. ~ November 23, 2008 controller card --------------- Picked up a paper then while reading my eMail found out from Jim that Opera LaFinesse is doing Barber of Seville in HD at the Cary theater. Took a look at converting the temperatures for the controller and made all the changes so it will compile for two one wire buses. Still need to know what to do with this info. Libbie made a turkey today instead of Thanksgiving because we'll be going to Jack and Barbara's for Thanksgiving. Fell asleep tonight at my computer upstairs. Went to bed at 1:15 when I woke up. ~ November 24, 2008 bank failure, LOGE housing, TJ's --------------- Woke this morning to hear that Citi was bailed out over night. This is getting bad. Worked on putting LOGE into an enclosure. I had to do some manual wiring because the card traces are too small to handle the thermostat relay current. i estimate the current at 100 to 200 ma. I used some pieces of #24 wire from ethernet cable to wire to the relay. The wires go to a terminal strip inside the box. In the PM Libbie and I went to Trader Joes for apples for an apple pie she wants to make. Also picked up some cranberries, blueberries and almonds. Dinner was a turkey dinner from yesterday. ~ November 25, 2008 groceries --------------- Picked up some groceries but not a large amount. Worked on the state machine for the greenhouse controller, LOGE. Finished up most of it but still need a way to test it. Dinner was pasta from Trader joes. ~ November 26, 2008 eye doctor, greenhouse, itouch --------------- Went to a 9 AM appointment at the eye doctor. He wants me to switch to a different contact lens. I have the trial one in my eye now. Picked up the construction materials for the greenhouse. Visited there earlier and inspected the wood and which boards need to be replaced. Took Libbie aroudn to all the groceries stores and Target looking for round rubbernaid pie pans for her fruit cake. We had no luck. Earlier in the day I picked up a six foot plasic folding table at Office Max. It was on sale for $49 plus I got a $10 coupon in the mail which I used. Over at Lowes I also had a $10 coupon when i bought the nuts, bolts and wood. Dinner was turkey chowder with noodles. We had some of the fruit cake for desert. Joe sent an interesting eMail about using an itouch for a controller. I did a little research on the iTouch and computer control. ~ November 27, 2008 probes, baseboard, dinner --------------- Built the temperature probes for the LOGE and hooked them to the circuit board. This may be better with a terminal strip mounted in the box because the terminal strip on the board is so tiny and delicate looking. I would feel better with a robust terminal strip. Packed up my tools and went to the greenhouse to work on the baseboard. Finished over half of it putting in bolts, washers, lock washers and nuts. We left there just after three so we could get home, clean up and go to dinner. At 5:30 we went to dinner at Jack and Barbara's house. We had very pleasant conversation and a lovely dinner of turkey, yams, stuffing and all the fixings. We brought Mondavi wine, apple pie and an Orchid. ~ November 28, 2008 plastic, chinese dinner --------------- I went to the greenhouse at 9:30 to work on the baseboard replacing the rusted wood screws with bolts, washers, lock washers and nuts. Libbie was quite busy with customers the day after Thanksgiving while I finished the baseboard and then started replacing the middle strip of 1x4's. I kept the plastic mostly on since the morning was chilly. Went home for lunch, Turkey sandwiches, then returned to replace the plastic. Libbie worked above dropping the plastic and I was below pulling it away. The new tube was 110 x 10 and went on very well. The temp was 66, no wind and plenty of sunshine. We worked late into the afternoon but totally finished the job including hooking up the inflation. We dragged ourselves home around 5 and after a shower and clean clothes, we went to the Chinese place and ordered a Szechuan three meat takeout with eggrolls. We had shiraz with dinner. I read one chapter of "Tortilla Flats" then went to bed tired. ~ November 29, 2008 Trader Joes, ribs --------------- They were predicting rain to start this afternoon so I went to the greenhouse in the morning and shoveled out the drain which wasn't working. It was last shoveled out in March but is clogged with silt again. There was a slight drizzle falling. I looked at web serving with the Wiznet and Atmega based on some of the Circuit Cellar Wiznet contest entries. It hardly seems Like I have time to do any of this stuff before we have to go out get something to eat. I would rather put in an unrestricted 10 hour stretch at electonics instead of this piecemeal approach. In the late afternoon Lib and I went to Trader Joes for Shiraz and TJ's ribs, both of which we had for dinner with a baked Yam. ~ November 30, 2008 newspaper, shopping, LOGE --------------- Did not plan to get a paper today because I got one Thursday and it was like a Sunday paper but picked up the N&O in a steady rain anyway. Luckily there was an ad for wetting solution in Walgreens, a shaver from Rite Aid for free after rebate and a flyer from the new Dollar store. Lib and I went at 10 AM and made the rounds. Afterwards I added a terminal strip to LOGE and got the temperature probes working. Also had to add a pullup resistor to the second probe which will measure indoor temperatures. Tested this as much as I could by putting the probes outside the window. All seems well. In the meantime we've been communicating via eMail with several MAAVS folks about hotels and Virginia Beach. Libbie made her usual pizza for dinner. For lunch i had the warmed up leftovers from the Friday Chinese meal. ~ December 01, 2008 event filled, aux heater, controller, testing --------------- This turned into an eventful day. I finished up the controller by testing the cold temp response with ice cubes then went over to the greenhouse and hooked everything up. Went home for lunch then returned and soldered the wires for the transfer relay and tested the generator and manually threw the relay to see if it worked. It did. This relay uses a 24 VAC transformer, the others are directly hooked up to 110VAC for transfer. Put a new piece of strip tape across the back because the old one disintegrated. I did this while the generator was running it's test cycle. The generator seems hard to start - it may have old gas or may need new plugs. Next I hooked the thermostat wiring to the LOGE controller by putting a few jumpers in the box above the entry door. Ran the aux heater and Libbie and I punched holes in the unpunched distribution heat tube on the side facing the greenhouse space. The heat seems to be working OK. After a dinner of French Vegetable jambalaya with chicken, we went back out to the greenhouse to do some temperature measurements. I checked over the aux heater exhaust and we measured temperatures at various places in the greenhouse. The bench tops were mostly at 65 to 68. The outdoor temp was 42 while the telephone probe was reporting 64 and the LOGE indoor probe was reading 68. ~ December 01, 2008 event filled, aux heater, controller, testing --------------- This turned into an eventful day. I finished up the controller by testing the cold temp response with ice cubes then went over to the greenhouse and hooked everything up. Went home for lunch then returned and soldered the wires for the transfer relay and tested the generator and manually threw the relay to see if it worked. It did. This relay uses a 24 VAC transformer, the others are directly hooked up to 110VAC for transfer. Put a new piece of strip tape across the back because the old one disintegrated. I did this while the generator was running it's test cycle. The generator seems hard to start - it may have old gas or may need new plugs. Next I hooked the thermostat wiring to the LOGE controller by putting a few jumpers in the box above the entry door. Ran the aux heater and Libbie and I punched holes in the unpunched distribution heat tube on the side facing the greenhouse space. The heat seems to be working OK. After a dinner of French Vegetable jambalaya with chicken, we went back out to the greenhouse to do some temperature measurements. I checked over the aux heater exhaust and we measured temperatures at various places in the greenhouse. The bench tops were mostly at 65 to 68. The outdoor temp was 42 while the telephone probe was reporting 64 and the LOGE indoor probe was reading 68. ~ December 02, 2008 Venus --------------- SeeSawed back and forth over what to include and not include in Venus. In the end I decided to include interfaces for Zigbee and Wiznet but not with 3 volt interfaces. The reasoning is I could include translation circuitry on the daughter cards rather than buying new 3 volt parts for Venus. I probably need a new 232 and new 485 driver running at 3 volts. This would be $6 worth of parts that I currently don't have to buy. I did a grocery run for basics. We had the pasta for dinner. In the evening we went out to the greenhouse and replaced the floodlights and bathroom light. ~ December 03, 2008 Chirstmas lights --------------- Libbie and I put the tree up today. it actually was up yesterday but we put the lights on and vacuumed the porch a little. We went out at 6 PM and picked up a roast chicken for dinner with macaroni salad and potato salad. Later in the evening we watched the end of the grammy concert award nominations. ~ December 04, 2008 Venus --------------- Finished the Venus card today but did not order it from AP Circuits because I didn't want it to come while we were gone. It would come Monday if I order it today. Got a report from Ron on how many CD's and DVD's he sold at the three conventions he visited this Fall. Gathered the camera stuff for Dallas tomorrow. I hope we don't forget anything. ~ December 05, 2008 flying, downtown, rehearsal dinner --------------- We got up at 5:00 and left at 5:30 for our 6:55 flight. Parked in the Terminal 2 parking garage a short walk from check in. The new terminal is nice - the ceiling is soaring and light and airy. The flight was good and on time. We had no trouble getting downtown to the museum area. We found parking for $2 all day a short walk from the museum. Near the airport we asked our GPS for an iHop and it found one for us nearby. Had a brunch type meal at the iHop. Thoroughly enjoyed the art museum and also the sculpture center. Got a little wet looking at the sculptures. After the museums we had the GPS guide us to the JFK assassination site. We spent less than 10 minutes there walking around then set the GPS for our hotel in Denton. Stopped at a Dickeys BBQ and had a nice sandwich in the late afternoon. At the hotel we met Brian. Went over to the rehearsal in his car then to the rehearsal dinner in the Nicholas car. The dinner was ver very nice. We had Margaritas and a buffet of pork and chicken, BBQ shrimp and enchiladas. It was very nice. On the way home we dropped Helen Mahr off at the Assisted Living Center. We passed out in bed very tired. It was a long day. ~ December 06, 2008 horses, lunch, wedding --------------- Woke up after a good sleep last night. Had the Fairfield bagels, talked to other wedding guests. We went to downtown Denton and walked around the courthouse before going to the historic park and getting on the bus for the horse tour. We visited a Paso Fina Ranch where they showed off the champion stallion, Kugerand which is worth around 250,000. Next we went over to a Spanish horse ranch of Andolusa horses. This was 30 acres run by a husband and wife team. lots of work there! After the horses we went to Anne's for sandwiches and took pictures of the violets and violet bouquets. Next stop was Hubbard Hall for bridal pre photos. At 5:45 I went back to the chapel for pics of the guys then hung around for the ceremony. The reception in Hubbard was very elegant. The college staff does a nice job catering events like this. We got home around 11 very tired but satisfied. ~ December 07, 2008 Denton, Opera, La Hacienta, Drury Inn --------------- We had a leisurely breakfast at the Fairfield before touring the TWU campus. Walked the gardens and looked at the chapel before driving to Dallas. Stopped at Whattaburger for lunch on our way to Dallas. At the Fair grounds we got our bearings and after changing shoes we got on the shuttle bus in the parking lot and got a ride to the music hall door. Took some pictures before they took my camera away. Got it back after the opera. We had pretty good seats in the balcony but some of the recitative was hard to hear. Afterwards we checked into the Drury Inn, guided there by our GPS. The hotel was nice. Free drinks, hot breakfast, etc. They suggested we drop our car at the airport tonight and they will pick us up and take us to the airport in the morning. We agreed and after a dinner of sliders and curly fries at the La Hacienta we dropped the car off. Found gas in Grapevine, TX for 1.59. We only needed less than 8 gallons for $12. Before dinner we opened the bottle of wine from the Nicholas's and finished it after dinner. ~ December 08, 2008 flying, tired, cardio esotherm --------------- We had the alarm set for 5:26 AM. We packed our things and brought them to the lobby then had scrambled eggs, sausage, juice and coffee for breakfast. As we were finished our shuttle driver announced he was ready to go. We checked in at curbside then stood in line for security. Our next challenge was miles of walking to get to the monorail to gate area A. The terminal C complex is as big as some airports. The flight was very smooth. I had two cups of coffee as I read the T Boone Pickens Billionaire book. The flight was only 2 hours. When we landed in Raleigh it was incredibly cold compared to Dallas. We both were very tired. Ramsey had sent an eMail about incorrect max screen temperatures on the esotherm. i stayed up late and tried to fix it but no success. For dinner we had Kung Pao chicken. ~ December 09, 2008 eso, groceries, Anne, --------------- Worked on the Esotherm in the morning and also got the double charge for Dallas Museum admission removed. I hooked up the bluetooth and fixed the program to correctly display the maximum on screen temperature per channel. Went to the grocery store and got our groceries after a contact lens checkup at Ira Tuckers. Later in the afternoon I worked on downloading pictures from our cards and archiving everything on DVD. Libbie came back from her violet xmas party and I had the leftover 7 layer salad. Maynard wants me to send the other esotherm back to him. Talked with Anne about her powerpoint growing slide show and also the wedding and how it all went. Dinner was Pasta i picked up from Trader Joe's. ~ December 10, 2008 photos, fedex --------------- Worked on the Nicholas photos today. They're not too bad although I wish I didn't have to do so much photoshop work on them. We have some controversy with the convention chair and co-chair listing and Rich Follett. I designed a pin with Libbie today. Drove over to Krogers and dropped the Esotherm off for shipping to Pat today. It will be $35 which includes them packing the device. Dinner was bean burgers with lettuce and ketchup. No onion which was sad. ~ December 11, 2008 build --------------- Spent a lot of the day working on the build of the Venus card. Everything seems to fit OK. I don't have the resistors for the 485. Dinner was yams and ham with apple sauce. ~ December 12, 2008 grapes --------------- Libbie finished her book, the grapes of wreath so we watched the movie tonight after dinner. The movie was so so - not bad, especially after reading the book but not the greatest. Tried to get the Venus to respond to the jtag today but no luck. ~ December 13, 2008 Venus --------------- I spent most of today trying to get Venus running. The Jtag does not recognize the device. Tried replacing the CPU - a daunting task but my last resort. Unfortunately, it didn't fix the problem. Took out the scope and started probing the interface. Found that the resetline was a hard zero. Found a short where the reset trace went under a decoupling cap and it was shorted by the cap leads or the solder. Cut the line and wired around the short which fixed the problem. Used the scope to set the timer so that I now have a one second heartbeat. Next step will be to get the Uarts running. We went to Trader Joes to get ribs and raspberry orange cake for desert. Both were yummy. We had a bottle of Shiraz with the meal. Went up to bed early to read my T Boone Pickens book. ~ December 14, 2008 omelets, seagrove house, --------------- Got up a little later than normal. Went out and got a newspaper while Libbie made ham and eggs but I already had cereal. We did egg and ham omelets for lunch then took a walk back to the Seagrove house which is getting a new foundation. Went to the library this afternoon. Lib had a book come in and I found a book called "Doing It" about marriage and sex. Lib said she should be embarrassed. I thought it was funny. ~ December 15, 2008 guest registry, La Cocina Mexican restaurant --------------- An interesting day. Received Mom's funeral guest book in the mail from Arlene. I plan to scan it into a pdf. Worked on defining a packet protocol for Venus to act like a gateway from the radio and also poll the local 485 network for alerts. Went over to the greenhouse to check the Fanjet fan belt. It's loose. Stopped to get gas at the 1.59 station but they were out so I paid 1.65 at the BP. Not bad either. We went out to La Concina for dinner. I took home half of my Pollo Chipotle which I had with 2 Margaritas. Lib paid for dinner - $24 with a $4 tip. ~ December 16, 2008 groceries, scanning --------------- Did the groceries this monring. Couldn't find yellow raisins for the Babka Lib wants to make today. Scanned both Mom and Dad's funeral registry books and converted them into PDF's. I emailed the pdf's to Arlene and also posted them on Google docs. ~ December 17, 2008 usart,, pictures, christmas cards --------------- Worked on the Usart of Venus and finally got it to send Hello World to the terminal program on Mazeppa. This means a lot is working. Had no trouble with baud or tx, rx connections but the UDR empty interrupt was missing in the code. Added this and now use the tx complete interrupt to turn off the LED and all seems to work well. Next step is to send a packet from the terminal and have the Venus program interpret it before moving in more hardware such as a second Venus to communicate and possibly a LOGE to pass status polls down to. Worked on Marantha's pictures today and uploaded them to Walmart. When I went to Walmart to pick them up they were out of 8x10 paper so no 8x10, just the 4x6's. I also ordered a batch of our family wedding picture for Christmas cards. Wrote out cards to my side of the family and finished this task. ~ December 18, 2008 usarts, Christmas cards --------------- I traced through the Usart 232 code on Venus and made some changes so that the incoming packets from the terminal program on Mazeppa can be decoded. I even got the address recognition functioning. It determines what to do with the packet routing. Libbie tried vacuuming upstairs and in the process, the circuit breaker tripped. I had 3 computers powered up and all the violet light shelves in the playroom. In the evening I built an address list for our violet friends. I then used this list to write Christmas cards. My card writing is done for another year. Dinner was tortellini pasta in tomato sauce. ~ December 19, 2008 more usart, Macys coat, pictures --------------- Got a lot more of the Usart code working. I can now request status over the 232 and it responds. In addition, it can forward status out the 485. Went with Libbie in the morning to get a coat at 60% off at Macys. Libbie got a nice London Fog coat and we had a $10 off coupon. At 1 we went to Dickeys BBQ in crossroads after seeing a review in the paper. Our last time in Dickey's was in Dallas. This one wasn't as good. Printed more pictures at Walgreens because we used the first 30. Had to pick them up late at night. While I stood in line to pay for them, Lib took the pictures out of the pack and stuffed envelopes in the parking lot. We then dropped them into the Post Office slot and took a ride around looking at Christmas lights. It was 64 degrees at 9 PM. Dinner was frozen Canneloni from Trader joes. ~ December 20, 2008 Thais, Chicken Vienna --------------- Didn't have much time this morning. Worked a little on Venus before it was time to go to the Met HD performance of Thais which started at 12. The opera was fantastic - we enjoyed the wonderful singing and the behind the scenes stage mechanics. The Meditation received it's own round of applause. After the performance we went to Farm Fresh and picked up 2 chicken Vienna's which we had with yams and Chardonnay. Very nice end to a good day. When we got out of the theater today the ground was wet - it had rained while we were indoors. ~ December 21, 2008 squandered, medical records, you tube --------------- This was a squandered day. I have a microwave to work on, the nicholas pictures to organize and the Venus-LOGE circuitry to program but instead I looked at some of my digitized videos and tried uploading one to You Tube. Heard from Harrys daughter Alison from Facebook. I found some of my medical records in the file in the back room so I digitized them and uploaded them to the Life Bits site. Libbie made her traditional pizza but she used white flour instead of wheat which made the crust a different texture but still good! In the afternoon today I went to the greenhouse and tightened the fanbelt on the fanjet of the zux heater. Had to remove the two lower motor bolts and put them into the next lower slot so the motor can now be slid lower to tighten the belt even more. This worked well. ~ December 22, 2008 panic, cold, emergency --------------- THis was to be a day of working on pictures. Libbie called to tell me the aux heater was on even though the temperature was 26 degrees. I drove over there and looked at it myself. Started building a second LOGE so I could debug the problem. Had trouble bringing up the second LOGE because the configuration silicon fuse was set to clock divided by 8. I wired up the JTAG as an ISP programmer. It didn't work the first time. found I counted pins wrong on the AVR. Fixed the wriing and sucessfully programmed the fuse and the unit worked correctly. Tried all sorts of machinations to get the thing to fail. Rigged it so that it was 26 degrees with the juper in and 22 degrees without the jumper to simulate outdoor temps. It did not fail. Work into the evening when it got cold. Built some probes and put one outside when it was 25 degrees. Just by accident I started looking at variable values with the JTAG and discovered the negative temperatures were not being handled correctly. When it is below 32F, it is negatice Centigrade temps. The probe only does centigrade. Made a trip to the greenhouse at 11 PM and retrieved the card for programming. Brought it back out there at midnight and hooked it up. The temp was 27. The pushbutton readout was always reading 32. Went home at 12:30 midnight but at least the big heater was on. Dinner was shrimp jumbalaya. ~ December 23, 2008 LOGE, groceries, driveway, generator --------------- Brought the JTAG over to the greenhouse and successfully put the new firmware into LOGE. Now the thing blinks out the temp correctly. Yeah!!! This version also has some cleaned up code for handling negative centigrade temps. Went over to Trader Joe's and got wine for the trip. IT was a party scene over there. Did a Krogers run and bought Krogers brand wheat crisps which turned out to be stale. Had to return them. Deposited the TDSP check and paid the bills - taxes, Visa and condo. Libbie and I returned to the greenhouse in late afternoon where I ran a generator test. It needs some maintenance starting with new spark plugs. Blew the driveway off since the wind from the past few cold fronts put down a lot of pine needles. ~ December 24, 2008 Christmas Eve, presents, greenhouse --------------- I went out this morning looking for a belt for the fanjet in house 1. The new belt installed in October was shredded to a thin sliver. Tried Johnstone, RE Michels and PEP Boys. No luck anywhere. Finally drove across town and stopped at Graingers and bought 2 belts. Stopped at Krogers for eggnog before they close for christmas. Went to the greenhouse and installed the belt. It seems to work pretty good. It's nice and even on the pulleys. We had presents this evening, one day early. I got Lib Russel Stover candy and a Debbie McCromber book. Dinner this evening was salmon stuffed with spinach, etc and a yam with a bottle of Shiraz. Had to go back to the greenhouse to check things - it was 64 outside so no heat test. We went to a place down Penny Rd to see Christmas lights and were not disappointed. A house there had 87,000 Christmas lights. ~ December 25, 2008 driving --------------- Left at 7 AM after breakfast but first had to stop at the darn greenhouse for something or other. Finally got going again at 7:30. We had light rain all the way to SC. Traffic was heavier than I expected. We stopped for gas in GA and then again on I-4 West of Kissimmee in Davenport. The weather in Florida was much nicer. There was a note on our door from Peter and Christa welcoming us and to stop over if we needed anything. We went over to their place and had wine with them in the evening after we had chicken salad sandwiches for dinner that we brought with us. There are no restaurants or grocery stores open for Christmas day. ~ December 26, 2008 Macys, Selby --------------- This morning we went out to Selby but first stopped at the Mall to check out jackets on sale. Went to both Macys and Penneys but did not buy anything. Went to Selby and enjoyed the garden as usual. In the evening we went out to rib night aat the dining room. It was a rib buffet which I did not enjoy although the food was good. Table service was lacking and kids running through the dining room were distracting. Dinner was $84 and not worth it. ~ December 27, 2008 rookery, lunch --------------- This morning we went to the Venice rookery and watched baby herons and egrets. This place is a find. There were others photographing the birds with large telephoto lenses. When we came back we had lunch in the grill room. I had a Stoneyburger and 2 beers, Yuengling on draft. That took care of me for the day!!!! Came back and went through wedding photos and put together a wedding article for AV magazine. Have not heard from Anne in several weeks. Our dinner was chunky soup, clam chowder. We made one Publix trip for egg nog and frozen yogurt. Before dinner we had our egg nog with cheese and crackers. ~ December 28, 2008 paper, walk, lunch --------------- Didn't have enough quarters so I went to Publix to get the Sunday paper. About 10:30 we went for a walk to the nature wetlands in front of Stoneybrook. Enjoyed the warm sun and watching the various birds in the marsh. On the way back we stopped at the clubhouse and ordered lunch. I had the Stoneyburger with a Yuengling draft beer. It was very excellent. Cam home and looked up the birds we saw and finished reading the paper. ~ December 29, 2008 rookery, lunch, Anne --------------- We visited the Venice rookery after breakfast then stopped at the clubhouse for lunch. I had a BLT which I saved half of for dinner. Had a long talk with Anne about the wedding pictures. She had been busy with Helen Mahr and also a trip to Wichita and was now in the assisted living since Helen was sick again. We had soup and I had the leftover BLT for dinner. What a tiring day!!! We took a wlak around Stoneybrook. My camera is still acting up. It only works half the time. ~ December 30, 2008 walking, lunch, Pat --------------- After breakfast we took a walk out to the nature trail and boardwalk with our binoculars. Just before that we went to Lowes and bought a new faucet for the Master bath. The old one was dripping so I decided to replace it rather than repair it. After our nature walk we stopped at the clubhouse for lunch. I had the fish sandwich and fries. Lib had the burger with fruit. We ordered 3 glasses of Yuengling draft total. It was a very nice lunch. This is getting habit forming. When we came back Pat said she had a renter for March. This is good news for us. I needed only one month to cover our expenses but the second month is nice insurance. for our dinner tonight we had crackers and cheese then some corn chowder soup by Campbells (Chunky). ~ December 31, 2008 honeybelles, rookery --------------- After breakfast we went down to Venice and enjoyed the Venice Rookery again. We counted 6 active nests with herons and either eggs or babies. Very nice. Two of the herons were into nest building. It was nice to see them fly to shore and pick up sticks or pull cattails out of the ground for use in their nests. Next we filled our tank for 1.55 then stopped by Lowes for some plumbers putty so I could finish the drain project. In Osprey I stopped in the produce store for some fruit for lunch. They had Honeybelles. We bought 4 as a trial. They were very juicy and yummy. We ate two for lunch (one each). Will go back for more. After a lunch of cheese and crackers we went back to the produce store and picked up more Honeybelles. I worked on the wedding pictures some more before we got dressed up for the party tonight. Left here at 7 PM. At the clubhouse we had horsedouevres of mushroom, duck, surf and turf, chicken. fruit and cheese along with glasses of Chardonnay. We took our seats for the salad course. Our table mates were Wendy and husband John from St Pete, Jim and Donna from Deer Creek, and a couple from the Stoneybrook villas. We danced, used our noise makers and had champagne at midnight. Left at 12:15 when they announced the last dance. ~